About Dudley The Fox

Breaking The Cycle

Dear Friends,

My name is not Dudley the Fox, however, my actual name is not important. Who I am and why I would be honored to be the steward of a bit of your precious time, I believe, is more relevant.

I am a mother. A darn good one, most days. I don’t solely self proclaim this. It is what I am known for.

It took a lot of work however to get to the place of being a great person, let alone a great mother. As a child - like many others - I experienced abuse, parental mental health issues and abandonment. An insecure attachment style, partially as a result of my mother’s 18 month undiagnosed postpartum depression, is what I grew up knowing.

This sort of dysfunction does not lend itself to the development of a centered, self assured, flourishing person, at least it did not in my case. Rather I was plagued with anxiety and insecurity well into my early thirties. My default identity was unlovable and not good enough. Just plain unworthy. Many of my actions reflected this. I did not have the tools necessary to maintain long lasting, healthy interpersonal relationships.

My mother and stepfather did the best they knew how. I love and am grateful for them. The situation and dynamic was tricky and complicated and did not serve anyone well. They both had been deeply damaged along the way from their own upbringing and in many ways were surviving the best they could. The old adage, you can’t impart what you don’t possess, rings true.

As a first born trying to win the love and acceptance of my parents I performed well in school, I stayed away from drugs, I went to a top ranked University, started and sold my own tech company and earned an MBA from another top ranked University. I also became a functioning alcoholic to numb the trauma of my past and the pain of my childhood. I looked “fine” on the outside while I was drowning myself in my own internal brokenness.

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In undergrad, a professor of mine who noticed I was struggling, suggested I make an appointment with a college counselor. I did - which is one of my super powers - following good advice. From there the college counseling office referred me to a therapist who was taking on a few students at a ridiculously reduced rate as her way of giving back to the community.

I worked with this amazing woman, brilliant therapist, every week, for years.

Excruciating. Raw. Painful. Work.

She helped me to re-raise myself.

I am the woman I am today, in many respects, because of her support, investment and belief in me.

“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.” ~ Confucius

Due to the work she and I did together, not only have I been able to break the cycle of the generational dysfunction in my family, but even more importantly, I have been able to alchemize it. I have been able to take the yuck and transmute it into something valuable…including being sober for 14 years and counting.

When you experience great pain and make it through to the other side by doing the work of growing, healing and learning, you develop great compassion and even greater wisdom.

I wholeheartedly believe that our greatest gifts are derived from our greatest hardships.

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” ~ Mary Oliver

The journey of re-raising myself was a profound and in-depth practice of mothering myself.

And through that process, two things became clear:

• I cultivated an understanding and special capacity to mother well. I intimately understood being lost, hurt and damaged as a child, and by redoing the work of mothering, I learned conversely what a child needs from their mother to flourish.

• I also viscerally knew that in the future, if or when I had kids, it was imperative for me to consciously ensure that my children’s experience be vastly different from my own.

“Adults can change their circumstances; children cannot.
Children are powerless, and in difficult situations they are the victims of every sorrow
and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all of these things but without any of the ability that adults have to change them.” ~ Mary Oliver

And this is why I have launched Dudley The Fox | A Life Considered, an intimate weekly letter delivered directly from me to you and our sacred community on purposeful living, parenting wisdom and personal growth. I believe that it does take a village to raise a child well. I also believe that we, too, need and deserve a safe, nurturing community that supports and helps us to thrive. And I believe the more we share what is true in our experience the more others can find what is true in theirs.

Dudley The Fox is dedicated to memorializing the insight and perspective I have garnered from the hard won lessons of my journey. It is an homage to the life lessons I wish I had growing up, that instead took me years to acquire.

I don’t know the answer that you need, but I will share what has been true for me in my journey of mothering my children and myself thus far. Let us together share, brainstorm, and sort out how to purposefully and thoughtfully guide our children in the journey of discovering themselves, their unique purpose and sharing their light with the world, making it a better place.

My story, that of my children and ours as a family is not finished. We are writing it every day. I look forward to, and hope that, I can support you in writing yours.

Lastly … I love this picture, circa 1978. It takes me back to a time before life became complicated at a very young age. That is my grandfather, Dudley Fox, and I am the blond little girl sitting in his lap, being held and feeling loved. It is my intention that when you drop by, you also feel held and loved.

Warmly,

Whitney

P.S. My grandfather Dudley is the artist of the Mallard Ducks In Flight at the opening of this essay. He was a brilliant artist. My mother is also a renown artist and now my daughter, I suspect will follow. I am in awe.

P.P.S. I would be so grateful if you would take a moment to share this essay with a few friends and encourage them to subscribe to Dudley The Fox | A Life Considered. Forward it. Tweet it. Post it on Facebook. I would be honored.

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