Ep. 87 – GBTQ+ Family Estrangement: How Healing and Forgiveness Bring Us Back Together with Iona Sky

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Loving Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today

Gissele: we’re talking about coming back together after estrangement, and I have my good friend, Iona Sky, who is a globally recognized social worker, consultant, and educator whose work is rooted in compassion and systemic change. For over two decades, they’ve helped organizations transform policies and cultures through equity, inclusion and accessibility strategies.

Gissele: Iona inspires leaders and students alike to see compassion, not just as a value, but as a powerful tool for justice. Please join me in welcoming my good friend. Hi Iona.

Iona: Hi Gissele. Thank you for having me here.

Gissele: Oh, you to be a part

Iona: of this.

Gissele: Thank you for being on the show and I’m so grateful to be able to chat with you.

Gissele: I mean, you and I have worked together for many years in the field of child welfare and [00:01:00] we did as we were talking off camera, we did some transformative work around the voices of children and the voices of families and how to work in more empathetic and compassionate ways. You were talking a little bit in your story about estrangement that happened between yourself and your parents, ’cause you’re part of the LBTQ community .

Gissele: I was wondering if you could share a little bit about Helped you make the decision to come back together

Iona: Mm-hmm. Thank you for that question. When people see me and my my mother now, my dad passed nine years ago you know, I think they would, they would be very surprised to hear perhaps that, we did not have any contact for seven years and that that was purely based on, who I am as a person, my sexual orientation, and what my parents’ journey in understanding and what their story was.

Iona: So seven [00:02:00] years of no contact and I got married, my partner had a son, all of these things. And it was actually at my brother’s engagement party. When I was invited, I went by myself and I saw my parents and from across the room after seven years and I looked at them and I, wow.

Iona: And I. I remember looking at them and seeing how they had aged in seven years. And in my heart, I was sad that I didn’t get to be a part of that experience. And I thought to myself, I miss them and I don’t wanna continue in this way. And so I went and gave them a hug and said Hi. And then I went and sat with my sister, and, we didn’t really talk, I don’t [00:03:00] think much that day.

Iona: And then it was a series of really slow steps my brother’s wedding. Slowly starting to communicate via email. And then because my parents they weren’t living in Canada at that time for for periods of time. And so I decided to go and see them and spend some time back home after I separated from my ex-wife because I needed to go back home and just get rooted again.

Iona: Mm. And, and I remember being very nervous. ’cause I’m like, whew, okay, how’s this gonna go? Right? Yeah. ’cause not only have I not seen them, you know, I haven’t been home for a long time. And I saw them at the airport and it was like old times. you know, my family,

Iona: We don’t talk about emotions, [00:04:00] we don’t talk about this kind of stuff, right? Mm-hmm. And, but we show, so for me it’s been learning especially with my son, talk about emotions, those kinds of things. We show us reactions, right? And s