I Forgave My Absent Father. Here’s Why. — Justin Jones-Fosu

Airdate: May 14, 2025

Julie Rose: Is every uncomfortable conversation really worth having?

Justin Jones-Fosu: I was harboring hurt that was actually impacting me, and it wasn't about his deserving it or not, it's, "What did I deserve?" And I deserve to be able to be a little bit uncomfortable to get to this place where I could operate from a place of peace.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And you are probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and you probably do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. And that's what we're here to explore, so let's get Uncomfy.

I just read that half of adults in the US right now say tension around social and political topics makes them less likely to wanna connect with people in general, and a third of Americans say they are avoiding spending time with family members who don't share their same values. Well, Justin Jones-Fosu calls avoidance like this, "taking the exit," and he says we should be staying on the freeway with people more often. He's a meaningful work researcher and corporate trainer. He's got a book called, "I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World," and he is with me now for Uncomfy. Hey there, Justin. Welcome.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Thank you, Julie. I'm so excited.

Julie Rose: Let's start with a story. You're a great storyteller. The book has a lot of personal stories. Tell us about a time when you were tempted to "take the exit" on somebody, but you chose not to, to stay curious instead.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, uh, the story that comes to mind immediately is a story with my dad. And, um, I didn't grow up with my dad. Um, my parents divorced at four. I would see my dad initially, uh, every other weekend, and then it became one weekend a month, and then it became sometimes two or three years where I didn't only see my dad, but I didn't hear from him and for myriad different reasons. And when I was younger, it didn't bother me as much, but as I got a little bit older, I was like, you know, "Like, what's going on?"

I remember sometimes I'd be, I, I'd just drive, driving and, and I'd pull off to the side of the road literally weeping almost uncontrollably because I felt like I missed out on something. Now I'm clear that, um, people who grew up with both parents or both guardians or like the, that they didn't live a perfect life either, right, 'cause I've heard those stories, but for me, I really felt like I missed out on something. And so in 2019, I was gonna go confront my dad for not being in my, in my life.

But because I have a really good therapist and a great Leadership Charlotte cohort, they challenged me from instead of going to confront my dad to going and hearing his story and, um, what a leader participant said, "Justin, they helped you turn a confrontation into a conversation." And choosing to hear my dad's story? Wow, Julie, I, it, um, it spoke to me. Um, I better understood how my dad got there, and it allowed me to give my dad the, the benefit of, of grace, and, uh, it led to me choosing to forgive him. Not because he asked for it, but because it was my choice, and then staying in that uncomfortable position of choosing to hear his story versus telling him off and choosing to be more curious versus filling in the box with conclusions, um, it led to forgiveness.

And on the other side of that, I didn't even realize, Julie, was that I was holding back a whole aspect of my heritage, uh, 'cause my dad's from Ghana, my mom's from America, and so I had been holding back this Ghanaian-American, or this Ghanaian aspect of who I was unknowingly, and it felt like just this wave of heritage washed over me in that moment of forgiveness. And so, I tell people, like, that's, you have no idea what's on the other side of respectful disagreement because I had no idea that I would embrace it in that way that's led to some pretty cool things in terms of me going back once a year now and taking people with me. Uh, we're almost finished with building a middle school in Ghana now, um, in my dad's home village.

Julie Rose: Well, Justin, thank you for sharing that, uh, story. Do you mind, do you mind if I ask a few additional questions about what that, that, what, what that encounter was like? So, so, the, what would it have looked like, first of all, if you had "taken the exit," sort of what, how do you define "taking the exit" in that instance with your father?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Uh, "taking the exit" is where we just automatically turn to assumptions and conclusions. And so, I had in my mind why I thought my dad wasn't there for me, that he didn't care for me, he didn't love me, all those things. And so, that's "taking the exit" because it was my own assumptions that led the story and the narrative versus driving forks with some really amazing humans allows, uh, allows us to have more curiosity to fill in the gaps with that curiosity rather than conclusions and to challenge our brains. And this is the, the key part, because a lot of us think that it's, it's bad that we "take the exit," and I'd say it's really, our brains are wired that way because it wants to conserve energy for things it doesn't know, so it categorizes it for future use, and so if we've seen this movie before, we play it over and over and over again rather than being truly curious about people. And so, in my curiosity, it allowed me to really drive toward my dad and better understand that he did the best he could with what he had.

Julie Rose: So, do you remember how, like, how did you get into that conversation? He was probably bracing a little bit for, "Justin's gonna come in and he is gonna be angry with me," right?

Justin Jones-Fosu: He didn't know the background of why I wanted to have the conversation, right? And so, it wasn't like him, like, "Oh, this is an awkward conversation." I mean it started from my therapist. It started from my leadership Charlotte cohort that helped me reframe how I would approach it. And so, when I went, um, in 2019 to visit him in Ghana, which he had moved back to, I started off the conversation like, "Dad, I realized I've never heard your story. I'd really love to hear your story," and so as we leaned into the story, I didn't even lead with, "Hey, why weren't you there for me? Right, I'd love to hear the story about that," right? That was not the start of the conversation. It really was just about his story, how he grew up, his journey, his challenges, the things that he, that he encountered and overcame, and it eventually arrived to a place where I was able to ask more questions about, "So, what happened with him and my mom, and what happened in terms of me not seeing or hearing from him," right? And so, it was just a part of the conversation rather than the context of the full conversation.

Julie Rose: Yeah. Are you willing to share something that you learned, that saw, that helped, helped you to feel better about, I mean, was there something that you learned about his journey that helped you to kind of see him and the pain that he'd caused you maybe in a different light?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, so there's several things. I think one thing that really resonated is just hearing his journey of at the age, so my dad, my grandfather was a polygamist, not everybody in Ghana is a polygamist, uh, but my grandfather was a polygamist, and so my dad was the firstborn of my grandfather's, uh, four wives, and so he would see his dad maybe one week outta the month. Um, at the age of 14, he went off to school by himself. At the age of 16, he came to the United States by himself. And so there's a lot of things that were just the independence that built who he was. Now my dad rose to, you know, be a foremost expert on developing countries and economics, worked for United Nations in Finland and Ethiopia and Kenya, so really like, you know, lectures at Oxford, all this kind of stuff.

So, he figured that I'd be okay, right? Because he was okay and that it built up the muscles of independence and different things and that almost he applied this, and I remember him making a statement is that, um, "The teacher appears when the student is ready," and that's great for a teacher and a student, but not for a parent and a child. And so, for me, even though I disagreed with his outcome, it better under, helped me to understand his thinking and the challenges that he might have faced and just realizing that in many ways, you know, a hands-off approach he felt would help me.

Julie Rose: Were you able to, by kind of staying on the road with him, going in with curiosity, setting your assumptions aside, were you, were you able to get though to a place where you could have your own hurt validated? I mean, was that ever part of the conversation? He didn't apologize, it sounds like. You forgave him, but did he, did, did he, was it important to you that he at least understand that, that you were hurt?

Justin Jones-Fosu: It was less important for me that he would understand it and more for me to share it 'cause I can't control his understanding, um, all right, and how he embraces it. But me choosing to share it was an important aspect. And so, I just didn't go into it like, "Hey, I'd just love to hear your story," and I never share anything about how I felt about it, right? I arrived to a point after first seeking to understand, then I sought to be understood. And in that, in that aspect, I, I, I was able to share of, like, how it felt and how I wish things would've been done differently, and, um, I was able to share the hurt, the challenges that I endured that we might not have had an opportunity to talk about, how Father's Days were always a struggle for me because I didn't want to give him a fake Hallmark card of like, "You've been the best dad ever," right? I would, you know, sometimes say things like, "Thank you so much for helping be a part of my, uh, birth," right? Like, and that was all I could say in those moments, um, to not be disrespectful, but to also still be honest about how I felt. And so, um, that's, it was important to me to share my truth, um, whether or not he understood it. Um, that wasn't up to me, but I shared it in a way that hopefully he could understand it, but he had to choose to take that in.

Julie Rose: Yeah. Did he really deserve, though, your care, your effort? I mean, I think that's sometimes something we think about, you know, like, "Okay, you're asking me, Justin Jones-Fosu, to, like, give more people the benefit of the doubt to sort of set aside the hurt and the pain that I've maybe experienced. I don't know that all these people that, you know, this person in my life or this person that I've just encountered, deserves that from me."

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah.

Julie Rose: Did your dad?

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah, yeah, the, the deserve question is, is a tough one because, um, I do believe that everyone deserves value, dignity, and, uh, respect, that humanization is super important, so that is my baseline as a, of what people deserve. I realized that it was harboring, I was harboring hurt that was actually impacting me, and it wasn't about his deserving it or not, it's, "What did I deserve?" And I deserve to be able to have an honest conversation to land in a place of respectful disagreement, to be a little bit uncomfortable to get to this place where I could operate from a place of peace. And I think sometimes we think in these uncomfortable positions that we might find ourselves in that, that we're hurting the other person and that, "Oh, they don't deserve it, so I'm not even gonna give them the, this moment," and it's really about us. How do we choose peace? How do we choose to gain clarity? And even if it's just simply planting seeds, even if that person doesn't get it in that moment, that we have an opportunity to show up as our best selves and we choose to show up in our best selves, and we choose to operate in a place that we feel is healthy for us, um, that's what matters.

And so, that was my choice of being healthy, and I'm, I'm thankful again, and I, I tell people all day long, uh, I would not have gotten to this place without my therapist, um, and I don't go to therapy because there's something wrong with me, uh, even though my kids might say something different, but I, I go to therapy because I wanna keep things going right. And so, my therapist has been, like, a huge challenge, a challenger for me to say, "Justin, what can you take ownership of that will allow you to operate in a place of peace?" And so, that's, that's about, that's what I think about "Deserve."

Julie Rose: I appreciate that you're really clear in the book also, Justin Jones-Fosu, that, uh, this takes work and that it actually also takes practice, and that you can, like, build this muscle. I often think of curiosity as a muscle and that you can build that by putting yourself in situations that are outside of your comfort zone. I would love to have you describe the Circles of Grace challenge that you describe in the book as a practice.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Yeah. So, the Circles of Grace challenge, it, it, it came from, uh, really my mom, right? And so, I love, I love my mom. Now, my mom would take us to events when we were growing up, uh, that we didn't know a lot about and that we disagreed with. And I'd sometimes be sitting there like, "Mom, why are we even here?” And she, you know, like, "We don't even agree with this," but what she was doing, she was planting these seeds of humanity that even in the midst of disagreement that we're able to engage. And so, as I've gotten older, I started realizing, too, that I was confining myself to my circles of comfort. I wasn't leaving home base. And, and the reason I talk about home base is my mom was one of the first Black, female air traffic controllers in the Air Force, and, and she shared a story that sometimes she'd be stationed in Japan for two years, and there were some soldiers in that two year timeframe that never left base. And she was, she was like, "Justin, I don't want you and your brother to be like that, to never leave your home base, metaphorical, and not get to experience the beauty of people and cultures around you."

And so, I wasn't leaning into that. I was confining myself to people that thought like me, believed like me, even at times, people that look like me. And, um, I started to ask, "What can I do differently? How do I enlarge my Circles of Grace?" And so, I embarked upon several different things and um, I think for me, one of the most transformative Circles of Grace challenges, um, was with police officers. And, um, for me, that was a powerful thing because, um, I, I remember something had happened in society and I had posted on my page like, "I'm just getting sick and tired, you know, injustices happening to young Black men," and there was somebody, you know, people in the comments like, "Yeah, I can't believe it," and some people took it too far, and I didn't address it. Um, and there was one person, this one woman she posted, she was like, "You know, I think we need to be careful how we treat police officers," and my initial reaction was, "Not on my page," right? Um, internally, I didn't say that or type it right, but internally I was thinking that.

But the actions of curiosity came forward, and I took it off the comments, and we direct messaged, and I was just like, "Hey, can you tell me more about that and what you meant by that?" And she shared that her husband was a police officer, um, and uh, this is a white family, and she's like, "Justin, we choose to live in the community. We love the community, we value it. I think we need to be careful painting broad brushes." And I was like, she taught me something in that moment, right, of the same thing I wouldn't want done to me, right, this whole being painted with this whole brush. And I was able to form this distinction between "policing," which has historically been problematic in our country, um, with "police officers," who I genuinely feel have a heart to do good and to help the communities in which they serve.

And so, that's where the Circles of Grace challenge came from is that, every six to 12 months, we encourage people to go to events, experiences, or engage with people that they don't know a lot about, or they disagree with, asking two questions: "What did I learn about this event, experiences and or people?" And, "What did I learn about myself as I experienced them?" You're not going to change people's minds. You're not going to tell them why they're wrong. You're not going to tell them, "Well, this is my perspective." It's truly an opportunity for learn, to learn, and it allows us to actually begin the process of diving deeper into some really amazing humans.

Julie Rose: Justin Jones-Fosu is the founder and CEO of Work. Meaningful. He's a researcher and an inclusivity trainer, and his new book is, "I Respectfully Disagree: How to Have Difficult Conversations in a Divided World." Thank you for your time today and for your stories, Justin.

Justin Jones-Fosu: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Julie.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. I'd love to hear if you have spent time recently outside of your own circle of comfort or Circle of Grace, as Justin calls it. I love the idea of the Circles of Grace challenge, and now I'm thinking I'd like to take that challenge this month. I'd love to hear your suggestions of where I might go or what I could experience that would challenge me. Email us at uncomfy@byu.edu or reach out on social media. I'll be sure to report back.

And in the meantime, if you love diving into thought-provoking discussions, check out my other podcast, Top of Mind with Julie Rose. Every episode takes one tough topic and we go looking for perspectives that will challenge us, help us feel new empathy, and also feel empowered and optimistic. You can find Top of Mind with Julie Rose on your favorite podcast app.

Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Jake Hasleton and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.