In Sacred Lessons: Teaching My Father How to Love, Mike de la Rocha explores how inherited definitions of manhood profoundly impacted his ability to connect with his father, his family, and ultimately himself, inviting readers on a transformative journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and love.

Sacred Lessons is a deeply moving and inspiring memoir for those seeking self-love and healing. Intensely personal, this memoir delves into the struggle men face in connecting with themselves and others, offering tools for personal growth and ways to build meaningful and authentic relationships in their lives.

Through his story, Mike de la Rocha reflects on his father’s legacy as a beloved professor who impacted tens of thousands of students, yet struggled to teach his own son how to be emotionally vulnerable. Reflecting on the most important relationships in his life, Mike explores the difficulty in communicating with his father and loved ones—a byproduct of a toxic culture that prohibits men from truly expressing themselves, and purposely doesn’t teach men how to give and receive love. Through these stories, we see how trauma is passed on intergenerationally and how to find ways to stop the cycle of harm. In the end, both Mike and his father teach each other the greatest lesson of all: the sacredness of the love between a father and a son.

Told with raw emotion and vulnerability, Sacred Lessons is the human story of the impact that history and culture have upon us all. This is a book for those of us seeking community in a time when too many of us feel alone, as well as a testimony to the legacy of a brilliant father, a brutal indictment of patriarchy, and an affirmation of the transformative power of love.

Mike de la Rocha

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