When Jewel Kilcher was 8 years old, Atz Kilcher and her mother Lenedra Carroll divorced. She told The San Diego Union-Tribune that a combination of past trauma and the breakdown of her parents' marriage sent her father on a downward spiral. "He struggled with alcoholism and he was raised in an abusive household," she said. When he became physically and psychologically abusive himself, Jewel moved out and started living on her own. She was just 15 years old. "I moved into a little cabin down the road," she told The Daily Gazette. "It was stressful and I was taking on paying rent and those things."

Jewel revealed that she never harbored any anger toward her father, however. Instead, she decided to focus on doing everything she could to ensure that she ended her family's cycle of abuse. "Forgiveness is this needle that knows how to mend, and it's the first step to really freeing yourself," she said. "So you have to forgive otherwise you become what you hate." She began practicing mindfulness, which allowed her to identify negative behaviors and change them. Her father started his own process of healing by getting sober, deciding to confront his demons, and learning "a new emotional language" (per The Union-Tribune). "Facing that shame and trying to find love for himself, when nobody had shown it to him, that was very heroic," Jewel said (per The Gazette). "We have a great relationship now, it's very authentic."

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