Anwar White explains how an absent father and critical mother create a painful split: outward confidence masking deep insecurity. He offers specific healing tools: a journal for your mother wounds, grieving letters for your father wounds, and finding male mentors to rebuild trust.
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Girl, the worst parent combination is where you have a dad that is not involved at all and emotionally and physically absent and a mother that is too involved or who is hypercritical and judgmental. And unfortunately, this is a normal occurrence when it comes to women of color. As a dating coach for 16 years, as your fairy godbrother, I want to let you know what this experience looked like and let me know in the comments if you resonate with this or not. So what I know is that oftentimes when you have this combination growing up, you split yourself in that you might have an outwardly confident Persona, but inwardly it might be really shaky, where you feel like you have the pressure of being perfect, but also this void of insignificance, where you have this, like, feeling like you have to achieve the impossible, but also just feeling truly abandoned. And that push and pull and that dichotomy is really confusing when you're growing up and even as an adult woman. So again, think about this affects dating. Because I'm a dating coach, this affects dating in the following ways. When you have that combination, you are going to have a very strange relationship with intimacy. And that's going to affect your boundaries, that's going to affect your vulnerability, and that's going to affect your feminine energy. So I want to talk about what's the work? So many people are like, well, you got to do the work. Let's start with mom first. So how this affects you growing up is that you're going to be a people pleaser. You're going to have a problem setting boundaries and saying no, and you are going to have a fear of failing failure. So some of the things that you can do as a first step to start to heal some of these inner child wounds is, number one, you're going to need to start doing things with no goal so that it's not based on performance. You can knit, you can, you know, walk around the block. Something where you can't necessarily measure it and try to win at it. Secondly, we're going to have to practice boundaries. The language that I use and that I teach my clients is, I would prefer if. Where I would feel more comfortable if using this language can help you feel empowered when you're setting boundaries, because this is language that can be received really well. And then finally using what I call an enoughness journal. So if you journal already, you want to create a line in your daily journal where you talk about how you are enough just as you are, even though it sounds very cliche, it actually is really helpful. So those are like some steps that you can do to start actually working on the inner child womb based on an overly involved mother. Now let's talk about the father. Now for that daddy wound, that dad that wasn't there, that was neglectful, that left the home. What happens is that you are going to have a fear of abandonment. You are going to also seek out partners that are unavailable for you and have a trust wound that you won't be able to trust people. Some of the things that you can do to start to heal some of this father wound is you're going to have to grieve the loss. Oftentimes a really great way to do that is to write a letter to your younger self or to your father and express sadness and grief and anger. And then you either want to tear it up or you want to burn it to actually release it. Okay. The other thing that you will need to do is fill the void. What does this mean? It means that you are going to have to find healthy male role models, mentors, surrogate fathers to help fill the void. You can find this in your community, at work, or in your family or friend groups. And thirdly, what I like to do is build your self worth through again, journaling, right? I call it your brag line where you get to brag about the things that you have done already to remind yourself how bomb you are at the end of the day. So that is how you can take some first steps in healing those father wounds. I hope this is helpful as you navigate your inner child wounds. This is some of the work that I do in my program. My program is, contrary to popular belief, not just about getting a guy, but also becoming the woman that is ready for the best relationship of her life. If you need help with that, definitely don't hesitate to book a call. But I hope this is helpful.
