Episode Description:
In this episode of What If For Authors, Claire Taylor dives deep into a hidden anxiety many authors face—disappointing their parents. Whether your parents were loving and supportive, critical, or absent, the relationship you developed with them still influences how you approach your writing career. Claire addresses how these childhood patterns show up in adult life and impact your creative decisions, even when you think you’ve moved past them. By understanding the role your parents’ approval plays in your subconscious, you can start liberating yourself from their influence and reclaim your author career.
Key Takeaways:
Unpacking Childhood Patterns: Our adult decisions, especially in writing, are often influenced by unresolved dynamics with our parents or guardians. These patterns show up even when we think we’ve moved past them.
Three Core Childhood Needs: Claire breaks down how the Enneagram types relate to the childhood needs of attention, security, and autonomy, and how these unmet needs manifest in your writing career.
Parental Approval vs. Creative Freedom: Many authors struggle with writing authentically because of the fear of parental disapproval, even when they aren’t consciously aware of it.
Reparenting Yourself: Claire introduces the concept of reparenting, a way to heal your inner child and give yourself the unconditional love and approval you may not have received from your parents.
Practical Exercises: Claire provides exercises to help you visualize what it would mean to fully please your parents and how many aspects of yourself you would have to suppress to do so. She also asks listeners to imagine how they would run their writing careers if parental approval wasn’t a factor.
Why You Should Listen: If you've ever felt like you’re holding back in your writing career due to what your parents (or any authority figure) might think, this episode offers crucial insights. It’s not just about realizing how much influence they still have, but about taking back control of your creative decisions for yourself.
Join the Conversation: Reach out to Claire at FFS.media for one-on-one coaching or author alignment sessions.
Happy Writing!
TRANSCRIPT:
Claire: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of What If for Authors. I'm glad you're here. My name's Claire Taylor and I'm an Enneagram Certified Coach for Authors as well as a Humor and Mystery Writer. You can check out my latest book, Sustain Your Author Career, by going to ffs.media/sustain. Today's episode topic might be a little baffling to some people, but I urge you to listen anyway, because what I found is that the people who need to hear this the most often don't recognize that they do.
Ain't that just kind of how it works with this sort of thing? I don't need help. Oh, I might need to hear more about this. Uh, been there. So this is really an anxiety that hides. So underneath one's nose that you can't even see it. Okay, so the topic this week is, What if I [00:01:00] disappoint my parents?
So we're all adults here, right? We may like to flatter ourselves into believing that because we pay our bills and taxes, because we run our own author businesses, we've fully moved out of the role of child and into the role of adult.
If that were how it worked, I would love it. But it is not how it works. Even a little bit. So our brains don't hit an age and suddenly shake off all that old crap they learned about our family dynamics and the part we play in the family of origin system. Instead, we just kind of carry it onward. Just kind of keeps going until we, uh, intervene.
So being an adult doesn't mean you have a fresh start from being a kid. It just means that you have the opportunity to start sorting through all the shit from your childhood. To make better sense of it and start moving on, not have to carry it around all of the time, to start to see the world in new and different [00:02:00] ways.
So let's say your parents are great, okay? They are nice people who parented you well and you love them dearly. You'll still want to listen to this episode. Or let's say your parents were, you know, maybe sort of hit or miss in raising you. You can certainly point to certain things they did for you and feel gratitude for it, but you can also maybe think back on a few patterns and be like, ooh.
That was a really unhealthy thing to do or to say to your child. If that's you, this episode is for you, too. And, you know, if your parents were shit, and you know they were shit, and you've dismissed them as shit, and don't have a relationship with them anymore, this episode is also for you. Has one or both of your parents passed?
That's okay. Still for you. Not raised by your parents, but raised by grandparents, an aunt, foster parents, or some other guardian. [00:03:00] Okay, a little more psychologically complicated, but this is still for you, this still applies what we're talking about today. So we see that it means it's for everyone, truly.
That's because no matter what, you have a relationship with your parents, and I'll call them parents, it could be a guardian, , but I'll just use the word parents so I don't have to repeat a long list of possible things. And whoever parented you is kind of what I mean. Um, but you have a relationship with your parents, and you developed it from the perspective of a child.
And it's really fucking important for children to make their parents proud of them. Whether that's because doing so is the only way to feel safe and cared for, or because you just deeply loved them and didn't want to see them upset or embarrassed. So even if your parent has passed, that dynamic you developed with them when you were a child still exists.
It's how people still hope their parents are proud of them long after the parent has passed. [00:04:00] So the relationship still lives inside of us. In that child version of us that we're carrying around through these patterns that were developed very early on in life. So wanting to make your parents proud, it can be a positive motivator.
In some ways, if you know deeply that what makes them truly proud is for you to be your full spectrum, liberated self through your writing, no matter what that looks like, then great. That might be a little boost to help you along this path, knowing that. But, but, how many of us have parental voices in our heads that are saying, Just do whatever is you, even if it makes some people uncomfortable, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
How many of us actually have those voices saying that? We can only be so lucky as to be raised to deeply believe that no matter what we do, our parents [00:05:00] will be proud of us.
So this means that most of us have parents where their approval is conditional, not unconditional. And when you're writing fiction, you will bump up against those explicit or implicit conditions. Of that approval, if your parents raised you in like purity culture, you will bump up against the choice of writing the sex scene, the way you want to write it on page and disappointing them or earning their disapproval or cutting the scene that your head, heart, and gut are telling you to write so that you stay within the parameters of their conditions for love and approval.
So this is just one example, right? But there are a million of them that I see authors bump up against constantly. I can't tell you how many times I'm working with an author on their story, and they want to write a particular scene or character in a particular way, but they can't make themselves do it because they're worried about what their parents think.
Yes, these are full grown [00:06:00] adults, and most of them don't think of themselves as beholden to their parents approval, but that's what it is.
This can really get in the way of writing the story you want to write, and writing it how you want to write it. And when that happens, you might find yourself stuck on the story or feeling like you're basically driving with the parking brake on when you sit down to write. It might even give you like a full on anxiety attack when it's time to publish the book. Just from thinking about some vague authority figure who you might get in trouble with somehow, without realizing that the authority figure is just the specter of one or both of your parents.
Until you realize that's what it is, that specter is this vague, nebulous, imposing, uh, feeling of your parents watching over you, and not necessarily in a, uh, healthy way, [00:07:00] and until you name it and call it out, that cloud of internalized disapproval will continue to make itself a nuisance.
So there are three triads of the Enneagram that spell out the childhood needs of each type, and I've talked about these in episodes before, but I'll refresh us on it. So twos, threes, and fours on the Enneagram are stuck in the childhood need of attention, or being seen and appreciated. Fives, sixes, and sevens are Eights, nines, and ones are stuck in the childhood need of security, or having enough resources.
And eights, nines, and ones are stuck in the childhood need of autonomy, or exerting influence and control without being influenced or controlled by outside sources.
The fact that we see these childhood needs appear so brazenly in our author career and how we build the whole damn thing around getting these needs met shows us that the child [00:08:00] is still alive and well inside of us, calling most of the shots until we name the pattern, evaluate it, and begin challenging it from our adult state.
The neural pathways were formed early, long before our prefrontal cortex develops and then allows us to regulate our thoughts, actions, and emotions.
And that regulation is the element of being able to notice them. Notice that they are happening and say, I don't want to do that. So now that our brain, work, big, good, as adults, our responsibility, but really our huge privilege, Is that we can choose to develop different pathways that lead us to thinking, feeling, and doing things differently.
But these neural pathways were originally formed when the most important person to our survival was our parents or the other adult caretakers in our lives. So our personality formed in the context of [00:09:00] those relationships and how they kept us alive. And it's really important to just notice that And respect, because there's nothing broken here.
This is just the process. It's just a stage in the process of sort of reclaiming those patterns and saying, I think I'd like to be in the driver's seat. So attention triad folks are likely to feel afraid that if they disappoint their parents or do something they disapprove of, they'll be deprived of attention, which Can lead to something like starvation in a small child neglect is a massive danger to small children and babies and that sort of thing.
And it's at those stages. That these patterns really start to take hold. So security triad folks are likely afraid that if they disappoint their parents, they won't have access to enough resources and protection, which can, you know, lead to starvation or being preyed upon [00:10:00] as a small child. And autonomy tried folks are likely afraid that if they disappoint their parents, they will have some of their autonomy stripped from them, which is just a human need to feel like I am a person who is different, but it can also lead to, you know, being preyed upon and vulnerable in that way.
If you're out of control if your caretakers are unable to take care of you for whatever reason, if you don't have a sense of autonomy. Then who's going to meet your needs, right? So there are big, , life or death associations that we develop with these needs for attention, security, and autonomy.
So it's no, you know, small deal here. We're really having to go pretty deep into these needs to try and, you know, maneuver things around a little bit and, , get things moving in a direction that better suits us and what we want to accomplish in life. So basically. Disappointing our parents is high stakes if we've never really [00:11:00] dug into this.
And if you've already dug into that sort of inner child work, you're probably not done yet. There's a lot to unpack. Um, there are just so many little beliefs that, you know, you have to hold up to like, one by one and inspect. And you have to do the same patterns. You have to inspect them in every different context.
You have to be like, oh yeah, it is showing up at work. It is showing up in the way that I, I don't know, clean the house in the way that I relate to my friends. It's showing up a little bit different in a lot of ways. So it just takes a lot of work, but the rewards are obviously worth it or else I wouldn't be encouraging you to do it.
So here are three truths to remember that are the basis for why it's okay to disappoint your parents and to make the best decisions for your business. Independent of what your parents think are the best decisions. Okay, so here are the [00:12:00] three statements. First one, your worth is not dependent on your parents approval.
Your security. Your autonomy is not dependent on your parents approval. Your autonomy is not dependent on your parents approval. And that will seem really obvious to your developed adult brain. I'm not talking to your adult brain though. I'm trying to deliver that message to your child brain. Hey child, you're grown up.
Your parental figure is now you. Just much older. So you have unconditional love from the older version of you. They think you're worthy and they'll preserve your security and protect your autonomy. Regardless of what your parents say or do.
So, mm, without airing too much family business, I'll just say that my parents used the we're disappointed in you line a lot when I was a child, and it [00:13:00] felt like the sharpest weapon they could have wielded against me. I felt that disappointment for every dumb kid mistake I made. Until I eventually learned that I ought not act like a kid.
And I definitely should never make mistakes or choose the wrong option. I didn't have like a physically violent upbringing outside of a few instances, but it was also never clear to me that violence wasn't on the table if I fucked up badly enough. So I only say that to give you an idea of where I'm coming from.
And I'm probably downplaying it a little bit here just out of sort of a, you know, lingering sense of obligation to my parents reputation and because I tend towards faking good rather than faking bad. But I did spend a lot of my life having to keep important parts of myself a secret. And I did that because I knew I would disappoint my parents if they saw those [00:14:00] parts of me.
And disappointing them, like I said, came with a ton of pain and emotional turmoil for me. It really hit my self esteem hard. So most people in their teens and early 20s probably function this way to some extent, right? Hiding little parts of yourself and your life from your parents. So it's probably going to sound familiar to you.
It's a pretty common experience here. And that's all fine and dandy until we start writing and publishing. Stories, or nonfiction, God forbid, because when you publish a book, anyone can read it, including your parents. And that's where this anxiety, this topic becomes very, very important for authors to consider.
So if you put those important parts of yourself into the book, you're showing them to your parents for the first time. And that can be scary. And it can cause annoyances, [00:15:00] like how my dad reads my book and offers feedback about what I should have done differently. You know, he criticizes what he doesn't like about it and explains the themes of my books to me, , that is annoying.
Or when my mom reads the emails I send out or my nonfiction and wants to talk about it, which basically amounts to, you know, demanding. A personal explanation for me. So, you know, for all I know, they're listening to this episode. They're a little stalker ish in that way. Um, and if you're wondering why I ended up in the autonomy triad, well, there's a little something for you.
It's a clue. So the reason I'm able to keep going despite the unpleasantness of my parents behavior around my work can be traced back to a particular. Moment that I had. So I was in my early twenties and feeling kind of the weight of their disappointment heavily for one reason or another. And I was driving about to exit the highway.
And so naturally my intellection was at the forefront. I was driving safe, [00:16:00] maybe, I don't know. It's never really safe to drive in Austin, but I was, I'm sure I was, uh, not in traffic at the time. So don't worry, , it's all good. I survived. , so anyway, I'm driving and I asked myself what I would look like if I were the precise person who made my parents proud all the time.
What shape would I have to take? Dear listener, I shit you not. When I say I would have had to be a completely antithetical person to who I know I am. For one, I wouldn't say things like, I shit you not. And, not gonna stop saying that because it feels great and cursing is good for your health. But anyway, once I wove together who that person would be, really was able to visualize it, it was actually Pretty humorous.
It was so far from me that becoming that person would be about as helpful for fulfilling my purpose on this earth as having a lobotomy, [00:17:00] sometimes asking the questions and following through with an answer is the only way to start liberating yourself from the nebulousness of things that can kind of haunt us for decades.
Like, you know, what I do on this podcast. And that's why I do it, because when the anxiety is vague, it's usually more scary, and it's better at controlling us, because the threat seems like it's everywhere at once, and the consequences could be anything.
The consequences of me doing me, regardless of whether my parents approve, , they're, they're that I get to do whatever I want. And enjoy discovering the depths of who I am and what I'm here to do. And also a consequence is that, uh, my parents will occasionally try new and interesting maneuvers to regain control over my psyche and steer it to whatever pleases them.
You know what? I can always hang up the phone though. So that seems like a pretty small price to pay when I take a step back and [00:18:00] look at this from my adult brain. So you're welcome to try that exercise out, and I'll give you one more that is directly related to your writing career. So here we go. Imagine that your parents will cheer you on whatever you do.
Whatever you write, however you write it, that no matter what creative or business choices you make, your parents pride and support for you will not waver one ounce. Imagine that. Let it settle in. What would you have done differently so far in your writing career? And what would you do differently right now?
If you really, truly felt that way? The truth of that.
If you can spend five minutes after you finish listening to this episode, just thinking about that in silence, maybe even journaling about it until something interesting comes to the surface, you'll begin to see just how much your parents approval or disappointment has been calling the shots for your book business [00:19:00] rather than what is best for you and your book business calling the shots.
And then what, what do you do when you realize how big the problem is? Well, you can start by talking to the child version of you. So what you do is you let them know that you, the adult version of you, will stick by them no matter what. So, I know this sounds very convoluted, it sounds like sort of, , you know, mental acrobatics, and it is, but it works.
It's called reparenting, and it's just so fucking effective if you'll go all in on it. If you're thinking this is stupid, I'm not gonna do this, you know, that fear of looking foolish, of feeling foolish, , to yourself really, because you can do whatever you want in your mind and no one's going to know about it.
So if you're too scared to feel foolish, that you won't even practice something interesting in your mind to try to unpack some of this, then you might have, you know, some bigger blocks that we, we [00:20:00] maybe we'll talk about in a future episode, but just ask yourself to try to do this. Talk from the parent or the adult version of you to the child and sort of reparent yourself.
So, it really is life changing, so I recommend that you give it a shot if you haven't already. So, talk to your inner child like you needed to be talked to when you were young. It will really heal up some places where you may not have even known you were hurting. And only when we can do that, Can we stop subconsciously dodging that pain all the time and retake the reins of our life?
We don't have to know that we're hurting in a particular way for that hurt to be something that we will do a whole song and dance to avoid touching. We will structure our whole life around not triggering that pain. even if our conscious mind doesn't know it's there. So this is where we really start to dig up this stuff so that we can notice what we've been [00:21:00] avoiding and not have to take the long way around all the time.
I also invite you to notice if at any point during this episode you felt the need to defend your parents honor just because you're considering that they didn't parent you the way you needed. If even just thinking, which is a private action, no one has to know about, if even just thinking that they might have failed you in some way triggers your need to defend them to yourself, or to write me an email explaining that your parents did the best they could and you understand why they parented the way they did, then oh my God, you really need to do this work I'm talking about.
If you are spending all this energy. Protecting your parents reputation from your own awareness? That's interesting. I mean, basically it's like, when did you learn that it's your job to protect your parents feelings that way? Um, of [00:22:00] course they were doing the best they could. We all do the best we can.
That's a given. So why are you jumping to their defense rather than feeling what you need to feel to heal what of yours needs to be healed? So that's a lot. I came at you a little bit on that one. , but these are longstanding patterns. You know, if we're getting up there in age, we're adults and we still haven't, , addressed to this.
Then it's kind of lightly suggesting and being like, have you considered, it ain't going to get there. We've built a lot of defenses around it. So that's why, that's why I'm being a little, uh, a little costing with it. But you know, I hope it works. So to recap. If you're letting what your parents would think about the decisions you make for your writing determine what you do, uh, stop.
Stop it please. Or keep going and wonder why you [00:23:00] feel disconnected from your writing and why going with your gut feels so difficult or even terrifying. It's your choice. If you want to tackle this and reclaim your author career as it were or if you want to keep wasting energy by straddling strategies between what your deepest self is calling for you to do and what won't upset your parents and then not actually doing either one of those successfully and feeling lost the whole time.
Totally up to you.
If your parents do not pay your bills, they are not your audience. Stop writing and marketing to them. I beg of you. So to answer the question of what if I disappoint my parents, I'll say that you will live and I mean that because your younger self may not believe that you will live but you will live and it's important to remind ourselves of this and not only that you'll live more fully if you disappoint them in the course of making yourself [00:24:00] proud.
There are so many strategies for how to cut the cord when it comes to feeling unable to do something your parents might, you know, call you up and lecture you about, but the first step is to acknowledge that. That the court is still there and that's the biggest step. So if it's still there, try the exercises I suggested and just be open to what comes up for you.
So imagining the person you would have to be to make them proud all the time and how many parts of yourself you'd have to lop off to make that happen. And then be fuckin honest with yourself about where you've made decisions in your author career thus far. That were designed to keep them happy, not to move your business in the direction of your ultimate goal.
So, yeah, it might be painful to see all that, but dammit, we gotta look at it. We just have to if we want anything to change. If we want any shot at choosing the fulfilling thing for us. [00:25:00] So that's it for this week's episode of What If for Authors. Thanks for joining me. I know this episode poked at a much deeper body of work, so if you want some one on one coaching on it, Feel free to book an author alignment with me at ffs.
media forward slash schedule. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. And if you like this podcast, I would love it. If you'd leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or you can follow the podcast on YouTube. Maybe tell a friend. Anything would be fantastic. So, have a great week of writing and I'll be back next week with a brand new episode for you.
Happy writing.