The Core Wound Fathers Carry: Healing the Fear of Getting It All Wrong

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Many fathers grow up believing that mistakes mean failure and discipline means punishment. In this special episode of The Aligned Father, host Lirec Williams opens up about a core wound uncovered during shadow work, the belief that he cannot do anything right. This wound formed in childhood through harsh discipline, constant correction, and fear-based parenting. It now affects fatherhood, parenting choices, communication, mental healing, and the ability to let go.

Lirec explains how this wound fuels perfectionism, Over functioning, guilt and responsibility, and the urge to fix everything, even when it leads to burnout. He shows how this mindset impacts father and child relationships, parenting teens, parenting sons, parenting daughters, co-parenting, and the emotional climate of a home. Many fathers will see themselves in this story. They learned to avoid mistakes instead of learning from them. They tied their worth to performance instead of presence.

This episode blends real dad experiences, research-based insights, child psychology, and reflective listening for fathers who want to grow with confidence. It explores how early punishment shapes parenting styles, why some fathers react from fear, and how to move toward calm parenting, nurturing approaches, and daily parenting support. It also highlights the role of emotional intelligence, mental peace, and self-care in raising resilient children.

What you will learn:
 • How childhood punishment forms deep beliefs about worth
 • Wh

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Hey brother, today we're gonna step outside of the
Aligned Father series for asecond and talk a little bit
deeper, not as a coach or host,but I want to talk to you as a
man who has been sitting withhimself, a man who has been
doing real shadow work, a manwho has been learning where his

(01:44):
pain started, how it grew, andhow it still lives inside his
decisions.
I want to talk about arealization that hit me hard.
Like it's something I've neverreally named until now.
And I realized like I believe alot of fathers haven't named
some of the feelings that theyhave.

(02:06):
And what we're gonna talk aboutis a core wound I've carried
since childhood.
And this wound shaped how Iparent.
It shaped how I love, it shapedhow I react, how I forgive, and
how I walk away, and how I tryto make everything in my life

(02:29):
perfect.
My wound is this.
I grew up believing thateverything I do is wrong.
Not sometimes, not when I messup, but always.

(03:49):
I learned to try to predict howmy caregiver was.
And when my caregiver wouldfluctuate or something I'm not
quite ready for emotionally, itit it's it's it was always from
zero to 100.
And the things that should havebeen teaching moments became

(04:12):
punishments.
And I want to talk aboutpunishments a little bit deeper,
but let's just stick with that.
The things that should have beenteaching moments became
punishments.
The things that should have beenguidance became fear.
And my nervous system learnedthat being wrong meant pain.

(04:33):
My heart learned that beingwrong meant shame.
And my mind learned that beingwrong meant I was the problem.
And when you experience thatenough times, you stop seeing
mistakes as lessons.
You see them as confirmation ofyour failure.

(04:56):
So I bel I grew up believing Ihad one job to never mess up.
And when you grew up with thatbelief, you spend your adult
life trying to outrun achildhood voice, a voice that
says, if you get this wrong, youlose love.
So how did it follow me intoadulthood?

(05:18):
So I learned, I learned how tobe excellent, but not from
confidence, from survival.
My excellence became aguardrail.
My success became my shield.
Fixing became my identity.
And I believe I had to beperfect at everything, or I was

(05:40):
nothing.
And if something connected to melooked wrong, I rushed to fix
it.
I made it my duty to fix it.
Even if fixing it cost me sleep,peace, or my own well-being.
If a decision went, if adecision went left, I would work

(06:05):
myself into exhaustion trying tomake it right.
Because I fear on the other endof that decision that somebody
didn't like is me not beingloved.
If something that I builtstarted breaking, I would try to
save it even when saving it wasbreaking me.

(06:26):
And there's a truth in shadowwork.
You do not only try to fixthings, sometimes you throw them
away when they fail to reflectthe image you need to see.
And I did that too.
If something felt like areflection of my flaws, I

(06:48):
distance myself.
If something I love made me feellike I was failing, I pulled
away to protect that old wound.
So when you grow up, it can alsoshow in your fatherhood.

(07:09):
Fearing mistakes, you I parentfrom fear, not intention, not
love, but fear.
Fear that my child's my childrenare gonna grow up and be a thing
that won't be liked or desiredby society.
Part of me wanted to be theperfect father, and I wanted to

(07:33):
be present, patient, calm, wise,understanding, and strong.
And when my kids made mistakes,my teenager specifically, it
would trigger that old voiceinside because she's almost an
adult.
So I'm like, I didn't dosomething and I didn't do

(07:55):
something right growing up, andI'm looking for what did I do to
like mess this whole thing up.
And it's the one in my the voicein my head that said, This looks
bad, you're failing.
Look at your child doing thesethings, and I feel like I did

(08:16):
something wrong in there, and apart of me wanted to give up.
But here's what I learned mostof those things are normal, even
if they're dramatic and big innature, it's normal for
teenagers to do crazy stuff.
And I had to like work my way tothat.

(08:42):
And I realized that a lot of myreactions weren't always about
them, they were about theversion of me that was still
scared to be wrong or incorrect.
And that's the dangerous part ofthe core wound.
And my kids can inherit thatunhealed belief.
Not always my words, but oftenthey inherit those reactions.

(09:07):
So let's talk about how it showsup in relationships.
Now, if you grew up believingyour worth depends on what you
do right, how you perform for aperson, what you give a person,
you carry that into everyrelationship.
You try to overperform, you tryto be everything to that person,
you try to make sure the otherperson never feels

(09:30):
disappointment becausedisappointment feels like danger
to us.
When conflict happens, you feelattacked.
When someone points out anissue, you may feel unlovable.
And when something goes wrong,you feel responsible for fixing
it alone.

(09:51):
And when you cannot fix it, youdo what wounded men do.
We shut down or we burn out, orwe walk away to protect
ourselves from feeling like thefailure we were trained to
believe we are.
This isn't weakness, this is aconditioning, survival, if you

(10:15):
will.
But it comes from a cycle and itbecomes a cycle in your life,
and cycles do not breakthemselves.
So here's the truth that mostmen need to hear.
Brother, if any part of thissounds like you, let me tell you

(10:35):
something I had to tell myself.
You were punished for growing,you were corrected for learning,
you were silenced forexpressing, and you were hurt
for being human.
That does not mean you deservedit, that does not mean you
caused it, that does not meanyou must carry it.

(10:58):
Your worth is not in perfection.
Your worth is not in fixingeverything.
Your worth is not in what youproduce.
And your children do not need aperfect father.
They need a healed one.
They need a present one, a dadwith a presence in their life.

(11:21):
They need a man who knows how toforgive himself.
So here's what I've learned onthis journey.
Healing starts when you slowdown.
When you stop trying to impressa childhood ghost, when you stop
living in the anxiety of gettingit wrong, you learn to pause,

(11:45):
you learn to breathe, you learnto let things fall apart without
believing it means you arefalling apart.
You learn that love is notearned by performance.
You learn that mistakes aresimply information, not

(12:06):
definitions.
It's not defining you.
You learn that rest is notlaziness.
You learn that letting go is notfailure.
And you learn that choosingyourself is not abandonment.
And most important, you learnthat your children need your

(12:30):
humanity more than yourperfection.
So, brother, your core wound isnot your identity, it is your
starting point.
It is a place where the realhealing begins.
If you are carrying the samepain that I am, the journey is
not to fix everything aroundyou.

(12:51):
The journey is to repair thestory inside you.
You are never meant to beflawless.
You are meant to be present,you're meant to evolve, you're
meant to fill, you're meant tolead with alignment and not
fear.
You are not broken, you arebecoming.

(13:11):
And that alone makes you afather worth learning from.