In the school playground, a parent came up to me with tears of joy, she held my hands and said, “thank you, thank you so much for giving my son back to me – he’s better behaved at home and we actually have a genuine relationship. You are his best teacher and the only one that has really understood him”.
I looked at her and it reminded me of a time when I too didn’t have the knowledge, skills and understanding of why problem behaviours and disconnection happens within families.
In that moment, I knew my purpose. I knew my WHY.
I would one day write a book that would give parents a better understanding of and effective strategies to create connection and deeper relationships within themselves and for their children.
So, I had a strong WHY as I set out on my book-writing journey. In 2015, I attended a very informative 3 day boot-camp, where the publisher gave a detailed explanation of how to write and publish a book.
Did you know:
97% of people who start to write a book never finish it.
Out of the 3% that do finish, only 20% of them actually publish it.
That means only 6 people out of 1000 that start writing a book get published!
It is in the writing part where pretty much everyone struggles and why people don’t finish their books.
Most authors face these problem behaviours and the biggest barrier is perfectionism, which leads to procrastination.
Perfectionism – when anything short of perfect is unacceptable or not good enough
Procrastination – doing less important tasks and putting off the important tasks to a later time
I was now faced with the very problem that the parent was facing where she didn’t know what to do with her child. I was dealing with the problem behaviour of my own inner child.
I became disconnected with my own writing because I wanted it to be perfect and it sent me on a real emotional roller-coaster ride. There were highs and lows.
Some days, I would be over the moon because I was getting so much done, like constructing the content and thinking, “Wow, I’m going to be a published author, my book has so much valuable information in it, it is completely original and I’m excited to be a best seller”.
But the very next day, my emotions completely flip – I can’t get anything done, I feel like I’m getting nowhere with my writing. I had self-doubts, I kept second-guessing my work, editing it and not being satisfied with the results.
That is when I would start to procrastinate. And this led to paralysis. I just stopped writing for many weeks.
What I then realised is that this paralysis came as I was writing the chapter on Anger. What a light bulb moment that was.
If we have unexpressed anger as children, we begin to see the world with our filters of how WE ARE and this manifests into different forms of passive-aggressive behaviour.
If we are not allowed to deal with our anger, we eventually go into denial and we become forgetful, which results in disconnection or separation from our feelings and behaviour.
So my internal feelings (passive) and what I was saying/writing about (aggressive) built up more inner frustration and a vicious cycle of other passive aggressive behaviours (like stubbornness and not keeping to deadlines) until I worked through, embraced and took responsibility for my anger (which I didn’t know was even there).
During the writing process, that passive/aggressive behaviour manifested as perfectionism and procrastination for me and is a reason why many authors struggle to get their books finished.
With the help of a writing coach and my strong desire to finish my book, I was able to work through my internal emotions and then I was able to finish that chapter on anger, and eventually the book.
Helping a child to safely manage their anger is a life skill and a valuable gift and that is how I helped that parent.
How I did that is contained in my book, which will be available soon – watch this space for updates. Thank you.
