by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
If You Grew Up with an Overbearing Father it Can Hold You Back as a Man Unless You Grow REAL
One thing I’ve seen a lot of men struggle with in their adult lives is a lack of real direction:
They know something isn’t ‘right’ and want to make changes but they can’t shake the feeling of being stuck and disconnected from their own energy, can’t seem to commit to a vision, make decisions confidently, or move forward with conviction.
Instead of feeling the buzz of actually being alive, life always seems to feel a little…flat – not because they’re lazy, incapable, or that they lack potential but that somewhere along the way they became disconnected from themselves and life and started to believe that this is just the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be (in other words, they started living in the Void).
When I coach men experiencing these kinds of problems, I often find myself looking into their relationship with their father and – whilst every family situation is different – there’s a pattern that appears often enough to be impossible to ignore:
Many of these men were raised by fathers who were overbearing, controlling, strict, or overly involved in making decisions on their behalf – as children, they weren’t really allowed to discover who they were and, instead, they were TOLD who they’re supposed to be as they were moulded into who somebody else thought they ‘should’ be.
The result is that many of these men reach adulthood without ever truly learning how to trust themselves and so their REALNESS remains hidden in the shadows.
This article is about reclaiming what was lost and putting yourself back on your own real path.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
The Overbearing Father: What We'll Cover in this Article
- If You Grew Up with an Overbearing Father it Can Hold You Back as a Man Unless You Grow REAL
- The ‘Good’ News
- It Was Never Really About You
- The Symptoms of Living in Your Father’s Shadow
- What Is Realness?
- Stage One: Awareness (Deconstruct Ego)
- Stage Two: Acceptance (Integrate Shadow)
- Stage Three: Action (Trust Yourself And Life)
- The Conversation You May Need To Have
- Overbearing Fathers & Stepping Into The Light
The ‘Good’ News
The good news is that none of this damage is permanent because human beings are remarkably adaptable and so no matter how old you are, it’s never too late to reconnect with yourself, reclaim your own authority over yourself and your life, and start growing real again.
You are not condemned to live out the patterns you inherited, you’re not trapped by your upbringing, and you’re not doomed to remain an “adult boy” waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do.
You can step out of the shadow of your father and become your own man…but first, you need to understand what happened in the first place:
It Was Never Really About You
One of the first things that needs to be said when talking about such a sensitive topic is this:
If your father was overbearing, controlling, or constantly making decisions for you, this was not a reflection of your worth – it was a reflection of his relationship with himself and life.
Many men carry around a hidden belief that they weren’t trusted because there was something ‘wrong’ with them and so they assume that their father had to take control because they weren’t capable in some way.
This is rarely if ever the truth and, actually – more often than not – an overbearing father is acting from his own unresolved struggles:
- Perhaps he suffered through hardship and disappointment.
- Perhaps he made mistakes he wishes he hadn’t.
- Perhaps he carries regret, fear, shame, or anxiety about life.
- Etc. etc. etc.
Whatever the case, he unconsciously tries to protect his children from experiencing the same pain but, unfortunately, what begins as protection often turns into projection and so he just ends up imposing his own understanding of life onto his son.
You might have experienced the effects of this yourself:
- He decides what success should look like.
- He decides what choices should be made.
- He decides what risks should be avoided.
- He decides what kind of man his son should become.
In many cases, he’s trying to mould his son into the person he believes he himself should have been so that he wouldn’t feel whatever pain he’s currently feeling (whether he shows it to people or not).
This doesn’t make him evil or malicious – in his own mind, he may genuinely believe he is doing the right thing and think that he’s helping his son by saving him from suffering.
The problem is that his son isn’t him and actually has his own life with his own values, calling, and sense of realness but – when a father can’t recognise this – he ends up projecting his own unfinished business onto his child.
Understanding this is important because it allows you to stop personalising the experience and allows you to begin seeing that what happened wasn’t a statement about your worth but a reflection of your father’s relationship with reality.
Once you see that clearly, you can stop carrying a burden that was never yours to carry so you can actually get on with your own real life.
The Symptoms of Living in Your Father’s Shadow
When a man grows up under the influence of an overbearing father, certain symptoms tend to appear in adulthood – these symptoms can look different from person to person, but they all point back to the same root issue:
A disconnection from realness.
1. Waiting For Permission
Many men spend their entire lives waiting for certainty, approval, or for somebody to tell them that they’re finally ‘allowed’ to be themselves and do what they need to do.
The problem is that the “permission” they’re waiting for is never coming and so they just end up freezing up and wasting years of their lives.
Deep down, they’re still relating to life as though their father is standing over their shoulder and, as a result, they never fully commit to real action.
2. Disconnection From Self-Authority
These men often struggle to trust their own judgement which basically means that rather than making decisions from within, they default to familiar scripts and patterns:
- They look outside themselves for answers.
- They follow expectations.
- They follow rules.
- They follow the crowd.
What they don’t do is follow themselves!
3. An Inability To Be Present
Presence only really becomes possible when we allow ourselves to be who we really are.
On the other side of the coin, when our authentic self has been hidden away, we can’t fully show up and so instead we live through a mask in the form of a self-image built around pleasing others, a personality built around ‘blending’ with the world, and a version of ourselves designed for survival rather than truth.
The real self remains hidden in the shadows and there will always be the endless search for something ‘more’ until it’s reclaimed.
4. Control Freakery And Overplanning
Many men raised by controlling fathers become controlling themselves – not because they enjoy it per se but because uncertainty feels threatening (which is unfortunate because uncertainty is just part of life and so we need to learn to handle it if we want to be real).
- They overthink.
- They overanalyse.
- They endlessly prepare.
- They seek certainty before acting.
- Spontaneity disappears.
- Trust disappears.
- Etc. etc. etc.
In short life becomes something to manage instead of something to live.
5. A Hidden Undercurrent Of Shame
At the root of all of this is usually shame:
- A feeling that who they really are isn’t enough.
- A feeling that they need to earn worthiness.
- A feeling that they must become somebody else before they can deserve acceptance.
This develops because their realness was never fully welcomed and so instead of being valued for who they were, they were valued for how closely they matched someone else’s expectations.
The consequences can show up as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, people-pleasing, perfectionism, procrastination, or countless other symptoms but they all point back to the same fundamental problem:
That disconnection from REALNESS.
What Is Realness?
The short-version is that Realness is who we are when we accept ourselves without judgement and continue acting from that acceptance – it’s the ongoing process of moving deeper into wholeness through real action.
It isn’t about becoming somebody new but about removing everything we learned and picked up along the way that prevents us from being who we already are.
When an overbearing father dominates a son’s development, the son’s realness often ends up hidden beneath his father’s shadow and so – metaphorically speaking – his father’s identity becomes so large of a presence in his life that the son’s own identity never fully develops.
The solution is not rebellion, blame, or resentment but in stepping out of the shadow and becoming real again.
In the REALNESS framework, this happens through three stages: Awareness (Deconstruct Ego), Acceptance (Integrate Shadow), and Action (Trust Self & Life)
Let’s quickly look at each in a little more detail:
Stage One: Awareness (Deconstruct Ego)
The first step is becoming aware of where your father’s influence has shaped your identity.
You can start by asking yourself some simple but powerful questions:
- What beliefs do I hold because I genuinely believe them?
- What beliefs do I hold because they were imposed upon me?
- What goals am I pursuing because I truly want them?
- What goals am I pursuing because somebody else expected me to?
- What parts of my personality are real?
- What parts are unreal adaptations to my father’s unreality?
This process can feel uncomfortable because the ego (the identity you created to survive an overbearing father) wants the familiarity and uncertainty of your learned identity but awareness creates separation as you begin to see where you’ve been living somebody else’s script.
Once you can see it, though, you no longer have to remain trapped inside it.
Stage Two: Acceptance (Integrate Shadow)
The next stage is reclaiming what was pushed into your own shadow self (all of the parts you had to send into hiding in order to keep the ego in place).
This often includes your own masculinity – your capacity to make decisions, lead yourself, and trust your own judgement.
It also means reclaiming your own values, goals, beliefs, and desires which is ‘good’ news because men discover that they’ve spent decades living according to values they never consciously chose.
Acceptance means welcoming your real self back into consciousness – not judging it, suppressing it, or apologising for it but simply allowing it to exist.
The more acceptance grows, the more wholeness becomes available, and the more REAL life gets.
Stage Three: Action (Trust Yourself And Life)
Awareness without action changes nothing and Acceptance without action remains incomplete – eventually, you have to live, decide what you need next, and get moving again.
This means creating a vision that is genuinely yours – not your father’s, not society’s, and not your friends’. Yours.
Then, of course, you have to start acting on it – even when uncertainty and fear present themselves or when old patterns try to pull you back in (which they will).
Essentially, the man who has stepped out of his father’s shadow understands something important:
He no longer needs permission – he gives himself permission and he trusts himself (and when he doesn’t know what will happen next, he trusts life).
This isn’t because life is always easy but because he knows that reality can be worked with far more effectively than fear.
Check out my book Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go deeper into showing up in your own life in a real way.
The Conversation You May Need To Have
As you grow real through this process, there may come a point where you need to have a difficult conversation with your father (not every situation requires this but many do).
The purpose is not to attack him or to blame him – the only purpose is to reset the relationship by establishing new boundaries and actually showing up as a man rather than an adult boy.
Different fathers will react differently and where some will respect it immediately others will struggle or become defensive.
Some may never fully understand at all and that’s okay too because the goal isn’t to control his response as much as it is to start honouring the truth in your own life.
Either way, you’re no longer asking for permission to be yourself – you’re simply informing the world that you have chosen to be yourself.
Overbearing Fathers & Stepping Into The Light
At some point, every man faces a choice which is pretty simple:
Remain in the shadow of his father or step into the light of realness.
The shadow of your father might feel safe because it’s familiar but familiarity in itself isn’t freedom and living somebody else’s life never can be.
Suppressing your own nature can never lead you to realness and so real freedom begins when you stop waiting for permission and start trusting what is real.
Your father’s story is his story, his fears are his fears, his regrets are his regrets, and his unfinished business is his unfinished business so you don’t need to carry any of these things any longer.
Your task is not to become the man your father imagined but to step up and show up as the man that reality itself is asking you to be.
When you accept yourself, reclaim your authority, and take real action, you gradually step out of the shadow and into wholeness and so life can stop feeling like something that’s happening to you and start feeling like something you are actively participating in.
Well done, you found your REALNESS.
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to step out of the shadow of your father and into the light of your own real life then book a free coaching session with me and I’ll help you take real action.
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
