For twenty years, the bathroom tap in Jennifer Masters’ childhood home was stripped, and the family turned the water on with a little red pipe wrench. Her father built houses and the family cottage, and he left it that way. Her mother, who needed everything perfect, couldn’t stand it.
Masters told the story on Energy Economics for Parents when host Christopher Fern asked her a hard question: if trying to be perfect means failing, and not trying means you’re not good enough, what are you supposed to do?
Love on condition
Masters grew up in a house where love was withheld unless you were perfect. Perfect is impossible, so she was failing before she started, and she spent years as what she calls a chameleon. You want me green, I’ll be green. You want cartwheels, I’ll do cartwheels. Just love me.
She sees the same pattern in the clients she works with now, and it shows up in their relationships. A comment in the present lands on something from thirty years ago, and the result is a slammed door instead of a conversation. It shows up in how people look, too. She’s coached models—striking women—who were deeply insecure, because the outside has very little to do with what’s going on inside.
Christopher named the bind plainly: damned if you do, damned if you don’t. “Therein lies the problem,” she said.
Good enough, and who it annoys
Her answer came from her father. Soften the way you look at yourself, and lower the bar a little. He wore the same shirt three or four days running and didn’t care. He loved himself, read widely, and taught her to think for herself instead of believing what she was told. When Christopher asked whether living “good enough” would annoy people, she laughed. Her dad annoyed her mom often.
Her version of his attitude is that you’re already acceptable, and the love is still there under a pile of old belief systems.
Where the energy leaks
The show is about where a finite supply goes, and Masters was specific about the leaks. There’s stewing and brewing, her name for replaying one upsetting encounter over and over until it costs you sleep. There’s the pre-trip list—laundry, sheets, clean house—and her question about whether any of it needs doing before you leave. Sort the real obligations from the distractions, she says, then say no to the rest. Comparison drains it too. She says it collapses your energy, and there’s nobody to measure against anyway, because you’re incomparable.
For parents, her rule came from watching her daughter-in-law hand a baby the spoon at a few months old and let her make a mess. Masters used to panic about the laundry. Now she says to take your hands off the steering wheel. Control only where safety is a must. Everywhere else, let them get in the puddle, and when your kid does something you don’t like, correct lovingly without telling them they’re bad.
Christopher asked her for the one lesson she’d leave her own children. She kept it short: no matter what, they’re loved.
About the host
Christopher Fern hosts Energy Economics for Parents on the Neurodiversity Media Network. He’s an AuDHD author, inventor, and entrepreneur, and the founder of Energy Economics, a daily practice app that sorts what’s on your mind into must-do, worth-doing, and nice-to-have. He also created the ND Operating System and The Other Side of the Table, a video guide that explains neurodivergent shutdown to the partners, parents, and colleagues on the other side of it. On the show, every guest gets some version of his core question: what does it cost you?
About the guest
Jennifer Masters works with clients on transformation and self-realization, drawing on psychology, energy healing, the Akashic records, and channeling. Her work centers on helping people let go of limiting beliefs and old trauma. She’s a mother of three and a grandmother, and she counts herself and all three of her children among the neurodivergent people in her life. Find her at: jenniferelizabethmasters.com
