Changing the world one conscious parent at a time | Dr Shefali Tsabary | Unstoppable #85

we judge our children constantly and the reason we judge them is because they make us feel uncomfortable all our suffering comes from an attachment to a belief that life should be that way so when life isn't that way we have a tragedy there is no such thing as perfection especially in parenting there is no destination it's only in the moment because we a we do love them but our love gets perverted by this need to control them this episode is brought to you by an islet and scale at the world's leading fast growth program for businesses if you have ever wanted to grow your business faster than what you can right now if you need to make more revenue if you need more leads if you need more clients if you need to know how to plan your business in a strategic way in order to hit big goals if you need to learn how to scale your business and grow your team and your business so that you have more freedom then this program is for you imagine three days immersed with me where we cover all aspects of business but we do it from an immersive but and also an execution standpoint we execute every step of the way and we are looking at five key areas we're looking at your psychology we're looking at your marketing your sales your leadership and we're looking at your planning and how we integrate these five key areas to grow your business and your brand quickly so if you'd like to find out more information go and Raycom so ladies and gentlemen it is such an honor and a pleasure to welcome two unstoppable dr. Shefali this like when we first did the podcast like they said to me okay who are your dream like your top five like dream clients that you like to get on the podcast and up there was Oprah Joe Rogan Navy SEAL Joker wink and you were we're right up there and this is kind of a bit of a 360 for me and some people who've been bombing for a while will know a little bit about this and I'll get you to speak in a moment but for me the serendipity this is I don't know if you even remember you may not but I I watched an episode of Oprah the one where you actually made over cry I was physically affected my wife at the time was physically affected and then as a result of that I was about six months later we actually did a consult with you on video from Australia do you remember you did was two years old yes I remember because I don't get many Australian and back then it must have been on skype this is why I wouldn't bring this out on the interview and um yeah like we had some we had an incredible conversation coming but we do one or two sessions together but as I said to you off camera like it led me to I've been trying to book you as a speaking out for years it led me to booking another speaker Vanessa Lapointe but I also then look at what you created as a result of just seeing that one clip with Oprah like I became obsessed on I guess you would call it parental psychology you know I'm someone who's been a performance obsessive forever in the era of human performance I had the great privilege in one of my relationships where I worked with the niece of a great Horseman like I don't have your pepper le and I also got the opportunity to work with dogs and so by working with animals without our frontal lobe I've got a very common understanding around how mammals operate and then when I finally met you I saw this integration of it this is gonna sound a little strange but horse psychology dog psychology and human psychology because I could see the relationship in the developmental and the the million abilities and ways that they relate and so you you sent me on the suture so it's an honor to have you here I don't normally talk as much ever I normally say so um I know most of the podcasts that you do are very much around you know how to deal with children discipline you know also the parental dynamic and relationship dynamics but what I really love if it's okay by you is I'm always interested in the origin like where did this beautiful because you're not to me you're not just a developmental expert you're also a consciousness pioneer and that's what I think I related to you're a consciousness parenting pioneer but I'm always curious as to like you're obviously the culmination of an incredible life experience like where did that all begin like where were you born well I was born in India and somehow by the age of 12 or 13 already was aware that this is not my true home you know I knew I needed to leave and I had a great upbringing and lovely set of parents and so it wasn't because I was being abused but I was abused I think by the cultural paradigm that I was in it's a traditional hierarchical you know very sexist patriarchal culture so I was definitely under the this I was in I was definitely pillaged by it I was I felt very did by as a girl okay and I think you know because I look a little different than the prototypical you are yeah so I think I got marauded by that patriarchy and I wanted to escape from a young age I understood it was stifling for girls I understood it was suffocating I intuitively by the age of 12 knew that I am done you know like so I it was interesting because in my home it was lovely but right outside the cultural forces were very strong and I was sensitive to them and being a girl you know most Indian girls are subjugated by that patriarchy and I felt it very acutely I could understand I think I imagined yeah with what yeah so you picked up and I was I was definitely like most Indian girls upon of it yeah you you it's to be a girl in India grew up in the 70s so do you think that applied a layer maybe just maybe slight energetic trauma they provoked you to move something I must have because I've often asked why by the age of twelve did I want to leave so badly given how beautiful my immediate home was so I conditioned the culture is like yeah yeah so now I've understood there must be these things you know it's only in retrospect I look back then I just knew I needed to leave no so I made a plan to go to leave to come to study and I went to California I did my Master's how old were you at this point 21 this is the first age my father allowed me to do beat her away from his clutches and so the minute I could I left and I knew I would never go back I just knew I would never go back that's not my home so and I studied psychology in San Francisco but also as soon as I kind of landed I went back to my roots in a way because I began meditating and was introduced to Vipassana meditation and so I went for my first retreat within six to eight months of coming here so it was weird like in India you came to the US Wow yeah I found my I knew what I needed time to Center I just knew what I wanted to do and then I think experienced my first epiphanic spiritual breakthrough at 22 and one during a meditative experience yeah I mean I understood the impermanence of life and the death of the ego but I was too young you know it was too young for me so it was a lot to assimilate and integrate I was still very mainstream wanted to do so many mainstream things but then I had this atypical kind of breakthrough and it was hard to integrate so for many years I lived a parallel life of the mainstream and then this esoteric but you know underground integrated both of them and and then I became a parent and really saw the the coming together coming together I really saw it that you can be the most loving parent but there's this ego which you tame in meditation but now you have to bring it into your parenting you know that and that was more experience yes I learned how to manage the emotions with the horses I learn how to manage the emotions the dogs but I was trying to work with his Charles I I know you the emotions to coming up and I was like but that's how I was showin ya and I was showing to it I'd been meditating for a decade but your ego as a parent is specific its unique it's not it's untamed you've never seen it before yes so now you have to learn this whole new language of parenting but being conscious and so there really was the evolution of my way of thinking and so what point in your life did you start to become curious about how the mind works so when you went to university was this already a foregone conclusion you're gonna study psychology I think so I think I was always fascinated by people you know prototypically I wanted to be a child a teacher of children as a child you know that's just predictable but really to be in the service of humans and to understand why we do what we do and but I knew that by the age of 30 and 14 were there any defining moments in your life where you experienced either a behavior from yourself or an observation of behavior from others and you found yourself really curious as to well I know that doesn't look right on the outside but I'm really curious as to what's going on in the inside and maybe how I could help shape that like did you ever have those kind of what did that come later on as you developed I think like I said observing this patriarchal culture and seeing women treated so interesting so so that was actually quite formative as a part of your interest in psychology was there yeah the cultural thinking see culture and I understood that there was a perversity here and it was not okay how women were treated you know it's not okay I didn't have the language but I had the vehemence to understand it and a protest you know I was I was angry at how women were treated at a young age and then we quite vocal at a young age about it as well III don't I didn't have the the speech or the articulation but I just had an antipathy for the patriarchy you know and I didn't know why I was like why do I just want to run away from it but I later could understand how suffocating it was for me because I knew I was I was an exploratory being I wanted to be free but I all I was met with you can't you can't you can't you have to be married by this age you have to be docile and meek and some serving in order cookin I mean it's the traditional roles for women you know and I protested against that but there was no room to fight except to leave yes I just had to leave to find myself and so what I should you graduate graduate college you know I left at 21 already welcome with the master a 1 year of a math it's a shorter program gotcha and I was younger and okay and so what what I did see when you left school did you go straight into the masters I came here to do a master's yeah and then I worked and then I did my PhD okay right and once you did you pH see what came then then was the child we had the child right we we you know and then you become a parent and then everything kind of fades away right you know you wonder who you were before you were a parent what did you do before you were a parent and that's my curiosity like where you was at a foregone conclusion you're in psychology but I was also foregone conclusion that you were really gonna go specialize down that path of the developmental side no no did that not come until until you I became a mother rah hi and then I saw the roar of my own ego and I think I realized that we are in trouble you know as parents we're doing these things unconsciously and I began speaking up for myself you know I began educating myself through my own observance of my own ego you know and deconstructing myself like why am I so angry why am I so afraid why am i anxious if she doesn't poop by the age of 2.2 years you know or walk by 3.6 or whatever the the milestone was I was measuring this child and causing myself anxiety so I began observing myself and began to see the insanity and then began to ask where does this come from and to realize it comes from culture and my own upbringing also and then trying to really hunker down on what about culture has sent us off the story as parents to be so controlling out of fear it was interesting I one of the I don't know do you know if Cesar Millan I'm a huge fan of Caesar he's right up there as well he's in that list and one of the things I love about Caesar he goes you know I don't train dogs you guys I train the human and I rehabilitate the dog and when I was exposed to your material I saw the same I guess you could say frameworks really applying right and so is that what you kind of started to look at was the behaviors and going well hang on this this behavior it's not so much the child that I need to really be looking at here it's like what am i what am i projecting that's perhaps you know creating or contributing to this behavior right this infant cannot be the cause of my temper tantrum right this two-year-old cannot be the reason I have lost my cool in such a drastic dramatic way so I have to look inside myself and this is what I began teaching parents to do what about you is being triggered in this moment this two-year-old cannot have this power over you because if this two-year-old did have this power then all of us would have the same reaction to every behavior on the outside but the fact that every behavior elicits a different reaction shows us that it's us so what about us is being evoked being activated and typically it's an old childhood wound or a cultural misbelief you know we've bought into a false reality my kids should you know this is bad you know I'm bad and defusing that through intense inner deconstruction you know you can't just think you want to be better you can feel real remorse you know I yelled at you I'm so sorry I'm going to do better but you can't think your way through it you have to heal your way through it you said the great weather intense inner deconstruction like it's it's so so apps so you you have your first child did you've had more - no no I like every parent thought I'd have a gaggle of children yeah that's what I deserved I was entitled to and and then I couldn't I couldn't conceive so then I had to again ask the question you know now what what does this mean for me and what path will I choose and I also tried to have more kids you've gone through the process no I didn't go through I went through the process in my mind but I I really questioned you know whether to do it or keep it natural and then I you know with everything in life I try to go down the path of least resistance you know and accept the as is and what are the lessons now for me with one child and how do I see the death of my fantasy of having this big family and understand that was a false attachment it was a false idea it was an image I created of this family and I needed to let it go and so in that actually was a huge birthing of greater wisdom you know and then similarly when my child doesn't conform to my fantasy again I'm able to do the same process of understanding what was my attachment why do I have this fantasy what does it say about me who will I be without it and where does it come from what is the source of this this fixation I have and all our suffering comes from an attachment to a belief that life should be that way so when life isn't that way we have a tragedy you know we experience great suffering but the wisdom of the of the Mystics says you know accept what is when you accept what is you flow through life you know and children teach us that children when they come so young they're so capable of being in the here and now you know they can have huge outbursts in that moment but now they're in a new moment yeah and we're still in the old moment you know we're still upset but the capacity to follow children's ways in the here and now teaches us to be more present yeah you know the correlation with working with animals is just sowing have you ever trained animals or know the correlation is just yeah uncanny it really is yeah so I'm gonna assume this naturally had a flow-on effect to you commercially but remember we're just just about animals most animals are in captivity yeah and we'd love to do that with our children we can't yeah but that's the the aspect of I guess you could say working with animals that I'm really in love with is the conscious aspect there's the traditional which is it's a traditional parent and the traditional training with the dog the traditional training of the horse yes and then there's conscious training yeah parents conscious training with the horses conscious but unlike an animal you know you can't leave you you can't pack your bag and leave your kid you know and good times so I'm gonna assume naturally as a part of this flowing process this obviously affected you commercially because you came out as a psychologist but now all of a sudden you've got this huge interest in developmental and the parental did that kind of affect the way that you went as a business like as a as a therapist well you know I don't think strategically in terms of how I will appear in the world or what this means for my bottom line no no I'm just curious about just but it did yes yes yes had had pretty severe consequences because my clientele were mostly parents yeah and now I'm telling them that they are the problem oh so they didn't like that so I had many people fire me and I lost business and it was it's even today very hard not for me anymore but I have a coaching Institute and I trained coaches to do what I do yeah they find it very hard to go out there and break the resistance that parents have you know no parent wants to hear it's them yeah you know parents would rather hear that that kid is totally messed up then yeah and Isis a - parents would you rather that reality that your kid is so messed up or can we just look at yourself and they were like where's the greatest possibility guys yeah yeah it's the kid yeah it's so threatening I think for us and say what was the looking incident is I think it is and that's where I love the work that you bring to the surface which is about the ego because whatever it's bringing out for us is only an done attachment - yeah you know some kind of an ideal that may be unhealthy yeah so between when you started the you became a parent and Oprah because that's when things really blew up for you like you really you went on to write I think that was you were on Oprah after your second book were your first book both books you so the second book the second book you've never in three incredible books all all bestsellers which we'll talk about as we go but between that time period what was the time period because you like to affect Oprah at the level that you do because she's one of my idols a broadcaster as an interviewer so you know it's it's not so much about the hype of oh my god you're no protozoa that's actually a serious accomplishment like that's not something that everybody gets the opportunity to do it wasn't all three books happen in six year to two years two years it's kind of like that so how did I promote if you don't want me asking I think I was on my second book already and talking about my book you know but I would kind of speak about wanting to be in her presence like everyone that has a lot so I would say to anyone I met you know if Oprah read this book she'd love it if Oprah read I just kept putting it out there yeah I owe interest I used to wait for her for her Chicago number to show up on my phone you know I just expect three one two Wow one day I was in a session and three one two showed up and as if there's no one else in Chicago I told him this but I told him I said this is from Oprah's office oh my I'm not lying to you and I said go go and I told him so I picked up and it was a producer OMA press office and I saw envision three one two you know it was the Chicago corner and I told my client I wrote to him I said hundred dollars off and you don't know he said he's not going so I left the room I said okay I'll leave and I went into a stairwell in in a all new york city building where my office was and it was all echoing and I had a few minutes to convince this producer that Oprah needed to feature this book on Oprah's not a parent you know so luck would have it this producer was just a new mother for the past seven months she was just so she something in my voice or my pitch she was intrigued enough to say we'll consider it and then you know I think maybe a week later they said we want to feature you in supersoul which is every authors not every but most authors ultimate ultimate fantasy you know yeah I bartered with whoever I don't believe in you know the God suddenly became where I was like I never asked for anything ever I'm so grateful I'm sure but I forgot as soon as the first interview was over I wanted more but it was it was definitely a pivotal moment off you know you can't believe when something you envision comes into manifestation and you know the Dalai Lama Eckhart Tolle an Oprah were my three top people and Eckhart wrote the the quote for the cover his publishers my public was my publisher the dalai lama wrote the foreword and oprah interviewed me and none of them are parents you know these are the three top people that I wanted and I was so special I got it all and and how special but mainly because they're not parents but because they're not parents in a way they kind of get it true because they see the madness around parenting and can see it more objectively I'm sure so she got it you know she understood so that kind of makes me more curious into you and how you've achieved your life you know because you mentioned you evil you just always expect the three one to number you know you know what's gonna happen you just put it out there I didn't know it was good actually did not it was just a check on pretend to be this law of attraction you know manifesto I just I just I can't say I mean I knew it was gonna happen but I was just dogged yeah that that's the only thing that can make this message get to the level it needs to so I just knew that yeah but I would have taken anything you know anything on the way there you know I was as dogged that that makes the most sense yeah but I never knew it would actually happen you know well I guess everyone's got their own you know version of the law of attraction but like have you got rituals that you have learned over the years you have used in order to manifest certain things or perform at certain levels because I can only assume doing what you do like if you don't show up then you know for a long time we didn't get paid so there's been times where you probably had to show up in situations where you didn't feel like going to work yeah and stuff going on like what are your little rituals or routines or mental spiritual hacks at UVI I think I look at the space I'm in so this spiritual world this you know non-traditional world that we live in and I look at who are the main players in that world like you know you found me I'll find you and I connect the dots you know and I try to connect the dots but I do so without hustle without you know craving yeah but in my 20s I definitely hustled and I definitely craved yeah this is me talking now having kind of connecting many dots so they're phases that we go through but I think I I see the space am I want to be in and I find my way it to be in that space and I think that's how we attract we have to become it be in it live in it breathe in it and then we surround ourselves with that community so for example I found that I wanted a community but I didn't have one you know to talk my own this language so I just created one now I have a big community and I've trained people to talk to me the way I want to be talked to you know and now we're all growing together so you have to surround yourself you know and you hear this all the time but it's really a fact it's a real fast you have to be in it you can't watch it from the outside you can't think it you have to envelop yourself in that yeah so for Oprah for example I began you know talking to everyone in that space and I put myself out there and I literally can tell you the dots that took me to her I know exactly the four people you know pivotal the last four people who just turned me around the corner but it took me showing up yes and just not just doggedly doing the work and I say this to all the people who want to pursue their passions you just show up in that space don't show up in some other space show up in the space you want to be in and grow in and just keep showing up be a volunteer offer free lecture in a basement I did all those things you know do it for free at first serve and speak like speak it out express it don't leave it buried inside you people are not psychic so I talked about Oprah to everybody I I still I still remember I stitute a math in a little kitchen in Queens and after I got on Oprah the woman the mother wrote to me and said I remember you telling me in my little kitchen in Queens when you were tutoring my kid in math that you're gonna be on Oprah you know oh that you want to be on Oprah you know so I used to talk about it like in case she knew or someone who you never know yeah you have to put it out there and I think many times we feel so inferior that we Podesta lies people on the outside yeah and think that we can never be part of that world and the people who are on the pedestal are quite lonely because no one is talking to them you know I feel that now that no one wants to approach me because they're afraid and when they realize that I'm approachable you're approachable then there are oh but the truth is we are approachable and the truth is Oprah was approachable yes albeit 10 more 10 times more people are trying to get to her so it's harder but she as a person was so receiving we're receiving but people are afraid and I was afraid too until I broke down that barrier in my mind I'm not inferior and no one is superior now how do I just show up without those games in my mind of who's better than me who's worse than me I just need to do the work and show up I love that I'm curious though there's probably been times where you've experienced levels of you know because a lot of parents ask the question about or we talk a lot about and as a result we get a lot of questions around regulation and dealing with stress and you know helping but it's often in the child's perspective and helping a child learn how to regulate and understanding the mechanics and the environment that supports that but I'm curious for yourself look I know for me I grew up with massive social anxiety and all sorts of stuff that really pushed me in the pursuit of learning how to regulate because I just didn't feel completely normal right and so as a result I came up with my own little process and you know it works really well it's something you talk about a lot but I'm curious like when you're over well civil what you're saying you're human and I'm sure you probably have situations where you've you know either maybe raised your voice at your charlie had a bad day or you swore like we all had those days right yeah yeah but oftentimes only people only see what's on the camera like has stress played a role in your life and I'm gonna say if it has what are some of the techniques that you have used or developed again as little rituals that you've used for yourself in order to be able to regulate and deal with it yeah no stress of course you know being an immigrant in this country and not having money at all and having to struggle my way up I was very much under stress and when my daughter was born you know every ten dollars I paid to the nanny I was like I guess accounted you know and bother should I not have a shower should I not go to my PhD school you know course because I'm spending money so you know I definitely had rough times and stress and sleeplessness insomnia all the things that busy working mothers especially go through but I learned to meditate at a young age so that was a huge mitigator yeah but I still was wasn't above losing my I mean I'm telling you I I am literally the poster child for this work because I'm a psychologist I understand development I'm a meditator and I was still losing it that's why I have deep compassion like what are what what chance is another paragraph you know I mean I could blame my kid my kid is really special to me but come on you know you you wouldn't expect it from a meditator and I didn't expect what I saw coming out of me from a meditator I I used to think of myself so highly you know I was which bought into shambles and I realized that this is some other two level of you need some other level of supernova intergalactic like what that level skills to be a parent on parent easy Jedi believe some other level because I thought I was it yeah by dads only me it's yeah and then then you realize that everyone struggles and the more compassion I have for myself I can have for others you know and I'm relatable in that way I think because I am I've done every I mean except like literally spank my kid but I've imagined it that kid I'm pretty sure has their minds right so I don't pretend to be this you know angelic parent so compassion is a very is why for yourself is a tool that you use for I so I think meditation which teaches you the pause it makes you aware in the moment of course after the disaster has struck but soon you learn to be more preemptive yeah so learning the power of the pause and seeing how the past wants to infiltrate the present moment and how your past childhood patterns want to flood the present moment so much so that you're not even seeing the child in front of you you're just completely projecting from the past that power is the Jedi skill you know is to pause and see the past becoming projection and if you can disrupt that pattern you free your child but you have to halt yourself in the tracks of the projection when your childhood is coming hurtling down all your wounds are bursting from your holes you know you have so many holes like Swiss cheese and your crap is just coming pouring forth now I'm teaching parents how to put a brake on that you know so yes nobody can do it in the moment but that's what we that's the ultimate fantasy but the reality is at least do it an hour later at least do it a few years later yeah you know learn to understand how it was that you missed seeing a child for who it is they are and placed on them the past you know so that's level the Jedi level but on the way they're coming on the way there are some awarenesses that there is no such thing as perfection especially in parenting there is no destination it's only in the moment it's really all play if you can enjoy it you know and that's why I children are such masterful gurus because they're in play and we've lost play we've become linear we think there's a point to this whole thing it's not a game it's serious but really it's a gay it's just play you know and so understanding that was huge for me and understanding that everyone is at a different point of consciousness so I have compassion for myself back then and then yesterday because I realize oops yesterday I was at that really low level of consciousness mm-hmm and today I'm going to raise myself to a better level of consciousness so there's no end perfection here in a sculpture that you can place in a closet it's everyday it's moment by moment and it's shifting and ultimately it's about how do we live in our heart more in our heart and not in a legal you know I've seen hand saw it be reused as a really powerful psychological tool to help people integrate negative past experiences is really positive ones yeah you know because oftentimes we say what was always seen ever happened tune that's a oh well this happened and then you know oftentimes 60s later or three years later or three months I think oh my god on reflection if I hadn't have happened though this wouldn't even you begin to appreciate the past interplay of cause and effect but in the moment we're scared and that but that's my curiosity like I'm curious to know from you like have you ever looked at ways to pursue hindsight in the moment as a concept as a tool for a mind that's maybe perhaps as you meditate more and more and that's my main pathway to wisdom you see the irrelevance of all the form-based seductions yeah so if the c-grade comes you learn that it's a seduction now you can drink the alcohol and go drunk on it or you can see it as attempt just the temptation oh it's a temptation of form that's pulling me to yell at my kid and have control because the c-grade have been conditioned to see as bad bad bad but with perspective and with the awareness that it's all form it's not really the essence of who it is we are you can bypass the seduction and realize okay it's it's just what I'm being pulled to because culture has told me this is a freak out moment this is a punishment punishable moment but you don't buy into it you know and that's the power of consciousness you begin to see through the seductions of this matrix and you begin to realize or you really want me to get upset don't you secret you know or pimple or cellular oh you really want me to lose my equanimity you don't want me to be unhappy so I can pop a pill or I can call a therapist so I can consume yeah so I can binge so I can spend money on in this capitalistic matrix but I'm not going to because I see through you and you can't take away my joy you know so you begin to talk to the seductions of form and you see through them and then they don't have a hold on you as much nice you can laugh you know I move more into the the children component I've got a brand question I'd love to ask you and if we have time but you've I'm gonna assume you've seen thousands of parents you know in your your career that's been you know of epic proportions what do you see as a lot of the fundamentals actually maybe a better question is because you know you often talk about conscious parenting and sometimes perhaps people maybe don't relate to that because they're new to you know the exploration but what's unconscious parenting what's the typical stereotypical unconscious parenting that because most people if we talk about conscious parenting something regardless I don't relate to that but if we talk about maybe the concepts of unconscious party people I go oh that that's well I just thought that was normal way it's raising your kid according to what culture says is is how you should raise the kids so we categorize good and bad we will all want good children so we all contour them to be good and then if they're bad and we want to control it we don't want to understand our children and then we want them to go through all the comparable competitive milestones that everyone else is going through so you know if the neighbors going for ski lessons at the age of three my kid should go to ski lesson so if the the neighbor across the street is learning sign language so my kid should learn sign language or you know what that parent says and that and you're just caught in this cauldron of this conveyor belt of existence you know and you just take your kid through it like you just expect your kid to fall into it oh I come from a family of great Illustrated baseball players so my kids gonna love baseball you know and you just do this repetitive automatic presumptive kind of parenting without stopping to go wait who is my kid and what does my kid want to do you know I could have all these fantasies but do they who my kid is and how do i contour that synergy without imposing who which is I am on to my kids so for example I wanted my kid you know my fantasy was that my kid would go to you know more hippy Democratic in the jungle in the sky kind of school and or like a waldorf school you know and not that a world of school is like that but something non-traditional like a Montessori even more non-traditional and like in the bush yeah like be naked all day something like that that was my fantasy and then when I went to the school that matched that fantasy I realized oh my goodness my daughter will burn the school down you know like that's not her nature to be in this little school weaving or doing you know or picking leaves that's not her nature and so I realized where she's at in the public school which was my most loathed reality was exactly the place for her and I began to see the beauty in that so in this way we think certain things are beautiful and we put judgements on them but they're just coming from a fantasy yeah but really your reality in its isness it could be the most beautiful thing in the world yeah you know that's powerful because normally it's the people trying to influence to the contrary yeah to do the get out of mainstream yeah yeah that's so interesting so what is one of the biggest mistakes that you see parents make that is a universal I think that we operate out of fear the greatest mistake I believe parents make is that we are fear-based and if we are really honest with ourselves most of our reactivity towards our children comes out of fear if we ask am I seeing this out of abundance am I freaking out over my kid right now because I'm just coming out of abundance and I trust and I surrender Oh am I freaking out because I'm terrified my kid will be homeless and I will then feel terrible about myself that's the ultimate knock it's not how bad my kid's life will be but how bad I feel that my kid's life is so bad so that's what we all want our kids to be happy because we feel good but just that goal of wanting your kid to be happy is so you topic and so silly really it's so cultural like you even here like what do you wait for the atypical spirit spiritual touch what do you want your child well I don't care what they don't do as long as it's long as that baby yeah and I don't say I do i wow I may say it if I you know if I fallen into some stupor yeah culture yeah most dippity I won't even use that word because I know that I don't really want that for my kid because it's impossible to want yeah I want my kid to live their life for their their authentic Wow and if their life happens to be one where they are you know being ravaged by storms or tsunamis or you know you know the pressure dealing with depression well I'm not gonna make her feel like oh she's just wasted her whole life damn I failed yeah yeah you your whole life is a brass cross it out wow it's do we live authentically or do we try to be happy you know and I want to be authentic so if I'm crying all day like say even today if I cried all day I would look at it as a bad day hmm I look at it as a as an intelligently authentic day I obviously had reason to cry and I cried and I and then I'm happy another day and that's it that day and then another days is a dissatisfied kind of board date and that's that day you know I don't take any of it seriously really the happiness I know it's very fleeting and so is the sadness so I'll cry big deal and so I'll be happy big deal none of it really touches the core of Who I am which is just presence right we are ultimately just beings who are here and so we've put all this pressure on ourselves to be happy and then to be successful and then to you know go to this kind of college and then you have this kind of job and looked a certain way you know especially women have to look a certain way now and we don't accept ourselves and we loathe ourselves really and then we load our lives and we compare ourselves to other yard sticks and we are miserable and so the only antidote is radical acceptance you know Tara brach has this beautiful book called radical acceptance that's the only answer is radical authenticity radical acceptance honesty radical honesty and radically not giving it to two F's about anything else yes I'm curious about do you think another mistake that parents were having perhaps make is they build dishonest children by lying to them thinking they're doing them a favor yeah yeah and I and I guess you could say it starts maybe even with Santa Claus oh my god to the point where we don't we lie to our kids if there's something going on well we're lying to them by being prophetic like we know the future we're going there we're not prophetic and I hope you will be unhappy or you you you won't get a good job and the kid is in seventh grade you know and also their nose when you look at the counter that when kids lie and then when they perhaps tell the truth and they get in trouble for telling the truth and they end up in this kind of yeah in this kind of a bit of a quagmire how do you deal with that stage when it comes to like dealing I've had a I have a few pet questions on why here we've even parents actually do you mind a fast I'm gonna yard in another direction I had a one of the bigger questions I get from people is like when a child first comes in this well they're obviously very helpless they're trying to work it out as we are but how do we deal with the emotion that comes with a child because oftentimes and it like you're talking we want our child to be good we want we want to feel like we're there healthy with knowing the right thing and when kids come into this world especially as parents for the first time and as kids go through the phase of being an infant to the to being a toddler we now have to deal with these situations where there's all of these unexpected times of the day that can't even be put in the calendar where we might just experience a meltdown and characteristically most parents typically stereotypically respond the same way when a child goes into meltdown but what I found really interesting was your approach was really quite different so why don't you talk through first of all when a child is going to melt down what is that okay because oftentimes we go well my child just didn't got were they they didn't get what I want they wanted they were trying to manipulate me I just said no and they're crying because I didn't get what they want and I think I made it there's a little bit more to that so what's going on for the child when they have a meltdown and with that understanding perhaps you can help us apply a lens of compassion that will translate to a better way that we can act or respond and behave that might be more conducive to getting the outcomes as one so I think the first place to begin to help combat tantrums and big feelings in our children is to look at it with the right lens so if we call it a meltdown we're already calling it something pejorative you know we call it a tantrum we're already calling labeling it but even how do we combat this it's like even other what calm right it's like it's not an adversarial approach it's not a me versus you it's a call for greater connection right so how do I understand and most of the time we're talking about children who are under the age of six or seven who are developmentally not able to regulate I mean forty year olds can regulate we can't regulate you know a little kid can throw us and unnethe or a loop and unhinges so how can a little kid not be unhinged now just because we're adult and we think the kids should have regulation over a piece of chocolate or a ball doesn't mean that's valid for that kid for that kid that's life and death right it's so important for the kid so we have to have understanding you see we just see it's just a chocolate bar oh yeah but neurologically it's connection learning in the same way if our Gucci shoes got burned down the kid would not care and we would care right it's just relative to what values values yeah but the kid that little bead is so important and for us our Louboutin shoes are important right or whatever so it's just a matter of judging we judge our children constantly and the reason we judge them is because they make us feel uncomfortable we judge them when their behavior unhinges us to the point that we feel like we are incapable in competence and when they call to question our image of who we are and they call to question that we may not know what we're doing instead of us releasing control and surrendering to the unknown yeah we don't know what we're doing it's moment by moment Wow and connecting to ourselves and our children we go into Supreme anger and we get so threatened that we now want to fight back it's like tyrannical control we want to you know suck their power and regain our own it's really very primitive and it's interesting because you see it play in passive and aggressive ways at the same time you're the parents that children start misbehaving immediately see the anxiety building in their younger kids because the kids are so raw and they don't care at that point until they're conditioned to submit yeah but then you see another uprising when your kid is 14 17 you know and how triggered parents get when a teenager blank bangs the door or is rude to the parent the parent can't take it you how old is your kid six see oh you have a long way to go my daughter 17 now you know I see how a 17 17 year old yet what you don't look old enough to have a 17 year old and I'm not you know spiritually old enough to have one that's for sure but I can see how activated or activating it is when a teenager rebels against your authority now if you're a parent who desires Authority you know I gave up Authority a long time ago yeah but if you're a parent who's attached to Authority and is attached to an idea of control toddlerhood and teenagehood is going to throw you for a loop you know and so you want to prepare yourself to AB negate your throne and teenagehood is all about the abnegation of the parental throne and parents are not ready to give up the throne you know they want to be on the throne and you can't in teenager they will serve you they will tell you go especially if you're not a benevolent ruler you know and if you haven't been benevolent enough they're not going to tolerate what do you think that'll increase the probability of rebellion like if you are because one of the the concepts that I became quite familiar with him I as I was researching this more and more was the idea that the more we dominate and suppress and use aggression and manipulation and perhaps lie to get the behavior we want yeah ultimately when they become wise enough of the age where the real issues are created they're not going to trust us and as a result when I don't trust us they weren't talked with and I will rebel and so I kind of and plays I don't know if I'm off one trajectory yeah then the other trajectories where you see children numb themselves and through absences and they withdraw and I rebel against themselves ultimately we don't want our children to have to rebel to find who it is they are so if they can be as close to it as they are then they won't have to go down the secure despot path and all of us did where we absconded ourselves to only have to find ourselves again for the next 30 years of our life you want your kid to be as close to their authentic self yeah even if you don't like how that looks they're not because if they're not and they follow your dictates eventually that suppression of the true self will erode at them to the point that they'll have to go and you know find their way again so you don't want them to go through the path we all went through you know find the South we had the self we lost the self to reclaim the self it's often interesting how we go for speeding convenience over what's long-term effective yeah because what I started to realize was when I stopped trying to manipulate my son's behavior were quite a lot more discussion a lot more communication which took a lot longer yeah but ultimately we'd still get the same result right so we once WikiLeaks parenting it's too annoying to sit on top you know who is time to meditate you know yeah these things require a whole different way of being which sees through the illusion of busyness you know so it's kind of simplicity parenting it's slowing down parenting slow cooker living where you just go into another gear you realize the illusion of all the madness you've bought into yeah you can still play the game if you want but understand you're playing it's not the life that you want to live the true life is in the here and now and slowing down to have the presence to be in the moment you know we're seeing a whole raft of new ways to regulate come into the market from technology to new substances drugs yeah the evolution of alcohols house packaging marker and but what we are seeing is you know there's obviously an incidence where substance and internal chemistry is being used as I guess you could say as a as a and what is it as a numbing yeah you know addiction rates are an all-time high people use the end depressants at all-time high you know and often times I hear parents talking about how they've their kids have been the Medicaid and all these different things but what I'm curious is how do we create the best environment to perhaps prevent you know situations where a child will seek out all will want to learn how to regulate through perhaps unhealthy behaviors how do we set our kids up to you know do it to the point of perfection my kid could be you know things would increase the probability yeah sure what's your trauma excessive stress in the house excessive Dogma dogmatism control show you familiar car bomb attack yeah and I'm a big fan of his work and as someone who's had experience interviewing me next week as well I guess someone I've been touched by addiction and I'm super grateful for the experience but I'm also now very conscious developmentally of how I got there wouldn't change it for the world but it now gives me a different set of tools and things you know the same circumstances different kids different trajectories yeah different parent different so nothing is a formula so true so you just don't know what kid you have and how that kid will resist you could raise the kid with the greatest connection the greatest note and that's why I tell parents that the goal is not to raise a particular kind of kid yeah the goal is to to heal yourself so that were the kid wanting and willing they had the availability of your presence you know but many kids don't need that or don't want that it depends on the kind of kid you have yeah I mean you know the prototypical two siblings grew up in the same house twins grew up and they were so different you know when parents are shaking the head that we gave them the same parenting but obviously the technique can be one thing but it's the how the predisposition of the kid is to take absorb that what do you what do you think that when you look at some of the variables that Garbo talks about when he goes okay if these elements are and again he looks at addiction as a special love and egos that spectrum is essentially influenced by the the level of on the intensity of certain variables in it what he talks about early childhood behavior to the age of seven the imprinting that occurs there and I so do I and if you don't have connection and attachment not spiritual kind of but like the safety security predictability constancy and nurturance that you know soothing then quite likely you know if an infant increasing probability increase in problems yeah and it depends on the kid yeah you could have a kid with all those things that's such you know so we have to let go of the control but you're right we create the probable conditions for that's where I don't even want the parent to create any conditions you know why I want the parent to focus on their healing when they heal the conditions get creative mmm right don't don't don't pretend to paint your wall into a pretty color of lavender because that is said to work on a particular part of the brain in a way yeah like don't look at the outside if you heal enough yeah chances are the highest chances are you will create a secure atmosphere because you're secure human being you're grounded in Europe in your own being States so you're going to exude that right you can have mater right you can have all the techniques down but you're miserable while you're breastfeeding and the kids absorbs that I love that it's like literally it's the literal essence of cause and effect so how do you make it consequential not effort yeah how do you create you and when you're in a great mood I see this with my daughter and she's in a pissy you know seventeen-year-old mood she can't really get me down you know I'll be like oh you know you you hate this Oh too bad or I'll tease her you know I just won't get affected which bothers her greatly release everything right she gets more angry but I why should my cheer go because you're hormonal or you're seventeen because I know that's your time to be in a bad mood or you know Rubel your time you know I had my time your time spread yeah don't be cheery and optimistic and you know be who you need to be this is your time just like a toddler's time is to be her total mess you know that's what toddlers do you take away the chocolate and they're supposed to go crazy go apeshit batshit crazy that's the toddler's prerogative you know a teenager's prerogative is to be rude and be dramatic and you know be you know apocalyptic about everything that's that time to think they're invincible you know to sneak around to think they've got a one up on you you there that's their first foray into their power and you want to take that away from them like why you know of course they're going to miss curfew what did you think they're not going to miss curfew so why you upset of course they're going to dabble in experimentation of some sort and then when they do you're appalled but you did the same thing you know it's like which level of piety are you coming from right so I am shocked my daughter is more well-behaved than I was you know that shocks me not the other way around I'm shocked I'm like you're not you're not like sneaking out at 2 o'clock sleeping with boys like I I wanted to do and probably did you know you didn't you know I go that shocks me yeah because I'm expecting normal adolescent behavior for example you know you're in turn and then I'm expecting you know I'm just expecting the whole gamete and I'm just expecting the unexpected you know I'm just expecting all of it the predictable the unpredictable because I don't hold a standard to what is a good life I think that's one of my biggest wisdom lessons of not having a standard you're a kung-fu master of kids and the reason I say that it's like I said I've done a lot of martial arts and one most potent forms martial arts I've seen it's what it's a formula star there is no form yeah like it is literally based on the flow of the body that's it I think yeah you absolutely now that is really through the form yeah and now and again I I said I fall into that trap all the time or so or give me a no no give me the process give me the one two three and that can sometimes be supportive as a step in the evolution yeah but ultimately that's only going to work until you get to the point where it doesn't yeah and there'll be something else discipline is a big thing that I think every parent deals with you know even with themselves and their kids when we look at conscious discipline because I think we all know what the traditional model of discipline is I think most people by now yeah and this is shocking I shared this in another interview I remember was before I had kids before I met my ex-wife I shared a name on Facebook that said I was spanked as a child and I grew up with what's called a healthy dose of respect for my elders and I remember sharing that and I copped quite a bit of abuse and I remember thinking of time and my defense was look I got thrashed and didn't me up and that's that's our cognitive dissonance reduction and it's so interesting because then or that I deserved it or my parents were try it you know I was really bad language was well that's just how things were done like that's just how things were done right but it was so interesting because when my son came into the world I still remember this moment it was a pivotal moment for me he was about it was about six months before we connected and Spike I remember the interview your interview with me and I remember you remember me remember me telling you because you said under what circumstances is it okay yeah to do something traditional not space but like a timeout and I remember telling you under no circumstances you know is it okay remember that moment and you took a deep breath and you went back in your chair because I could see it was breaking a pattern huge yeah I mean that I I said no timeout yeah no consequence no no physical consequence no emotional shaming know anything except deep understanding and connection right and you were trying to find some way to put your past into your present and I was just saying let me share with you there because that's to me is the culmination of this I had a moment or six months before I visualized doing everything that my mum because I was only brought up by a single mom had to me to discipline me and my mum did the best that she can and I'm not gonna shame her in any way but you know there was some stuff that I that was I went through but literally as I was going through it I started to cry and I thought how on earth could I possibly ever even raise a finger because I've never been a like I've done that to know her like maybe three times yeah and I've worked that out but at timeouts I hadn't yeah because I going back into my other life I was with this girl for about five years who had a daughter I was the pretend dad and you know I she hated me for the first six months and it was just this wildly creative and you know big loud child and so I was like how I can handle this child I went and watched every season of a super nanny yeah and I developed a level of effectiveness from that what was interesting it got to the point where it worked to a point right but it didn't didn't make me feel good like I felt terrible and it wasn't consistent and that's when I started to speak to you know as I came in so how do you discipline the child and I remember I sat back I was like okay I cannot use me yeah I have to use him right how do i how do you know a toddlerhood is irrational illogical you just have to ride the storm and it'll pass and those big feelings scare us you know because they're vehement and at the wrong time and place right then the grocery store they're in a party when you're with impressing your friends they're on a nice day on the beach when you want to relax it's terribly inconvenient to have a toddler go off on you right because they're not they're not they don't care about social mores so you just have to know this is the toddlerhood phase if it's not that far how do you put a boundary in place and a healthy one you can't you can you can't tell the kid to stop crying and the more you tell them they're going to probably cry more now you could scare them into stop crying which is what everyone tries to do yeah you know now could you distract them sure could you play with them sure could you entice them sure but typically what people do scare them into stop having the feelings only because the big feeling is terribly inconvenient but it's just a feeling and we think it'll never end but it kind of passes and learning to contain the toddler through gaze through our presence through our emotional steadiness you know I I didn't know how to do this either I had to learn you know fast how to be there for a toddler it used to bother me when my kid used to have this these extreme outbursts and rages right you want to fix it you want to manage it and then I learned oh the best way to fix it is just ride it with them and they will it'll pass but it used to unhinge me so much you know we're anxious beings and we want control and toddlerhood is a first foray into not having controlled by Y then we have a second and third kid we're kind of season you know we ignore that we walk over the kid you know the kid is having a tantrum the first kid brings out the worst in us because we treat them like porcelain you know but by the second and third kid we realize no one died nothing happened there was no brain damage this is just the part of the course and then you you you manage it better it's a moving away from managing the meltdowns more into the perhaps the the later stages five six seven eight nine ten how do you your child does the wrong thing they say the wrong thing to do the wrong thing based on whatever value system or or cultural system that is in place how do you impose the concept not discipline but the concept of a boundary in a way that is healthy that yeah you know right well just do some right now you know there are different ways to do it and I can't say I have the best way it depends on the child again depends on the parent I often work with the parents limitation you know okay for example I'm an extremely you know hippie I got may have no boundaries really I have to really train myself to be bothered by things you know that's my falling and my failing yeah so similarly if I have a parent like me I'll be like come on you know say something you know wake up do something I have to train the person that that's inappropriate right because I'm so easygoing so if a parent is like that it would be harder for them to discipline versus another parent who's controlling right don't put your shoes do you know that man needs to back off right so it depends on the style of the parent and I can't make a parent somebody they're not I work with the consciousness of the parent I have and I and then the consciousness of the child we have them and their nature and we try to find a match or I show the parent this is why it's not a match this one is really you know in-your-face dominant you have a dominant kid and you're a passive parent you're going to clash or you have a passive pair and you have a dominant pair you know passive kid a dominant parent so I try to show how the energies the natural energies of each other are causing the problem and the answer is not even to fix it the answer is just to understand it and within that mess trying to work something out and keeping the predominant focus on connecting with your kid you know and to stay away from control because the more you see things to be fixed the more things look long right if everything if you all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail so how do you avoid looking at the lack and fixing your kid to relaxing in their presence and all of us fall into that you know we see a kid lying on the couch the first thing we think of have you done your chores did you put away your toys did you have a shower you know and the kid just wants to connect to you my daughter used to say that to me the minute you come and talk to me you want to fix me you know and Mike my kid told me that and she actually still tells me that like please don't give me instructions right here because we think they're projects you know waiting for us to fix them you know if we didn't tell them they won't know how to live right but these are our delusions because we a we do love them but our love gets perverted by this need to control them I love him Mary you are like you really do go above it like you just go above it which I think takes a lot of the yeah a lot of thinking out of the process which is really quite unique like even to people in your space yeah you know when people think about having kids in here most of my people most my my audience who's watching this a lot of who's gonna have kids but there's also you know we touch older demographics whereby as a result we have you know 12 13 14 year-olds you know 21 year olds and as a part of our audience you know younger demographics as well is what I'm saying most people when they think about having kids they go okay well gotta get acupuncture get my diet right I'll get my health on point I wanna be as Fitness healthy and I want your sperm to be clean so let's get we'll all get cleansed and fast and they often do a lot of physical preparation in their you know in the in the pursuit of having kids but oftentimes people don't think about the mental preparation and I don't mean they're just like oh okay it's going to be a lot harder but with your experience like for those people who know it whether it's going to be in the next six months or the next six years or ten years at some point I'm going to have a child what are some of the things that I can do that we might either better prepare me to be able to deal with that or to be increase the probability or perhaps you know having in a journey that's going to be more cohesive to you know well you know being psychologically aware you know working on your past being aware of your lack based belief systems you know reading books like mine would have helped would have helped me so much so your books let's talk about that for a second you've got three incredible books what are they so the first one is the conscious parent and that lays the foundation of what it means to be an ego and yeah live in fear and then second one is out of control why discipline doesn't work and what will I love that book but people have a hard time with it and then the third book is called the awakened family which takes all of it and kind of goes deeper and really cuts through the the dysfunction of culture and how culture really has created a toxic environment for parents making it almost impossible for us to thrive culture has made it impossible for parents to feel good about themselves yeah and to feel successful as parents because there's always something you're not doing enough of yeah and your kid is not intense sports and your kid is not being three instruments New York it only knows one language and your mom doesn't meditate yeah you know they're always impossible standards people think my technique or my approach is creating more standards and I'm going to I'm taking away standards and asking you to enjoy the mess of this you know there is no standard of perfection that you can achieve in anything the Internet has given rise to a whole range of opportunities and access you're one of them but there's obviously a lot of people now who are starting to apply labels to themselves and perhaps did wouldn't have done that before because they're able to perhaps either analyze themselves something I hear a lot of people coming to me with he's talking about codependency yeah and they talk about how they've identified that they have codependent tendencies either on on either sizes that you know perhaps is the narcissistic side or on the other side but what I'm curious is and again I I think I already know arias is going to be to this question but how does codependency start and perhaps what are the things as parents we can be conscious of that might support the greater probability of that interdependence that I guess everyone looks for because I guess I didn't dependence but not an in measurement yeah because I guess most parents are like when I raise a kid that becomes all healthy happy but then the whole idea of them leaving they're they're absolutely terrified because they admit I need this anymore correct that's the absolute right that's the absolute ultimate outcome is differentiation yeah you don't need me anymore you can't abandon that is the goal yes you know and parents are terrified of that because they're garnering and depending on that identity for their value wrong and that is the number one you know pitfall of parenting so the ultimate goal is differentiation where your kid feels autonomous enough to be bold enough and empowered enough to be on their own whether they're right whether they're prepared the fact that they are they see themselves as separate from you hmm and that's what's so heartbreaking for us because we want to be in mesh with them because we haven't meshed with the identity of being a parent we so want to be mothers forever for example that we can't bear that we are not in the mothering role anymore but everything has its season and it's time you know I remember when my father was around 60 years old he stopped fathering me in the way that I was used to you know he wouldn't check up on me he would in quote-unquote pamper me the way he was he kind of just let me go and I was indignant and I was like how can he let his salvation I remember judging him and then I realized appropriately he's letting me fly and he's telling me enough and he's also resigning from the role he's like I did the role now how much I mean I'll always be your parent but do I really need to father you forever and he didn't even say all these things but that's what I understood yeah and he was like let resigning he effectively resigned you know and I think we all need to resign from the role now we can always be parents but we don't have to be the mothering you know the fathering and constantly in the way that we have been at least you know we need to redefine our role and redefine our position in the role energy in the role we need to reimagine this constantly you know I remember when my daughter was 12 and I was trying to lecture her sermonize about something and she tried to listen and defend herself and then she said you know what why am I even explaining or explaining to you anything you are irrelevant and I remember feeling the raw of my ego and I wanted to punish her from saying it out loud my greatest fear and then I stopped and I realized that's the greatest compliment you know I mean she was very rude but what did you know of it but it was really a compliment to herself that she made me irrelevant because that's the goal you know we want to become irrelevant to our children because they are relevant and we don't need to keep controlling and boring our control into them but that's a revolutionary idea and people are terrified of that you know I want my daughter to fire me you know because I have things to do I have my own life to live and so does she and I'm sure she's waiting for me to resign myself that nothing would give her greater joy because she needs to be empowered in her own identity you know we're not when she was 12 or 13 I would say you know I'm leaving on a trip and she'd go mommy don't go and I used to feel so good I was like wow she loves me and now she's 17 and now when I say I'm gonna go she's like okay right I see how I need to let go I need to stop depending on this role and her love to fill me you know I her dependency on me is not healthy for her it's it's great for my ego but it's not even good for my soul you know for our soul it's to walk up individual paths and let each other go what it's unhealthy enmeshment looked like from like a behavioral perspective so there's someone might go oh my god I might be doing that yeah many many things that I do some of them some of them I don't so the things I don't do for example is dictate what activity she does what she does on the weekend what friends she has how who's she's sleeping know who she who or even that right who's she's sleeping with it shouldn't be my problem if she's already sleeping with someone at a later age you know but the you know who she sat for lunch with or who invited her for a party or who her friends are what problems she's having with them those are not in my jurisdiction or where she goes to college or giving her radius you know you can only go in these places because I want to meet you all the time what Korea she pursues what what endeavors she was like a three to seven year old what does it look like it yeah and then for younger kids yes well for younger kids we do need to be more hands-on and present but we have to do it in a playful way not in a non tyrannical way so that they also feel empowered you know they are kind of helpless to our tyranny yeah they will go to the preschool we send them to they will go to the lessons we enroll them and they don't know the vast possibilities they're subject to our imagination and our dictatorship so you you are aware of the power you have and you want to meet it out with as much benevolence grace freedom and giving choice as possible as possible and the way to do that really is to watch your kid is to witness them and to see them in the essence so that whatever you are putting onto their plate you're doing it with an understanding of who it is they are you know and not to over micromanage every moment so yes we do need to sleep by 9:00 o'clock but if it's 9:30 it's okay everything should be in a range of possibility you know so that your children feel ease and flexibility and playfulness at that age you know and then as they grow older - watch yourself so for example my inability to undifferentiated when I asked my daughter you know have you done your homework it just comes out of my mouth and how stupid because she always says yes I don't think she's ever said no but we keep doing the same - yeah because I feel like I'm in control yeah I need to check that box you know or I'll be like did you have a shower again she's never gonna say no or she's never gonna say oh my goodness you're right I'm going right now you know and but I feel like I'm obsessed I'm obsessed there and I can't on my sides like a tick but being aware is the first step so all I'm saying to you is that all of us have these obsessions you know do it this way do it that way and we want to control our children but be aware yeah oh no what I meant was micro control like oh yeah macro is and from five to six we do this and one six to six fifty we read a book of a six fifteen to seven we pray and oh my goodness you're setting yourself up for failure you know why are you doing this to yourself you know because you want to control the unpredictable nature of life you know and releasing that is scary for people you know and as your kid goes into teenagehood you you know I still do this did you do your homework did you do that you know and silly questions yeah which really nobody should be allowed to ask after a certain age but be parents think we can keep asking you know I my mother still ask me question that that I at forty seven now tell her mom stop you know she's still doing it because she can't get off the bandwagon of being a mother yeah so when do we stop well you know that's powerful okay last question why - two-parter why do you do what you do like what's the reason that you do what you do and the second part is what would you love your legacy to be and I know from my sense you're not attached yeah you're very much whatever will be will be but I am curious as to what is it that drives you like the reason well I think I see people suffer and I understand why they suffer and I want to offer them a pathway when they're ready mm-hmm to suffer less but I don't want to take away their suffering you know I'm not invested in taking away people's suffering no I am offering a hand but I know that their suffering is part of the evolution so why would I rob them of it you know I'll just show them the meaning of their suffering and so that they can have consciousness in the suffering but I never say don't suffer you know I'll say let's be conscious in our suffering let's be conscious in our in our depression let's be conscious in our addiction and when you're ready your consciousness will grow to a point that you're so ready that one day you'll just step out of it you know that's the organic way to heal you know not to say be happy not to say don't suffer you know go this is why you're suffering now let's be conscious suffer but be conscious that you are choosing the suffering at this point or you're willingly co-creating the suffering at this point you know sustain them in the unhealthy marriage please it's your prerogative you know I'm not going to tell you to leave but I understand this is why you're not leaving or this is why you're you're in it or how you're co-creating it you know and now it be illuminated in your suffering at least let's not pretend the suffering is being done to you you know so I think that's what motivates me is to help people be conscious how people live their most awakened life and to laugh at them at themselves and to play what does that give you when you're able to do that yeah I think it definitely gives me a lot okay the others I wouldn't do it you know I'm not a mother Teresa here and I'm sure it gave mother Teresa a lot you know nobody does anything wrong because we are some great beings at least not me I do it because I get a payback and the payback I get is a great rush of gratification to see to see like I help somebody to see somebody suffer less it gives me great joy you know and that's what I'm hungry for it and that's my payback you know if I kept doing it and they were miserable I wouldn't do it anymore every like that's a nice idea and you're too miserable yeah but I see the change in people and when I see them suffer less and and find freedom and laugh at this whole joke cosmic joke that were in it does give me you know a shot of dopamine and that's my addiction you know that's why I do it relentlessly yeah passionately I'm excited I want to be part of that you know that's I want to be part of the joy of the alleviation of suffering I want to be part that's the party I want to be at you know oh do you mind if I ask another question do you see are you seeing a change in the trajectory of the culture of parenting in terms of very you know a hair a hair I we work in the point zero zero zero zero zero one percent so do I see it definitely is it ever going to be what my legacy would want never you know so I don't even think of a legacy you know it's in this moment in this period and that's it you know so you don't there is no vision of a legacy if you you know I don't even think my daughter will teach or embody what I'm not it's ended even here we've created an Institute now you have coach you created a movement you've almost you know yeah yeah so if you're in the middle like you've started in many respects something called conscious parenting out there now thanks to the books but I also think there's a bigger conversation around consciousness in general those consciousness is coming more and more to the surface like we can't we are yes so I'm part of the conversation you're part of it in a very important part yeah because it's where we all begin right yeah so I'm thrilled to be part of it I'm humbled to be part of it I'm not a creator of anything I'm just grateful to be in the pot at the invited to the party you know I'm so grateful when people want to talk about consciousness with me I mean what a great what a great job I have to help people become more conscious it's the most elevated discussion and you know the greatest semantics we can share you know it's the most elevated dialogue I'm privileged to be part of and then it's called my work you know so it's it's a great honor for me to be able to talk this language and live in this vibration but it ends kind of in that moment you know it's for this moment we did great we had this condors we shared it and tomorrow we can be the most unconscious and that's part of the journey right that's part of the moment I yeah I can't thank you enough for this opportunity to get the interview this has actually been a massive and a tremendous highlight for me if there's one thing you'd like to leave the listeners with like is there one just short piece of advice that you know is quite meta yes you're beautiful in your meta and I think it's just you laugh at this whole ridiculous setup that we call you know our world you know it's really quite a joke to me I'm sorry I mean I'm not laughing at it but I do laugh with it you know it's hilarious to me the things that we take so seriously and we've created all these institutions and we're so serious about our beauty and you know it's just hilarious you know and if we can if we can inject humor in all of it and play with it you know then we live quite free you know where we're not bound by rules or you know what other people say and we're just laughs we realize it's all unconscious you know so I want your opinion but you're as unconscious as I am so why am i giving you any power and then you take your power back and you live your life your way you know and I think that's the greatest freedom to give people is take the power back you've given power to this matrix that is unconscious you know it should just be laughed with and then you take your power back and you can really just enjoy this adventure you know now you may not have started the party but you certainly brought a lot more people to the dance floor I'm very grateful to be one of them so first of all how can people find out more about you your books where to buy your books and also you're coming to a strike I'm coming to yes so I will be in Sydney July 22nd and in Melbourne July 24th okay and they can get all the information on my Facebook page it's dr. dr Shefali I think yeah and then my website is dr. Shefali calm and we'll be in touch and I hope you'll come and visit me when I was there in Sydney yes and I hope all your your audience yeah in the in the description below thank you thank you so much you're very welcome this episode was brought to you by nail at the scale at the world's leading fast growth program for business they have a guys thanks for tuning in to unstoppable me your host : right and please do not forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you get to see all of these interviews in their flesh share this podcast with your friends and drop me a review on iTunes I would love to hear what you guys think and also let you know your comments help make sure that we keep producing killer content just like this and if you'd like to stay up to date with all of my movements upcoming podcasts events and much more please jump onto the website Kirwan Raycom and also check us out on all social media on the handle at Kerwin Dre thanks for joining us

Channel: Kerwin Rae

Views: 23,432

Rating: 4.8526702 out of 5

Keywords: Kerwin Rae, kerwinrae, Kerwin, Rae, Conscious parent, conscious parenting, conscious parenting oprah, conscious parenting discipline, conscious parenting dr shefali, parenting, parenting tips, empowering children, dr shefali, shefali tsabary, dr shefali tsabary, how to become a better parent, family education, parenting advice

Id: 42Mt8Oi5Fh0

Length: 83min 57sec (5037 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020