October 23, 2025 • 47 mins
We are the self help generation. There is so much access to information on how to better ourselves, work through all the sh*t from our childhoods, and break cycles. Today’s episode is going to be particularly interesting to anyone who is a parent, but even if you don’t have kids yourself, it will help you understand some of the psychology of your own experiences growing up and how those experiences show up in our day to day lives.
Dr. Shefali is joining us today and she has been described by Oprah herself as “one of the most profound parenting experts of our time”. With a doctorate in clinical psychology, Dr Shefali is a New York Times bestselling author multiple times over, and the founder of the Conscious Parenting movement. Much of her work centers around healing a lot of the stuff that we are carrying with us from our childhood into our adult lives - and how it shows up in our parenting styles. She also answers one of the biggest parenting questions we tend to ask ourselves - how to build resilience in kids in today’s chaotic world.
We chat:
- How Dr Shefali’s work was revolutionary at the time, but we are now immersed in it
- Our ego gets in the way when we are parenting
- How much of our experience as a parent is impacted by our own childhood
- The real reason children have tantrums
- Our kids don’t need the ‘heavily architectured’ lives we give them full of extra curricular activities every day
- Building resilience in kids and how to find the balance
- Unpacking our challenging relationships with our parents
- Is parenting actually a selfless act?
You can get yourself a ticket to Dr Shefali’s tour
Sydney
Melbourne
You can find more from Dr Shefali’s website and Instagram
You can watch us on Youtube
Find us on Instagram
Join us on tiktok
Or join the Facebook Discussion Group
Hosted by Britt Hockley & Laura Byrne
Produced by Keeshia Pettit
Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford
Recorded on Cammeraygal Land
Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! Xx
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on cameragle Land.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life.
I'm cut, I'm Laura, I'm Brittany. Now I have said
it many times on this podcast, and that is that
we are the self help generation of the times.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
A lot of us have been the therapy.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A lot of us are trying to unpack the shit
that we went through in our own childhoods to try
and be better versions of ourselves and also break cycles. Now,
this conversation that we're having today is going to center
quite largely around parenting, around how we parent our own children,
but also if you don't have kids, I think it's
really an important one to listen to because it's not
(00:43):
just a reflection of how we parent as parents, but
also reflecting on the relationship that we have with our
own parents and how it was that we were raised
and the impact that that has on us. Doctor Shafali
is joining us today and she has been described by
Oprah herself as one of the most profound parenting experts
of our time. With a doctorate in clinical psychology, doctor
(01:04):
Sheafai is a New York Times best selling author multiple
times over. She is the founder of the conscious parenting movement,
and so much of her work centers around healing a
lot of the stuff that we all carry with us
from our childhood into adult lives and how it shows
up in our parenting styles, whether you are a helicopter parent,
whether you are somebody who is overscheduling your children's life,
(01:25):
or you're wanting to build deeper connection with your kids. Today,
we're also answering one of the biggest parenting questions that
we tend to ask ourselves, which is how do you
build resilience in kids in today's very, very chaotic world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Doctor Shefali, Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Now, for anyone who's not familiar with your work, can
you explain to all of our listeners what your teachings
of conscious parenting is.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, well, you know, when I started teaching conscious parenting,
you know, twelve fifteen years ago, no one was talking
about the unconsciousness of the parent and the parent's ego,
So I was really breaking ground at that time. So,
in a nutshell, conscious parenting really flipped the traditional paradigm
(02:09):
of parenting, which used to focus on fixing the child
and creating this golden child and you know, focused on
the child's achievements and who they would be when they
grow up. And my work just turned everything on its
head and kind of revolutionized the way parenting was taught
back then and really focused on the parent raising themselves,
(02:31):
that you have to raise yourself to a higher level
of consciousness. Now, when I say this for you know,
your age group, you must be like, yeah, well, what's
so revolutionary about that, because you're immersed in the oceans
of this language now. But let me tell you when
I started this, you know, way back I'm talking like
fifteen years ago, this was unheard of and parents would
(02:53):
get really triggered and provoked and I was told to
like back off and leave parents alone. It was really
breaking ground at that time. We didn't have Facebook even
back then, and I was just parent to parent, you know,
going around in this grassroots movement, trying to pioneer this
new movement. And now it's such a thing out there right.
(03:15):
Conscious parenting is such a well known phenomenon, and I'm
so grateful to everyone who's taken to it, because when
the parent raises themselves to a higher level of consciousness,
and what does that mean? That means they look at
themselves in the mirror, they do the inner work. They
see their child as a mirror to the ways that
they still have to grow up and their unhealed parts,
(03:36):
and they look at their ego and see their expectations
and understand that they're projecting on their child. And all
that stuff was breaking ground back then. And that's what
I teach. And it's really created a movement now out
in the world. And this is what I help parents with.
I have a coaching institute, I have tons of courses.
I'm coming to Australia on a tour. I go around
(03:59):
the world and parents really understand. And the reason why
parents understand it even though their ego gets hit really hard,
is because they were children once and they were the
vessels of their parents' projection. So they see how harmful
that can be and they want to break the pattern.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
What is it about conscious parenting? And when you say
the ego gets hit really hard? What is it about
conscious parenting? And I guess the teachings of it that
are so hard for parents to be able to come
on board with or there's resistance about, like what is
it that is the thing you get the most pushed back?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, there's many layers of it that are very provoking.
So at a very basic layer, I teach that your
expectations of your child often have nothing to do with
the essence of who your child is and all to
do with your own unfulfilled fantasies, your own unfulfilled life.
So because you haven't lived out your life, those expectations
(05:01):
on your child now that could be in all sorts
of ways. So, for example, if your child comes home
and says, oh, you know, I'm in the child is
in third grade, and the child didn't get invited to
the popular kid's birthday party, your unhealed self around belonging,
around being part of a group, around being cool and
hip and worthy, your issues are going to come up.
(05:24):
But if you're unconscious and you're not even aware, you
will begin reacting in all sorts of unconscious egoic ways
and not even realize that it's your unhealed self that
is in the driver's seat and you're actually not even
helping your child. So you may say things like, oh,
my goodness, you know, let me call the teacher. This
is not okay and this is not fair, and your
(05:47):
child is like okay, like maybe it's not such a
big deal. But now I'm thinking it's a big deal
because my mother is going ape shit crazy. Right, So
that's just one example. Or you may buy the baby
g and piano, and you may buy the orchestra, and
you may buy the skiing tickets, and your child is
not even four years old, right, And you may think, oh,
(06:09):
I'm doing all this because I want my child to
be well rounded and you know, really you know, exposed
to all sorts of things. Actually it could just be
your lack right, and the child is actually okay being
who they are. And many times we impose on our
children all sorts of control and expectations that come from
our fear and our unworthiness. So at that level, it's
(06:33):
provoking enough for the parents to ask themselves, you know,
am I doing this because it's really my child who's
asking for it? Or am I doing it because I
am projecting that they need this?
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So I guess I mean on a more basic level,
maybe more growing up level, it's like, maybe you didn't
have the opportunity as a parent when you were younger
to go and get a secondary education. You really want
your child to go to university or college whatever it
is your child doesn't want to go, so you're trying
to encore. Is that push it? You'll pay for them,
whatever it is. But how do you differentiate between trying
(07:04):
to put your child in a box because maybe you
missed out on an opportunity, because we can all think
of how many times our parents said, you know, you
should be grateful for the opportunity. I never had that chance.
But how do you differentiate between that projecting maybe your
issues onto your child and also just wanting the best
for your child because an education will lead to a
good job, which would lead to good money, which would
(07:26):
hopefully leave to stability and happiness. How can you differentiate those?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, there's an easy way to differentiate, but again, one
has to be aware of one's self. If one is
not self aware, you're not going to be able to
differentiate anything. But the way to differentiate is to really
ask yourself a pivotal question, Am I operating right now
from a fear based place or an abundance based place?
(07:51):
And when you are attuned with your child, your partner,
your friend, you are in alignment with what is naturally
emerging from them, and you allowed them to be a
few steps ahead and you are following closely and you're
listening deeply. But when you're projecting and when you are
just imposing and you're coming like just out of your
(08:13):
own unconsciousness but you're not aware, then it's full of fear,
it's full of control. It's pushing, pushing, pushing, and there's
stress and there's anxiety, and there's tension. And that's really
the way you know in any life choice, whether you
are following into deep alignment with the soul's calling, so
(08:34):
to speak, or you are pushing against something because culture
tells you that that's what's good or expected of you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think from myself with my own sort of motherhood
and parenting journey, one of the big things about becoming
a month for me was that it held a mirror
up to my childhood experiences, and that stuff comes out.
I think anyone either you're conscious that it does come out,
or you're denying it. But the way in which you
were parented, you're experiences as a child. You have these
(09:02):
moments where you're then placed as the parent and you're
talking to your children or getting triggered by them, or
you feel that overwhelming feeling of like frustration or whatever
it is, and it kind of like makes you either
have empathy for your parents or it makes you resent
the way that they parented. How much of our I guess,
(09:23):
our experience as parents is formed by what it is
that we experienced as kids.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Oh, my god, I would say all of it until
and unless you have deconstructed your own past patterns and
really looked in the mirror and really observed yourself and
reflected on how is this moment right now really about
me and my past versus my child before me? Most
(09:52):
of us don't even connect to the person before us
in any relationship. Most of us are stooped in deep projection.
We're just sunken in this projected mirage and we call
it reality, but it's not. It's a drama being played
in our mind. And that's what waking up is. Waking
up is realizing you've been a zombie in a mirage
(10:15):
and you've just been projecting onto the world and not
realizing that you are the one who is enacting the drama.
You've been thinking it's the external situation, it's the child,
you know. I got upset because my child was obnoxious,
and I got really angry because my partner was an asshole. No,
it's you. You know, you are enacting your own internal
(10:36):
drama and projecting it onto the screen of the world
and understanding this is the key to awakening. It's the
difference between a seeker and a non seeker, between being
asleep and being awake. And it's a trip, you know.
And most people are zombies and they don't realize that
they are the architects of their own reality. They truly
(10:56):
think that the other on the outside is the evil
person and the reason for their problems.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Tota Schwali, you're a mum yourself and your daughter is
in her twenties. Now, what was it about your parenting experience, Like,
did you have a shift yourself where you realized these
are the techniques that are working for me. Or was
there a great reflection that you had on your own
upbringing that made you realize, Okay, I want to break
this cycle.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, all of it. So you know, I was a
psychologist before I was a parent, So I began observing
in my clients that holy shit, the first ten years
of your life really mark you and shape you. And
all I'm doing in adult therapy is undoing the first
twenty years of your life, right, the whole adult life
is about undoing the first twenty years and the belief
(11:43):
systems of the first ten years. And then I became
a parent, and you know, like all you know naive
and delusional parents, we think, oh, we are going to
be amazing, right, We're not going to be doing this nonsense,
and we're going to have angel children, going to be awesome.
And then your first meltdown happens and you realize, I
(12:05):
have no control over my emotions. This three year old
has gotten the best for me. I am losing my mind.
And then you have an opportunity. And this happened to me.
You know, my daughter was three. I was losing my mind.
I saw her spirit deflate in front of my very eyes,
and I was like, oh my goodness. You know, you
promised you would do the inner work and here you
(12:27):
are vomiting all over your child and out of control.
And that's when I made a pledge that I needed
to change my patterns because I knew this would happen.
I just didn't think I was that week that it
would happen to me. You know, I thought I was
better than what I was. And this is the arrogance
of the parent right and becoming humble and realizing with
(12:47):
deep compassion for the self that this is almost unavoidable
because you have never met this child before, and you've
never been in this moment before. So you have to
give grace to yourself and allow yourself to really collapse,
but then be willing to do the work. So this
all this happened to me, and I then realized, oh
(13:08):
my goodness. You know, I meditate, and I meditate on
my ego, and I had no idea that the ego
would show up in my parenting. No one was talking
about it back then, you know, and parents are pedestalized
and almost you know, sanctified as these holy creatures because
we quote unquote love our children. It's as if we
(13:31):
are absolved of unconsciousness. And I now have come to
see that love has nothing to do with it. In fact,
love your try less. Just be more conscious, you know,
don't talk about love. Love is bastardized as a term.
And it's almost as if we excuse ourselves. But I
love you? Who cares? You know, you're an asshole? You know,
you go fix yourself, Go do something with yourself, eli
(13:53):
yours out. Don't tell me, you love me, show me
through your actions, through your healing, that you are accepting me.
I want you to accept me. I don't care about
whether you love me or not. You know, there's a
big difference. And all of these teachings came to me
through my own parenting journey, and I've written seven books
now and many more to go. A two more coming
(14:14):
out next year, because there's so much to uncover about
this and we need to allow parents to heal.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Just as something tangible and practical here if we just
take a side step as a psychologist for everyone listening
right now that has a three year old that is
having that tantrum. You're in the middle of the supermarket,
they're having this absolute meltdown. You're at your limit. What
as a professional is your advice in that situation? Because
we hear a lot about maybe this is the time
(14:42):
that you teach your child that they can't behave like this,
and you hear a lot of gentle parenting where people say,
let them feel their emotions, ignore them, walk away. What
is some practical advice in that minute.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, the first thing you have to know is that
you are raising a child. What that means is you
have to understand their brain development. So children act out
obnoxiously and unreasonably and irrationally for three reasons only. So
if you get this in your head, then you go through,
you know, the three reasons, and you go, oh, this
(15:13):
is probably the reason why my child is acting like
a lunatic, and now I can take action. So what
are the three reasons? First one is they simply haven't
had enough practice. So you take them to a supermarket
aisle and you think, oh, I'm just going to hop
in and buy a few things. You don't realize this
is like, you know, crack cocaine. It's like so much
(15:36):
stimulation and the child cannot handle it. Right. I remember
when I first came from India and I ordered a
sandwich in America. In India you only had white plastic
rubber bread and that's all you got is your sandwich choice, right,
And I came to this fancy deli in San Francisco
and they were like, oh, you want a sandwich. I
(15:57):
was like yeah. Literally I ran away from the shop
because I had a meltdown because the choices they gave me,
you know, poppy seed and sesame seed and rye and
honeyweat and you know, raisin bread. And I was like,
are you freaking kidding me? I don't even know what
you're talking I just have a sandwich, right, And I
got overwhelmed and I was twenty one. So this is
(16:19):
what we're doing to our children, and then we expect
them to behave So the first thing we did wrong
is take our children to the supermarket aisle and not
expect a meltdown. Right. Number two. The second reason why
children act out and dissolve into a mess is because
their brain literally doesn't have the skills to handle stress
(16:43):
or delays or frustration. The executive center of their brain
is not developed big Swiss cheese holes all the way
till twenty eight. So you are living with somebody who
is really feral and wild, who every twenty minutes is
going to fall apart. So if you understand that, then
you're like, oh, let me arm myself for the worst, right,
(17:05):
But that's what parents are like so naive. They're like, oh,
let's go have a great day at the beach, and
then it's a shit show because they're not prepared for
the child to be terrified of a snail and off
a shell and of every drop of water, and they're like,
why are you getting scared? Well, because their brain cannot
process this shit right. And the third reason why they
act out is because they don't feel safe. They don't
(17:28):
feel connected, They have unworthiness, right, so they're not feeling safe. Now,
if you understand this, then there's no point in teaching anything.
You just have to remedy the situation. You go, ah,
my child is overwhelmed. I either just clench my jaw
through this raging tantrum and just suffer the stairs of
everyone and just tell everyone, yes, I'm a loser, mom,
(17:49):
and just move on with the day. Or you fix it.
You don't go, you call for help, you go out,
but you manage it. There's nothing to teach. The child
simply can handle this situation. You have put them in
a situation that is beyond their capacity and their pay grade.
They cannot handle it now. Of course, later you can
(18:10):
practice going to the aisle and practice at home what
it means to go to school. Practice I The best
way to handle these situations is you prepare your child
through role plays. But even if you roleplay the hell
out of a situation, the child is still an undeveloped
brain who can only handle so much, and the minute
(18:31):
you put in too much hunger, too much heat, too
much frustration, you have an explosion.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I love the example you just gave because I feel
like every single parent can relate to the fact that
you've just spent all morning getting the kids ready, you
got to the beach, and then all of them are
screaming at you because their legs are richy and they're cold,
and you've been there for ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And then there's this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Feeling of as a parent, you're like, oh, I've done
all this stuff for you today and you're so ungrateful,
Like that's the that's kind of like where the brain
first goes to when you're like, we went to them,
we went did this thing, and now you're doing is
screaming at me. And it's so hard to separate those feelings.
When as a parent you do feel as though you're giving,
(19:11):
you know, as in your give and give and give.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's the problem. That is the problem. Children don't need
to be given at this age till nine and ten,
Like minimize the giving because it's actually too overwhelming, and
then we are resentful. So this heavily architectured life that
we've created for our children. Oh, you go to dance
(19:35):
on Tuesdays, and then you go for the trombone on Wednesday,
and then we go for yoga on Thursday, and then
we meditate it. Then then we say the song, and
then we thank God and then we you know, then
we have a bath and then we you know, hold hands.
This is all our ego in motion. Children don't even
need it. It's actually not even good for them. And
(19:55):
that's why if you understand what children need child development,
then you really simplify your parenting. You slow it down,
and you actually live happier and your child is actually okay,
really okay. I talk about in my book The Awakened
Family a situation where, you know, my daughter was eight
(20:17):
years old and I took her for her first structured
dance class and the woman at the counter the reception
is said, oh, okay, you know she will she can
join the three year olds on Tuesday evening. And I
was like, no, no, ma'am, you don't understand. She's eight
years old. And she looked at me and she said, no,
you don't understand. If this is her first dance class,
(20:41):
she has to be with the three year olds, and
I was like, wow, did everyone get this memo? Like,
how is my kid the only kid who is starting
at eight? I thought that was a healthy time to start,
but apparently everyone's already performing at Carnegie Hall. You know,
I was like way behind. I felt so bad for
(21:01):
my kid. I was like, you know what, she will
just do solo activities. So she just did horse riding
and tennis because she was behind everything. Apparently all the
team sports she was way behind. And you know, I
was just praying that she wouldn't realize that her mother
fucked it up so badly, Like I was six years
behind the curb already at eight. But this is the
(21:22):
insanity of our culture. It is not normal. Children don't
need activities every single day for us to feel like
we are, you know, achieving parents. And parents will then
say to me, well, then how will they be exposed?
So I said, you know, who decides how much they
should be exposed to? I said, what about underwater scuba
diving off the Maldives, and what about back flipping through
(21:44):
the Alps at eight? And what about You know, there
are a million things they should be exposed to. But
does that mean we should and what happens to just
being and connecting and being in solitude and with your imagination?
What happened to playing with the kitchen utensils? Like what
happened to that? You know? So we've become these egoic
(22:05):
maniacs and we are living out a resume through our children.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
How do you find a balance as a parent between
supporting their interests and wanting to build resilience in your
children and wanting them to have a sense of purpose
or drive, and also recognizing, Okay, this is not actually
what is best for the child. This is because I
want them to do it, or this is because I
(22:30):
thought it would be great for them to go to soccer,
or I thought it would be great for them to
do this activity. How do you, as a parent really
sit with yourself and go, Okay, these sit in two
different camps.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, I think we have focused too much on raising
adults in childhood. Childhood is its own stage of development
and children are not mini adults. They're children. They're not
mini adults. And that's a big mind shift that people
need to understand. And it's because we have fear and
anxiety that we're going to mess up that we're not
(23:00):
going to raise you know, functional human beings because actually
we are doubting our own capacity and we're so terrified
that they'll be living in our basement that we are
like go go, go, do do do achieve achieva you
don't give up. But listen. Childhood is a time for
exploration and for connection to the self and other, and
(23:24):
we're missing that connection piece. And connection to the self
is what creates ultimate resilience and anti fragility, not disconnection
from the self, but sticking through things that your parents say,
you know, create resilience and grit. Resilience comes from inner connection,
from like I'm worthy, I'm capable, I'm good, put me anywhere,
(23:48):
and I have me right. That is what creates grit
and resilience. But if they are constantly puppeteered by the
outside supervisor and the task master AI you know, the
parent or you know, the machine or the technology or
whatever's on the outside you know AI today or whatever
gimmick today, they are not going to find that inner connection.
(24:13):
And that's what, in my opinion, creates the greatest resilience.
So that's what you want to focus on in childhood,
not the doing, but the being. And this is very
again another provocative thing for high achieving type A parents
who have made a project out of their role and
they think it's their next calling, their next PhD, and
(24:34):
they want to win a prize at parenting through their children,
and their children are trophy children. And parents get very
provoked when I say this because they don't want to
look at that ego that is in the room. And
then I show it to them and then they get
depressed and they feel guilty. Then they're really ashamed, and
I'm like, now you're making it about you again. So
(24:56):
but it's the truth. I have worked with families for
thirty years now and I have deeply observed how ego
the parent is and then the child grows up to
be an adult, like we were going to therapy looking
for their authentic self. When they had the authentic self
(25:17):
that they were told that that wasn't enough, so they
created the egoic self, the false self, which was to
get the validation and the crumbs of approval and love
from the outside world. Which is everybody's disease. And where
does it start. It starts when the parent imposes on
the child the parent's unfinished self and the unhealed self.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
You mentioned fear and anxiety before, and fear and anxiety
lead to control, which you've spoken about in your books.
But for example, let's just go and use a public
speaking event. You put your child in public speaking because
it's really good for them. The whole class is doing it.
Your child doesn't want to do it. They're beside themselves.
I'm scared to do it. All the feelings are have anxiety.
I don't want to go out there. But you know
as a parent that like this is going to help
(25:59):
set them up for their life. You know that they're
going to learn a skill, you know that there's going
to be times that they're fearful. How do you then
get to the point of saying, Okay, you know what,
you don't want to do it, don't do it, or look,
I know deep down as a parent, this is going
to be better for you, Like I know it's going
to help you build the resilience. I guess I I'm
having trouble understanding where that line is of letting a
(26:19):
child just be but also saying you know, well, a
child is a child, they're not a small adult.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah. At first, I think there is no line it's
a very curvy situation of shifting sand right. But here's
the thing. You're asking it from a mind space from
the outside. When you're in it and you're practicing conscious parenting,
you are connected to your child. You're understanding them from
(26:44):
within them. So most of us are parenting from outside.
In conscious parenting teaches you to tune into who the
child is. Now here's the thing you said. Another thing
you said is I know that this is going to
be good for you. This statement is not true. We
don't know. Now we think it will, it could actually
end up being the most traumatizing thing in their life.
(27:07):
I'm just saying, not everyone is a public speaker. Not
everyone needs to be a public speaker. We have to
go with who your child is. For example, parents will
come to me and say, well, you know, they should
learn the piano because it's so good for their you know,
inter hemispheric integration.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
And I'm like, you don't know. Yes, it's probably good,
but if you traumatize them to do it, it's probably
not good. Now here's the way I create the line
that you're looking for. It's really easy. I ask myself
and I ask parents to ask this question, is this
a life enhancing skill or is it an ego enhancing skill? Now?
(27:44):
How do I know? What is what a life enhancing skill?
Are life's basics that the tribal people did when we
were living in tribes to now sleeping, community, breathing, eating,
cleaning yourself, hi gi, hygiene, compassion, you know, laughter, These
(28:04):
are the basics.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Anything over that could be good, but it's not absolutely mandatory.
And if you keep it really simple, I'm telling you,
it just takes away the anxiety of my kids.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
You do this, and my kits you do that? And
how many shoulds? How many shoulds? Should be a world
traveler and you know, you know, a trombone play and
a puppeteer and a singer and a dancer. How and
mother Teresa and Michaelshofts, how much should this poor child be?
So life enhancing skills in today's modern world would be,
(28:41):
you know, very much to do with community, very much
to do with connection to self, very much to do
with reading, writing, and you know, literacy, and basic hygiene
and swimming, taking care of you know, so if you
drown and basically you know, knowing basic survival skills, if
you've done that well, which is a lot to do,
(29:03):
let me tell you, because community is a big piece
of this learning to live in community and connection. Again,
I come back to connection before correction, connection before doing.
If you take care of that, then your child will
be more confident and be a better public speaker than not.
Your child will be more resilient. Your child will find
(29:24):
what drives them to purpose. They don't need to find
purpose as a child in the way we adults do,
because their purpose as a child is to be that
completely in the body, in nature, moving, living, breathing. Right,
that's well, what did our tribal people do our communities.
They were out in nature all the time. Look how
(29:46):
little our kids are in nature? Right. We're focusing on
tasks and achievements, but we're leaving out the most basic
ingredients that make a healthy human being.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Said something earlier around kids growing up and then being
in therapy, which I mean to be fair, we probably
other therapy generation. Most of us have either been or
seeking it out or you know, listening to self help
podcasts and everything else. But it reminded me of conversation
I had with a friend of mine recently, and he
is an incredibly high achiever, he owns a multimillion dollar business,
(30:20):
like he's very successful, and recently he's really been unpacking
some challenging relationships with his parents and the fact that
he's come to realize that probably the only reason why
he's as ambitious as he is is because so much
of his relationship with his parents was that he felt
as though if he wasn't achieving, he wasn't lovable, And
(30:42):
so he's been chasing this thing his whole life and
doesn't quite understand where that all came from. What would
you say to someone who has kind of and I
don't want to put blame on parents, because I feel
like parents they're doing what has.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Been done to them, and it's just this.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know, we're all doing the best that we can
with our very first experience of parenting. But what would
be your advice to someone who has come to the
realization or who's always known along. I guess but that
the way they were parented and that the childhood that
they experienced wasn't necessarily ideal, or the relationship with that
they have with their parents is more fractured than it
(31:16):
is healing well.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
To some extent, all of us will find some negatives
about our childhood. The point is not to go aha,
you see I've found Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You did this to me, mom, exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
It's to understand that that is the nature of parenting.
Sometimes you get real unconsciousness, sometimes you get less unconsciousness.
It's a crapshoot. It's about owning your story, understanding what
forces shaped you, and then waking up to realize that
you are now in the driver's seat and you get
to curate the next few decades of your life through
(31:52):
making more intentional choices. It's not about finding blame or
even I tell many many clients that you don't need
to get you know, your father or your mother to
say sorry, it's in the past. They did the best
they could with the consciousness they had. What you need
to do now is reparent yourself. You need to understand
(32:13):
that they could only do what they could do, and
now you get the opportunity to do what they couldn't do,
and you have to architect that. And parents, you know,
adults don't like to hear that because it's so much
easier to stay in the misery of blame and to
be a victim and a martyr. But that's never going
to liberate you. True liberation comes from understanding that after
(32:34):
the age of eighteen twenty twenty five, you are co
creating now your own reality, and you get to wake
up and you get to heal and parent yourself in
a way that your mother perhaps never could.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
It's interesting you say this because this is something that
takes up a lot of space in my brain at
the moment, because we've been talking about it a lot,
just amongst ourselves. We're going to do an episode on it.
But we are in this generation, this era of estrangement
and emancipation from our parents and setting these boundaries, and like,
you did this to me when I was a child,
so I don't have to have an association with you now.
And sometimes I hear people talk about it and I think,
(33:07):
are you crazy? Like are you going to cut your
parents off for that? In my brain, I'm like, that
is such a small minute thing. But I feel like
we've been swept up in this like boundary set, boundary setting,
and I'm going to look after myself and you don't
serve me anymore as a parent. So I love that
you just said, please don't place all the blame on
your parents. They were doing it themselves. But who's As
(33:28):
we get older, whose responsibility do you think it is
to really maintain and nurture a relationship when it's no
longer an adult and a child, it's an adult and
an adult. Because you hear a lot of people, my
friends included, say things like, well, you know they're not
making the effort with me, so you know they should
be the ones calling me they're the parent. I personally
don't believe that. I think you're an adult and you
can come to the table equally. But what's your professional
(33:50):
opinion on them.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Or one hundred percent? You know, my daughter's twenty two,
and almost every day I tell her, you know, I
know it's a big shock, but I'm no longer parent child.
You know, Like she keeps thinking she's my baby, and
that's very cute, but I'm like, Okay, you're no longer
a baby. Now you are an adult, and we have
to adultify our children, and parents have a role in
(34:13):
that to let go of the baby and kind of
push them over the threshold and encourage them to be
sovereign and autonomous. As much as it is the responsibility
of the baby to wake up and go, my parents
can retire from parenting. I cannot expect my parents to
constantly parent me. It's there's a retirement age to parenting.
(34:34):
You can retire, there's an expiration. Of course, you'll always
be the loving one, the caring one, but no more
that same hierarchical you know, imbalance. I think parents need
to wake up and say, I'm done parenting you in
the way I used to. I'll always care, but you're
not my responsibility anymore, and your unhappiness has to be
(34:56):
in your lap now, and you cannot keep blame. I mean,
you can do whatever you want, but I'm not going
to take the blame anymore. It was what it was.
I was who I was, and I'm with great compassion
forgiving myself. You know, I teach parents forgive yourself. If
your child isn't forgiving, you give it to yourself and
you tell your child. I'm emancipating myself from the guilt
(35:18):
of my unconsciousness of when I was in my thirties
and I didn't know any better, and I'm so sorry
I did this to you, and I'm owning it. I'm
taking accountability, but I cannot be brutalized through this misery
that you're placing on me to fix you now. I
cannot fix what I didn't know how to fix back then.
And I tell children that time is over. Your time
(35:41):
for the mother was done. She can never undo that,
or he can never undo that. So we have to
move on. And that's just part of life. It's a
journey and we have to keep walking ahead. And many
therapists will will do what you said, you know, encourage
this kind of brutal, cold hearted, you know, emancipation. And
(36:02):
I think that's so sad and so tragic because your
parents are part of your legacy. You may not need
to be with them, you may not need to spend
a lot of time with them, but it's so silly
to cut off from them. But it's better to understand them,
because when you understand where you came from, it enriches
who you can be. You don't have to deal with them,
but let's not we don't have to also break free
(36:22):
from them.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Let's not close it off completely.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Dutch Schewal, you said something though in that which I
think is so for a lot of people. It feels
like it's an important piece and that is validation. Not
that you need sorries, but it can be really hard
to maintain a relationship with a parent that either feels
one sided or you've been through a whole lot of
shit as a kid, and then you've been denied any
(36:44):
acknowledgment that that shit happened.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You know, like I don't need.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
To say sorry for that that didn't happen. There's invalidation
towards it. I think like in those instances, it can
be really challenging for a grown up to accept and
meet their parent where they are, which is still in
denial of everything that's happened.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And how would you navigate those situations?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, so absolutely. Part of what I teach in conscious
parenting is for the parent to truly validate the child's experience,
even if they don't agree with it, even if they
had good reason, even if they're totally justified, it doesn't matter.
We first truly honor where the child is. You know,
where they are, what they're saying. As with any relationship,
(37:28):
you validate that person's experience. I'm talking about the times
when the child goes overboard and expects the parent to
now forever be guilty. Right then it becomes abusive. So
we can abuse each other constantly and we each have
to own and acknowledge our part in it. Validation is
so important. Now, you said, what if the parent keeps
(37:50):
denying it, Right, that is so hurtful to the child.
I would say to that adult child to accept it.
This is the reality of your parents consciousness, and stop
seeking it anymore. Right. You have to stop going to
the dry well, to the empty well and expecting it
to overflow with love. And I many times will have
(38:12):
almost like a symbolic burial of that fantasy of the
mother that they simply will never have. And they have
to let go of that fantasy and kind of destroy
that fantasy, kill the fantasy, say goodbye and grieve the
mother that is simply not coming. I just was working
with a woman whose mother's on her death bed and
(38:33):
she's still waiting for her mother to arrive, you know.
So it's complex, it's difficult, but there is a way
to be healed through all this pain. There is a way.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, And I mean I really appreciate that perspective of
it as well. And I say this because in my
immediate family, my husband hasn't spoken to his father in
thirteen years. He's never met our children, I've never met him,
and he had a really complicated childhood. I was abuse
in there. There was a lot of horrible, horrible things
that were said, and then as an adult, because of
(39:06):
alcohol and not being able to remember it and being
able to rewrite his own stories, there's never been any accountability,
only denial that it ever happened. And so that's been
really hard for him to process. And the easiest way
for him to process it is to say he got
to a point where he was like, I'm so sick
of being constantly disappointed in my relationship and I'm never
(39:28):
I don't have that in any other relationship in my life,
and here we have a wonderful relationship with his mum
who lives with us, And so, yeah, that was a
decision that he had to make. And so I guess
I understand for some people when separation feels like it's
the only option, because I've seen it play out in
my family.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, I think that's where we have to arrive at
it through experience, through awareness. And if you just do
it like a knee jerk, like what you were saying, Laura,
just if you do it like in a knee jerk,
like I'm not talking to it. That's just so real
coming from a place of healing. You know, when you
really can see the unconscious baggage your parents are carrying
(40:09):
and see them for their damaged inner self, you almost
can release them from healing you because you realize this
is an empty shell of a human being who themselves
are so void inside. What can they ever give me?
You know, I need to release the fantasy that they
will rise up to give me what I've always yearned for.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I know we're running out of time, doctor Shfahli, but
one thing that I want to understand a statement that
you've made. I always thought that having children was a
selfless act. I always thought that parents and people were
giving up mothers, particularly, giving up so much of who
they are, their autonomy over their body, their life, their time.
I saw that as quite a selfless thing. But you
(40:52):
tend to disagree. Can you talk to me about why
you don't think parenting is a selfless act?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, it's a deep, deep statement. Let me exp plane.
So there is tremendous duty, you know, sacrifice, giving up
of the self, and an expansion of our heart with
our children that we will simply begrudge doing for anyone else.
The way we do it for our children. There is
an undeniable this this effort that we put forth for
(41:21):
these beings, and there is a deep, deep care that
is unmatched when you become a mother. Having said that,
if we think for a second that we are doing
this because we're selfless, there is so much ego in
that that it becomes its own trap. So think about
it if I think I'm doing this for my child,
(41:44):
like my child came to me in my dream and said,
only your uterus, mother, you know, only you can bring
me into the form world. And I'm this ethereal energy
longing for your birth canal to bring me into the
I mean some bullshit like that. Then everything you do,
you're going to go, I'm doing it for you. I'm
doing it for you. Look at all the sacrifices, and
(42:05):
then you would refuse to look at your sinister agenda
here that you're doing this for you. They didn't ask you,
they didn't even know who you were. They couldn't care
as which uterus, which ferm? Which it's science, it's biology.
It happened. It happened in a drunken moment. It happened
in a horny moment. It's not some big you know.
Oh my goodness, I am the vessel of this creature
(42:28):
and you owe me. Right, then we go, then we
trip into you owe me something because look what I've
given up. No, we are co creators. I wanted this.
I'm doing this to myself. I brought you here, you
poor thing. I'm so sorry. It should be the reversal,
you know, like I am using you to fulfill my fantasy,
not the other way around. Right. So it's this trap
(42:50):
of this martyr, a mentality that I like to shatter, like, No,
you're not a martyr. You're not here doing some God's work.
You on God or a vessel of God. You are
here because of biology, wanting something, own it. You wanted this.
This is fulfilling you. And check your ego at every turn.
Don't be under this illusion that you have been called
(43:12):
to this sacred job, you know.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
And do you think it's dangerous to think that if
you are? Do you think it's dangerous to parent in
a way of thinking, Yes, I do everything for you.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Oh my god, it's such a burden of guilt that
you place on your child. And let me tell you,
even though I know this, I love to lay the
guilt on my child. You know, I still do it
because that's the thing we parents do because it is
so much bloody work and we don't want to go
unnoticed for it. So already we're doing it. So imagine
if we really thought it was like, you know, God's work.
(43:45):
Oh my goodness, it's such an ego trip.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I know that you do have to go about.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I would love to leave this conversation with a practical
tool for parents, and I think like one of the
most you know, deep down, I think the thing that
we all want to feel is connected to our kids
though we really understand who they are. What would you
say are the best tools or the best thing to
do as a parent if you want to increase connection
with your kids, Well.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
The first thing is to examine your expectations versus reality. Like,
really look at the difference and the delta between your
expectations for your child versus the reality of who your
child is, and really connect with no. No, no, no. As
much as I want my child to be an extrovert
and really gregarious and the leader of every team, my
child is an introvert and shy and really really quiet.
(44:31):
Right now, get with the program. Parent the child in
front of you, not the parent of your not the
child of your fantasy. And the third thing I would
say is always connect first before you correct. So first
check in with the child. You know, how is my
child feeling, what's underneath the behavior? Let me not fix
(44:52):
the behavior, Let me try to understand what is the
need beneath the behavior, And remember that my child is
an evolved being, fallible, limited human being. And dare I say,
quite ordinary, and learn to accept them, accept them for
who it is they are, and don't live out your
ego through them. It's okay if they're average. It's not
(45:14):
a dirty word.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I love it. And quite ordinary. No one thinks their
kids are ordinary.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Everyone's like, look at the phot of my child, but truly,
I mean yeah, I also think that you know, you
create dynamics in families where you have the smart kid,
the achieving kid, the kid who's so good at X,
Y Z, and then the kid who feels like they're
perpetually underwhelming.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Trouble, Yeah, underwhelming.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
You know you have a scapegoat of the family because
they're maybe not as pliable or easy.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
But we see it happens so much in like sibling dynamics.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yes, you know. But the beauty of this consciousness work
is that as the parent becomes whole within themselves, they're
not looking for products and achievements and medals and trophies.
The parent, who's deep connected to the present moment, sees
the awe and wonder of the simple present, here and now.
(46:06):
And when the parent has developed this, this is what
I teach, then they see the child for their ordinariness
and seize the beauty of that and doesn't need the
child to be a comedian, a performer, a superstar in
order for them to feel that the child is unique.
The parent is able to tap into that depth because
the parent lives in that depthful place themselves. See, this
(46:31):
is a whole different paradigm that I teach about entering
the present moment in such a deep connected way that
you're not looking for the bells and whistles. You're looking
for the essence. And because you're connected to your essence
as a parent, the child's essence just blooms in front
of you. And you don't need the bobbles and the
trinkets to make your child special. The child is as
they are.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
Doctor Schwyley, thank you so much for coming and joining
us today. I was waiting for my unborn child to
pick my uterus to come into this world. But I
will will be a bit more active in my attempt
at the moment. But we're going to put doctor Sheafali's
tour notes. She's coming to Melbourne and Sydney in March.
We're going to put podcasts and social media and website
all of those links in our show notes for you
(47:12):
guys to go and find out more. Thank you for
giving us your time today.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Absolutely, I just want to say that I hope people
come for the tour. It's going to be an incredible
live workshop where I should be having people come on
stage talking about real life issues, so you can have
like a workshop style. So I hope people check out
the tour. And also I have a coaching institute where
I teach people to do what I do, so if
people are interested in learning this as a skill, as
(47:35):
a career, as a purpose, they can look up my
links and explore becoming.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
One of my coaches Coltish Flow. It's been an absolute pledge.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Thank you
This episode was recorded on cameragle Land.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life.
I'm cut, I'm Laura, I'm Brittany. Now I have said
it many times on this podcast, and that is that
we are the self help generation of the times.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
A lot of us have been the therapy.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
A lot of us are trying to unpack the shit
that we went through in our own childhoods to try
and be better versions of ourselves and also break cycles. Now,
this conversation that we're having today is going to center
quite largely around parenting, around how we parent our own children,
but also if you don't have kids, I think it's
really an important one to listen to because it's not
(00:43):
just a reflection of how we parent as parents, but
also reflecting on the relationship that we have with our
own parents and how it was that we were raised
and the impact that that has on us. Doctor Shafali
is joining us today and she has been described by
Oprah herself as one of the most profound parenting experts
of our time. With a doctorate in clinical psychology, doctor
(01:04):
Sheafai is a New York Times best selling author multiple
times over. She is the founder of the conscious parenting movement,
and so much of her work centers around healing a
lot of the stuff that we all carry with us
from our childhood into adult lives and how it shows
up in our parenting styles, whether you are a helicopter parent,
whether you are somebody who is overscheduling your children's life,
(01:25):
or you're wanting to build deeper connection with your kids. Today,
we're also answering one of the biggest parenting questions that
we tend to ask ourselves, which is how do you
build resilience in kids in today's very, very chaotic world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Doctor Shefali, Welcome to the pod.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Now, for anyone who's not familiar with your work, can
you explain to all of our listeners what your teachings
of conscious parenting is.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, well, you know, when I started teaching conscious parenting,
you know, twelve fifteen years ago, no one was talking
about the unconsciousness of the parent and the parent's ego,
So I was really breaking ground at that time. So,
in a nutshell, conscious parenting really flipped the traditional paradigm
(02:09):
of parenting, which used to focus on fixing the child
and creating this golden child and you know, focused on
the child's achievements and who they would be when they
grow up. And my work just turned everything on its
head and kind of revolutionized the way parenting was taught
back then and really focused on the parent raising themselves,
(02:31):
that you have to raise yourself to a higher level
of consciousness. Now, when I say this for you know,
your age group, you must be like, yeah, well, what's
so revolutionary about that, because you're immersed in the oceans
of this language now. But let me tell you when
I started this, you know, way back I'm talking like
fifteen years ago, this was unheard of and parents would
(02:53):
get really triggered and provoked and I was told to
like back off and leave parents alone. It was really
breaking ground at that time. We didn't have Facebook even
back then, and I was just parent to parent, you know,
going around in this grassroots movement, trying to pioneer this
new movement. And now it's such a thing out there right.
(03:15):
Conscious parenting is such a well known phenomenon, and I'm
so grateful to everyone who's taken to it, because when
the parent raises themselves to a higher level of consciousness,
and what does that mean? That means they look at
themselves in the mirror, they do the inner work. They
see their child as a mirror to the ways that
they still have to grow up and their unhealed parts,
(03:36):
and they look at their ego and see their expectations
and understand that they're projecting on their child. And all
that stuff was breaking ground back then. And that's what
I teach. And it's really created a movement now out
in the world. And this is what I help parents with.
I have a coaching institute, I have tons of courses.
I'm coming to Australia on a tour. I go around
(03:59):
the world and parents really understand. And the reason why
parents understand it even though their ego gets hit really hard,
is because they were children once and they were the
vessels of their parents' projection. So they see how harmful
that can be and they want to break the pattern.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
What is it about conscious parenting? And when you say
the ego gets hit really hard? What is it about
conscious parenting? And I guess the teachings of it that
are so hard for parents to be able to come
on board with or there's resistance about, like what is
it that is the thing you get the most pushed back?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, there's many layers of it that are very provoking.
So at a very basic layer, I teach that your
expectations of your child often have nothing to do with
the essence of who your child is and all to
do with your own unfulfilled fantasies, your own unfulfilled life.
So because you haven't lived out your life, those expectations
(05:01):
on your child now that could be in all sorts
of ways. So, for example, if your child comes home
and says, oh, you know, I'm in the child is
in third grade, and the child didn't get invited to
the popular kid's birthday party, your unhealed self around belonging,
around being part of a group, around being cool and
hip and worthy, your issues are going to come up.
(05:24):
But if you're unconscious and you're not even aware, you
will begin reacting in all sorts of unconscious egoic ways
and not even realize that it's your unhealed self that
is in the driver's seat and you're actually not even
helping your child. So you may say things like, oh,
my goodness, you know, let me call the teacher. This
is not okay and this is not fair, and your
(05:47):
child is like okay, like maybe it's not such a
big deal. But now I'm thinking it's a big deal
because my mother is going ape shit crazy. Right, So
that's just one example. Or you may buy the baby
g and piano, and you may buy the orchestra, and
you may buy the skiing tickets, and your child is
not even four years old, right, And you may think, oh,
(06:09):
I'm doing all this because I want my child to
be well rounded and you know, really you know, exposed
to all sorts of things. Actually it could just be
your lack right, and the child is actually okay being
who they are. And many times we impose on our
children all sorts of control and expectations that come from
our fear and our unworthiness. So at that level, it's
(06:33):
provoking enough for the parents to ask themselves, you know,
am I doing this because it's really my child who's
asking for it? Or am I doing it because I
am projecting that they need this?
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So I guess I mean on a more basic level,
maybe more growing up level, it's like, maybe you didn't
have the opportunity as a parent when you were younger
to go and get a secondary education. You really want
your child to go to university or college whatever it
is your child doesn't want to go, so you're trying
to encore. Is that push it? You'll pay for them,
whatever it is. But how do you differentiate between trying
(07:04):
to put your child in a box because maybe you
missed out on an opportunity, because we can all think
of how many times our parents said, you know, you
should be grateful for the opportunity. I never had that chance.
But how do you differentiate between that projecting maybe your
issues onto your child and also just wanting the best
for your child because an education will lead to a
good job, which would lead to good money, which would
(07:26):
hopefully leave to stability and happiness. How can you differentiate those?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, there's an easy way to differentiate, but again, one
has to be aware of one's self. If one is
not self aware, you're not going to be able to
differentiate anything. But the way to differentiate is to really
ask yourself a pivotal question, Am I operating right now
from a fear based place or an abundance based place?
(07:51):
And when you are attuned with your child, your partner,
your friend, you are in alignment with what is naturally
emerging from them, and you allowed them to be a
few steps ahead and you are following closely and you're
listening deeply. But when you're projecting and when you are
just imposing and you're coming like just out of your
(08:13):
own unconsciousness but you're not aware, then it's full of fear,
it's full of control. It's pushing, pushing, pushing, and there's
stress and there's anxiety, and there's tension. And that's really
the way you know in any life choice, whether you
are following into deep alignment with the soul's calling, so
(08:34):
to speak, or you are pushing against something because culture
tells you that that's what's good or expected of you.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
I think from myself with my own sort of motherhood
and parenting journey, one of the big things about becoming
a month for me was that it held a mirror
up to my childhood experiences, and that stuff comes out.
I think anyone either you're conscious that it does come out,
or you're denying it. But the way in which you
were parented, you're experiences as a child. You have these
(09:02):
moments where you're then placed as the parent and you're
talking to your children or getting triggered by them, or
you feel that overwhelming feeling of like frustration or whatever
it is, and it kind of like makes you either
have empathy for your parents or it makes you resent
the way that they parented. How much of our I guess,
(09:23):
our experience as parents is formed by what it is
that we experienced as kids.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Oh, my god, I would say all of it until
and unless you have deconstructed your own past patterns and
really looked in the mirror and really observed yourself and
reflected on how is this moment right now really about
me and my past versus my child before me? Most
(09:52):
of us don't even connect to the person before us
in any relationship. Most of us are stooped in deep projection.
We're just sunken in this projected mirage and we call
it reality, but it's not. It's a drama being played
in our mind. And that's what waking up is. Waking
up is realizing you've been a zombie in a mirage
(10:15):
and you've just been projecting onto the world and not
realizing that you are the one who is enacting the drama.
You've been thinking it's the external situation, it's the child,
you know. I got upset because my child was obnoxious,
and I got really angry because my partner was an asshole. No,
it's you. You know, you are enacting your own internal
(10:36):
drama and projecting it onto the screen of the world
and understanding this is the key to awakening. It's the
difference between a seeker and a non seeker, between being
asleep and being awake. And it's a trip, you know.
And most people are zombies and they don't realize that
they are the architects of their own reality. They truly
(10:56):
think that the other on the outside is the evil
person and the reason for their problems.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Tota Schwali, you're a mum yourself and your daughter is
in her twenties. Now, what was it about your parenting experience, Like,
did you have a shift yourself where you realized these
are the techniques that are working for me. Or was
there a great reflection that you had on your own
upbringing that made you realize, Okay, I want to break
this cycle.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, all of it. So you know, I was a
psychologist before I was a parent, So I began observing
in my clients that holy shit, the first ten years
of your life really mark you and shape you. And
all I'm doing in adult therapy is undoing the first
twenty years of your life, right, the whole adult life
is about undoing the first twenty years and the belief
(11:43):
systems of the first ten years. And then I became
a parent, and you know, like all you know naive
and delusional parents, we think, oh, we are going to
be amazing, right, We're not going to be doing this nonsense,
and we're going to have angel children, going to be awesome.
And then your first meltdown happens and you realize, I
(12:05):
have no control over my emotions. This three year old
has gotten the best for me. I am losing my mind.
And then you have an opportunity. And this happened to me.
You know, my daughter was three. I was losing my mind.
I saw her spirit deflate in front of my very eyes,
and I was like, oh my goodness. You know, you
promised you would do the inner work and here you
(12:27):
are vomiting all over your child and out of control.
And that's when I made a pledge that I needed
to change my patterns because I knew this would happen.
I just didn't think I was that week that it
would happen to me. You know, I thought I was
better than what I was. And this is the arrogance
of the parent right and becoming humble and realizing with
(12:47):
deep compassion for the self that this is almost unavoidable
because you have never met this child before, and you've
never been in this moment before. So you have to
give grace to yourself and allow yourself to really collapse,
but then be willing to do the work. So this
all this happened to me, and I then realized, oh
(13:08):
my goodness. You know, I meditate, and I meditate on
my ego, and I had no idea that the ego
would show up in my parenting. No one was talking
about it back then, you know, and parents are pedestalized
and almost you know, sanctified as these holy creatures because
we quote unquote love our children. It's as if we
(13:31):
are absolved of unconsciousness. And I now have come to
see that love has nothing to do with it. In fact,
love your try less. Just be more conscious, you know,
don't talk about love. Love is bastardized as a term.
And it's almost as if we excuse ourselves. But I
love you? Who cares? You know, you're an asshole? You know,
you go fix yourself, Go do something with yourself, eli
(13:53):
yours out. Don't tell me, you love me, show me
through your actions, through your healing, that you are accepting me.
I want you to accept me. I don't care about
whether you love me or not. You know, there's a
big difference. And all of these teachings came to me
through my own parenting journey, and I've written seven books
now and many more to go. A two more coming
(14:14):
out next year, because there's so much to uncover about
this and we need to allow parents to heal.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Just as something tangible and practical here if we just
take a side step as a psychologist for everyone listening
right now that has a three year old that is
having that tantrum. You're in the middle of the supermarket,
they're having this absolute meltdown. You're at your limit. What
as a professional is your advice in that situation? Because
we hear a lot about maybe this is the time
(14:42):
that you teach your child that they can't behave like this,
and you hear a lot of gentle parenting where people say,
let them feel their emotions, ignore them, walk away. What
is some practical advice in that minute.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, the first thing you have to know is that
you are raising a child. What that means is you
have to understand their brain development. So children act out
obnoxiously and unreasonably and irrationally for three reasons only. So
if you get this in your head, then you go through,
you know, the three reasons, and you go, oh, this
(15:13):
is probably the reason why my child is acting like
a lunatic, and now I can take action. So what
are the three reasons? First one is they simply haven't
had enough practice. So you take them to a supermarket
aisle and you think, oh, I'm just going to hop
in and buy a few things. You don't realize this
is like, you know, crack cocaine. It's like so much
(15:36):
stimulation and the child cannot handle it. Right. I remember
when I first came from India and I ordered a
sandwich in America. In India you only had white plastic
rubber bread and that's all you got is your sandwich choice, right,
And I came to this fancy deli in San Francisco
and they were like, oh, you want a sandwich. I
(15:57):
was like yeah. Literally I ran away from the shop
because I had a meltdown because the choices they gave me,
you know, poppy seed and sesame seed and rye and
honeyweat and you know, raisin bread. And I was like,
are you freaking kidding me? I don't even know what
you're talking I just have a sandwich, right, And I
got overwhelmed and I was twenty one. So this is
(16:19):
what we're doing to our children, and then we expect
them to behave So the first thing we did wrong
is take our children to the supermarket aisle and not
expect a meltdown. Right. Number two. The second reason why
children act out and dissolve into a mess is because
their brain literally doesn't have the skills to handle stress
(16:43):
or delays or frustration. The executive center of their brain
is not developed big Swiss cheese holes all the way
till twenty eight. So you are living with somebody who
is really feral and wild, who every twenty minutes is
going to fall apart. So if you understand that, then
you're like, oh, let me arm myself for the worst, right,
(17:05):
But that's what parents are like so naive. They're like, oh,
let's go have a great day at the beach, and
then it's a shit show because they're not prepared for
the child to be terrified of a snail and off
a shell and of every drop of water, and they're like,
why are you getting scared? Well, because their brain cannot
process this shit right. And the third reason why they
act out is because they don't feel safe. They don't
(17:28):
feel connected, They have unworthiness, right, so they're not feeling safe. Now,
if you understand this, then there's no point in teaching anything.
You just have to remedy the situation. You go, ah,
my child is overwhelmed. I either just clench my jaw
through this raging tantrum and just suffer the stairs of
everyone and just tell everyone, yes, I'm a loser, mom,
(17:49):
and just move on with the day. Or you fix it.
You don't go, you call for help, you go out,
but you manage it. There's nothing to teach. The child
simply can handle this situation. You have put them in
a situation that is beyond their capacity and their pay grade.
They cannot handle it now. Of course, later you can
(18:10):
practice going to the aisle and practice at home what
it means to go to school. Practice I The best
way to handle these situations is you prepare your child
through role plays. But even if you roleplay the hell
out of a situation, the child is still an undeveloped
brain who can only handle so much, and the minute
(18:31):
you put in too much hunger, too much heat, too
much frustration, you have an explosion.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I love the example you just gave because I feel
like every single parent can relate to the fact that
you've just spent all morning getting the kids ready, you
got to the beach, and then all of them are
screaming at you because their legs are richy and they're cold,
and you've been there for ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And then there's this.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Feeling of as a parent, you're like, oh, I've done
all this stuff for you today and you're so ungrateful,
Like that's the that's kind of like where the brain
first goes to when you're like, we went to them,
we went did this thing, and now you're doing is
screaming at me. And it's so hard to separate those feelings.
When as a parent you do feel as though you're giving,
(19:11):
you know, as in your give and give and give.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's the problem. That is the problem. Children don't need
to be given at this age till nine and ten,
Like minimize the giving because it's actually too overwhelming, and
then we are resentful. So this heavily architectured life that
we've created for our children. Oh, you go to dance
(19:35):
on Tuesdays, and then you go for the trombone on Wednesday,
and then we go for yoga on Thursday, and then
we meditate it. Then then we say the song, and
then we thank God and then we you know, then
we have a bath and then we you know, hold hands.
This is all our ego in motion. Children don't even
need it. It's actually not even good for them. And
(19:55):
that's why if you understand what children need child development,
then you really simplify your parenting. You slow it down,
and you actually live happier and your child is actually okay,
really okay. I talk about in my book The Awakened
Family a situation where, you know, my daughter was eight
(20:17):
years old and I took her for her first structured
dance class and the woman at the counter the reception
is said, oh, okay, you know she will she can
join the three year olds on Tuesday evening. And I
was like, no, no, ma'am, you don't understand. She's eight
years old. And she looked at me and she said, no,
you don't understand. If this is her first dance class,
(20:41):
she has to be with the three year olds, and
I was like, wow, did everyone get this memo? Like,
how is my kid the only kid who is starting
at eight? I thought that was a healthy time to start,
but apparently everyone's already performing at Carnegie Hall. You know,
I was like way behind. I felt so bad for
(21:01):
my kid. I was like, you know what, she will
just do solo activities. So she just did horse riding
and tennis because she was behind everything. Apparently all the
team sports she was way behind. And you know, I
was just praying that she wouldn't realize that her mother
fucked it up so badly, Like I was six years
behind the curb already at eight. But this is the
(21:22):
insanity of our culture. It is not normal. Children don't
need activities every single day for us to feel like
we are, you know, achieving parents. And parents will then
say to me, well, then how will they be exposed?
So I said, you know, who decides how much they
should be exposed to? I said, what about underwater scuba
diving off the Maldives, and what about back flipping through
(21:44):
the Alps at eight? And what about You know, there
are a million things they should be exposed to. But
does that mean we should and what happens to just
being and connecting and being in solitude and with your imagination?
What happened to playing with the kitchen utensils? Like what
happened to that? You know? So we've become these egoic
(22:05):
maniacs and we are living out a resume through our children.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
How do you find a balance as a parent between
supporting their interests and wanting to build resilience in your
children and wanting them to have a sense of purpose
or drive, and also recognizing, Okay, this is not actually
what is best for the child. This is because I
want them to do it, or this is because I
(22:30):
thought it would be great for them to go to soccer,
or I thought it would be great for them to
do this activity. How do you, as a parent really
sit with yourself and go, Okay, these sit in two
different camps.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, I think we have focused too much on raising
adults in childhood. Childhood is its own stage of development
and children are not mini adults. They're children. They're not
mini adults. And that's a big mind shift that people
need to understand. And it's because we have fear and
anxiety that we're going to mess up that we're not
(23:00):
going to raise you know, functional human beings because actually
we are doubting our own capacity and we're so terrified
that they'll be living in our basement that we are
like go go, go, do do do achieve achieva you
don't give up. But listen. Childhood is a time for
exploration and for connection to the self and other, and
(23:24):
we're missing that connection piece. And connection to the self
is what creates ultimate resilience and anti fragility, not disconnection
from the self, but sticking through things that your parents say,
you know, create resilience and grit. Resilience comes from inner connection,
from like I'm worthy, I'm capable, I'm good, put me anywhere,
(23:48):
and I have me right. That is what creates grit
and resilience. But if they are constantly puppeteered by the
outside supervisor and the task master AI you know, the
parent or you know, the machine or the technology or
whatever's on the outside you know AI today or whatever
gimmick today, they are not going to find that inner connection.
(24:13):
And that's what, in my opinion, creates the greatest resilience.
So that's what you want to focus on in childhood,
not the doing, but the being. And this is very
again another provocative thing for high achieving type A parents
who have made a project out of their role and
they think it's their next calling, their next PhD, and
(24:34):
they want to win a prize at parenting through their children,
and their children are trophy children. And parents get very
provoked when I say this because they don't want to
look at that ego that is in the room. And
then I show it to them and then they get
depressed and they feel guilty. Then they're really ashamed, and
I'm like, now you're making it about you again. So
(24:56):
but it's the truth. I have worked with families for
thirty years now and I have deeply observed how ego
the parent is and then the child grows up to
be an adult, like we were going to therapy looking
for their authentic self. When they had the authentic self
(25:17):
that they were told that that wasn't enough, so they
created the egoic self, the false self, which was to
get the validation and the crumbs of approval and love
from the outside world. Which is everybody's disease. And where
does it start. It starts when the parent imposes on
the child the parent's unfinished self and the unhealed self.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
You mentioned fear and anxiety before, and fear and anxiety
lead to control, which you've spoken about in your books.
But for example, let's just go and use a public
speaking event. You put your child in public speaking because
it's really good for them. The whole class is doing it.
Your child doesn't want to do it. They're beside themselves.
I'm scared to do it. All the feelings are have anxiety.
I don't want to go out there. But you know
as a parent that like this is going to help
(25:59):
set them up for their life. You know that they're
going to learn a skill, you know that there's going
to be times that they're fearful. How do you then
get to the point of saying, Okay, you know what,
you don't want to do it, don't do it, or look,
I know deep down as a parent, this is going
to be better for you, Like I know it's going
to help you build the resilience. I guess I I'm
having trouble understanding where that line is of letting a
(26:19):
child just be but also saying you know, well, a
child is a child, they're not a small adult.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah. At first, I think there is no line it's
a very curvy situation of shifting sand right. But here's
the thing. You're asking it from a mind space from
the outside. When you're in it and you're practicing conscious parenting,
you are connected to your child. You're understanding them from
(26:44):
within them. So most of us are parenting from outside.
In conscious parenting teaches you to tune into who the
child is. Now here's the thing you said. Another thing
you said is I know that this is going to
be good for you. This statement is not true. We
don't know. Now we think it will, it could actually
end up being the most traumatizing thing in their life.
(27:07):
I'm just saying, not everyone is a public speaker. Not
everyone needs to be a public speaker. We have to
go with who your child is. For example, parents will
come to me and say, well, you know, they should
learn the piano because it's so good for their you know,
inter hemispheric integration.
Speaker 4 (27:23):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
And I'm like, you don't know. Yes, it's probably good,
but if you traumatize them to do it, it's probably
not good. Now here's the way I create the line
that you're looking for. It's really easy. I ask myself
and I ask parents to ask this question, is this
a life enhancing skill or is it an ego enhancing skill? Now?
(27:44):
How do I know? What is what a life enhancing skill?
Are life's basics that the tribal people did when we
were living in tribes to now sleeping, community, breathing, eating,
cleaning yourself, hi gi, hygiene, compassion, you know, laughter, These
(28:04):
are the basics.
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Anything over that could be good, but it's not absolutely mandatory.
And if you keep it really simple, I'm telling you,
it just takes away the anxiety of my kids.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
You do this, and my kits you do that? And
how many shoulds? How many shoulds? Should be a world
traveler and you know, you know, a trombone play and
a puppeteer and a singer and a dancer. How and
mother Teresa and Michaelshofts, how much should this poor child be?
So life enhancing skills in today's modern world would be,
(28:41):
you know, very much to do with community, very much
to do with connection to self, very much to do
with reading, writing, and you know, literacy, and basic hygiene
and swimming, taking care of you know, so if you
drown and basically you know, knowing basic survival skills, if
you've done that well, which is a lot to do,
(29:03):
let me tell you, because community is a big piece
of this learning to live in community and connection. Again,
I come back to connection before correction, connection before doing.
If you take care of that, then your child will
be more confident and be a better public speaker than not.
Your child will be more resilient. Your child will find
(29:24):
what drives them to purpose. They don't need to find
purpose as a child in the way we adults do,
because their purpose as a child is to be that
completely in the body, in nature, moving, living, breathing. Right,
that's well, what did our tribal people do our communities.
They were out in nature all the time. Look how
(29:46):
little our kids are in nature? Right. We're focusing on
tasks and achievements, but we're leaving out the most basic
ingredients that make a healthy human being.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Said something earlier around kids growing up and then being
in therapy, which I mean to be fair, we probably
other therapy generation. Most of us have either been or
seeking it out or you know, listening to self help
podcasts and everything else. But it reminded me of conversation
I had with a friend of mine recently, and he
is an incredibly high achiever, he owns a multimillion dollar business,
(30:20):
like he's very successful, and recently he's really been unpacking
some challenging relationships with his parents and the fact that
he's come to realize that probably the only reason why
he's as ambitious as he is is because so much
of his relationship with his parents was that he felt
as though if he wasn't achieving, he wasn't lovable, And
(30:42):
so he's been chasing this thing his whole life and
doesn't quite understand where that all came from. What would
you say to someone who has kind of and I
don't want to put blame on parents, because I feel
like parents they're doing what has.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Been done to them, and it's just this.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
You know, we're all doing the best that we can
with our very first experience of parenting. But what would
be your advice to someone who has come to the
realization or who's always known along. I guess but that
the way they were parented and that the childhood that
they experienced wasn't necessarily ideal, or the relationship with that
they have with their parents is more fractured than it
(31:16):
is healing well.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
To some extent, all of us will find some negatives
about our childhood. The point is not to go aha,
you see I've found Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You did this to me, mom, exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
It's to understand that that is the nature of parenting.
Sometimes you get real unconsciousness, sometimes you get less unconsciousness.
It's a crapshoot. It's about owning your story, understanding what
forces shaped you, and then waking up to realize that
you are now in the driver's seat and you get
to curate the next few decades of your life through
(31:52):
making more intentional choices. It's not about finding blame or
even I tell many many clients that you don't need
to get you know, your father or your mother to
say sorry, it's in the past. They did the best
they could with the consciousness they had. What you need
to do now is reparent yourself. You need to understand
(32:13):
that they could only do what they could do, and
now you get the opportunity to do what they couldn't do,
and you have to architect that. And parents, you know,
adults don't like to hear that because it's so much
easier to stay in the misery of blame and to
be a victim and a martyr. But that's never going
to liberate you. True liberation comes from understanding that after
(32:34):
the age of eighteen twenty twenty five, you are co
creating now your own reality, and you get to wake
up and you get to heal and parent yourself in
a way that your mother perhaps never could.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
It's interesting you say this because this is something that
takes up a lot of space in my brain at
the moment, because we've been talking about it a lot,
just amongst ourselves. We're going to do an episode on it.
But we are in this generation, this era of estrangement
and emancipation from our parents and setting these boundaries, and like,
you did this to me when I was a child,
so I don't have to have an association with you now.
And sometimes I hear people talk about it and I think,
(33:07):
are you crazy? Like are you going to cut your
parents off for that? In my brain, I'm like, that
is such a small minute thing. But I feel like
we've been swept up in this like boundary set, boundary setting,
and I'm going to look after myself and you don't
serve me anymore as a parent. So I love that
you just said, please don't place all the blame on
your parents. They were doing it themselves. But who's As
(33:28):
we get older, whose responsibility do you think it is
to really maintain and nurture a relationship when it's no
longer an adult and a child, it's an adult and
an adult. Because you hear a lot of people, my
friends included, say things like, well, you know they're not
making the effort with me, so you know they should
be the ones calling me they're the parent. I personally
don't believe that. I think you're an adult and you
can come to the table equally. But what's your professional
(33:50):
opinion on them.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Or one hundred percent? You know, my daughter's twenty two,
and almost every day I tell her, you know, I
know it's a big shock, but I'm no longer parent child.
You know, Like she keeps thinking she's my baby, and
that's very cute, but I'm like, Okay, you're no longer
a baby. Now you are an adult, and we have
to adultify our children, and parents have a role in
(34:13):
that to let go of the baby and kind of
push them over the threshold and encourage them to be
sovereign and autonomous. As much as it is the responsibility
of the baby to wake up and go, my parents
can retire from parenting. I cannot expect my parents to
constantly parent me. It's there's a retirement age to parenting.
(34:34):
You can retire, there's an expiration. Of course, you'll always
be the loving one, the caring one, but no more
that same hierarchical you know, imbalance. I think parents need
to wake up and say, I'm done parenting you in
the way I used to. I'll always care, but you're
not my responsibility anymore, and your unhappiness has to be
(34:56):
in your lap now, and you cannot keep blame. I mean,
you can do whatever you want, but I'm not going
to take the blame anymore. It was what it was.
I was who I was, and I'm with great compassion
forgiving myself. You know, I teach parents forgive yourself. If
your child isn't forgiving, you give it to yourself and
you tell your child. I'm emancipating myself from the guilt
(35:18):
of my unconsciousness of when I was in my thirties
and I didn't know any better, and I'm so sorry
I did this to you, and I'm owning it. I'm
taking accountability, but I cannot be brutalized through this misery
that you're placing on me to fix you now. I
cannot fix what I didn't know how to fix back then.
And I tell children that time is over. Your time
(35:41):
for the mother was done. She can never undo that,
or he can never undo that. So we have to
move on. And that's just part of life. It's a
journey and we have to keep walking ahead. And many
therapists will will do what you said, you know, encourage
this kind of brutal, cold hearted, you know, emancipation. And
(36:02):
I think that's so sad and so tragic because your
parents are part of your legacy. You may not need
to be with them, you may not need to spend
a lot of time with them, but it's so silly
to cut off from them. But it's better to understand them,
because when you understand where you came from, it enriches
who you can be. You don't have to deal with them,
but let's not we don't have to also break free
(36:22):
from them.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Let's not close it off completely.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Dutch Schewal, you said something though in that which I
think is so for a lot of people. It feels
like it's an important piece and that is validation. Not
that you need sorries, but it can be really hard
to maintain a relationship with a parent that either feels
one sided or you've been through a whole lot of
shit as a kid, and then you've been denied any
(36:44):
acknowledgment that that shit happened.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
You know, like I don't need.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
To say sorry for that that didn't happen. There's invalidation
towards it. I think like in those instances, it can
be really challenging for a grown up to accept and
meet their parent where they are, which is still in
denial of everything that's happened.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And how would you navigate those situations?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, so absolutely. Part of what I teach in conscious
parenting is for the parent to truly validate the child's experience,
even if they don't agree with it, even if they
had good reason, even if they're totally justified, it doesn't matter.
We first truly honor where the child is. You know,
where they are, what they're saying. As with any relationship,
(37:28):
you validate that person's experience. I'm talking about the times
when the child goes overboard and expects the parent to
now forever be guilty. Right then it becomes abusive. So
we can abuse each other constantly and we each have
to own and acknowledge our part in it. Validation is
so important. Now, you said, what if the parent keeps
(37:50):
denying it, Right, that is so hurtful to the child.
I would say to that adult child to accept it.
This is the reality of your parents consciousness, and stop
seeking it anymore. Right. You have to stop going to
the dry well, to the empty well and expecting it
to overflow with love. And I many times will have
(38:12):
almost like a symbolic burial of that fantasy of the
mother that they simply will never have. And they have
to let go of that fantasy and kind of destroy
that fantasy, kill the fantasy, say goodbye and grieve the
mother that is simply not coming. I just was working
with a woman whose mother's on her death bed and
(38:33):
she's still waiting for her mother to arrive, you know.
So it's complex, it's difficult, but there is a way
to be healed through all this pain. There is a way.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, And I mean I really appreciate that perspective of
it as well. And I say this because in my
immediate family, my husband hasn't spoken to his father in
thirteen years. He's never met our children, I've never met him,
and he had a really complicated childhood. I was abuse
in there. There was a lot of horrible, horrible things
that were said, and then as an adult, because of
(39:06):
alcohol and not being able to remember it and being
able to rewrite his own stories, there's never been any accountability,
only denial that it ever happened. And so that's been
really hard for him to process. And the easiest way
for him to process it is to say he got
to a point where he was like, I'm so sick
of being constantly disappointed in my relationship and I'm never
(39:28):
I don't have that in any other relationship in my life,
and here we have a wonderful relationship with his mum
who lives with us, And so, yeah, that was a
decision that he had to make. And so I guess
I understand for some people when separation feels like it's
the only option, because I've seen it play out in
my family.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, I think that's where we have to arrive at
it through experience, through awareness. And if you just do
it like a knee jerk, like what you were saying, Laura,
just if you do it like in a knee jerk,
like I'm not talking to it. That's just so real
coming from a place of healing. You know, when you
really can see the unconscious baggage your parents are carrying
(40:09):
and see them for their damaged inner self, you almost
can release them from healing you because you realize this
is an empty shell of a human being who themselves
are so void inside. What can they ever give me?
You know, I need to release the fantasy that they
will rise up to give me what I've always yearned for.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I know we're running out of time, doctor Shfahli, but
one thing that I want to understand a statement that
you've made. I always thought that having children was a
selfless act. I always thought that parents and people were
giving up mothers, particularly, giving up so much of who
they are, their autonomy over their body, their life, their time.
I saw that as quite a selfless thing. But you
(40:52):
tend to disagree. Can you talk to me about why
you don't think parenting is a selfless act?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, it's a deep, deep statement. Let me exp plane.
So there is tremendous duty, you know, sacrifice, giving up
of the self, and an expansion of our heart with
our children that we will simply begrudge doing for anyone else.
The way we do it for our children. There is
an undeniable this this effort that we put forth for
(41:21):
these beings, and there is a deep, deep care that
is unmatched when you become a mother. Having said that,
if we think for a second that we are doing
this because we're selfless, there is so much ego in
that that it becomes its own trap. So think about
it if I think I'm doing this for my child,
(41:44):
like my child came to me in my dream and said,
only your uterus, mother, you know, only you can bring
me into the form world. And I'm this ethereal energy
longing for your birth canal to bring me into the
I mean some bullshit like that. Then everything you do,
you're going to go, I'm doing it for you. I'm
doing it for you. Look at all the sacrifices, and
(42:05):
then you would refuse to look at your sinister agenda
here that you're doing this for you. They didn't ask you,
they didn't even know who you were. They couldn't care
as which uterus, which ferm? Which it's science, it's biology.
It happened. It happened in a drunken moment. It happened
in a horny moment. It's not some big you know.
Oh my goodness, I am the vessel of this creature
(42:28):
and you owe me. Right, then we go, then we
trip into you owe me something because look what I've
given up. No, we are co creators. I wanted this.
I'm doing this to myself. I brought you here, you
poor thing. I'm so sorry. It should be the reversal,
you know, like I am using you to fulfill my fantasy,
not the other way around. Right. So it's this trap
(42:50):
of this martyr, a mentality that I like to shatter, like, No,
you're not a martyr. You're not here doing some God's work.
You on God or a vessel of God. You are
here because of biology, wanting something, own it. You wanted this.
This is fulfilling you. And check your ego at every turn.
Don't be under this illusion that you have been called
(43:12):
to this sacred job, you know.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
And do you think it's dangerous to think that if
you are? Do you think it's dangerous to parent in
a way of thinking, Yes, I do everything for you.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Oh my god, it's such a burden of guilt that
you place on your child. And let me tell you,
even though I know this, I love to lay the
guilt on my child. You know, I still do it
because that's the thing we parents do because it is
so much bloody work and we don't want to go
unnoticed for it. So already we're doing it. So imagine
if we really thought it was like, you know, God's work.
(43:45):
Oh my goodness, it's such an ego trip.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I know that you do have to go about.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I would love to leave this conversation with a practical
tool for parents, and I think like one of the
most you know, deep down, I think the thing that
we all want to feel is connected to our kids
though we really understand who they are. What would you
say are the best tools or the best thing to
do as a parent if you want to increase connection
with your kids, Well.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
The first thing is to examine your expectations versus reality. Like,
really look at the difference and the delta between your
expectations for your child versus the reality of who your
child is, and really connect with no. No, no, no. As
much as I want my child to be an extrovert
and really gregarious and the leader of every team, my
child is an introvert and shy and really really quiet.
(44:31):
Right now, get with the program. Parent the child in
front of you, not the parent of your not the
child of your fantasy. And the third thing I would
say is always connect first before you correct. So first
check in with the child. You know, how is my
child feeling, what's underneath the behavior? Let me not fix
(44:52):
the behavior, Let me try to understand what is the
need beneath the behavior, And remember that my child is
an evolved being, fallible, limited human being. And dare I say,
quite ordinary, and learn to accept them, accept them for
who it is they are, and don't live out your
ego through them. It's okay if they're average. It's not
(45:14):
a dirty word.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I love it. And quite ordinary. No one thinks their
kids are ordinary.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Everyone's like, look at the phot of my child, but truly,
I mean yeah, I also think that you know, you
create dynamics in families where you have the smart kid,
the achieving kid, the kid who's so good at X,
Y Z, and then the kid who feels like they're
perpetually underwhelming.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Trouble, Yeah, underwhelming.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
You know you have a scapegoat of the family because
they're maybe not as pliable or easy.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
But we see it happens so much in like sibling dynamics.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yes, you know. But the beauty of this consciousness work
is that as the parent becomes whole within themselves, they're
not looking for products and achievements and medals and trophies.
The parent, who's deep connected to the present moment, sees
the awe and wonder of the simple present, here and now.
(46:06):
And when the parent has developed this, this is what
I teach, then they see the child for their ordinariness
and seize the beauty of that and doesn't need the
child to be a comedian, a performer, a superstar in
order for them to feel that the child is unique.
The parent is able to tap into that depth because
the parent lives in that depthful place themselves. See, this
(46:31):
is a whole different paradigm that I teach about entering
the present moment in such a deep connected way that
you're not looking for the bells and whistles. You're looking
for the essence. And because you're connected to your essence
as a parent, the child's essence just blooms in front
of you. And you don't need the bobbles and the
trinkets to make your child special. The child is as
they are.
Speaker 4 (46:51):
Doctor Schwyley, thank you so much for coming and joining
us today. I was waiting for my unborn child to
pick my uterus to come into this world. But I
will will be a bit more active in my attempt
at the moment. But we're going to put doctor Sheafali's
tour notes. She's coming to Melbourne and Sydney in March.
We're going to put podcasts and social media and website
all of those links in our show notes for you
(47:12):
guys to go and find out more. Thank you for
giving us your time today.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Absolutely, I just want to say that I hope people
come for the tour. It's going to be an incredible
live workshop where I should be having people come on
stage talking about real life issues, so you can have
like a workshop style. So I hope people check out
the tour. And also I have a coaching institute where
I teach people to do what I do, so if
people are interested in learning this as a skill, as
(47:35):
a career, as a purpose, they can look up my
links and explore becoming.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
One of my coaches Coltish Flow. It's been an absolute pledge.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Thank you
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.