Dhru Purohit Show - How Your Fears and Insecurities Shape and Impact Your Children with Dr. Shefali

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and WHOOP.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Dr. Shefali to discuss the core principles of her new book, The Conscious Parent. Dhru and Dr. Shefali dive deep into the insecurities driving parenting styles today and what it means to become a conscious parent, which is less about control and more about learning how to re-parent yourself to cocreate a healthy relationship with your children.  Dr. Shefali received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University. She specializes in integrating Western psychology and Eastern philosophy for her clients and is an expert in family dynamics and personal development. Dr. Shefali teaches courses around the globe on parenting, spirituality, meditation, love, and strengthening relationships. She has written four books, three of which are New York Times bestsellers, including her two landmark books, The Conscious Parent and The Awakened Family. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Shefali dive into: -Top fears and insecurities driving parenting today (2:40) -How insecurities can drive the underlying obsession to have the perfect child (4:16) -What it means to be a conscious parent (12:03) -The difference between traditional parenting and conscious parenting (13:40) -Destigmatizing myths about the kids of conscious parents (18:39) -A breakdown of Dr. Shefali’s new book, The Parenting Map (24:56) -What it means to discover your two “I’s” (36:42) -The struggles with modern parenting (41:17) -How our behavior is a reflection of our inner state of being (46:40) -Where you can follow Dr. Shefali’s work (52:54) Also mentioned in this episode: -The Parenting Map: Step-by-Step Solutions to Consciously Create the Ultimate Parent-Child Relationship is available for preorder here.  For more on Dr. Shefali, follow her on Instagram @doctorshefali, Facebook @doctorshefali, TikTok @doctorshefali, YouTube @doctorshefali, and through her website, https://www.drshefali.com. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to https://www.insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. WHOOP is a personalized digital fitness tracker and health coaching platform that monitors your physiology 24/7 and provides personalized recommendations based on what your body needs. To get yours, go to https://www.join.whoop.com and get 15% off your membership with code DHRU15. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The premise of conscious parenting is that you cannot control another human being. You can be in charge. You can create the conditions in your home, but you cannot lay jurisdiction over their destiny and their soul. If you're looking for a step-by-step solution to consciously create the ultimate child, parent relationship and step away from all the craziness today's episode is for you. Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings. of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset.

And today's guest is Dr. Chafali. Dr. Chavali has a new book out called The Parenting Map, and it is a step-by-step guide of how to step into conscious parenting, starting off with reanalyzing your relationship with yourself. Where do your frustrations come from? Where does your need for control come from, and how do we project that person? on to our kids. Now, a little bit more about Dr. Sheffali. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University, specializing in integration of Western psychology and

Eastern philosophy. Dr. Sheffali brings together the best of both worlds for her clients and through her books. She's an expert in family dynamics and personal development teaching courses around the globe. And she's written four books, three of which are New York Times bestsellers including her two landmark books, The Conscious Parent and the Awakened Family. This new book is fantastic, and we break it down in the interview, but it has three big stages,

taking parents from frustration to clarity, from dysfunctional patterns to conscious choices, and the last and third stage is going from conflict to connection. Dr. Chevali is a friend, and she has a bunch of gems, and by the way, even if you're not a parent now, like me, There's so many themes in today's interview that everybody could walk away from. So whether you're a parent now, want to be one in the future, or you're just curious about human dynamics and how you can be a better person, you're going to enjoy today's interview.

Stay tuned for our episode with Dr. Schafali. Dr. Schafali, welcome to the podcast. A pleasure to have you here. I want to jump right in. You know, when I was reading the new book, which, by the way, click on the show notes. Everybody should pick it up. parenting map, I couldn't help but to think about the top fears and insecurities that are driving parents today. And I'd love to start there. In your opinion, what are some of the top fears,

top insecurities, give us like two, three that are out there that you think are driving the background narrative of how we parent today? Oh my goodness. They are the prototypical big three. I need to raise the perfect child, the happy child, and the super successful child. And everything that comes from this, right? So we want the kid who is a great athlete and super talented and is sweet and polite and kind and obedient. And the kid who's also a leader and a rebel and, you know, a maverick and courageous, everything. We really want an idealized version of. of a superhuman that I don't think we even know.

But so great is our ego that we actually think that we will produce and create and rear this superhuman, you know, supersonic human. And it's so sad because all these expectations to raise this kind of kid trap us and admire us in frustration, in rage sometimes, it doesn't manifest and in despair. And we end up feeling like failures as if we've done something wrong by producing this spawn, right, by spawning this kid. So it's really a huge trap and it binds many of us parents in a lot, a cyclonic labyrinth of despair. How much is the underwriting driver of that obsession to have the perfect child and successful and everything? How

How much of that comes from people's own internal feeling of I'm not enough? And so I need somebody else, this being that I'm bringing into the world that's really coming through me, even though I think I'm bringing it. I need them to make up for the fact that I don't feel enough. How much of that is a part of it? Well, I'm very impressed by you because that is literally 100% of the problem. And I always say that the greater our fantasy for our children, So when you become a parent, you're going to be asked this question.

Oh, what do you hope for your child? What do you wish for your child? And your answer will determine how big and deep your inner lack of worth is. If you project this answer of this super visionary child who's going to be the leader of the free world, find the cure to cancer, and be in the Guinness Book of Records, that answer, answer, although it sounds like you're just going to be a proud parent, that answer is indicative and is a barometer of how incomplete and insecure you are, like you said. So because you're insecure and because you haven't felt good enough, we then project that onto the other. And in this

case, it's so easy to do to our children because, quote unquote, we own them, right? They came from us. We're raising them. We're spending all this money. So at the very least, can they gratify us? Can they fulfill us? And this is why we end up having dysfunctional relationships with our children and our children grow up with this deep insecurity because they are robbed of who it is they are because they're serving the grand ego of the parent. On the surfaces may look like a book about parenting, right? I'm not a parent yet.

I definitely am interested in it. Knock on wood. It's something that my wife and I, Yasmin, definitely want to create in the future together, build a family, et cetera, bring a being into this world and really allow that child for us to listen to. And again, I won't get too much into some of my things. But I actually had a question for you. We were talking off camera.

And I said, I'm going to ask you on the interview. So before we dissect the book and how it's organized and give people some takeaways, I had a question for you, which is how much of your view on parenting in this world that you created in sort of conscious parenting, how much of that was already set up before you were a parent and how much came after you were a parent? You know, I, like most parents, don't fully appreciate how we are underpinning our parenting journey by our past experiences. We really don't appreciate it. So I had begun meditating when I was trying to. 21 years old and was a Vipasna meditator and a teacher. And so I was already very deeply ensconced in the world of Eastern mystical spirituality, understanding the nature of human nature. And I was also, you know, completing my PhD in clinical psychology when my child was born. So both these,

the Eastern spirituality and the Western psychology, had embedded in me a valid. foundation that I really was unaware of. I didn't even realize how much it was going to impact me. And it was only when I began raising my child and began spouting ego everywhere. I wasn't spouting love only. I was also spouting ego. That's when I stopped in my tracks and became aware that everything I was practicing on the meditation mat, so to speak, was not being practiced in real life. And I realize, wow, that ego that I'm battling on the meditation mat is showing up in my parenting. And I didn't realize that parenting would be infused by ego. No one told us that. And my awareness of our ego really came about because I had already been studying my ego so deeply

in meditation. I just was clueless to think that, despite all my massive gargantuan love for my child, it would still sneak in. And not only sneak in, it would take the show, you know. I had no, I had the audacity to think that my love would override my ego. So I was very humbled. That's beautiful. And thank you for the honest answer. That's there.

Set up the new book for us. And also a little bit of an introduction for those who are not familiar. No, my channel is not one that we consistently talk about. parenting. We've done some episodes. You've been on here before. What is the conscious parent? And how does this book fit into the idea and the tools that you want to give to parents and families? So this book is called the parenting map. And it's really my two-de-force. I have put so much energy into this book because it answers the question, how the hell do I become a conscious parent. My other books were about why we need to become conscious parents,

but parents were hounding me, you know, really bothering me with the how. And they wanted the steps. They wanted the one, two, three, the ABC. And I was resisting that for a long time, because perhaps I did not want to give them everything and feed it to them because I felt that they should go on this solo solo solitary journey. But then I surrendered and I realized that parents do want to become better, but they may just not have the time to go on this big inward quest. They may not have the money to seek counseling and therapy like I did. So why not put it together? And as I began to write it, it really began to flow. So this book is the how to manual to become a conscious parent. And I lay it out in 20 steps, in three stages, and I take people on a journey from changing their mindset to disrupting their patterns to connecting with their children.

And there's a ton of really great steps in it as I was going through the book. And some of the steps are really picking off of this theme of introspection and first starting with ourselves. So many people focus. And again, take all my mind. stuff with a grain of salt, right? I am an active uncle, but I'm not a parent yet. But in my observation, and I'm allowed to have observations, even though I don't have kids yet, in my observation, so many people focus on what is the child not doing that the parent wants. And this goes to this core idea, which is step number three inside the book of relinquishing control. Talk about that.

Yes, I often say that parenting should just be called controlling, because that's really, greatest desire and what we end up doing all day long. So before I get into that, people need to understand that most of us were raised in a paradigm of parenting that I call the traditional parenting paradigm. And what I'm espousing is something very different, a revolution in parenting called conscious parenting. So there's a vast difference between the two. And it underpins on this one principle. In traditional parenting, the parent is really given this delusion that they are in control of these beings and because they are in control, they get to create whatever they want out of these beings. So most of us have the same desire. We all want to

create the super perfect, supersonic, super achieving human being. So, this dual cocktail of control plus this expectation of fantasy that we can create this supersonic human being coaleses in the parenting journey and within the parent's psychology and pushes them stresses them to micromanage, over-interfer and over-parent their children. And this could look like a lot of discipline, right? we invented this thing called parental discipline, and we allow ourselves to think it's a noble thing because we come from this grandiose delusion

that we have supreme control over these beings, and we should have supreme control, and we can do whatever we want to them to obtain the outcome of supersonic human being. So this is the cocktail that we begin this journey with. Very soon we realize, that our children are mostly average, and average is a dirty word, apparently, can't use it too much. It's not sexy.

But it's the truth. Most of our children are and should be just in like average kids, ordinary human beings. But because we come with this massive delusion, we are trying to contort them, mutilate them to become something they may not ever be naturally. And we do this in the name of love. That's how dangerous this ego is. So conscious parenting is about turning that entire archaic, antiquated paradigm on its head and challenges the parent to look at their own evolution and ask themselves, why do I need my child to be under my ownership, possession, and control?

What is it in me that needs to lay dominion over this other free spirit? Why do I need them to be supersonic? Why do I need them to be anything? Why do I identify with their success as my success? So all these questions are asked by somebody who wants to be a conscious parent because the premise of conscious parenting is that you cannot control another human being. You can be in charge. You can create the conditions in your home,

but you cannot lay jurisdiction over their destiny and their soul. You just can't. You can try all you like, and what you will do is squash your child's manifested destiny. You can do that, but you cannot fully control another human being. And the second thing is that your desire for them to be supersonic comes from your own inner child wounds. And conscious parenting challenges the parent to raise themselves into the highest state of consciousness before they seek to raise these children. So it's a massively different movement.

It's based on completely different principles. It does away with fear, shame, guilt, and punishment and control. And talks about deep connection, attunement, presence, and truly honoring who your child is in their essence. And this is the perfect place before we go through and talk about a few more steps to talk about when people hear that. Sometimes they also hear, okay, great, this meditative Indian woman who is super beautiful and has a great big smile is coming to us with this enlightened version of parenting. So all our kids are going to grow up. They're going to be snowflakes. There's not any structure.

There's no sense of shepherding them into values into this world. And now we have a bunch of, you know, woke, hypersensitive kids that are running around. I'm sure you've heard that argument or that expression or projection rather on top of your work. So let's talk about that. Yeah, conscious parenting is not about coddling your children and creating these super fragile, entitled, indulged human beings. On the contrary, it's about allowing your children to deal with life's pain without control or interference and allowing them to have their authentic life experiences. The other way, the traditional parenting paradigm

just simply relies on control, punishment, shame, and blame, that's not teaching your kids how to deal with their feelings, process their own emotions, and handle life's experiences on their own terms. Conscious parenting fully believes that actually you don't raise happy children. The traditional parenting model says, raise a happy child. Conscious parenting never talks about raising happy children. In fact, it thinks that if you have that goal, you're going to really mess them up even more. The goal of conscious parenting is never to

raise a happy child or an unhappy child or to raise a good child or a bad child, but to allow the child to have a whole human experience as it shows up in their life. So it's actually much less interfering and much less protective than the traditional model. It scares people, Drew, because it speaks of letting go of control. That's when people start to protest. And let me tell you, I face so much resistance every single day

teaching this model because we have been raised through control, and that is the traditional conditioning. So to think about a new model that is not based on the archaic principle of domination and control is unfathomable to people. But because it's just, you know, people are ignorant to it doesn't mean that it's not effective. I have trained hundreds of parents to become conscious parents. My daughter is 20 years old. I've seen it in action.

And every parent who's done this work will attest that just because we will leave, least control doesn't mean we did not replace it with something even more valuable. And that's something that X factor is deep connection. We humans thrive in connected environments. When we try to control another, we actually create the abyss of disconnection. You and I know that in our own lives. Every parent knows that. In fact, I'll tell you something, Drew.

When a parent yells at their kid and I have yelled, at my kid. I have just lost my shit and yelled at my kid. You know who feels worse? The parent. It does not feel good to lay dominion on another person's soul. It intrinsically doesn't feel good. Now, of course, if I'm a zombie parent and completely drugged out or disconnected, I may not even be aware. But any sentient parent will say to you that it really sucks to enter control. So I'm offering a new model, which is connection. When we learn the tools of connection, as I teach in stage three of this book,

it's a game changer. Now it's not you against your kid. You don't even have to control your kid much at all because now you both are partners together, creating and co-creating life together. And that bond, you have that with your family, is irreplaceable. That's the foundation of resilience.

You know, my parents are, South Asian, right? We're originally ancestors from India, but we're fourth generation Kenyan. And when I look at the unique situation, and my parents made mistakes just like everybody else. I think when we first came to this country and I was born in Kenya, but I was raised here, I did notice a lot more of the traditional views, especially the high achieving immigrant family's sort of projection on your kids. But then I started to notice that there was much more of a friendship that was developing, especially between me and my dad, my siblings, my sisters, also started to notice that too. And as I reflected on that into my later years, and I asked my

parents about it, I said, you know, you guys took a very different approach. And there was no conscious parenting back then. So what was the thing that led to that different approach? And I remember my dad saying, you know, when me and your mom wanted to be together and they had a love marriage, it was so rare at the time it was called a love marriage and all the other marriages were in arranged marriage, right? Which was just called marriage. We felt that people were telling us not to be together. All the reasons that we couldn't come together because they were from different cast.

And there was so much control that was placed on us that I don't know if we decided. We definitely didn't say it out loud, but we made an internal decision at the time that we're just not going to do that same thing to our kids because we went through it. So all of us know what it feels like. Forget about even parenting and anything like that. to be controlled by our bosses, to be controlled by our partners, to be controlled by other people. We don't like it. And yet, if we don't have a roadmap on how to be different, we can fall into that same trap

that we suffered from. I want to set that up for our next question that we have here, which is let's zoom out and give a little bit of a framework on the book, right? There's three stages. You alluded to a little bit of them. But talk about these three stages and why you arranged them the way you did. I laid out the book as a journey. So if a parent out there wants to elevate their parenting and they can't afford a course or to go on a retreat, this book is that journey.

Each chapter has practice applications that parents can begin to embody in their day-to-day life. So the overview of the book is a journey. And like every transformational journey, it begins with the change in mindset. If you don't change your mindset, it's not going to be sustainable. Just like when you decide to eat healthy, you can take out all the cookies and throw out all the candy, but it's not going to sustain unless you have genuinely changed the mindset. So my first stage is the changing mindset stage. It's called From Frustration to Clarity, to Help Parents Understand why they're so frustrated.

Culture has really set us up to be frustrated. So I'll come back to that. Stage two is all about doing the deep inner work to heal your disruptive patterns. That section is a killer section. It's yours of therapy in that section. If people really embody and embrace that section, they will evolve just by doing the work in those pages. And then stage three is about conscious connection, how to consciously connect with your children. You know, we all want the connection piece. We all want the hugs and the kisses and the kid who feels safe to come to you. But we don't set ourselves up for that dynamic. Then we wonder why our kid is lying to us.

We wonder why our kid is, you know, staying out past curfew and not coming home. It's because the first two stages were not implemented and we just wanted the outcome. Conscious parenting is not something you are born with. It's something you become. It's something you have to cultivate. So I take parents on this journey where they have to cultivate the skills. This is like a skill set. We don't go to university.

There's no license. There's no program. Well, this book is that manual that you must go through so that you arrive at the precipice of now deep connection with your children. You cannot get there if you haven't done the first two stages. So stage one is changing mindset, which is basically debunking. all the ways culture has set us up to fail, by telling us that we should be in supreme control, by telling us that there is such a thing as a good child and a bad child,

by telling us that we need to raise happy, successful adults, by telling us that we need to, you know, save these beings, that we have these children because we're selfless, so now we own them. All these ways our psychology as parents have been really skewed toward frustration. and we don't realize it. And then when we are frustrated, we feel really upset with ourselves. And then we feel ashamed. And then we don't talk about it to anyone because we think everyone else is doing it well.

So it's this big hidden secret. And no one wants to share the vulnerabilities of parenting. You know, you're going to hopefully be a parent soon. You right now sitting here kind of may think that, you know, you'll know what to do. But imagine when you arrive at parenthood and you don't know what to do. Like that is parenting 10 times a day. Like what the F do I do now? We are so clueless and no one is talking about it.

It's the emperor without any clothes. Everyone is acting like they know what they're doing. No one knows what they're doing. So that's why we hold on to control because that we can do. But we don't know the rhyme or reason, the logic or the sense of it. We're just winging it. Let me tell you, we're winging it. If the neighbor's kid is going to learn the harp, we'll send our kid for harp lessons.

If the neighbor's kid is starting tutoring in math, we'll send our kid for math. It's a trend. I call it the parenting industrial complex because we parents are really, you know, being used by culture and a consumeristic culture as pawns. It's a great experiment. And everyone is winging it and just following the other and is this mass movement in unconsciousness. So when I began to talk about it, you know, parents began to come out of the closet. And when I first wrote my book, The Conscious Parent, there was resistance, but there was great relief because parents saw their ego, but they were too embarrassed to talk about it. So I gave parents permission, really, to own their ego.

And I did it really by owning my ego. So that's the whole first stage. It sets you up to begin the journey of conscious parents. parenting. It prepares you. And then stage two is about going deep and figuring out your ego patterns. We can talk about that. And I identify the different ego patterns that you can become as a parent. And that's a very profound exercise because you get to see your parents' ego patterns, your partner's ego patterns. And then the third stage, I teach parents what connection really looks like and what does that mean. So before we go to stage two and three, and you know, we've teased out a few from number one.

one. I want to still tease out one more from number one and give some practical takeaways on top of the ones you've already shared. Step six is discard the labels. What are the common labels that parents are using today? And how do those labels get in the way of us establishing true connection with our kids? Well, the labels are, you know, the prototypical labels that we place on everybody. Oh, this kid is so challenging. This kid is a struggle. Just today I was talking to a mom who was like, oh, this kid, this kid is the difficult kid. And I asked her, hmm, from what age would you say this kid has been difficult? And do you know what the common answer is? Do you know? Can you take a guess? From the time that they were born?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And listen, from the time a kid is born, they're literally just a child. Sure, they can be more irritable and colloquy than the other. But we immediately project all these labels. So the typical ones fall in the two categories of good or bad, right? And really, what we mean by that is that the good kid fell into our movie, right? They took the script of our movie and they were really good actors and they were cooperative and compliant and obedient and servile and they allowed us to stay in our movie. The bad actors were rotten players. They refused to take the script and they dared to have their own script and be their own director. How dare they? So the moment we realize that the kid is not following our script, that's it. We label them as bad.

Just like we do with our friends, we do with our politics, we do with our lovers, right? If they don't fulfill our egoic agenda, boom, they're bad. Now with adults, some adults are really rotten players, okay? I'll give you that. But kids, your kid, who's literally just been born and you are co-creating their reality, come on, you have to take some responsibility in that co-creation. But parents are so oblivious to the fact that they have been with this kid for moment one. So therefore they are influencing this kid's attitude, behaviors, but they don't take accountability for that. And they don't want to look at how tremendously and tragically subjective they are about their perceptions of their children.

You know, just today somebody wrote in one of my chats, you know, how do you deal with a defiant, rebellious stepchild? So right there, if you're calling the kid defiant and rebellious, then immediately it's going to create anxiety, it's going to create resentment, it's going to create rage and you are going to show up with a huge chip on your shoulder full of defenses. We don't see that. We're not aware of that. And then the kid will react to that with their own punch and their own kick and then we will punish them.

But we don't want to own, why is it that my kid just slammed the door on my face? We just want to yell at the kid for slamming the door on the face. So just to jump in. So for parents who are struggling like this woman, right, sorry to interrupt. you, but just a good clarification, how could have she brought it up? Or what would be a way to talk about it? You know, because she's genuinely, obviously, there's something that she's struggling with. Or are you saying that it's not the way that she brought it up, but there's the lack of reflection of her contribution to the situation? Like, is there a different way to bring it up or is it primarily focusing on, or is it both?

If you have a different perception, you would bring it up differently, such as what is going on within me, Dr. Shefali that I just constantly let myself be triggered by my beautiful kid. What is it in me that doesn't see his or her superpowers? What is it in me that sees him or her in such a light that I cannot honor who they are? And I'll tell you what it is. You already know. It is because the kid reflects a part of them that they have disowned themselves. So if the kid is boisterous and noisy and distracted, that's a part in them that they considered bad at an early age and they disowned and they discarded. So when it shows up in the kid, your kid, you're like hell to the no, no way. I discarded it in myself.

So I will now aim to discard it in you. But here's the catch. You cannot discard anything in another human being simply by commanding. it. If it's their unique essence or their nature, you can help titrate it, but you know what you focus on grows. So the more you focus on, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad. Guess what? The kid will then fulfill that destiny, right? And be bad. So it's up to us to see our children in beauty and to hold them to beauty so that they can then live up to that beauty themselves. Doesn't mean they become good and doesn't mean that they become, you know,

more obedient. It just means that they will be comfortable being who, which is they are. And then when people are comfortable being who they are, they actually don't resist you too much. They cooperate with you because they know that you're not fighting them, that you are on their side. Let's go to the second stage, which is all about going from dysfunctional patterns to a conscious choice, right, in the how to map. Again, this is a how to map for parents who are looking to step into that practical aspect of what does it look like to embody being a conscious parent, which doesn't mean that you're enlightened, doesn't mean your kids are enlightened, doesn't mean that immediately anything is going to shift besides your own sense of perception, which then when you first

change yourself and recognize your own patterns, then the world starts to change around you. Is that accurately said? Beautifully said, yes. Okay, great. So stage number two. So let's start at the beginning of stage number two. So there is the step number seven, which is discover your two eyes. Take us from the top over there.

Okay, so before I begin, let me just explain that part of our healing and growth and transformation can only come about when we realize that we are living, cyclical, repetitive, robotic patterns. I often say we're not living a life, we're living a pattern. That is a little alarming, but it can also be very reassuring that it's really the same pattern, you know, but it's kind of, you know, a little unnerving because we think we are with a new partner, or we bought a new pair of shoes, or we lost 10 pounds, so we are going to change our life. Guess what? As John Kabat-Zinn says, wherever you go, there you are. right? So no matter what, your unresolved issues are going to predictably, reassuringly show up everywhere. This is the curse of it, but this is also the blessing of it, because eventually one day,

when you're ready to wake up, you can go, oh, I've been so reassuringly standard and predictable. Oh, I've done the same thing over and over again. So discovering your two eyes, that is that step. That step means you have to understand that psychologically, we as children were not seen for who it is we were. All across the board, most of us, maybe you with your amazing parents and me a little bit with my amazing parents, was seen for who we were. But even there, there was some mismatches. Oh, I definitely didn't feel seen early on.

Like, there was, you know, that happened in stages later. But definitely I can relate to that as a child, feeling like not feeling seen. for my more rebellious nature. Beautiful. So all of us grew up with some degree of this sense of not feeling seen for who it is we are, with this pressure to get worth validation and praise and honor and love from those around us. And so because it did not come easy or quick, we realized that we needed to earn it. We needed to buy it.

We needed to purchase it. this barter exchange of giving up our authenticity for some connection. So we gave up our authentic self and put on a mask. Some of us became the class clown and the comedian. Some of us became the pleaser and the overgivers. Some of us became the good children. Some of us became the talented superstars or the super achievers. Because we saw whenever we were that kind of person, we got the love and praise and validation. So we wanted that credit in our emotional bank. So we did whatever it took.

The greater degree we did not get seen, the greater and more rigid are ego masks. So this is the dynamic that we kind of come to adulthood with and parenthood with. And these are the two eyes. That little child that wasn't seen for who it is, they authentically were, is the first eye, the inner child. and who we became in order to do this barter exchange is the imposter ego, the two eyes. And then what I teach in this book, and I teach it in all my courses, is now you have to

reparent yourself. And this is the beauty of our life journey. You know, many parents feel resentful of their parents that they were never parented. Now they have to parent, but they were never parented. But I call it the nature of life, of at least this human existence. in this modern era. You will have unconscious parents. You will get effed up.

And then you have the beauty and the grace and the opportunity to re-parent yourself. I think that's fabulous. I think that's called evolution. So I call that developing your third eye, your insightful self. And I teach in this book how you can mediate between your inner child and your ego and create this insightful self. and then through this adult insightful self, you can parent your children. But I also talk about how your children develop their own egos and how you can help your children break free from their ego patterns as well.

How much do you think the struggle of modern parenting is also that we're in this great experiment in human history where we have nuclear families that don't have grandparents around in particular, not to romanticize, that every grandparent out there has wisdom. There's plenty of cultures and individual people where grandparents were just as controlling as everybody else. But they've kind of been through it before. And there was a little bit of because they were in the picture and just the way that societies were sort of brought up, they were a little bit there to remind the parents to kind of back up a little bit.

Not everything was on just the mom, which so much of today modern parenting is so much on the mom. So how much of the modern struggle in your opinion, and you can completely disagree with me, put your two cents on it, is that we are in this giant experiment of raising kids on our own in these nuclear families without really a lot of other support around us? To me, it's the greatest crime. It's the greatest scourge. But what to do? You know, we are living in these insanely individualized nuclear pods, isolated. And the mother, since you said the mother, it could be the dad, but a lot of it falls on the mom. Oh my goodness, the pressure she feels. And then in this modern world, this mother is also feeling the pressure to not just be the most amazing mom, but to be the sexiest mom, to be the fittest mom, to be the richest mom, to be the richest mom, to have a career, to have a passion, to have philanthropic interests, to be on the board of her school, to be on the PTA, to volunteer in a sixth world country. the modern woman is under siege and this adage, you know, you can do it all, is really a curse

because you cannot do it all at once. If you can even do it all. I don't know if you can do it all. I remember when I was a mother, young mother, I was still doing my PhD and I was dirt poor. I was taking loans. I was really in debt. And I wanted to write books. and I wanted to have the life that I now have, which is to travel.

But I realized I couldn't. That needed to be on pause because this really needy person needed me, and that was my primary responsibility. Whether I liked it or resented it or not, that was of irrelevance because I needed to show up. So I did myself the favor and reduced my resentment by reducing my list of priorities, by reducing my list of aspirations.

And I did not look at it as a sacrifice or compromise. I looked at it as a celebration of this incredible opportunity to evolve. I look at the parenting journey as truly a spiritual discipline, much better than being a monk in a cave. Like there is nothing better than a child. If you choose to embrace this aspect to get you to crush your ego, to enter the present moment and to live in joy and beauty.

I mean, the moment I decided to not be resentful of all the things I couldn't do, like lose all the weight, like be super fit, like travel the world, and be the speaker that I am now, all international and fancy. As soon as I let go of that,

I entered peace. I entered the surrender of this beautiful opportunity to learn from my child. I use, it as school. I used it as meditation practice and I used it to bust my ego and I let it crash and burn my ego and I was all the more better for it. And then once my kid was 10 or 12, then I began to embrace my career more. So women need to, before becoming mothers, ask themselves if they are ready

to, and fathers too, please, I don't want a war against me now that I said mothers. whoever has chosen to be there, somebody needs to be there and make it their priority because children do need us and do need our presence. But forget what they need. We need them. I have learned my best lessons from my kid. Children are like, I mean, let me tell you, they are feral monsters, okay? They are a pain in the ass.

But they are also these magnificent gurus of living in the present moment. So I needed a guru to teach me how to live in the present moment. So I took that. I learned from my kid. So I came out much richer. So that's what I teach parents. Change your attitude because this is going to be hell of a ride if you don't change your attitude. If you think you can do it all and you want to do it all, you will resent your children.

You would resent the journey because it's a life sentence. Yeah? You, I mean, there is no end to this. It's like nonstop, round the clock all your life. And then they drain your energy, drain your bank account. And it's a thankless job. So think before you become a parent. There is no grandeur to this.

Dr. Chavali, while I have you here for a little bit more, and you've been on a great press circuit. I've been enjoying your interviews on all the podcasts and Instagram lives. People can follow you. Click on the link instead of the show notes. You can pick up the book, the parenting map. You can follow Dr. Chavali on social media. give us one of your favorite and maybe in the context of this interview steps for stage three.

Something that you feel is not being talked about enough right now in sort of modern society, but it could be good to bring up on the podcast right now. I think this is the most beautiful part of conscious parenting and conscious living is all our behavior is a reflection of our inner state of being. If we really understand that about ourselves and others, we will have great compassion. I use the acronym sign. All misbehavior is a sign, S-I-G-N, something inside gone negative. And if we can just hold space to wonder, to be curious, and lean into asking, why is my kid misbehaving right now, then we will realize that it's about something internally misaligned.

And typically for children, it's one of three things. They either don't have the skill because literally their brain is not developed, like literally there are holes in their brain development. Two, they don't have the life experience that we do. They haven't practiced life enough. And number three, they may not have self-worth. There is something emotionally blocking them. So when you realize it's one of these three things, then punishment is moot.

You can't yell at your kid for not having the brain power. You can't yell at them for not having the life experience. You can't yell at them for having an emotional stagnation. So you have compassion. When you have compassion, you understand your kid. When you understand your kid, your kid connects to you. When your kid connects to you, you have influence, and that's your true power. You know, I had this realization as we're going through, and I'm reading your work in this interview.

I, you know, we were chit-chatting at the beginning of the podcast, and I was telling you about my older sister, Herschel, who you know, who's a big fan, preordered book as soon as she saw it was announced. I also realized I had the benefit of having her as a third parent in a way. And I don't think that older siblings get enough credit sometimes, right? Now, not all of them step into this role, but my older sister who bared the brunt, as many immigrant, you know, kids do who are the older child, and especially the female, because society has all their rules about how females should show up, what they're allowed to do, what they're not allowed to do. I also realized that my older sister stepped into the place of like,

okay, I need to protect my younger siblings, myself and my younger sister, and also be another parent. How can I parent them? Because again, my parents were doing the best than you have, but there was gaps in their understanding. And so I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge her because she was a parent who didn't get the credit for being a parent. So that's just something I also had this aha moment in as we're talking over here. You know how lucky you are. because I have an older brother. I have an older brother. He's six years older.

And he was my surrogate parent, too. And it was amazing. And of course, I had to then go through an individuation process with him. But it's lovely to have these surrogate parents, aunties, cousins, a coach, teachers. Teacher. A coach, right. It's so important.

And actually with my daughter, from the time she turned 16, I hired someone. Of course, I had to pay them. to be her coach and they're still together. And even though my daughter's 20 and she's her primary coach and they have a good, strong relationship because our children need to venture out to other adults who they can relate to better. I always say outsource your parenting after the age of 16. So you're lucky you had somebody who could mediate and be that buffer for you.

And that's awesome. Well, it goes back to our last question that I was asking you, which is that we're in this grand experiment of raising kids on our own without a community. And I think that part of stepping into a conscious parent is also now it's such a hard job to be a parent. And it'll bring out all the best and all your fears too that you haven't faced that we need a supportive community. We need to create the modern version of the town square. We need to create the group that's around us because most people don't often live next to their family. So how do you create friends that are that family and you're creating that modern tribe that looks after each other and belongs to each other? And part of that

is even just pick up a copy of this book and create a book club with a few other parents in your community. Maybe there's, you know, I'm part of a men's group that meets every Thursday morning. It's like even men getting together and talking about how they can show up better and most of the guys in the group are dads. This is the version of what society needs because we cannot do it a lot. I think that's a big part of it. I agree with you 100%. So we're talking about my book, the parenting map. I hope people will buy it.

And Drew, you shared with your father friends because we need more men doing this work of conscious parenting because very often the female comes to this more quickly. And we need more men on board as well. So thank you for helping me spread the work. Absolutely. And just one other thing I want to say here, as a guy is that any pattern that shows up with your partner with the kid is also a dynamic that's

there inside of the relationship, right? If you have one partner that is really into the control thing, probably as a, you know, if it's the wife with the kid or the husband with the kid, chances are between husband and wife, that same dynamic is there. So leaning into these components, I see it as being something that's beneficial to all aspects of your life, including your relationship and what guy or girl or anyone wouldn't want to improve all aspects. Dr. Sheffali, it's been such a pleasure to have you on. Just give us the top line stuff, how people can follow you and continue on this journey of conscious parenting.

Thank you. So they can go to my website, DR for Dr.shifali.com, and buy the book, The Parenting Map. come follow me on Instagram. And I have tons of courses. I have a coaching institute where I coach people to become conscious parenting coaches. So if people want a second career with more purpose and service, then many people join that institute as well. Amazing. Dr. Chavali, thank you for being such a force for what's possible in this world.

If we're willing to let go of our idea of what should happen. If we're willing to let go of what we think should happen, how we should show up, how our kids show up, how our society should show up, if we're willing to let that go and step into the unknown, there's so much possibility and you're showing us how. So thank you for that. Thank you so much.