Good Life Project - Dr. Shefali Tsabary: Parenting as a Vehicle for Liberation

Episode Date: June 9, 2016

This week, my special guest is Dr. Shefali Tsabary. If her name sounds familiar, you may have seen one of her appearances as the resident parenting expert on Oprah.Dr. Shefali is the author of multiple books, including her latest, The Awakened Family. She is a clinical psychologist with an incredibly unique East-meets-West approach to helping adults become who they need to be through a relationship with children.I knew that I needed to have Dr. Shefali on the show to share her incredible insight on the anxiety that many families experience. This anxiety can be present not only between parents and children but also between adults.As we talk today, Dr. Shefali shares her own personal journey, from growing up in Mumbai in a strongly patriarchal society to finally striking out on her own and heading to San Diego and then New York. Her growth is an inspirational story of what you can achieve with supportive parents, a dream and the drive to succeed.Listen in to learn to determine how to help people to emerge into a life that’s happy, fulfilled and in a place where you can be truly yourself. In This Episode, You'll Learn:How Dr. Shefali experienced the death of her former life...and why you might want to as well.Why, as parents, we need to let go of what "we" want for our kids.How kids can be a profound vessel of liberation for parentsWhy we are so afraid to step into who we truly are.The unique way Dr. Shefali’s parents helped her to become who she is today.What Dr. Shefali holds most sacred for childhood development.Be mindful of your child's journey of figuring out who they are.Why Dr. Shefali has a deep respect and reverence for Sigmund Freud.Mentioned in This Episode:Shefali’s Website: DrShefali.comShefali’s Books: The Awakened Family, The Conscious Parent, Out of ControlShefali’s Facebook: Dr. ShefaliCalifornia Institute of Integral StudiesSigmund Freud Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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at goodlifeproject.com slash camp, or just go ahead and click the link in the show notes. On to our show. If I'm given the message that work is life and life is work, life is an adventure and my moment to moment evolution is of sacred purpose, then when I break up with my boyfriend, I'm going to look at it as a growth awareness. If I fail in a test, I'm going to learn from it. And every moment becomes about evolution on the being level versus an achievement on the ego level. My guest today is Dr. Shefali Sabari, and she's the author of a number of books. The latest is The Awakened Family. And she's also a clinical psychologist and kind of known as Oprah's parenting expert. You may have seen her

a number of different times on the show. What's really fascinating to me is that she has this extraordinary lens, sort of East meets West approach to helping grownups become who they need to be through a relationship with children. And her take on this and her take on a lot of the anxiety that happens in families, not only between parents and kids, but also between adults and who they blame and what's really behind it and how to emerge into a life that's happy and fulfilled and where you are actually truly yourself. Pretty interesting process and lens. She also has her really own fascinating personal journey growing up in Mumbai, India and then moving around there and then making the decision at the age of 12 that she was going to leave and then finally actually leaving at the

age of 21 and landing in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. And how that happened and why she picked that place and what happened when she landed is all part of today's really enjoyable and fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. So let's take an interesting step back in time also. Right now, you write a lot, you speak about, you have a clinical practice around families and kids, which brings up the really obvious immediate question for me, which is like, you know, it's a classic Freud question. So tell me about your childhood.

Yeah, no, I can totally understand that question. So my childhood was pretty nondescript, except I think it was extraordinary in that I grew up without the typical conditioning that most people may go through. You know, I grew up, say, without the boundaries of any one particular religion. I was allowed to kind of figure out my own relationship with the universe, with divinity. So my parents didn't impose that on me or any stringent way to be a woman or be a girl. But I was in a culture that was heavily patriarchal. I was steeped in that patriarchy. So that was hard to combat what I was learning at home and the freedom I was being given at home, as opposed to what I was seeing in the culture around me. And that clash really was insufferable to me in many ways. And I just needed to leave. And I started imagining

leaving, not because I had the most close relationship with my parents and a lovely home, but I just couldn't stand the dictates of the patriarchy that were around me. And I recognized it early on. And I couldn't tolerate it. So from the age of 12, I would tell my father, you know, I need to go, I need to go, I just knew I needed to be in America from the age of 12. And he kind of just reined me in and reined me in as long as he could. And then at 19, I decided, that's it, I'm leaving. And then finally, he only let me go at 21. But I knew I would never go back. So you grew up in Mumbai, right? I grew up in Mumbai, in Delhi, New Delhi and Bangalore. So I traveled all over India, and just grew up with so

much love and, you know, non conditionality. And I wouldn't say unconditional, I don't believe there is any such thing as complete unconditional love, but without the conditions of tradition, and religion and impositions, but the culture around me was insufferable. So tell me more about that. hierarchical system, right? It's highly patriarchal and very dogmatically attached to its old traditions, which has beauty, so much beauty, but then it can be suffocating if one decides to not live within those confines, right? Then what do you do? So there's no room for different. Now India's changing, of course, India's changing so much. But at its core, there is this way to be, which can be binding and constricting for someone who doesn't want

to fall in those limited lines, as I was, you know. I mean, it's interesting also that within that sort of bigger cultural constraint that it seems like your family, your parents somehow developed a very, a much more open lens. I'm curious, where does that come from in the generation above you also? Well, I think that, you know, they followed a way of being which endorsed an open bowl, you know, syndrome, open bowl system where everything was, it was like an open bowl, and much of Hinduism is an open bowl, you know, they take any sort of, you know, you can pray to the sun god, the rain god, you know, there's so much variation and creativity. And my parents probably took that even further

and didn't impose any one way on me. So, you know, I just think that that's who they uniquely are, and they continue to be that way. And so I just, you know, won the lottery in that aspect. But it was unusual. You know, many of my friends did not have this open system and open way of thinking and being. So I was constantly coming up against that as a child and as a woman. And I wanted to be so much more than I knew I would be allowed to be. You know, I'd have to fight a lot harder in India to be what I eventually turned out to be. And I didn't want to fight. I just wanted to have open space to develop. Yeah. I mean, to know that also at the age of 12, that this was not going to be where you stayed.

I mean, that's a pretty early awake. I mean, it's not only is an early awakening, but it's also, it kind of speaks to the fact that there was some fear strength within you that started to really emerge at a pretty young age. Yeah, and I think... And there's like an extent of conviction. Yeah, and I think that's true for most children. You know, if we listen closely as parents, there is an undeniable, you know, bent in all children. And you can see the flourishings of it at an early age. So I honor that because I had that in me.

I mean, if I could have left at 12 and had the wherewithal to survive, I would have left. Not again, because I was unhappy, but because I knew my destiny was somewhere else. So I think our children have that bent, you know, it's about paying attention to it and honoring that and allowing it to develop unshamed, unjudged, uncriticized. And then children, if you're allowed to follow it and allowed to be true to it, you know, you really can flourish. Makes a lot of sense to me. And I actually want to go deeper into that, but I want to just finish your story a little bit more also. So at the age of 21, you finally decide that you're headed to the United States.

Tell me about that moment. Oh, my God. It was epic, epic. But, you know, epic, but it was, I just knew I was going to make it happen. I got the applications on my own. I studied for the SATs on my own. I found the schools on my own. Of course, everyone supported me, but there was no way I was not going to be here. You know, I was, and there was no turning back. And, you know, and I still remember coming out of the subway and seeing San Francisco, which is where I first went. And I would see the sign San Francisco and I would see California and just the signs.

And I lived in Haight-Ashbury and I had read all about it. Right, right. I would just stop at the sign and go, my God, I'm here. You know, I made it. I left. I found my way to my home. And it was in many ways my home. And, you know, and then to see blue skies, you know, I know it's such an underrated thing for people who grew up with blue skies, but I grew up with smog and pollution. I would just stare out of the window and look at the blue sky and go, what a wondrous thing this blue sky is. And so I took these, you know, very nuanced, subtle things to have great meaning. And I found great purpose and joy. And I knew I was planted exactly where I was meant to

be. And I went to a school which was so forward thinking, the California Institute of Integral Studies, which integrates Eastern and Western philosophies, which is really the basis of my work today right and you know they they taught me how to meditate and be mindful and think out of the box and not have a box and break down all stereotypes and so i was just rapidly in my 21st year i think i transformed into an entirely the same person in my essence but all the barriers in my mind shifted, changed, crumbled, shattered, and there developed a new sense of self. I mean, I died onto my old self. I remember the moment of death. You know, I had a moment of death of my old self. Okay, you have to, you can't just leave that there. I know that the moment you came to near,

now I need to know about the moment of your old death. I think we all have to die onto our old false selves, you know, and there is a period of being willing to die. You know, I think there are many deaths in life. And it's not a death in the morose sense. It's the death of it in the way of shedding and letting go and saying, okay, the expiration date has come and I now need to release it, that person, that thing, that identity, in order to evolve. I think we're here to evolve. And we're scared to evolve. We're scared to morph. We attach, we cling, we want familiarity, we want to live within two square miles of our childhood. And not that that's a bad thing, not at all, but where's the evolution

then? Where's the challenge? And I think being willing to step onto the precipice, and then take that leap, you will be held, you know, there is something to hold you, but you have to take that leap. Yeah, I think that's where so many of us stumble, though, right? It's, you know, standing into Joseph Campbell's abyss. It's like, when you go to that place, having faith that you will be held is unconscionable for so many people. It's just because maybe, I think because partly we're wired that way, but also maybe because so many people have never experienced that. You know, the steps they have taken, they've actually been slammed or they've been rejected. And so, they're reacting to this sort of pattern. And so, the idea that you could actually step into the unknown and be held, it's this idea

that I think some of us are like, oh my God, this would be beautiful. I mean, how stunning would that be? But to have faith that that will actually happen, I don't know many people who do. I mean. Yeah. And that's where that primary attachment in childhood, you know, and I know I'm going back to childhood, but it's that primary trust. You know, how do we as adults and caregivers and parents give children this trust that

life is here to support you? You may be poor. You may face racism. You may face sexism. But inherently within the parent-child bond is this trust that they got your back, you know, and that's how trust develops, you know, that you're not going to be slammed and shamed, as you said, and but tragically, we all are being shunned for who we are and shamed for who we are. So you're right. So we enter adulthood, cynical, resentful, and full of this baggage that doesn't allow us to jump off the precipice and

into the abyss. Yeah. And then you add to that the notion that, you know, through the abyss, the old self has got to die to make space for the new self to emerge. And again, from a Western mind, I think that notion is terrifying for so many people. And, you know, it's interesting, you know, you were born into a culture where you said, you know, sort of like there was a melting pot, but, you know, but classically Hindu teachings bring in all this different stuff. I've spent a fair amount of time studying Buddhism. So the idea has become more comfortable for me, but it's definitely a later in life awakening.

But how about this insight that every time we were shamed and shunned, it was a death already. You know, what we're afraid of has already happened. It has already happened. It has already happened. The woman who wants to get a divorce but can't has already divorced from her true self. You know, the man who's in his dead end career and is terrified to leave has already deadened to himself. The death has already happened. It's just the death of the true self has been happening all along. We don't want to kill the false self, which is the irony of it. Because all I'm saying is like, okay, all that died in me was my false self.

So we don't want to let go of the false self. But the reason we don't is because we don't see it as a false self, right? We wear it as a second skin now. The shame, this lesser than this, this lack of worth, this inadequacy, this fear, we think that's the true self. That's the false self. That's been conditioned. That's been told. So that moment when we can realize, holy cow, I'm living a false self. I'm holding on to fear, which comes from falsehood, from lack. That is the moment of epiphany, right? Because once you realize that that's all false, you're like, come on, let's the moment of epiphany, right? Because once you realize that that's all false, you're like, come on, let's kill it quick. But we don't realize it's false.

We think that false self is the truth, but we believe unhappiness is our fate. We believe our insecurities are our core. And that's the false self. Once we can shed that, we enter divinity, we enter wholeness, we enter integration, we enter oneness. So there is no abyss versus precipice. It's all one. Now we're like all in one net. We're all held by the universe.

But it looks like an abyss because we don't realize that we have been living a false self all along. Yeah. My head is spinning. I'm trying to process all this. Yeah, because the idea that there is no abyss, actually, that the precipice, the abyss, the emergence is actually all one and that true self who you've been seeking, it's, you know, the idea of liberation rather than transformation.

It's always been there. It's a matter of stripping away the egoic identity that basically is just hiding it from you. That's sort of keeping you in this state of death it's it's interesting at that because i think what scares so many people is again is the idea of the abyss the idea of walking into the unknown and having to figure it all out from nothing you know it's like so you hold on to the one thing that you feel is defined exactly even though it's misdefining you but at least it's defined and there's not like this,

I don't know what's next thing, but you also kill the grace of actually going to that next place. Right. And that's why parenting is so pivotal because we have been given this identity from parents who are largely unconscious, right? They tell us who we are, you know, you're shameful, you're lesser than, you're inadequate or whatever you are according to their projection, right? They tell us who we are, you know, you're shameful, you're lesser than, you're inadequate or whatever you are according to their projection, right? And so now we cling to that identity and never then realize that life is a journey of finding and unfolding onto your true self, right? So that is why the parent becomes pivotal to show the child that life is a journey. You know, I don't know who you are and I have no right to tell you who you can be. You go figure it out. So I escaped, you know, at least 60% of the projection that my parents would have perhaps wanted to put on me, but

somehow I escaped that. So I was given some freedom to evolve. And that is what I hold sacred. And that's my biggest, you know, gift that I somehow managed to take or be given from my parents that I can evolve and don't be afraid to evolve. And it seems like you came when you when you hit San Francisco, that was already a big part of you. And then that your choice of education was something that just kind of whatever was already instilled in you was amplified, was amplified. Yeah, you know, you get attracted to what you need to learn, you know, so I was attracted to my own culture actually just took me back even deeper into

meditation and mindfulness, which is the core of, you know, Hinduism and Buddhism. It just took me back to that and it felt right to me and I could just further catapult on my growth. The key was mindfulness. The key was learning how to become separate from my thoughts and my identity and touch a greater sense of being within. Yeah, and mindfulness has certainly become this huge buzzword in the U.S. these days. And I think a lot because I think a lot of the drive in this country, at least, is performance-based because people are kind of saying, oh, well, actually, let you do it long enough, the true reasons and the true impact will emerge. So I don't particularly care

what brings you to it. I'm curious what your sort of take is on that. Yeah, that's a great point because I have a huge beef with that because we're almost selling mindfulness to fit into the Western psyche of achievement and accomplishment. That's the way to sell parents, to teach your kid mindfulness or sell an athlete. And I just have such a problem with it, but you're right. If that's what it takes to bring the person on the mat or on the cushion and to sit, hey, do it. Whatever works, because you're right. Eventually, when you kind of do it for a long time, you understand- Yeah, it doesn't matter why you came to it. It just works. You know, and if you really penetrate that whole desire to sell it, it's just fear.

It's what, you know, why do we need to sell it? You know, what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the ability to sit and be present to your own thoughts and to befriend who you are in the moment. What is mindfulness? The power to be in the moment, to be in the present. Why are we so scared of it? It's almost like we have to attach a huge outcome-based measure to it. We have to put bells and whistles on it. This is just the psyche that we have now all become

addicted to, that there needs to be money or success or achievement. Otherwise, I can't simply sit, enter my being. So I agree with that. And then the flip side of my head says that anything that we do as human beings, at least again, I'm going to speak about Western culture, because I know it's a lot different when you're brought up in a culture where there's an expectation of you practice and over time, just things emerge. But I think there's a unique Western-oriented mindset that kind of says that if you do something, you should feel something, you know, five minutes from now or a week from now. And part of what my sense is the big struggle is that this is not the type of thing where it's sort of like do this for 21 days and on the 21st day, you're going to feel awesome. You know, and there's no well-defined promise. There's no well-defined promise. And we tend to do terribly with the idea of consistent action over time in the hope of some sort of delayed gratification

or reward. The idea of non-attachment to the outcome is foreign to us. And so I wonder whether that's what's really behind the quote selling, selling of the practice is that, you know, you need a certain amount of scaffolding to do it long enough. I agree. I agree. It's tragic, but I absolutely agree with you that we need that. No, it's not what it's about, but. Exactly, exactly. But, you know, people who do it long enough see, it's funny, you know, you see immediate results to enter non-gratification, right? You understand, oh, I don't need to be immediately gratified. And this practice helps me not to be immediately gratified. And therein is liberation. Because now I don't need to go gossip the minute I feel the urge to gossip. I don't need to put something on Facebook the minute I feel lack. I don't need to go for that glass of

wine. I can now sit with it. Now, isn't that liberation, right? I know it's a hard sell, but people have to experience it. And when you experience it long enough, then you understand it. Yeah, no, I totally get it. I mean, it's part of my daily practice as well. You know, I roll in bed first thing in the morning and I sit. And then I try and really just bring that same sense of awareness, mindful awareness to the day. It doesn't always work.

It doesn't always work, but at least it's in the backdrop of your awareness to go back to. And it makes the moment less stressful. You don't need to react right away. You learn to see the bigger picture. You just do. I think that's one of the biggest noticeable shifts for me has been the decrease in reactiveness. You know, really just kind of like something happens that you didn't expect to happen and maybe it's not what you wanted to happen. And you just kind of zoom out a little bit like, huh, what's really going on here? Like what would be the optimal way to just figure out my next move or step or thought or anything that's out of my mouth? And that is

a profound shift in the way that we live out of my mouth. And that is a profound shift in the way that we live our lives. Exactly. And what freedom. Oh, I don't have to react like a fool, like a maniac right now. Wow. I can save that energy. I can think about it. I can pause. What a freeing of energy. Because the minute you react, now you're taking up all that foundation of resource. It's all being burnt up, burnt up, burnt up. And by the end of the, now you're taking up all that foundation of resource. It's all being burnt up, burnt up, burnt up. And by the end of the day, you're exhausted. But now you have the awareness, the pause within you to say, oh, that doesn't warrant me to react. I'm going to save my energy. And at the end of the day, you have a whole lot of energy left. So that should be the sell.

Yeah, no, I agree. And your day unfolds with so much more intention at that point, too, because the moment you shift into the reactive space, you stay there. You know, it's very unusual that then you then come back and say, no, I'm going to be more deliberate and intentional. It's like, okay, you react, and then someone reacts to you. Now you're in a domino. Right. It's boom, boom, boom, react, react, react, instead of intend, intend, intend.

And it's freedom. Freedom to think, oh, you know, someone's being obnoxious with me in this moment. And culture says, or my conditioning says, I must defend myself, I must react. But now my mindful practice tells me, oh, they're not even talking about you. It's just coming from their unconsciousness. Why do I need to react? And you walk away, you take a pause, you go for a walk. It just frees you up.

You're no more slaughtered by the stimuli around you. Yeah, I love that. You're no more slaughtered by the stimuli around you. That needs to be something. Because we're all walking around slaughtered. We do something we share. We're slaughtered by food. We're slaughtered by alcohol.

We're just slaughtered. We think we're just puppets. You know, we're not. We're not. Yeah. Let's dive back into your journey. So you end up going to school there. And then at some point, you also end up in New York City at Columbia doing your doctoral work.

Right. So I did my master's in something called drama therapy. And everyone was like, huh, what's drama therapy? What is drama therapy? I'm going to ask. It's using psychology and healing through a very creative process. You know, life is a creative process. So why should healing be a deadening process or a depressing process?

So drama therapy is a unique modality which takes every healing moment and transforms it into the creative process so that the client, the patient, understands that this is part of their creative evolution. So it's really embodying the pain and taking pain and transforming it into creative force. That's drama therapy. So I learned that, but I found that, you know, I needed to kind of, you know, do something more mainstream to be seen as legitimate. And I, you know, knowingly decided that I need to enter mainstream and get a PhD in clinical psychology. And for me, learning is fun and an adventure, whether mainstream or not. And I came to Columbia, I said, if I'm going to get one,

I might as well get one at a good place. And then spent the next, you know, spent some time in California, worked and then came here and did, you know, the next seven, ten years getting a PhD. Which just eases people, you know. They're like, oh, she's a doctor. And I see that they need that. And I almost need that to gain trust. And it was a fabulous portal of another journey and awakening and learning Western psychology. And now I practice. Yeah. What was it like to try and then

harmonize because you come from this world of very different cultural outlook and also that your undergraduate work was seen like almost the exact opposite from what Columbia's approach is to then sort of come to the world and say, okay, you know, this is my philosophy. This is how I integrate these different worlds into a coherent approach that actually is beneficial to people. That had been a really interesting process. Yeah. And it was really wonderful that Columbia gave me, it also gave some Eastern, but it was so Western based that it grounded me in the Western ways. And so I can now explain to people wherever they come from. If they're Western basedbased and focused, I can meet them there.

And if they're Eastern-focused, I can meet them there and offer a third perspective as well, you know. So I think it's been, it's trying to more and more in my life not see things Eastern-Western, you know, and be dualistic and really see the value and power in both and find a meeting place. And there are many meeting places, not so obvious, but ultimately, you know, they kind of talk to each other if you dig for deep enough. No, great. It's funny. I'm fascinated by positive psychology. And deeper down that rabbit

hole I go, the more I realize it's really just sort of the scientific overlay to Buddhism and a lot of Eastern philosophy. It really is the same thing. It's just, it's coming up with data points for a Western mind to say, oh, I'll try that. Exactly. You hit it. Exactly. And we need that language. And I needed that language to be able to communicate to the Western mind. You know, you can't just be one way and rigid about it. You have to be fluid, because we are becoming global, more and more global, and you want to be able to speak to every audience. And that's what I, and it's given me that, the power to switch back and forth and dance in both worlds. So when you emerged from Columbia, did you go, you ended up focusing on family and kids. Was that an immediate thing or was it, did it happen

over time? And I'm curious, what kind of brought you back to that place where you're like, this is where I need to spend my energy? As I began doing therapy, it became clear to me that people want to change, but really don't want to change. And change is inordinately hard for people. However, there's something that happens when you become a parent that you realize if you want to, but many parents do realize that if they don't wake up and start shifting, their children will suffer. And when their children suffer, then perhaps the shell, the hard shell of adulthood starts to crack, you know. and when I began to see that, oh, I can get a parent inspired to change when they see their kids suffering, and I use that

suffering in some way. Wow, then people are changing in an accelerated fashion. So children are the inspiration. So I'm using now the conduit of the child really to get the adult to shift, you know, and I found that adults on get the adult to shift, you know, and I found that adults on their own won't shift, you know, an adult in a bad marriage or negative relationship will not shift because they pivot 50% of the blame on the other adult. And it's true, the other adult carries 50% or whatever, you know, statistically speaking, of course, sometimes it's more, but they're partners in that co-creation. But with a child, I can somehow enter the insight with the parent that you carry a greater burden of change here.

You know, the onus lies on you now because don't make the four-year-old change. The four-year-old can't change. It's something that you have created in the conditions through your baggage, through your psyche, through your conditioning, through your unconscious, your anxiety, that is helping that child be the way it is. You haven't created it, but you're helping the child continue to suffer. So now can you look at yourself? And the parent gets inspired because no one wants to see that child in pain. So where before that same parent would not have changed if they had been a single adult or an adult in a marriage, the same issues, but they would not change. But now the child inspires them to change. And that's why I decided, you know what, I'll just get people to change this way,

because children inspire us to change. That makes a lot of sense. Although you also write about, I know, sometimes it's actually the opposite. Sometimes parents will come to you, or sometimes parents will literally blame the child. Oh my God, yes. And so instead of seeing the child as an opportunity for, like, to change, you know, they will sort of see the child as the seed of everything that's bad in their relationship with their partner. But this is it. This is it. This is how our parenting paradigm is set up. It's set up. It's all set up. I walked in thinking I was holier than thou too, you know, as a parent, and there was nothing I was doing wrong. It was the child that needs to be fixed. Because there's this universal parenting paradigm that says, we are greater than, we know more, and our children are here to be done too. We're here to raise the kid. And I began to realize that we cannot raise the kid. We're going to raise the kid as a mirror reflection of our pain unless we heal. So now the child becomes the raiser. The child becomes the impetus for evolution. And when we shift it that way,

now we free ourselves and we free our child. So many parents leave my practice and they get angry and they send me hate mail because no one is ready to give up that paradigm. They drop off their kid. You can't just drop the kid off for an hour and then pick her up after. Go for the mani-pedi. And I'm like, where are you going? To that all of us. No, no.

The child sits outside. I rarely see a child alone before the age of 12 because there's nothing to be done to the child. What can the child do? After 12, I start working on the child as well and teach the child to stand up and speak up and advocate and self-govern. But till 12, I'm like, no, no, no, let the child go out and be on the iPad and you parent, you come here and we're going to work on you and what we can do together. That's got to be jarring to the system for a lot of parents who come in. If there are enough pain to come in, they're probably just looking like, fix my kid,

please. And then for you to say, no, the kid just looking like, fix my kid, please. I know. And then for you to say, no, the kid goes and hangs out and we're going to work on you. I know. But I have great compassion because I've been a parent and my own defense system has kicked in. And I don't want to be told I'm wrong. So I understand parents and I have great compassion. And slowly and slowly I help them break down their defenses, you know, but not immediately. And, you know, the intention of the parent is great love.

The intention is safety, but it's really ultimately love for one's own security and safety for one's own fears, you know. And when I help parents see that, that you're only scared and controlling your kid because you're really controlling your own anxiety, slowly, you know, with great agility and mastery, we can break down their defenses. It takes time, but a willing parent gets it right away. I have people who just read my book and get transformed. They never spoke to me once in their life. It's just where they are on their journey. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You use a phrase, I can't remember whether it was your last book or this new one, and I may remember it incorrectly, stepping down off the pedestal of dominance. I use it in all my books.

So take me into that a little bit more. Let's take a moment, right? A pedestrian, ordinary day-to-day moment with your child, right? The child, you told the child, be careful, your milk is going to spill. The child spills the milk. Now, the pedestal of dominance that's in the cultural paradigm would say, the child needs a consequence. Now, of course, the child should help you clean it up. That's a consequence in and of itself. But no, we need a greater consequence because I told you, and you don't listen to me, and you don't pay attention to me. So you need to go to your room. Something like that, right? That's how it typically plays out. I told you that you would forget your

folder. And now we go on a rant. Now, when we step down from the pedestal of dominance, we enter awareness that first, it's not a big deal. Second, it wasn't personal. Third, we are not in a hierarchical position to shame the child. This moment is also for us. As much as it's for the child, this moment of spilling milk is also for us. What is it about us or for us? To enter a pause, to enter humility, enter empathy and companionship off the pedestal, down as a human, ordinary human. And when the child gives you that moment and you take that lesson, now you enter sweetness. Your heart opens. Now we're one. You know, we'll both clean it up. I don't need to shame you. And when the child sees that reflected from you, the child feels held, understood, and that trust develops. So this is a moment for us as much as it is for our children, right? Every time our child does something wrong, boom, we go up 10 stories high into dominance. I told you, and you need to have a consequence.

I'm not going to go back to school to pick up your keys. You need to learn. However, if we lost our keys or we forget our jacket, off we go and we go get it and we have great compassion for ourselves. Why do we not give this to our children? Because we're on this pedestal of dominance that we've been told that we can fix our children and our children need to learn through pain and cause and effect and all these things. No, our children need to learn through pain and cause and effect

and all these things. No, our children need to learn with us and see that, yes, there is a consequence, but the consequence is go back to school and pick it up. Or now you're delayed in going for soccer because we have to go back to school. Or now you have to help me clean the milk. And just in a very nonjudgmental way, but we enter judgment because we've been told we can. Yeah and I wonder if it's even beyond told we can but that we must like that's the role of a good parent. Sacred, sacred yes it's your sacred duty too yeah so I get told by my relatives in my early years you know you're not raising your child and you don't have control over your child and many people who many parents who follow conscious parenting receive that pushback from culture.

You're not a parent, you know, where's the control? You're a pushover and you're going to be walked on. And also you're not going to raise a kid who actually knows how to behave in the world properly. The fear, the fear, you know, and they don't understand that there's, yeah, this way takes longer perhaps because you don't see the immediate result born out of fear. Your child is just fearing you when you really threaten and punish and yell at them. So they give you the immediate gain of listening. But are they really learning? What else are they learning

when they're being punished? They're also learning resentment, separation from the parent. They can't trust the parent. They won't come to the parent again with their flaws and their foibles. They're also learning all that. Parents forget to understand that they're also learning that. And yeah, so in the moment when I'm, you know, supporting my child through their mistake and teaching them in a gentle way, yes, they don't give me the immediate gratification of, yes, master, I understand. And I'm so sorry, master. They don't give me that at all, right? My daughter barely says sorry, and will never use the word master in any sort of linguistic translation. But I'm raising a strong spirit who understands that she's fallible and human, and she's going to be held. And there is no shame in being human.

Yeah, that she's going to be held in the context of the kid and zooming all the way back. That was the conversation we had in the context of the parent too zooming all the way back. That was the conversation we had in the context of the parent too, but by quote, the universe or whatever it is that you may perceive as holding you. And I wonder if like the gap there is that if you can't perceive being held in your own life, then you won't put yourself in a position of allowing your child to be perceived to be held by you. Absolutely. It's such an early blueprint. It's an early blueprint. It's set, I hate to say this, but it's kind of set by the age of seven, six, 10, four. You know, I tell parents, we've set it. Now we can undo it and lessen the continued damage. But it's the foundation

gets set early. And sadly, and even in my own journey, I wasn't as conscious as I am today, back then. So mistakes are made, and that's okay. You know, consciousness is not some ideal of perfection. It's something you grow into yourself. You know, I'm a better healer today because of the gross mistakes I've made. So I guess that was the point of it all, to help others. So there's no perfection. It's about the awareness that this moment, especially with our children, is a reflection of our own need to develop mindfulness, awareness, patience, humility, companionship, and trust in the bond that your child will develop with the universe. Yeah, it comes back to you and your own development.

It always does. Everything points back to us. Yeah. So one of the things that sort of popped into my head when I first was exposed to you and your work was the immense power, potential power of your approach to both allowing the child to become who they genuinely need to be in the world and allow the parent to probably peel away the facade of who who they genuinely need to be in the world and allow the parent to probably peel away, you know, the facade of who they thought they need to be and become themselves also. The question arose in my mind, in doing that, is there a risk of placing a burden on the child of having to be a vehicle of liberation for the

parent? Well, first, the child is a vehicle always, every moment is, every relationship is. So that we all are vehicles for each other, but you bring up a powerful point. How do we use our children? Now we can use them by just projecting all our layers of false self onto them. You know, if our false layers are we need to be achievers, we need to be accomplishers, we need to be artists, whatever that identity is, and we tell our children in some subtle, unconscious way that they now need to become something to be worthy, then we've projected that false layer onto them and we get a false sense of liberation because our ego gets stroked. However, if we teach our children the opposite, which is I'm whole through my being, I have a right to be whole and feel whole. Now, whatever I do is just a fun, adventurous manifestation of my being state. But if I don't do that, it doesn't think I can use my children to further liberate myself.

I think I'm just allowing them to stay liberated. You know, our children come ready to be themselves. And then they're told how to be that and what they need to become more of. And they're like, I just want to be me. Can I find my way? And I will find my way if you, my parent, are consistently there and get out of my way and hold the light for what that looks like. Hold the light for what that looks like. You know, if you come home every day grumbling about your work and how hard life is, you're giving me the message that life sucks, you know? So I need to, of course, then I will be afraid of life. So now I need to buttress myself with all sorts of false selves and identities in order to cope with life. But if I'm given the message that work is life and life is work and life is an

adventure and my moment to moment evolution is of sacred purpose, then when I break up with my boyfriend, I'm going to look at it as a growth awareness. If I fail in a test, I'm going to learn from it. And every moment becomes about evolution on the being level versus an achievement on the ego level. That makes a lot of sense. How transparent do you get as a parent with your child about this lens and this process and their role in it and your role in it? Yeah. Yeah. Transparency to me means authenticity. It doesn't mean using your child to be a therapist or dumping on them, you know, your process. The more whole we are and the more we work on ourselves, we will less use the people around us to heal us, right? I mean, that's just

obvious. The more work we do on ourselves, the less we will be projecting all over the place, you know, and pretending like people are making us hurt and upset and anxious. We'll take ownership. So transparency is being authentic to our own garbage, baggage, healing, and taking great claim and ownership over it. So as long as we can do that, our children don't need to hear, you know, I hear many parents say, you know, my kid was crying because she was being bullied, or he was being ostracized. And I shared with them how I was being bullied. You really don't need to hear, you know, I hear many parents say, you know, my kid was crying because she was being bullied or he was being ostracized. And I shared with them how I was being bullied. You really don't need to share your personal experiences.

A little bit is fine. What the child needs really is relatedness. Do you relate to me? Do you understand me? Do you get where I'm coming from? That's all the child needs to have emitted from you. They don't need a whole breakdown of your process, how you survived it. Fine, tell them it's okay. But you know, the more unprocessed we are, the more we will do that. Our children just need to know, am I human? Am I worthy? Do you understand me? Do you see me?

Stop putting yourself in my shoes all the time. I don't need to hear about your breakup, mom. No, no, this is about my breakup. Can you just be my witness? And if you yourself have processed all your breakups, all your hardships, you just listen. You just be the container and then just gently, gently drop the seeds and not feel upset when they don't pick up the seeds to blossom. You know, my daughter constantly rejects my opinions because I shouldn't be giving them. I should not be giving them. She's like, just listen. Can you just understand? Can you just stop?

Stop and listen. We don't listen because we have all this unprocessed fear. Oh, my God, what if she doesn't recover? What if they don't, you know, handle it? And we put all our pain onto them, which is why we want to fix them. Stop being in pain because it's causing pain in me. And all we need to do is process our own stuff. Transparency comes from deep listening, being there, fully there and present, being authentic.

Yeah. And I would have to imagine middle school becomes a cauldron for a lot of this. Yeah. Because so many parents, like so many of us, don't have fond memories of that window in our lives. That's where everything started to become hyper aware of social status and really awkward. And that's where a lot of the initial, you know, like pain came from. And when we see our kids enduring any of that on some level, it's, you know, it triggers. It's like it brings you back there.

Yeah. And, you know, my daughter is 13. So she's in the throes of it and cries and drama. And so I love it. So you're awakened and you're conscious with a 13 year old daughter. Like, do you feel that? Do you go back there also? Well, I do. I do go back. I'm human. And I go, Oh, my God, she's she's having body issues. And she's going to go through what I went through. She's having rejection issues. But then when I step back and I go, she needs to go through this. These are her growing pains. This is so important. And if I can be there and help her process and not be afraid of fear and not be afraid of inevitable rejection and enter back into who she is and help her just pivot back, like just gently say,

but you know, this is not who you really are. And you know that you're selling yourself and just gently say the right things. Every hundredth sentence will be the right sentence. Perhaps then she will not fear evolution, fear falling into the abyss, fear jumping off the precipice because pain is life. And when we allow our children to face it without feeling afraid of what it brings up in them or in us, really, they're not so afraid of pain, we put it on them, then they understand that then life becomes joyful. Because if you're not afraid of pain, you're not afraid of life. So how do you become unafraid? I understand the process of potentially becoming unafraid of change.

How do you become unafraid of pain? Because you understand that pain is inevitable. It's a natural response to life. Your heart will break. You will break open. You will cry. And somebody's witnessing you going, let's cry. We need to cry every day if we need to cry every day. Let's cry. Here we are again. So when my daughter cries, after I can get out of my own ego and fear, I can then say, this is so good. You know, I look at crying and pain now as the releasing of toxins and the releasing of, you know, the betrayal and the releasing of the false self.

And I go, yeah, she wasn't your friend. Now let's release that. Let's surrender to that, that we were in false self because we were allowing someone to cross our boundaries. We were allowing someone to abuse us. Now let's enter that. And now let's learn from that. And then when we allow children to do that, they themselves come to like, yeah, she was such a bad friend to me and I don't need her. They come to that, but they're not allowed to process. You know, that's why a good therapist is so amazing because they allow us to be heard,

to process. They don't shame us. And then we come to our own divinity. Same with children. Everything keeps coming back to the idea of being witnessed and being held. Yeah, doesn't it? It all comes back to being held. Yeah, it all comes back to being held and to being witnessed. And I guess at every point in life, you know? So one of my

curiosities also is your focus is largely on transforming the adult through the relationship with the child, because that happens to be this window that you identified where somebody who was completely unwilling to actually do the work somehow now has a different motivation and probably a lot of intense feelings and maybe even like when we talk about as a child grows a little bit, like the angst and they're suffering a lot of pain because their relationship is really devolving. And there's like, so there's a motivation there that just doesn't exist in almost any other part of life.

I'm curious what your thought is. And a lot of our listeners are parents, but a lot of our listeners probably also aren't parents. And I want to sort of make clear that everything that we're talking about here, we're talking about, we're framing it in the context of parenthood. But this is not just about parents. No, because every listener of yours is a child. So I have so many people coming to me who are non-parents, who've read my books and listened to my work. And they feel liberated because now they understand their childhood. They understand how their false self was in play,

and their true self was abducted because of their parents' unconscious, and their parents' fears, and their parents' anxieties, and how they've been playing to their parents' unconscious instead of living their own conscious life. So it's about us being children at the core of it all. That adult who is an unconscious parent is so because they were raised as a child unconsciously and that child in the parent is suffering. So when we can understand that there's a child in all of us that is the master of the ceremony. You know, it's the child. It's the child.

When we have a trauma in our lives, we regress back to what we knew pre-10, pre-10 years old. We will go back to that. Do I trust the universe? Can I jump off the precipice? Is the world a safe place? Is the world a cruel place? All that I was conditioned with happened to me before I was 10 years old. Now that is creating the rest of my life.

Yeah, which is interesting too because it kind of comes full circle to a modern day approach to Freud, which has been so, I mean, you know, that whole school of therapy and psychotherapy has been, you know, getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And everyone, there's a mad dash to CBT. And so it's interesting that, you know, you're trained and steeped in, you know, in psychology and behavioral therapy. But at the same time, a lot of your work is taking people back to that starting point that Freud spent so much time on. Right. So here's the nexus, right? And I, as much as Freud is looked down upon and scoffed by us modern psychologists, I can tell you, at least for me, a deep reverence for this genius, you know, that he talked about, he actually talked about the ego, not in the same way as the Buddhists talk about the ego, or we're talking about the false self, but he talked about the ego being the protective layer that is created to survive. And the stronger your ego is, the more

survivable you will be in this crazy world. So he talked about the ego as the surviving pivot. And in Eastern philosophy, the ego is the one that was created for protection, but then ultimately will choke you. So there's one, you know, they play off each other. You need it as a child because you have to protect yourself against the onslaught of unconsciousness from your parents. But then, you know, my taking from Eastern philosophy is that you shed the ego. And another meeting place of it is that while Freud talked about the past, the past, the past. The past is important, but my Eastern training has taught me and what I do in therapy is like, it's only relevant if it's showing up in the

present. I don't need to know what happened to you. I can discover what happened to you just by uncovering how you reacted to your child and their spilt milk, because the past shows up in the present gloriously. So we don't need to go back and empty the ocean with a teaspoon. I rarely can tolerate being in the past. I do it two sessions and I'm done. But then we keep seeing it replay, replay, replay. So taking Freud and taking Jung and taking all these fabulous thought leaders of this generation and just bringing it to the present moment and training people to go, okay, that happened in the past, but here's how it shows up now. And all we care about is this moment. So let's look at what's happening now. And that provides impetus to people, right? Because not everyone can do analysis five times a week for the next two years and spend that money. So I can almost short circuit all of that

and go, okay, in three months or two months, we can at least outline how it's showing up in your current life. And that's all you need to know and start working from the present. Because that approach also is disheartening to people. What? I'll have to do analysis for two years? I don't have the time. So my approach is, no, you don't need that much time. You just need the great courage to look at your life painfully in this moment. And this moment, you can transform your entire being. Yeah. So if, and what's interesting too is, so you have books out now, you also speak, you're speaking increasingly from what I'm saying, right? Like, that seems like it's a bigger part of your sort of ecosystem.

It is, it is. In some form, do you see your speaking and your books as potential ways to provoke people to a point where they're willing to act? Whereas if they didn't have, you know, almost like as this momentary incitation of enough pain to get up off the couch and do something, or is that not have nothing to do with what you're talking about? No, absolutely. You know, one-on-one therapy is beautiful because you can go deep, but it's limited, right? So I want to inspire more than just the one person in front of me. I want to make the work accessible to people who can't

afford therapy. I want to, you know, make it so relatable to the single mother, to the mother, you know, in Kansas, in China, in Japan. So the only way I can do that is through offering my work through, you know, webinars online and speaking engagements and books. And so that's the intention is how do you get it to the widest audience that is willing to receive? One of the things that you shared with me was that growing up in India, especially as a woman under a very patriarchal society that I guess the opportunities for women were not what they are here. With the work that you're doing now, how much of it, if at all, is based in wanting to empower and release women from pain? A lot of it is because I do believe

mothers play such a powerful role, but I have been inspired by that cultural patriarchy and my resistance to it because I see it play out in parenting. Parenting is the same microcosm of that cultural hierarchy. It's the same thing. So when I understood that here we go again, like I'm fighting a patriarchal system. It may not be that the man or the father is the dominant one. It's the system, the patriarchal hierarchical system is being repeated in parenting. On a micro level. On a micro level, I began resisting it again. So my life must be a resistance against hierarchy in some way and breaking down these barriers

and creating mutuality, circularity, non-duality. That must be my mission, you know, and I find myself doing it again in a different form. And women are a great part of it because we are the perpetuators of the patriarchy I mean let's not pretend we're victims just hapless we are active co-creators passive aggressively co-creating the the patriarchy that exists you know we raise our sons we allow our husbands to be who they are we don't stand up to our fathers we have to take ownership of our co-creation here. How has your work and your journey, you've spent so many years now studying and working to help others change. How has your work, your learning, your journey changed you? Mike, you know, on a very human level, it places impossible burdens of perfectionism and idealism in me. And I'm learning to shed that and just allow myself to be human and learn that if I'm not human,

I won't be able to help other humans. So I have to make mistakes. And so giving myself permission to make mistakes. It's hard when I make a gross, unconscious error with my child, which I do every day. And thankfully, I can process it, right? So I internalize my own therapist, I go, what would, what would I say to another client who just went through me, you know, what I did, and I can heal myself. So it's helped me to have that healing potential for myself, and potentially help others, you know, but I don't really help anyone. You know, I really don't. I don't believe I'm here to be a savior to anyone. I think I get saved every day. You know, this is what I'm meant to do. So if I am not allowed to help someone, I will die. So they're actually helping me because that's how

I live. You know, that's my force. It's the easel. It's the paint. So if I don't get access to it, I'm going to shrivel up and die. So I'm so grateful to people who allow me to help them and they think I'm helping them. And I go, you have no idea what you have just given me, the gratification I feel. You make me feel empowered. You've given me a sense of self. They give me everything. So it's a very reciprocal process, if at all, or it's just me who's learning. So I'm not here to save anyone. And whenever anyone puts that on me, I kind of reject it right away. And I go, I'm not here on a pedestal.

Cut it out. Cut out the illusion. I often say that to my audiences. You must be thinking I'm someone greater than you right now. Dump that illusion right away because it will not serve you. So it's sort of your own therapy, your work. Yes, yes, of course. Everyone's work ultimately is. Indeed. So I want to come full circle. The name of this is Good

Life Project. So if I offer that phrase out to you, to live a good life, what comes up? To live a true life, to not live to anyone else's rhythm or tune or beat. Find who it is you are, dare to be that. It's scary, but even if you can do it for three hours of the day, that's a good life. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real unscripted conversations and ideas that matter. And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you

would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or riffs. And for those of you, our awesome community who are on other platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message would just be so appreciated. Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot.

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