Saturn Returns with Caggie - 9.12 Radical awakening: Breaking Free from Internalised Oppression and embracing authenticity

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Welcome to another episode of Saturn Returns, In this episode, we dive deep into some transformative insights from renowned author and speaker Dr. Shefali. Dr. Shefali received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University. Specializing in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, she brings together the best of both worlds for her clients. She is an expert in family dynamics and personal development, teaching courses around the globe. 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. Key Highlights: • Parenting Insights: Dr. Shefali delves into the unconscious influences of our parents on our own consciousness, dispelling myths and offering an honest perspective on the realities and guilt surrounding parenthood. • Childhood Reflections: Join us on Dr. Shefali’s personal journey through her upbringing, exploring how cultural constraints shaped her identity and the importance of honoring ourselves through our parental relationships. • Saturn Journey: Candidly, Dr. Shefali shares her experience of divorce as a process of shedding unauthentic roles, turning pain into power, and embracing abundance and empowerment for alignment. • Women Empowerment: Gain Dr. Shefali’s insights on modern feminism, reflections on women’s contorted identities, and the sacrifices made for societal expectations, urging a shift towards authenticity. • Honoring the Oppressed: Explore victimization by patriarchy, compassionate perspectives on men, and the internalization of oppression, prompting us to examine our roles within the patriarchy. Dr Shavali launches her own podcast - ‘Parenting and You with Dr. Shefali’ - out on May 14th LINK: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/parenting-you-with-dr-shefali/id1742833210 --- Subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and receive more empowering insights and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here. Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. Sometimes, you know, feminism can turn angry and bitter and we don't want to be that kind of feminist. We want to be a feminist that honors the oppressed in us all, including the men in our lives. And we want to be the feminist that doesn't wait for men to change, but is part of the change. And we want to be the kind of feminist that takes responsibility for our co-creation of our own civility and how we've played into the patriarchy without just blaming the patriarchy. Today I am super excited because we have a phenomenal guest on and that is Dr. Shivali.

I met Dr. Shivali about a year ago, I think it was a year ago, at Harvest Festival, and I was absolutely blown away by her. I was already familiar with her work, but seeing her live in action was fantastic, and I knew I had to have her on the show. She is a world-renowned clinical psychologist, she is the acclaimed author of The Conscious Parent, A Radical Awakening, and The Parenting Map, and has revolutionized the way we think about parenting and personal development. By blending Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, she offers a groundbreaking approach to mindfulness and awakening. As we get into this conversation, Dr. Shivali explores the profound impact of parenting and how our parents have such

a huge impact on our lives and she explores this notion of how our parents hold us captive by their unconscious behavior. Reflecting on her own upbringing within the confines of Indian culture Dr. Shivali shares how she felt constricted by societal expectation and our conversation takes a deeply personal turn as she opens up about her divorce which she describes as divorcing herself from an inauthentic role. You are gonna love this conversation she was such a laugh and just offers such wonderful wisdom to any woman and especially as those kind of going through their Saturn return 20s 30s whatever it might be when you just suddenly realize hang on I am not living a life true to me and you realize that you are

weighed down by these expectations or these external forces and just decide to break free. So I hope this episode finds you when you need it. Dr. Shefali, welcome to Saturn Returns. I'm so excited to have you on. How are you today? Good. Thank you for having me. I'm excited too. So when we first connected, I've been familiar with your work for a while, but it was at Harvest Festival back in October, I think it was, and you did an incredible workshop around conscious parenting. It blew everyone away, and even though I am not a parent, I found it a really impactful workshop in the way that you kind of took everyone through that journey. But we'll get into all of that in a

second. For the audience that doesn't know, would you be able to introduce yourself in your own words, what you do and how you got into this work? Sure. So I'm a clinical psychologist. So that means I'm a therapist. I see people all the time in my private practice. But I'm also an author of five books. And the books are primarily around how we can become more conscious, live our best life. And many of my books focus on parenting, not so much because I love children so much, which I do, but it's not because of that. It's because I see as adults how ravaged we are by the unconsciousness of the parenting we received in our childhoods. So I teach adults

how to reparent themselves and I teach parents how to shift the focus away from fixing and producing the perfect child, which is why we are so messed up today as adults, and instead raise themselves into a higher level of consciousness. Had our parents done the work that I teach parents to do, then we wouldn't be where we are today, and we would be more empowered, feel more worthy, be more purposeful. Many of us were raised to be the instruments of our parents' whims and fancies and fantasies. And that's why we lose sight of our authentic selves. So my work is about helping people return to their authentic selves, really, as much as possible. Yeah, I saw something the the other day and it was a it was someone drawing a timeline for life and it said it said like beginning birth and death

and then it said 0 to 18 childhood and then the rest adulthood and it said in the childhood bit it was like you know being a child and then in the adulthood bit having therapy about childhood and then death and I was like and I said and that's what being an adult is or that's what life is and so everything you just said it's like yes there's so much that we have to unpack that's mainly from our childhood so kind of getting into that and the more uh from your studies and your work you know they always say that the most formative years is zero to seven like could we go into all of that stuff a little bit so people have a better understanding of how their childhood actually impacts them yeah so you know the reason why people say that those years are the most impactful is because we are prey and hostage, really, to our parents' unconsciousness.

So young children, and especially the way we raise them now in these very nuclear, isolated family systems, are totally captive to their parents. And if the parents haven't healed themselves from their childhood, then the child who is so young, so vulnerable, so highly influenceable, is readily inheriting all that psychological garbage, really, so to speak. And so those seven years are so important because they are not in school yet, for the most part. They cannot walk around town. They cannot leave the country. They can't even leave the house. So because of that very captive nature of the child, plus their brains aren't developed yet, they don't have the artillery or the life experience or the emotional arsenal to discern what their parents are saying, for the most part, parents, whatever they say, it's going to be readily absorbed and believed as the holy grail by the child. And that's why children are

particularly prey and vulnerable. And parents get away with whatever they want. You know, they can dictate to the child who they should pray to, how they should behave, how they should dress. And the poor child just absorbs it all. quote unquote, vulnerable child who just had to be at the mercy of their parents. And you know, it's a crapshoot. You may grow up in the rich house, he may grow up in the dirt poor house. And it's for all we know, we since we don't know the past before we were born, we have theories about it, but really no one knows. So it's just a crapshoot. And you have to deal with whatever kind of legacy you inherit. It's interesting that you use the language and the word captive quite a lot in terms of describing a child's early life and upbringing. I'm curious to know what your, if you're happy to talk about it, what your childhood was like and how did that play a part in getting you into this work? Yeah, I mean, I was captive in an Indian culture. I grew up in India and I very much felt suffocated

in that culture and the dictates of that very traditional, very rigid culture. So at a young age, I began feeling suffocated and nauseated by the cultural dictates. However, in my family system, I was lucky to not be so suffocated. So I could express myself. I could feel safe to be who it is I wanted to be because I had a very, very present, because I had a very, very present, warm, attuned mother and a wonderful father too, but he was kind of benignly absent. And that's not a bad thing because I had a great mother. So it was okay. And she was so present, so attuned and is to this day, so lovely to grow up with and to be around that I learned how to honor myself through her. I learned how to accept myself, be compassionate with myself. And that allowed me to have this out in the world as well. But I definitely was suffocated by the Indian culture. And part of my work is to

deconstruct cultural oppression and how culture lies to us and how culture has sold us a bill of goods, especially mothers, especially women. I've written this book called A Radical Awakening. I just held it out up for you. People can look it up, which really empowers women, particularly to get themselves out of the confining snares of culture and re-empower themselves in the way that they were always meant to, but were never shown how. What are some of the impacts and does that vary from place to place in how culture shapes our belief or shapes how we show up in the world as women? Yes, I mean, it's nuanced, but in the general sense, it's pretty predictable and pretty consistent. You know, for the most part, it's what, you know, in the Barbie movie, you know,

people have watched the Barbie movie, it's what one of the characters talks about, how we are forced to fit in and contour ourselves and puppeteer ourselves and be our big selves, but not too big and be a career woman, but not too much and be the best mother, but don't lose ourselves in the kids. We have all these ifs and ands and buts placed on us that confuse us, that make us feel afraid to own our truth. And from a young age, we're taught to play small. We're taught to be good and kind and obedient at the sacrifice of who it is we want to be. And males are given a different mandate. You know, they're taught to be protectors and providers. But they aren't stifled, I think, to the same degree as we are micromanaged.

And we women have a hard time finding our voice because we've always been told to put other people's voices before our own and to be afraid to own our bold truth and so in this book A Radical Awakening I really offer a map to women to come out of that fear and step into their power. Well like you say there's so many conflicting messages that women are given of how to be and show up in the world. In writing this book, how did it reflect your own personal journey? Oh, because I wrote it in the aftermath of my own big renaissance, which I went through my own Saturn return, so to speak, to use your language, through my divorce. And I saw how, even though I knew what was the right authentic decision for me, I was terrified of making it because I had bought into cultural dictates.

And this journey reflects how I broke free of those dictates. And therefore, I can illuminate the path for others to do so as well. How old were you, if you don't mind me asking, when you got a divorce? I started the process, I think, when I was 43 or 44, which is very typical. It is the midlife moment when, if you followed the typical trajectory of having a child at 28 or 30, which again is very stereotypical, I don't recommend it for everyone. Then by the time you're 44 or 45, your children start becoming teenagers and you begin realizing, okay, they don't need me anymore. So who the hell am I? And you begin to question everything again, because everything you checked off the prescription list now has has been done, and you still don't know who you are.

So you go through a choice point, a pivotal choice point in the midlife, because we've been going at full steam checking out of all the checkboxes. And then at midlife, you're like, okay, now what? And you realize that you left yourself way behind, and you want to reclaim it. And not everybody needs to get a divorce because many times the marriage can grow into a more beautiful place, but many times it can't because you refuse to play that role anymore. And you realize that that role you've been playing from fear is exhausting and you're burnt out. And now your children are ungrateful teenagers. And you're like, okay, so I'm not getting a prize. They don't give a hoot about me.

There's no trophy. So why am I playing this role? And that's a fabulous place to arrive at, although it's very scary. Because then when you want to divorce from the role I mean that's really what the divorce is about it's not about divorce from the marriage it's because you're divorcing yourself from the inauthentic role you've been playing but then everything can potentially shatter around you and everything that was familiar and recognizable can fade and that's terrifying for a person especially a female especially a mother who's been told that

they have to keep their shit together for everyone else and in that reckoning in that transition you said a second ago that you realized you'd left a version of you behind did you feel like you knew who that version was or were you sort of lost in this role that you were trying to play? No, I think we all have a sense of the authentic version of ourselves, the side that comes out when we feel completely safe, or the side that comes out when we're uninhibited with our girlfriends. And we lose chunks of it as we get more and more socialized and conditioned and mired by quote-unquote real life which is really the most not real life because it's the conditioned life and so then

you know the moment we get a chance that old self keeps beckoning us you know hey come back to me and uh if we're not careful if we suppress it much, then it comes out in some crazy way where we like leave everybody and like go find ourselves in, you know, in whatever, we run away to China or, you know, we really do it in an extreme way, which is not always healthy. And what did it look like for you? Well, thankfully, you know, mine wasn't so extreme. You know, I actually stayed for the next two, three years

trying to figure it out because I knew, even though I wanted to run and burn the house down, so to speak, metaphorically, down, so to speak, metaphorically. I was not 18 and I needed to be mature and sit with it because otherwise it would follow me, you know? So I needed to really work through my own feelings, really make sure I was making the right decision. It wasn't out of an impetuous reactivity and it was real and would I be able to sustain it? And so I sat in it and I sat in it and I sat in it and I drove everybody around me crazy till I really was sure. Because let me tell you, if you're not sure, then you're going to come back and regress and regret. And I

did not want to regret. So I wanted the next phase of my life, the next decade, the next two decades to be sustainable. So I worked on myself. I tried to heal myself. I tried to dig deep. I wrote this book. And I then made the decision in the right way. It's not so much what the decision is, it's how you make the decision. It's how you execute the process. It's not the fact that you can make a decision. Anyone can make a decision. That's not the point. It's, is the decision the right one? Is it aligned? Is it coming out of empowerment and abundance? Is it sustainable? and i wanted to make sure that i was doing the how correctly uh so i i did you know i think i did it correctly my ex may may not agree but i definitely

actually tried to be amazing for everybody i tried to do the how well for everybody but I tried to do the how well for everybody, but everybody may not agree, right? But in my consciousness, I tried to make everybody win, but I had to do it from an authentic place. But if you're trying to only let yourself win, that's not going to be sustainable for sure. You know, but at least if you try to allow the best for everybody to take place to the degree that you can then 10 years down the line when they're angry with you and take you for therapy and say you ruined their lives you'll at least have something to stand on you know which is so important so did you write the book when you'd already left or was it during this three year period where you were kind of figuring out what you were going to do no I think during the three years I used that

time to make my notes and to be an observer and to be a detective of my own journey and really dug deep and and processed and then when I came out of it, like literally right out of it, I was ready to write the book. And I didn't want to write the book too far away from the journey where I would then be too pedantic and scientific and righteous.

And this is the way I wanted to be connected to the pain of that, of the loss of that fantasy. So I could really be in a raw place, but not too raw, right? Where I'm like, the reader is like, oh my God, she's, I need to go to war now. She's unraveling on the page. So it's that delicate.

And I knew, you know, the way you as a writer know that it's the right time is because it just flows and it all just flowed beautifully. And even today, when I read it, it rings true, you know, so I know I wrote it at the right time, but I had to wait for that right time. I couldn't rush it. And I think people rush through pain because they're so scared of what it's evoking in them. But pain is a mighty teacher. And if you allow it to do its work work you come out at the end of the tunnel at the other end really quite mighty for having gone through it studiously and slowly

and to have fully sat in it yes what you mentioned at the beginning about uh a poem in this would you be happy to share it sure so this is to all my sisters out there and those who identify as sisters uh so it's from my book a radical awakening turn pain into power embrace your truth and live free it is one of my favorite books so if women want to read it to awaken it's what they need to do okay so this is how the book starts it It's called The Time of the Awakened Woman. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she discards her old ways like tossed shoes in the garbage, when she shreds her list of shoulds and obligations, and when impossible expectations are burned in an incinerator. There comes a time in the life of a woman when the approval of others

once jewels now turn to pennies in her sock, when the hunt for another is now replaced by a hunt for herself, and when parental tentacles of tradition no longer define her truth. There comes a time in the life of a woman when her desire to fit in with the crowd dissolves, when her manic compulsion to be perfect vaporizes, and when her obsession to be voted popular eviscerates. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she simply says no more, when facade, artifice, and guile leave her nauseated, when righteousness, dogma and superiority repulse her. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she no longer fears conflict but faces it boldly like a lioness, when she guards her authenticity as fearlessly as she guards her babies and when

she drops the role of savior knowing she can only save herself. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she no longer cowers in the shadows of her unworthiness, when she no longer plays small so others can feel big, and when she swaps the role of victim for the role of co-creator. for the role of co-creator. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she unabashedly and boldly occupies her ultimate sovereignty, when she finally feels ready to claim her space in the world, and when she redefines compassion as unequivocal self-love. There comes a time in the life of a woman when she finally releases her childlike dependencies on others, when she dares to rewrite a new mandate of living for herself, one that says,

I release unworthiness and fear. I divorce servility and passivity. I divest in authenticity and in enmeshment. I end the pretense of being someone I am not. And from now on, I declare I will ascend into my highest power. I will embrace my greatest autonomy. I will celebrate my deepest worth. I will embody my fiercest courage and manifest the most authentic me the time is now i am ready to awaken into my renaissance wow that is beautiful well it's an ode it's it's an homage to what our potential is and to remind us that as women, we owe it to ourselves to give ourselves permission to do what we need to do as long as it's coming from a place of healing, not a place of split off anger and resentment and martyrdom and victimhood, which sometimes, you know, feminism can turn angry and bitter. And we don't want to be that kind of

feminist. We want to be a feminist that honors the oppressed in us all, including the men in our lives. And we want to be the feminist that doesn't wait for men to change, but is part of the change. And we want to be the kind of feminist that takes responsibility for our co-creation of our own civility and how we've played into the patriarchy without just blaming the patriarchy and having compassion for ourselves and men who are also part of the victimization by patriarchy. At the end of the day, you know, not all men are enjoying the patriarchy either. Patriarchy at the end of the day is only enjoyed by a very few powerful white men. And so there's a lot of men who are disenfranchised by the patriarchy, just like women are.

Totally. And it can be dangerous when it becomes a sort of battle of the sexes. But what you just read out, I feel will resonate with so many of our listeners, and even myself listening, I, I definitely feel like I'm grappling between wanting to unlock and unleash a more wild version of myself that sort of I keep, I keep in a bit of a cage. There was a point where I was quite expressive with it. But I feel this pressure to conform to and I can't even I don't even really know where it's coming from is probably coming from everywhere. And I think so many women feel like they are making themselves smaller to, to be chosen to be a mother and to fulfill those roles and expectations and to put other people first and to adapt into a man's world and be more in their

masculine and deny their emotions and all of these things that just feel like they're constantly sculpting us in a way that feels like it's eroding our nature yes yes you know it's really if we're very very deep in our healing we will realize that we've internalized the oppression and made it made it our own so we've become our own oppressor. And we have now chosen to keep ourselves mired to an image of ourselves as perfect, as, you know, special. So we don't realize that we are now married to that image of ourselves, ourselves. So that's why you probably are not yet ready to be your biggest self, because you care about that image you have of yourself. So unless you divorce that image and go, you know what, I don't need to be amazing anymore. I don't need to be seen as Mother Teresa Teresa or, you know, this grand

savior or this good girl or this put together woman who has everything for everybody, the hostess with the mostest. I don't need to be that anymore. Once you get bored with that role, then you will be free. You know, you know, small example example I used to love you know cooking 15 dishes and having everyone over and everything had to be handmade and for my daughter's birthday the cake had to be made by me and the cookies had to be made by me never mind you could buy 16 more dozen cookies for three dollars but I needed to show everyone that I was the you know the greatest mother on earth and then I got so bored by that role because the, you know, the greatest mother on earth. And then I got so bored by that role, because the praise wasn't worth it, you know, wasn't worth all the effort. And I

realized that I was holding myself back by trying to be this amazing human being, and wasting my time, really, because no one appreciated it fully. And when I got bored with that role, I just stopped. And then my friends were like, what happened? Where's all the good food? I was like, I'm done. I'm done proving to you that I'm a good cook. I don't need that accolade. I don't need that as part of my resume anymore. So when you burn your own qualifications, all your own qualifications, you know, and you don't need your resume to represent you because you're good enough. And more than that, you realize how other people are so full of their own garbage that the people you were dying to get recognition from are like even worse off than you inside. So once you realize all this it only happens when you're you know in your late 40s or 50s really when you've lived enough with a lot of people

and realize they're all full of it then you realize who am I trying to impress you know who really am I trying to impress here and and then you let it go and that's a wonderful thing when you can let it go well it's that it's exactly what you said isn't it how we internalize the oppressor and yet we will point the finger to the patriarchy to our partners to our children to everyone around us kind of and in turn victimizing ourselves when actually it's our own internalized pressure. Yes, yes, it's all definitely unconsciously, but quite deliberately co-created. And we women don't want to see that we don't want to own that we're wearing the terribly uncomfortable high heels, because we're insecure. We want to

pretend like someone forced us to wear them and then pretend even more that they're comfortable. You know, like some, we like, we just need to say that, you know, we bought into this, okay? We bought into what patriarchy thinks we should look like. And it's terribly uncomfortable, but we would rather buy into it than be insecure. So if we don't own and hold ourselves accountable for how we have bought

into the patriarchy, nobody is holding a gun to our head when we take four hours to get ready. You know, nobody told us to do that. And then we shouldn't resent the men who literally can go on stage looking as if they have not had a bath for 24 days but they're okay looking like that see we're not okay looking like that but then we will say but patriarchy doesn't let us look like that no but also we don't let ourselves look like that now you know i refuse to look like that no but also we don't let ourselves look like that now you know I refuse but you said that because we don't want to face our insecurity so would that be a necessary thing if we were you know we'd have to actually look at ourselves in the way that we yeah yes and it is patriarchy's fault but it's also ours right we've co-created it so I will ask the men outright like do you know you're looking

like you've gotten out of bed? And they'll be like, yes. I'll be like, how long did you spend getting ready? They're like, two minutes. I even asked them, did you even look in the mirror? And they're like, no. And I'm like, you're okay with looking like this? And they're like, yes.

Yes, we are. And yes, patriarchy doesn't put pressure on men. But we are part of that patriarchy. No, we are also okay marrying these slobs, right? So we are part of it. We should not be with these men because they are looking like literal, like, I mean, you know what I mean. So we are okay with it. They are okay with it. But why are we okay with them having standards for us, which they don't have for themselves? And then we're not only allowing them to have those standards for us, we are playing into that standard. We're looking exactly like how they want us to look, you know, and then we're getting upset with them.

We are getting the big boobs and the big butts, and then we're angry with them. We are getting the big boobs and the big butts, and then we're angry with them for making us get the big boobs and the big butts. All I'm saying is get the big boobs and big butts, but don't act like you were victimized into doing it. Because I think that the phrase that is often used, and it's usually directed towards women, is she let herself go. But it's like, but when a man lets himself go every day they didn't even try to hold on to it I'm with so many men who are like allowing their their white hair to just show and we women think it's sophisticated and distinguished and if we one hair one hair turns white and we are like oh my goodness get me off the plane right now I need to go to my hairstylist

right now yeah let's not even start with body hair honestly we're expected to be bald from the eyelashes down and if a hair appears anywhere it's like oh where's that hair come from it's like have you seen your body it's covered in hair right so we do we do have yeah it's quite a lot it's quite a lot of maintenance yeah but you know we have to learn from men if we want to truly topple the patriarchy so to speak we have to take the good parts of what men show and i'm talking stereotypical you know that they do allow themselves to age just as they're aging. And we have to be okay with our aging, you know, and we have to be okay with our imperfection. Of course, enjoy, you know, coloring your hair and enjoy wearing those high heels, but don't be mired in your desire for

perfection. You know, also own the imperfection and laugh at yourself and allow yourself to be ordinary and basic and average. So what is your perspective on that and inviting the next stages of womanhood? I mean, let me tell you, it is difficult to look in the mirror and see your face like dropping to the floor and everything just going with gravity and not defying it anymore. It is difficult, but, you know, we have to accept that this is life. And I think women more than ever have pressure because of social media and the constant scrutiny, you know, through these mediums, like even now, there's a video playing now I have to look at myself for that for an hour because of you. And I have to, you know, go on social media, go on zoom. And I'm always looking at myself,

this wasn't true, even 10 years ago, when did we look at the mirror all day long, right? Zoom is a mirror. The Zencaster video right now that we're doing, I'm being forced to check out myself a little bit. It's not healthy. And technology now with, you know, injectables and syringes and plastic surgery, and it's more and more available and accessible at a younger and younger age. So we feel more seduced to just do that and just do a little bit

of that. And it's frankly so unhealthy to have selfies being taken of us by ourselves and being on Zoom and seeing ourselves all day long. This is the preoccupation and obsession with reality TV. And, you know, this is an unhealthy preoccupation with the self. And, you know, then quite naturally, we want to correct ourselves all day long. How do we counteract that, though, when it's so all around us? I know, it's really hard. I mean, how do we counteract it is, you know, try to not be on it so much or, but it's hard, because you're looking at yourself all day long like right now I'm trying to look at you and not in myself you know it's hard because I want to look and

see if my hair is behaving itself and it's difficult it's like this new addiction that we have to battle that was not there 10 years ago so you know be more around people who are not so affected. Be in nature. Try to serve other people. Try to be more ordinary and be around ordinary people who are happy being ordinary. Don't get caught up in the celebrity culture. You know, try to discipline yourself to stay away from that toxic matrix as much as possible. Yeah, because it's not making people happy. It's really not, you know, it's definitely not. The more, if I spend all day on Zoom, I'm noticing thousand things more about what's wrong with me than if I wasn't on Zoom all day. But it's difficult because our work is now all on Zoom. So, you know, turn off the video. Many times I'll see a client and I'll turn off my video you know so I

can just focus on her and that's a way to counteract it like just do your job and stop focusing on yourself because do you do I'm guessing you do a lot of your one-on-ones on zoom very hard I'm thinking about myself constantly instead of focusing on my client I'm telling you so I turn off the camera I go oh my goodness stop it you're looking at yourself like you're looking at your client so I literally turn off the camera and oh my goodness it's just such a terrible thing that's happened to our culture I wanted to kind of move on to the the parenting piece because obviously that is when I met you when you were doing that workshop, which was fantastic. For those listening that are navigating those seas, where would you say most people today go wrong with parenting? Or what aren't they seeing that they really need to wake up to? The most common delusion that parents have is that, oh, I'm just going to have a child or two or three and have that happy family. You know, people don't realize how difficult parenting is, I think.

And if you ask any mother who's in her 50s and had a couple of children, she will tell you this. But I think we don't realize this entering the process. And I try to warn people, you know, please do not think this child is going to fix anything. If anything, it's going to show you how terribly broken you are. And unless you want a big fat wake up call, do not have children because children are a wake-up call I think you said to me at harvest don't do it yes I remember I was doing you a favor but you weren't listening I still haven't done it because everyone I speak to when I asked I asked them to be really honest but everyone gives me the

same answer when I'm like what does that mean they're like it's the hardest thing it's completely changed my life it's turned it upside down it's really it's really difficult and like complaining but then they always caveat it with saying but it's the best thing that will ever happen to you I'm like I know I know we're so full of shit no i think we say first and foremost part of it is because now yeah because we have to make sense of this bloody thing we've we've got ourselves into and we cannot get out of there's no expiration date so now we have to like feel good about it so then we go oh but it's the best thing but honestly i don't know i don't know that is what i suspected i know i know don't believe it don't believe it i think

you'd be just fine not having the children okay i mean you'd be a lot richer and and more sane I mean, you'd be a lot richer and more sane than if you did not have these children. For sure, you'd be richer, okay? And who needs this eternal guilt? You know, my daughter's 21. She's still talking about being my child. I'm like, hello, when are you going to stop being my child? Like, is there any time when I'm off the hook? She's like, but you're my mother.

I'm like, but for how long? Like, when does this end? So I'll tell you what it definitely is, is it's the hardest wake-up call. So do you want the hardest wake-up call? Can you wake up without this? If you can wake up without this, I strongly recommend you wake up without this.

You know, if you can feel complete and whole right now, do it without these people. Because these people are going to take it. The world has enough children. Okay, right now, they don't need your children. Trust me. So you're doing nobody a favor. You're not going to become closer to your partner. This is another fantasy we have.

Oh my goodness. Once your partner becomes a parent, they become a different person. Okay. It's a 50-50 crapshoot whether you like them as that parent. It's quite likely you don't like them. Now what are you going to do? Now you have children and you don't like your partner. I mean, that's kind of what happened to me.

I didn't like him as a parent and he didn't like me as a parent. So we were like, oh, we may have loved each other, but we don't like each other as parents. And now that is a big divide between us. each other as parents and now that is a big divide between us and children are masters at creating a huge abyss you know because the abyss was already there but at least you could fake it that it wasn't there and but now it's all exposed and all our childhood baggage comes out so it's a lot if you if you want to try it out try it it out. And then I would say, please, only have one for a while, you know, before you decide to have two and three, because they're going to be such cute siblings for each other and play with each other. No, the trouble doubles. Okay. So at least wait, at least that much I can give myself credit for I had one and I was done

because I realized one was enough to wake me up and that was enough I didn't need to have more and this whole mythology that your child needs a sibling is not true it's it's just a capitalist idea so that you can spend more money okay don't buy into it because i think a lot of a friend of mine actually has a lot of guilt about only having one child it's sort of another thing that's entrenched into us that another mom guilt thing but this was supposed to be an episode about conscious parenting i said i was like i've done a few on people choosing not to have children, but I think I should cater for the people that have already made that decision. Well, I've written four books for those parents so they can read my books. But yeah, having one child is literally has been the best decision I finally made.

Yes. You just said that you have to say that. I am trying. Amazing. Amazing. Every time I'm looking at my debit, you know, becoming more and more debited in my account. I'm like, wow, imagine if I had two children or three you know it's just such a consolation I look at my friends who have three children and I'm like oh tough luck I'm so sorry but at least your children will have company after you die because that's the reason parents give for having more children is when I die they will have other. So I console them that my kid will be richer, but will be alone. But that's a valid point to have a sibling for. That's a valid reason.

If they get along. That's true. That's true. And many, many don't. You know, you've made a couple of really important points that people have this idea that if they have a child, it will be this sort of accessory to their life or a mini them, so to speak. So is it more the expectation is so ill-matched from the reality that sets people up for a massive smack in the face? Yes, because we're raising children in a modern world that is highly capitalistic and really unconscious in a nuclear family that is so toxic that having children now has become a way to have a brand ambassador, a representative of yourself. But the way we were supposed to raise children was in a community where there was not so much stress and achievement and, you know, this hunger to be positive all the time. You could just be, just be and be connected and be raised in a community. So women had support. Now it's toxic. The original purpose of having children was to just extend the community, but it wasn't to extend your ego. So now we're having children for a very different reason. And it's become toxic now. When do you think that change started to occur? Well, you know, in my fantasy, it used to be amazing before we became agrarian, before we had the agricultural revolution, which was just, you know, like, I don't know, 12, 15,000 years ago.

So until then, it's my fantasy that when we were more hunter-gatherer, more tribe, more community-oriented, we lived more as one. You know, I recently visited one of the last hunter-gatherer communities in Africa, and you couldn't tell who was the mother of the children. You couldn't tell. And that's the way we should be raising our children, right? So we should be as part of a children. You couldn't tell. And that's the way we should be raising our children, right? So we should be as part of a community. But now we're raising children through such competition, such scarcity, such domination, like I will win and my child should be the best child on the block. And I mean, this tribe that I visited had no such aspiration. And so the mothers were joyful. They were easygoing. They were okay looking very, very average. And their children were okay just being. And no one told

the children when to sleep and who to be with and how to be. The children just learned by being around the adults and their older siblings. And that's the way we should have been. And if we raise children that way, I say have 12 children, you know, but because it's easy, you're doing it together. But do we get back to that? No, we cannot get back to that. I mean, how are we going to get back to that? I mean, we're getting further away from that. But there are a few communities of conscious parents who are more intentionally getting off the grid and living in community. But for the most part, culture is getting away from that. I do, not that I'm part of it, thankfully, because I don't have children.

But from what I hear, is that the group, when you become a mother and you go into that world of other mums, apparently it's the most savage in terms of everyone sort of comparing, putting each other down. Rather than it being this collective community, it's, oh, you're doing that. Oh, you stop breastfeeding or like constantly feeling like you're not getting it right. And then that just kind of carries on, which sounds terrifying. Right. And this is how we've internalized the patriarchy. And now we are oppressing each other and ourselves. And that's why I created a sisterhood community. It's called Luminous. That's why I created a sisterhood community.

It's called Luminous. And I've done it just for women because I need to have a sisterhood for myself. That's warm and embracing and nonjudgmental because of exactly what you said. And the reason why we women compete with each other is because we're competing out there. So we just brought that competition into our parenting now. And we're trying to be the best here. And we're using our children as the pawns for this competition because we're deeply insecure. And you spoke at the beginning about, you know, authenticity and how essentially parenting kind of bashes that out of the child because they're trying to make the child the version of them that they want them to be how have you noticed that that impacts people as they get

older you know well we get we get beaten down and we get we lose our connection to our own voice and we begin to abide by culture's dictates and we become anchorless and moralist lost at sea uh and terribly confused and then we act out in our marriages with our children to our own bodies and we just get swept away and and we're not happy that we're not content we're not at peace with ourselves do a lot of people you work with work with you because they have issues with their childhood everybody has issues with their childhood they just may not know it they may not know it they may come in thinking it's about the book they're writing or about the child that fractured their arm, but it's always about the parent's own childhood in some way, always.

I can help people at all levels, depending on their level of consciousness, but for people who work with me longer term, we eventually start excavating their childhood patterns, their childhood conditioning, and bring them to a place of greater conscious choice so that they are in the driver's seat of their destiny more than ever before. And teach people how to reparent themselves. Yes, that's the key work. It's how do I become my greatest own internal nurturer so that I don't look to others to nurture me so I don't look to food

to nurture me or alcohol to nurture me how can I activate that nurturing potential within myself and each one of us has that mothering internal nurturing principle we just don't know how to access it and would it be fair to say that the more work you can do to reparent yourself before you have children the better 100 now there's no ideal place that we need to arrive at the work is ongoing and even if you do a lot of work before you have a child that child will still throw you off your center so then you continue doing the work but yes going into the parenting journey completely oblivious to your issues will be a slap in the face. So you'll be kinder to yourself if you at least are aware of the fact that you are deeply troubled in many ways and need to work on it so that when

your child shows up in ways that trouble you at least you're aware oh this could be me and not just immediately project the blame and the badness onto your child but you can own some of that i wanted to ask about that exercise and obviously you can't do it right now because you can't see or speak to everyone that's listening but that you did at harvest where you went around every person and you essentially created this mirror between their childhood and their parenting obstacles or styles and they spoke about how their children they were worried about their children in some sort of way, and then you connected it back, would you be able to sort of demonstrate that a little bit? Well, at the core, it's about allowing the adult to see that whatever they are fearing right now and projecting it onto their partner or their children

is not really coming from the partner and the child, but coming from their own conditioning. You know, for example, I'll give you something so simple to just illustrate it. You know, I was recently with an older Japanese woman, and this has nothing to do with Japan, it could be older Indian woman, just an older woman, okay, just an older woman okay and uh in the kitchen and she kept i kept wanting to throw away the the leftovers they were just like maybe five pieces of carrot or six pieces of zucchini and i was like let's just throw it and she kept saying let's keep it and i kept saying let's throw it and she kept saying let's keep it and i was like my god she's so difficult like what's going on with her like why is she so stingy and then then she kind of told me, you know, when I was growing up, we were really poor,

and we didn't have a lot of food. And in our culture, we keep everything. And then I realized, you know, oh, when I used to open my mother's fridge, there were like 10,000 tiny containers, you know, I'm like, why is she keeping these five pieces of apple? Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny containers. And I realized, wow, it comes from their pain body and their childhood scarcity. And she said to me, I only recently realized that it was connected to my childhood. I just thought I was being really prudent and I was just taking care of my money. I didn't realize it was centered around some fear I had that I wouldn't have enough. And I realized that I throw away things. I'm like, throw it away, throw it away, throw it away. Or one time I was working with a client who was hoarding everything. And I was like, can you

please throw it away? These are bills from like 20 years ago and receipts from 16 years ago. And she's like, I don't know why I keep them. And then, of course, we uncovered that she grew up with scarcity. So she was holding on to everything because she had this mentality that they could be in a famine or a war. So she kept all old receipts. We don't know when the IRS is going to knock on the door. We don't know when the army is going to knock on the door. We don't know when

the army is coming, right? It's that mentality. And I throw away everything because I grew up with such abundance and safety. And I don't have, in fact, I'm too careless with my things. And I'm like, oops, I should have kept that, I guess. Because I'm so quick to throw away things, because I'm not living out of that fear, but I'm living out of carelessness then, you know, so I go the other extreme. But all to say that casual patterns that seem so superficial come from deep places. And that's why I show parents that their fears around their children, or, you know, a parent may say, I'm tracking my kid and look how cool I'm using Life360. But it's coming from their fear, but they make the kid feel like it's coming

because we're living in an unsafe world, when in fact, the world has never been safer. You know, everybody has a phone. So things like that, right? And to explore that, and to be willing to be brave enough to own that our current superficial behavior, what seems superficial, is really coming from a deep construct. And deconstructing those constructs is really the process of becoming conscious. That's beautiful. Yeah, because witnessing you do that and take about, I don't know, 50 people through that and every single one everything they said it reflected back their childhood experience and it was really fascinating because it was such a mixture of different things and yet they all related so for people listening I guess that's a fantastic takeaway but thank you so much for coming on the show, even though I feel now put off again to have children.

Put off or confused? Which one are you? Confused. Confused. Yeah, confused. You have to understand what we're trying to tell you with our sage wisdom is that it is so hard that you better want it so badly that you will be able to handle it.

Don't go in thinking it's going to be easy. If you're ready to climb Mount Everest, then bloody be sure that you want to climb Mount Everest. It should be everything you think of morning to night. I want to climb Mount Everest. I want to climb Mount Everest. Yes, I want the frostbites. Yes, I want to die in the cold and shiver to death. Yes, I want it. I want it. Don't go in naively. That's all. We're doing you a favor by telling you it takes that much out of you. And then yeah, you may win a prize, but you may not reach the peak. But I guess my fear is waiting to get to that point and then leaving it too late and maybe getting to that point and then it being too late, you know, I don't think I do procrastinate about things. No, it's, it's, it's like, it's like, do you marry somebody you kind of not like already? No, you, you, you, you think you're madly in love. That's why

you're a fool to get married to that person. So in the same way, you have to be madly desiring becoming a parent because in today's world, it's so hard. So if you're not madly in love with it, at least the idea of it, then how will you even last two years? You know, you've got to last at least like 20 years. So this is a long time. You know, just the other day, somebody was talking about how they wanted to become a doctor. And I said, you know, what is your desire level in becoming a doctor? And they're like, Oh, you know, 60%. I was like, Are you kidding me? You got to be at 600% to sustain it. Like, this is a hard thing to become. You have to go to residency and medical school. Are you kidding me?

You're at 60%. That's awful. And they were like, I thought I was so enthusiastic. I said, no, your love level, your desire level needs to be at 600. And I think that's what people don't realize. They're like, oh, I want to write a book. I'm like, oh, how much do you want to write a book? They're like, oh, 70%. I'm like, no, you need to be at 700% to sustain this idea you have. You know, we have these ideas. Oh, I'll do that. I'll do this. They don't realize, you know, they want to be Adele or they want to be Barack Obama. They don't realize what it takes to become that. So we're just trying to tell you what it takes to be a mother who is happy and sane. It takes a lot. Or you could look on the other side that ignorance is bliss and sometimes not knowing is the best way. You know, I kept saying to myself, why didn't anyone tell me?

So then as long as you don't say, why didn't anyone tell you? We're trying to tell them. My own mother actually did tell me that when she had children, she felt like there was a conspiracy against her because no one had told her how awful the whole process was. Exactly. Maybe we're talking about childbirth and stuff, but probably just parenting falls apart.

I mean, I was shocked that my mother didn't tell me. She's like, oh, I didn't think I needed to tell you. I thought you knew. I was like, how would I know? So we are the other generation who are giving too much information. We don't want to scare you. That's why then at the end,

we say it's the most amazing thing. I think it's a human experience worth exploring. know at least try it with one kid one kid let's see watch this space but anyway thank you so much for joining us I know that everyone's gonna love this episode and I love chatting with you so thanks for coming on thank you for having me i honestly mean it when i i say i i did want to get dr shivalian to talk about the positive aspects of parenting but i do recall when i met her at harvest and i said i was i wasn't a hundred percent sure she said don't do it as I said in this conversation but I don't know wherever you stand on this whether you have kids or are thinking about it I hope you found this enlightening and also enjoyed the themes we discussed around feminism and how we kind of

internalize that oppression often and it just requires these kind of conversations to start dismantling those layers and I personally found it very empowering and so if you enjoyed this conversation I would love it if you share it with a friend and please please please please please if you haven't yet follow us wherever you listen to this show. That really helps us grow our audience and it means that you never miss an episode. And also the book that Dr. Shefali, the poem, the beautiful poem that she read out is from her book, A Radical Awakening. I downloaded it immediately after the conversation. So I hope you guys grab your copy. And thank you so much for listening. As always, remember, you are not alone.

Goodbye. This is a Saturn Returns production. The producer is Harriet Pullen. The executive producer is me, Kagi Dunlop.