Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Figuring Sh!t Out with Dr. Shefali

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

Dr. Shefali, a world-renowned clinical psychologist and parenting expert, joins Kate and Oliver on this week’s “Sibling Revelry.” She explains what it means to parent consciously, why there are no bad children - just broken parents, and she shares her most important piece of advice. Kate and Oliver discuss their differing parenting styles, Kate concludes that she and Dr. Shefali should be best friends, and Oliver considers becoming a therapist.Executive Producers: Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, and Sim SarnaProduced by Allison BresnickEditor: Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is brought to you by Cloud10 and powered by Simplecast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. September is a great time to travel, especially because it's my birthday in September, especially internationally. Because in the past, we've stayed in some pretty awesome Airbnbs in Europe. Did we've one in France, we've one in Greece, we've actually won in Italy a couple of years ago. Anyway, it just made our trip feel extra special.

So if you're heading out this month, consider hosting your home on Airbnb with the co-host feature. You can hire someone local to help manage everything. Find a co-host at Airbnb.ca slash host. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time,

as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on the IHeart Radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Introducing IVF Disrupted, the Kind Body Story, a podcast about a company that promised to revolutionize fertility care. It grew like a tech startup. While Kind Body did help women start families, it also left behind a stream of disillusioned and angry patients. You think you're finally like in the right hands. You're just not. Listen to IVF Disrupted, the Kind Body Story, on the IHeart Radio app,

Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry. No, no. Sibling rivalry.

Don't do that with your mouth. That's good. So today's guest is really interesting. I was so excited to interview her, Dr. Shafali. And actually the first time I heard about her, I was pregnant with Ronnie. And I have to say this because I just love her. so much but Oprah Winfrey said to me that I had to read this book that when she read it even though she's not a parent it was just so emotional for her because she wished that every parent

had this as a manual in their life so of course I ran because you do everything Oprah says and I ran and I got the book and I mean it was really eye-opening for me so I was very excited to be able to interview Dr. Sheffali. Her books, conscious parent. Awakened family. family and out of control. Yeah. Parenting books. Parenting. Parenting and...

Parenting and... Yeah, parenting and sort of the family dynamics. I feel like I already do everything that she said. I mean, that's like 80% joke, but then a lot of it I was sort of like, you know, I totally understand this. I totally vibe. with this i feel like instinctually this is how i parent we have a lot of differences which is going to be really fun to sort of talk about in the way that we do very different parenting do things well not that not very different no but certain things that you allow your or i allow my

children to do that you don't you know i have more of an old school style i think i curse in front of my kids. I have no problem with showing them R-rated movies. You know, I mean, my daughter is six years old and is, you know, watching like Saw Five. This is terrible. But it's like a source of contention. But my kids are amazing children who don't curse and who are kind and sweet and loved and fulfilled. They're great children. Well, I'm not going to say your kids aren't great kids because I love them like as I as my own children and they're the best yeah there are moments where I would handle things differently with my kids so we'll get into all of this yeah I'm so pumped this is so cool because we do you know the celebrity interviews and their their siblings and and but to have

you on especially because like being a father is my number one priority in my life aside from career and everything else. And I think I could probably speak for Kate, you know, as well. So it's really fun for us to sort of talk to you and have a psychology session. Where did you grow up? I grew up in India. I came to America at the age of 21 and thought I'd be deported back to get married to some Indian man and had to beg my father to not subject me to that fate. And he released me. But that was quite a process. because, you know, Indian patriarchy really does a number on its women, way more than the Western patriarchy.

So I had to decondition and become my own person far from home, grew up in America without any family, and had to find and forge a new path. You know, so it was a phenomenal process of revealing to myself who I truly was separate from my culture. I mean, I came here and I literally have one cousin who lives far away. So I literally had to find a whole new me, which was phenomenal. Wow.

And your dad seemed progressive, I guess, in the sense that he was allowed you to sort of do this and set you free, huh? Yeah. He said, if I did not set you free, I would be doing you an injustice. But my point to other parents is the fact that we have to even ask for the key to our liberation is kind of travesty. You know, we shouldn't have to ask. And I tell my father that now, and he's like, well, at least I gave you the key. I said, yeah, but I shouldn't have had to ask. You know, the key was my birthright, and that's what I teach, that our children's path to their sovereignty and their autonomy is their birthright.

It's no liberated parent who's giving them the key. You know, this is our delusion of grandeur. They have the key. We take it away, and then some of us give it back. But that's what needs to be undone. And our children need to own their autonomy right from the start. They are free. I remember when I was pregnant with Ryder, my mom, you know, and I was young.

I was 23 pregnant. And mom, I was sitting there and it was really big. I was huge. And I got really emotional. And I go, I don't know why I'm so emotional right now. And she goes, well, honey, the second that he leaves your body, he doesn't belong to you anymore. So this is that time with him that belong. to you and then they come out and they don't belong to you anymore. And I was like, that was the

greatest thing that my mother could have ever said to me. Right. It's such a biological trick, you know, especially for us women, because we do house them. So they do come from us, especially biological children. And so there's this trick, you know, this egoic trick that happens that you think you then possess them. And you can't fault us, you know, but we have to undergo this shedding of this illusion that we own them in any way. You know, it's a process. And then very few people are open to that spiritual awakening. Yeah, well, it's interesting.

Going back to sort of what you were saying prior, how much does culture play into what you were, the message that you were trying to get across? Because obviously we live in Western civilization where cultural norms are what they are. But then you move beyond that, India, you know, places where there's been thousands of years of culture and what to do, meaning, yes, you are supposed to be placed with a husband, and this is the way you're supposed to raise your kids. How do you square that

when you're thinking about the globe, when you're thinking about the world and children of the world? Yeah, well, culture is the anathema. Cultural conditioning is our psychological makeup and understanding that you're living in this matrix of not necessarily truths to your best interest will wake you up. And it's a shock. It's a paralytic awakening when you realize that these cultural conditionings with which you have been subjugated, really, are not to your best interests, are not about your liberation. They are about your civility, about your following the crowd and staying in the tight lines of mainstream culture. So awakening to that is the liberation that I speak to and allowing our children to not chase the success at the end of the rainbow

and the happiness at the end of the rainbow, but really to experience this life path as they are authentically meant to. And whatever that looks like, and of course we keep them safe and sound, but maybe we can't. And surrendering to that and allowing our children to surrender to their authentic life experience is really the signature of consciousness. Mm-hmm. And do you have siblings? Yes. I grew up with a sibling six years older than me. And a boy, a boy, girl.

A brother. And he lives in India. He's still in India. Yeah. So you leave India. You come to, is it, do you go to New York? Do you go right? No, I went to California and I studied at a really avant-garde school. It's called the California School of Integral Studies, which integrates East and West,

which became the foundation of all the work I do. do. So it was a place made in heaven for me because I came from the East with Eastern philosophy embedded in my subconscious and then was, you know, exposed to Western psychology. But then I, over there at that school, I was really exposed to meditation and went on my first Viphasna meditation when I was 22 and really began exploring the spiritual underpinnings of my psyche and understanding the illusory nature of reality. me too i need to i went to boulder for two years and drank and skied and then left almost almost died and had to go in a different path everyone comes in a different path but i've been in therapy for 25 years

so there you go there you know we have something in common um no but that um so just again reading first of all i'm feeling very inadequate no but i i i love the way that you approach life i mean that eastern philosophical um practice so to speak spiritual practice whatever it may be we sort of grew up with that my mother as you know is very much into her meditations and you know she never really pushed it on us either which was really interesting it was something that she would invite like i remember she'd always invite me in to meditate with her she'd always invite me in to meditate with her she'd always invite me to experience this with her. And there was a moment that was like, oh, it's meditating.

It's not. And I remember the first time I really meditated with mom, I was 16 in Muscoca. And I went in and I sat with her and I just cried the entire meditation. And I didn't know why I was crying. I just, and she was so amazing. She really does become a teacher. My first meditation was with mom in Darm Sala. actually um with his holiness so horrible but i met the dalai lama and i was a not was not a

practicing spiritual person but i got in a room with this man and i started crying for no reason i didn't know why i was i mean now i can sort of understand you know as i was i was 19 years old now i'm 43 but there was such empathy and such compassion just flowing out of this person that you can't help but be affected by it on an emotional level you know um anyway but what i wanted to say what i wanted to say though actually was um you know the way that you approach life it seems like it's less and tell me if i'm wrong here it's less about parenting and more about us the adults the parents being the tip of the spear. So it's almost like the parenting is the byproduct of the work that you do on yourself. I mean, yes, exactly. Raising our children is the byproduct of the raising of the

self. Right. So when you raise yourself and you use the intimate, sacred relationship with your child as your reflector, as your mirror, as your teacher, not to become more successful or more pretty or more, you know, wealthy or with more status, but really to go inward to awaken to the disruption of your patterns. How can I not pass on my unconscious emotional legacies to my children? Can I consciously and intentionally choose what I wish to pass on? But in order for us to do that, you have to awaken to the fact that you are emotionally vibrating with your past. And unless you realize that, you know, but it's hard for people to realize that because it's, the fish in the ocean. They don't even know that they're in the water. So in the same way,

our subconscious ambiance lives with us constantly, the one we inherited from childhood. So to become awakened to our own second skin, it takes that process of great deep inner work and great courage. When did it click that you wanted to do the work that you're doing right now for children? It clicked when I became a mom, you know, when you go through the process and my daughter was, so for the first three years, I was pretty unconscious relative, you know, to my current state of consciousness. And so I kind of screwed it up because I couldn't believe that after all this healing I had done, you know, I was 30 years old. I had been doing this for nine years, rigorous meditation, intense therapy. I was entering my PhD level of clinical

psychology. Least of all me should be so unconscious. Well, that bubble popped really fast because I saw the guttural, primitive nature of my incessant ego, spewing out at my child. It took me three years to realize what I was doing. And what I was doing was mass projection, projection, projection, projection, lack, scarcity, wanting, expectations. And the kid wasn't even three. And one day I woke up to, you know, kind of bring what I was doing on the mat in meditation into real life.

it finally coalesed that that ego that I'm trying to tame in meditation was right here. You know, we're not trained as parents. We're not exposed as parents to the mammoth of this parental ego. And I thought that the love I had surely would overshadow the ego. You know, if you're coming with good intention, all is fair game. But when I realized that it was that same ego that I talk about in my therapy practice, or try to battle in meditation was showing up, despite the intense love I had for my kid, that was my epiphany.

And I remember it. And that's when I began writing about it. And I was scared to reveal this to the world because I was scared to look at my own ego. And I thought to myself, I won't have a practice. My parents, all my parents in my practice will fire me because who is more defensive than the parent, right? How can you tell the parent it's all you? This is about you. It's about your triggers, your anxiety.

your fear, I could barely muster the courage to look at that reflection myself, leave alone, share it with the world. So I never thought this would go viral, so to speak. Yeah, but the difference is, though, is that you are not sitting on a pedestal. You are, you are right on the level with your clients, with your patients, because I've heard you speak. I've heard you speak before, you know, I mean, I've heard you talk about how you have done things correctly and incorrectly even now. And I love how you talk about evolution. We are constantly evolving, always, always, always. I think also it's about the individuals.

You said that when we start imposing our own desires onto our children is when we start failing as parents. But it's easier said than done. That's an unconscious. Exactly. That's an unconscious thing that we do. You find yourself constantly. But that, I mean, that is life period. You're constantly at battle with your ego.

Your ego always creeps up, whether it be in business, whether it be in relationships, whether it be – and by the way, mostly with your kids, because that is the great extension of yourself. I always find people come to me and ask me advice all the time about, like, life and balance and kids and work and success. And I'm always like, I don't have an answer to that. I don't know. I mean, it's never perfect.

It never feels truly balanced. It's an everyday process of tuning in. and staying mindful. But there's a beauty in that. I like that. The off, the imbalance is sort of interesting. You're always on your toes. You're always sort of thoughtful and mindful and trying to figure shit out.

But it is our fear of living in eternal groundlessness, which once you begin doing is so beautiful to live in. But people are so riddled to live in that, so paralyzed by fear, to live in the eternal impermanence and transience of life that we've created these institutions. like the religious institutions, which tell you, you know, it's kind of like the elders realize that we human mortals are just too scared to live in the groundlessness of life. So let's make it easy. Let's give you a prescription. Tell you who to believe in. Tell you what day to pray, how to pray, what to wear when you pray. And then it just takes out all the mystery. And then you just believe

in this external source. And that way, you don't have to be afraid of living in the groundlessness. But the Eastern mystics understood that true mastery of your mind comes in, learning to not rely on anything external and to go within yourself and live in the impermanence of life because it is that is the truth there is no permanence there's no ground there's no security it's all an illusion it's so liberating though if you can live in that space it is the most freeing liberating feeling i find that when i'm in the most purest most open place in me when I'm connected and feeling an understanding and permanence is when I am the most vulnerable and emotional. It's the most, it's like that bittersweet thing in life that you are so in love

that you have to leave it. And when you have a beautiful life, when you have great connections with your children or your friends or your family, it's so bittersweet. It's so, it's such a shitty thing that we have to all die. So instead of actually expanding even more and feeling more beauty, you start to close those things off because it's scary that we're going to lose them. Yes, it's unfathomable beauty and a depth of openness that comes with entering the present moment. That is what we're seeking.

We want that. But that is our greatest fear because then with that comes the realization. that we have to leave it and it is only for this moment but if we don't live in this moment we lose the moment so yeah we don't have to confront the loss of the moment

but we don't live in the moment so this is the paradox you know and if you understand what Eastern mysticism talks about through meditation then you enter the moment the moment elasticizes it becomes eternal

your life slows down all the distraction goes away all your tethers to the external world that you're enslaved by now get cut and now you live free yes you understand that you can die now because you're already dying anyway and you're open to that now so yes you have that that imminent sort of end of life always with you that sense but it also expands you to live fully now and it's liberating all want that we all want to live fully and yet we're so afraid to live fully. And then within all of that, that means like, so what, experiencing your life, how are you going to experience your life?

It's like, yes, there's great things I want to do personally. There's all, but at the end of the day, it's just all about how I'm raising my children. Like, that's it. That's what you leave. That's it. I mean, none of it means anything if I'm not getting that right. But it's funny because it's a bit counterintuitive in that you're raising. You're raising your children, but that's an active sentence.

You're raising your children. But we need to let them liberate themselves as well or find their own freedom. You want to do well by them. But at the end of the day, if they turn to drugs, say, does that mean you raise them wrong? It doesn't. It just means that, you know, the energies in their life for that moment, for their destiny, unfolded in that way. you know, raising them comes again with that counterintuitive understanding. You can raise them, but you have no control over them and no control over who they will become.

There is no trajectory, no strategy, and this is the groundlessness of conscious parenting that people protest against. You know, everyone gets upset with me because I didn't give them the three strategies to get their kid to poop right and eat carrots and, you know, wear ties straight because I don't give them those tips and strategies. I teach them to live in the groundless. of consciousness, and when you do that, then the child understands that even if they didn't poop, right, or they get C grades, they are okay. They are okay because they're experiencing their life as they are meant to, you know, so this is a metaphysical dimensional awareness that people don't have because people are very caught up in the physical reality of life. How do I look? Who do I, who, which status group, which peer group do I belong to? What are my

grades? So we're caught by this, you know, constant maelstrom of, external attachments and this is the cause of misery this is the cause of suffering so when i especially in schools when i text my son like every hour when he's at a party now that he's a teenager and i say don't do drugs i'll kill you is that not a good way to pair no i i think part of it is being human and letting them know i'll just you know all i'll do is kill you it's okay to be human but you it's not about so much, again, the words you say, it's really your understanding that you have to release all your expectations. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for misery. Also know, in parallel, concomitantly, that you have no control. And as long as you have that awareness,

then when things go, quote, unquote, awry, nothing really goes awry. Everything goes to plan. But according to the material world, if things go awry, you're ready with the embrace of, you know, what this moment has for you and you're ready to enter it. You're not going to resist it. Half our problem is because we're resisting reality. Right. But we have to take some, and again, you know, challenge me, but we have to take some responsibility in how we raise our kids and who they become. If Jeffrey Dahmer, right, was born and he was came into our family, we adopted Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, geez. What would Jeffrey Dahmer be killing and eating people? I mean, what's, we're

your thoughts on nature versus nurture, you know? Well, let me tell you, nature is huge. Nature is huge and so is nurture. So there's no line and it's an interaction. So you can take responsibility as a parent. Of course, this is the whole point of conscious parenting. Take responsibility for your own brokenness. But again, to do so with a sense of shame or dread or regret or remorse or guilt is not coming from a place of wholeness. So we take responsibility for our own raising as much as we can. But we also have to understand that things happen in our children's lives.

You know, parents are devastated when their children go off the beaten track and they blame themselves. And I absolve them of blame. Sure, take accountability for your part in it. We are all co-creators in our reality. But we are not the masters of another's destiny. You're never going to do everything right.

There's no such thing. There's no such, it's an illusion. There's no right. So does your kid who goes to, you know, an Ivy League school and work in a fancy corporate corner office, is that doing it right? What is doing it right? My indicator of doing it right is how authentic can the child feel in their life? Can they live their truth and be honest about who it is they are without fear of shame and reprimand?

You know, that to me, when my child can come to me and say, Mom, I raped. don't kill me let's talk about it that is more valuable to me than the good kid who doesn't vape now i'm very happy if my kid doesn't vape but you know what i'm trying to say i totally get that yeah the kid mess up doing good in that department yeah just that we've got that that up front tell me the truth you know the repercussions are worse honestly in my situation if you're lying to me well i feel like what you're saying is is that if your kids feel confident coming to you and sharing what's going on in their lives and their personal story, then you have a openness and a connectivity that will carry them into their entire, their whole independent life.

You're teaching them that being open and making mistakes is okay. Right. And you come across to them as a human being too. You know, you're not coming from this pedestal of all knowing. You're relatable. But again, if we don't do our own work, there's a danger that we use them as our therapist, as our, as our co-dependent. enablers and we don't want that totally i feel like sometimes i find myself when i when i when i step outside and observe myself or i become sort of mindful and aware in the way that i'm parenting when i feel like i'm off a little bit as a parent i realize that i am trying to impose on my children what i didn't get as a kid and especially in in school uh when it comes to work

ethic when it comes to you know buckling down i am sitting with my kid with wilder my oldest and constantly trying to help him but it's almost to the point where sometimes all over and i'd be like maybe we should just like not do you maybe they'd be better students these are the questions yeah yeah fuck up you know well i mean but you're talking to extremes now you know you're talking complete like benign neglect to the and then on the other end this obsessive compulsive desire to fix them so I think the answer is in between you know you you take their lead you give them guidance and but you don't come with this anxious energy that you're going to now give them what you didn't have or you're going to complete them or you're

going to straighten them up it's that energy with which you come with and most of us come with this highly anxious energy and our children pick up on it and they either comply or they revolt, you know? The more the parent owns their own stuff and lives their own life fully, the child will pick up on less. There will be that separation. But the issue is that our stuff spills over. We're not happy. We're not satisfied. We're moaning. We're complaining. We're passive aggressive. We're not fully liberated in our own lives. Our children pick up on that. So that's why I teach parents. It's all about you. You do you. Own it consciously. Work on you. the less will sink out and seep out into your children.

Yeah. Managing different parenting styles is something that is what so many people deal with now. I mean, over 50% of people are raising children, are co-parenting. So what would be your advice to the parents that sort of approach parenting a little bit differently and are trying to co-parent? Yeah. Most parents will find themselves in this conundrum of having, a different parental style.

And it's tough. It's really hard. So for those who are trying to be conscious, I first say, don't expect your spouse to become conscious. It's hard enough for you to become conscious. You know, because what happens is say the woman begins to awaken, now she's really pissed off at her husband because he's not awakening. And this is the typical scenario.

You know, women come to this a little bit more easily, and they're more of the seekers of consciousness more typically. In all my conferences, I have 75% women. as just what we do, but it doesn't mean that men are less able. It just means that there will be an inherent discrepancy. So the first thing is to understand that everyone is at a different point on the continuum of consciousness. You cannot expect your spouse to be on your point.

Having said that, you have to embrace the difference and don't stop your own awakening because your partner can't parent consciously. I say, you know, an awakened family is one conscious parent with their child. It just takes one person. You know, often we retard or pause our own awakening because no one else is coming along with us. Awakening is a lonely process. You will be doing it alone. And but as you keep doing it, you will then attract a more like-minded, like-hearted tribe.

Like you said, you'll attract and you'll be ready to receive more healthy relationships as you become healthy and whole. But you may have to leave old relationships behind. And this is another, you know, it's the warning sign on the pack of marriage that you may be. leaving your old relationships because when you want when you begin to awaken you leave that dimension you leave that i i also find just from having so many women who've been through this and and friendships that when you and i always say you know when you have your first child it really brings out the the parenting styles is a make or break in a relationship so i find that when you have your children that's for a relationship is the biggest test

it's a huge challenge and people take it as a personal failure or they look at their love as a failure but it's really as you said it's nothing to do with the quality of your love some people are just not meant to parent together you know parenting takes a specific sort of union that is that you don't anticipate you think oh i love this person oh we create a family we don't realize with a huge set of skills parenting takes just on your own leave alone with a partner so i always tell people to have compassion toward their love and compassion toward their union, there is no such thing as failure. It just means that you weren't meant to be parents together. But, you know, awakening still has to happen. And it is possible to raise a child with a different parenting

style. You just have to kind of make your case and believe in what you believe. And then if you can't parent under the same roof, you may have to separate. But there is no one way to raise a child or children in general. Everyone has a different style, so to speak, or a different way to do, to do, the different way you do things, correct? Yeah, but I think, I think there, now what I've come to delineate is an old paradigm and a new paradigm. So I like to think of conscious parenting as the new paradigm. And the old paradigm is more controlled based, more fear based, more regimented, more prescription based, more hierarchical, more linear. Right. But what about, and the new, What about this, though, you know, because you say that sort of, you know, one of the first things that you need is sort of a spiritual practice.

Well, how do you, can you be a conscious parent without a spiritual practice? No. You can't. No, because consciousness means you have to awaken to your own self. That means you have to go inward. So how do you go inward? You can't go inward looking outward. You have to have a practice that takes you inward.

And meditation and self-growth are the ways to go inward. So you have to be Eastern philosophical, or can it be any sort of a meditation, meaning, you know, whether you could be Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever? I mean, as far as the spirituality goes, religion and spirituality obviously are two very different things. Is there a certain spirituality that you have to sort of adhere to to be a conscious parent? A practice that allows you to detach from the external. So if the practice is still, you're contemplative, but you're focused on an external goal, on an external idle person thing, prayer, sanctuary, it's not going to make you awaken to who you are. So anything that allows you to go inward to understand the nature of your inner reality and connect to your inner being, you know, there's a being within our being that we are completely unknown to. We are strangers to.

It's that being within our being, you know, that sense of wholeness that psychologists talk about. Where is that sense of wholeness? It's within this outer layer. So consciousness requires you to get in touch with that inner being, that inner wholeness, which is separate from your identity, your title, your accomplishments, your perfection on the external world. So if Christianity and Judaism and any organized religion allows you to go inward without, attachment to the outward, then yes. Which it does, what you does.

So real quick, real quick, real quick, real quick, okay. Let me talk for two seconds. Have you heard of the Hoffman Institute? Mm-hmm. Okay, so I went, I did it. And it was the most profound experience that I've had in my life. There's so many things that I would want to talk to you about this, but it just, it jibed so well and so much with what you.

write about and sort of your own philosophies but interestingly enough when you go there they use all different spiritualities in religion the music they play the philosophies um it seems to be based in CBT and cognitive behavioral therapy that seems to be the foundation of it but it is about old patterns I mean I'm sure you know what it's all about but it is about these negative love patterns that you adopt from your parents on an unconscious level and it's about awakening and being conscious of those patterns, understanding that you are not your patterns, and your parents are not their patterns. I mean, it's a generational thing. It changed my whole life. It changed my relationship with my wife. It allowed me to be vulnerable without fear.

And then from a parenting standpoint, especially with my oldest son Wilder, I realized that I was doing things incorrectly with him. He's a very sensitive boy. and I was awakened to this fact that he is me, meaning I see myself in him so much so, and I hadn't before Hoffman, and I was a little too hard on him. You know, I was almost yelling at myself. I was getting angry and disciplining my inner child, so to speak. And it was a really cathartic, amazing, amazing experience for me. And, you know, I just wanted to know if you knew about the Hoffman Institute.

Right. And what you speak to is important, is important because, yes, I send people there to do the process. So there's different layers of awakening. So the first awakening that I like to speak about is your awareness that we are living in a material world that is never going to give us sustainable happiness or joy or freedom. And as long as we're stuck in the material world, which is most of us, most of the world is trapped in just the material existence of getting their paycheck, paying their bills, getting to work on time, dealing with traffic, and they stay stuck there where you're constantly reacting to life as if life

is against you. So that's the most common, prevalent way of living. And then when you begin to awaken a little bit, you go into the psychological realm, which is what you did with Hoffman. You begin to go back into your ancestral legacies, your patterns. You begin to understand, wow, I'm not living a life. I'm living a pattern. And the pattern comes from my childhood, and now I need to deconement.

construct that and begin to disrupt those patterns. That's the psychological layer. Very important. That's why I'm a psychologist. I help people do that. Get in touch with their inner child. What was left wounded. How do we heal that? And I strongly encourage everyone to be in therapy because we do have psychological baggage that we need to clear up. Then as you ascend, you get into the spiritual and the transcendent layers of awakening. And that's where you realize, okay, I've done the psychological healing. I've left the matrix of the material world. And now I want to discuss. who I truly am. And in order to truly discover those depths of your deepest registers of existence, you go into a contemplative practice. This is so true because, you know, I felt like I came

back from this experience and the people who I love the most didn't truly know my capabilities of how much I could love, especially my wife, you know, there was a vulnerability, a lack of vulnerability that I had in my relationship and I was like, oh my God, I'm so excited because you get to finally experience like me at my, at the core of who I am saying with Kate and my mother and everyone else. And it was just profound for me, you know, because essentially you feel like you've been not living a lie, but living in a shell, you know, of some sort. Yeah, your veils are coming off. You know, as you disrupt the patterns, you wake up, right? and now you're not living leashed to patterns that are subconsciously, unconsciously ruling you.

So now those defenses over your heart have now been ripped away. And now you're ready to show your heart. You know, you don't need those defenses anymore because you've healed so much stuff. All your woundedness got healed at that Hoffman process. And there's a great plug for them. They're going to be so happy. Please, this whole podcast. I know.

I bring it up every single. Like, we could be with like Jim Carrey. And I'm like, Hoffman process. I just love it. I loved it so much. Yeah. But I think what it speaks to is the necessity of a psychological process, and you do that with a therapist, a guide, a coach, where you go to the deepest recesses of your childhood and begin to heal what was left unhealed. And then you come back more open, more awakened, more courageous to love, to be yourself, to be bare, to be raw, to be transparent. I do find that the combination of a psychologist and a practice is paramount to opening up all of your pathways to really kind of understanding yourself better. What do you think about kids in therapy?

Well, I don't believe in kids in therapy without or to the exclusion of the whole parental system because the child is not the issue in my opinion, right? they become the identified issue. But some children need a safe space to explore, to vent, to express. They need the language. They need the emotional artillery to talk with their parents. And so in that aspect, if it is to get to the parents, then I agree with children being in therapy. Now, after the age of 13, 14, when children are more owning of who it is they are, then they can be without the parent, you know.

But if I see a kid below the age of 12, I will most typically, be mostly seeing the parents. Oh, entirely. I have another quick question, because it is about children. And you say a lot that children express themselves freely, but that adults don't. And where do you think that that kind of starts to break down? Well, it depends on the temperament, the nature of the child. Some children get beaten down fast within the first year and a half or two, those who are really sensitive, fragile, empathic.

Those bleeding empaths, those natures get shut down. fast and you've got a survival child, a very good child. Those are the children we call good children. And then the more tough temperaments, you know, where they're tough to get through, they break down later. But everyone is giving up pieces of themselves to an unconscious family system. There's just no way to avoid it. My child has given up pieces of herself to me, despite how much I've endeavored to be conscious. It is just the fallout, the default of living this human existence. So no need to beat ourselves as we, we, talked about it's okay we will be screwing up our children the point is not to avoid it

the point is to understand and to minimize its damaging effects so your daughter's 16 is she in 10th or 11th grade 11th just from my own experience i find everybody talks about teenagers oh my god teenage especially with girls and their mothers everybody has something to say about it is she ever like mom you think you know everything because you write these books and you think you're a conscious parent but you don't know shit all the time she must must declare to me how little I know. It's her mission. It's so funny.

But are you finding that you're enjoying the teenage years? Because I actually must say that as he gets older and older, I just have more and more fun with him. It gets a more, it's a different kind of relationship you have with your teens than obviously you do when they're younger, because it's more about being there emotionally for them than it is about logistics. Yeah. But I'm actually finding.

that it's, it's so wonderful getting to know him as a young man. How is your experience with a teen? Yeah, I'll just talk about the prototypical experience and then get to mind. Prototypically, the reason why teenagers get such a bad rap is because parents are mortified of finally having to relinquish control. And teenagers live on the edge. They're very chaotic and it's all showing. They're so mature on one hand and then utterly delinquent on the other hand.

And it's confounding to us. I mean, talk about being confronted with the groundlessness of life. Teenagers embody the riskiness of life, you know, and they force you to confront the edginess of life. And so that's why parents have a hard time. They want their sweet, compliant little docile child that they could put to bed at 9 o'clock and they don't want this raving lunatic who won't go to sleep till 2.

You know, what are they doing when I go to sleep, right? We're losing control. And our identity as parents who are in charge is now coming into question, and we're terrified. So that's why teenagers get the bad rap, as if they're the bad ones. It's just because we have to lose our control, right? But in terms of my experience, yeah, I, you know, because I'm on the spiritual path,

for me, experiences that challenge my ego that call me to my humility, pull me to my knees, are embraced by me. So when she tells me, you have a Buddha complex or a Jesus complex or, you know, every day it's a different person. she's like you're just complex you have a Dr. Sheffali complex so whenever she tells me that I laugh you know I want to be irrelevant I want to be annihilated in my ego so I I want it you know I embrace it so I just laugh I love it it's a slap to my my ego which is always needed and I want it I look forward to it but I can see how it prickles parents who are not ready

for it what's your let's talk about discipline for a second yeah just Give me your overall on discipline and where that fits in in your world, because I'd like to sort of just get into that as far as the way I do things and maybe Kate does things. Yeah. So I don't buy into the old paradigm of discipline, yeah? I think it's a lazy paradigm where you just ground your kids and take away their iPad that you gave them and you throw them into the room because they're making you uncomfortable. So all of that control-based reactionary sort of discipline, I call into question. What I prefer is that parents really check their boundaries, right, and really understand their consistency, their hypocrisies, their loopholes, and how do you create an ambiance

of alignment in your home? And, you know, in my personal life, I wasn't so good with boundaries, and that was my failing and also my greatest learning. It had to do with me as a woman, cultural. and why I was afraid of conflict and how I grew up. So I used my mishaps in boundary making to evolve me, to understand me in the greater context of who I am as a woman from India. So I challenge parents to look at their control issues,

at their boundary issues. It's in every parent. No parent has done boundaries right. But when you talk about boundaries, like I have a big thing with screen time. I have a big thing with the connectivity of families and putting everything down and focusing on each other. And I'm very strict about that.

So it's like phones go down at a certain time. We don't use them at the table. Television's not on all day. We don't put the television on in front of our baby. So we have these boundaries for me, which is not a discipline. It's not about disciplining. It's just about connecting.

And it's not about your ego. So I always ask parents to think about boundaries in two ways. Is it an ego-affirming boundary, such as you have to play your piano, for six hours a day, that's ego affirming because if it wasn't ego affirming, everyone would be needing to play the piano all across the globe. It's obviously not developmentally necessary. It's your ego that's pushing your kid to play the piano versus what you're doing, which is connectivity, enhancing connection and bondedness in a family. That is life affirming.

So I always ask parents to step back, especially if they're having conflict with their kid, and ask themselves, am I imposing this on my kid out of my easy? ego, which is most likely the case, or is it truly a life-affirming principle that I'm trying to institute? And even in the life-affirming principle, you know, how do I go about it that allows their needs to be met as well? And we negotiate that, you know? Now, screens, I look at it as the plague. So the screens shouldn't even be a parenting issue. They have become a modern-day parenting issue because of the mobility of screens that every kid has it in their pocket. I love the TV now. I wish we could go back to our complaints about the TV.

At least the TV didn't talk, walk, and go in the car with you. I know, I know. But here's the thing about that. Again, talking about the evolutionary process of humanity, of technology, of everything, okay? The devolution, though. This is devolution. Fine, the devolution, however we want to say it, but you're saying we wish for TVs then. But when we had T.

I'm just saying it as a tongue-in-cheon, what I'm saying is when we had TVs, then we were wishing for the radio. So in 10 years, when all the kids are on AI, we're going to wish for iPods. But I'll tell you, there's progress, which was the TV, and there's progress, which is the train and the airplane, which allows for connectivity. And then it goes to a tipping point to a point of no return, which I believe we're heading toward,

where it is devolution because it's taking us away from human interaction. The TV did a good job doing that, and now we're going further and further away where people are becoming more encapsulated in their isolated, insular little bubbles, and they've forgotten how to have human interaction. And then you have the increase of depression, you have suicide.

It's social isolation. Yes. No, I totally agree with you, but there is another factor with this, though. There is an increase of communication, albeit it's maybe not in person, but these kids are communicating through text and FaceTime, and there's different ways of communicating. My kids, you know, they used to play Fortnite. They're not into it anymore, but now they play Minecraft. What's happening with these video games now, too, is it's creating these online communities.

I watch my kids deal with Minecraft and it's like four or five of them all talking and building something. They're laughing. They're having fun together. You know, there is something to be said for that as well, you know, not the mindless shooting video games, but, you know, I see it happen. Right. But I see these kids connect through this. This is where Oliver and I have different parenting stuff. So I was like, I am, I hardly let my kids play any video games. And it's not a I let them play, but it's just, it's like a certain amount of time. My thing is, it's just the brain. It's just about the optic nerve.

It's the brain. It's what it does to the brain. It's what it's creating. And we know what this is. The research talks about it. It's just not great for a developing brain. It's good to exercise it for them to know it and have fun doing it. It's balanced.

It's all balance. It's balanced. It's balancing it all. You know, my kids were out on mountain bikes jumping 30 feet in the air and camping. And they're also on their screens, you know, and there's a balance there. Right, right. I agree that you cannot fight what's happening because this is our children's new world. But to a certain degree, especially with kids under the age of 13, the more we can introduce

human to human connection and bonding, it will create a foundation. And then they can be released into this AI world, which they're going to inevitably be released into. But the more we can give them as a foundation, they will be released. be more emotionally sturdy, more emotionally connected because of that. The thing that I just wrestle with, honestly, doctor, is that these kids across, the kids that I know, they're raised in all different ways. And some of them are great kids and some of them aren't great kids.

Everyone is so unique in their personalities and who they are. We can't raise them all the same. All three of my kids are totally different. you know and there's ways in you there's an instinctual thing that comes you know for me and you do it differently with each one and as i was saying in the beginning we raise our kids differently you know i let them watch things i when i was a smoker i smoked in front of them i was like this is my life you guys i'm not going to hide anything from you do i smoke and it's horrible yeah but i'm an adult i can do whatever i want and i don't i don't you know i'm not saying that you should do

this. It's disgusting, but I'm not going to sit there and sneak cigarettes. I'm going to have drinks in front of you guys. This is who I am. You know what I mean? And that's the way that I do things. As far as movies go, PG-13 or R-rated movies, I don't care. You know, I curse in front of my children. My children do not curse. I mean, they're, they, I don't know. I think Dr. Shafalli's like, we should probably have a couple sessions. No, I'm just saying. No, no, no, no. I agree. My kids are beautiful, amazing children. No, I prefer. I prefer transparency to hypocrisy any day.

So I have no disagreement with, I'm not sanctimonious at all, do what you need to do. That's why I say, because every kid is different, there's no strategy to parent. The only strategy you have is to become conscious of who you want to be in the world. And the more conscious you become, the kids can do what they want with it. The kids are not the byproduct of you. The kids are going to be the byproduct of what they pick up. up dependent on their own personalities. So don't control what they pick up or not.

You never know what they're going to pick up. You just have to do you consciously. What about going against that, meaning like, our dad left when I was, when we were young. You know, his dad, my grandfather left our dad in the middle of the night when my dad was five years old. So there was a pattern that was existing. I, as a young man, made a conscious decision. I was like, I do not want to be that person, you know, and I railed.

against it rather than this pattern sort of overtaking me, I went the other way with it, you know. Yeah, but again, you know, if you revolt against a negative pattern, it appears like a good thing, right? You're revolting against the abandonment. Your father subjugated to you too. But the point is not to revolt it just out of a revolution. The point is to truly make authentic choices for your own life. What if in the future, not you, but another person like you, came to a choice point that They had to leave their marriage, but they didn't have to leave their child. That's okay too, right? You do it as consciously and authentically.

You find your own truth, you know, and that's the point of life. Your father seemed, I don't know about your father, but his father, if he left in the middle of the night, he obviously was tormented or tortured that he had to leave in such a drastic way. Your decision is to be involved in your children's life, no matter what the surrounding circumstances look like. You'll always be there for your children. But you're not doing it out of a revolution. You're doing it out of an authentic coming to your own desire, right? And that's what we want. What has been the most rewarding part of your work to date?

My work is a calling and I'm excited every day to do it. I think the most gratification comes when I hear a parent tell me how they have a better connection with their children, how I've freed them from their anxieties, how they're living more authentically when women come and tell me that they've released themselves from the enslavement of their past, how men come and tell me that they're living more vulnerable and transparent lives. You know, the gratification from seeing people palpably change their lives, you know, and you're an instrument in that in some way is so, it's addictive, an addict to it, and not for the gratification, but for the real, like, come on, let's

transform, let's help you alleviate your suffering. What a great joy I have to be a witness to people's unfolding. I'm so grateful that I'm you're exposing my work in this way and I get to touch people's lives and they allow me to enter their hearts. I mean, I don't take it lightly. I take it as a very serious passion-filled mission that I will rise to every day. And the best way I can rise to it is by doing my own work and killing my own crap. Well, I was about to ask you, what are your, what are some of your greatest struggles as a human, you know, that you deal with every day that if you could, you know, snap your fingers. I think my greatest struggle has been this whole deconditioning as an Indian woman.

I really was enslaved by this legacy of being this perfect Indian giver and Indian giver, but caregiver and a nurture. Yeah, at the end of the day, I didn't give anything, you know, because I was so depleted. And that stereotype of being this perfect woman, that was, woman who was always giving really, you know, paralyzed me. And working through that, all those conditionings of what it meant to be a woman, an Indian woman, and arriving at my freedom and my own worth. And now being, you know, my own autonomous being has been my journey. And what I hope to have given to my daughter as her legacy, that she doesn't have to be, you know, enslaved by the

patriarchal mission that I was enslaved by. And I hope I have freed. her to be this woman of today's era. That's great. Amazing. Authenticity is like hot right now. The word is hot. The whole sort of theme of being authentic. You hear, it's like a buzzword now, you know.

And of course, at Hoffman, it was about finding your authentic self. Is everyone's authentic self beautiful? Or does some, can your authenticity be, an asshole. You know what I mean? Yeah. So there's a difference between, you know, people often think being authentic means to just say whatever comes in your mind and, you know, just being honest. Well, I was honest. I told her she stunk. I was honest. I told her she was a fat pig. I was honest. I was just being authentic. No, you were being unconscious because authenticity is always in context. You know, you're always very aware of who you're speaking with, their developmental capacity.

So authenticity comes with a high level of discernment to your context. You know, and that's why it takes work. So it's a buzzword. It's being thrown around like manifestation and all these other buzzwords of today's world. And they're all empty at the end of the day if they don't come with deep inner alignment. Awesome. That's so great. It's so true.

Authenticity. You have to contextualize authenticity. Yeah, for sure. Because it's so true. You're right. So many people are like, I'm authentic and they're just dicks. I'm like, that's not authenticity. just being a dick.

So it's a euphemism for really bad behavior. What are you looking forward to in your life right now? Well, to write my books, I'm currently writing a book on The Awakened Woman. So that's fabulous for me to be able to spread that message and help women come out of their unconscious civility to the good label, to the label of good, and to break free from that. And I think, you know, just finding ways to teach more. And but I've learned not to be restless anymore.

And I've learned to leave the state of craving behind that I had in my 30s and to now just receive beautifully to show up fully and to challenge myself in different artistic ways, you know. I think Dr. Chafali and I should be best friends. I think we are. I feel like, I feel a real friendship happening right now. I feel like I want to be a therapist. Can I be a therapist and not go to school for it? Because I'm not good in school. This has been, we could talk to you forever.

I've got so many. I'm so grateful that you came on our podcast and you're just. I'm so grateful. Yes. Thank you so much. If you could give a parent one piece of advice, what would that advice be? If you just literally only had one thing to be able to say to a parent. that every trigger you experience with your child is really an inner trigger.

It's a triggering of your own inner wound. It has nothing to do with your child. Therefore, there is no bad child. All the badness you're projecting onto them is coming from your own inner sense of badness. And the reason why I say this is the nugget, because I see so many children being destroyed by parents who believe they're bad, you know. And there are no bad children. It's just broken parents.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson, Oliver Hudson, and Sim Sarnah. Supervising producer is Alison Bresnick. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mark. I'm Jorge Ramos. I'm Jorge Ramos.

Together we'll learn. launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having as father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Introducing IVF Disrupted, the Kind Body Source. story, a podcast about a company that promised to revolutionize fertility care. It grew like a tech startup.

While Kind Body did help women start families, it also left behind a stream of disillusioned and angry patients. You think you're finally like in the right hands. You're just not. Listen to IvyF Disrupted, the Kind Body Story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live?

We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.