The Rich Roll Podcast - How To Raise A Conscious Child With Guru Singh

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

Welcome to another edition Guru Corner — a spiritual version of my popular Coach's Corner series featuring my favorite teacher on all things mystic and metaphysical, Guru Singh. Fusing Eastern mysticism with Western pragmatism, Guru Singh is a celebrated third-generation Sikh yogi and master spiritual teacher who has been studying and teaching Kundalini Yoga for more than 40 years. He is the author of several books, a powerful lecturer and behind-the-scenes guide to many a luminary, including Fortune 500 CEOs, athletes, and artists. A peer of rock legends like Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, Guru Singh is also a supremely talented musician who began his recording career on Warner Bros’ Reprise label in the 1960s. When he isn’t recording tracks with people like Seal, he’s bringing down the house on the daily at Yoga West, his Los Angeles home base. Over the last couple years, I have grown quite close with Guru Singh, a beautiful and highly relatable consciousness I’m proud to call friend, family and mentor. It’s a privilege to share more of his powerful wisdom with you today. A companion piece to my recent podcast with author and parenting expert KJ Dell'Antonia (RRP #396), today's conversation is an intimate exploration into the art of parenting through the lens of child rearing as spiritual practice. We discuss the challenges of raising a generation required to face problems created preceding generations. We pit the perils of social media against the importance of digital fluency. We explore the importance of cultivating a healthy sense of self amidst the chaos of family life; how to reframe failure as opportunity; and the importance of balancing discipline while encouraging daydreaming. Communication is paramount, so we dissect strategies for keeping it open and honest. None of us parent perfectly. But the way forward is to better master ourselves, our actions and reactions. My hope is that this exchange will empower you with some tools to do just that. Like my conversation with KJ, there is plenty of wisdom here for everyone, irrespective of your child rearing status. So even if you don't have children and never plan to, I encourage you to listen or watch with an open mind. Note: If you missed our initial conversations, start with episode 267 and then enjoy episodes 332,368 and 393. Final Note: The visually inclined can watch our entire conversation on YouTube HERE (just make sure to subscribe!) Let the master class resume. Peace + Plants, Rich

Don't always be the authority. Be flexible in the positioning. Buy the space that gives you time to be able to have more of a contemplative relationship with the information that's sometimes being dealt to you in a very disrespectful or seemingly disrespectful way. If we don't allow ourselves to be imperfect, we'll never get good. In the raising of children, there is no expert, but there are those who are more open, who are more vulnerable, who will allow more sovereignty. They'll be more skilled, but nobody's expert. That's Guru Singh, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. What's the word? How you doing? What's going on? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. Welcome to episode 400 of the podcast. 400 episodes. That is so unreal. What it means,

essentially, is that there's about somewhere between 800 and 900 hours of conversations over the last six years recorded and freely available to everybody. I just can't even imagine that I've spent that much time with so many people. It's extraordinary. And this is kind of an unreal benchmark and it's left me reflecting back to episode one, which I recorded in November of 2012. And at that time, I could have never imagined that what began essentially as an experiment would mature into what has become today. And I think what I take from that is the power of just beginning something, of following a thread, of trusting a gut feeling, following a thread, of trusting a gut feeling, of resisting the urge to have everything mapped out,

the willingness to be imperfect, to fail in public. Because when you just engage in the process of doing something you love or that you slowly fall in love with over time, I really believe that magical things can happen. And I'm definitely the product of this. So many guests I've had on the show over the years are great examples of this as well. And I think it speaks to the power that we all have to more deeply express that which is truly authentic in service of something greater than ourselves and the magic that can transpire as a direct result of engaging that impulse of working hard and being unwavering and steadfast in your commitment. Anyway, I just wanted to take this benchmark, this landmark to thank you. I'm deeply grateful that I get to do this thing and that you are deriving value from it. It's really

a dream. Speaking of a dream and gratitude, if you listen to my podcast with Scott Harrison from a few days ago, then you know I'm celebrating my 52nd birthday with a goal of raising $100,000 before year's end to help Charity Water bring clean water to those in need. We raised over $10,000 in the first 24 hours, which is amazing. Right now, we're hovering around, I think it's like $18,000 as of today, just a couple of days in, we're still in the first week. So that is extraordinary. Thank you. You guys are amazing, but we still have a long way to go. $100,000 is a very ambitious goal, but I think it's totally doable with your help. So please help me to learn more about this mission.

please help me to learn more about this mission. Listen to my podcast with Scott. That's episode 399. And to donate, go to my.charitywater.org forward slash ritual, and I'll put a link in the show notes to that. Okay. So today is yet another installment of Guru Corner featuring my favorite, magical, mystical, brilliant being, Guru Singh, my friend, my advisor on many things, and truly one of my favorite people. At this point, the vast majority of you are already quite familiar with this man and his work. So I'm going to dispense with the long bio, the long introduction. For those of you that are new, I encourage you to listen to our previous conversations. Those are episodes 267, 332, and 368. And I just want to say he's a very wise soul.

He's a celebrated master spiritual teacher, an author, a musician, a father, and really a gift to humanity who has been teaching and studying kundalini yoga for the past 40 plus years. And today's conversation is all about parenting. And it stands as sort of a companion piece to my recent podcast with author and parenting expert, KJ Del Antonio, and the specifics of which I'm going to get into in a moment, but first. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide,

to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one,

again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources

adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you.

I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay. Guru Corner, Guru Singh, parenting. You know, in so many ways, parenting is very analogous to running an ultra marathon. It's super freaking hard. It will test you well beyond your perceived limits.

It's grueling. It challenges you to reach deep inside your soul and then keep digging. And then when you're feeling scared or over challenged or at the very end of your rope, you got to keep your head on straight. You got to make sure that you continue to make decisions that are moving you forward in a healthy way and really keep your family moving forward in a healthy way. And you got to take your personal crap out of the equation. rewarding, gratifying, absolutely, totally worth it. And today we're going to explore all of it. Just like my conversation with KJ, there is plenty of wisdom here for everybody, irrespective of your child rearing status. So please stay tuned, even if you're not a parent or don't want kids. And what do we talk about? Well, we talk about what it's like to raise a generation to face and tackle the problems created by us and the generations that preceded us. It's about the power and perils of social media and the currency of digital media

fluency. We talk about the importance of cultivating a healthy sense of self, a healthy set of boundaries, balancing discipline with daydreaming. We talk about reframing failure and mistakes as opportunities, discipline with daydreaming. We talk about reframing failure and mistakes as opportunities, the importance of open and honest communication, and understanding and accepting and embracing that none of us really have it completely figured out. Again, these are lessons appropriate for all, whether you're a parent of 10 kids, an aunt, or a 21-year-old college student who never wants kids. So, let us explore. All right. Well, we're back. We're back for another Guru Corner. I feel like I just talked to you. For those that don't know. And you're wearing the same thing.

Yeah. Well, you know, one time somebody said, how do you choose what to wear? And I said, that's a joke, right? But you do have, you have some variety. Yeah, I go either with blues or oranges or maroons on top of white. Yeah, well, you got it dialed in, my friend. Why?

Because you know how to rock it. You're looking good. So as we were talking before coming on to the desk here, one of your technicians said that Yogi Bhajan considered me his favorite musician. Yeah. I had never, ever heard that in my entire life. Oh, come on.

He wasn't one to be describing someone as his favorite, because that was a little too narrow. But hey, if he told somebody that I was, I'll take it. Yeah. So you like how that landed. I do. Well, there could have been. I mean, how many, were there a lot of musicians around him? Oh yeah. I mean, you were rocking it back then. So for sure. I mean, I'm surprised that you're surprised by that. Well, only in that, you know, the idea of, of they say in spirituality, you should be ego less and ego free. And I completely disregard that. I think that if you polish and cut your ego to be

brilliant, you should use it. And so when I hear those things, it just helps me polish and cut my ego. Yeah. Well, we all like to hear nice things about ourselves out in the world, especially from people that we respect. Yeah. Like those most intimate with us, you know? Right. Like our 14-year-old Zora. Yeah, so that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna kind of zone this in, focus it on parenting. And I guess I have self-serving reasons for that

on some level. I mean, we have a 14-year-old daughter. She just started a brand new high school, high school in general, it's her first year of high school, but instead of going to school near our house, she spent the majority of last year putting together a portfolio of visual art to try to get into the Performing Arts High School

here in Los Angeles. It's a public institution, but it's very prestigious, very difficult to get into. You have to apply, you have to go and defend your portfolio. It's a whole thing. A lot of people are trying to get in and she got in, which is fantastic. We couldn't be happier or more proud of her. But this school happens to be a two hour drive

from our house. We live way out in Malibu Canyon, near Calabasas. This school is east of downtown. So for those of you who know Los Angeles and think about LA as just an octopus of freeways, I want you to even expand your concept of that even further, because to get from where we live to this school, which is on the 10 freeway after you pass downtown on the way to San Bernardino, it's just past downtown. After you pass through the gridlock.

Exactly. Right when you get to the other side of it, then you're there. And it's too far to do a daily commute. I mean, you could, you'll be in the car for four hours every day. It's not conducive to Mathis's development. It's certainly not advisable. It's not something I want to do or my wife wants to do. So we're trying to figure out, she just started two weeks ago. We're trying to figure out how are we going to manage this and create a sustainable solution that works for not just Mathis, but our entire family. And we've kind of settled on the realization that there's no way around the fact that we're going to have to rent an apartment near the school. We found a place that I think is probably going to

work that's in downtown. It's like 10 minutes from the school, but this means that we're upending our entire family life. My two older boys who are 22 and 23 moved out this past year. So it's just my wife and I and our two daughters, but we have a younger daughter who goes to school right near our home. So now this is gonna mean that Julie and I are gonna have to both be single parents

taking turns being downtown with our older daughter while the other one is tending to our younger daughter and then switching. So life is getting interesting. It's changing. And what's beautiful about it is that we are in this privileged position to be able to support Mathis in the furtherance of her dream, because I feel like my family has done so much to support me that allows me to do what I get to do today. And it's her turn now. And it's a privilege as a parent to be able to show up for her in that way, but it's going to be hard. It's going to be a lot. And also at 14, it's a very interesting age,

where she's trying to differentiate. If it was up to her, she would just get an apartment by herself and like manage it and she doesn't need us. She's already got the whole world figured out and we're just in her way and trying to figure out how to parent through that in a responsible way

and be a voice of reason in her way and trying to figure out how to parent through that in a responsible way and, you know, be a voice of reason for this developing young adult is a tricky equation to solve. Well, this is a beautiful picture because you and Srimati, you and your wife Julie are I won't use the word resigning because that's got a negative connotation. You're committing your lives to the future and sustaining your lives in the present at the same time. your lives in the present at the same time.

Imagine if you were to be a normal, whatever that means, parent, and you felt that this idea was unreasonable, that it was too much disruption. And then Mathis would grow up with an unfulfilled dream and have to live with that lack of that fulfilling three, four years of this incredible high school for the rest of her entire life, which is, you know, what, 100 years, 110, 120 years, whatever, because we're in longevity mode. 150 years. Absolutely. Well, yeah. So you're accommodating while still sustaining, you're accommodating the future while sustaining the

present. What's more, what's more reasonable than that? Right. And it's crazy. It is crazy. I would say we're attempting to accommodate the situation. It's uncertain. The sustainability aspect of it is unclear at this point. And it is unreasonable in many ways. You can easily make a logical argument as to why this is totally unreasonable, but that's why it's so awesome because it is unreasonable. It's unreasonable for us to say, our daughter's going to go to this but that's why it's so awesome because it is unreasonable. It's unreasonable for us to say, our daughter's gonna go to the school that's two hours away that completely disrupts our lives and makes it challenging for Julie and I

to even do what we need to do professionally throughout the day, let alone attend to our marriage. It's going to push us, it's gonna challenge us, but that's what makes it super cool. And I can't be somebody who turns on a microphone and sits here and tells people to pursue their dreams if I'm not going to show up for my daughter and do everything that's in my power to support her in the furtherance of her own dream. to support her in the furtherance of her own dream.

Well, let's also think of that in terms of the culture. The culture and society of our world right now in this modern version is that it is so important for our children to have the tools that they're going to need to make this future sustainable. Because science, and particularly deep science, but even, you know, even, you know, the layman's science right now is talking about, you know, humanity doesn't make it through to the end of the century. but then you have you know this this idea of if we keep producing children as we have been we're going to continue to make the mistakes that we've been making we start producing children that are exceptional and extraordinary because we supported them in their dreams because these dreams are not dreams that they found in a magazine somewhere. These, in many instances, these dreams like Mathis, your daughter,

these dreams are these deep, deep intuitive dreams. Something that comes from way, way back in their evolution. And if we can allow those things to take place, if we can support those things in not only the children that are biologically related to us, but in children in general, and do the things with the social structure, do the things with the cultures,

like provide better education, create these schools, create a school exactly like that, reproduce it out here, closer to home, put five of them in every major city, some that deal with science, some that deal with technology, some that deal with the arts, some that deal with athletics, whatever it is, and really start addressing children, not as all the same, but as very unique individuals. Yeah, it would be beautiful if we could accomplish that. I mean, I think that- It would save you a big drive time.

Yeah, I know, right? If we could have this here. But I feel like this particular school is a good example of that because every kid who's there had to apply and had to jump through a lot of hoops to get there, much like a child who's trying to get into a college. So every, I said to my daughter, you know, a couple of days into it, I said, what's the biggest difference between this school and the

school you were going to last year? And she said, everybody is so happy to be there. They all want to be there. Wow. And isn't that a beautiful thing? Like kids who are 14, 15, all the way up to high school who are there because that's where they want to be, not because that's where they're told they have to be. And the dropout rate in today's world of education is understandable because the kids aren't going to a school that serves their passions. This school serves your daughter's passion. If we could enable schools to serve passions and know that children are being born on earth, it happens everywhere. When your body is starting to break down, your body starts to produce cells that are going to help it to save it from breaking down further.

The same thing is true in this world. As this world becomes less and less sustainable, the universe is providing children through soul bodies and physical bodies that are capable of turning this thing around. In other words, the children that are going to live deeply into the future are capable of preparing us to sustain the future. And if we allow them to go after their passions, that's where the message that they're trying to follow is located. So, wow, this is incredible. But we need to be very clear that the society in general needs to be encouraged to provide more of these

kinds of facilities. Right. I feel like when this young generation comes of age, they're capable of making that change, but I would like to see it a lot sooner. We were talking a little bit earlier off the mics about the millennials and the Generation Z and how they really are qualitatively different from my generation, from your generation, different from my generation, from your generation, and how they navigate and perceive the world. Like, this is a group of people that in many ways gets a bad rap. Oh, they're entitled. Oh, they're, you know, they don't understand responsibility. Well, they get a bad rap from my generation. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But this is the way it always is, right? You know, this is a sign that we're just getting older, but they get a bad rap for being entitled babies or

whatever it is. But ultimately, you know, I have incredible relationships with young people. And it's one of the great things about what I get to do is I get to be around a lot of people who are much younger than me. And I see a group of people who are incredibly engaged to, engaged, who are committed to working towards a better future, a better planet, a better country, who truly believe that when they spend their dollar, that they are voting for something. They're either voting for the world that they want to see, or they're voting against that. They make that connection in a way that we just never thought about, really. And that gives me great hope and it makes me optimistic for the future.

But I think we have a lot of work in the meantime while those generations are still in gestation mode and we're still at the helm. I heard a comedian who was it the other day tell a joke. I can't remember who it was, but basically the joke went something like, you know, when I pull out of my car and I get behind a school bus and all the kids in the back of the school bus, look out the back window and give me the finger. Yeah. And I'm like, why are you giving me the

finger? I didn't do anything. And then I go, oh yeah, nevermind. You know, like we created the world that they're saying, we're inheriting this world that you have, you know, screwed up in so many ways and now we got to fix it for you. Yeah. You know, that was actually Bill Maher. Oh, it was Bill Maher. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was that monologue he does at the end. Yes. I just heard that. What is it called?

New Rules. New Rules. New Rules. New rules, yeah. Yeah. So the idea that you said, you know, we have to redefine terms in many ways. One of the terms that you used was entitled. And a lot of people will use that word as a negative in a derogatory statement. in a derogatory statement. But I look at it as an opportunity in an opportunistic moment. If a child is entitled

and they're not having to struggle, then they have the opportunity to sit back and go, okay, what is it that I'm actually motivated to do? Rather than I don't have time to think about my motivation because I just have to take care of what's going on. And so throughout history, there's been this constant struggle.

And all of a sudden, kids aren't struggling anymore. They may be struggling emotionally, and we'll deal with that in a moment. And they may be struggling in other ways. But there's a lot of things out there that they're physically not having to struggle with any longer, which gives them an opportunity to sit and contemplate. And when they sit and contemplate, sometimes when they're sitting and daydreaming in school, that's a good opportunity for new ideas to come through. And they'll be reprimanded for that. I always remember the old saying, you know, you spend the first five years of your life learning how to walk and talk and then go into school and be told to sit down and shut up, right? But the idea of being

able to daydream in a school, being able to contemplate rather than always having to look busy, always having to look like you're applying yourself. between and are becoming more and more compromised with the encroachment of this little device we carry around in our pockets that is begging for our attention 24 hours a day. The social media instrument. Right. So the days of daydreaming under a tree or kicking a can down the road or going to build a dam in the creek in the backyard have all been supplanted with technology and very addictive technology at that. So one of the things that I struggle with, and look, I'm as guilty of this as anybody,

but it's particularly noticeable in younger people with minds that are still in formation and still developing. And when you notice that the head, the neck is always craned and it's facing the device at all times, it leaves me to wonder, where is that quiet time? Where is that contemplation happening?

Where is that space that's required for really trying to figure out what your voice is and how to express it. I feel like that's really being compromised in a substantial way. Well, that is an advice to parenting, isn't it? That you do have to be able to enforce some discipline. I know now that I'm not parenting, I've already done that. My wife and I have two children and now they have

children. And so now we're grandparenting and we're watching parenting by millennials, you know, and we're watching the children that are growing up under them. And there's screen time. Yeah. And then there's not screen time. When they got back from summer vacation, you know, they had been in so many locations where there were big screens that the kids were just basically, you know, where's the big screen? You know, and so they took the TV and they said it's out for repair. And they just removed the television. it's out for repair. And they just removed the television and the children now are getting into books and things and they're getting back into their routine. And as soon as that routine is reestablished, they'll reintroduce the screen. But it's a challenge and it's a challenge that parents must take on. And because to be fixated on that is a couple of things. Physically, it's too much blue light

in the system because it's noontime sun all day, all night, which is disruptive to the attitudes in the psycho-emotional balance. But it's also very much involved in the moment in a bad way, as opposed to being in the moment in a good way, in the now. And the moment is, was I recognized in this moment? Did I get a friend in this moment? Was I liked in this moment? did I get a friend in this moment? Was I liked in this moment? That speech doesn't land with the average 14 year old. I'm not talking to the 14 year old, I'm talking to the parent of the 14 year old.

Yeah, because the moment can't compete with the stimulus provided by the latest post. And a book has a hard time standing up to the allure of whatever's going on, on YouTube or Instagram. It's hard. And as a parent, I struggle with this. And I struggle with it personally. I'm as addicted as anybody. I'm the first to admit that. I'm as addicted as anybody. I'm the first to admit that. So finding a way to parent through that is challenging because I realize my job is not to be my children's best friend. It's to guide them and to erect healthy boundaries and try to sort of help them understand how to develop in a healthy and appropriate way. But this is something I'm doing highly imperfectly. And I'm always, you know,

especially as my older daughter gets older and she's, like I said, differentiating, she didn't want to hear about it. Well, I think that what you just said is very, Well, I think that what you just said is very, very important for everyone to understand that we're going to be experimenting at this. These things have only been around for a decade. And we will all be doing it imperfectly. And if we can't do things imperfectly, we will never find out how to do them correctly. Because the learning curve in anything that we do, whether it's training for a triathlon, whether it's working in meditation

and yoga, if we don't allow ourselves to be imperfect, we'll never get good. And I like the idea of, you know, to equate this to another part of what we talk about sometimes is that going on a fast, going on a no screen time, going on an adventure just to come back and have a different relationship and a different perspective of the screen. And finding out that, geez, you know, I missed five days of the screen and, you know, I'm just as good as I would have been otherwise. I used to do that with my guitar because, and as a matter of fact, I was going to bring my guitar today, but I'll do it next time. I got one right behind me. I should have had you play the last one. Okay, Ray, that's good. I can- You know who sent me that guitar?

Jolene and Michael. Really? The people that introduced us? Yeah. So if it's in tune, I'll play it. It's probably not in tune, but you can see it. So I used to go on a guitar fast because I was obsessive. I was OCA. I never call it OCD. I don't consider it a disorder.

It's obsessive compulsive advantage. I like that. I'm going to use that. Yes, I encourage it to be used. But I was OCA about playing my guitar. I was always, if I had a moment, I would play my guitar. If I had a moment, I would play my guitar. And then I realized that my growth was very linear

and was very last moment based. You know, linear growth is last moment based is i'm learning this because i just learned this so it's fulfilling the prerequisite to something that you're going to uh eventually learn and i saw that what was happening if i went on these guitar fasts which meant that i laid the guitar aside went did other things for a week or two weeks. I once went on a guitar fast, which is what my book Buried Treasures is about, for 11 months. And my style, when I come back to the guitar after these periods without it, is not based on what I've been doing. It's based on the imagination of what I could be doing. it's based on the imagination of what I could be doing.

And all of a sudden I find after a fast of such, of a guitar playing, that all of a sudden my ideas are much different and I'm trying to now develop those ideas through practice. So it's really an accelerant. Same thing could hold true for all of the social media. And how do I respond? How do I experience the likes and the dislikes the thumbs up the thumbs down all these things about all of these social media apps that are on those devices being able to actually get the child to understand

a different perspective a different relation in their own, not just trying to dictate no time for that. That's bad all the time. Let's get our children to begin to comprehend the difference between going continuously and having breaks. Yeah. It's so important. I mean, removal altogether is not the solution because this is the language with which they communicate and being fluent in that language, I think is important for success long-term. I mean, just observationally watching young people and the way they communicate,

it's completely different to how we learned how to communicate. It's literally a different language. So I think understanding that and respecting that that's not going away is important, but it is so important to take those breaks. I think it's absolutely critical. And I think it's even more crucial

when you consider the fact that, a pre-adolescent, an adolescent, a teenager, these are developing brains and emotional bodies who are trying to figure out who they are, how they fit in the world. I mean, can you imagine being that age and being assessed on an app? You could look at your phone and find out what all your friends think about you, how you're being qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated throughout the day. And if you become ostracized, you can use those apps to then follow the people

who have ostracized you, enjoying themselves in your absence. What is the impact of this on the psyche of a young person? It has the potential to be unbelievably damaging. And so outside of just saying screen time, no screen time, I think it's imperative for the parent to shoulder the responsibility of instilling a sense of self and a sense of self-confidence in their kids by helping them develop sovereignty and a strong understanding of who they are independent of the evaluation of their peers.

Self-evaluation, really to encourage self-evaluation. You used another phrase a moment ago that I really relate to, and that's the imperative that comes with the recognition that this is not going away. I would equate it back to 30 years ago when hip-hop was just coming out and people just thought, okay, it's going to go away, it's a fad and all that. But the thing about hip-hop was that it was telling a story in a way that stories had been told by indigenous communities for a long time, by poets for a long time. Stories with rhythm, stories with beat. Now, almost, attitudes, the dancing, the ways and work, it is not going away. Nothing is going to go away. It's only going to

increase. And so if parents recognize that these are things that are, it's really essential that you begin to discipline them because they're not only not going away, but they're going to become more powerful. Just like music becomes more powerful over the decades, these apparatus are going to become not only more powerful, but more intimate. I mean, now it's on a watch.

Wait until it's available in anything. It's just a little chip that you can attach anywhere. Yeah, it will be a chip implanted. You know, by the time my 14-year-old is 40, you know, what is this gonna look like? We're in this bizarre adolescent phase with all of this where it's coming at us so quickly. We haven't really adapted to it.

We don't really understand the long-term impact of it. And it's being iterated upon with such an accelerated pace that we can't keep up with it. And I think we're all just stumbling very haphazardly and imperfectly through our attempt to try to understand and contextualize what this all means. I mean, this is the biggest advancement in human history. The fact that we have these things that are really moving us towards a collective consciousness where all of our consciousness is merged. Right now, we're yelling at each other and we're getting in arguments. But this is the, yeah, we're in the infant stage of trying to figure out how this

consciousness is all going to congeal and coalesce in this cyber environment. I like what you just said and used the term stumbling because in another session that you and I shared, we talked about depression and grief and sadness. We talked about the difference between just sort of being on the surface of it and it's a continuous chronic condition. And then the people that were the super dupers that are just living on the surface of life and always just in the mask of super, how are you feeling? Great. How are you doing? Super. And this is the same opportunity. And that is that if we just are forced to ride the surface of this event called social media and devices and screens and all of those things, then we're never

going to get a good hold on it. What we have to be able to do as parents is we've got to be able to dive down into this and really understand what are the underpinnings? What are the causes? Why is my child or my children, or if I don't have children, why are children in general so obsessed with this external valuation of their latest moment? And how can they be inclined in a deeper dive to be encouraged towards self-evaluation and, you know, just to heck with all of the evaluation from the outside. I can remember as a young child, and this was back in the days when growing up as a yogi, you know, in a Judeo-Christian neighborhood, you know, I would get a lot of flack because

I was different, you know, my family was different, everything was different, and I was different. different. Everything was different. And I was different. And one of the things that it gave me, because I was getting a lot of unlikes, if you were thinking in my- In the real world, unlikes. In the real world of social media, right? In the social structure. And I went to my mom one day, and I was crying. I think I must've been like six or seven. And because we were yogis and because we believed in, you know, in the church of all religions rather than just being of a specific religion, because Paramahansa Yogananda was, you know, deep in our family's biome, I came home and she said, what's the matter? I said, everybody is saying I'm a heathen, right? She said, well, do you know what that means?

No, but they don't like me because that's what I am, right? So it was a big unlike, right? A big evaluation by my friends. She said, well, let's find out what that means, right? So she said, go get the dictionary. And the families had the big dictionary in those days. And so I brought the dictionary and we looked under H-E-A, right?

We looked under heathen. And she looked at it and she read it. She said, yeah, you are. And now I want you to go out there and be the best damn heathen that ever existed. Excel as a heathen and show that this word is not a condemnation. It's just a description. And so I went back out.

I got my basketball and I went back out to the court and I was dribbling and doing my shots and doing all the things that I knew how to do very well. And all of a sudden people started to forget the fact that they had gone through this cycle. And social media in today's world is giving parents that same opportunity, but the parent, as you said, can't be stumbling across the surface of this dilemma. They've got to be showing their children that they're diving deep into it, even if they look stupid, like a 50-year-old with teenage jeans on, with big cuffs rolled up, trying to look cool. No, just be yourself and dive deep into the dilemma and let's figure this out together because it's on top of all of us. Yeah. As somebody who, I essentially make my

living on the internet and I'm very versed in the art and science of social media. I'm omnipresent on many channels and have been for a long time. And I think in the realm of 50 plus year old people, I am much more fluent in this language than most of my peers, I would say. I feel like I have a better grip on it, grasp and understanding of how it works and its importance and what's good and what's not so good about it. So what's great about that is it allows me to have more productive conversations with my kids about it. But one of the things you said was, you know, teenagers, they're obsessed with social media. The first thing I think that's important to recognize

is that if there is an obsession that's in place, it's not the kid's fault. These things are specifically designed to create obsession, to addict you. They're very powerful and potent. Like even the most disciplined person has a challenge trying to resist its urge and its pull. There you go.

So first of all, acknowledge that. Yep. And I think if you can do that, then it will remove you from the inclination to aggressively come after your kid or shame them or say like, you gotta get off that. You're obsessed, you're addicted. Cause it's not about that.

It's like, okay, let's understand this. You know, how can we create some healthy boundaries around this to make it productive? Understanding that this is how you communicate with your friends and this is how you interface with the world and that that indeed is not going to change. If anything, it's going to increase, but to erect healthy boundaries

so that you can carve out that contemplative time so that you can craft a sense of self and that you can cultivate enough self-awareness to have a healthy sense of yourself that is independent of how many likes you get, how many subscribers do you have, how many people are following you, all of that nonsense.

You used healthy boundaries. And the fact that you are very skilled in social media, you and your 50s and I and mine, that we have that skill in social media makes us a better spokesperson for the idea of healthy boundaries, because we're not a hypocrite saying something about something we don't understand or something that we don't participate in.

We both participate fully in social media and we both have to have that same kind of discipline. And so it gives us an opportunity. And I say to other parents, take the opportunity to begin to understand what it is to instill discipline in a child. Because if they're just in the stimulus response, because that's what social media is so good at, all you have to do is tap and click. If they're just in that stimulus and response mode, they're not going to get ahead. They're not going to fulfill their destiny. They're not going to fulfill their passions and their inclinations in life because they're going to be trapped in the cycle. So if we can train them and say, look, I'm in your game. I'm in social media. I'm also on these

apps. It's part of my life. It is my life. It's my world. It's how I make my living. But I'm going to show you, and we're going to explore together what it's like to have some abstinence, what it's like to have some discipline, what it's like to get sober, right? To get sober on social media, to use it, but not be used by it. I think that would be an important expression. Yeah. Well, on that idea of using it versus being used by it, there's an important differentiator or demarcation line that I don't think gets adequately addressed or discussed, which is the distinction between passively scrolling, sort of just checking out because you're an audience member versus creation. If you're using YouTube or Instagram or any of these other platforms to express your

creative voice, to share a point of view, to make a video, to write a blog post, to create, to emote, to express yourself, that's something to be encouraged. And that's very different from just blindly like, I don't want to be with myself and my emotions right now, so I'm just going to see what everyone else is doing. And I think the more, at least the way that I've kind of approached this with my kids is, look, I have no problem with you being on these platforms. If you're out taking amazing photos and editing them and have something interesting to say, and you're sharing that, that's fantastic. I love that. Let's do more of that and less of the absorption and more of the creation. Good point. Because what we have is we've got these different sections, just like

times of day. There's a time to eat. There's like times of day. There's a time to eat. There's a time to digest. There's a time to rest. There's a time to be a bit passive. There's a time to be very active. And we would not be condemning. I love your balance there. We would not be condemning any of these properties. If somebody just wants to kind of, you know, scroll and be kind of oblivious to the world and just see what other people are doing, that's an opportunity to absorb some new ideas perhaps, or get some laughs out of some, some, you know, idiotic videos or jokes or what have you. But if that's a constant diet, then that's something that needs to be repaired and replaced. Yeah, I'd agree with that. But it can be a part of the overall structure. So,

you know, scrolling through, see what other people are doing, what's happening out there, having time to be without the device, to be able to get new ideas that have nothing to do with the devices. Another part of your day, another part of your day, be actively taking this, creating that, thinking this, posting that. It's another part of the day.

Literally being a fully active member of this internet society, contributing in many ways and allowing it to contribute to you in many ways. And as a parent, having what you said before, you're not just a good buddy, but you're also a guide. You have to also be a good buddy at times. And especially as your children get to be like the know-it-all 14 that we all experience, and we've all experienced when we've had children. We've got to be able to know what is that spectrum of relationship.

It's almost like a recipe. There's got to be some good buddy. There's got to be some guide and there's got to be some just correlation, just a sense of the self with another self. Yeah. And trying to figure out how all those pieces fit together is the trick. You're in the middle of it and I'm observing it from having been through it. Yeah. I would say with respect to my daughter, you know, I'd said earlier, she's ready. She's, you know, doesn't want to have it that she, you know, she's, she's ready to move out and all of that.

And I say that in jest, but at the same time, like what I am most proud of with her is that she does have a very strong sense of herself. She's very self-sufficient. She knows what she wants. She doesn't equivocate in her language. Like she's very direct. She's very unapologetic for who she is. Like these are all amazing qualities

of a very strong person, which are fantastic, but she still is just 14. So you gotta like, you know, definitely guide that person. And that's kind of where I'm at right now. But I wanted to get back to that idea of taking an intermittent fast. And you'd use the example of taking a break from guitar that allowed you to go from a place of linear progression

to one of like quantum progression. And I think that's really powerful. to one of like quantum progression. And I think that's really powerful. I was listening to a podcast by my friend, Rob Bell. Do you know Rob Bell? I've heard the name. He's really cool, interesting thinker.

And he calls this idea of what you're kind of coining a fast as manuha, which is a word from scripture that I can't remember what he said in his podcast, where it exactly derives from. But essentially this idea, manuha meaning the importance of rest, of like taking a break and reframing how we think about this as sort of indulgent or lazy and understanding that it's perhaps the most powerful Archimedes lever that you have, that it is the white space, the in-between space that defines the hard lines. Beautiful.

And without that break, without that respite, without that fast or rest, you are preventing yourself from ultimately developing to your potential as a voice, as a creative, in whatever it is that you're seeking to express. Well, that brings up in my psyche, the manuha. Is that it? Manuha. Manuha. Manuha is the manuha of parenting. What if you were to, as a parent out there, what if you were to set up a time where you actually just take a break and it would have to be on your own time and in your own schedule, but you take a break from being a parent. Take a break from being the person who has to know what to do.

Take a break from the person that has the answers. And just come up with the idea that you don't know what the heck you're doing. And you have no answers in this moment. And see what can fill that space, that empty space. You talked about the white space or the, what was it? Yeah, the white space. See what fills that empty space and allow yourself to come up with ideas

that you never thought of before by taking that fast from parenting, like fast from guitar, fast from this, fast from that, and allowing, just like when you take a fast, the body restores it. It says, wow, I'm sure glad we don't have to digest food today because now we can do all those repair jobs that we've been putting off because we've been spending all of our energy in digestion. And now we can take some work to do some of the needed tasks. And all of a sudden, if you take a break and fast from being the parent, being the one who knows everything, and suddenly just say, you know what? At this point in my

child's development, I need to learn. I need to be a student. I need to listen. Yeah, I think that's important. I don't have a problem telling my kids I don to learn. I need to be a student. I need to listen. Yeah. I think that's important. I, you know, I don't have a problem telling my kids. I don't know if they say, you know, what they ask a question unusual in that way. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a, it's a, you know, it's something the generation that preceded me wouldn't have ever thought of, like, cause you're, you're trained to always have the answer. And, and, and part of that comes, I think, from a laudable instinct of protectionism. Like you want to protect your kids. So you're, you want to make them feel safe and secure. So you're the person who always

knows the answer to the question. Safe and secure rather than fulfilled. Yeah. But I'll be like, I don't know, I'm going to have to get back to you on that one, you know? but I'll be like, I don't know. I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one. And I think one of the reasons that I think that's beneficial is it breeds trust in your child. Like I think kids are much more intuitive than we give them credit for.

And if you're BSing them with some answer and they know that you don't really know, they see through that thing. And I think they appreciate the honesty. And I think ultimately, they're more likely to trust you if you cop to the occasional, I don't know, or you screw up and you say, hey, you know what? I just really handled that situation poorly. Here's what I tried to do. just really handle that situation poorly. Here's what I tried to do. Here's where I screwed up and I'm going to do better next time. I was, yeah, I do that now and it's very rewarding. I was, our children both live in the Pacific Northwest and as do our grandchildren. And I was, we were up there the other day and I was checking in with them. I said, you know, I just wanted to know what did I look like? And I didn't mean what did I

physically look like, but what did I parentally look like at different sections of your life? I mean, what's the earliest memory that you have of me? And I think both of them said, you're really strict. And then you got to be okay with certain things. And I was thinking, okay, so that's their view of who I was. I would have been much wealthier, not in money, but in experience, if I'd have been asking them that along the way. And so I would highly encourage, you know, parents out there to get into that stance that I can tell you do a lot. But, you know, just to be able to sit down there as if you're one of them, get on the same side of this. And I don't mean the physical screen, but get on the same side of the relational screen and say, you know, what do I look like up there on that screen?

In other words, like a performance review. All right, we're going to sit down. Yes. Yes. Because they have an insight that nobody else does. They don't always have to be an audience member. They could be a critic. It must have been tricky raising your kids. Yeah. Being sick and everything like that. I can't imagine that was without its traumas and challenges. Right.

And I would say if I had it all to do over again, the knots would have been tied much looser because like I was saying earlier, the children have an inborn knowledge. They have an inborn wisdom because they are the ones that are going to have to live with the future much further out than we will. And we've got to hear from that more. Thank God I was a musician and had a lot of, you know, I had a lot of relationships in which you had to be a band member rather than, you know, a lead singer all the time. And in that metaphor, you have to be able to play off of other people. So, you know, once the, you know, once the complete, complete you know i don't know what i'm doing

so i better show that i do know what i'm doing god i got over that phase then i started co-relating with my with our children so that we could be more of um of a team rather than just a you know a coach you know telling the players what to do. One of the struggles that I have, the challenges that I have, and I think this is relatable for, you know, anyone who's listening or watching, is I struggle to not project some past experience of my own or some past trauma onto my kids. In other words, it's very difficult to have the wherewithal or awareness to step outside whatever cycle or pattern you've habituated yourself to

because of the way that you were raised. And then repeat that pattern with respect to how you're parenting your kids, because that's just what you know. Even if you're trying to do things differently, I found that I'll automatically default to something that, you know, some scenario that, you know, just the way that I was raised, that I was trying to do a little bit differently. Knee jerks. So, having awareness of that is one thing, but it's a very different thing to prevent myself from falling into that trap or perpetuating that habit.

And I say that that's what these fasts, manuha? can give us. That in playing the guitar, when I wasn't playing the guitar obsessively, I would discover ways that were not things that I had learned in my past. You used a beautiful phrase. You said, you know, you use the quantum effect of the manuha, of the fasting. Yeah, because I know you love that word. I do. It's one of my passions. But the fact is that, yes, we can do the same thing in those pause moments where we're not saying that we know everything. Let me just say that I know nothing and I'm in a situation.

It's almost like a moment of prayer, like the prayer that's being used in recovery. God, give me the grace. God, give me the strength, God me the strength, God me the courage, et cetera, that show me the way. Show me the way through this. Let me learn some new chords. Let me learn some new riffs.

Let me learn some new ways of addressing my children because I wasn't schooled. No one was. This is not a statement just of me personally, but no one was. The one thing that we didn't get in high school and college was parenting 101, parenting 102, parenting 103. We never got even relationship. We got, you know, the three R's, but we certainly didn't get all of these other things. We got psych, you know, the three R's, but we certainly didn't get all of these other things. We got psych, you know, psychology 101 in sociology, but that's how to look at the thing. How do we get how to be the thing? Yeah, we're not taught.

We know the way we were raised. What I see a lot of is people who are raised a certain way and then suddenly their parents and they're like, I'm gonna do it totally the opposite because of whatever trauma they suffered. So they'll swing that pendulum all the way in the other direction. And then of course, that's always fraught with its own,

it's fraught with all its own issues and problems. But I think that's beautifully put in. There's an old saying of wisdom, use pendulum. There's an old saying of wisdom that use pendulum. There's an old saying of wisdom that when is the pendulum at its best? When it's still. It's still in the middle. Yeah.

It's never still in the middle though. You know, that's the thing. There wouldn't be a pendulum then. Right? It's just a dangling event. But that is the case, which you talk about in that pause, in that fast, in that period of time of the white space, being able to bring in. So point is encouraging not only parents, but also children to respect the white space.

Yeah. To respect the white space. Yeah. And to respect the time when let's all just kind of be here, not in our roles, but let's just take a break from our roles for this moment. And let's try to be in this place of being able to accept each other with our flaws and our talents. Good example, one of our children was seven years old. Teacher caught her not being able to read yet.

She had been perfectly faking it. Teachers come to me and my wife. They say, we'd like to get her some serious tutoring. And I think about it, and I think about my daughter's incredible skills. She had huge athletic skills. She had huge musical skills. She had incredible skills of communication, but she had not latched onto this one skill of being able to read yet. And I said, well, that's okay. But I said, I don't want you to disrupt that, you know, to improve this skill, but I don't want you to disrupt these other skills by inserting something that's, you know, magnificent and, but making it more important than the other

skills that she does have or making her feel any kind of shame or any kind of thing. And they looked at me and how strongly I was feeling. And they said, well, maybe we should just let you work with this and we'll see how we can progress. So I sat with it and I went into this space and I sat with our daughter and I went into this space of, I'm not the dad, I'm a mirror. Let me hear what's going on. And so she and I just kind of hung out for a little while, for quite a while. for a little while, for quite a while. And in the process, I recognized and she recognized because she kind of brought it out to me

that she had sort of missed catching on until she was so far behind that she was afraid to admit that she hadn't caught on. Yeah, that's what happens. And so I said, oh, wow. I said, well, let's show that being behind and making mistakes is just as valuable as being ahead and getting it right.

And so the four of us, our two children and my wife and I, spent a weekend doing things wrong. We went to probably the only still existing bowling alley in the area, and we had to throw gutter balls. But we had to win the game. We had to see who could get the ball the furthest down the alley before it went into the gutter. And the winner of the game had to have zeros all across the board by the end of the game, but have gotten it as far down the alley.

Well, eventually we were laughing so hard that they kicked us out. So we went to a public swimming pool that still had a diving board. And we had to do belly flops. And we had to see how high we could go before the sting of the belly flop was prohibitive. So we had to do all these things wrong and we were hilariously laughing. And then we started to spell words wrong. You know, we started to spell words phonetically, like enough, E-N-U-F,

and rather than E-N-O-U-G-H, right? And we started to realize how much of the you should be able to or you should be doings were completely controlling the mindset. She ended up, you know, being on a dean's list, being, you know, head of her class. She graduated top, you know, because she realized making mistakes was okay. Education needs to honor the mistakes. And you were talking before, we try to protect our children. We try to help them get things right. We try to do all these things. Well, we may be partially contributing to the dilemma.

What I read into that is that the crisis, if you want to call it a crisis, that's not really the right word. It's a little too severe, but the sort of problem that needed to be addressed was less about the fact that she couldn't read. That's easily rectified through some pretty simple, basic tutoring. The real issue was her fear of speaking up in the wake of getting passed by. And the redress of that is to reframe this whole idea of failure or doing things wrong by making it fun. And this is something I talk about all the time. Like I wish the word failure didn't exist. There should be a different word, a more permissive word that makes people feel encouraged by trying things, even if they're not going to work out. But it's that fear, you know, and with that fear is like the shame,

like, oh my goodness, I'm behind, you know, these kids are ahead of me. I can't speak up because then I'll be judged. And getting out ahead of that is ultimately much more important than just dealing with the reading part of it. Think of it in parenting. Parents, I mean, there's a metric for when you can't read.

But there's no metric for when you don't know how to parent in this moment. And to be able to fail from time to time in parenting and admit it is in the same category. We need to be able to say, hey, I need help here. We need to be able to go to the child and say, hey, I need your help here. You're doing this. I see an end result. That vision of your end result may be from my past. Help me, show me that you've thought this through, that you don't see that same end result. That if you do see an end result, let's compare our views of the end results of your behavior.

Having that kind of a relationship with a child is, after a lot of failing in my world, that's what I ultimately have with my children now. One of them's 40 and the other one's 34. Right, it's easier to have that conversation now. Yeah. Right? But I'm encouraging people to have that conversation now, right? But I'm encouraging people to have that conversation much earlier. Yeah, and what I read into that

is a respect for their own sovereignty. Like, hey, it's not me telling you what to do. Great word. We're in some kind of partnership here where I'm still in charge, you know? But like, let's have some productive feedback. Let's make it a two-way street. How are you, am I projecting this onto you or are you seeing this the same way? You know, I think that's, that's interesting. Cause that would start a conversation that demonstrates a

willingness and will and willingness are part of the heart center. You know, it's part of that vulnerability that you and I have spoken about from time to time. The vulnerability of being, I don't have the answers. I don't have, I have some answers. They may not apply here. Right, and I think the fear as a parent is that the kid, you think the kid's gonna go, man, they're just asleep at the wheel.

Like this thing's out of control. I gotta take control of this situation Like this thing's out of control. I got to take control of this situation. You know, the exact opposite. Ultimately, if you give the child a sense of parents were never trained to be that children were never trained to be children. Let's do this together. Yes, I do have, you know, it's like an 18-wheeler has a better view than a Porsche down the roadway. I do have the altitude that gives me a better view of the roadway. But some of my view of the roadway is, in using your terms, may be based on my history, may be based on the way I was parented, may not be based on your roadway.

So let's get together in this dialogue, in this communication. I remember one time, I was having a conversation with one of our children and in the midst of the conversation, the child goes, Papa, time out. I've been listening really, this is like 10 minutes in,

I've been listening really carefully is like 10 minutes in i've been listening really carefully they were very respectful i've been hearing every word you've said what's your point yeah that what is your point that moment changed my world because i realized that not only in that parenting role, but also in my teaching role, that I would come into a class with so many perspectives and so many points that I was so enthusiastic and inspired about getting across that it was just way too much information.

Yeah, your job is a communicator. She's saying, you're not communicating very well. Yes. So in your experience as a parent and now as a grandparent, like if you had to distill down to a couple nuggets, what are the most important things for a parent to bear in mind in raising a conscious child in a healthy way that we haven't already covered. I mean, we're talking about this stuff. Be flexible in positioning, number one. Don't always be the authority.

Be flexible in the positioning. Number two, gain perspective from your audience. Every product that's ever been sold successfully has had customer feedback. So let's just put it into that role. Your child is your audience. Your child is your customer. You're trying to sell yourself as a parent, you're trying to sell them on your ideas, get some feedback. Maybe your guidance is great except for, and you'll find where the exceptions are. And number three, be in what you've said you're able to do a lot of, and that is admit to the fact that there is no training. There's only experience that's then applied to a new experience. So the experience of a child being parented by a parent gets applied by the parent that's parenting a child. And those things don't always have a growth perspective. They sometimes, they're not necessarily evolving. Sometimes they're devolving.

Yeah, because I think what happens and something I've had to be very attuned to is the fact that I, or we as parents, we all have our woundings and our triggers. And if our child says something that pushes one of those buttons that's been within us, that was installed 50 years ago, 40 years ago, you're gonna react in some old unhealthy pattern

and you're not even consciously aware of what you're doing. It's in the blood. Yeah, it's like, and that perpetuates some unhealthy pattern that comes from who knows where, right? But developing the awareness to understand that there are patterns that are in place. Like we all have these grooves

and it's easy to stay in a groove and it's hard to get out of that groove. We all have past traumas and woundings, and these are easily triggered and produce results that are reactive, that don't come with conscious thought and awareness, that aren't consciously thought through. consciously thought through. And without developing some awareness and some prophylactic behavior patterns to kind of insulate yourself against falling into those traps, you are going to perpetuate some old pattern that you're so desperately trying to transcend and overcome. As the child gives you feedback, because the child is always giving feedback.

That's one of the things that, because I work with a lot of people, teenagers, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. The ones that are the most, perhaps the most honest because they haven't been trained in the dishonesty of masking as much, are the ones that are in the teenage, the adolescent category. And I find that the feedback loop from them can be very chaotic and sometimes hurtful because they haven't masked it, they haven't polished it. And so rather than correcting the way in which the feedback is coming, I would advise parents to

take that feedback and take it into a white space, a personal white space, and take it into a white space, a personal white space, where you kind of like extract the messaging from it. Just like I had to with our daughter, and I had to another time with our son, is extract the messaging from their description of what they were experiencing. And in doing so, I won't have to have the answer now. I can also say to them, let me get back to you,

which is something that buys you the white space, buys you that pause, that fast. That would be an important component also. That would be a fourth advice that I would give is, you know, buy the space that gives you time to be able to have more of a contemplative relationship with the information that's sometimes being dealt to you in a very disrespectful or seemingly disrespectful way. Really what it is, is just very emotional,

very honest, very overwhelmed way. But it's usually very, it's direct. Yes. And it's honest. Yeah. Generally. Yes. Yeah. And maybe they are like your daughter Mathis, absolutely certain that they know everything that they need to know. And then you're saying, which you said to me earlier off mic,

she doesn't know what she doesn't know. And so it's up to us to then sort of like be a hover, you know, kind of a hovercraft, not in an obsessive way, but to be able to give the child that, because sometimes they come off with this in a very kind of like aggressive languaging, but give the child the ability to follow that trajectory and just be there in case it sort of runs off the rail.

Yeah, just nudge it here and there. And I think that goes back to the sovereignty piece. Say that word again, because I love that word. We use it in so many ways, but sovereignty of a child, God bless you for using that. I mean, the more sense of sovereignty that a developing adolescent has or child, I think that that contributes to cultivating that sense of self that we all want in our kids. And that's coming from me who is no expert and not doing anything.

And that is going to all of us who are no expert. You know, I would say that in the raising of children, there is no expert. But there are those who are more open, who are more vulnerable, who will allow more sovereignty. They'll be more skilled, who are more vulnerable, who will allow more sovereignty, they'll be more skilled, but nobody's expert. Manuha, my friend.

I think we did it. Blessings. How do you feel? I feel great. Feel good? Yeah, I do. All right. Will you come back and share more with me?

Oh, man, this is a joy. Right on. Right on. Cool, oh, you know what? Grab that guitar behind you. Oh, let's see if it's tuned. Yeah, I'm sure it's not. No one's picked it up in a little while.

Oh, is it tuned? Let's see if we could do, you know, I like, get that mic up to that. Give me that mic up to that. So this is Axios. This is a song that Seal and I recorded together. I was actually in it. It was written by myself and a bunch of kids in India years and years ago. But it was to be confident that the infinite will take care of it.

We're so fortunate. We'll take care of it. We're so fortunate. Oh, and to be confident that the infinite and the kids would all start singing it. To be confident that the Internet will take care of it. We're so fortunate. We're so fortunate, oh, to be confident that the infinite will take care of it. We're so fortunate. And that, in parenting, is extremely important,

to know that there's some force greater than us that is taking care of and trusting that we can take care of these children. That is so important for us to remember that we are being entrusted. We're not being hired, we're being entrusted. Not because we're experts,

but because we're foolish enough to be willing enough to be correlating enough and coordinating enough. Beautifully put, my friend. Love you. Much love. Love you. Love you too. And love to all of those that put up with us for this time. Very good, man. Until next time, peace. Peace, plants, forever. I don't know about you guys. I can only speak for myself, but I know that I am always a better human being after spending time with Guru Singh.

Hope you guys agree. Hope you enjoyed that conversation. To learn more about him, go to gurusingh.com. You can find him on Instagram at gurusingyogi and on Twitter at gurusing. And give him a shout out. Let him know what you thought of today's conversation. Once again, help me help Charity Water bring clean water to those in need. The goal is $100,000 by year's end.

It's ambitious, but it's worthy. And it will help bring clean water to over 3,300 people and generations to come. I'm so excited about this campaign. To learn more and to donate, visit my.charitywater.org forward slash richroll. If you're looking for additional nutritional guidance, check out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. There you will find thousands of plant-based recipes, totally customized based on your personal preferences with unlimited grocery lists, grocery delivery in most metropolitan areas, amazing customer support and service. And it's all just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. To learn more, go to meals.richroll.com

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in a couple days with, let me check the calendar. Who's coming up next? We have, oops, I got to go back to October. Who do we have? We have James Clear. He's an amazing author. He wrote a new book called Atomic Habits. That one is packed with very practical, implementable gems that I think can really benefit our lives and our productivity. So you have that to look forward to. Until then, treat yourselves well, treat others well with grace and dignity and love. Eat lots of plants, move your body, and try to connect with your gratitude. Peace, plants, Namaste. Thank you.