Imagine raising your children without anxiety and control.

Is that possible?

This whole idea that we need to raise a successful child, that is a myth. Parents get really upset with me because they're like, Oh, you didn't give me the three keys to fix my child's social media addiction. I said, Because they are not the problem only.

I'll be the first to admit that this behavior of feeling like, Well, you owe me. I did everything I could. I paid for that, so I expect you to behave a certain way. This is the single biggest behavior and way of thinking that I am trying to break. Yes.

Your child owes you nothing. Parents don't like when I say that.

Your child owes you nothing?

A child, no human being owes you anything.

Your job is not to change or fix the child, but to use the experience to change or fix and heal something about yourself. Right.

The child is not broken, so there's nothing to fix. We're searching for that thing on the outside because we never cultivated it on the inside. Okay.

All righty, it's your friend Mel. I'm so glad that you tuned in today, that you're here with me, and I'm I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Shefali to the Mel Robbins podcast. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Dr. Shefali received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University. She is an expert in family dynamics and is known as the Pioneer of the Conscious Parenting Movement. Now, she specializes in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy. She's a New York Times bestselling author of seven books. Her newest book is The Parenting Map. I also want to congratulate Dr. Shefali because she's finally launching her own podcast, Parenting and You with Dr. Shefali. Now, I've been wanting to have her on the Mel Robbins podcast since I launched this almost two years ago because she uses the parent-child relationship as a lens to examine your relationship with yourself and you becoming conscious of your own destiny. Before we jump into it, I want to ask you, share this with your parents. Share this conversation with your children and with your partner, because I know that Dr. Shefali is going to inspire you to think about yourself, your life, and your relationships in a whole new way.

So please help me welcome Dr. Shefali to the Mel Robbins podcast. I'm so excited. We finally have you here on the Mel Robbins podcast.

Yes, I'm so excited to be here. I can't even tell you.

Well, I'm both excited for the person listening, but as a parent of three adult children, I cannot wait to learn from you. Could you speak directly to the person who's listening to us today and explain what they might experience in their life if they take to heart everything you're about to share?

Well, I think the main thing is that they will begin to understand that they need to control their life. They need to be the master pupeteer of their life, their relationships, and their children comes from their own inner anxiety, which is connected to their own unworthiness. When they begin to discover that it's their own inner lack that's driving all this control toward their children, toward their partners, toward micromanaging everything around them, then they have an opportunity to look at that and heal that wound and awaken.

You are teaching the world this revolutionary concept called conscious parenting. Can you explain what that is?

What I teach in conscious parenting is against the grain. It's revolutionary in that it's not focused on curating, producing, micromanaging this perfect product called a child, but instead focuses on the awakening of the parents' consciousness. Because I truly believe the future of the planet lies in the evolution of the parent.

Okay. Because that is a very big departure from what most parenting experts are focused on, which are strategies for either connecting with or controlling your child's behavior. And your focus is on using the experience of parenting to awaken something within you.

Right. Awaken the parents. Because no matter what you say to your child, you may have the best script. But if you are operating from a place of disconnect within yourself, then no matter what you tell your child, it will land in a way that is disconnected and disempowering for the child. What I help parents understand is that their internal disconnection from their own self-g Their own governance, their own self-authority, their own inner knowing, which they divorced from way back in childhood, is still operating in their parenting today. The relationship relationship with their children is not here so much to fix the child, but to use the relationship as a mirror to their own unhealed self.

Whoa. Your approach is to get parents to understand that your job is not to change or fix the child, but to use the experience to change or fix and heal something about yourself. Right.

The child is not broken, so there's nothing to fix. So if you come with that attitude of, I need to fix and micromanage and produce this star achiever that I can post on Facebook about and share with all my friends and feel good and tell my mom and dad, Look, I'm not a loser. See? I did good. That whole approach is never going to work well because you're operating from a state of lack and scarcity and unworthiness, looking for your child to be your trophy. The first thing I parents understand is that this anxiety that they have translates to control. Children who feel, subconsciously even, that they are being controlled will begin to operate from their own brokenness because they will think to themselves, Why am I being controlled all the time? Why am I being micromanaged all the time? It must be because I'm broken. If we look back to our own childhood, to our own parenting, we would remember moments moments where we felt disconnected, disempowered by our parents, and we wanted to protest saying, Hey, no, I know who I am, or let me be me. But we were denied that right and disconnected from our knowing because they were operating from anxiety and a need to control.

The one thing I offer parents through this approach, and they have to learn it, if they're open to it, is an invitation to release control because our children are not Not controllable. Life is not controllable. That is the greatest nugget of wisdom. The jewel I offer through conscious parenting is, imagine raising your children without anxiety and control.

Is that possible?

Of course, but it requires a lot of inner work on the part of the parent, and it's constant, and it's daily, and it's to be cultivated. It's a practice. So conscious parenting is the art of living in the moment, understanding that life is so precarious and fragile that any instinct to control will actually create the opposite effect of more uncontrollability. I wrote a book called Out of Control because we're operating out of control, but everything becomes out of control. The whole world is operating out of this desire to control. If you look all around you, monuments and cathedrals to our need to be significant, to control our anxiety that we're not good enough. If the parent operates out of that unknowingly that I am not good enough, and therefore I need to raise a child who is a superstar, actually, you will raise a child who feels unworthy. Because paradoxically, it is when you raise the child who feels good enough as they are without the tentacles of your control, now that child will be raised based on a bastion of empowerment.

One thing I want to just establish at the very beginning, because we are going to focus so much on both the act of parenting, but also on being parented did. So your own experience of growing up, your own experience of how your parents shaped you. Could you speak to the person listening who is not a parent? Because we have so many just mothers and daughters and fathers and sons and friends that share episodes to one another, that I could see this conversation today being a big one, where maybe you send this to your mom or dad to get them to think differently about your relationship, or your mom or dad is sending it down to a daughter or son. And so if you do not have children, though, as you're listening to the conversation today, how would you advise somebody to listen to you and to what you're about to teach us today so that it impacts your life, whether you are parenting a child or not?

Yeah, I always say my work is really for any human raising a child or who has been one, right? A parent or someone who's been parented. My work is all about deconstructing and demystifying the institutions of culture that have pervaded our minds and our belief system systems in such pernicious ways. The reason why I focus on parents is not because I'm so in love with children necessarily, but it's because I see that that's how the transmission of those institutional belief systems gets passed down. Which better source to cut it at is the parents. I helped the parent disrupt their conditioning, their harmful conditioning, so that the next generations can be free. But it is for any human who's been parented. What institutions am I talking about? This whole idea that we need to raise a successful child. That is a myth. It comes from the institution of achievement and wealth and competition and climbing the ladder. From a young age, we're training our children to go off to college. Children don't even have a childhood anymore because of the parents' anxiety and desire to control the future, which in the parents' mind, because they're indoctrinated, is I need to raise a kid who is a superstar, which means wealthy, elite, with a good career.

Now, those aspirations could be worthy, but when that is the sole focus, you miss the process. You miss the essence of who your child is, and you actually fill your child with anxiety about the future. Let's take another institution that's very common in parenting. I want my child to be happy, the institution of happiness. It's an institution. In fact, our entire Their culture is chasing happiness. Well, that is a disease. It's a toxic way to live, to parent, to be parented. Because when our focus is on this ubiquitous ideal called happiness, we miss the process that occurs in this present moment. Children, more than any human, has the capacity to live in the present moment, and they beckon us to the present moment. But because we're only focused on happiness for the future and raising that superstar, tomorrow, we're missing the awakening that can happen in the experience of the here and the now.

I am listening to you, and I'm thinking both as a parent and as somebody who has been conditioned to chase success and chase happiness. I can admit to you easily, I can see it right now that I absolutely was about the chasing success early in the parenting, but I've just passed it off to happiness, and I thought I was doing it right. I'm like, Oh, I don't care if they're successful. I don't care about the grades. I don't care what college they go to or not. I just want my kids to be happy. But I didn't think that that was causing anxiety. How does that cause anxiety?

Oh, my goodness. Can we deconstruct it for a second? Of course. First and foremost, you're absolutely right. Parents in the new age, the positive psychological parents who are so enlightened, have just completely euphemistically transferred the focus from achievement and money and wealth because that's too passe and too primitive, onto this more enlightened concept called happiness. But it's equally a load of BS. As before, let me tell you why. Deconstruct the sentence, I just want my child to be happy. I love when parents come to me, they say, Dr. Shivali, okay, okay, okay. I've learned everything you've said. I don't care if my child is a A carpenter, a ballet dancer, or a monk in Tibet. I have given up the Ivy League dream, and they think they have done a big job, which they have to a degree. All I want, Dr. Shivali, all I'm asking for is that they just be happy. Okay, so let's deconstruct. I just want my child to be happy. What's the first letter? I. What's the third word? Want. I want my child. Every The word there is problematic. It starts with I, which is full of ego. Want, meaning I want my, the possessive, because this being belongs to me, child.

I want for another being to be in a state That works for me. I call that state happiness. It should look like being grateful, always smiling, feeling really empowered and successful and worthy. What happens then when the child doesn't have those states of being that I have deemed are happy? Then what happens?

I'll tell you what happens. I freak out. Exactly. And I start trying to fix everything. Exactly. And I start worrying about it. In fact, I was on the phone with my husband this morning. I'm realizing I've fallen right into your trap. I am now the parent that needs the coaching. Yes. Dr. Sipali. And so I was on the phone with my husband Chris this morning because I'm really worried about one of our kids. Yes. Because I saw this post that went up, and I'm That's not them. That looks cringy. What are they doing? They don't look happy. We got to find a therapist. Something is wrong. And so I swooped right in like a freaking control freak. But since I have been focused on emotion, I think it is noble.

It is noble, exactly. And I talk about it- What should I do?

Make them sit and suffer?

I'm asking in earnest. I know. And that's what parents will do. When I just suggest to the parent, Can we just pause and just look at our control issues, what they say in protest, exactly what you just said. Oh, so then I should just make my kids suffer? I'm going to just allow them to do drug, sex, and rock and roll? Is that what you're saying?

Is that what you're saying? Look how we go because you cannot even tolerate me just saying, Okay, can we just pause for a moment and reevaluate where we are?

Your anxiety takes you. Okay, fine. Then I'll just let them smoke pot with me and become an alcoholic.

You want to know what I'm also getting? That my reaction is the same reaction that I experienced from my parents when I did something that triggered them.

100%, because we have children, okay, if we're really honest, so that they can make us feel good about ourselves. We have children to fill our inner void of unworthiness, if we're really honest. We don't have children so that they can discover who it is they are. That just sounds too chaotic and scary and too much in the unknown. We have children so that we can take the trophy home to our parents and go, See, I'm worthy, and let them be the mirror of our own deep sense, deep desire, craving for significance. And unless we are willing and brave enough to look under the hood of that ego and own with humility and compassion, Yes, that's why I had a child, so I can feel good about myself, then we are We are now progressing. But to get parents to even to admit that, oh, my goodness, I sweat bullets and cry blood and tears because the parental ego is so firmly in place by society, really. It's not the parents' fault.

So now let me put on the hat of being a daughter. Yes. And so as you're listening, whether you have kids in your life, you are somebody's kid.

Yeah, always.

Always. It doesn't matter how old you are until your parents die why you still have somebody in your life where you are the child. And one of the things that has really struck me is how what I feel has been passed down as something toxic from my grandparents to parents to me to my kids is this sense of just loyalty and duty that you are supposed to do absolutely everything that your parents would like for you to do, whether it's coming home on certain weekends, or it is wearing your hair a certain way, or it is- Because we owe them.

We owe them. That is the subtle subscript of all parenting, that because the parent is so deluded to believe that they're actually having the child out of selflessness, they have convinced the child through the songs over the crib and the breastfeeding, that I am doing all this He's like a martyr for you, my child. We've convinced the child very insidiously that all this is for you. Therefore, you owe me undying loyalty, duty, obligation, and allegiance, and you will pay with your soul.

I think this is why we all feel so guilty, isn't it?

Yes, exactly. Because the parent doesn't want to own that they are having the child for them. The moment you can own to a child, Listen, I'm a lunatic. I'm unhealed. I really just had you to feel good about myself. I'm so sorry. The child will say to you, Thank you. I knew that already. We know when our parents are using us. Our children know when they're being objectified. We women talk about being objectified by culture, but the first objectification starts between parent and child.

What do you think the most toxic parenting behavior is?

It's exactly this, where you use your child to fulfill your unmet fantasies, expectations, and desires, and do not own it, and pretend as if you're so selfless that you're doing it all for these children who are so ungrateful. If only they could understand the sacrifices we've been through. That is the subtle imprint on our children's psyche, and that's how we keep them festered to in a way to our own wounds. We keep them festering in this way and connected.

Well, it's interesting is when my mom was in college, she and my dad met and And she ended up getting pregnant with me. And when she had me, she dropped out of college. And she has said to me, and she has said to my two daughters in particular, I gave up everything. Yes. For your mother.

Imagine that subscript. Now, she said it blatantly, but we are saying this over the dinner table constantly. How could you do that? Aren't you happy? I got you to the beach. Look, I enrolled you in dance classes. What do you mean you want to drop out? It happens in the most subtle and also not so subtle ways, all the way from who you're going to marry, how can you leave the traditions of our family system, the cast, the race, in all sorts of ways. We have these invisible, puppet-tearing strings, tethered to our children and we keep them to us because we have not empowered ourselves and we haven't awakened ourselves into our own authenticity. You see, because we're not authentic, we're not living in our own power and knowing We need our children to complete us. We need them to fulfill all that is unfulfilled within.

Yes. If you don't have kids yet, you feel this tether to your own parents, which is why there's that conflict between you being who you want to be, but constantly defaulting and thinking to, what are they going to think about it? I'll be the first to admit that this behavior of feeling like, well, you owe me. I did everything I could. I paid for that, so I expect you to behave a certain way. This is the single biggest behavior and way of thinking that I am trying to break. It comes up all the time when I get triggered and when I then want to control what somebody's doing, that if I don't get the control, I immediately go to, well, you should be doing it. Look at everything I've over done. It's insidious.

Yes. And the reason why I focus so much on parental control and the unmasking of it versus giving strategies on how to get your kids to eat carrots and giving strategies for what to say at bedtime. I'm like, Screw the strategies. Because if you're coming from a split off, disconnected, disempowered place of lack, it doesn't matter because that is what your child is going to absorb. Screw the carrots. Get in alignment with your own true self first, because children will pick up the bullshit and they will absorb your anxiety. The reason why we are robots in adult life, searching for love in all the wrong places, is because we were raised by parents who weren't authentically in their own body, in their being, in their presence. We were raised disconnected. Our first primary relationship was disconnected. We're walking around like zombies, looking for connection through the corporate corner office, through the boat through the jewelry, through the Maseratis, because we're searching for that thing on the outside because we never cultivated it on the inside. That's the work I do with parents. Parents get really upset with me because they're like, Oh, you didn't give me the three keys to fix my child's social media addiction.

I said, Because they are not the problem only. Of course, they become eventual problems, but it starts in the parents' psyche. The child is born in the parents' psyche. How is the parent perceiving the child, and the parent will perceive the child based on how the parent perceives themselves. So our relationship with our children is, just like every intimate relationship, a mirror of how we relate to ourselves.

Which This is why your entire philosophy about conscious parenting and having an awakening yourself is important for all of us. So why don't we start with then the positive definition of what is a parent's job? Because I can see that I've been trying to control. I can see the legacy of you owe me. I gave you life. I paid for your life. I can see all that. I know I'm not supposed to be the friend. I know I'm not supposed to be the enabler. I don't want my kids to be entitled. What the hell is my role?

Yeah, I love it. Our role is actually so eloquently, elegantly simple that parents are actually not going to like what I'm going to say, even though I'm helping them liberate out of all the anxieties. Our role is to really be the bastion and the refuge of unconditional presence, unconditional acceptance, but it needs to be embodied. That's the hard part, right?

I don't even know what you just said. This is so far away from what I'm doing. What does this even mean?

Because you're here, right? Most parents are here, How do I fix? How do I control? How do I get my kid to take the science and the physics and the finance course? How do I get them to not be in that relationship? We're so focused externally to pupeteer these beings who actually don't require pupeteering. It's coming from our machination of anxiety. It's all being produced in our movie because we are not in the present moment connected to ourselves. What is our role? Our role is to be the embodiment of unconditional acceptance. Every human being desires to be seen, to be considered worthy, to have unconditional validation for who it is they are in their essence. Every human being wants to be in the presence of others where they feel good enough as they are, correct? Yes. So you desire, just like me, just like every authentic human being, we desire to be seen for who it is we are. We desire to be told that we're good enough as we are, that we don't need to be perfect, that wherever we move in life, it will be our destiny, our adventure to own, even though it doesn't look like the script or the prescription that you had for me.

Now, then I experience freedom in your presence. I feel liberated because you are not impinging your worth onto me. You are in your own lane working on your own self-esteem. Now I'm free to be an F up, to be whoever I want to be because you are not impinging your worth on me.

Or your anxiety, or your need to control, or all of it.

All of it. Or how you are faring as a parent based on how I am doing. I tell parents all the time, how your child is faring in the world doesn't give you a grade. How you are faring in the world gives you a grade. But we look at our children as the trophy for our self-worth, and that's the enmeshment that is toxic.

Well, I want to broaden this out because I have a feeling that you may be listening to this episode and listening to Dr. Shefali, and I want to validate something that you're saying, which is if you just think about your own experience as a human being and what it was like or it wasn't like when you were a child, and you now think about yourself as an adult, every one of us can relate to this idea that when you feel controlled by your parents or you feel judged by them, or you feel like there's going to be friction there, what do you do? You just pull away, and you hide more of yourself. And you lie.

And you lie. And you wear a mask, and you live inauthentically. Yes.

And so the invitation that you have for each and every one of us is to recognize this dynamic that you have with the parents that you love or that you have whatever relationship with. You know that this is true. Yes. That when you feel judged, when you feel controlled, when you feel somebody else's anxiety and worry creeping onto you, you literally shrink and hide and run away and pull away from it. And what you're here to say is that, A, you are passing this now to your kids. I would imagine you probably also see this with the way that people are in romantic relationships and with their friendships, that you're doing the same thing, and that the invitation is to recognize it and to have this awakening in yourself so that you are okay and you are present and you create enough space around you so that your parents can be your parents, your kids and your friends and your significant other can be themselves, and you can recognize your own emotion and your own ability to be okay with the ups and downs of it all. Is that what we're working on here?

And it's so hard to do in the parenting journey, isn't it? Because they literally, at least biologically, come from you. So for the parent to conceive that I don't own this being, I don't possess this being, and I shouldn't control this being is unfathomable because you're like, What the hell? It came from here. Look, I have these stretch marks. Look, I have all this cellulite. It came from me. It's mine. So conscious parenting really has its underpinnings in Eastern spirituality and meditation. And therefore, it's a deeper philosophy than just strategies to fix the perfect, to create the perfect child. Until people understand that our biggest plague in humanity is our desire to impose control, possession, ownership over others, they will not understand what I'm saying. This is really a call to something bigger than parenting. It's an awakening of humanity to understand that our children, our partners, our lovers, our siblings, each of us has our own unique destiny. Whenever that destiny doesn't match with ours, it creates panic because we all want to be mirrored. We all want to be enmeshed because we're hungry for that validation. But if we realize that validation needs to come from within, and each one of us has the complete freedom to live our own path.

Now we can walk by each other's side without the need to micromanage and fly free to a destiny of our own making. But that takes supreme inner empowerment and inner discernment, inner boundaries, inner power. That's what I'm teaching parents. Enter your own power, because when you enter your own power and claim it, you will not need your children to be a certain way, look a certain way, and they will fly free to a destiny that is glorious. But you have to trust that. And that takes supreme maturity, and it takes a wholeness of self.

Let's just, and as you're listening to Dr. Shefali, I want you to think about a battle for control that you have right now with either a child that you're parenting, or if you're not a parent, Yeah. Think about a significant other. You want them to exercise more. You want them to eat healthy. You want them to be more proactive in their job. You wish they weren't such a slob.

And so you're in this- All lovely things. Yes.

And in your heart, you're a good person. You're a good person, and you know that this is who they could be, and it's going to help them. And you're all. Exactly. And so you want to control this person that you love deeply, and you want to control them because how do we go deeper? Because you can. Yes. You know what I see, too? I see this happening with relationships. I see so much pressure that everybody is putting on their significant other and their dating and the prom proposal, And now the fancy Instagram posts and what it's all got to look like. It's like everything has been ramped up. How do you stop making your child or your significant other or your parents the enemy?

Because you realize that the only reason people are enemies to us is because they've triggered something deep within us that we haven't healed. There is no enemy, really, on the outside, except for people who physically subjugate you. And even then, they're not real enemies because So ultimately, mental liberation is an inner job. In terms of psychological enemies, those are created by your own unhealed self. I'm sorry to say. After a certain age, now, children who tell me that they are being emotionally abused by their parents, those children I will fully validate and I will call the parents to task. But after a certain age, I tell those children, if they've grown up after 21, I say, Okay, it's time for you to release the unconsciousness your parents burdened you with and all the suffering that they indoctrinated you with. It's time to release them and now to parent yourself, because I believe every human is a parent to their own inner child. That's beautiful.

Every human is a parent to their own inner child. I love that. What do you do if you're listening right now, Dr. Shefali, and you're having this heaviness in your heart Because you're really, maybe for the first time, giving yourself permission to see your experience as a child and to realize that your parents did not give you what you needed, that there was this battle for control, that you do feel this sense of obligation and undying loyalty, and you didn't feel seen. What is your advice to somebody who's having that awakening of what their experience has been? Yeah.

So that realization is huge. Coming to that awareness, although it's a heavy awareness to come to, is actually the first step of disrupting patterns and healing generational pain. We actually cannot avoid that trauma of that realization that, holy shit, I wasn't honored for who it is I was, or I've been living a lie, or I've been living inauthentically. In fact, if a person doesn't come to the humble footsteps of that realization, they haven't really begun the awakening process. That is the first step of coming to your knees and going, holy shit, I've been living a lie. Oh, my God, I didn't see this. Where have I been living? I didn't realize this about myself. I've been living as a puppet to my parents' fantasies for all this time. I've been lying to my authentic self. That is the key. To come to that realization is the jewel, but it comes with pain. Now, can we tolerate that pain and then take the next step forward? What is the next step? Okay, now let's have compassion for where our parents came from. They only did what they did to the level of consciousness they had. We all operate only to the degree of consciousness we have.

We're not good or bad. I stay away from those labels. We are all on a spectrum of consciousness to unconsciousness at any given point in time. Once we come to that wisdom, we can see their pain. We can see that they did not parent themselves. We can see that our grandma and grandpa were really cold. Then we have compassion, and we have compassion for our mistakes with our children. We don't go back and berate ourselves because that's, again, continuing the cycle of low worth and scarcity. Then we begin to start in the here and now. No matter how old your child is, no matter how old you are, no matter how many marriages or divorces, the moment to begin living an awakened life is available right here, right now. It's difficult to get your mind out of the resentments and regrets of the past, but it is in our power to bring that mind to the beauty and abundance that this moment allows for you.

I want to thank you for highlighting the fact that when you start to have this awakening, that you don't want to do things the same way that your parents or grandparents did, that you want to truly have this awakening of taking control of yourself and your life and the way that you go through life, that there is this knee-jerk reaction, especially on social media, to just judge and call people toxic and cancel and cut your parents out and all that stuff. I am so happy that you just highlighted this idea that, first of all, this is their first time being human beings.

Absolutely.

And how could you expect somebody who was probably raised in a very troubling manner to somehow magically evolve? I'm not excusing any abuse or anything that was done to any of us, but really bringing a lens of compassion to, oh, somebody is repeating the patterns that were done to them. They did what they did based on the consciousness that they have. And now that I am listening to Dr. Shefali and I am learning all these things, I have a level of consciousness that's different. Yes. And if you then jump on the bandwagon of judge, toxic, cut out, all that stuff that is just like, you're now back in the lane controlling.

Boundaries are healthy, but when they are used euphemistically for walls and barriers and crevices, then we're just perpetuating the same trauma over and over again. When we truly evolve, it means it comes with it, unconditional self-acceptance. Unconditional self-acceptance comes with it, an acceptance of our shadow. When you accept your own shadow, now you You see it in everyone around you, and you have the same compassion. So truly evolved human beings who are working on themselves, they are actually the most aware of their shadow. So when parents stand up in audiences and tell me, Talk to Shivali, you know I'm a conscious parent. I go, Oh, you poor thing. Because there is no such thing as a label. Consciousness is a calling. It's a striving. It's a quest. It's a daily really cultivation. And it's not a journey of perfection. It's not a destination. It is actually the most grueling process of constantly looking at your florid ego in its Please.

Well, I'll share with you as you're listening to Dr. Shefali and I that I am so excited that my adult daughters are both in therapy. Yes. Because I've said to them, please talk about all the things I did wrong. Please, let's heal the things that I did wrong. Tell me what patterns that I have that are not working for you. If you felt unseen or invalidated, if I was a control freak, if I was checked out, your experience is exactly right, and I can do better. And so giving yourself permission to evolve, giving your- Children. Your children, giving your parents, giving your partners the same permission.

But you know why you did that? Because you're releasing your desire, your need to be perfect. You're letting it go. You're like, I've smashed it. I can see that it's not going to work. I need to let it go. Now, that humility, even though it takes some defacing of your pride, doesn't it bring about a liberation? Absolutely. Because you're like, Who said I was perfect? When we can enter that humility of seeing your shadow, seeing your limitations, Patience. You actually free your children because your children knew all along it wasn't them. They knew we were the crazy ones, but we were acting like it was them. When we now own our crazy, children are like, Hallelujah, I don't need you to be perfect. I'm okay being imperfect. You were the one who thought you needed to be the perfect parent. I didn't put that on you, mommy. You put that on yourself because you were still hungry for worth from your childhood, and you put it on me.

I can't wait to hear what you think and your reaction and your relationships are, because I know that people are going to send this episode to their parents. They're going to send it to their kids. They're going to send it to their friends. How do we do this? We started to talk about the steps because as somebody's listening to you, Dr. Shefali, and they're thinking, I want this. I don't want to be a control freak. I don't want to have my my ego tied to micromanaging everything. I can see how my need to control is blowing up in my face with my kids, with my parents, with my partners. How do you start to let go of control? Because I think we control because it's the way that we feel better. We don't feel anxious. We're trying to... One of the reasons why I control is because I'm so worried something's going to happen to my kids. I'm so worried about them. And How do you start?

Well, it's really a practice, and it takes work. I know parents don't want to hear that. They want the one, two, three. But I wrote the one, two, three in this book called The Parenting Math because parents were asking me for the steps. But really, the steps are about, number one, uncovering your own childhood conditioning. You've got to do the work. You've got to go back and understand how you are carrying your internal mother, how you've internalized your mother and your Sorry, you have to do that work. You work with a coach, a therapist. The second thing, which I teach, is you have to awaken to really what life is about. What life is about in a very simple way is the present moment, the impermanence and fragility of death, and the absolute relinquishment of control over ourselves or another human being.

I want to talk about a topic that that listeners around the world are writing in about. It is the documented and alarming spike in depression and anxiety and mental health issues, particularly in young adults. Yes. And when I hear a lot of experts talk about it, they just talk in broad strokes. Can you help us understand the various factors that have into this spike? Because I feel like I don't know what to stop controlling. You know what I mean? If the main behavior that we need to get ourselves to change is this constant need to control other people in our lives, particularly our kids, and to become more conscious to letting go and being in the moment, how do we I'll do that on a topic where you've got somebody that you really care about that's deeply in the spiral of anxiety or depression? Okay.

There are several layers to your question. So number one, what do we do with all this disease that we're seeing? Really disease from within. It is a symbol and a symptom of inner disconnect, right? We're disconnected. While we were always, I think, disconnected since the birth of the agricultural revolution and technology and industrialization, in the past 30 years, we have seen technology in front of our eyes take over our lives to the point where we are using technology as proxies, as surrogates for relationships. Now, children need presence. They need a parent who embodies the here and now attunement and alignment in order to thrive. Now, when the parent is constantly distracted on a screen, using the screen as a proxy for their own anxiety management as medication. The child now is not getting the source of warmth, of connection, of soothing, safety, security, significance from the primary caregiver. It's also beginning to rely on the same proxies. This is why we have seen a greater incline in mental disease now than ever before, Because our proxies have multiplied. We have a proxy in the back pocket, we have a proxy in the car, we have a proxy in the back of the car, in the trunk.

We have batteries and chargers and adapters and 10 devices. We are now replacing human-to-human connection, which is the core foundational essence of good parenting with these proxies. Our children are feeling that lack. Mental health is rising. I know it's a broad answer. What do we do about it? What do we do? We take our children in our charge soon. We don't wait for the schools to relinquish technology. We can do it at home. Each parent has the power in their own microcosm at home to increase connectivity with their children. If we want to raise children who are secure, well-empowered in adulthood, they require the first 10 years of true presence. It doesn't mean daily It's not the moment-by-moment presence, but it's the embodiment of that energy. We have to do away with the screens. We have to be decluttered in our own schedules, in our own agendas, cut out all the 10,000 activities, all of that is a waste of time for the most part. Focus on the connection between parent and child or siblings, and keep it simple. What happened in the pandemic was really a tragedy in many ways in so many people's lives, but it was It was a call back to simplicity, a call back to consciousness, a call back to connection.

But now we've lost it again. You will see this rise continuing because children know that they're missing. They can feel it. They're like, Where am I connected parents? Why am I not in nature? Why am I sitting in front of this plastic one-dimensional screen clicking on buttons that are artificial? They sense it and their psyche suffers.

Dr. Shefali, Are you saying that modern parenting, where we are parenting with a phone in our hand and we ourselves are not present because we are on the screen and we are distracted and we are overscheduled and we are anxious and worried, is the direct cause of the anxiety that our kids are feeling? It makes sense.

Yeah, but the parent, we can't blame the parent.

I don't mind. I'll take the blame. I see my responsibility.

But greater than that, Instead of just focusing on the parent, we have to see it as a system of parents. I call it the parenting industrial complex. This is not just one parent. The parent is being swallowed by a system, and the system is to be called to task. It takes people like us who are out there with a microphone to be the harbingers of a new tomorrow, where we inform parents, Hey, you can do it differently. Just because everyone in the neighborhood is doing it this way, I'm here to tell you it's harmful Listen, pay heed. Of course, it takes courage, but there is a way to do things differently, and that's what I teach.

Are there specific recommendations? Because I agree with you. I think we all know that this is something we have majorized really screwed up. And I love that you use the word we've been swallowed by it. And there is that sense that, well, everybody else, my kid is going to be the one that's left out. And if they're left out and they're not on the smartphone and they're not doing this and they can't do that, then they're going to experience more anxiety. And so our anxiety about what they're going to feel is creating this pressure to do things that you know instinctively. This doesn't work. It doesn't work that I'm sitting at a dinner at a restaurant, my four-year-old is watching an iPad and my teenager is texting under the table. This doesn't work. It's not good for anybody. So, Dr. Shefali, what do you recommend as just a couple things that you're like, Parents, this is simple things you need to do to reclaim the presence for yourself because you are that safe base that is modeling what this looks like.

Yes. And here in this one area, I become super controlling. Okay, so now you're like, What happened to the lovely-I'll take it back.

Let's go.

It's because I see the pernicious nature of this movement, this social media movement, this technological movement, because it's taking children away from their core needs being met. Then I become controlling. So When I see a parent going completely off track and doing things that are so harmful to the child, then I'm like, Okay, this is where we have to just be hard, clear. So what are the few things the parent has to do?

First the parent-Can I just say something? Because I look at this like, if your kid were sucking on the vape pipe, you take it away. If your kid were pounding Jack Daniels before dinner, you would take it away.

Or if your kid needed treatment for cancer, and they were like, No, mommy, I don't want to go for radiation, you're going to say to the kid, I'm so sorry, you hate me. We are going in the car and we're going to go get your treatment if that's what you choose to do. So at that point, you're not thinking about good guy or bad guy. You're just doing what is good for your child's essence. I think what parents are not realizing because They are medicating themselves, you see, on this drug. They're not realizing is that this drug is no different to the child's brain than alcohol or crack cocaine or anything that you would immediately say, No way It's not entering my house. How have we allowed this to happen? We've allowed it to happen because we, the parent, get soothed and medicated on this drug. It's an intoxicant for us. It's taking us away from that anxiety I've been talking about. What I encourage parents to do is that, A, it's not too late. Let's clean up your own house, your internal house and your own life. Begin with you. Start with an hour a day of screen-free time where you are just present and the parents But then my kid will do nothing.

My kid will just be bored. My kid will just be on the couch. And I say, That's amazing. That's what we need. We don't need to do. We need to be together in the space of this oneness energy. What is so scary about that? Because we've just filled our life with this constant need for distraction. So the parent has to become disciplined. Start with an hour. Start with 30 minutes, or like you say, five minutes a day. Just You start there where you say, Okay, this is a screen-free moment where we're going to just be. We're going to be bored. We're going to be frustrated. We're going to be with our feelings. We're going to be annoyed with each other. We're going to be authentic. We're not going to numb or dissociate. When the parent begins to practice that, and there will be protests, and there will be a strong withdrawal, where they're going to detox and they're going to drive you crazy, then the ripple effect will start. But the parent has to seize that moment and realize that this is a drug that is in your house, and your kids are vaping it every minute.

This comes back to your core message, which is it is all about your own awakening. We're so busy trying to control what everybody else is doing, and the kids are on the phone, and you're complaining about it while you're looking at your phone. And so it starts with you. One thing that we did that was hugely helpful is there's a basket in the kitchen with a charger, and phones are not allowed at our table. You're not allowed to have them when we're having meals together, and the basket helps define the boundary.

Yes. Blame the basket. Yes.

So as Somebody who is an expert, right? How is social media, Dr. Shefali, impacting children and their ability to connect?

I know it's been talked about a lot, but I I think it's never enough. Yes. How disconnecting social media is. What used to be a photo on your fridge being commented upon by your nasty Auntie is now out there for the world to comment on. And young children, teenagers especially, are not equipped to handle that degree of self-criticism, that degree of scrutiny, judgment, scorn, degradation, racism, ageism, sexism. They're not yet equipped. So when we allow our children to be exposed to this vast milieu of strangers and their toxicity into your child's life, you're actually not protecting your children. Just like you wouldn't let them go and travel the world when they're eight because who knows who they will meet and can they navigate the scary, risky territories of the unknown foreign country. In the same way, giving your child access to strangers in such an indiscriminate way is like saying, Here, go, go, go. If you get raped, if you get damaged, if you get stolen from, oh, well. That's what's happening to our children's psychology. That's why our children are showing acute signs of distress. Are we listening?

No, we're not. We're not. I think everybody's at the lunch.

Because we've disappeared. We've disconnected even more. This is because we, as Our parents are not grounded in our own present moment. The present moment scares us so much that we're so relieved. If you look at any bus stop, any train station, where are we looking down on our phones? I'm guilty of this 100%, and I have to catch myself and go, Oh, my goodness, where did the last 10 minutes go? Life is telling us, life is always reminding us, Hey, listen, I'm fragile. Don't waste me. I'm not here forever. Pay attention to me. I'm beautiful. I am your greatest dopamine hit. I am the greatest intoxicant of euphoria. Pay attention to me. I'm for free. Life is always beckoning to us, but we're not paying attention. Then we have children, and we don't pay attention. Then we have the relationship, and we don't pay attention. Then we have the terminal illness. Maybe then we'll pay attention.

Well, the invitation today is to wake the hell up and start paying attention. Yes. Because if I'm hearing you correctly, the only way to get your kids or your teens off their phones is to get yourself off yours first. Yes. And to be more present. Yes. Because what you'll find when you are more present is how sad you feel and how disconnected you are as you sit with your family and everybody's on their phone. Yes. Is there a script that you have? Because I would imagine that there's going to be a lot of you listening to this, especially if you have adult kids, where you're like, Okay, this genie is out the bottle. I really blew this. Correct. They don't even live here anymore. Other than dinner's out and everybody, Hey, guys, let's put our phones away. Is there a script? How do you begin to claw back something? Yes. Especially if the big message here is you're not supposed... Obviously, we focus with ourselves. But how do you start the conversation with somebody who you're not controlling? Yes.

So Parents who are listening may be thinking, Oh, my goodness, I missed it. I didn't know this. And they're sitting with regret or feeling blame and guilt and shame. Okay, I understand that. The reason you have guilt and shame is because you're missing the power of this message, which I'm about to say, it's not about the past anymore. It's about the present moment, right? Now, what do I do tomorrow or today with my child right here, right now? Well, we don't tell our child, You know what? I heard Dr. Shivali and Mel talk about the phone. Let's throw away our phones. You don't do that. You don't come attacking with your sermons and your lectures and your wisdom. You begin to show up with a curiosity about who it is they are. You begin to show up with this desire to know who it as they are as humans. No human, I believe, will turn away from another human who's genuinely curious about them. Whenever I'm with my adult daughter now and I want to control her, I always switch it to, if you're not curious about her. If you don't seek to understand her, zip your mouth.

I shift it to, change your desire to control, to fix, to opinionate, to sermonize, to lecture, to preach, to give a history lesson. Two, be curious about your child. Show up as interested. Look at them as if they're the most amazing human being. Every single bud of a child will blossom into a flower under that gaze. There's no human being. It may take time, depending the ravages of the wreckage of the past, but no human being will turn down from somebody who's looking at them as if they're the only person on Earth. Now, if you begin to look at your child and give them that unconditional, whole presence, without tarnishing them, without seeking to fix micromanage, do their hair, change their clothes, give them advice, they will blossom under your gaze. They will come to you like a flower to the sun. It is human nature. This is what we are seeking at the most desperate level. This is the reason why we go to our phones. So if you go beneath to the need, why are our children going to the phones? Why are we going to the phones? It's because it gives us safety.

It gives us security. It allows us to check out from our anxiety. Okay, so now if I can provide that for my child and for my loved ones, they will come to me. They will prefer me over the phone. But you have to become that energy. You have to become the energy greater than the phone. You have to be the dopamine hit bigger than the phone. You have to be the attractant larger than life. I'm not saying wear a clown suit and do gymnastics and back wheels. You just have to show up with that unconditional curiosity and acceptance and validation and celebration of the other human being, and they will come to you.

I love this. I love this because it's within your power to shift yourself and to radiate something different. I can see that I often in the past have led with, I'm going to criticize. I am going to try to control what you're doing. If I shift that to, how can I be connected to you and how can I be curious about you? So lead with the curiosity and the connection. Let that radiate. Yes.

I tell every parent, when you are sitting with your child or another loved human being, check your energy. How are you showing up? You take care of how you are showing up, the shine in your eyes, the The tilt of your chin toward them, the unremitting gaze upon them. If you keep aligning to that presence, sooner or later, the person in your presence will feel that energy, and they will gravitate. They will be magnetized to you. But you see, because we don't believe we have that inner power, we don't capitalize on it. What I tell parents is so easy on one level, but also difficult on another because it requires the parent to believe they are the beacon. They are who the child wants. The child wants you. Your loved one wants you, but they want an uncontaminated you, a healed you, a whole you. Every human being It needs to be in the presence of somebody who is whole. That's why we go to spiritual teachers because they've done that work. We feel free in their presence. That's the calling that I want parents to rise to.

I did this episode that was all about time and the passing of time and how by the time that your kids are 18 years old, you've spent 90% of the time that you have with them. I said during that episode that I'm really conscious about being present with our son, Oakley, because he's a senior in high school and he is heading off to college. I want to make the most of the time that I have with him Dr. Shafali, it was like an avalanche hit our inbox. There are so many parents and their adult children that listen to this show. It was like this real rallying cry about being present with the time that you have and just the sense that it's really fleeting. So as somebody's listening to this and they're feeling like that window of time has passed, The kids have grown up, they're adults, they've moved on, and there's this sense of grief that you feel. What is your advice to somebody that really is thinking about what they didn't do or the time that was lost and how?

It's so natural to ruminate about all that could have been and should have been. But it is another trap to take you out of the present moment. While I have compassion for that, I typically wake parents up to say, That time is not here in the present. The only moment of relevance is what we are doing here and now. But that's where our power lies. How can I align now? How can I make it work now? I work with countless parents whose children have canceled them because some therapist tells them, Stay away from your parents. They come to me grieving because they feel remorse, but they can't reach their children. I tell the parents, You may not get the ideal relationship back, but nothing is stopping you from being the bastion of love and unconditional acceptance right here, right now. The parent will say, But how? My child blocks me. Or, How? My child refuses to see me. I say to them, There is always a way. You can leave a note at the doorstep. You can send flowers every Sunday. You can cook a meal and leave it outside because you are not doing this unconditional love to receive something back.

You're doing it to simply tell your child that you are in that state. We often think of love as a two-way street that, Okay, I'll show you love as long as I get something back. But what I encourage all of us to do, but especially with our children, is don't love your children to get something back, to post on Facebook that your children come to you with every problem. That's for your ego. You love your children because you are the emblem of that. You radiate with that and let the universe do its work. So that is in our power again.

Wow. It is so hard to just be love without the expectation of it being returned, because I do think a lot of the pattern that's been passed down from generation to generation is the transactional nature of love. That I am doing this for you, therefore you must love me. I am paying for this, therefore you must behave a certain way. This tit for tat. As somebody is listening, there's a lot of listeners around the world who are seeking greater connection with their kids as they're moving through high school and into college and they're young adults in their 20s. So right at the time where there's a biological imperative for your child to separate, what advice do you have for parents who are trying to be more connected with their adult kids as the kids really are craving their independence? Right.

So when we say connect to your adult child, it's not about being in close proximity if that's not what the child desires. When we say connect to the adult child, it's connect to the need developmentally that the child needs to exhibit. The developmental need of an adult child is to leave the roost. Connect to that need. Meet that need. How do I do that? Which is so counter because it's not meeting my need. You see, the battle is my need to have you be my proxy surrogate medicine to make me feel good. Yes. Don't take away my drug. No. Exactly. But what does the child need, developmentally?

To live their life and to leave.

To leave, to take risks, to f up, to be a failure, to learn, to fly. That is what they came to this Earth to do. You did your job by getting them to this place. Now, if you hold them back through tentacles of guilt and shame and control. You're clipping the very wings you work so hard to help expand.

Because holding on to somebody else not only robs you of somebody else flying into their destiny, it actually robs you of flying into yours.

Correct. Because it's not the authentic thing to do. When the authentic thing to do is to release and you're grasping, both the one you're grasping and you shrivel and die. So are you ready for your next iteration. You don't even know who the next Mel is going to be. We all better watch out because you have no idea what is going to be birth within you when your last child leaves for college. Now, aren't you excited about that?

Well, now I am. You see? Thank God Dr. Shefali is here. You see? Yes, I do. And one thing that I am curious about, though, because I know that so many of our listeners are worried about somebody that they love who's struggling. Yes. So what is the balance between support versus control?

So here's the thing. When we see people in pain, our children, anyone, especially our children, It brings up all our own unprocessed issues with pain because we hate pain, and we haven't truly befriended pain in our lives. Psychological pain exists in our life for one reason only. What is it? We are resisting the as is.

What does that mean?

We're fighting reality. My child is leaving for college. I'm panicking because I don't know who I am without my child. I don't like my partner. This is going to bring all my couples issues to the fore, and I need my child to be around. Or I have a terminal illness, and I thought I was more special. I should not have a terminal illness. Or I got fired from a job, and how could that happen to me? We are resisting reality in the Here and now. When we keep resisting pain, pain becomes bigger, it doesn't go away. What is pain here to teach you? To surrender. When we surrender, we not only release the pain, the pain actually becomes shrunken, we expand into the next evolution. Now, these sound like pretty words, but every human being who has been through pain will hear the resonance and echoes of wisdom in what I'm For those who have not yet had the privilege of pain in their lives, I am not worried because pain comes to all. I tell my clients all the time, You're not ready because you're not in pain enough. So come back to me when there's more pain, because when there's more pain, then the ego will be ready to release its dogmatism.

I need to have it my way, and I will release to the surrender of the isness.

If there's somebody that's in a lot of psychological pain right now, and intellectually, they get it. This pain is here to teach me how to surrender, how to accept what is, how to accept what isn't, how to accept what is not in my control, how to discover my okayness and ability.

That's the next step, though. So after the, Okay, It's here to teach me. You just hit on the second step.

Which is?

Oh, my goodness. I have to now discover that I can be okay. Oh, shit. I don't know how to do that because I've never been okay. That is the work. Every difficult moment in life is about a marriage to your own deepest self and your own inner power, which is abundant within us, but we've been divorced from it. So pain is here. Our children are The hardship in life is here to take you back to the wisdom that you can be okay no matter what. That's a beautiful homecoming, isn't it?

What is the first step to rebuilding a relationship with especially a child that's older, that you feel like you're really screwed up or you've grown apart from, or you just are like, you've been listening to you today, and you're like, I want that back.

Yes. So first, just because you want it doesn't mean you're going to get it immediately. So when you truly awake, you will stop wanting it to look a particular You will then, the next step is take accountability. Write that letter, send that text saying, You know what? I have finally realized that your grandmother screwed me up, and I'm so sorry. Just let your children know that you've been working on your shadow, and now you see how you have been unconscious. It may not land as authentic to your children at first, because children are always skeptical, and they don't really believe us because we have so hoodwinked them so many times. It may take a while. But when you consistently show up in your own truth, in your own state of abundant love, maybe one day your child will be ready to come back into the fold. But if you rush it, if you dictate it, if you are hungry for it, you will reset the same dysfunctional cycle. Your child owes you nothing. Parents don't like when I say that.

Your child owes you nothing?

No human being owes you anything. I know, I know. I'm sorry.

Why is it important to embrace the truth that your child owes you nothing?

No human owes us anything. When we say someone else owes us something that is being said with authority, entitlement, ownership, possession, and we own or possess nobody, least of all our children. We only if at all, barely own our own self right here, right now, in this little moment. This sounds disempowering, I know, but it's actually hugely liberating. When you realize Who the hell am I trying to control? The universe is going to continue on. I'm an irrelevant speck on the moat of a sunbeam. When I get that deeply, life becomes beautiful. It becomes Laila, play a beautiful dance because you've released the need for validation, significance from others and binding them to us That's the greatest liberation.

I do think that 90% of the stress and agita that we cause ourselves is by trying to control other people and trying to get what we want out of life from the love and the validation and the respect by controlling other people. And what you're saying is when you start to live your life and tell yourself the truth, nobody owes me anything. My job is to awaken myself, to give myself the validation in the love, to radiate the connection and the love that I want from other people. And then everything magically aligns with that. I want to talk a little bit just about boundaries. Yes. Because you had said, We're not here to build walls, but boundaries are really important. So how do you set boundaries and how do you think about the difference between a wall versus a boundary?

So first, boundaries have nothing to do with the other person.

How so?

So if I don't want you to drink that water, the old self may think, Oh, I'm going to tell her, Can you please not drink that water? Can you please not drink that water? Can you please not drink that water? Bitch, who do you think you are?

I'm not thirsty. You don't tell me what to do. Exactly. And then I'm going to want to drink the water because you told me, yes.

Correct. And then I'm going to be really upset. I'm like, I told you what I wanted. I made a boundary. I said it clearly. Because I'm deluded to think that I get to tell you in the way of a boundary. Okay, so what is a true boundary? I see you really need to drink that water. I think it's really unhealthy. You're going to have a huge bout of diarrhea. I can't handle it because I'm just not able to watch that. I'm going to leave right now.

So your boundary is about your behavior and what you will allow and what you won't and what you'll stay present for and what you won't. Correct.

So how does it relate to children, right? I can't leave the toddler who's putting his fingers into everything, cookie and toxic stuff. This is what you do. You take it away, right? You don't bring the cookies into the house. Instead of haranguing them every day, Don't eat the cookies, don't eat the cookies, don't eat the cookies. You become the boundary. So So you have to think, Oh, I just need to take away the WiFi. I can do that? I have permission to do that in my own house?

You know what? That would be the single best thing to do, to get everybody off the phone. Yes.

I used to lie to my three-year-old My daughter all the time that the park was closed in the evening. I was like, I'm so sorry, we can't go. The park is closed. I created a boundary as in, It's not me. We can't go to the park or just take away the WiFi. And children don't understand. So you can make up things like, Oh, I If you're going to eat that cake, it's really spicy. You may have to lie a little bit. You have to be creative. But what I'm basically saying is make it a condition in the house versus giving control to the other. When you keep begging the other to follow your boundary, you're actually disempowering yourself because you're holding them as the holders of your dignity, of your control. You don't give your power to someone else. Don't be hostage to someone listening to you or not. I tell women all the time, this took me 40 years to realize myself, Oh, I have two legs for a reason. I can walk away. What a concept. So what that means is you create the conditions to rise. Don't ask another to follow or not follow.

I love this, that boundaries are about you and your own dignity, and do not give it to somebody else to enforce your dignity. You have two legs for a reason to rise, to walk out the door. If you don't have two legs, get in your wheelchair and wheel out the door.

Right. Or if every day, parents tell me, I'm fighting with my children every day. Okay, what are you fighting about? Well, because they just eat junk food. Okay, who bought the junk food? I did, but that's not the point. I'm like, Okay, that is the point. Okay, I'm fighting with my kid every day because they won't get off the phone. Who got the phone? I did. But then they'll yell at me, Oh, so you can't handle that, right? Or the TV. I mean, there are only four or five things that our kids obsess over.

What are the four or five things that parents constantly come?

Oh, my God. It's the same thing. It's so repetitive. What is it? Yeah, it's junk food, it's electronics, and maybe a car that they're not yet ready to drive, but that's about it. And maybe money, which, again, you have in your control. We're not talking about a lot of stuff. Now, when it goes to red flag behavior, like drugs or drinking, then I don't play around. When it goes to red flag behaviors, we're not going to wait for the child to come to their own knowing. Parents need to understand. What I'm talking about till now has been for behaviors that are not harmful. Anything that harms owns them in a real detrimental way, I hold no bars.

How do you handle when a child or somebody that you love is in a relationship or a friendship with somebody that is destructive? I'm not talking physical abuse. I'm talking mean friends, toxic behavior, somebody that you see the person that you love shrinking. How do you handle that?

You do the both and. You say, You know what? I see this. My stomach can't take it. I know you may grow into the most beautiful butterfly from this, but I don't have the stamina. I don't have the guts. I can't do this. Please help me. Forgive me. I need to move away from this relationship right now. I love you. I'm here for you. But when you are with this person, I cannot engage because I'll be lying to you. I'll be lying, pretending that I'm here for you. Now, That's in the most toxic of environments. In other situations, and we've all had this with our girlfriends, we don't just jump ship because we see them in trouble. We let them know. We do the both-hand. I'm letting you know, but I'll stick around as long as I can. But if I feel like it's getting to a point where it's red flag, then I need to disconnect so that you miss me enough that you will sit with yourself to go within to ask, Why did she leave me? I want to make you uncomfortable so that you can do the inner work. I don't want to go, but I see this is so harmful to you, and you don't see it.

So I'm going to extricate myself with love, but I'm always here, I'm just not going to be around this dynamic. It's really hard to do with finesse, but you have to make it very clear to your friend or your child, I love you. I am not abandoning you. I'm abandoning my inability. I cannot handle this. So again, I create the boundary.

I love this. I love this. It's very empowering. Not easy.

Not easy.

But very empowering. And you can see how this can work, because if you stay in the dynamic and you lie, it props the dynamic up.

Yeah, you enable it.

If you leave the dynamic and you make it clear that I love you, this is what I see, and I'm worried about you. I can't be a part of this dynamic, so I'm going to remove myself. You know they're going to sit with it. Because your decision, which is coming from your truth and you feeling empowered and you being present to love and connection shifts everything about the dynamic. Yes.

Sometimes when I have a client who's in a relationship that's toxic or the client is engaging in self-harming behaviors, I have to most lovingly disconnect and say, I'm doing this because I love you. If I treated you, it would be inauthentic because I cannot treat you when you are under the delusion of a drug or in this toxic environment. I cannot release you to go home and you get battered every day. Although it looks like I'm being cruel, I'm actually letting you know what a red flag this is that you need to wake up.

I don't think it's cruel at all. I actually think this is the greatest act of love, to be honest with somebody about where you stand with them and what you're concerned about without controlling it. Yes, actually- Because only you can control your participation in this. Yeah.

And you're actually telling them that I know you have the potential to awaken. I am leaving you to your own awakening because I trust it. If I stay and lie, I'm not awakened, I am inauthentic, and I keep you in the in the mess of it, in the toxicity of it. I always tell couples when they're scared to leave a relationship, don't stay if you're inauthentic because you're actually stopping, impeding the other person's capacity to be free and authentic themselves. The greatest act of love is to follow your own authenticity because then you free others to discover theirs. So true.

Dr. Shivali, you say that a midlife crisis can be a very good thing. Why?

Any crisis, but especially those at midlife, are potent invitations to the threshold of a new beginning. Why midlife? What happens in midlife is that we've checked off many of the things on the prescription list. That culture our parents told us, If you do this and you do that and you're done, you have the children, you live in the neighborhood with a You're going to be happy. You're like, Okay, I've done 37 of the 45, and happiness is not looking any closer. I'm actually in a worse place today with my four children, and I'm bankrupt, and I'm not connected to my partner. Divorced, and I'm this. Yeah. Wow. Now is the opportunity to realize that you were sold a lie, that that prescription list that you were holding on to and checking off so valiantly and showing the world you see me now needs to be torn because it was all a mirage. It was a lie. It was a bag of goods. Now, the invitation is to curate and create a life that is authentically designed by your inner knowing.

If you've spent your whole life, though, checking the list and following the prescription of society- Which is everybody, almost. Which is everybody. How the hell do you figure out a life that's authentically yours based on your inner knowing? How do you even know?

You don't have to really figure it out because your life will eventually fall apart because it's based on a prescription list. Therefore, it wasn't authentic. It is going to fall apart. It just happens more at midlife. You know why? Because our children, the youngest ones, typically grow up into teenagers and use you as a chauffeur in a wallet, and you are no longer mommy or mother, and they don't like you very much because they've seen your bullshit. That's when you go, Holy cow, even my last child doesn't like me anymore. Now what? They're leaving the roost. Now what? Or I lost the 25 pounds. Now what? I have the fancy job. Now what? It's that now what that allows you to ask what now? To come into the now. It is going to happen. Whether you like it or not, either you beckon it, invite it, embrace it, and celebrate it, or it will happen to you. Because we've mostly been living inauthentically, an inauthentic life cannot sustain itself. It will fall apart, and it should fall apart. What is falling apart is the ego. That is a good thing to dissolve, but we get terrified Because then the next question is the deadly question, Okay, then who am I?

But for the first time, you are asking it naked, raw, transparent, true. And now it will answer itself. The asking of the question is the direction toward the answer. But we're so scared to ask that we keep pretending we know.

Well, I think it's also terrifying when you do ask, Who am I? And you don't know.

You're not supposed to know. See, the thing is, when we came as children, we were supposed to discover and unfold into our knowing. But because our parents had all this anxiety and needed to micromanage and popeteer and be the chorus conductor, they conducted us and said, No, you will be a musician and a basketball player. You will go to this school. You will be this scientist or engineer. So they gave us the prescription. All that we've been till now is actually not our true self because we were never allowed to discover it. Now, when things fall apart and you ask, Who am I? Of course, you're not supposed to know because now begins the process that you should have been allowed to do in your childhood, but you were never allowed. So you are reparenting yourself now. You are meant to dissolve evolve to then start again authentically.

Knowing that the person listening so wants to take that invitation and will want something to do, is there a journal exercise or something that you could wake up and do every morning that might help you practice being more conscious and connected to yourself that will help you in this inquiry of who am I?

So there are three layers. The first one is a mental decision and a declaration to now look at yourself as a seeker of your own authentic truth. First, you have to decide, Oh, okay. I thought my life was about being a perfect being a parent or being really skinny or traveling the world. Oh, now I see that it is about being a seeker of my own authentic truth and power. First, you have to decide to become a seeker. So first is mental. The next thing is a psychological excavation, which means bringing yourself to see your relationships as mirrors to the relationship you have with yourself. So really begin to see it, awakeen to it on the psychological Oh, my goodness, I'm recreating that dynamic here. Oh, my goodness. It wasn't my boss, it was me. Then the third most important effective strategy is you have to learn meditation. Now, people think meditation is religious. It's not. It is the practice of being present, minding your mind, mindfulness in the here and now. Because every time you bring yourself back into the here and now, you not only become more present, you actually begin to let go the cravings that you were clinging on to.

My kid needs to get an A grade. Oh, let me bring myself back to the present. Why does my kid need to get an A grade? I don't know because culture told me that an A grade will bring happiness. So that constant reflection, the pause, the examination, the deconstruction. So these sound like boring, unglamorous things, but this is the practice.

I don't think it sounds boring at all. It's like a treadmill. I actually feel like It's a deeper way to live. Yes. And I want to make sure that the way that you just described the meditation, which isn't what I thought it was going to be, because when you said meditation, I thought you meant, okay, I got to sit down and observe my thoughts for 15 minutes. But what you actually just said is in this inquiry, when you notice that you're starting to control, when you notice you're jumping to the future, when you notice that you're starting to get activated, motivated, come back into the present moment and ask yourself, why does this bother me? Why is this important? Why do I need to control this? And it's in the seeking of that answer that you discover the ability to let go, to be present, and to understand who you really are. Yes.

And that's why I said the first step is to commit to now, from this moment on, to being in this laboratory of life, this experimental play field to dance within, to discover yourself. You have to decide that everything here now is about me discovering my authentic self. Therefore, everyone is a teacher. Everyone is a gift because I am now going to extricate my own authentic self from this moment. I am going to do that. I no longer need you to complete me. I'd like it, but I no longer obsess over it or control it or die without it. I would like it, but I'm now going to use this moment to complete myself. That declaration, that commitment to seeing life as a constant reminder to come back to the self is the most beautiful gift. Our children. Why do I focus on children? Because by living in the present, by being unencumbered, by being in their raw state of essence, unscripted, unprescribed, Unconditioned, remind us, Oh, there's another way to live. And these are my teachers. How do I become an unconditional human being without the prescriptions of culture? Children are that raw reflection of our truest potential.

So beautiful. Dr. Svalli, if the person listening, who I can just feel you as you're taking us you're on a walk, or you're having us with you in your car, or you're at home, and you're now probably sitting down and contemplating all this, if there was one thing that you hope that the person listening to you right now takes away from this conversation and then puts into action starting today, what would it be?

Well, it would be that no matter how difficult your life is right now, no matter how... No one is following the script and working according to your fantasy, no matter how challenged you are, I promise you there is an invitation There's a question here for you to lean in to find something that actually you are missing in this moment. They are acting out, and they are not listening to you, and they are being rude or disrespectful for you to discover something. If you can realize that, you will be excited, you will be explorative, you'll be curious. So lean into that. Ask this question, What is this moment here to show me about my unhealed self. Please show me I'm awake, I'm listening, I'm ready to evolve.

Absolutely extraordinary. What are your parting words, Dr. Shivali?

That parenting, whether you're a real parent to a child or to your own inner child is your sacred task. It's a sacred gift to parent your own inner child and/or to parent those around you. Use this relationship to yourself and to others as the ladder, as the journey toward your authentic freedom. You are here on this Earth to experience your wholeness. It is present within you. Each one of us is whole. We are just disconnected from that. So these relationships are here to remind you that you can access a whole and liberated self. You have the power.

Dr. Shefali, it has been such a remarkable honor and privilege to spend time with you today. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. Thank you for everything that you shared. It really has changed me.

Thank you for everything you do in the world as well.

And I want to thank you for taking time with us today and for spending time listening or watching something that will truly not only help you create a better life, but there is an invitation that was extended to you today, a beautiful A generous invitation for you to wake up and lean into a deeper relationship with yourself and to unlock this tremendous power that you have to experience life and every relationship that you have in a whole new way. I truly, truly hope that you will take everything that Dr. Shefali just poured into you, and you will use it to empower yourself because you deserve that. And in case nobody else I wanted to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to go wherever you are right now in your moment, to go deeper into the experience of your own life, and to start learning how to love and validate and be connected to yourself as the source for absolutely everything in your life. All righty. I'll talk to you in a few days. Hey, thank you so much for watching this episode with me here on YouTube.

If you loved this one, I know you're going to love this episode right here with Dr. Sangwan, where we talked about why you're a people pleaser and how your parents turned you into one without you even knowing. I'll see you there.