The Challenge for Today’s Parents Talk at NY-Presbyterian Hospital

0:00 thank [Applause] you life presents us with a choice each and every day a choice to either enter a state of evolution alignment Clarity purpose and presence or to hover in a continued state of devolution life offers us a choice every single moment a choice to either step into a higher State of Consciousness or

0:31 stay mired in paralytic unconsciousness to embrace courage or to stay steeped in fear life offered you this choice this morning you may not have taken up the invitation because we get so harried on this conveyor belt of this thing we call life and on this fast track of Madness and grit and grime or in other words Parenthood so you may may not have taken up Life's invitation to

1:03 make a choice but right now in this moment in this room together in this embarrassment of riches I ask you to enter a different state of mind to enter and occupy a new intention the intention to enter your greater Consciousness most of us are living lives half asleep most most of us here in this room today are living lives

1:33 unawakened to our higher potential to our deepest knowing why because all of us were raised on a diet with a conditioning of compliance on a diet that said that we need to conform conform not to our deeper knowing but to the Views and perceptions of those around us why why were we raised like that because all of us Generations past and we will pass this on to the Future Generations all of us were raised

2:06 divorced from our inner authenticity from who it is we were truly meant to be in the world and instead we became caged in a robotic paralytic embarrassment of our worth and this is how we are going to raise our children if we haven't already our children who came full of abundance ready to embrace their Highest Potential soon became crippled by our

2:37 unawakening we pass on legacies of our unresolved issues to our children of our unmet needs of our UNF expectations and we expect them to rise to the challenge of making us complete little do we realize that no one especially our children can carry the burden of completing our incomplete selves unfortunately Ely this is an in-house job so as a psychologist I hear story after Story people come and they share

3:09 with me their deepest truths and their greatest fears so this mother came to me one day and she was steeped in Rage she was just shuddering with her incomprehensibility around her child around her daughter her eight-year-old daughter she said to me Dr shaali I blew it I lost it I was in Rage with her this morning and I slapped her why I asked well because she didn't listen to me you know she's extremely defiant and disobedient she's

3:40 been like this since she was 2 years old the mother was consumed with her understanding of who her child was which was in essence very far removed from her child in the child's true self so I asked the mother to continue to explain to me what happened to cause such Fury and she said to me well since my daughter hadn't done her homework the night before I had told her that she was not allowed to carry her loom kit you

4:08 know this the Loom kits that these kids carry around she wasn't allowed to take that kit to school that was to be her punishment but the audacity of my child this mother said to me she walked out with the loom kit and I couldn't tolerate it so I marched behind her and I pulled her to me and I said to her you will not take it and a standoff occurred a war ensued my my daughter dared to

4:30 defy me I had no choice I had to slap her the daughter came to me the next day and she explained to me she said to me you know I've been failing in math and that's why I don't know how to do my homework and then she said in the most eloquent Simplicity and I took the loom kit because all my friends were bringing it and if I didn't I would be without friends for that recess a simple answer

4:56 from an 8-year-old eloquent in her complexity that life is about surviving on the school playground but the mother missed that just like all of us parents we keep missing the signs our children readily give us and then what about Justin's parents who both sat in front of me one day in session stoic immovable they were so angry with him what was his crime well besides

5:28 failing he also so dared to lie to them he stole money from them he took $200 from the mother's purse that day when they came to therapy and the parents had had it they were going to send him to a correctional boarding school unless I did something to change their child so they packaged their son to me the next day in therapy and I said Justin now what did you do why did you do this and he said because

5:53 I keep failing right and my parents keep grounding me right and you know how my father is so I had no choice so I took the $200 so I could hire a tutor so I could pass that chemistry exam child after child tells me their story and the disturbing truth is that their story is never the same as their parents' story The disconnect between

6:23 parent and child is wide it's cataclysmic it is truly truly demoralizing now every parent who comes to me loves their child truly is invested in their child each parent would give anything for their child but yet their children remain disenfranchised disengaged disconnected and aloof why because the parents are mired in their own unresolved issues because

6:56 their own legacies of Shame abide within them when they see their children so they are unable to see their children for who their children really are because the vision you see our vision is obfuscated with veils of our own low self-worth and our shame and our pain and this is the Legacy we pass on to our children we feed them messages that you are not good enough unless you are an achiever and who you are as you are is

7:23 simply not enough unless you are more beautiful and a is not enough and a plus maybe reverberations echo in my head of voices of children my mother told me I was fat and most recently a 16-year-old tells me my mother begs me to get a nose job because she says it's drooping and it will look very ugly by the time I'm 25 and the other the boy who tells me I've been grounded for the past two

7:55 weeks my parents have taken away every electronic this This Is How They control me Dr shaali because they give me things and then they take it away because this is the only way they know how to have power over me and what about the 17-year-old beautiful girl who tells me everything I do I think every action I take is monitored controlled and puppeteered by my parents where I will go to college has been already decided the kind of man I marry has been decided

8:24 and dare I wave across the path so this is what legacies we pass on to our children and then we want them to be Trailblazers and determined and authentic they don't stand a chance if our children could speak to us today they would say this is what they would say I need you I need you to teach me how to honor my inner voice I need you to teach me to

8:56 feel safe in my deepest feelings I need you to let me learn to accept myself without restraint they would say to you the parent I need you to stand up against culture and tell me that I am more than my looks my face my beauty my grades My Success I need you to live such a life and such a truth they would say to you

9:26 the parent I am your child and I beg you I implore you to go realize your own dreams do not use me as the easel upon which you paint yours I implore you I challenge you I am your child I beg you go ahead and fulfill and realize your own potential do not look to me to do that work for you find your own Truth live your own passion find your purpose and discover what makes you feel whole I

9:55 am good I came good I feel Worthy I will be fine now it's time for you to turn the spotlight within yourself because everything you say to me the way you look at me and your definition of me has nothing to do with me because I am beyond definition it has everything to do with your story your past and your history so the conscious parent understands that our children are not ours to own the conscious parent

10:28 understands that the journey towards evolution is to start with the parents looking within themselves and walking the path towards their own deepest knowing this is the only way we will be allowing allowing our children to be set free the conscious parent understands that our children are not extensions of our ego they are not in any way our possessions our chatt our puppets our bobles to o and a

11:01 over our trophies to show off at parties with so I ask you will you pay heed to your children today will you go back home and look at them with a different intention with the intention that they are spirits of their own doing and that they can carve their own path that has nothing to do with yours and even if they walk in a way that is completely opposite to your ideals you will still enter trust and abundance and know that

11:31 your children will be able to direct and Steward their own ship I ask you will you be able to walk home today and smile at the stranger differently I ask you will you walk home today and take a different choice and instead of shrouding yourself in fear open yourself to change do you dare thank you