Parenting Under Pressure: Raising Kids While Healing Yourself

0:01 Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode of parenting and you with me Dr. Shafali. You know as parents we carry such an enormous sense of over responsibility I say to do the parenting well to make things right to make sure our kids are protected and joyful and confident and happy all the time. We put so much pressure on ourselves. Add to it if you are an overly empathic and caring mother. Add to that if you're a single parent. Add to that if you're going through pmenopause or menopause. And now you have a powder keg of emotional stress. Coming up next, you're going to hear from a mother of 9-year-old twin girls who says she's overwhelmed and stressed because of all the pressure she has and she's going through pmenopause.

0:53 Joining me now is Audrey. She says she's struggling to raise her 9-year-old twin girls while going through perry menopause. Hi, Audrey. What's going on? Hi. Well, there's a lot going on. But the bottom line is, you know, when there's so much going on in life and penmenopause is just one thing, but it's a major thing. How do I not spend my days counting down to when they're going off to college? you know, it's like that's not the type of relationship with my kids or with parenting that I want.

1:25 Like when am I going to get a break? Like when they're gone. So it's like how do I overall deal with all that I carry being a single parent that's going through this phase of my life. If I'm also an older parent that has all of these very real hormonal changes as well as just life stressors without just counting down the days until they're out of the house. Oh, I hear you. So, you're a single parent. I presume you're a working parent. Yes. And you're an older parent and you got this extra burden of your body going through all these changes. It's a lot. And you have twins.

2:04 Yes. Twin girls. So, you really have your plate full. Yeah. And I'm not just a single parent. I'm a single parent by choice, meaning I used donor sperm to and I did this all on my own. So I don't have a tap out partner. Yeah. So this is about being overwhelmed, fatigued, exhausted, burnt out. Yes. Absolutely. And then when we feel this kind of way, we automatically want to, you know, get rid of whatever is stressing us on the outside. But it's really what's happening on the inside because whether we like it or not, your children are here to stay for another nine years.

2:42 Okay? So we have to figure out a different approach. Otherwise, how can you keep counting the time till they go off to college? It's so long and that's going to make you more depressed. And it's not what I want. I love my kids. I want to have, you know, they'll ask me, "Mom, what's the hardest thing about parenting?" I'm like, "It has nothing to do with you guys. It's all the other stuff." Yes. Yes. So, how can we enjoy this time, right? Yes. How can you look back if you were looking back 10 years from now and say to yourself, you know what, I really had a great time. I enjoyed them. I was present. I was relaxed. And it sounds like you're anything but present or anything but relaxed. Right. Yes. So, what in your life needs to change, right? So there's this internal world that you occupy and then there's an external world. But I think many of us get so caught up in the external world, our children, our work, our clients that we forget that there's a lot we can do on the internal to make tiny shifts that will change your whole attitude toward your external life.

3:53 Right now your external life is ruling the roost. And this is a mistake many of us humans make but certainly mothers. We believe that we are the product of our external events, external situation. And we're not. Your children, your external life is not the ruler here. The ultimate ruler is your internal life. So there is a pressure in you that is adding burden. There is an internal critic, an internal achiever, an internal perfectionist that is driving you to feel this sense of internal pressure. It is not your children. It's not even perry menopause and I'm not minimizing the children and pmenopause. It is your attitude to your children and the attitude to pmenopause that is adding the greatest stress. So what is your internal voice? What does that sound like? You're not doing enough. You're not doing it right.

4:52 You're doing everything halfway. I have a voice from, you know, childhood which is like you're bad. You're inauthentic. You're, you know, there's all this stuff, but around the parenting, it's like it's not enough. You're not doing it right. Imagine approaching every day and every day with your kids with this sense of crippling inner shame. Mhm. of course you're going to not be happy. So when you say you want your kids to go to college, I know it's not that you want them to go to college, it's you want this feeling of exhaustion and burnout and shame to end. Yes. But it's not going to end, Audrey. And you know that you're going to just create it in another way. Right. So your ultimate demon is not anything other than the way you've learned to talk to yourself. And I don't have to ask you. You probably already know where this internal shame comes from. Right. It probably comes from one of your parents. I don't know.

5:54 Tell us if you want to. Yeah. You know, I mean, I was raised by a narcissist father. I never knew what I was going to get in terms of mood. It was inconsistent, erratic, emotionally, verbally abusive, you know. So, I was scared to death. And I think that I internalized something that I was inherently bad because I really took in my environment that, you know, as long as I was good, then he would be calm. Yes. Yes. But I didn't know where the measure was for good because it changed so much. Oh, wow. Right. Right. So, I couldn't even really plan for that. I couldn't really set myself up to succeed to be good because I had no idea what that was. Something that was good yesterday was not good today. Yes. Yes.

6:46 And it's scary. Yep. Yep. So Audrey, the question you have to ask yourself is when are you going to stop being the obedient good girl? Because you're still listening to your father. Yeah. Right. He's still dominating. He's still having complete rent-free control of your mind, right? You still are such a good girl that you're still being obedient to that voice. Yuck. Did you know that about yourself that you were still a patron to his abuse? No. I've been saying for a while that I've healed all that stuff, but apparently this is a deeper layer.

7:25 Yes. You know, whenever a parent comes to me, and this is for me too. Whenever I or a parent expresses a deep frustration with their external life, a deep sense of loathing like I can't believe my husband is like this or I can't believe my children are like this or I'm tired or it's menopause or permenopause. I know that it is much more to do with their internal critic, their internal shame than the actual circumstance. They are feeling overwhelmed by their external life situation because they are feeling so much shame that they cannot control the external life situation. But external life situations are never meant to be controlled. It's always out of our control. And the helplessness, the frustration that we feel that we can't manage the external life situation is coming from an old internal perpetrator, an internal critic, usually from a parent. And we are still betrothed to that parent. We're still 3 years old listening to that parent instead of saying, "F off. I'm done with you. I'm not listening to you. I am enough. I am enough. I am enough." And truly, it's not even a positive psychology and just spinning it. A true acceptance that you have lived a lie, right? And so when you look at your children and you think, "I'm not enough. This is not enough.

8:49 They are not enough." It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. They are enough. I am enough. It is enough. So, this internal tape of yours is ruining your present moment. And it's actually causing worse stress in your life. It's causing you to act out. It's causing you to use substances, whatever. It could be any kind of distraction. And it's causing you to not be present. So, you've not healed from your father. And I say this not in a way to be judgmental or, you know, upsetting to you, but really to tell you that that is the problem. Not your children, not Perry menopause. It's this internal pressure you put on yourself, Audrey. Mhm. You're hard on yourself. And it's not even you're hard on yourself. You're just listening to your dad's voice that you've internalized. So your children feel that. They feel that every time you look at them, they're not good enough. You're irritated with yourself. Aren't you always irritated with yourself? Like upset with yourself? Yes, always. How does that sound in your mind? It's like if there was a word, what's a word bigger than like disgusting or so disappointing or like that's the last thing that I wanted to do is pass that stuff on to my kids. Yeah. But as you're talking, you know, I hear it. You know, I they have verbalized stuff about not feeling good about themselves and I'm just like, where did this come from?

10:12 Because the words that I say to them are so the opposite. Yes. Yes. But your energy is very critical about yourself. You're annoyed. You're frustrated. Right. I can see it even in front of me that energy is hard. You're heavy on yourself. You're relentlessly difficult on yourself. Mhm. And I can sense that energy in you. And you're not giving yourself a break. When does Audrey talk about herself in a truly celebratory way? Are you truly forgiving of yourself?

10:46 No. Right? You're saying no. You're shaking your head. And this is why menopause and pmenopause becomes more difficult because whenever you feel a symptom, you're angry with yourself. Whenever your children act out or they're difficult, just like children are, you're angry with yourself. Yes. You're acting like it's your fault. Yes. And your father made you feel like that. But now you're making you feel like that. So in a way you are narcissistic to yourself. You're so self-absorbed.

11:13 You're blaming yourself constantly as if you are the cause of everything. Right? So you you have internalized that narcissistic perpetrator in yourself and you're just mean to yourself. You've become the abuser to yourself. Right? So it's not your children. It's not per menopause. You are an amazing mother. You love them. What's blocking you is this internal perpetrator. I see that you're looking a little emotional. So, what's coming up for you? Well, this is not what I expected from today and I work so hard to heal so much stuff and I'm just so shocked that it's still here, but it's right. So, imagine that your life was actually good. Imagine that your children are actually pretty okay. They may be a little messed up, but I haven't met a single child who isn't. You're pretty good. But what would that feel like to imagine that about yourself that you know what? I'm pretty okay. I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty okay. I'm a good person. I try hard. I work hard. I help a lot of people. What would that feel like to think of yourself like that? I feel like I would be freed up and have more space in my mind and in my life. And I feel like I would maybe experience joy because I also have not been experiencing joy at all. Yes, you were raised by a really cruel parent, but your internal parent is as cruel. And you haven't replaced your internal parent with a loving, soothing, kind parent. Yeah. You've not become your own loving, kind parent. How do you expect to be that to your daughters? So, the job now is to reparent yourself with soothing kindness, safety, acceptance. I don't hear that voice, right? You don't hear that voice. So we have to replace the abusive parent inside you with a loving parent. So what does a loving parent say to their children? You're doing a good job. You are good.

13:08 Everything is okay. It doesn't have to be perfect. Relax. Let it just flow. Be easy. You never heard that in your childhood. So you can't be really hard on yourself now because you haven't done that to yourself. But that's the voice that I want you to begin to embrace and nurture. And maybe you have to work with a coach. You know, you know, I have a coaching institute. We can get you a coach. That's the voice that the coach needs to elicit out of you. And that is a parent that you still haven't become for yourself. Mhm. So, at least now you have direction and you know, oh, that's what I need to work on. Not my pmenopause, not my children. I need to work on truly raising myself in a loving way. Yes. I have abandoned myself. Yes.

13:56 That one I feel hugely. So let's not think of the kids of pmenopause. Let's work on internalizing a loving parent. Thank you Audrey. Thank you for being vulnerable, for letting me share some wisdom with you. Thank you Dr. Chapali. I appreciate it. You know, I really felt Audrey's struggle and it's a struggle that many of us humans, especially mothers, go through. We feel exhausted. We're burnt out. We put so much pressure on ourselves and then we begin to believe that it is our children who are at fault or it is the boss or the friend or the colleague. And I'm just here to remind us all to take a deep breath.

14:36 When we're feeling this way, it's often most likely because we are relentlessly hard on ourselves. And why are we relentlessly hard on ourselves? because we have internalized a very punitive, perpetrating, abusive, scathing, shaming inner voice from our parents or culture. So, if you are someone right now who's feeling overwhelmed with your life and wishing that you were not in a marriage or not with your children or not at your job, just take a deep breath. It's probably not the job, the children or the partner. It's because you are struggling with what you are experiencing on the inside. You know, by our failure to pay attention to our internal landscape, we often scapegoat our external landscape. But the answer is always within. Coming up next, a mother who's struggling with her teenage son's emotional issues after her husband passed away.

15:38 We're now going to meet Vita. She's having issues with her 14-year-old son after her husband passed away 5 months ago. Hi Vita, I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Thank you so much Dr. Shivali. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here. A thank you Vita. So you're struggling with your son because things must be very traumatic for him right now. I would say I I receive a lot of guidance and help and you are the one who is guiding me to this process with your podcast and books and all the content that you are giving to all of us the parents to just be able to raise more conscious generations so we can transform the whole world. So I really hope your mission to be fulfilled with grace. I just want to start with how grateful am I for your work and this podcast. So I would say I'm not struggling really so much with how to integrate the grief in our life because honestly I think I've been on the way of conscious parenting even before I to have kids like a child I had a quite hysteric mom. I've been born in Bulgaria. I've been raising Bulgarian communist society when I was little. So it was kind of normal the parents to love us but showing their life through control and shouting and giving some physical also punishment. So since I become a teenager I knew for myself that if I will have a kid my way of raising my kids will be different. Okay, this time I didn't have the information about different ways because as I mentioned I was living in communist country with not so much information, not internet etc.

17:20 But on my 27 me and my husband travel to India and India changed my life totally and my perspective about what means family and what means to be a parent and we had also nine years relationship with my husband before we to decide to have the kids. So I really really maybe it was also kind of my controlling. I wanted to be sure that if I'm going to be a mother I know what I'm doing and also I wanted to be sure that our relations with my husband are already on the level that okay now we can have a kid because we are okay between us. Excellent. So what is your main concern that I can help you with?

18:01 So I thought everything is okay and I thought in any way I didn't create problem in my kids but obviously I created with a lot of changing that we passed in our life since we had it mostly like changing countries so he was born in India and on his age of three and a half we left the country not on our wish and in the circumstances in our life being that we need to leave now and honestly I took it a very emotionally and I kept I think to be conscious towards my son but I don't think I've been conscious around him so a lot of drama around him not towards him but a lot of crying a lot of depression from my side like I want my India I don't want to live in Europe and all these things so probably I gave him the idea that when there is a change there must be stress because since then I realized that with every change there is stress So our next change was UK. We left after India in UK for four or five years where he was quite happy but then I decided with to move to Tinary and this is when he was 8 years old maybe. So then he started to do this with his t-shirt a little bit and you know like just small things. So basically what you're saying he began to do like picking on his shirt, sucking his shirt, like a little bit like OCD kind of things. Yes. Okay.

19:31 Okay. So now he's 8 years old. You came to Tenneref and what happened there? So I become double consciousness when I saw him doing this with his t-shirt and I've been there for him to help with school with the new language and all of this. So disappeared after one year. Okay. Then on his age of 10, he started to be very like he really wanted everything in his room to be very good arranged, you know, like his shoes for home to be in the absolutely good level, his curtain to be in a super arranged level. So one night I asked him why for you is so important this curtain to be like that and he said mom because I have OCD. He was the one who told me on his age of 10, mom because I have OCD. And my non-cautious reaction was okay. So the new cool now is OCD. So I really didn't took this serious. Then came the passing away of my husband's when started this washing her hands and using a shower gel and things like every 10 minutes honestly and also he start to be disgusted of everything like even from his own phone. He was asking me to clean his phone like every half an hour because maybe there is and he start to become like also if we have some visitors in home and if the visitor go to the toilet he was shouting from his room asking him if he wash his hands it was crazy so this is when I wrote to you the message since then I think that now it's a little bit better but he started to be very reactive in school so in home we are super in home I have a super mature conscious son in a very good connection but in school since my father passed away he's in a very bad relations with half of the teacher including the director now is it your father or his father his father his father yes sorry his father and was his father ill for a long time no I mean he been but we didn't know so what happened it was everything happened for two months in my in our life okay from the moment he had headache he passed away after 2 months and we didn't know nothing before that.

21:44 We've been absolutely normal family without any signs that this is coming to us. It just happened for two months. Okay. I'm sure you are going through a lot. So I have two main questions. Okay. I'm doing my best to deal correctly with that. First of all, how I know how to support him? He's really now with a lot of problems in school. So how I know where is the border between teenage age results of trauma and also if those are results of trauma how I know if this is something that I just need to continue to support him and it will be okay or can be some condition that I need to check with doctor his brain even questions like this are coming to me so this is one of the topic and then the other topic is all my life I was preparing for conscious parent in a family with husbands and now since two months it's new for me I'm a parent without the husband so which is the most conscious way that I can support the missing of the father right now I mean I cannot become in the same time also mother also father but in the same time he's 14 years old boy so exactly now was the moment when I need to get a little bit back and my husband like a man example needs to come forward. So, let's take a deep breath and just quiet and calm. I know you're very anxious. You want to get so much information to me. I really appreciate it. But I think this is the issue. I think you're anxious. I think you're trying very hard, sweetheart, to be brave. I think you're trying too hard. And that is the problem. I think you're stressed and you're not relaxed. Your child is picking up on this very frantic energy and you're greasing and you're and you're trying so hard. That's the energy. Yes. And I think that's causing a lot of anxiety in him. It's very possible. You're trying so hard. You see, you're trying so hard to be amazing, but in trying so hard, you're creating anxiety in you and others around you. You need to just relax. You can cry. There's a difference between crying versus being stressed. Okay. Yes.

24:08 Now, you're already thinking, "How do I deal with my husband not being there?" Right now, we don't need to deal with anything. We just need to just become still and cry. Right now, we don't need to act. We don't need to change. We don't need to fix. We just need to cry and be together. You're trying to get to the next step so fast that even you are exhausted. So he is feeling all this stress and you're trying so hard to be an amazing parent. But you're actually bypassing the isness of the reality that now we are stressed. I said many times even now I'm sure this is hard. I'm sure this is difficult. You must be traumatized and you kept talking right but I know you want to tell me everything. You're actually being so lovely. You're sweetheart. You're lovely. But you're bypassing the breathing, the slowing down, the staying calm, the being in the present.

25:08 You're going, you're going 10,000 m an hour, but you need to slow down to 1 m an hour. So, can you remember this? I need to slow down. I need to talk less. I need to just feel. So, what is OCD? OCD is feeling so many feelings inside your body that it scares you so much because you feel out of control that you try to manage the anxiety through control and you're doing the same thing just in a different way. So he cannot control his anxiety and neither can you.

25:46 So he tries to control it by washing his hands. He tries to control it by counting or fixing the shoes. The shoes have nothing to do with his feelings. The curtain has nothing to do with his feelings. But it is a way that makes him feel in control of his uncontrollable inner emotions. And you also have a hard time dealing with your uncontrollable emotions. So I would suggest that both of you go to a therapist. Okay? He definitely needs professional help. You can do it online with many people who are very good at treating OCD.

26:20 And you need to learn how to meditate, how to calm down, how to grieve without fixing it. He is picking up on your high stress. See, you think if you're sad, that's not a good thing. But actually, you're stressed, which is the bad thing. So sadness is different from stress. You appear stressed. I'm saying become sad. Your stress is a cover up for your sadness. You're actually sad. Yeah. But you don't allow yourself to just be sad.

26:53 You're trying to fix it. And I think by you learning to meditate, learning maybe yoga to come into your body. You're very much in your head. He will definitely change because you're such a good mother. You're such an amazing sweet person. So the only thing is that you've been going through so much and you're super super super trying to avoid the feelings. But when we avoid the feelings, it actually becomes worse. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Shivali. I suppose you're going to be very surprised. I to tell you that I'm three times student of Vipasana and I'm into yoga from 20 years and still I'm like that very often. I tell you my father passed away when I was 16 and my mom what she did she was just set and in depression. Our family finished because with my sister we didn't lost only our father. We lost also our mom which is alive still and thanks God but she was sad and depressed all the time. But there's a difference between feeling your feelings you know like in vipasa meditation you can watch it you can cry but you don't have to get depressed. Yes. And you're trying so hard to not be that. Yes. The child doesn't know where to put his feelings.

28:10 You're very very conscious and very aware. I think you're just too hard on yourself and you are escaping the reality and making it worse. It's okay to be sad. You don't have to get depressed. It's okay to be sad. You don't have to be stressed. Your mother disappeared. She wasn't present in the sadness. You can be present in the sadness. Talk about your husband. Say, "I'm feeling sad." But show your child it's okay to have messy emotions, but they don't have to eat you up. Right?

28:41 See, they ate your mother up and now they're eating your son up. So, you can show him that it's okay to be sad without the feeling taking over. You can have the feeling. The feeling doesn't have to have you. Right. I think this is exactly the border that actually I can reset which doesn't mean I'm repeating the pattern of my mind of my mother deep depression. Yes, this is this was amazing. Thank you so much for this and also this that you are advising me that the right steps would be now to to search for psychologist cuz I was not sure do I need to do right now this or I'm good enough consciousness to just be mother father no and also psychologist and conscious parents and all this together you need help and you need support you know I've started a new community okay it's called the conscious circle where we are a community that will help you so if you want to join that you can get the support there you need support. You don't have to be superhuman anymore and that will teach your son to get support as well. Thank you Vita. Thank you for joining us.

29:45 Thank you. Thank you Dr. Shivali. Bless you. H this mother's story really touched my heart because I could see how she was traumatized by her own father's passing and how that influenced how she was dealing with her son's experience of his father passing. Isn't it incredible how these patterns show up in our lives and we then project what we experienced onto our children? She was so wanting to not be the mother she had that she has ended up being the mother that she had.

30:20 Right? She so did not want to be depressed like her mother was and she so wanted to show up for her son that in her you know over compensating for her feelings. She actually disconnected from her own feelings and then wasn't able to show her son how to deal with his feelings. So this work is incredibly moving, incredibly deep, incredibly challenging. I encourage anyone listening to understand that they are not alone. We are all trying to wade through our past patterns. And these patterns, they just show up in our lives and they take us unaware. And no matter how much work we've done, you heard her, she's a meditator, she's learned conscious parenting. Same for me. I teach this stuff, but the unconscious patterns just have a way of weaving themselves into our lives. So, we have to have grace for ourselves, great compassion, and forgiveness for when we mess up. And allowing ourselves to be human allows our children to accept their humanity. You heard me tell Vita about my conscious community. So if you are longing for a community and longing for more guidance, more support, check out my conscious community. It is called the conscious circle. The links are in the show notes below. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and we will see you on the next episode of parenting and you with me, Dr. Shafali.

31:49 Parenting and you with Dr. Shafali is for educational andformational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, psychotherrapeutic, coaching, health care, or other qualified professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.