Struggling to get your kids to listen to you? Dr Shefali | Conscious Parenting @doctorshefali

0:00 and the greatest self-care for others is inner healing children are the most magnificent creatures so that that comment is what we're trying to tell our child subconsciously manipulatively but we don't want to say it is no you are not doing good enough do better first up for everyone listening watching it's been an absolute pleasure to speak with a woman I really really admire uh so thank you Dr shivaji thank you for

0:32 speaking with us yeah you're welcome I'm happy to do this okay um you've been such a huge advocate of conscious parenting what is conscious parenting and how is how has it evolved from the time it started until now yeah so it's complex but just briefly to simplify it conscious parenting is about the parents Evolution because when the parent evolves to a higher state of consciousness awareness emotional

1:02 integration children will be healthier right the toxic parts of our traditional parenting Paradigm are all about basing our identity on our grades on our athleticism on our talents on our Beauty and in India especially that is so prevalent right we base our worth on how people see us now that Consciousness creates toxicity in our own lives and if it's a message we pass on to our

1:32 children in our children's lives so conscious parenting is about challenging the parent to re-examine these viewpoints is our worth dependent on others on our relationships on our Beauty on our accolades or does it come from something deep within us and if the parent says that it comes from something deep within us then they will reorient the entire parenting they will rebirth a new vision for their parenting they will not look at their children as minions or

2:05 puppets or that they own them but they will look at their children as autonomous Sovereign beings who need to follow their own inner knowing and will develop that rather than pushing their children to do to do the next math class and the next next gymnastics it's a very different reorientation when we understand that children need to be treated as Sovereign beings which have nothing who have nothing to do with fulfilling our needs versus let's look at these children as part of a

2:35 traditional machine that need to fit into the machine right and in India the tendency is to look at children as part of a machine right and the parent then just feels like they own the children and they get to impose on the children their expectations their fantasies their needs so that the child makes them feel good and as long as we have that philosophy of that the other needs to make me feel good we will suffer our children will suffer

3:05 and we won't be able to honor who that person is we will make them who we want them to be specifically about India because I do see Indian in a lot of Asian parents uh Dr Shivali we're we're kind of coming from a space of lack of opportunities somewhere a bit of adversity you know who we are versus what our parents what we're we're largely self-made generation today especially the millennial parents and we come with a lot of baggage probably it

3:36 was value Consciousness probably it was education is our exit to a better life probably um you know if you if you want to pursue something that's an offbeat career if you're not number one two three then that that option does not even exist and therefore I feel we're kind of palming that baggage off onto our children so I understand that you say that that we need to leave that baggage behind and not let them be who we want them to be

4:04 but how do you segregate that baggage or that part of you which is so ingrained over the last 30 40 Years of your existence and say okay I am going to make this child or let this child rather be who he or she could be or should be right it's it's a balance and it's not either or because you'll always have conditioning that that seeps in but it's to be aware and to not have this

4:37 arrogance that you don't have conditioning and that it's having no impact on the other person the first place is to become aware with humility not arrogance and I think many parents and many Indian parents have arrogance about them that they know what's best and that's the way to do it in and that is complete ignorance so the awareness you begin this journey of like oh wow I have all these preconceived ideas and these expectations and these

5:05 conditionings with compassion I'm going to now deconstruct some of them can I let go of some of them we cannot let go of all of them and start de novo but can I begin to work on myself and really it's about healing the self because the more I feel that my neighbor's opinion matters the more I feel that my in-laws opinion matters for my sanctity for my well-being the more I will train my children the same way so when I become

5:33 more whole and abundant in myself and can stand on my own two feet of work then I will tell my childhood don't worry what the neighbor says don't worry what grandma says I I got your back right not no it's not about disrespecting the neighbor or the grandmother it's about teaching the child to respect themselves right and always orienting back to you know let's respect yourself and then we can respect the other and and people look at my Approach

6:05 sometimes and they think it's about demeaning others or you know being a terrorist in the home or you know sex drugs and rock and roll no it's about great self-respect it's about great inner Attunement and then others right but in India we put others first and last the self and in the west maybe it's too much the cells and less the others and I'm talking about an integrated approach where it's honoring the self and through the honoring of the self the

6:35 others are definitely next in line right but it is first honoring the self and compassion for the self and coming from wholeness and we need to teach our children that they are whole and they are full and they are complete in whoever they are and then they can take care of others but in India we're taught to abduct Who We Are for the sake of approval for the sake of validation from others and our identity gets based on

7:04 what others think of us predicated on others and that is an illness it's a sickness and you know fathers do it to the son mothers do it to the daughters or to you know it's I'm just making it simple but we need to really step back and do our own inner work and heal ourselves no as in you know a lot of people you know that I've been speaking to about conscious planning they believe that putting the self first is often

7:31 considered or working on yourself first and and just from the Indian mindset perspective right where you know you're always it's always family right yeah but that's so stupid because sorry I get it I get it I get it I get what you're saying and that idea is so silly because when you don't heal your baggage you're actually the biggest manipulator user projector I mean look at the classic mother-in-law daughter-in-law phenomenon

8:02 right why does it keep existing it's because the Mother-in-law isn't broken and she hasn't healed herself I'm talking simplistically archetypally and she projects her pain onto the daughter-in-law makes the daughter-in-law life miserable now the daughter-in-law has not healed her pain she becomes the next mother-in-law right so archetypes exist like this because we are in pain and we haven't healed ourselves so when I say focus on the self I don't mean in self-indulgence to go get manicures and massages it's about

8:30 focus on your own crap right that is the most selfish thing you can do in the world is go clean up your own crap in your own home in your own in your home and when you come out you know Michael Beckwith he's a famous motivational and wisdom teacher in the west he says I take Daily Inner showers right first I clean myself up before I go out and pollute the world and that that sounds selfish because you're saying it's the

8:57 self but actually it's the greatest gift for others when you don't come out with unhealed wounds which you will then vomit unconsciously onto others like I mean I've seen the destruction in the so-called selfless women and men in India they're just coming out of complete unconscious manipulation so be very careful right the doting archetype of the doting mother right it's full of control yeah

9:29 because it's fun it's transactional so this is where we are we have to become sophisticated and see beneath the words right and the greatest self-care for others is inner healing also you know as Asians we're very result oriented rather than process oriented and I think some of the baggage will be passing on to our children comes from okay what's what's the end game what's

10:01 the result because we're always looking as the result and as an escape to better to better our life to better um ourselves in many forms or to complete we're just a competitive species right so how do you disconnect um the baggage the child the result and the process yeah yeah great question but it's not just Asians it's it's the industrialized world that we are living in and it's really it came from the West right uh it's a it's a

10:34 more white man philosophy to dominate compete to conquer conquest and actually the the real Asian cultures the real culture of the Asian mindset is one of weeness of interdependence of of cooperation uh it's just become so polluted right the Buddha the Dao they talk about interdependence they talk about Lack of egoic self lack of outcome all process all presence we've lost that

11:06 to this actual actually this white man philosophy uh you know industrialized world and I and I when I say white man I don't mean to put them down it's just an ideological philosophy of competition Conquest conquering domination um which we refer to as toxic masculinity and all all white men suffer in it it's not like they're just you know laughing their way to the bank but they have greater privileges so the actual Asian spirituality is beautiful interdependent

11:37 uh engagement presence Simplicity and we've lost that so we my work teaches us to go back there to what the Dao said to what the Buddha said and to re-enter the present moment and all my work in conscious parenting is about process so when you focus on process how am I showing up to my child right now so my child gets a c grade my ego because it's conditioned in this Western Way wants to yell at my kid but I know it's not about

12:09 the a grade it's about my child growing and feeling competent in the moment so once I have that awareness I shift from the expectation and the goal to how am I showing up in the present moment with my child and how can I honor where my child is so the first thing I tell my child is don't don't worry about the grade I don't care get it get C grades for the rest of your life let's talk about what

12:34 is your difficulty here can I help you can I support you now that child is going to feel heard understood validated and not like a failure there's going to be no shame but I'm going to say let's try I don't care about the grade let's just focus on what your what you're not understanding in the problem or the situation or the event let me help you and that child will grow up with you know with a process mindset is called a

13:01 growth mindset versus an outcome mindset and that growth mindset you know is is the key but when you have a parent who is focused on the outcome oh you got an 85 why not a 95 that child is going to always feel lesser than you know we parents say this thing that I find so funny and silly but we love saying it oh just do your best just do your best right and we feel so uh you know woke we

13:26 feel like we're so Progressive and it's such a blow because what do you think the child was doing you know if I told you at the end of this interview you know you know next time you interview me just do your best yeah that's going to make you feel like you did not do your best but aren't we doing our best right now I think we're doing our best but you know I'm a little under the

13:49 weather so it's not going to be perfect but we're always doing our best yeah so that that comment is what we're trying to tell our child subconsciously manipulatively but we don't want to say it is no you are not doing good enough do better and children keep hearing that right oh you're not living up I just want you to live up to your potential okay what is that according to whom where is that ceiling my viewpoint in conscious

14:19 parenting is that children are always doing their best and they're always living up to their potential in that moment we can only do what we know given the Consciousness we have so it's a whole different mindset it's a whole different approach so if people want to learn it I have five books now my latest book The Parenting map is available I think on Kindle at least in India and people need to you know can take my

14:42 courses I have a coaching Institute I have so much to teach people a different mindset but it's not just a different parenting parenting mindset it's a different human mindset more often than not we're the parents are probably as invested in the trial they've taken as much effort you know they've they've probably chaperone them to a class or studied with them or stayed up all night how do you separate your investment from the results that the child brings

15:15 because I think that's a tough one too yes yes yes you know in India how we talk right and when I lived it if I lived in India I talk like this too so I'm not putting Indian people down I have plenty of criticism about Western parents too so I'm not demeaning or judgmental but you know how the Indian parents talk oh I'm busy because we have exams right and then I'll ask my friends went back to school right I've been out

15:41 of India for a while so I forget so I'm like oh you went back to school and they're like no my eighth grader has final exams so you have exams like wow that is the over parenting helicoptering that we have to do and that creates so much contamination the poor child feels so much pressure because now the parent thinks that they went to exam but the kid is doing the actual test right so imagine what pressure we feel uh you

16:09 know I remember when I grew up in India my friends would cry to me that my they got beaten up if they got a B grade and you know and I felt so bad for them you know I remember I used to pray to God you know we still do our prayers in the convent and I said tell God you know please give my friend better grades not me because I never got beaten up right so I grew up with this abundance mindset

16:31 I I didn't do well but my my mother never beat me up so I said give my quote-unquote you know quota to of course none of it helped but uh to my friends uh because I didn't need to pray for myself because I grew up with abundance so I I that's what I teach parents like please stop investing your life in this outcome because you're teaching your children the very wrong message that their worth is dependent on

17:01 this damn number and it's not and then we as women then we look at our weighing machine as our words then we look it up compliments as our worth and the man looks at his bank account as his word and it's just not the right way to live it's going to cause suffering and to leave the rat race takes a lot of courage you know I've I've left the rat race in many ways and it's taken a lot

17:25 of Courage you know I could be more successful than I am right now if I just follow the rat race but I refuse to follow the records because I may get success in the outer world but I'm going to lose my soul so you have to ask as a parent do I want to give my child a childhood or do I want to give them false indicators of work and that takes courage as a parent you have to take a risk it's you'll get

17:51 ostracized your in-laws may get upset with you but that's the courage of living an authentic life or living a life that's enslaved to the values of other people right you know in in the book The Parenting map you set a beautiful statement which says our love for our kids can take our Breath Away both in its Limitless expansiveness and in its breathtaking anxiety it is the perfect cocktail of piercing adoration and the and the most excruciating fear this is

18:20 what our kids do to our souls they expand them as never before but also twist them to pulp and throw a dagger at them they walk away without even noticing why do our kids do that and how can we cope I mean by the way everybody who's listening I could probably when I was reading it on the killing I could probably underline all the sentences and when I finish reading the book I'm like damn I've highlighted the whole book and

18:46 I was like this is insane because every piece of it like every line of it yeah yeah I I write my books as spiritual manifestos you know so I also look how many tags I have in my book before but I just open it any page and it sets me straight right because I write it with a spiritual wisdom uh I mean that's just because I'm speaking to something deeper about what we are yearning for in our own life right I'm

19:14 really talking to the parents soul and it's not about the child really I'm healing the parent right I'm trying to heal the parent so children are the most magnificent creatures right next to dogs and animals right uh but dogs and why do I say that in human form they're the best there's nobody better than a child or a really old person who's wise not a cranky old person old people who are wise and young children are the best and they have the

19:43 Forgotten elements of society they are the most manipulated and abused members of society we need to turn to wise old people and to children because they live in the present moment they don't have the enormous ego yet they are pure and they are the best teachers of awakened existence present moment existence old wise people don't give an for anything about the ego because they

20:14 see through the illusion and children come without illusion so you're getting to get life's lessons at the purest level and yet we don't take those lessons we contort our children to fit our instead of letting go of our to meet children where they are children are the greatest awakeners and while I advocate for women not having children if that's their choice if that's not who they are I also don't Advocate falling on this new trend of

20:46 you know women feeling like they don't need to be mothers yeah you don't need to be a mother and that's your choice but know that you're missing out on a very amazing potential to expand your heart like never before right you you get to expand your heart and love another being and learn to not control them if you do it the conscious way if you do it the conscious way it's the greatest spiritual teaching ever I just want to ask you what makes modern

21:16 day parenting so tough like why do we feel that it's much harder today um and you know I think all of us today tell our parents or in your times it was much easier but it's so much tougher you didn't have so many choices you didn't have so many decisions decision making why are we struggling today versus right so I think modern day parenting is much harder because we are more screwed up because of Technology

21:48 and we are putting so much pressure to become perfect because we see oh my friend went to Turkey and my friend's sister's cousin went to Bhutan and my friend's sister's cousin's daughter went to the Appalachian Mountains oh so now we're comparing ourselves with other people and so that breeds discontent right comparison is a real reader of discontent in my parents generation they didn't know what the cousin's sister's daughter was doing they were in their

22:19 own little world which brings present moment awareness we are out of present moment awareness busy comparing ourselves with everyone and technology is making us believe we can be everywhere and all things at all times and all ages technology is allowing us to not look as old therefore we don't embrace our old we want to look younger we want to get there faster we want to eat processed foods it's all available robotically it's all available instantly

22:49 all of these things are making us bypass present moment awareness and living and breeding you would think it would be breeding Indulgence and amazing sense of comfort no it's breeding mental disease because we are bypassing the acceptance of the imperfections that our parents had they accepted imperfection and now we have short circuiting imperfection which actually you would

23:21 think it reads Comfort but it actually breeds this insatiability for more avoidance of imperfection so now if the earlobe is got you know the left earlobe is a little bit too fatty we will take out the fat in the freaking yellow but I don't like my ears let me go fix them you would think it would make us comfortable but no now we're fixing everything yep now we want more it's breathing insatiability rather than breeding comfort and contentment you

23:51 know now India is still better off because we have a spirituality that in nature by its nature breeds contentment right we are basically a Content people because of our spirituality yeah but boy are we get bypassing that too you know this greed from industrialized mentality is overtaking our contentment even in India and we're just wanting better breeds and a better child and a better body and a better husband and a better marriage and a better housing a bit oh my goodness

24:22 we're going the other way instead of back to our roots of contentment and at the end of the day acceptance of life's imperfections is the route to contaminant and not feeling entitled to having the perfect existence because that is an illusion but we're all chasing rainbows and Illusions now because of Technology we're meant to be much more diseased today than yesterday do you think it's also the paucity of Time Dr shapali do you think we're

24:53 trying to do too much yes but again because we think we can yeah I call it the the psychology of the too much too much everything we want too much of everything no there is no paucity of time actually there's only a paucity of time if you think you want to be all things at all times right to all people right women now think that they should do it all that is a tragedy you shouldn't want to think you can do it

25:19 all because you drive yourself crazy you can only do it all over maybe a lifetime maybe but you can't do it all right now so women are suffering the most because we're trying to do what men do and what women do now and the poor woman trying to be sexy trying to be the best mother trying to be the best cook trying to be the best entrepreneur how much can the poor woman do but she's driving herself to the

25:45 Grave by wanting to do it all because she's not feeling good enough as she is the other day the 33 year old woman who told me she wants to be a mother and she's feeling ashamed that she's not this boss babe and I said huh what's a boss babe what has that got to do with motherhood she's like no if I if I become a mother I won't be a boss babe I was like okay so you were a boss babe

26:08 now be a mother yeah you could do everything at all times but see we want to be the best mother and the best wife and the best woman on the PTA and the boss babe okay then you're gonna die yeah um also some of the burning mistakes that you know you've made that made you realize this is who I don't want to be and this is who I want to be well I think just a wanting to be a

26:39 perfect mother that's a load of crap because when I want to be a perfect mother I actually what I'm saying by that is I want to have a perfect child and once I realized that I want to have a puff be a perfect mother because I was feeling unworthy in my life that became my trophy then I was making my child my trophy and the minute I relinquished that my child was just amazing as she was

27:08 but anytime I wanted to be an amazing mother I then made my child my project and I don't need to be an amazing mother I just need to be a human trying her best then I let my child be a human trying her best and now we're all okay yeah it's it's the it's a very deeply uh content accepting celebratory honoring approach to yourself and then to others and that's what children need they need

27:38 you to accept them as they are if they decide to be world-class skiers or a corporate CEO that's on them but they want you to feel as if they are enough as they are right that's our role to give them the feeling that they are enough as they are we think our goal is to make them National skiers that is not our role that's on them that's their choice that's why we get it all messed up and

28:07 we get exhausted we get angry we get controlling we get reactive because in our head every day we're raising a national champion no we're not we're raising an ordinary human with imperfections if they want to become a national champion that's the doing part that's on them we have to be connected to their being yeah right um also what's the work that you do on yourself to be at this level of consciousness

28:37 a lot of work on myself and mainly to feel worthy as I am for myself so I love myself I fall in love with myself I take care of myself and so if that sounds extremely selfish but let me tell you the more I do that the less I need people and I'm needy of people less burdensome on people less angry with people because I'm happy I'm truly content and connected to myself

29:07 so I put in the effort to take care of myself and love myself as I am so then I don't need my child to feel worthy I don't need my partners to make me feel worthy I don't need my friends to make me feel Worthy I I need myself so that deep inner connectivity is what I flourish and garnish and celebrate every day then I don't need my books well I I meditate I am very self-aware

29:38 I take care of my crap I take out my body I you know I live with abundance I connect to Nature there are ways to do it but you have to do it every day and I don't look to my children or my friends or my partners to take care of me I keep turning Inward and I've developed this self-trust and this self-love and the self appreciation you know I love myself I don't feel ashamed to say that

30:08 and I must love myself every day before I love my mother-in-law before I love my children before I love my no no no no no no I must love myself now that has taken me a long time to get here right so it's not happened overnight because we're so conditioned to love others before we love ourselves right through my self-love that I'm the best daughter and the best partner and the best mother so I see the vehicle to be the best

30:35 mother as the the self the vehicle to be the best mother is self-love right also did guilt creep in any time while you were building yourself as as a coach an author did you take time off to work on that part of you that took away from motherhood and did you have that conflict in your head that oh my God why am I doing this or I'm guilty because that's one of the biggest things that

31:07 um kind of creeps in into a woman and she feels guilty and then everything goes just down the track right right uh yes I did battle guilt and I still battled guilt but I know guilt is a false voice so I don't pay too much attention uh when I feel guilt I move into okay what can I do in the now to help me in the now and connect with my child and I make sure that I connect

31:31 with my child every day and I'm present and I'm aware and it's not about the number of hours you spend of course number counts you can't just spend 10 minutes so a few hours a day but if those few hours a day are deeply connected that's good parenting that's good mothering I don't need to be there 24 7. it's good that my child has other resources in her life so I made sure that I would do that so that I don't

31:58 feel so much guilt I made sure I was present enough and I kept coming back to the present moment okay yesterday I was a you know distracted mom what can I do today and that's how you combat guilt not by looking at the past and regretting but by entering the present moment and saying what can I do right now to embolden my connection with my child how can I help my child right now and and that entrance into the present

32:24 moment recalibrates our awareness and now we show up differently beating yourself down with guilt makes you lose the present moment right um also when you were writing the the parenting map Which chapter was the toughest for you to write which one seemed like a bit of struggle and you had to revisit it again and again say I have to get this one right because I want people you know I feel like the way you've written

32:54 the book it just becomes so easy for people to start implementing and I think between knowledge and action there is a long bridge and we often fail to just cross that bridge but I think you've really simplified it in the book so which one was the toughest one for you well you know the whole book was uh it took a long time for me to write this book in terms of getting to write the book like arriving at the threshold of I

33:20 need to write a how-to book I resisted writing a how to book for 13 years because I felt like people needed to do their own work I'm not going to tell you how you do it yourself and so once I decided to write a how to book and make it simple I was resisting making it simple because I wanted people to do the hard work I was like hardcore you know no they need to do the hard work and arrive at the

33:45 steps themselves um then I as I became older I became more compassionate and gentle uh so once I arrived that you know what I'm ready to write the how to book then it took me two months that I write very fast but I have to be inspired right so nothing was hard in the book but arriving at the threshold to write the book took me 13 years people have been begging me to write this book for 13 years and I've

34:11 resisted because I needed to lay the foundation first and my first four books on parenting were all about the what and the why and first three books on parenting and this is my fourth parenting book yeah I quoted co-authored a book on anxiety called superpowered and then I wrote a book for women called yeah yeah which is my all-time favorite book but it took me four parenting books to get here so that was my struggle but

34:42 once I committed and it was inspired it then the writing is easy okay Dr shivari thank you so much it's been an absolutely welcome you're welcome you're welcome thank you Matthew foreign [Music]