Being a Conscious Parent: Breaking Generational Patterns

0:01 Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode of parenting and you with me Dr. Shafali. You know being a conscious parent is incredibly challenging. And the reason why it is is because you have to look in the mirror. You have to ask difficult questions. You have to be willing to do the inner work to break generations of patterns. And that is never easy. It's almost easier to just blame our children, blame our spouses, and just dump all responsibility and accountability on them and leave yourself feeling like there's nothing for you to work on. Conscious parenting pushes us to take responsibility for our own pain, for our own reactivity, for our own stuckness, and discover how we are getting in our own way. If you as a parent are longing to take greater responsibility in your life and discover new strategies and tips and tools to be the most conscious parent, then you are really going to get a lot out of this episode. Joining me now is Alan. He says he grew up being very scared of his father and wants to make sure he doesn't raise his own six-year-old son in the same way. Hi, Alan. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me here. Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for being here. How can I help you? My son is about to turn six in about 10 days. And as your introduction mentioned, I was raised an early childhood like before 5 years old.

1:39 Whatever memories I have is actually being scared and afraid of my father. And that fear was embedded in me as I was growing up. And many things that later I learned that was wrong and shouldn't have happened. I want to make sure that I don't do any of that as I raise my son. I want to make sure my son is raised with confidence, with self-esteem, with drive, with the courage to go after what he wants without feeling judgment, you know, and so I've read two of your books and many things that you say resonates with me.

2:13 Dr. Shafali, I remember one of the interviews you had with Oprah. You said that a parent's goal should be to be irrelevant in their child's life and that resonated so much with me. So many things that I have thought through and read through. When I hear you speak, it resonates with me. So I think we've done a lot of that stuff until now. But now my son is learning his powers, his he wants to exert his independence. He wants to show that he can do stuff. How do I continue to guide him without undermining the self-confidence that he has? He's very self-confident, very assured, but sometimes I feel like it may be a little unjustified, a little overconfident. It's school and in karate class, in swim class, he's exemplary. He behaves really well. He the teachers are all then the coaches are all proud of him. He gets awards for participation.

3:09 Very well behaved. At home, different story. at home, he's more rebellious. He's more trying to get his way. He doesn't want to clean his room. He doesn't want to play by himself. He always wants someone to play with him. Those type of things. And then how do I instill that kind of structure for him without undermining the self-confidence that he has, without he feeling there's something wrong? So, do you have a partner who's with you? My wife. Yeah, I have my with me and my wife. Yeah. So, yes. Yes. Okay. Amazing. So, you know, you're asking a very typical question.

3:45 How do I make sure my child feels confident without also having zero boundaries, right? So, yours is a very typical question. But I think there's a deeper issue here which is your own parenting that you received in your childhood. So, your fear is that you will turn to be like your father. Is that it? It is. I was raised not feeling valued, not feeling important, not feeling worthy, feeling like I was a burden. So yes, and it took a long time for me to overcome that. I'm not sure I've completely overcome that, but I want to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to him. And it's almost a struggle of becoming selfish or losing patience. That's always something that's is there, but I always have to control it and make sure, you know, I don't act on it. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

4:40 And have you seen yourself act on it sometimes and that scared you? Sometimes when he just doesn't listen after repeated things, just doesn't listen and wants to do something else. Mhm. My tongue gets annoyed and more firm and whatnot. And so, and sometimes I have to tell him, "You have to do this." So I become a little more firm and he recognizes that it does happen on occasion and when it gets firm then he follows what I'm saying but I don't want it to be that way and I don't know if it's correct that way or not. So you know well I think you know you seem to be quite conscious. I think being firm is not the problem. Firm is good and as long as it's tempered, as long as it's mixed in with a lot of warmth, a lot of connection, a lot of softness and attunement, then firm is good. I think what we are really talking about is your fear that you're going to lose control, right? Your father lost control with you and that is never okay. So, what are you practicing so that you can stay regulated? That is the issue. The issue is not telling him no. The issue is not being firm. That's okay. The issue isn't even, you know, maybe raising your voice just a little. The issue is, are you coming from a place of internal consciousness, internal regulation or are you losing your mind? That is the fear we have. Your father lost his mind and you don't want to do anything from an unconscious, crazy, reactive place.

6:13 So, how do we stop that? All of us have to practice skills. So, what are some skills you can practice every single day to make sure your wild and adventurous young little son doesn't trigger you out of your consciousness into unconsciousness? So, what are some practices that you can start using on a daily basis? What you're saying makes a lot of sense. I actually don't think I am practicing anything. I meditate from time to time, but not regularly. But I actually love to hear what practices I should be doing. Well, just know that having a child is going to trigger the best of us. So, simply being afraid that you're going to be like your father is not enough. Reading the books is not enough. Nothing is enough compared to an actual practice. So to practice one of the skills is journal writing, right?

7:12 Every day you write about your triggers that he triggered me this way and I almost said this and why do we journal right? So that we can become aware of our patterns. Another practice is going for weekly or monthly therapy or coaching where you and your partner talk about your issues with your child and your your coach or your therapist helps you. Another practice is self-care, right? Are you making sure that your schedule is not crazy? You're not overpop populating your life with things to do so that when your kid needs you, you're present, you're patient, you're calm. And the best practice is meditation, which is learning to breathe, sitting with your inner thoughts and not reacting to them. And you know, for example, I have a conscious community where I teach meditation. I do free meditation classes there. So you can join it there or on my YouTube channel. I have so many hundreds of hours of meditation. This is the most valuable thing you can do for your child. If you really want to break the generational patterns, you have to do a little bit of all of these things on a regular basis and then you are more armored, but you're still going to lose your temper. So in spite of all of this, you're still going to have moments where you're triggered, but these things are going to help you to stay more regulated. So are you willing to do these things on a daily basis, on a weekly basis? Absolutely I am. And what you said is I mean I have a busy schedule and I work from home but I do a lot of travels and so I need to fit those things in my schedule instead of you know having okay I'm spending an hour in the afternoon with my son and then focusing on work and family.

8:55 There's a lot of things I'm working on, but I'm not spending enough time on I'm spending hardly any time journaling and very little in meditation, you know. So, that's what I'm hearing. That's the communities you mentioned, are they in person communities or are they No, it's online. It's online. And it's always good to be part of a community because you get the support of other parents, you get to meet other dads, right? So what I'm basically saying is that your intention is noble. But if intention is not backed up by action, then your past is going to start invading your present.

9:31 Right? You know better than anyone how deeply seated those fears you have toward your father have been in your life. They have been deeply rooted in your psychology. So how do we break the pattern? We can't simply say I want to stop doing it. You have to really put some armor behind that, some machinery behind that so that your instincts are overridden by new methods, by new strategies, by new tools. Otherwise, when we are triggered in the moment, we step in with the same strategies that our parents stepped in with because that is wired into us. So to unwire ourselves takes a lot of effort. But you know sadly we put in so much effort for our businesses and for our you know exercise but we don't put in the same effort to break our family patterns and that's what you you have to do because your father was you know very dominating very strong and it created a big effect in your psychology. So now you have to change that for your son. No that's exactly right. But the tools that I'm hearing is about journaling and journaling every day. I think it sounds powerful because in a way you're kind of facing what happened and how you felt and how you reacted and allows you to reflect on it. That makes sense. And meditation and you said you have all these YouTube or online activities available. I'd love to be participating in that. The other thing is that my wife and I also she also studies but she's a different school of thought. She's more of thought that you know if he doesn't do what we say we should discipline him.

11:09 And I know a lot of things that you said about discipline being wrong, but is depriving him of some of the things that's important to him if he doesn't follow certain rules. Is that a wrong thing or is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. I totally understand. So, you know, in the way that we have used the word discipline, traditionally it's often meant, you know, taking away something, punishing them, raising our voice, blaming our child, and fixing their problem, right? Fixing what's wrong. And that attitude to discipline is effective in a short term but very harmful in the long term because it gives you the idea that you can just in a quick fix punish the child, shame the child, take away their rights and through that kind of domination, you can suppress them into listening into obedience. And that never works for the long term. And it creates the same thing that your father created in you. fear, anxiety, resentment, and debilitating low selfworth. Instead, if your partner can read up more on conscious parenting, she will learn how to give him choices. She will learn how to empower him to think and make better decisions. She will understand the importance of connection versus control.

12:26 She can still, you know, do things with him that are firm. She can still say no to him, but she's saying no to him with an awareness of his own capacity. You see, children under the age of 28 really don't have a developed brain. Your child is just 6 years old. You know, I always say that children only act out because of three reasons. Number one, they don't have enough life experience because they're so young. They haven't practiced life enough. Number two, their brain is not developed. His brain literally has holes in them. So punishing him for something that his own brain cannot even understand or navigate is really not fair. And the third reason that children act out is because they have a low selfworth. So if you can remember this, then your strategies with him when he does something wrong is very different.

13:19 If you understand he doesn't have enough life experience, then you can keep teaching him. Okay, let's practice. Let's do role plays. Let's practice. If you understand that his brain is not developed, so he genuinely doesn't remember, he doesn't organize, he doesn't plan because his executive functioning is not yet developed. Now you will be more compassionate. You'll put alarm clocks and reminders and notes and you will help him to develop executive functioning. And the third reason of low selfworth, you definitely will increase your play with him, your connection with him, your laughter with him so that he has better self-esteem.

13:57 That makes a lot of sense. But you said about choices. For example, if he doesn't clean his room, what choices do we have? Well, number one, you can ask him, "Do you want to clean your room with me and we can have fun and put on music or do you want to clean the room without me and no music?" Right? Just there, you're like introducing an amazing choice. Do you want to clean your room before you go for soccer or after you go for soccer? And we're going to have a race. I'm going to go clean my room. You're going to clean your room.

14:23 Let's see who cleans his room first. But he says it's my room and I'm the boss of my room. So you can say, "Okay, this area, you're the boss of this area can be your messy area, but this area I need you to clean it because it's part of the house." And you can empower him to have a a treasure chest of things that he can keep messy, a corner of his room that is his room. He's right. It is his room.

14:46 But you can also teach him that this area is ours and this area is yours. You see, you can be very creative. But you have to be thinking on double duty when you have a smart kid like your kid. That is amazing. I actually didn't think of that. That is actually awesome. Now the other thing is sometimes he acts out. Can I And then when I ask him what is wrong, he doesn't say. He just says, you know, move away or go out or stop bothering me. And I do. An hour later, I tell him, "Why were you so angry?" He goes, "Because I still can't control my emotions." He actually says that, right?

15:21 So, you don't need to ask him. Asking a child why they're angry when they're angry is really ridiculous, right? Like, if you're angry and somebody keeps saying, "Why are you angry? Can you tell me why you're angry?" You just want to be angry in those moments. So, the best thing to do is say, "I see you're angry. You are being disrespectful. I will be back." And just leave. You don't have to engage with him. You can be a mirror and you can withdraw yourself. Not in a mean way. You can just say, "You are hitting me. You are being disrespectful. We're going to leave." Or, "I'm going to take away that thing from you because you are breaking it or you are damaging the property." Right? But you give them choices. Would you like to give it to me yourself or would you like me to take it away? Right? So instead of just snatching it from him, you can say, "Would you like to give it to me or would you like me to take it away?"

16:10 Right? You always thinking of ways to create choices. Yes. And this way he's making the choice. Yes. But then he hitting like he hits his mom sometimes, hits me sometimes. I don't think it's aggression, but she gets offended by it. But I want to ask you, is that normal or is that a sign from something else? It's both. It's normal and it needs a boundary. So, you don't have to lose your mind, but you can say, you know, I don't like being hit. It hurts me. I will be back. Right? That's it. I'll be back. I will see you later. This is not okay. Because you want to communicate that we don't like to hit people. And you know, you're a big guy, so if he hits you, you probably don't even feel it. But that's not the point. Yeah.

16:57 That's not My wife gets very upset about it. Well, she doesn't need to get very upset either. I mean, I can't tell her how to feel, but she also needs to realize that he's impulsive. He has low control. She can say, "I see that you're getting angry and you want to hit me. You can hit the pillow, but if you want to hit me, that's not okay. I'm leaving." And then should we later talk about why he was angry or just let it go and move on? I mean, I think a better thing to do than talk is to do role plays with your children so later on you can say, "You know what? I'm going to be you and you're going to be me. Um, I'm going to act exactly like you acted three hours ago. Let's see if you can be my mommy and I'm going to act like you.

17:40 And he'll be like, "Okay." So, you start hitting him like of course in play and then you can teach him. How did that feel? How did that make you feel? Teach me how to be different while you're being him, right? Make him the parent teaching you how to handle your emotions. And this is how you can teach him emotional regulation. But talking in logical ways to your child after the event is very rarely going to have a positive impact. It doesn't. You're right. He doesn't even want to talk about it. You know, he says, "I don't want to talk about it." You know, he's very aware of what he wants and what he doesn't want, you know, and he sets boundaries with us very well, which I actually applaud. It may be annoying or uncomfortable for us, but I applaud it.

18:28 I like that he feels empowered to set boundaries. The other thing that's I talked to my wife is, you know, that he's not behaving any of this. He doesn't throw tantrums in school or in classes. It's only at home. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he canes his strength and self-confidence and kind of acts out whatever he needs to act out here and not outside. First, I just want to say it's very refreshing to see a very connected, emotionally sensitive man. And yes, you're right that of course he's going to act out in the home. You know, there's a study that just recently came out that children are like, I don't know, 99% worse with their mothers especially and their parents than they are outside of the home. It's because they feel safe. So, we need to not take it personally, but we also can still create some boundaries. Yeah. And and one of the things that I remember again in my childhood which is why I'm acknowledging this is I was afraid to be myself and to act out at home. So it happened outside. Exactly. It happened 20s and 30s in my career in graduate school. So it it happened I did it other places which impacted my life versus being able to do it at home. Exactly. We don't want to create fear, but we also don't want to overpermit, you know, negative behavior without realizing that we are actually encouraging something that could be problematic later. So, I think you're right on the money. Create safety, create connection, be gentle, be conscious, but also create the boundaries without reaction, without fear, without anger. Gotcha. Thank you.

20:10 And then the other thing is like my wife gets upset more than me is that he doesn't seem to appreciate what he has. Like he has a lot of toys and Legos and he breaks them. He doesn't appreciate what he has because we give him Well, one of the things about appreciation is that it's relative, right? If he's already grown up with 1,000 things, he's not going to appreciate because he has too many things. People appreciate when they don't have something and then they get something. So, I would encourage you and your partner to stop buying him so many things to make him wait for it, to make him earn it, to make him want it because then he's going to exactly what my wife says. He should earn it instead of we just giving it. Right. Right.

20:55 Right. Okay. Well, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure talking to you. I hope this helped you a little bit. It helped me a great deal, Dr. Shafali. Thank you so much. you you acknowledged some of the concerns I had and you've kind of gave me a a path forward for my own development. What I'm learning is as I raise my son, I'm kind of raising myself and developing myself and that's amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Shapali. You know, I love when fathers come to me and they try to become more conscious parents. It's just so heartwarming to see more and more men embracing the message of conscious parenting. And of course, we don't need to give them too many bonus points for it, but it's always very refreshing for me when I get a concerned, conscious father who's willing to work on his anger issues, especially and is willing to break the generational trauma. You know, conscious parenting is always executed moment by moment. There is no perfect formula. There's no perfect destination. But as long as we are willing to look in the mirror just like this father was and examine where we are coming from especially if we are coming from trauma and be willing to try out new strategies, new tools, this is all we can ask from ourselves. We cannot expect to completely eliminate childhood trauma. We cannot completely do away with generational patterns. But we can take moment by moment small steps forward to creating a better connection with our children. And that's what this father was trying to do. So if you're a parent listening and you too are filled with so many questions and concerns and feel like you're not doing it right and are hesitant, I'm here to tell you that you don't have to get it all right all at once. Just take one step forward every day. Try one new strategy and each step forward will take you closer to that deeper, more connected relationship with your child. Don't feel the pressure to, you know, end all the generational curses all at once. Ask a question here and there. Read a page of a book another day. Do some journal writing on the third day. Meditate on the fourth day.

23:11 And together, all these strategies will take you toward that more conscious place. So, it's step by step, it's moment by moment. Coming up next, a mother who is having a difficult time being an empty neester. Joining me now is Stephanie. She's a mother of two older children and is having a difficult time being an empty neester. Hello, Stephanie. What's going on? Hi. Nice to meet you, Dr. Shafali. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

23:41 Yeah, so obviously it's new to me being an empty neester. I've been a mom for 21 years almost now. And my youngest just went off to college this year, too. So, you know, spending a lot of time with them and embracing the joy of them living intentionally together. And now that they're on their own, it's super exciting. But I think it's now trying to figure out who am I and what it is that brings me joy and just allows me to settle into me and not be afraid of what others think and just embracing this time. I think it's just an interesting time to be excited for your children to be adults and learn everything on their own and they still call home and all those things and I am adjusting but I feel like there is room for growth and I just want to learn how to be me. Oh that's a big one Stephanie.

24:32 So when you say I just want to learn how to be me what do you feel you are not being? So like what would you like to be and what do you feel you're not able to be because of your past your patterns? Yeah, that's a good question. I think living my life, you know, going back to childhood, I lived in a very controlled environment with strict rules and things that I had to sort of abide by and please. And there's a lot of coping mechanisms that I've done throughout life to keep me safe and to keep me off the radar, but also to be successful.

25:08 Also, I think there were a lot of good things in life that supported me, but I think some of those things are very limiting now. And I feel like I have always been very responsible and methodical with my decision-m being a first generation collegebound student and kind of living my life in a much different way than my parents did. I feel proud of those things, but I've always felt like I've been doing things for others. Wow, that's a big one. Have you read my book, A Radical Awakening?

25:37 Oh, I need to. Yes, you need to right now. As soon as you get off this, right? Yes. It's an awakening. You are going to be soon discovering a whole new you. And we always have an opportunity to awaken, but they're these pivotal markers in life, you know, transition times where we are particularly invited to awaken. And one of the big ones is when your last kid goes off to college, right? Right? When your last kid becomes 18 years old or a teenager, this means that your era as identifying mainly as a mother is coming to an end. Your era as being the mom, the mother, that focus has now come to a close and it feels so disorienting, doesn't it? It does. Yeah.

26:29 I think going from being this pleasing child to this mom who I'm raising my children to be live a much different life. I almost I don't know if the right word jealous or that I just aspire to be like them because I feel like they've gotten the childhood that I wish I would have had to feel more confident and secure in who I am to just be okay with me and make the decisions for me and not worry so much about what other people think. and I'm ready. So, you mentioned what other people think twice now. So, let me ask you, what are you afraid that other people will think about you that I'm not good enough and that, you know, whatever my ideas are may not be fruitful enough or what they want. But I know that those are just those limiting factors that keep me from doing and being who I want to be and stepping into those risky healthy, you know, things like putting my face out there and supporting my business or being on camera or doing something that's, you know, maybe a little outside the box, but that just is my decision. I want to travel. I want to not feel so limited to like there are these certain things in life that you do X, Y, and Z. Now I feel like those you know marriage and kids and job and okay and something so much more. So I feel like you know I do want to travel or live in a van and like go be in the world and you know not feel so attached to this one single life of what I was raised to do and be. You have a pretty amazing idea and you're saying all the right things, but we just have to get to the bottom of why it is you're so scared. So, when you say what other people think, give me two people that come to your mind when you think of others. Who are these others? Because we all say what other people think, but who do we really mean by that? Because so many of us feel bogged down and pressured by this idea of other people.

28:33 But who are these people? Are they strangers? Are they our parents? Our partner? Who are these people? So, I'm going to ask you in your life, when you think of other people, who are you talking about? Probably more strangers than anyone. Wow. Think about that, right? We're worried about what strangers will think. They won't even know where you are. Mhm. Or perhaps if you go on social media, like you said, go on video, maybe you're worried about feedback from strangers, right? Feedback from people who'll be on your accounts or see your videos. Yeah.

29:05 And I think a part of it is family or friends. You know, I don't necessarily know what they would say. And I don't think that they would be so critical to tear me down like I felt like maybe my dad did. But I think there's this just ingrained way of thinking that I know I need to get over that. My dad is no longer in my life and I have moved on and made so much growth and change. And why do I still let those thoughts limit me? Yeah. because they're so easily absorbed into your psychology now. It's so hard to separate who you are now from who he was. It fused. That's what happens in childhood. And that's why we are trying to be different with our children. It's fascinating that you know so much and you are so wise. You are just still terrified of taking that leap, right? In some ways, you're still being a good little girl to daddy.

30:00 You're still being obedient to daddy in a in a very small way. He's still winning in this dynamic. He's still here. He's right here, right now with us. And you know that he's not worthy of your energy or our time together because he was suffering, right? He wasn't even intentionally being evil. I say this to all adult children that we need to forgive our parents because they didn't know any better. And so giving someone who is so inadequate or unable to function the way we want so much energy and time in our present day life is really robbing ourselves of our own joy.

30:39 Right? You are giving your father so much importance. These are things he put in you. Fear of what other people will say. Fear of judgment. Fear of criticism. Right? For example, you know, let me ask you, how much criticism do you think I get from strangers every single day? Do you think I get a lot, a little, or medium? What do you think? Little to medium, right? And that is your illusion. But you think if you went out there, you would get a lot. Correct?

31:09 Yeah. Right. And now, let me tell you the truth. I do get a lot of criticism. A lot. like maybe one or two nasty DMs or an email or comments for sure at least 15 20 a day a day a day a day a day and when I give talks people are constantly criticizing my talks and of course a lot of people love them but a lot of people don't love them so what would you tell me if I came to you and I said you know what I I can't handle this I'm going to stop doing what I do I would say that's really unfortunate because I think you're a light in a lot of people's lives and you need to do you and not what other people.

31:51 Okay. Now, it's hard for you to hear that for yourself, right? Yeah. And I think it's this head heart thing like I'm intelligent enough to know the things, but it doesn't sink into the heart. Yes. Yes. You actually don't believe you. So, I should tell you that, too. Oh, great Stephanie. I really don't believe you because you're not speaking from your heart. See, this is the thing. You are telling me the right thing. You want me to believe it, but yet you don't believe it. And this is what we do even with our children. But you've done your children fine. But we do this with our own inner children. Our own inner children hear us talking. But we're not believing the positives. We're only believing the negatives. If you told your own inner child, you know what?

32:35 You're right. Don't go out there. You're not good enough. Just lay low. You would believe that. And the reason you believe that is because it mirrors your father's voice. Yeah. It echoes his sentiments. But you don't believe the positive voice because you never had a positive parent or he was not positive enough. So your real work before you move forward is to really reparent yourself with the right parent voice. And you haven't done that work yet. The toxic parent is still in you. And this is for everyone listening.

33:08 This is what I have to do on a daily basis. I have to observe my own toxic parenting voice inside and dissolve that voice and then raise the volume on the positive parents voice. And that is what is called reparing. Reparenting is making sure we have the right parental inner voice. And right now you still have a very toxic inner parent. And as long as you have that toxic inner parent still there, every few steps you're going to have to stop. Now, you gave your children a positive parent voice. Hopefully, they have a positive inner parent, but you still have a negative inner parent. That means you haven't parented yourself strong enough yet. Stephanie, you've been doing this with your children, but you haven't succeeded with yourself, have you? Right. So your job now, forget go living in a van and forget anything is to parent yourself with a soothing inner parent. And this is the road to healing for all of us adult children. We need to take care of our inner child.

34:17 And that's really the core of conscious parenting. Yeah. I think finding those outlets that are going to allow me that space and time to really be with me, right? That's the work is being with yourself and trying to move through that to find out like what are the things that bring me joy? Who am I? You know, and being free and sort of having that free spirited. My mom has that. I definitely desire to be more like that.

34:43 Not feeling so conscious or structured with the decision-m but allowing myself to just be me and it's okay. Yes. So, you need to be constantly telling yourself it's okay to be you. It's okay to take time out. It's okay to follow your dreams. You need to become that voice so powerfully within yourself that your father's toxic voice fades away. Yeah. The only thing blocking you is not even your father's voice is the immaturity of your own inner positive parent. Your own inner positive parent isn't yet strong enough. It's there but it's not yet strong. So you have to build the muscle of your own inner parent. Just like you have parented your real children, you have to parent the child within you. Yeah. What are practical steps? What are things to find me? Like what would you suggest? Well, you know, this whole idea of finding ourselves is a little bit misunderstood.

35:41 Sure. Because you're already there. You don't have to go anywhere to find you. You just have, right? It's all there. So what you have to do is take out all the shoods, all the fears of being disapproved, all the fears of not being a good girl. You have to burn that entire identity of the good little girl and embrace your freespirited, wild, untamed, unconstrained true self. So what are the steps? every single day. You can write on a book on the left side. All the things you think you should do and you're afraid to break out of. And then the antidote, the wild new self, the rebirth is on the right hand side. And then you say, "Okay, I'm going to try five things from this page." And each day you build your courage to do more and more of what you love. So, for example, the other day I was coaching a a woman who is slightly overweight and she was so conscious of going to the beach because she didn't want to be in a bathing suit. So, we wrote down exactly this on the left side. What are the shoulds? Oh, I should lose weight before I go in a bathing suit. I shouldn't eat like this. I should be ashamed of my body. I shouldn't show my curves. And then on the right side, what did she dream of? I dream of not giving a I dream of not caring. I dream of being in a bikini. I dream. So, we took one of those things and she went to the beach.

37:13 Even though she wore a whole one piece and not a bikini, she tried to go to the beach. And at the beach, I also trained her to be the soothing, loving parent. You're okay. No one is judging you. You're fine the way you are. You accept your curves. You accept your body. And I taught her to say beautiful things to herself. Now multiply that by 70 days and 90 days. Now you are building that muscle. Right. Yeah. So this is the practice. It's not conceptual. It's not an idea. It's not something you have to read about anymore. You have to do it every single day. It's like taking the puppy out for a walk. You take your own wild self out step by step. Yeah. Love it. So you realize it has nothing to do with being an empty neester. It has more to do with now you finally coming back to your own inner home. Yes. It's a great way of putting it. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's not about your children leaving home. It's about you coming back home. Yeah. Awesome, Stephanie. Thank you so much for sharing. Thank you. Oh, I could so relate to Stephanie's story. You know, motherhood just swallows us for so many years. And we often, many women especially, lose ourselves in the identity of being the perfect mother.

38:35 And years go by, our kids get grown up, and then when they finally leave the roost, we are left staring in the mirror unrecognizable to ourselves, not knowing who it is we are. And that is why it is so important that all along the way of parenting and when our children leave, we make sure that we are feeding our own souls, that we are flapping our own wings out in the skies and that we are tasting our own freedom. Because if we get completely lost, and not to say we can't recover ourselves later, but it just becomes all that more hard. And our children actually do not benefit when we are subsumed and suffocated and swallowed by the role of parent. Our children benefit the most from parents who are feeling full in their own lives, who are connected to their own joy and who are living their passion. So remember, you are serving nobody when you lose yourself. You are not being any more noble than any other person when you sacrifice yourself. Self-sacrifice is never a noble thing. So remind yourself with compassion and freedom that it's okay. You have the full right and permission to put yourself first even though you're a parent. To love yourself the most and to follow your own heart. No matter where you are on the parenting journey. Trust me, it's always easier when you travel this path with other parents. So if you're a parent of a toddler, if you're a parent of a teenager, it always helps if you're surrounded by others who are going through the same experiences. This is the reason I created an amazing new space for parents to connect, to get guidance from each other, and to grow with each other. It's called my conscious community, the conscious circle. The link is down below. If you are a parent who is looking for more connections, for guidance, for growth, for insights, join my community. For less than $24 a month, you will receive my teams and my guidance and insights, workshops and webinars, tools and strategies to help you on this path. We all know it's not easy. We could all use the help and the community. My community, the conscious circle, is open for you to join at any point on your path. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and I hope to see you on the next episode of parenting and you with me Dr.

41:06 Shafali. 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.