# Book club 27 **Creator:** Dr. Shefali **Platform:** youtube **Duration:** 26m **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs ## Summary In Book Club number 27, the discussion centers on the theme of releasing toxic parental relationships and embracing self-parenting as a pathway to emotional liberation. The speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's own power and responsibility in healing from childhood wounds, advocating for a shift from dependency on parents to self-reliance and inner nurturing. - Releasing toxic parents is essential for personal growth and emotional independence. - Individuals often transfer dependency from parents to surrogate figures in their lives. - Self-soothing and self-reassurance are crucial skills to develop for personal empowerment. - Acknowledging parents' humanity allows for forgiveness and the release of expectations. - Midlife crises can serve as catalysts for awakening and personal transformation. - Healing requires taking ownership of one’s childhood narrative and addressing unresolved wounds. - The process of re-parenting oneself is key to spiritual and emotional growth. - Encouragement to seek wisdom from various teachers and resources for inner liberation. ## Transcript [[0:01]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1s) hi guys come on in book club number 27 it is and i'm gonna follow up on yesterday's talk on releasing our toxic parents if we had them and becoming our own parent if we want to we're talking about my book a radical awakening book club number 27 come on in come on in guys and remember [[0:31]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=31s) if you don't want to be here you don't have to we don't need to hear negative comments just a reminder you can always scroll shut your phone off go on a walk and begin to love yourself that's always a good idea before you spew negativity and irrelevant comments on someone else's video a friendly reminder hi guys percy is so excited to get my book thank you i'm so excited for you to read [[1:03]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=63s) it welcome everyone to book club number 27. come on in just waiting for a few more people to come in and let's dive into our emboldened state of mind and what that requires how do we embrace an emboldened state of mind how do we understand that we are our own warriors [[1:34]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=94s) we are our own greatest allies we are our own greatest backers we are our own spine emotional spiritual psychological physical we can only have that awareness and we can only step into our emboldened state of leadership and warriorship when we release our parents [[2:06]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=126s) when we realize that they are no longer the cause of our misery they were the cause of our misery but the only way for us to step into our next awakened iteration is for us to release this idea that our parents owe us anything colleen bought four books i'm so excited for you and your friends so this switch can happen to you when you're in your 20s it can happen to you when you're in your [[2:37]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=157s) 60s or it could never happen and as long as it doesn't happen in some way you will remain in a childlike dependency not on them you will remain in a childlike dependency on others who become your surrogate mom and dad don't worry this you may be sitting there and going oh i live 5 000 miles away from my parents what is she talking about i don't even speak to my parents i don't know what she's talking about i [[3:06]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=186s) am a strong adult um i don't know because it's not about your real parents now it's this idea that you are still obligated to meaning others are obligated to give you something and you are obligated back to them that you have a dependency on anyone that you are waiting for others to fill your holes all of this of course doesn't happen with your original parents for many it [[3:36]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=216s) does but you've just transferred this onto your next relationships so they are your surrogate mommy or daddy or big sister so the first thing we have to understand is that we have to become our own parents so when you need soothing or you need reassurance who are you going to turn to your own inner mommy you have to grow that mommy up you have to become the parent you never [[4:07]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=247s) had you need to soothe yourself you need to reassure yourself you need to bolster yourself you need to rely on yourself you have that power inside you you just have never touched it because you're still in your mind enmeshed with the idea that somebody on the outside has greater power than you aka your parents and then all your surrogate relationships that have replaced your parents so this idea in your head [[4:38]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=278s) that you are still in a childlike relationship with others keeps your power really small and you never really grow up true inner work requires that you need to wake up so here by journey says working through this book has made me realize even though i've done over 20 years of therapy i still have a lot to learn fabulous charlotte downloaded the book it's amazing we are on book club number 27 of a radical awakening buy it for your [[5:06]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=306s) girlfriends buy it for anyone who is stumbling in their lives really buy it for anyone you know who's in their 40s and up because in the 40s we have what is aptly called a midlife crisis you know before i turned 40 i was like ah what a stupid cultural cliche you know how dare they call the midlife crisis of midlife crisis it's just another decade until i reached midlife i was like oh now i get it it is a [[5:36]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=336s) freaking crisis and it is absolutely essential to have a midlife crisis okay we can talk about that tomorrow see how easily i get distracted by my own words but i have learned to recenter myself so here i am back again okay so chapter 24 talks about embracing the inner parent okay as we evolve we forgive our parents for their humanity [[6:07]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=367s) this is the goal guys okay hello we have to forgive our parents for their humanity we release them from our expectations and need do you think you can do that guys we activate our own inner mothering hello yes you can you can do this and we parent the wounds they left bereft and bare and soon we realized that we were our own healers all along [[6:40]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=400s) i tell all my chronologically adult clients those over 21 that their ultimate healing will only occur once they move beyond the limits of their childhood and the parenting they received you know it's almost like the entire point of being here is to repeat the childhood patterns to one day have a big fat wake-up call which is typically in your mid-life when everything falls apart and those bloody children walk away as if you didn't do anything [[7:12]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=432s) for them and the husband is fat and balding or your wife your lover has left you or whatever you know whether you're straight or gay and you're like hello i am at what you call rock bottom so typically at rock bottom then you have a choice to stay crawling on the gutter floors or to say this is my turning point this is when i finally finally thankfully wake up and you do need a teacher [[7:44]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=464s) you do need a catalyst okay you do need the light ahead of you so not saying i'm the catalyst or i'm the light but people like me who do teachings like mine go find your person you need your person to wake you up so my person was meditation okay my person was a technique but that guy there the buddha who apparently created this form of meditation called vipassana [[8:14]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=494s) that's what i do okay so i've been doing that since i was 21. so the technique of meditation i know i'm digressing i know i'm digressing the technique of meditation is my teacher and then i've i've followed eckhart tolle who has endorsed a radical awakening and my other books and he's my teacher too so find your one or two people whose words whose ways whose [[8:44]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=524s) intellect matches your can talk sing to your soul yes and take everything that they offer and go on a quest because when you hit rock bottom you have a choice as i said stay crawling on the cockroach filled gutter floors cockroach filled meaning your ego filled cockroach inner mind or elevate and to elevate you have to wake up and go what the f am i doing bloody recreating my patterns from childhood [[9:16]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=556s) and then i'm so sorry to say you're going to look in the mirror and go what i just did the same one pattern you're not even that creative but it's okay you laugh at yourself you love yourself and then when you hear my words let me tell you nobody is really creative i me in my relationships oh my god i am so predictable it is so scary i literally do the same thing over and over and over again as if [[9:43]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=583s) i haven't had an inner parent takes a long time to wake up you keep thinking it is in me it isn't me it's jack and then after jack you try susie you're like you know what i'll try another gender and then you go for susie and then you're like damn it it's was again so you're like you know what they both lived in america i'm going to move to afghanistan in afghanistan pattern repeats again it takes many times [[10:08]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=608s) because we are a little bit narcissistic and arrogant we're like it can't be me it can't be me and the other is typically a fool of some dimension proportion because they're unconscious too so you're confused is it them or is it me is it them or is it me and then after like a mid-life crisis after in midlife you begin to go hmm is it me and then the walls shatter and then the the ceiling [[10:40]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=640s) explodes and then you're you're catapulted into galaxy and you're floating and going what the hell if you're a parent you're very very blessed because right from the start you will be like i'm already effing up my kid is two months old i'm already messing up so that's why parenthood is a shocked circuit ride to a midlife crisis in your 30s if you want a short circuit ride to insanity and rock bottom have children [[11:11]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=671s) they will help you get to rock bottom really fast and i'm there to help because you'll come to me saying what's wrong with my kid and i'll be there to tell you it's you it's you and then we can do the work right away so by time you hit midlife crisis you're ready to be rebirthed but it's okay for those who haven't had children or their children are angels what crazy children are angels but some people [[11:36]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=696s) really have angelic children who don't let them hit rock bottom i don't know what kind of children those are what a waste the only point of having children is so they wake you up so if you have angel children who don't wake you up it was a waste of time they just took your money with superstars was so boring your ego got bigger you got worse so please angel children stop it what are you doing you're not [[12:03]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=723s) waking your parents up no point of view just kidding okay so back to the inner parent so here's what i say to release our parents as children we often don't recognize that our parents are human fallible and ordinary even at times fumbling and messed up i don't know at what age you realize that your parents were so human now here's the thing okay and this breaks my heart [[12:35]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=755s) if you realize your parents were human before you were seven that means you were already in part trauma you understand what i'm saying if you figured out that your parents are really effed up before the age of seven that means your bubble of your naive beautiful childhood that you deserved was burst way before it was meant to [[13:09]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=789s) and for those children right now if you're here listening to me and you were like i don't know about you sweetie but i figured this out when i was five years old i realized i was in a messed up house by the time somebody just wrote i think by four that means you have a lot of pain okay i'm saying this with beauty compassion and great humility for you don't underestimate the pain you have experienced because children are not supposed to [[13:41]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=821s) have their bubble burst by incompetent inefficient chaotic parents till they are ready so typically the trajectories that you get ready to discover your parents neuroses and insanities and gross idiocs by the time you're a teenager right and then your life shatters my daughter had a big moment of shattering i think she was 17 and a half when she [[14:13]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=853s) when i when i kept a secret from her and she found it out such a stupid thing but she was devastated and acted like i had committed a crime because that was when her bubble burst for the first time really big time so you want your kids bubble to burst later you know and you don't want it to burst early so the earlier it bursts means that your parents were kind of messy messy screwed up okay so it's going to be harder for you [[14:46]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=886s) to have wholeness because your ego your false self is stronger when your parents are more dysfunctional earlier right parents need to know if they're having children wait to be really stupid till your kids are at least teenagers because kids cannot take it don't have children if you're a bloody mess but no one listens no one listens when i get a pregnant woman in my conference i literally want to sit with her and [[15:17]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=917s) take her to my house and keep her in like a glass cage because she's a specimen because no one comes pre-pregnancy to me they only come when they're in rock bottom this is the nature of us humans we do not wake up until we hit rock bottom okay so i hope your rock bottom is coming soon so that you can wake up and enter your own wholeness okay so we have this fantasy this is in the ideal world yes as in the [[15:47]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=947s) ideal world as children we want to we should have the fantasy that our parents are omniscient and omnipotent so if by the age of seven you've already realized that hello my parents are bloody fools sorry or in a lot of pain or really messed up or really invested in their own ego and i have to do all the work i have to parent my parents you you realize very early i'm living in hell and let me survive for those children [[16:16]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=976s) they learn to survive so young that their ego to survive is so strong that in relationships they have a really hard time feeling their feelings being vulnerable taking action sometimes they are either super achievers or super passive because they've had so much trauma so we need to understand that okay but in the typical world around teenagehood is when the veneer of perfection gets chipped away we catch glimpses of our parents [[16:47]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1007s) ordinariness typically we get turned off like my daughter's completely turned off me she's like oh you're so typical you're so human i'm like what do you expect she's like like i literally left the pedestal into the gutter i'm like can i come to normal no from the pedestal i went to the gutter but that's just the fate of many mothers we're not allowed to f up you know so she's like you have betrayed me you are like a typical person [[17:17]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1037s) am and it's good that our children withdraw from us in teenage hood good they see our humanity because you don't want them to have us on a pedestal because we're not perfect but we have to do it at the right time right and it naturally happens in teenager trust me but we don't want to do it in their childhood because in their childhood we are their safety bearers we are their nurturers we are their everything so we have to show up right so we have [[17:43]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1063s) to be present and it's a bloody toll on us and every parent knows how hard it is i'll talk about parenting in a few weeks don't worry so the teenager gets turned off okay we know what happens with teenagers they want to leave the roots they want to leave their parents they want to get emancipated my daughter was like i should emancipate myself i said go ahead please emancipate me you emancipate yourself emancipate me woman okay so then as we grow up though we [[18:11]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1091s) have all these issues with our parents mainly resentment mainly anger mainly we have dysfunctional emotional connections with others because these parents have created such wounds in us so our healing will only begin when we begin to own our childhood narrative and we own that our parents have created these wounds but the answer is not to go back to our parents you know many therapists encourage you [[18:41]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1121s) know call your mom heal it with your mom have a conversation and i say sure that will be great icing on the cake but that's not relevant really because you have to do your own inner work because we cannot depend on our parents consciousness to release us from our past we have to release ourselves from our past our parents cannot release us so as we release our parents from being parents [[19:12]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1152s) we have to understand that our parents don't have to be parents for life there's an expiration date i've told my daughter now finished i am looking forward to the end of my being a parent i can be your i can be your best friend if you want i can be your sister energy i can be your guide i can be a usher but your parent soon in your 20s come on you have to be your own parent [[19:36]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1176s) now i'll always be there but i i'm done carrying the responsibility of your well-being of your safety you have to take charge of that right so part of this is parents need to release their children like hey i'm always there but i can't like be there 24 7 doing your laundry and fixing your your woodwork you need to do it you need to fix your own toilet okay so if the parent isn't willing to release their children of course the [[20:05]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1205s) children will have a hard time releasing many parents have a hard time but many children have a hard time so both have to do it together we have to let our parents now release from the task of being parents we should not expect them to be looking for out for us to look after us to nurture us to validate us we need to let them become their own people now mom dad you've done your job however [[20:30]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1230s) well or however not well is not for me to judge i know you were in a lot of pain and you were broken and you did the best you can i'm so grateful to you thank you for birthing me i'm honored this is i own my past i own my story i own the legacies of of trauma we have come from and here we are and i'm now ready to take the baton and move forward i release you from being a parent i [[20:55]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1255s) would love you to be part of my life to the degree that we both agree within the sanctified boundaries that we both agree on you can choose i can choose we're free bon voyage to your next journey parent and i am going on my next journey i have left the child role and i'm entering the adult role so we should have a ceremony really for this where we release our parents like instead of graduating our children [[21:20]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1280s) can our children graduate us like hello so i think we need to just do it for ourselves as parents so i'm planning to do it very soon my daughter's 18 hopefully by 20 i will graduate myself from being a parent into parent is in my past and now i have to create the next free from parenting energy space it will be called for now free from parenting free from parenting f free from ffp that's where i'm going next i don't know [[21:50]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1310s) about you parents but you have to graduate yourself if you don't graduate yourself no one's coming to graduate your children let me tell you will try to never graduate you okay they'll always be wanting mommy and daddy because they want to cling but it is not good for them to cling you need to set them on their way okay you can keep clinging and letting them cling to twenty after twenty bye-bye they got to go they got to go like we are the only [[22:15]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1335s) species on earth who do this nonsense blinky clingy and measurement rubbish no you can be there but don't parent them like you used to meaning don't child them don't baby them don't toddler them don't over manage them you get my point so then the children you if you are now an adult can you please release your parents in the way i said i gave you a whole text message to text them right now mom and dad thank you so much i [[22:44]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1364s) appreciate you i love you i see where you came from i see where we all came from generations of trauma i understand you were broken you did the best you can now i'm broken thank you very much but i'm going to do the best i can to disrupt my patterns peace i release you you no longer need to be a parent so stop having guilt i will stop having resentment i will try very hard and i am going to release you you did [[23:07]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1387s) the best you can the goal of this life my dear parents is to mess up to wake up i am now going to wake up i'm going to be the pattern disruptor in my family okay so in but listen this doesn't even need to be done with any parent it needs to be done within you within you you need to wake up to your own inner mom there is no outer mom there is no outer death so on page 321 [[23:37]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1417s) i talk about becoming your own parent releasing your parents is a huge step toward emotional liberation but this is the only first step after this you know me i always have like ah but don't don't think you can just release them that's only the first step after this comes the real work of stepping into the role they didn't fully complete can you imagine first you have to release them okay what are you saying dr shafali first i have [[24:04]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1444s) to let go of all the resentment blame and pain then i need to do the work they didn't do what the hell but yes if you love yourself you have to we need to re-parent ourselves but we need to do so from the point of view as an adult reading my book i say see how clever i am is part of your re-parenting process it really is this book is going to mother you somebody get left a review saying it is [[24:31]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1471s) the mother of all parenting books because she understood it is a book to help you re-mother yourself i'm just going to tell you like it is it is what it is by looking at yourself and doing your own inner work you are releasing your parents of the responsibility of your emotional growth and taking charge of yourself this is the pathway of truly adulting from little girl to awakened woman do you want to be awakened [[25:03]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1503s) re-parenting is the key to our spiritual and emotional expansion it means we need to start addressing those parts of ourselves that grew up with a false idea that we were not worthy valid or significant we heal the little child within us by recognizing this little girl or boy is only an echo of voices from our past not who we were as in who we are as an adult today these little boys and girls are phantoms [[25:33]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1533s) based on our past time to release the phantoms of your past and buy and read and review a radical awakening buy it for your girlfriends buy it for anyone who's in their midlife buy them this gift it is the gift of their inner liberation please don't buy them shoes i mean of course you can do whatever the hell you want but how about give people the gift of inner liberation if not my book other wisdom teachers [[26:06]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcAFPbdcaFs&t=1566s) books there are many other wisdom teachers my favorites are eckhart perma children byron katie those are my three most favorite okay see you when i see you bye guys thank you for joining me