Conscious Parenting with Dr. Shefali

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1:11 Start your journey today at nextlevelsoul.tv. The views, opinions, and statements expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or positions of Next Level Soul, its host, or any of the companies they represent. Now let's dive into today's episode. I'd like to welcome to the show Dr. Shefali. How are you doing, Dr. Shefali?

1:33 Thanks. Thanks for having me.

1:35 Thank you so much for coming. First and foremost, I am a huge fan of your work. My wife and I, when we had our kids, we read your books because it's crazy being a parent.

1:48 Yes, yes, yes.

1:51 And especially when you have multiple kids, it's very great. But we were really attracted to your your method of consciousness, because obviously we're all about consciousness. But let's just go back for a minute. What was your childhood like that kind of was the breeding ground for this work? Because I'm assuming it wasn't a conscious upbringing the way you do it, or was it?

2:17 Well, you know, I don't think my parents set out to be conscious parents. They hadn't studied to be conscious parents. but I was just fortunate to have a mother especially who was able to effortlessly connect, deeply connect with me. And that could just be because we were just more aligned in our temperaments or, but because I had such a close relationship with her and I still do, and was allowed to be seen to a large degree, which many children, can't really say that they've been seen by their parents, really seen. But I felt really seen and I still feel really seen by her. And that has, you know, shown me, revealed to me that that simple but profound depth of connection can immunize a being, an

3:17 adult from so much. So in my childhood, I experienced sexual molestation by people. I mean, it's not an unusual thing in India. But that depth of connection with her allowed me to be quite sturdy in the face of it and quite resilient despite it. So that led me to really deeply study and appreciate how protective that core, deep relationship can be. And that's why I teach conscious parenting.

3:52 And I always say it takes one conscious parent. You don't need a band, an army, a village. Of course, that would be all amazing. But one parent being conscious, one steady caregiver being conscious can turn a child's life around.

4:08 Is it because you felt that you had someone at your back? Is that what it like? You really felt comfortable and safe within that? that gave you that strength to go through all the turmoil you're doing?

4:22 Yes, I think just being seen, and I use these words, you know, they sound like such trivial words, being seen. You know, what does that really mean to be seen by somebody who you care about? It's to be seen as whole, to be seen as complete, not to be seen as a project in the making, not to be seen as somebody you're trying to evolve into somebody else.

4:45 So my mother... saw me as a whole being and still sees me as a whole being and didn't impose too much on who I need to be for her to love me completely. And her joy was not dependent on my becoming something else. And I think that gives a child or any human being a deep-rooted sense of I am enough and I am worthy and I am complete.

5:13 And so then when harm comes your way, you're able to depersonalize it and not take it in that it must be something I did. So even at a young age when I was molested, I mean, it wasn't a continuous thing. It happened intermittently. But even the first time I was able to say to myself, this is not about me. This has nothing to do with me. This person is a troubled human being. This person is a jerk, whatever I said to myself to protect myself, but it was true. And because I didn't take it in deeply, I was able to internally fight against it and not let it shape my worldview. I'm sure it did shape my worldview to some degree, but it did not drastically take me off my center. I was able to come back to center.

6:03 But the concept of being seen is probably one of the most profound things a human being looks for. Any age is being seen because that's the core of a lot of the troubles on this planet is people acting out because they didn't get the love or they didn't feel seen. That's why in that movie, and I'm a filmmaker, so I will make movie references every once in a while, Avatar, where they go, I see you.

6:25 Yeah.

6:26 I see you. And that's taken from indigenous cultures as well. It's a very powerful statement. And to embed that in a child who's still forming and still being basically programming, they're trying to figure out the world. That's a profound, simple, but profound thing to do.

6:44 So if as a parent, you enter the journey with one mandate, not that you have to raise a successful adult, not that you have to send them to Ivy League schools, not that you have to provide mansions and boats and trips abroad is that I need to be available enough within myself. That means I have to have resources and the space available within myself empty enough that I can receive this being and allow them to be seen for who they are without me being so insecure and me being so needy that I keep asking them to become something for me, right? And because it's a hierarchical relationship, other relationships are more parallel. Other relationships are more on the same plane, right? With your partner, it's on the

7:36 same plane. But because this is a hierarchical relationship, the child is your putty, is your prey. So therefore, all the more reason that you create the space for them to emerge without your imposition and expectations. Now, in a parallel relationship, adult to adult, there's a different kind of agreement that happens because it's not hierarchical. Both people can come together to create a third space together, right? And they can both say, these are my needs, these are my agreements, these are my offerings, these are my requirements.

8:16 And they can both do that with some degree of similar commitment. awareness and consciousness. But in this hierarchical, deeply hierarchical relationship, very skewed and asymmetrical, the child is begging you, kind of, to give it space to be seen. It cannot give itself space because it doesn't have that power.

8:39 It cannot give you space. So the only person in power is the parent. And that's why I do this work because it's such a fragile, asymmetrical relationship. that the power is in the parents' hands. And if the parent doesn't have the consciousness, which most parents don't, they don't enter the journey with the mandate of consciousness. They enter the journey with the mandate of, I'm going to create this child. And they don't realize, in the most subtle of ways, they keep maneuvering and contouring and puppeteering this being to match who they need for them to feel okay, which they've never done and worked on to complete in their own life, right?

9:22 Don't you find it that I always tell people like, you know, we're born into this life and it's insane. This is an insane reality that we are walking in and we're trying to figure it out. All of us, every single human being is just trying to figure it out. So we tell ourselves stories about what the world is, the realities, the rules, all this stuff. And everyone has different stories. And sometimes when your story doesn't match stories, we have to fight. Or there's wars. That's how wars start because I don't believe in your story, my story.

9:46 So with consciousness and with parenting, all we're doing is there is no handbook other than your books, obviously. But generally, we're not handed a handbook on parenting. And you're just doing... the best you can based on what you've learned up until that point in your life. And we model most of the times, even on a subconscious basis, our caretakers, our parents, who were also screwed up and didn't know what they were doing because they didn't have a plan.

10:17 And so on and so on and so on. So to change into this idea of conscious parenting now, it's almost like you're breaking a cycle of this kind of parenting. And then like, you know, with our children, you know, we read your books and we were already leaning towards conscious parenting. And before we even read the book, because that's where we were coming from. Because we both said like, we love our parents and God bless them, but they were doing the best job they could. But there's things that, we would like to change in the way we want to raise our children. And I'm sure our children will do the same thing about us. But can you explain to people what, because we're talking about conscious parenting, can

11:00 you explain exactly what conscious parenting is? Because right now it's very esoteric.

11:03 Yeah, well, in a nutshell, you know, I don't have an elegant elevator speech, but in a nutshell, it's to wake up to your own inner baggage and your own inner child and raise your own inner child and work on your own inner self, in a nutshell, it's always being aware that you are going to operate out of unconsciousness. See, most people don't want to admit that for the most part they are in their unconscious, self-protective, egoic state. And they just think, well, I'm just the way I am, or I'm just saying what I see. But They don't want to go deep inside to see how they are also imprinted by their parents. You have to be imprinted.

11:52 Of course.

11:52 Right.

11:53 And even though it may have worked for you in your life and you're very successful or you've achieved a lot, it doesn't mean that you don't have to look at your imprints. And there's always a better way. that you can be a better human being first for yourself and then for others. And you don't have to be a better human being for others. You don't have to. I mean, it's not a requirement, but the moment you try to become a more evolved being for yourself, you will become a better being for others. But you have to be deeply in your heart. You cannot be in your mind, right?

12:28 And most of us operate from this very intellectual, stoic, you know, very logically distant, you know, analytical way, which has its benefits, but too much of that keeps you away from your heart. And you're not in your heart for yourself either. You think you are, but you're not in your heart. And I think when parents are not in their heart, and again, that also sounds like such a wishy-washy, you know, woo-woo kind of thing.

12:59 You're in the right place.

13:01 But being in the heart means not coming to the child with ideas for how life should be for them or how they should express themselves or what it looks like to be happy for them or what success looks like for them. You don't get to define that because that's all coming from the mind. But from the heart means to be really connected to what is showing up in your child right now.

13:29 Now, you're a trans psychologist, right? from my psychology classes I took in college, it's not very heart based. It's very head based. But you also brought in Eastern spirituality. How did you, at what point did you, when you were going through your studies going, this is great, there's value here, but this is not the whole picture. And then you brought in Eastern spirituality. When did that, was that just because you were raised in that culture? that you said, wait a minute, I remember some things and you started to package it all together. Is that the way it worked?

14:01 Well, you know, Western psychology focuses a lot on your wounds and your inner child. They don't even use these words, but for simplicity's sake, on the wounds that were created in childhood and let's analyze and let's find out who upset you and let's look at your patterns and let's look at your history, right? So it stays very much in the form-based relationship reality of your life, like what happened?

14:29 What are the patterns? Who's bothering you? So it's very important that we focus on that. However, we can't lock in there, right? We can't lock in there. And there's a whole other way to look at life, which Eastern spirituality gives, which is more on the formless level, right? So if you want to call it big mind level.

14:49 And the big mind is that we are holding on to protection to our ego masks because we don't believe we are worthy and complete without that mask. And if we could just understand that in our essence, in our formless essence, We are eternally worthy. We don't have to cling to these masks of author or wife or parent or lawyer. Anything that we're holding on to, we're holding on to because it gives us this identity.

15:29 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

15:39 And at the end of the day and the end of the life, we don't need this identity. It is an illusion. So I named my daughter Maya, which means illusion, to remind me that we're holding on to this because we want something, but we believe we want it for the wrong reason. Actually, we don't even need it. And when you can touch both the form, right, work on your patterns, work on your wounds, work on your inner child, look at how your ego is showing up. But then on the big level, on your big mind as well, which is that we don't need any of it. Drop it.

16:14 Just let it all go and see what happens and just release it. And there's a magic to that as well.

16:21 And then the danger is also when people are so identified with this mask, this character that they're playing, when they bring the child into it, like they need to achieve this for me. they need to get straight A's from me. It's not about them. I need you to be a great basketball.

16:38 Player or football player.

16:39 Yeah, it's a whole movie.

16:41 Right. We are the movie directors in this movie and we cast the children in roles that they don't.

16:46 That they did not sign up for or cast for. They didn't sign up for.

16:48 Right. But we don't want to watch that it was a movie. And we don't want to own that we're trying to keep on fitting people into our movie.

16:57 Right?

16:58 We're always trying to recruit. And the beauty of Eastern spirituality is although it's very hard to live there all the time, but when you have that mindset at some point in your background, in the corners of your psyche, it's like, oh, all of this is a game and all of this can be let go off. And if I can live without this idea that I need to have something and just release it and enter my heart, magic can happen. We get so stuck in the weeds, which it's important, but we get locked in there. And Western psychology just keeps us locked in there. But Eastern spirituality gives us a formless way to live, which is I have no label anymore. I don't need anymore. I don't want anymore. I can just, I am whole and

17:47 complete as I am. And I'm going to attract whatever shows up from my essence, not my ego.

17:53 Well, that's not what Madison Avenue and all the ads say.

17:56 Right, exactly. But they have to keep you going in your ego and keep telling you that you can be more and do more so that they can sell you more.

18:05 Right.

18:05 So Eastern spirituality is not good for capitalism.

18:09 It is.

18:09 But Western psychology is. Western psychology is stay locked in to your suffering and let's keep bothering mom and dad and blaming them for what they didn't do and And let's be depressed and let's take medicine. Now, I'm not making light of people's trauma.

18:25 Absolutely.

18:26 People do have trauma. It's legitimate. In fact, I said we should uncover our patterns. We should pay homage to our pain and heal that pain. But we cannot stay locked in there. And Eastern spirituality gives you the unlocking key there. which says at the end of the day, you have to own your own happiness. You have to own your own movie. You have to own your own destiny.

18:52 And none of this really matters. It's whatever you're thinking matters so much is not the answer to your wholeness. Your wholeness lies within you. And keeping both perspectives is a beautiful way to live. But you have to have both.

19:08 And when you were saying, yeah, everyone always like, everyone blames your parents for you. You know, like, yeah, it's me. And a lot of times you see people like, you know, it's because my mom and dad did this. I'm like, you're 55, dude. What is wrong with you, bro? Let it go. That's one thing. But the other thing is as a parent, only as a parent have I realized, oh, my God, my parents just did the best they could with the information. and the experiences that they had at the time.

19:35 We're all doing the best we can with the consciousness we had, so.

19:38 Right, you can't blame yourself.

19:39 You can't blame, just the other day, my daughter said, you know, but mom, you keep making this one mistake that she thinks I keep making, I keep falling into the trap, into the ditch. And so she said, but mom, you're not like changing. And I said, at some point, Maya, you have to just realize that that's who I am.

19:58 I'm going to keep making that mistake. But look at my intention. Look at my heart. Look at my essence, like I'm looking at yours. And you're 23 and at some point, since it's not causing catastrophic damage to you, right? It's just something you get annoyed by. You just have to understand that you are also co-creating the misery by keeping on harping about what I'm doing. You just have to let it go at some point because this is my limitation.

20:28 I mean, you can't blame a frog for being a frog. Not that you're a frog, but you know what I mean?

20:32 Now, if it was catastrophic damage, then we can address it. But if it's just, you know, oh, I don't like that you do this.

20:39 Why do you laugh like this?

20:40 Why do you keep saying this when you know that annoys me? Okay, because I'm trying and I want to keep showing up. But at some point, adult children need to, you know, kind of cut their losses and start owning their story. And this doesn't mean, again, that their parents were not traumatizing. I'm not taking away from anyone's pain.

21:04 But at some point, we have to turn the spotlight back on ourselves and reclaim our joy.

21:11 And sometimes I've accepted a lot of the things that my parents, who they are. And I was angry for so long when I was a younger person. Like, Not angry at my parents, but just like things that were just like, I can't, I can't, I can't deal with this. Like we're so different. We're so different, far apart. And now as I've gotten older, I look, I just talk to them. I'm like, that's okay. If you want to watch Fox News all day, God bless you. You know, if you want to live in a world of fear, that's okay. One of my parents is like that. The other one isn't. And it annoys me. Yeah. But I know I can't. That's just them. That's the limitation of what they can do.

21:54 They've gone as far as they can. And there's such beauty in realizing that even if they changed, you would not be any better because you would have done the work yourself. Like we think that, oh, if this person just changes for me. And this person just sees me, I'll be better. You won't be better. For two days, you'll be better. Because ultimately you have to be better for yourself. And there's such a liberation in realizing that even the utopia that you were hoping for is actually not going to be making a huge difference. You have to feel it within you on your own.

22:32 Well, and this goes into a broader spiritual topic, which is looking for the answers outside of yourself. if you look for the answers outside of yourself, you are destined to fail. Only when you look inward and start doing the work inside and start asking the questions inside, that's where the true answers are because they can't take that from you. If it's outside of you, it can be taken away.

22:52 And the beauty of these chaotic, dysfunctional, anxiety-producing relationships, even with your parents, the beauty of them is that they take you back home. Ultimately, because you don't get your needs met, it's such a great thing that you don't get your needs met. It's really an amazing thing in a way, but you don't want to do it with your children too young. Because when children don't get their needs met too young, they don't have the faculties and the wherewithal to go get their own needs met, and they don't have the brain-functioning to look within yet. They haven't developed metacognition. They haven't developed theory of mind. They're not there yet. That's why in the early years from zero to 15, 16, you want to be giving your

23:38 children that stability and security. But after a certain point, if they have a foundation, then the other relationships in your life that don't meet your needs are actually just waking you up, just waking you up to do the work on your own. And it is exhilarating when you reach the point and you realize, wow, this is not gonna meet my needs. Either your career, your purpose, whatever you thought was going to meet your needs, and now you have to go within and look within. It's a gut-wrenching realization, but a liberating realization because you've been knocking on the wrong door. And the door you had to knock on was yourself. And that's where relationships can be such amazing mirrors, as gut-wrenching as they can be. The

24:31 imperfect ones, right? There's no perfect one, but especially imperfect ones are asking you to fill that need within yourself and stop begging yourself, and belaboring the relationship to meet your need. So it is with every adult human, right? Even with your parents. After some point, you've begged, you've been angry, you've bothered them. You've said, you don't watch Fox News. How can you be a racist? How can you be controlling? But you have to realize that they have to live in their consciousness in the way that they can and must. And you have to now awaken to your own healing journey within. And you can do it.

25:14 That's the most amazing thing. You think you can't do it till you get that love from your parent or that partner. You think you need it so badly. But the most beautiful thing, and I've seen it with so many clients, is that when they wake up to their own healing, I mean, the phoenix rises and it is so liberating for them to realize, oh, the thing I was thinking would fill me and fulfill me and complete me.

25:42 was never going to, even if it tried to, it would never because I needed to do that for myself.

25:48 Very true. Very true. I heard that the first seven years are the most, some of the most important years of a child's life, because that's where the programming of the story that they tell themselves, they pick up whatever, whatever we're, I use the word programming and that sounds nefarious, but imprinting just by them being around us, they see things, they say, So that's where they get the ideas of like, if you're around saying, money is so hard to get, oh my God, money is so hard to get.

26:16 You are their first introduction to the world. So if you have a parent who's stressed, neglectful, an addict, dysfunctional, traumatized, then you think that is the world. And that child does one of two, three things. One is they become a strictly lone wolf, like F everybody. I'm just going to do this on my own. I can't rely on unreliable caregivers. The world is an unsafe place. I will not get my needs met. I have to get my own needs met on my own, right? That's one way.

26:49 The other child becomes an inveterate, addicted people pleaser where they're constantly shape-shifting to get crumbs. Like, okay, what do I need to do to get crumbs? And I'll do anything. You want me to be a racist like you? I'll be a racist like you. You want me to be a bigot? I'll be a bigot. As long as I feel like I can belong with you. Or I'll just freaking go off the rails myself because I can't manage this.

27:12 So I'll become an addict just like you. Or I'll become an addict.

27:14 I'll marry that.

27:15 Or I'll marry an addict. Because I need to numb this pain. I need to numb this pain. Or numb it through achievement. I could also numb it very beautifully, positively. I could numb it through becoming a star or a celebrity or an achiever.

27:29 And that works out well all the time. And that works out well because.

27:32 And I'm not saying every celebrity does that or every addict is coming.

27:35 No, of course not.

27:36 But there's something there when you are hungry for a lot, right? When people are hungry for a lot, and what is a lot? It's subjective. But really, like, okay, so we have our basic needs, our basic things that we need for survival. And then, okay, we have 10,000 more luxurious things because we live in this modern world. But then people are wanting more than even that.

27:59 It's insane.

28:01 So at that point... you have to realize that they're actually traumatized children.

28:06 Oh, no question.

28:07 When they have gone... It's a trauma. To want to be a hundred millionaire... is a little bit of a sickness.

28:14 Because I don't get up out of bed for less than 50 million. That's just me. But no, but that's one of the things.

28:20 I always say 50 million should be the max. I mean, if you want to be. What are you going to do?

28:26 How is your life changing from 20 to 50? Really, not a whole lot.

28:29 Okay, but if you want to, because you're so smart.

28:32 Sure, whatever.

28:32 And you've got this work ethic and you're so genius.

28:35 God bless.

28:36 Go for it. But after that, to want to want more is a sickness. It's a disease.

28:42 So these billionaires who are getting close to trillionaire status... They have got to be. They're so.

28:49 And the money is in their bank and not in the World Bank and not in the children's bank is a disease. But our culture is so hungry for this kind of adulation. We are hungry to adulate these people. We want to adulate these people because we believe in the adulation of these people, somehow we will also... attracted because if we're hungry for it means then we can be in that same stream of consciousness and attracted in ourselves.

29:18 We don't realize how sick we are to adulate that, how sick we are to adulate diamonds and rubies and emeralds beyond a point which have been mined at the slaughter of children and the earth. We have a twisted way of adulating people for the wrong reasons while the teachers and the doctors and the rescue workers are not adulated, right?

29:45 So we're adulating and worshiping mass celebrity, mass success at the hands of what? At the hands of, you know, slave labor and the slaughter of the earth. Mm-hmm. So we have to ask ourselves, we can't keep blaming the celebrity or the trillionaire. We have to ask, who are we adulating? And why are we adulating the false gods, right?

30:07 And come to terms with our own aspirations. How much is enough, right?

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30:25 Yeah. And that's, I mean, it's one of, I just like, how many, how much more do you need?

30:30 How much? I mean, I ask that question to myself every day. How much more do I have reached my max too? Like how much more do I need?

30:36 I'm good.

30:37 Yeah.

30:37 Like if I'm good, my family is good. I've got more than enough for this generation, maybe and possibly the next generation if I wanted to. At a certain point you just go, well, what's the point? For me, it's always been like, I always tell people, I'm like, money is not a driving factor for me anymore. not that I'm rich or anything, but it's just not, the work is.

30:56 And if I had a hundred million dollars tomorrow that showed up in my bank account, I'd be like, great, now I can get to work. To help, to put out stuff, to help people. And that's where I would, I would love to have a half a billion dollars or half a trillion dollars to help because, you know, I drive a Toyota. You know what I mean? It's not something I need. So that's where I would go.

31:19 So when I see this thing, people with yachts and 50 yachts, I'm like, dude, what is wrong inside?

31:25 You need a hug. You need a hug, brother. There is something. But let's not talk about them. Let's talk about the people who adulate them. Because that's us. And then when we bring it into the home, so the child grows up watching us adulate these false gods and begin to think that they need to aspire to be the richest, the best, the smartest, the skinniest, the The one who fits in and belongs. And so you are your child's first introduction to what the world is. And every child, when they grow up, will have to combat that first introduction. Oh, we have to deprogram ourselves. You have to deprogram yourself and work on yourself. And as much as you deprogram, it will keep showing up. There's no end to the deprogramming, right? It will keep showing up.

32:17 Because it's hardwired.

32:19 It's hardwired. Even now when I go back to India, my daughter will say, Mom, why do you look so angry? I'm like, because I'm angry at all the men that molested me. I've still got it. I still have it. And then, of course, I have to work on it. But I see myself immediately going to judgment, immediately going to defense mode. not giving them a chance in hell to even be like, make my sandwich five minutes too late.

32:44 And I'll be like, you men. Because I grew up to defend myself, to protect myself. I had to create the you men and I had to fight against them. What I'm saying is that even if you're aware and even if you've deprogrammed, it is going to show up. So healing doesn't mean you've ended in perfection. Healing means you're able to go, oh, okay, that's my ego again. Yes, I'm in need. Yes, I'm hungry. Yes, I need you.

33:14 And blessed are those who find people who are kind and compassionate and loving, who can help them on their healing journey, right? How amazing if you find friends and partners who can help you. You want to work, you want to do the work, but you need help sometimes. And so amazing that you can have a partner or a friend who says, I got you and I'm gonna carry you with me. And we can do that for each other. Right?

33:41 There was a moment in my early childhood, not childhood, but my early adulthood, where it was probably one of the most traumatic things that ever happened to me. And it was, I almost made a $ 20 million movie for the mafia. And I was stuck with this bipolar gangster who threatened my life on a daily basis for a year.

33:58 I wrote a whole book about it. And for years, that was a scar that I thought was gone until I started writing the book and it.

34:07 Just bubbled out.

34:10 But what I've done since then is I'm so grateful for the trauma because without him, and I don't even know if he's alive anymore, but if I did see him, I would hug him and I would thank him because without that, I wouldn't be who I am. How do you approach that? Because you're an example of the men, and that's a different kind of trauma. I'm not trying to compare them. But is loving, is Jesus' way? Is it like love? Is love the answer? Is the Beatles right?

34:40 Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say I need to hug all the people who screwed me over.

34:47 Like mentally hug them.

34:49 But I will say that the part that is the loving part is that even if they did it, like so if a man... sexually abuses a woman and she didn't ask for it.

35:01 Correct.

35:02 Every moment after that, though, is her co-creation. So what these men gave me, which I want to lean in with love, is my co-created reality. And they got me to see my strength or my resilience or my resolve. And so that was co-created right after they did what they did. And I get to love that part. So we don't have to love the person. The person was just the trigger or the instigator of a life lesson.

35:35 What you get to love is your journey after that, because you co-created that journey right after that. And that's what I tell adult children, that yes, your parents gave you your first 20 years, but then you are the co-creator. You've been the co-creator, but now you're consciously the co-creator ever since you were 16, 17, 18. more and more conscious.

35:55 So you get to love who you've been since that abuse or trauma. And that's your part to love, right? You get to love something, you get to love that, the person you're creating from the rubbles of that moment, yeah? And if you can keep asking yourself, who am I going to become? Who can I become out of the rubbles?

36:15 Who can I evolve into out of this mess? You get to love that person that you're going to become. That is the magic.

36:23 That's beautiful. Now, I have to ask you, because I haven't heard you speak about it, and I'm sure you have at one point or another, social media. I have kids and they're growing up and we don't allow them on social media except for maybe YouTube. And we monitor what they watch. But generally speaking, I watch them watch content.

36:44 And they're definitely nice. Some of their friends are really like Instagram, TikTok, they have everything. We've block them a little bit. What is your understanding of the effect of this generation growing up? Because you have an older child now who kind of got in the tail end of that probably. But a lot of us are in the midst of it. And even the younger ones are growing up in a world that Instagram was always there. TikTok was always there. What is happening to them and what is the dangers of this constant, you were saying like worshiping, It might not be a billionaire, it might not be a movie star, but now it's a YouTuber or something along those lines.

37:28 Right. So that's why I wrote these two books. This would be a good time to show them. Yes. Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters. I wrote two because of this huge inflection point I feel we are at in culture where our children and childhood is being hijacked. before our eyes and parents don't know what to do.

37:52 Last summer, I watched Adolescence on Netflix. I don't know whether people have watched it.

37:59 You haven't? Is that the British show?

38:01 Yes. Yes, I did.

38:02 Yeah, with the child. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

38:03 It was great.

38:04 It was great.

38:05 Yeah. So when I watched that, something really stirred in me to realize, wow, our boys are in trouble. And They are going to, I mean, our men have always kind of been in a crisis of heart.

38:19 Male energies.

38:21 Male energy has been in a crisis of the heart and the mind. But what I saw through that movie, what it woke me up to was something I had been hearing in my clients that I'm losing my son, they're gaming all the time, they're watching porn, they're addicted to their phone and the girls. Yes, I'd been hearing this in my clients anyway. But then when I watch that Netflix documentary, if people haven't watched it, it's basically about a 12-year-old who gets caught up in the manosphere.

38:52 The manosphere is this whole web of influencers online that predate on young boys and kind of get them into the fold of the manosphere where it's a very specific set of messages that are given to these boys that if they are just you know, big enough, fit enough, rich enough, women will not reject them. And if women reject them, you know, they're basically, you know, nasty people and you shouldn't, you know, retaliate and your problems are caused by the female species. And so they're directing male angst and frustration in a very specific way. When I saw that, I realized that I want to help and give a blueprint to parents to how to deal with this.

39:40 So these two books are all about how can parents raising children today wake up to the signs, to the red flags. I provide the red flags and I provide the tools for the red flags. Because if we don't realize that parenting today needs to change, we cannot parent in the same way that my generation did. And even my generation was in trouble, which is why I wrote my first book, The Conscious Parent. I wrote my book, The Conscious Parent, in 2010 because I realized as a mother how little attention I had myself. how much ego I had. I wrote it in 2007, right? It came out in 2010. No one was really talking about the parent needing to look within themselves and the parent full of ego. Now it's common language that parents need to

40:31 heal themselves. But when I started, no one was talking about this. But I wrote it because I realized there's a big parental mismatch and the parents are working out of ego and not focused, not paying attention to their children's essence. Now, so what was a problem of attention back then is now becoming a problem of attachment. Our children are attached to their social media and to their online persona and to the influencers online and now to AI chatbots and to AI relationships. And they're getting their needs met through these relationships. You look puzzled. You don't know about this.

41:12 No, I know exactly about this. No, no, no. It's like I see all of it and I'm like, I'm thinking about the experiences I have with my children's friends and things like that and seeing it, it's absolutely.

41:22 But here's the thing. It's not just a school that is toxic or culture. It's now, and I hate saying this, and this is going to sound very controversial, but it's other children now. Let me explain. other children who have uncensored, unmitigated, unsupervised access to social media are now going to influence your child and your controlling at home and managing their social media around, right? So you're protecting your child. It doesn't matter. You go to the next 14-year-old that your child talks to is exposed to stuff that a 25-year-old should be exposed to. So that child is going to expose your child now. So it's a gateway to this unrestricted highway where there are bandits all along the way

42:09 ready to literally hijack your children and kidnap your children's innocence, your children's minds. You cannot control this anymore. There are strangers at your child's bedside now through the scrolling on their phone. And they don't have control over it. You and I don't have control over our Instagram. And I only realized that this last year.

42:34 What do you mean?

42:35 Because I thought I was curating my Instagram feed and I was so sophisticated and I was so intellectual and I only listened to wisdom and news and I was very progressive. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm going on Instagram and I have curated my feed.

42:49 Yes. Yeah.

42:51 And now after I have seen this year, all the stuff that I was following is not showing up anymore because it's not mainstream or not approved. And I've lost my curation, but I'll get the bags and the shoes and the makeup and the skincare. But the real stuff that I was passionate about is no longer on my Instagram.

43:12 So now I know I'm being bought, I'm being fooled, I'm being manipulated. So I've lost interest in it. So sad for them because now I'm not on it as much as I used to be. I used to love being on it because I had... So much of what filled me up intellectually and emotionally.

43:29 I do as well. I've curated my Instagram.

43:33 But you don't realize what you think you are curating is being curated for you. So if it's approved and if it's safe, you will see it. But if it's not approved and not safe by the matrix, it will be taken out. I've watched in real time my stuff being scrubbed off my Instagram.

43:52 Interesting. Well, I mean, you're playing in someone else's sandbox and you can't trust. I mean, it's just the way it is. One thing that you mentioned, and I love this, and I agree with you. I actually used to say this when I was an ignorant pre-parent. I'm like, oh, my great teachers are on their way. Oh, my great teachers are on their way. You have no idea what you were wishing for when they showed up. But I do look at my children as teachers as much as I am their teacher. but you mentioned is that they are the great teachers of your life. Can you explain a little bit about that?

44:24 Yeah. When I first started calling them our teachers, people used to resist me a lot. What do you mean children are your teachers? They're children. That means you're just going to give up your leadership. That means you're just going to give up your control. Why don't you just smoke pot with them when they're eight years old? What do you mean they're your teachers? What can children teach you?

44:43 What can they teach you? They're so not in their mind, right? They don't know how to even put on their shoes. What can they teach you? So what I mean by that is that because it is such an asymmetrical relationship and because it's such a powerful position you have, in that relationship, you get to see in the mirror your own raging ego, unrestricted need for control, your absolute desire for sovereign power, your tyranny. you get to see things in that mirror of that relationship that you will not see with another adult because another adult will not let you be a tyrant. Another adult will not let you be without controlled control. But a child will let you have uncontrolled control because your child cannot push back.

45:39 We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

45:49 So if you tell your child, this is the way it is, and we go to synagogue or we go to church or we go to visit the blue dragon every Tuesday and we're going to do it and you're a bad person if you don't, the child will be like, okay, I believe you.

46:01 This is the world.

46:02 This is the world. So in that, you know, in that, when you have to govern yourself to have control over your control, when you have to govern yourself to restrict your tyranny, when you have to govern yourself to not shape this person who's saying, you can shape me, mommy. You can tell me whatever you want. I'm putty because look, I am not that smart. I don't have all my faculties.

46:29 Shape me. Tell me who I need to be. And in that mirror, if you can be so careful and so cautious and so mindful, You get to see, you know. So when I became a mother and I looked in the mirror when my daughter was two and three and I saw my rageful tyranny and my desire for uncontrolled control, I mean, I was just mortified. I was like, I thought I was so enlightened. But I was willing to look in the mirror, you see. One day I took my face when it was angry. I took it, froze it, and I took it to the mirror, like literally to look in the mirror how I looked to my child.

47:11 at two and three, and I saw a monster. And I was like, this is love, this is not love. And that's when I woke up.

47:20 And she was your teacher. Without her, you wouldn't have ever, probably never figured that out.

47:24 It was amazing for me to see. And ever since, I see it all the time. I mean, now it's out of the, the genie's out of the bottle. I see my ego a lot, and then I have to take it back, and then it comes back, and then you take it back. But that is the process. It's a beautiful process. You don't have to become perfect. You will never kill your ego. To think you can kill your ego is ego. Right.

47:47 I have no ego. Yeah, Dr.

47:48 Shafari, I don't know what you're talking about.

47:50 I'm so conscious. My ego is on vacation. I am enlightened.

47:54 I have raised my children consciously.

47:55 I'm the most spiritual and the most humble.

47:57 Yeah, I've been doing this since, you know, every word you say is just the way I have been.

48:01 This is a conversation you've had.

48:04 Yes, yes. And people trying to convince me. And I feel so embarrassed when they talk like this. I go.

48:11 Oh, honey.

48:12 Oh, my goodness.

48:13 Oh, honey.

48:13 Yeah, you know, I've had people tell me things like, oh, Dr. Shifa, I feel so bad for you that you have to write so many books because people don't get it.

48:20 I mean, I've already.

48:21 You know, I just don't know. I mean, you're preaching to the choir here, you know, but the people out there, you know, need help. Yes.

48:27 The spiritual ego is probably the most dangerous.

48:29 Yes, it's a great... Love the ego.

48:31 It's dangerous.

48:32 It's so great.

48:32 It's dangerous.

48:33 It really is.

48:35 Now, on a spiritual standpoint, I want to ask you, Is there a deeper spiritual reason why children enter our lives?

48:43 So I think the greatest reason we have children is to see what I just said, is to see the ego at its unbound self. Because you're not with an adult. An adult will bind your ego. And another adult will say, hey, back off. Check your ego and say, I'm not dealing with you. I'm not playing with you in the sandbox.

49:03 But because a child cannot say that, you get to see your unbridled ego again. You know, without mercy, man, if you if you want to see it clearly, you will see it without mercy because it's this child gives you everything. This child gives you trust. This child looks at you like you're. a god on a pedestal. So what are you going to do with that power? What are you going to utter to that child? How are you going to measure your ego? How are you going to restrain your power? Because the child is going to give you unrestricted access to them. And you have to decide how you want to use that power.

49:40 For a long time that you've been working in this field, what has your work taught you about consciousness in general?

49:46 Be here now. Let go of your clinging and grasping. But see, the beauty of that is you will be here now more through the clinging and grasping, meaning you cling and you grasp and you cling and you realize you can't, you can't. And then you let And you have that Satori experience that Buddhism talks about, which is you have this, your whole life flips and you realize, oh, I can just let it go. And it's a moment of brief reprieve and awakening. And then the ego sets back in. You know, every spiritual teacher typically will talk about how they arrived at Zen and presence through pain.

50:28 You will only relish it deeply. Not through words and through glib, trite, pithy maxims, but deeply when you have gone through a tunnel of darkness and then you come out of it and you go, I got it. And that's why one of my books, A Radical Awakening, is about pain being the portal to power. Pain is such a genius teacher. But most people don't let themselves be in pain. because they're so intellectual, they're so guarded. It's when you live in the heart and mind with consciousness that you can experience pain for what pain is here to teach you. But most people are too busy making money and too busy becoming skinny and looking gorgeous and buying shoes and having, you know, empty dinners and wasting

51:16 their time disconnected far from pain because pain is too painful. So they have situationships or they have you know, very brief, superficial relationships, because to deeply be in relationship will inevitably bring you to pain at some point, in some way. And then you grow through that, right? Then you grow through that friction. But most people prefer to just have, you know, antiseptic relationships, which are very controlled.

51:48 Do you see that in parenting? That kind of like afraid of connecting because of pain?

51:52 Yes, yes.

51:55 I come from a Latino family, so I had nothing but like love and attention and.

51:59 All of that. Yeah. I mean, many families are very disconnected. I mean, because parents are living in a very, you know, in their own ivory tower of their own disconnection. They're disconnected people. They don't want to get into the muck of life.

52:17 And when you say disconnected, you mean disconnected from?

52:20 Themselves. When you're disconnected from yourself, you're disconnected to your child. You live in a very, you can connect, but only for this amount of time or only for these reasons, right? And then you're back in your own cave. And many people live their life like that. And they prefer that. They prefer to live their life from a distance. Me, personally, like you, I'm a very different kind of person. But many parents need to protect themselves so their children feel that.

52:52 They feel that there's something My parent likes me, my parent loves me, my parent's respectful to me, but I just can't feel connected.

53:00 And that's something that's happening from the parent, that there's a subconscious thing.

53:03 Well, to a level, and then once the child is an adult, it could be that the child is contributing to that as well. Now, there's a fine line between being in your cave to being enmeshed, right? And I think Latino families, Indian families... We get enmeshed, yes? So how do we keep that health? And it comes back to how healthy the parent is in their own life, in their own journey, in their own joy. If the parent is living in their own joy and purpose, you cannot get enmeshed. You can get connected, but you won't get enmeshed because your life feeds you too much for you to suck on your child. Enmeshment means that you need your child to define you. You need your child to need you to feel important. But if you're so

53:51 busy in your own joy and purpose, you cannot enmesh.

53:54 If there's someone watching right now that is afraid, well, I'm gonna assume most people are afraid of the pain, of going into something that they know that they need to go, they are conscious of it. These are for the people who are conscious of the pain, but are afraid to go in it. What advice would you have about looking in the mirror, doing the work internally, even if it's just for themselves, because if they do it for themselves, it will radiate around everybody around them.

54:19 The pain appears to be because you're not getting something from the outside, okay? And you're trying hard to get it from the outside. So you're in pain. You and life or you and that other person.

54:32 Are in conflict.

54:33 That's why you have pain. You only have pain for two reasons. You and your vision of life or you and your vision of your person did not work out. You either got an illness or you got fired or your person betrayed you, whatever. something on you and life is not working out. Your expectation and reality are at war.

54:51 That's why you're in pain. So you try. You try to take them to therapy. You try to go for cancer treatment. You try to get another job. You try to become skinnier. You try to put on weight. Whatever you try, you try, you try, you try, but you're in pain because it's not working. Sometimes it works and you're like, oh, thank goodness. We are aligned at this point, me and the other life or the person, we're aligned.

55:13 But when we're not aligned, All this rumbling. So first you need to identify, oh, there's a gap between expectation and reality. Something I want, I think I want, and reality. The next thing to realize is how you're dealing with the pain is revealing to you, you and your relationship to your own emotions. You and your relationship to your own broken self. You're getting a front theater view to, oh, this is how I deal with my pain. Oh, this is how I deal with my brokenness. And then if you stay with it and you work on it and you don't run away from it, you don't put it in a box, but you go deeper and deeper, you will arrive at a healing place where you realize that you didn't need that reality to match you. You did

56:02 not need that person to match you. And you found a better way to handle your own inner self, your own damaged, broken self. And that's the portal. And you learn to parent yourself. And that is the most beautiful thing. And that's where Eastern spirituality and Western spirituality connect. Because Western spirituality teaches you that you can parent your own wounds.

56:25 And Eastern spirituality teaches you that you are your own answer, right? So they're both coming to that wholeness within from two different places.

56:35 Beautifully said. Now, where can people pick up your books, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons?

56:41 If they go to my website and pick up the books, then they get a masterclass and an online summit and free bonuses and courses and all my goodies that I'm giving to lure them in. But they can also get it just from an indie bookstore or Amazon. But all the links are on my website, drshivali.com.

57:00 Now, if every parent listening could remember one truth tomorrow morning, what would you like them to remember?

57:06 That you don't have to be a perfect parent, just a present one, just a connected one.

57:11 Dr. Shavar, it's been so beautiful talking to you. And thank you so much for the work that you're doing and helping raise consciousness one child at a time. I appreciate you, my dear.

57:22 Thank you so much.

57:25 Thank you for spending this sacred time with us today. If you feel called to explore this conversation further, you'll find the show notes for this episode at nextlevelsoul.com forward slash nextlevelsoul. And if your soul is craving an even deeper journey, step into Next Level Soul TV, our streaming sanctuary for spiritual films, documentaries, original shows, guided meditations, channeling sessions, audiobooks, and transformative teachings. It's a space created to support your awakening, your healing, and your return to the truth of who you really are. Begin your journey at nextlevelsoul.tv. Until next time, keep expanding, keep seeking, and keep walking your path towards the next level of your soul.