Next Level Soul Podcast Episode 724
Dr. Shefali is a clinical psychologist and the author of The Conscious Parent. In this episode of the Next Level Soul Podcast, she explains why being seen as whole matters so much, why one conscious caregiver can change a child’s life, how children mirror our ego and unfinished inner work, and what is changing for kids growing up on screens. Her closing message is simple: be a present parent, not a perfect one.
Key Takeaways
- Dr. Shefali says being seen as whole, not as a project in the making, is one of the deepest human needs.
- She says it takes one conscious parent to turn a child’s life around.
- Her parenting mandate: be available enough within yourself instead of raising a “successful” adult.
- Children reveal our ego, control and expectations, which makes them powerful teachers.
- She says pain comes from a conflict between you and your vision of life or another person, and can become a portal to wholeness.
- Her closing reminder: you do not need to be a perfect parent, just a present one.
Who Is Dr. Shefali?
Dr. Shefali is a clinical psychologist and the author of The Conscious Parent, Raising Conscious Sons, Raising Conscious Daughters and Radical Awakening. In this conversation with Alex Ferrari, she brings Western psychology and Eastern spirituality to one question: how do we raise children without turning them into our projects?
Alex says he and his wife read her books when their own kids were small, so the talk feels warm and lived in. It runs about an hour and moves from her own childhood to money, screens, ego and pain.
What It Means to Be Seen
Dr. Shefali begins with her own childhood. She says her parents did not set out to be conscious parents, but her mother connected with her deeply and still does. Being seen, she explains, sounds like a trivial phrase, yet it means being seen as whole and complete, not as a project in the making or someone to be evolved into somebody else.
Her mother’s joy was never dependent on her becoming something else. Dr. Shefali believes that gives any human being a deep-rooted sense of being enough, worthy and complete. She credits that foundation with helping her stay steady when hard experiences came in childhood: a child who is seen can depersonalize harm and come back to center.
Alex adds that being seen sits at the core of many troubles on the planet. He points to the “I see you” greeting in the film Avatar, which echoes indigenous traditions, as a powerful thing to give a child who is still forming.
It Takes One Conscious Parent
From her own story, Dr. Shefali draws a hopeful conclusion. She says it takes one conscious parent. You do not need a band, an army or a village, although those would all be wonderful. One steady caregiver who is conscious can turn a child’s life around.
That is why she teaches conscious parenting. In her view, the depth of a single core relationship can protect a child, and later the adult that child becomes.
The Only Mandate: Be Available Within Yourself
If a parent enters the journey with one mandate, Dr. Shefali says, it should not be raising a successful adult, sending a child to an elite school or providing mansions, boats and trips abroad. It should be to be available enough within yourself.
That means having the inner resources and the empty space to receive this being and let them be seen for who they are, without being so insecure or so needy that you keep asking them to become something for you.
Why the Parent Holds the Power
She describes parenting as a deeply hierarchical and asymmetrical relationship. With a partner you stand on the same plane and can build a third space together, each naming needs and agreements with similar awareness. A child cannot do that. The child is begging, in a sense, for room to be seen and cannot give that room to itself or to you.
So the power sits in the parent’s hands. If the parent lacks consciousness, which Dr. Shefali says most do not bring to the journey at first, they begin to maneuver and puppeteer the child, in the most subtle ways, into the person they need in order to feel okay.
What Conscious Parenting Actually Is
Asked for a definition, Dr. Shefali says she does not have an elegant elevator speech. In a nutshell, it is to wake up to your own inner baggage, raise your own inner child and work on your own inner self.
It begins with admitting that most of us operate from an unconscious, self-protective, egoic state. Even if you are successful and your upbringing worked for you in some ways, she says, you still carry imprints from your parents. There is always a better way to be a human being, first for yourself and then for others.
Parenting From the Heart, Not the Mind
Dr. Shefali says many of us live in a stoic, logical and analytical mode that has its benefits but keeps us away from the heart. She admits that talking about the heart can sound wishy-washy.
To her, being in the heart simply means not arriving with ideas about how your child should express themselves, what happiness looks like for them or what success means. You do not get to define that, she says, because it comes from the mind. Instead you stay connected to what is showing up in your child right now.
Where Western Psychology and Eastern Spirituality Meet
Alex notes that psychology classes are very head-based and asks how she brought in Eastern spirituality. Dr. Shefali explains that Western psychology focuses on wounds, patterns and history: what happened, who upset you, what your inner child needs. That work matters, she says, but we cannot get locked in there.
Eastern spirituality offers a formless view. Her point is that we cling to masks such as author, wife, parent or lawyer because we do not believe we are worthy without them, when in our essence we already are. She named her daughter Maya, which means illusion, as a reminder.
Her answer is to hold both. Work on your patterns, your wounds and your inner child, and also know on the big level that you can let it all go.
Directing the Movie: Casting Our Children in Our Roles
She uses a film metaphor that Alex, a filmmaker, enjoys. We are the directors of the movie, and we cast our children in roles they never signed up for. We do not want to admit it is a movie, so we keep trying to recruit people into it.
The gift of the Eastern view, she says, is that somewhere in the back of your psyche you know it is all a game and can be released. If you can live without insisting that you need something and enter your heart, magic can happen.
She is clear that she is not making light of anyone’s trauma. Pay homage to your pain and heal it, she says, but do not stay locked in it. Own your happiness, your movie and your destiny.
Owning Your Story at Any Age
Alex shares that people often blame their parents well into middle age, and that becoming a parent showed him his own parents did the best they could. Dr. Shefali agrees: we are all doing the best we can with the consciousness we have.
She stresses this does not erase anyone’s pain. But at some point adult children need to cut their losses, turn the spotlight back on themselves and reclaim their joy. There is liberation, she adds, in realizing that even if a parent changed, you would not be better for more than two days. You would be better only because you did the work yourself.
Maya and the Mistake That Keeps Repeating
Dr. Shefali shares a recent moment with her daughter Maya, who is 23 and pointed out that her mother keeps repeating the same mistake. Her answer was that at some point you have to accept this is who she is, and look at her intention, her heart and her essence, the way she looks at Maya’s.
If it is not causing catastrophic damage, she told her, then harping on it helps co-create the misery. If the harm were serious, that would be different and it would need to be addressed. Otherwise it is a limitation to accept.
Difficult Relationships Take You Back Home
Chaotic, anxiety-producing relationships, even with our parents, can be a gift, Dr. Shefali says, because they take us back home. Not getting our needs met outside is what invites us to look within.
She is careful about timing. Through childhood and the teenage years, children need stability and security because they have not yet developed the ability to look within. Once there is a foundation, imperfect relationships become wake-up calls. It is gut-wrenching and liberating to realize you have been knocking on the wrong door, and the door was yourself.
She has seen this with many clients: when people wake up to their own healing, the phoenix rises. The thing they thought would complete them never could have, because that work was theirs to do.
The First Years: You Are the World’s First Introduction
Alex mentions that the first seven years are some of the most important in a child’s life, because children imprint on what they see. Dr. Shefali agrees and puts it plainly: you are your child’s first introduction to the world.
If a parent is stressed, neglectful, addicted or traumatized, she says, the child thinks that is the world. Children tend to go one of a few ways. Some become lone wolves who decide they must meet their own needs. Some become people pleasers who shape-shift to get crumbs of belonging. Some numb the pain, through addiction or even through achievement. She is careful to say that not every celebrity or high achiever fits this pattern.
How Much Is Enough?
Dr. Shefali turns to our hunger for more. When people want far beyond what their needs and even their comforts require, she sees something worth examining. She and Alex compare notes on how little daily life changes past a certain point, and Alex says money is no longer his driver; the work is.
Her challenge is aimed less at the very wealthy than at the rest of us. Who are we adulating, and why? She asks why we celebrate mass success while teachers, doctors and rescue workers go unpraised, and she says she asks herself every day, “How much is enough?”
At home, she adds, children grow up watching us adulate these figures and learn to aspire to be the richest, the smartest, the skinniest and the one who fits in.
Deprogramming Never Fully Ends
Every child must eventually combat the first introduction to the world their parents gave them, she says, so deprogramming has no end point. She uses herself as an example. When she goes back to India, her daughter asks why she looks so angry, and she sees old defensive patterns from earlier in her life still at work.
Healing does not mean ending imperfection, she says. It means noticing “that is my ego again” and naming the need. She adds how blessed we are when kind friends or partners can help carry us along the way.
Loving Who You Become After Pain
Alex shares that a very hard experience in his early adulthood is something he is now grateful for, and asks whether love is the answer. Dr. Shefali says she would not go as far as hugging everyone who has hurt her. What she offers instead is a different place to put love.
Every moment after harm is your own co-creation, she says. The person was only the trigger or instigator of a life lesson. What you get to love is your journey after that, and the person you create from the rubble. She tells adult children the same thing: your parents gave you your first twenty years, but you are the co-creator now.
Social Media, Attachment and Hijacked Childhoods
Alex asks what growing up with Instagram and TikTok is doing to this generation. Dr. Shefali says it is why she wrote Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters: she believes childhood is being hijacked and parents do not know what to do.
She says watching the Netflix series Adolescence stirred her concern for boys. As she describes it, the show follows a twelve-year-old pulled into the manosphere, a web of online influencers who send young boys a specific set of messages about women. She had already been hearing from clients that they were losing their sons to gaming, porn and phones.
Her first book, The Conscious Parent, came out in 2010 when the problem was parental attention, she says. Now it is attachment. Children are attached to social media, online personas, influencers and now AI chatbots and relationships, and they are getting needs met there.
Her most controversial point is that protecting your own child is no longer enough. Other children have unsupervised access, and your child will meet that world through them. Her books offer red flags to watch for and tools for each.
Children as Our Great Teachers
When she first called children our teachers, Dr. Shefali says, people resisted. Did she mean parents should give up leadership and control? Her answer is that because the relationship is so asymmetrical, you see things in it you will not see with another adult.
Another adult will not let you be a tyrant. A child will let you have uncontrolled control, because a child cannot push back. If you tell a child this is the way the world is, the child believes it. That forces you to govern yourself, restrain your tyranny and avoid shaping someone who says, in effect, “You can tell me whatever you want, because I am putty.”
The Day She Froze Her Angry Face
Dr. Shefali shares the moment that woke her up as a mother. When her daughter was two and three, she saw her own rageful tyranny and her desire for uncontrolled control. One day she took her angry face, froze it and brought it to the mirror to see how she looked to her child. She says she saw a monster, and asked, “Is this love?”
She says the genie is out of the bottle now. She sees her ego often, takes it back, and it returns; that is the process. You will never kill your ego, she says, and to think you can is ego. Alex jokes that spiritual ego is probably the most dangerous kind.
She also gives her deepest answer to why children enter our lives: the greatest reason we have children is to see the ego at its unbound self, because a child gives you complete trust and looks at you like a god on a pedestal. What you do with that power is the work.
Pain as the Portal
Asked what her work has taught her about consciousness, Dr. Shefali answers, “Be here now. Let go of your clinging and grasping.” She says you often arrive at presence through clinging and grasping until you cannot cling any more, and then comes a brief satori, a moment when your whole life flips and you can let go.
That is why one of her books, Radical Awakening, treats pain as the portal to power. Pain is a genius teacher, she says, but many people stay far from it. They stay busy, chase money and looks, or settle for brief, controlled relationships, because deep connection will inevitably bring some pain.
Disconnection, Enmeshment and the Healthy Middle
Alex asks whether parents avoid connection out of fear of pain. Dr. Shefali says yes, many parents live in their own ivory tower. When you are disconnected from yourself, you are disconnected from your child. You connect for a set amount of time and then retreat to your cave, and children can feel that even when they know they are loved.
There is a fine line between the cave and enmeshment, she adds, and families such as Latino and Indian families can lean toward enmeshment. Her remedy is the same in both cases: a parent who lives in their own joy and purpose cannot enmesh, because their life feeds them too much to need their child to define them.
If You Are Afraid to Look Inside
Alex asks what she would say to someone who knows they need to do the inner work but fears the pain. Dr. Shefali offers a simple frame. You only have pain for two reasons: you and your vision of life are in conflict, or you and your vision of another person are in conflict. Expectation and reality are at war.
- Notice the gap between what you want and what is.
- Notice how you deal with the pain. It shows your relationship to your own broken self.
- Stay with it and go deeper instead of putting it in a box.
- Arrive at the realization that you did not need that reality to match you, and learn to parent yourself.
That is where she says Western and Eastern thinking connect: Western approaches teach you to parent your own wounds, and Eastern ones teach you that you are your own answer. Both lead to wholeness within.
Not Perfect, but Present
Asked what one truth every parent should remember tomorrow morning, Dr. Shefali says: “You don’t have to be a perfect parent, just a present one, just a connected one.”
She shares that people who pick up her books through her website receive a masterclass, an online summit and free bonuses, and that the books are also in indie bookstores and on Amazon. Alex closes by thanking her for helping raise consciousness one child at a time.
Spiritual Takeaways
- See your child. They do not need to become your definition of successful to deserve complete love and connection.
- Look in the mirror. Children reveal our ego, control, expectations and unfinished inner work.
- Turn inward. Healing begins when we stop demanding that the outside world complete us and discover the wholeness already available within.
- Hold both views. Heal your patterns and wounds, and also remember you can let go of the masks.
- Aim for presence. You do not have to be perfect, just connected.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Shefali.
Guest Links: Connect with Dr. Shefali
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Dr. Shefali?
Dr. Shefali is a clinical psychologist and author known for her work on conscious parenting. Her books include The Conscious Parent, Raising Conscious Sons, Raising Conscious Daughters and Radical Awakening. In this episode she talks with Alex Ferrari about being seen as whole, the ego, screens and pain. She blends Western psychology with Eastern spirituality.
What is conscious parenting?
Dr. Shefali describes it as waking up to your own inner baggage, raising your own inner child and working on your own inner self. It starts with admitting that most of us act from an unconscious, self-protective state. From there, a parent becomes available enough within to see a child as whole instead of shaping them into an idea of success.
What does it mean to be seen as whole?
She says being seen means being seen as complete, not as a project in the making or someone to be evolved into somebody else. Her mother’s joy never depended on her becoming something different. Dr. Shefali believes that kind of seeing gives a person a deep sense of being enough, worthy and complete, and it helps them recover from hard experiences.
Why does she say children are our teachers?
Because the parent and child relationship is so asymmetrical, she says, a child shows you things another adult would not. Another adult will not let you be a tyrant, but a child cannot push back. That reveals your ego, control and expectations. She says seeing this in the mirror, as she did with her own daughter, is what wakes a parent up.
Do you have to be a perfect parent?
No. Dr. Shefali’s closing message is that you do not have to be perfect, just present and connected. She also says you will never kill your ego and that thinking you can is itself ego. The work is noticing it, taking it back and doing that again, and she calls it a beautiful process.
How do Western psychology and Eastern spirituality fit together?
She says Western psychology looks at wounds, patterns and history, which is important but can keep us locked in. Eastern spirituality offers a formless view in which we do not need our masks, because in our essence we are already whole. She recommends holding both: heal your pain and your patterns, and also remember you can let go of the labels.
What does she say about social media and children?
She says children are attached to social media, online personas, influencers and even AI chatbots, and that this has moved the problem from attention to attachment. She also says that even if you limit your own child, other children with unsupervised access will bring that world to them. She wrote Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters to give parents red flags and tools.
What does she mean by pain as a portal?
Dr. Shefali says pain comes from a conflict between you and your vision of life or of another person. Noticing how you handle that pain shows you your relationship to your own brokenness. If you stay with it instead of running, she says, you learn to parent yourself and discover wholeness within. Her book Radical Awakening explores pain as the portal to power.
How can adult children stop blaming their parents?
She does not dismiss anyone’s pain, but she says at some point adult children need to turn the spotlight back on themselves and reclaim their joy. We are all doing the best we can with the consciousness we have. She adds that even if a parent changed, you would feel better only because of the work you did yourself.
Where can I learn more about Dr. Shefali?
Visit drshefali.com, explore her books, find her on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, or watch her episode on Next Level Soul TV.
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Follow Along with the Transcript
Alex Ferrari 0:00
What is your understanding of the effect of this generation?
Dr. Shefali 0:04
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. What you think you are curating is being curated. They don't enter the journey with the mandate of consciousness. Most people don't want to admit that, for the most part, they are in their unconscious, self-protective, egoic state.
Alex Ferrari 0:38
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.
Dr. Shefali 0:48
And I hate saying this, and this is going to sound very controversial...
Alex Ferrari 1:02
I like to welcome to the show, Dr. Shafali. How you doing, Dr. Shafali? Thanks.
Dr. Shefali 1:05
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Alex Ferrari 1:06
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.
Dr. Shefali 1:20
Yes, yes, yes,
Alex Ferrari 1:22
And especially when you have multiple kids, it's it's very great. But we 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 child like? Childhood like that kind of was the the breeding ground for this work because I'm assuming it wasn't a conscious upbringing the way you do it, or was it?
Dr. Shefali 1:49
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 that simple but profound depth of connection can immunize a being, an adult, from so much. So in my childhood, I experienced you know sexual molestation by by by people, and 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, you know, deeply study and appreciate how protective that that core deep relationship can be, and that's why I teach conscious parenting. 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.
Alex Ferrari 3:40
Is it because you felt that you had someone had your back? Is that what like you really felt comfortable and safe within that connection that gave you that strength to go through all the turmoil? You do it.
Dr. Shefali 3:53
Yes, I think just being seen, and I 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 is 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. So my mother saw me as a whole being and still sees me as a whole being and didn't impose too much on 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 and so then when harm comes your way you're able to depersonalize it and 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 in. Admittedly, 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, you know, is a troubled human being. This person is a jerk. You know, 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, or 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.
Alex Ferrari 5:35
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 that in that movie, and I'm a filmmaker, so I will make movie references every once in a while. Avatar,
Dr. Shefali 5:55
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 5:55
Where they go, I see you,
Dr. Shefali 5:57
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 5:57
I see you, and that's taken from indigenous cultures as well. That 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.
Dr. Shefali 6:15
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 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 same plane. But because this is a hierarchical relationship, the child is your putty, is 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 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, "I these are my needs, these are my agreements, these are my offerings, these are my requirements, and they can both do that with some degree of similar 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. 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 parent's 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 am 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?
Alex Ferrari 8:53
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 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. So with with consciousness and with parenting, all we're doing is there is no 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 our caretakers, our parents, who were also screwed up and didn't know what they were doing because they didn't have a 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 a cycle of this kind of parenting.
Dr. Shefali 10:00
Yes,
Alex Ferrari 10:00
And then like you know, with our children, we you know we read your books, and we were already leaning towards conscious parenting, and before we even read the book, because we 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, but can you explain to people what? Because we're talking about conscious parenting. Can you explain exactly what conscious parenting is? Right now, it's very esoteric.
Dr. Shefali 10:35
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, or but they don't want to go deep inside to see how they are also imprinted by their parents, you have to be imprinted, of course, right? And and even though it may have worked for you in your life, and you're very successful, or you're very you know 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 but the moment you 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? And most of us operate from this very intellectual, stoic, you know, very logically distant, you know, analytical way, which 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.
Alex Ferrari 12:31
You're in the right place.
Dr. Shefali 12:32
Yeah, 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 how 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.
Alex Ferrari 13:00
Now you're a trans psychologist, right? So, 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,
Dr. Shefali 13:22
Right!
Alex Ferrari 13:23
And 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 works?
Dr. Shefali 13:33
Well, you know, Western psychology focuses a lot on your wounds and your inner child. They don't even use these words, but for you know simplicity's sake, on your the 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 reality of your life, like what happened, what are the patterns? Who's bothering you? So it's 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 which Eastern spirituality gives, which is more on the formless level, right? So if you want to call it big mind level, 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 we 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. 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 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. Just let it all go and see what happens, and just release it. And and there's a magic to that as well.
Alex Ferrari 15:42
Then the danger is also when people are so identified with this mask, this character that they're playing. Yeah. When they bring the child into it, like they need to achieve this for me, they need to get straight A's for me. Not. It's not about them. I need you to be a great basketball player or football to
Dr. Shefali 16:00
It's a full movie.
Alex Ferrari 16:01
Right. Right.
Dr. Shefali 16:02
We we we are. the movie directors in this movie, and we cast the children in roles that
Alex Ferrari 16:07
They did not that did not sign up for or cast up for right.
Dr. Shefali 16:09
But we don't want to watch that it was a movie, and we don't want to own that we are trying to keep on fitting people into our movie. Right, we're 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 in the corners of your psyche, is like, oh, all of this is a game, and all of this can be let go of, 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. You know, 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 complete as I am, and I'm going to attract whatever shows up from my essence, not my ego.
Alex Ferrari 17:14
Well, that's not what Madison Avenue and all the ads say,
Dr. Shefali 17:17
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.
Alex Ferrari 17:25
Right. Right.
Dr. Shefali 17:26
So Eastern spirituality is not good for capitalism.
Alex Ferrari 17:30
It is.
Dr. Shefali 17:31
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.
Alex Ferrari 17:46
Absolutely,
Dr. Shefali 17:47
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 the unlocking key, 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. And none of this really matters. It's whatever you're thinking matters so much. Is is not the answer to your wholeness. Your wholeness lies within you, and and keeping both perspectives is a beautiful way to live. But you have to have both.
Alex Ferrari 18:29
And when you were saying, yeah, everyone always like everyone blames your parents for you. You know, like yeah, it's move. 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.
Dr. Shefali 18:40
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 18:40
What is wrong with you, bro? Let it go. Yeah, that's one thing. But the other thing is, as a parent, only as a parent have I realized. Go, oh my God, my parents just did the best they could with the information and the experiences that they had at the time.
Dr. Shefali 18:56
We're all doing the best we can with the consciousness we had. So
Alex Ferrari 18:59
Right, you can't blame yourself.
Dr. Shefali 19:00
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 I'm. That's that's who I am. I'm going to keep making that mistake, but look at my intention. Look at my heart. Look at my 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? Right. It's just something you get annoyed by. You just have to understand that you are also co-creating the 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.
Alex Ferrari 19:49
I mean, you can't blame a frog for being a frog. Not that you're a frog, but you know what I mean.
Dr. Shefali 19:53
Now, if it was catastrophic damage,
Alex Ferrari 19:55
That's different.
Dr. Shefali 19:56
Then we can address it. But if it's just you know, oh, I don't like that you do. Why do you laugh like this? Why, yeah, or why do you keep saying this when you know that annoys me? Okay, because I, 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, but at some point we have to turn the the spotlight back on ourselves and reclaim our joy.
Alex Ferrari 20:31
And and I you know sometimes I I've accepted a lot of the things that my my parents who they are. Yeah, and I was angry for so long at my you know, 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, but I just talk to them. I'm like, that's okay. If you want to watch Fox News all day, God bless you. Right, you know, if if you want to live in a world of fear,
Dr. Shefali 21:01
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 21:03
that's okay. One of my parents is like that; the other one isn't.
Dr. Shefali 21:06
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 21:08
And and it annoys me.
Dr. Shefali 21:09
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 21:10
And I, but I I know I can't. That's just them. That's the limitation of what they can do.
Dr. Shefali 21:14
They've gone as far as they can, and there's such beauty in realizing that even if they changed, you would 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 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.
Alex Ferrari 21:53
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.
Dr. Shefali 22:02
Yeah.
Alex Ferrari 22:03
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. It's it's your. If it's outside of you, it can be taken away.
Dr. Shefali 22:13
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. Yeah, 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 1516, you want to be giving your 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 going to 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 it's an it's a gut wrenching realization, but a liberating realization because you've been knocking on the wrong door, and the door you're to knock on was yourself. So, it and that's where relationships can be such amazing mirrors, you know, as as gut wrenching as they can be. The the imperfect ones, right? There's no perfect one, but especially imperfect ones are asking you to fill that need within yourself, and and stop begging 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 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 and must. And you have to now awaken to your own healing journey within. And you can do it. 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 was never going to. Even if it tried to, it would never because I needed to do that for myself.
Alex Ferrari 25:09
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 see 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. Well, they
Dr. Shefali 25:37
You are their first introduction to the world, right? So if you have a parent who's stressed, neglectful, an addict, dysfunctional, traumatized, no, no, then you think that is the world, and and that child does one of two, three things. One is they become 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. The other child becomes an inveterate, addicted people pleaser, where they're constantly shape shifting to get crumbs. Like, okay, what 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 it. So I'll become an addict just like you, or I'll become an addict. I'll marry that. To to or I'll marry an addict, or 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 celebrity or an achiever,
Alex Ferrari 26:50
And that works out well all the time.
Dr. Shefali 26:52
Well, because you know, and I'm not saying every celebrity does that or every addict is coming, 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, like
Alex Ferrari 27:21
It's insane.
Dr. Shefali 27:22
So at that point, you have to realize that they actually traumatize children.
Alex Ferrari 27:27
Oh, no question.
Dr. Shefali 27:28
When they have gone, it's a trauma to want to be 100 millionaire is a is a is a little bit of a sickness.
Alex Ferrari 27:36
I don't get up out of bed for less than 50 million. That's just me. But but no, but that's one of the things.
Dr. Shefali 27:42
I always say 50 million should be the max. I mean, if you want to,
Alex Ferrari 27:46
What are you going to do? How is your life changing from 20 to 50? Really, not a whole lot.
Dr. Shefali 27:50
Okay, but if you want to, because you're so smart and you're so and you're so got this work ethic and you're so genius, God bless, go for it. But after that, to want to want more is a sickness. It's a disease.
Alex Ferrari 28:03
So these billionaires who are getting close to trillionaire status
Dr. Shefali 28:08
They have got to be.
Alex Ferrari 28:09
They're so,
Dr. Shefali 28:10
And the the money is in their bank and not in the World Bank and not in the children's bank is a disease. And 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 attract it because if we're hungry for it, means then we can be in that same stream of consciousness and attract it in ourselves. 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 at the slaughter of children and the earth. We have a twisted way of adulating people for the for the wrong reasons, while the the teachers and the doctors and the the rescue workers are not adulated, right? So we're adulating and worshiping mass celebrity, mass success at the at the hands of what? At the hands of you know slave labor and and the slaughter of the earth. 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? And come to terms with our own aspirations. How much is enough, right?
Alex Ferrari 30:56
Yeah, and that's. I mean, it's one of. I. I just like how many. How much more do you need?
Dr. Shefali 31:01
How much? I mean, I ask that question to myself every day. How much more do I have reached my max? Do like how much more do I need?
Alex Ferrari 31:07
I'm good. Yeah, 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, 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. And if I had $100 million tomorrow that showed up in my bank account, I'd be great. Now I can get to work.
Dr. Shefali 31:31
Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 31:32
To help.
Dr. Shefali 31:32
Yes,
Alex Ferrari 31:33
To put out stuff to to help people, and that that 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. So when I see this thing, people with yachts and 50 yacht, I'm like, dude, what's what is what is wrong inside? Yeah, you need a hug. Yeah, there you need a hug, brother.
Dr. Shefali 31:59
There is something. There is something, and but 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. I mean, 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. It's not. There's no end to the deprogramming, right? It will keep showing up. You know,
Alex Ferrari 32:48
Because it's hard. It's hardwired.
Dr. Shefali 32:50
It's hardwired. Even now, when I go back to India, my daughter will say, "Mom, why you so why do you look so angry? Why do you look? I'm like, because I'm angry at all the men that molested me. I'm 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, 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 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 an imperfection. Healing means you're 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. 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 going to carry you with me, and we can do that for each other.
Alex Ferrari 34:12
There was there was a moment in my early child, not childhood, but my early adulthood, where it was probably one of the most traumatic things ever happened to me, and it was 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. 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 just bubbled out. But what I've done since then is I am so grateful for the trauma because without him, and I like if 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 because your example of the men, and that's a different kind of trauma. I'm not trying to compare them, but is is loving is is Jesus's way? Like, is is is it like love? Is love the answer? Is the Beatles right?
Dr. Shefali 35:11
Well, I I wouldn't go as far as to say I need to hug all the people who put me over, but
Alex Ferrari 35:18
But like mentally hug them. But but I
Dr. Shefali 35:20
But but I will say that the part that is the loving part is that even if they did it like so, if if a if a man sexually abuses a woman and she didn't ask for it, correct. Every moment after that, though, is her co-creation. So what the 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 get we don't have to love the person. We we don't have any. The person was just the the trigger or the the instigator of a life lesson. 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 1617, 18, more and more conscious. 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? 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.
Alex Ferrari 36:55
That's beautiful. Now I have to ask you because I I don't think I've I haven't heard you speak about it. I'm sure you have at one point or another social media. You know, I have kids and they're growing up, and and we don't have allow them on social media except for maybe YouTube, and we monitor what they watch. But generally speaking, I watch them watch content, and they're definitely nice. Some some some of their friends are really like Instagram, TikTok-they have everything. We've blocked 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 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 of it's not might not be a billionaire, might not be a movie star, but now it's a YouTuber, oh God, influencer, YouTuber, or something along those lines.
Dr. Shefali 37:59
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. Last summer, I watched Adolescence on Netflix. I don't know whether people have watched it. You haven't.
Alex Ferrari 38:30
Adolescence is that the British show?
Dr. Shefali 38:32
Yes.
Alex Ferrari 38:33
Yes, I did. Yeah, with the child. Yes. Yes. Yes. So it was great. It was great. Yeah.
Dr. Shefali 38:36
So when I watched that, something really stirred in me to realize, wow, our our boys are in trouble, and they are going to. I mean, our men have always kind of been in a crisis of heart. 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 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 had been hearing this in my clients anyway. But then when I watched that Netflix documentary, if people haven't watched it, it's basically about a 12 year old who gets caught up in the manosphere. 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 you should you know retaliate. And your problems are caused by the female species, and so they they direct. 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. So these two books are all about how to 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 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. This was in 2000. 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 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.
Alex Ferrari 41:42
No, I know exactly about this. No, no, no. It's like I see all of it, and I'm like, look, I'm thinking about the experiences I have with my children's friends and things like that, and seeing it, it's absolutely.
Dr. Shefali 41:53
But here's the thing: it's now, it's not just a school that is toxic or oh no 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, who you're controlling at home and and managing their social media around. Right. So you're protecting your child. It doesn't matter. You go to the 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, ready to literally hijack your children and kidnap your children's innocence, your children's minds. You cannot control this anymore. The 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. What do you mean? 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, I was like, no, no, no, I am going on Instagram, and I have curated my feed.
Alex Ferrari 43:21
Yes.
Dr. Shefali 43:21
Yeah. 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. Of course. But the real stuff that I was passionate about is no longer on my Instagram, 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 I used to love being on it because I had so much of what I what filled me up intellectually and emotionally. I
Alex Ferrari 44:00
I do as well. I've curated my Instagram,
Dr. Shefali 44:04
But you don't realize what what you think you are curating is being curated for you. Well, 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.
Alex Ferrari 44:23
Interesting. Well, I mean, you're playing in someone else's sandbox, and you can't trust.
Dr. Shefali 44:27
Yes.
Alex Ferrari 44:27
I mean, it's just the way it is. Yes. One thing that you mentioned, and I love this, and I 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. Yeah. 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?
Dr. Shefali 44:55
Yeah. You know, 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. You know 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? Like, what do you mean they're your teachers? What can children teach you? Like, what can they teach you? They're so like not in their mind, right? They they don't know how to even put on their shoes. What can they teach you? So what 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, you know, controlled control, but a child will let you have uncontrolled control because your child cannot push back. 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 you know 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, "Oh, okay, I believe this is the world. This is the world. So in that, you know, in that, when 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. Shape me. Tell me who I need to be. Right. 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,
Alex Ferrari 47:22
Yeah.
Dr. Shefali 47:22
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, at two and three, and I saw a monster.
Alex Ferrari 47:34
Oh wow!
Dr. Shefali 47:34
And I was like, "This is love. This is not love. And I that's that's when I woke up.
Alex Ferrari 47:40
And she was your teacher.
Dr. Shefali 47:41
And
Alex Ferrari 47:41
Without her, you wouldn't have ever probably ever figured that out.
Dr. Shefali 47:44
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. So
Alex Ferrari 48:06
I I have no ego. Yeah. Yeah my ego is on vacation. I am enlightened.
Dr. Shefali 48:14
I have raised my children consciously.
Alex Ferrari 48:15
I am the most spiritual and the most humble.
Dr. Shefali 48:17
Yeah, I've been doing this since I I you know every word you say is just the way I have been.
Alex Ferrari 48:22
You've you've this is a conversation you've had.
Dr. Shefali 48:24
Yes, yes, and people trying to convince me, and I feel so embarrassed when they talk like this. I go, oh honey, oh honey. Yeah, you know, I've had people tell me things like, oh, doctor, I feel so bad for you that you have to write so many books because people don't get it. I mean, I've you know, I I just don't know. I mean, you're you're preaching to the choir here, you know. But the people out there, you know, need help.
Alex Ferrari 48:48
spiritual ego is probably the most dangerous. Yes, it's a great lovely ego. It's it's dangerous. It's dangerous. It really is. Yes. Now, on on a spiritual standpoint, I want to ask you: Is there a deeper spiritual reason why children are enter our lives.
Dr. Shefali 49:03
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. Your adult will, 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, but because a child cannot say that, you get to see your unbridled ego. 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.
Alex Ferrari 50:00
For a long time that you've been working in this field, what has your work taught you about consciousness in general?
Dr. Shefali 50:06
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'll cling and you'll grasp, and you're clinging, you and you realize you can't, you can't, and then you're like, oh, and you have that satori experience that Buddhism talks about, which is you have this the whole 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 at Zen and presence through pain, right? You you will only relish it deeply, not not through words and through glib, trite, pithy maxims, but deeply when you have gone through a tunnel of of darkness, and then you come out of it, and you go, I got it, and that's why I my one of my books, Radical Awakening, is 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 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.
Alex Ferrari 52:08
Do you see that in parenting? That kind of like afraid of connecting because of pain.
Dr. Shefali 52:14
Yes,
Alex Ferrari 52:15
I come from a Latino family, so I I had nothing but like love and attention and all of that.
Dr. Shefali 52:19
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 of life.
Alex Ferrari 52:37
And when you say disconnected, you mean disconnected from
Dr. Shefali 52:40
Themselves. You, when you're disconnected from yourself, you're disconnected to your child, right? You live in a very you you can you can connect, but only for this month amount of time, or only for these reasons, right? And then you are 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. I know me personally, like you, I'm a very different kind of person. But but many parents need to protect themselves, so their children feel that they feel that there's something. My parent likes me, my parent loves me, my parents respectful to me, but I just can't feel connected.
Alex Ferrari 53:20
And that's something that's happening from the parent. That that there's a subconscious
Dr. Shefali 53:23
Tiller level, and then once the child is an adult, it could be that the child is contributing to that as well. Yeah. From now, 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 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 you cannot get enmeshed. You can get connected, but you won't get enmeshed because you just are your life feeds you too much to 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 busy in your own joy and purpose, you cannot enmesh.
Alex Ferrari 54:14
If there's someone watching right now that is afraid, well, I'm going to 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.
Dr. Shefali 54:38
Well, 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, are in conflict. 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 part person. Not work out. You either got an illness, or you lie. You got fired, or your your person betrayed you. Whatever, something on you and life is not working out. Your expectation and reality are at war. 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 we are aligned at this at this point. Me and the other life or the person, we're aligned. But when we're not aligned, all this rumbling. So first, you need to identify. Oh, there's a 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 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 you-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, 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. Yeah,
Alex Ferrari 56:56
Beautifully said. Now, where can people pick up your books, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons?
Dr. Shefali 57:01
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.
Alex Ferrari 57:20
Now, if every parent listening could remember one truth tomorrow morning, what would you like them to remember?
Dr. Shefali 57:26
That you don't have to be a perfect parent, just a present one, just a connected one.
Alex Ferrari 57:32
Doctor Shefali, Doctor Shefali, it's been so beautiful talking to you, and and thank you so much for the work that you're doing and helping raise consciousness one child at a time. So I appreciate you, my dear.
Dr. Shefali 58:11
Thank you so much.
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