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Raising Conscious Children with Dr. Shefali · Deeply Well with Devi Brown

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Deeply Well.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: This show is a soft place to land on your journey,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: a space where we explore what it truly means to
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  Speaker 2: live well from the inside out, not perfectly, but honestly,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: with all the complexity, the paradox, the beauty, and the
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  Speaker 2: wonder of being human. Because in a world that is
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: constantly pulling at us, this is the space to come
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  Speaker 2: back to yourself, to your body, your truth, to the
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  Speaker 2: practices that genuinely sustain you, the ones that work when
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: life is actually happening. This show is for the seekers,
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  Speaker 2: the creatives, the sensitive ones, for everyone doing the quiet,
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  Speaker 2: courageous work of becoming whole. This is Deeply Well.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Deeply Well.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I'm Debbie Brown. Today's guest is the absolutely amazing Dr.
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  Speaker 3: Shefali.
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  Speaker 1: Dr.
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  Speaker 2: Shefali is a clinical psychologist, a New York Times bestselling author,
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  Speaker 2: and the founder of the Conscious Parenting Movement. For decades,
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  Speaker 2: her work has challenged us to rethink what it means
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  Speaker 2: to raise a child, moving away from control, fear, and
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  Speaker 2: expectation and and toward presence, connection, and authenticity in our parenthood.
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  Speaker 2: Trained at Columbia University, Dr. Shefali brings together Western psychology
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  Speaker 2: and Eastern wisdom to explore the deeper patterns that shape
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  Speaker 2: our identities, our relationships, and the ways that we show
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  Speaker 2: up for ourselves and one another. At the heart of
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  Speaker 2: her work is an invitation to understand that raising conscious
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  Speaker 2: children also requires us to look inward, confront our own conditioning,
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  Speaker 2: and become more conscious ourselves. I cannot wait to dive
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  Speaker 2: into her two new books that are going to be
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  Speaker 2: releasing next month, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons.
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  Speaker 1: Dr. Shefali, welcome back to Deeply Well.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be with you.
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  Speaker 2: You know, when I was thinking about you coming on
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  Speaker 2: and I was revisiting an episode that we did some
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  Speaker 2: years back, I was really thinking about your first book, like,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, the huge seminal work that was The Conscious Parent,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children. That book came out in 2010, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like we are 16 years removed. We have since gone
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  Speaker 2: through really an absolute revolution, right? in parenting, a revolution
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  Speaker 2: in self-work and process. And since 2020 especially, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of things that were incredibly stigmatized and taboo and unapproachable
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  Speaker 2: about mental health, about therapy, about inner child have really
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  Speaker 2: shifted the planet. And so when I was thinking of
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  Speaker 2: that and thinking that your book was such a huge
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  Speaker 2: piece of ushering in what is now kind of, you know,
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  Speaker 2: our new traditions, right? Like we're calling it conscious parenting
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  Speaker 2: or gentle parenting or healing the inner child, but it's really,
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  Speaker 2: it is the work of self and the legacy that
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  Speaker 2: that leaves in our own regulation to our children, to
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  Speaker 2: the people around us.
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  Speaker 1: And I mean, I know I just.
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  Speaker 2: Said a lot, but I'm so curious for you sharing
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  Speaker 2: this work in a time where you actually had to
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  Speaker 2: create language around it and really shift someone's thinking so they.
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  Speaker 1: Could receive it. How have you.
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  Speaker 2: Experienced the growth in consciousness in the last 16 years
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  Speaker 2: and the effect that you've had on it?
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  Speaker 4: I know, you know, you don't realize what you set
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  Speaker 4: off in motion. You're just in your little corner of
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  Speaker 4: the world, but Now, when I see how much conscious
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  Speaker 4: parenting is a movement, it is a reality. People talk
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  Speaker 4: about raising the parent self as if it's like, you know,
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  Speaker 4: of course, that's how we parent, right? The parent is
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  Speaker 4: no longer terrified of healing themselves.
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  Speaker 3: But when I began teaching.
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  Speaker 4: This work in 2007, I started, I wrote the, I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I wrote the book in 2008. It came out in 2010.
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  Speaker 4: No one was really talking about the parent needing to
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  Speaker 4: heal themselves. And now it's become such a commonplace thing,
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  Speaker 4: like you said.
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  Speaker 3: So it's.
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  Speaker 4: Very, what's the word? Bizarre, humbling, amazing. I'm like, oh
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  Speaker 4: my God, it's actually a thing. It's become a common thing.
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  Speaker 4: But back then there was so much backlash. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I still get backlash, but so much less. And it's
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  Speaker 4: a lovely thing.
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  Speaker 3: It's an amazing thing. I'm so excited. But yet the
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  Speaker 3: work is not complete.
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  Speaker 4: Because the reason I wrote these two new books, Raising
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  Speaker 4: Conscious Sons, Raising Conscious Daughters, which is coming out now
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  Speaker 4: in September, is because the inflection point we're currently in
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  Speaker 4: is even more urgent and more unique and more profoundly
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  Speaker 4: threatening for our children. So if back then I felt
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  Speaker 4: that children were under threat by unconscious parents, talk about
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  Speaker 4: what I must be feeling now because now the entire
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  Speaker 4: culture is so magnifyingly unconscious that I had to write
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  Speaker 4: these books to wake parents up. These are my books
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  Speaker 4: eight and nine to wake parents up to say, wake up.
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  Speaker 4: We got to do something. We got to take our
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  Speaker 4: children back. And I'm giving you a blueprint how to
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  Speaker 4: do so.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: What's so interesting. I want to dive into this is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, Yeah. In the last, you know, 16 to
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  Speaker 2: 18 years since you wrote the book, I mean, social
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  Speaker 2: media has happened, right?
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  Speaker 1: And exploded.
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  Speaker 2: Our political landscape has changed dramatically. Our value system, what
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  Speaker 2: industries are even available to work in have significantly changed.
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  Speaker 1: And we have AI.
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  Speaker 2: And so what are some of the biggest threats you're
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  Speaker 2: seeing to our boys and our girls, to our children?
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  Speaker 3: Oh my God, there's so much.
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  Speaker 4: I write in these books that our girls are experiencing
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  Speaker 4: a crisis of selfhood like we've never seen because you're
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  Speaker 4: taking her relational brain and her relational sensitivity and you're
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  Speaker 4: throwing her in the tornadoes of this vortex of intense scrutiny,
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  Speaker 4: intense comparison, perfectionism, and this obsession with image and appearance
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  Speaker 4: that And that young brain that is so attuned to
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  Speaker 4: how people are viewing her and validating or invalidating her,
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  Speaker 4: she's not crumbling under the pressure.
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  Speaker 3: She looks great. She has a great skincare routine, but
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  Speaker 3: she may.
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  Speaker 4: Know big words like gaslighting and red flags and manipulation
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  Speaker 4: and exploit. She knows all the words, but inside she
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  Speaker 4: hasn't yet developed enough. And our boys are experiencing an
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  Speaker 4: unprecedented crisis of masculinity. On one hand, they're told they
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  Speaker 4: need to share their feelings and be vulnerable. But then
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  Speaker 4: on the other extreme, they're given this caricature of this
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  Speaker 4: extreme masculinity from the manosphere where they feel like almost
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  Speaker 4: ridiculed if.
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  Speaker 3: They are in any way showing their feelings or vulnerable.
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  Speaker 4: So caught between these two extremes, you know, be like
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  Speaker 4: a girl and don't be like an asshole, are like
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  Speaker 4: such a hard way to find, well, who should I be?
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  Speaker 3: How can I be?
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  Speaker 4: And this book, Raising Conscious Sons, kind of outlines a
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  Speaker 4: path that parents can help their boys to embody a
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  Speaker 4: conscious masculinity.
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  Speaker 2: That is so, I mean, my God, it's so interesting
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  Speaker 2: because it's like every generation obviously is so different and
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  Speaker 2: that's what shapes, you know, earth and the world and
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  Speaker 2: our conscious experience. But when you do think about the
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  Speaker 2: effects of all the things that have been introduced since
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  Speaker 2: our own childhoods, right? Like something I've thought about a lot,
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  Speaker 2: my son is in third grade, he's eight years old,
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  Speaker 2: first week of school, back to school. You know, part
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  Speaker 2: of their learning in the last couple of years has
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  Speaker 2: been around emotional intelligence, starting kindergarten, first, second. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: my son sometimes is coming home like, oh yeah, well,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this person has OCD and this person has anxiety. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, even when he's explaining things and my son
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  Speaker 2: is just so emotionally, deeply attuned and.
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  Speaker 1: Just a wise little being.
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  Speaker 2: But, you know, he'll say things as part of his language,
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  Speaker 2: like I need a little space. I'm having anxiety about
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  Speaker 2: this right now, right? And on one hand, I'm like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: my baby's expressing his feelings. And then on the other hand,
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  Speaker 2: I'm really wondering if, What is the effect that this
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  Speaker 2: emotional revolution adults are having? What is the true long-term
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  Speaker 2: effect and even some of the shadow aspects of how
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  Speaker 2: our children will experience this? I can't imagine that they're
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  Speaker 2: emotionally ready to understand all the definitions of words and
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  Speaker 2: feelings that they're getting. I'm so curious your thoughts on that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's the.
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  Speaker 4: Same thing happening to us because we're being lulled into
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  Speaker 4: this illusion that we're so smart now because we.
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  Speaker 3: Know these words.
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  Speaker 4: And that everyone has a podcast. including you and me,
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  Speaker 4: and everyone seems to be an expert. And so we
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  Speaker 4: feel like, oh, you know, if I scroll on TikTok
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  Speaker 4: for two hours a day, I know a little bit
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  Speaker 4: of archaeology.
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  Speaker 3: I know a little bit of geography. I know a
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  Speaker 3: little bit of social studies. I know a bit of science, physics.
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  Speaker 3: And I feel I know a lot, but it's a
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  Speaker 3: real trap.
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  Speaker 4: Because knowledge has become so cheap and become so available,
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  Speaker 4: you almost begin to be lulled into feeling like you
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  Speaker 4: don't have to work hard for it.
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  Speaker 3: You have it at your fingertips and you are an.
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  Speaker 4: Expert, albeit superficially. So the days of exalting knowledge are
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  Speaker 4: over now. The days of truly going deep into something
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  Speaker 4: are over because you don't need to go deep. You
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  Speaker 4: can chat, you can Google it. But what does that
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  Speaker 4: take away from us? It takes away the focus and
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  Speaker 4: the capacity to go deep into a subject, to really
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  Speaker 4: become intimate with failure, with hardship, with focus. It's hard
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  Speaker 4: to focus on deep subjects. So we are losing that perseverance,
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  Speaker 4: that grit, that resilience. We are becoming a world fixated
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  Speaker 4: with instant gratification. And I think that is going to
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  Speaker 4: be extremely difficult to survive in the ordinary, messy, you know,
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  Speaker 4: fallible nature of life and relationships.
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  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
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  Speaker 2: What happens to someone who is going through something significant
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  Speaker 2: and just is connecting, has all the language, but in
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  Speaker 2: a superficial way, isn't able to get to that deeper layer?
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  Speaker 3: It's happening to us already. It's happening.
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  Speaker 4: You know, how many of us used to read books
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  Speaker 4: and now we don't read books? And how many of
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  Speaker 4: us go on YouTube and listen to audio books instead
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  Speaker 4: of really sitting with the silence of a book in
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  Speaker 4: one's hand?
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  Speaker 3: You know, we're losing the capacity to wait, to be bored.
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  Speaker 4: And yet it is in the moments of stillness and
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  Speaker 4: the moments of boredom where your brain's default mode network
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  Speaker 4: turns on, which is responsible for creativity, spontaneity, original thinking.
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  Speaker 4: What happens when generations after generations lose that? What happens
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  Speaker 4: is we become more and more zombified and we will
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  Speaker 4: become more and more pliable, suppressed, And we'll become more
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  Speaker 4: line followers, rule followers, unless enough of us break free
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  Speaker 4: and refuse.
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  Speaker 3: To give up our brains and our souls to the algorithm.
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  Speaker 4: But I talk, that's why I've written these books. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I decided to write these books last August. I didn't
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  Speaker 4: even have a contract and I'm already releasing them.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: So the reason I wrote them so fast is because
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  Speaker 4: I saw that we are on this precipitous turn and
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  Speaker 4: we need to act fast. So I'm empowering parents to
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  Speaker 4: act fast and there are things we can do every day,
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  Speaker 4: even 20 minutes a day, that can change the trajectory
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  Speaker 4: of your relationship with your child and therefore their relationship
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  Speaker 4: with themselves. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: What should our focus now be with our children? I
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  Speaker 2: think for the last several years, as you said, and
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  Speaker 2: of course, with your first book, it's been about learning
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  Speaker 2: how to kind of regulate ourselves and and being able
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  Speaker 2: to see our children more clearly for who they are
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  Speaker 2: and what they need. And then they've been getting this
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  Speaker 2: semi-emotional word education for the last few years, but what
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  Speaker 2: do they really need from us now?
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  Speaker 4: Oh my God, they continue to need connection, presence, attunement, alignment.
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  Speaker 3: Those things will never go away.
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  Speaker 4: They are the hallmarks of conscious parenting. But what they
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  Speaker 4: need more now than ever is deep understanding of how
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  Speaker 4: fragile they feel in a world. They're like butterflies being
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  Speaker 4: thrown into a tsunami, right? So we need to understand them.
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  Speaker 4: We need to empathize with them. We need to help
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  Speaker 4: them detox. We need to be present and connected. We
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  Speaker 4: need to lay off the pressure and the comparison. We
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  Speaker 4: need to show up as ordinary and fallible human beings.
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  Speaker 4: We need to truly help them shield themselves from this
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  Speaker 4: dopamine addiction that technology has given them. We need to
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  Speaker 4: understand the effects of pornography and the manosphere. We need
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  Speaker 4: to understand how our girls are feeling so stressed and
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  Speaker 4: obsessive about who they are in the world.
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  Speaker 3: We need to deeply.
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  Speaker 4: Study what's happening because it is not what we were
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  Speaker 4: raised in.
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  Speaker 3: It is a completely different climate.
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  Speaker 4: On one hand, again, they're so smart, so clued in,
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  Speaker 4: so tapped in, but on the internal, they are crumbling
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  Speaker 4: under the pressure.
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  Speaker 1: What are you seeing in that crumble?
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  Speaker 3: Oh my God. And I talk about each of those
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  Speaker 3: crumbles in these books.
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  Speaker 4: I see self-harm, body dysmorphia, gender dysphoria, anxiety, depression, suicidality, loneliness, isolation,
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  Speaker 4: risky behavior in such an extreme way. And basically children
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  Speaker 4: who feel that they are not safe in the world.
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  Speaker 4: And too much information is almost too overwhelming for them.
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  Speaker 3: And they need us to have boundaries and.
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  Speaker 4: Clarity and stand up to the technocrats. They need us
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  Speaker 4: to advocate. They need us to really, you know, get
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  Speaker 4: with the program. I feel like we have been with
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  Speaker 4: our head buried because we feel like there's nothing we
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: can do or we're so naively optimistic.
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  Speaker 3: But what we don't realize, it's not about being optimistic
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  Speaker 3: or pessimistic.
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  Speaker 4: It's about understanding that this technological world is not designed
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  Speaker 4: for childhood. Childhood and our technological immersion, they go against
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  Speaker 4: each other.
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  Speaker 3: Childhood, meaning till the age of 21, requires innovation.
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  Speaker 4: Free space, free time, unsupervised activity, less pressure, more adventure,
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  Speaker 4: more exploration, more embodiment, less conceptual thinking, more full embodied
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  Speaker 4: real life experiences. And if you notice, we're moving further
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  Speaker 4: and further away from that and into more of these
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  Speaker 4: virtual realities. Our boys, I believe, are the greatest prey
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  Speaker 4: to this experiment. And I think it's because You know,
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  Speaker 4: the powers that be want our men to become emasculated
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  Speaker 4: and zombified so that they can control them. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a boy mom.
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  Speaker 2: And it's something that I'm just always, always, always thinking
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  Speaker 2: about when I raise him. Like I feel, I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I have to be even sometimes like
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: more thoughtful than I then, well, I can't say, I
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: don't have a daughter, so I can't say that. But
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  Speaker 2: I do feel the pressure of, raising a good man
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  Speaker 2: for the world, you know, and getting him what he needs.
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  Speaker 2: And I think for so long, men have been left
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  Speaker 2: out of this conversation in some ways.
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  Speaker 1: About self-actualization, growth, healing.
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  Speaker 2: I think a lot of times women have assumed that
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  Speaker 2: their path to the work is the same as ours,
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  Speaker 2: and it isn't. So I'm curious in the differences that
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: you're seeing of like, what are young boys need and
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: what our girls need? And how do we, especially with
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: everything you're sharing in your book, how do we rise
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  Speaker 2: to the occasion?
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  Speaker 4: Once we understand how our child, whatever their sex, is
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  Speaker 4: uniquely being threatened, we are going to start the path
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  Speaker 4: of understanding. And then we need to understand how boys
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: are being threatened because of their dopamine and testosterone. That's
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: why pornography and video games escaping into that whole adventure world.
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  Speaker 3: But cerebrally, not in an embodied way, right?
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  Speaker 4: They're acting as if they're in a jungle. It's an
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: as-if reality, not an as-is reality. How can you have
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: sex as-if? How can you have adventures as-if?
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  Speaker 3: You understand? So then when everything is in the as-if, which.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Is often gamified, commodified, mechanized, roboticized, and lies, it's a lie,
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  Speaker 4: that world, then real life becomes very threatening. And now
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  Speaker 4: we can't even practice rejection anymore because we're not even
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: allowing ourselves to be exposed to rejection.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we have to all practice failure. We have
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: to practice rejection. We have to practice. All of life
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  Speaker 3: is a practice.
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  Speaker 4: But if you're constantly interfacing with 2D reality, how are
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: you practicing life? You're practicing anti-life, right? You're practicing virtual reality.
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  Speaker 4: And that is so dangerous. I'm telling you, I bet
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  Speaker 4: you most of the school shooters that we've had who
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  Speaker 4: are young men of a particular demographic, they probably didn't
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  Speaker 4: even know the difference between reality and virtual. You know how,
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: I don't know whether you do this or maybe I'm
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  Speaker 4: giving myself away. You know how you see a photograph
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  Speaker 4: in a magazine, don't you like want to use your
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: fingers to make it bigger?
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  Speaker 3: And you're like, why can't this just become bigger?
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  Speaker 4: Because we've kind of now, we are morphing between virtual.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: And real, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. boy who's sitting in front of the video game
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  Speaker 4: seven hours a day, shooting, you know, thinking he's moving
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  Speaker 4: in the most extreme ways. He's conquering, you know, missions
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  Speaker 4: and he's meeting goals. Then he steps away from that
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  Speaker 4: and realizes, wow, I'm just an ordinary person.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not a king anymore. So he likes to be
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  Speaker 3: a king.
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  Speaker 4: So then he takes his virtual world, takes his AK-47
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  Speaker 4: and goes out of the basement.
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  Speaker 3: And maybe the line.
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  Speaker 4: Between virtual and real is so blurred for these people, right?
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  Speaker 4: There's a real danger of that happening more and more
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  Speaker 4: to our children.
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  Speaker 2: For so many of us that are the adults in
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: this time right now, we're not natives the way that
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: they are to technology. So we see it in theory,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: but we remember our experience and we lived both. You know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: we were here as it was being introduced, but it
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: didn't take us over. It's not, we have something we
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: remember from before. That's really, yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: And now, and now we feel that if we're not
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: on Instagram, not on TikTok, for example, we're or YouTube, we're.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Missing out, right? So our girls and girls.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Who really feel relationally, you know, trapped in a way,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: because their identity sometimes comes from relationships, that FOMO feeling
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: is crippling. And, you know, girls will analyze emojis, they'll
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: analyze how many exclamation points.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: My daughter was 23, she'd tell me, She'll tell me, ooh,
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: that's cringe. And I'll look and say, what's cringe? She's like, oh,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: that emoji. Don't send that emoji. Don't send that color heart.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Even talking about? She's like, oh my God, my friend
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: sent three exclamations. She's really angry with me. Or she
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: really likes me. And I look at her like she's
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: an alien. But after I judge her, I remember I
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: shouldn't judge. Because they're judging us, right?
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: They're looking at.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Us and going, your generation was so clueless. And the
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: millennials are so ridiculous. So every generation wants to claim sanity,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: but every generation thinks they're the most amazing. But we
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: as parents have to understand what they are going through
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: and really connect to them and allow them to feel
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: that they are deeply felt.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: They are deeply experienced.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: They're deeply understood because those feelings that we can project
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: onto them of deep care, deep understanding, that's the immunity.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: There is an immunity.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: There is a way to inoculate them.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: But we have to turn the dial up way more than,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: When I wrote Conscious Parenting back then, I used to
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: tell parents, you know, keep your eyes locked in, make
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: eye contact. And I thought that was so difficult, but
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: I didn't have a phone in my pocket. So imagine
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: now I'm begging parents to just get off the phone.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Forget eye contact. Forget tuning in. Just get off your phone.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Just get off your phone.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: God, that is so true.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: And to the point that you make about every generation
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: thinking they are the ones that are the wisest or
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: had a certain kind of life. It's so interesting because
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: something I also keep in mind, especially when I hear
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: people complaining about the youth, it's like.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: We created this. They didn't have a choice.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: We created this. 100%.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: I called my daughter's school up in sixth grade and
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: I connected to her math department because I was horrified
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: that she was doing math with her little fingers. I'm like,
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: how you make everything crooked and blurred and messed up
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: and then by mistake you erase it. And I'm like,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: where is the pencil and eraser and the ruler and
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: the audacity of the department head?
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: He said, oh, Ms.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Savari, we are doing This is how we do it now.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And every kid needs to get educated. What a load
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: of bullshit that was, right? Now we realize, wow, you know,
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: but that was, you.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Know, 15 years ago.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: And now parents today need to be aware of things
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: that you and I perhaps weren't aware of. Certainly I
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: wasn't aware of. But you're so lucky you're a young
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: parent because now you know and now you can protect
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: your children much better. And my books are going to
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: help you to do that.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, truly.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: And I think it is important that we look outside of,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: our own experience, our own judgments of all of the,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: you know, the blending of these realities, these two lives
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: that we each live digital and real life. And yeah,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: really look how to support community and young people in this. I,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I was thinking that a lot, like in the, at
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: the very beginning of social media, right. Which was like
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: 2010 to like 2014, not social media in.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Terms of like.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: The popularity of Instagram and the way that grew into
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: its own industry. And I just remember thinking, you know, how,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: what is going to happen to these kids whose entire
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: lives are documented in a performative way without their consent,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: who are a part, who are witnessing their parents kind
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: of give away their authority and power to likes and
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: to visibility.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And the effect that that actually has on the psyche.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine?
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, you now finding out that your entire third grade,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: fourth grade, fifth grade tantrums, you know, scared face, teary
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: eyed experiences have been documented without your consent. I mean,
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: I love parents and I'm really compassionate to parents. I
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: don't want to sound preachy, but it really blows me
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: away how parents are willing to put their children's authentic,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: sovereign experiences online without consent.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: How are we allowed to do that? That's their privacy.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: That's their privacy.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I have to ask my daughter every time I post
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: a picture. I rarely post a picture, but even the
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: examples I gave in the book that had to do
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: with her, I had to get consent.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I had to ask her, is it okay if I
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: say this?
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: And a book is still different, but online to strangers
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: who don't even pay.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: For this, It's really sad. We don't even pay for this.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: We don't even pay for it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, those kids will grow up and they'll have
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: some feelings about it, I'm sure.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And also, too, I think there's this way, this subconscious
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: way that you're also giving them feedback that like that
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: smile wasn't good enough or your posture in that. But
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: it's no longer just capturing what is. It's trying to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: get the most idealized version in that moment to then share.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And they feel that.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: If you ask them to take the picture five times
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: because you're unhappy with how they're sharing themselves the first four,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: like that has a real effect on self-esteem and on
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: inner process.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: And I think we parents need to really be brave
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: to look in the mirror and say, it's okay.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: I did wrong. I didn't know.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: I was just doing it. I thought it was fun
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: because we all thought it was fun and innocent. You know,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: I don't blame parents. They thought, you know, it's so cool.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Let's bring the family in. Let's just share our intimate life.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: We thought it was a safe platform. We didn't realize
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: the money behind it and the desire to exploit and
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: to share data.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: We didn't know this. So for every parent listening who
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: may think, oh, Dr. Shivali is judging me and oh
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: my God, I made a mistake. It's okay. You can
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: correct it and don't be so harsh on yourself. You
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: didn't know, right? We only can do what we know.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: And if we didn't know, we didn't know.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: So I don't want parents to feel bad, but I
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: do want parents to stop and really go deep within
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: themselves and be brave to set their children free because
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: children don't consent to be there and they will not
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: be able to consent till their 30s. So don't think
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: just because they're 21, they're consenting because you can never
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: really consent to a parent unless you're a full on
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: adult yourself, right?
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: There's always a power dynamic there.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Ooh, that is an important, important sentence, I think, to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: hear for so many. Dr. Shefali, your new books are
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: available September 15th. And of course, we're going to link
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: everything below in the show notes. But it's Raising Conscious Daughters,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Building Confidence, Courage, and Inner Power in an Anxious World.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: And the book into that, being released on the same day,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Raising Conscious Sons. Cultivating purpose, connection, and inner power in
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: a chaotic world. Wow.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: We need these. We need these now.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: This is such a gorgeous evolution to your life's work
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: and the way that you've helped so many people heal
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: from the inside out in a way that affects every
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: generation to come. At the end of every episode, we
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: like to ask our guests to please share a piece
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: of soul work. So something to kind of sit with
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: and integrate what was heard and felt in this episode.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: It can be a quote, a practice, a breath, a
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: journal prompt, but something to sit with after hearing this conversation.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: You want me to give parents something to sit with?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Anyone listening, parent or not, but just a practice to
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: integrate everything we talked about.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: I think the biggest message that I always try to
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: impart is, you know, Don't get caught up in what
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: culture tells you is important. You know deep inside what matters.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: You know how to live a life well. And the
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: more you get caught up with what culture tells you
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: is a beautiful life, the further you will go into
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: your own abandonment. so don't desert yourself don't abandon yourself
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: go deep inside yourself marry yourself your children are waiting
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: they want you so desperately they need you so desperately
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: and these few years are all you have so spend
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: that extra 30 minutes with them You know, just lie
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: down without a phone, be next to them, breath to breath.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is what they came into your life for.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: And if you don't have children, you have an inner child.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: So be breath to breath with your inner child and
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: put that phone down. Just put it down. It is
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: nothing but empty at the end of the day.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So real.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: Dr.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Shefali's books and every way that you can connect with
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: her and her work is linked below in the show notes.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to see you when you come to
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: LA with these new books and just thank you so much.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Anyone in LA and I'm doing this whole book tour,
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: go to my website, drshefali.com. I have so many bonuses
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: to give you.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: And these are the two books. I'm holding them up.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: If you can see them, Raising Conscious Sons and Daughters.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. So grateful to be here with you.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Dr.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Shefali.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: We will be back next week. Namaste.
• 30:59
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• 31:03
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• 31:07
  Speaker 2: for personalized medical or mental health guidance, and does not
• 31:11
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• 31:16
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• 31:20
  Speaker 2: specific concerns or questions.
• 31:23
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• 31:24
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