Latest / She’s Smart / Kavita Srinivasan - Parenting Coach, Trauma Healer, and Educator

Transcript

Kavita Srinivasan - Parenting Coach, Trauma Healer, and Educator · She’s Smart

0:00
So thank you for being on the podcast. So this is where we get to just kind of dive in.
0:06
I really want to start from the beginning. I'd like to hear about growing up
0:11
in India and going off to boarding school at such a young age,
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because I feel like as I'm learning so much more about you now,
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more than I already know,
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is how that has affected you as an adult and how your process now.
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So I was born in India and lived in Bangalore and Bombay and my parents got
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transferred to Cameroon.
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I'm South Indian and education is a really big deal for us.
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We were in a small town in Cameroon called Limbe and there were no really good schools there.
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So my father decided it would be good for us to go to a boarding school in India.
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I was six and a half and my sister was four and a half.
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But the other part was that my parents were struggling.
1:01
My mother is mentally unwell and I think she's been mentally unwell all her life.
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My father just could not handle the children and then her and then life.
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He was young and he wanted to make a career and focus on his work.
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I think it was just too much for him.
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So they decided to send us to boarding school.
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Which was absolutely the most traumatizing time of my life.
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I went to boarding school in India from the age of six to the age of 12.
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An all-girls Catholic convent.
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It was just, it was horrible.
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Maria, I can't even tell you. Like, it was just, you know, when you're that
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young and now when I look back, I understand certain things.
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When you're that young and You're not meant to be left. I was not even seven yet.
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It was a strict Indian Catholic boarding school and my parents were not emotionally equipped.
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My grandfather and uncle were living in the same city. My grandmother had recently
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passed away and I was very close to her.
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There was no one. Like I was just literally left with my sister and she was
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even younger than me. So it was terrible.
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After three years in boarding school, I moved to my grandpa and uncle's house,
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which was as bad. There was neglect.
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They didn't know how to raise two young girls. My mother would come down for
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a few months of the year to be with us but.
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She was not okay. She was struggling. She was on a host of uppers and downers.
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She was just not there. A lot of my life, I spent taking care of my mother.
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I look back and I have a lot of conscious memory of it.
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It was terrible. It was a roller coaster. Then my father got a job in Europe.
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I said, let's all be together. We went to a boarding school in Switzerland,
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but we day schooled. We stayed with my parents.
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For those four years, I lived with them in Switzerland. So
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we were a family for four years but she was not
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well it was pretty traumatic those years were better
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than living in India without them yeah yeah because at least I was with them
3:01
I was with them for four years and I went to New York for college so did you
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think you would go to New York go to the states for college was that in your
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mind it was a part of the plan it was always a part of the educational plan
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you finish your schooling and then you go to the states for college.
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That was always a part of the plan. So then you went to Tufts and Vassar.
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Yes. And then you moved to New York City and you met me. Yes.
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I moved to New York City and I met you. You're forever roomie.
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In 2006, I needed a roommate and I was with my friend Tia. Hi T.
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And in 2006, the thing you did was you went on Craigslist and you posted an
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ad that you needed roommate.
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We were living in Chelsea in New York City, and this beautiful Indian woman
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comes into the room and we go five flights up to our apartment where Kavita's
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room was literally a closet. Didn't even have windows.
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At one point in the summer, we had to get her an air conditioning unit that
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the exhaust tube went out the back window so she didn't die.
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It was horrible you were barely in that room I was barely there.
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So Kavita comes in and immediately Tia and I fell in love with her.
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We followed her down the five flights of stairs, followed her across the street to Starbucks.
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We wouldn't let her leave. We wanted her to sign the lease. Thankfully, she did.
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And then we got to live together there. And then we moved in together in the
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East Village where we had our little two bedroom and wreaked havoc.
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It was the best. It was the best. And then we would sit on the couch and you
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would cook for me. I would cook for you. cook brownies and chocolate.
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And I talk about you all the time to the kids. And I always tell Grayson about
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how you used to eat chocolate when you were sick.
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Yes. I'm not bad, make me chocolate. And you would hide it next to your bed.
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Do you remember? I came home from work and you weren't feeling well.
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And I was like, are you okay? And you're like, I'm fine. And hiding the chocolate
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because you know, I was going to say.
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Nothing much has changed. I'm
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glad that hasn't So next step is Kavita gets married and moves to Dubai.
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Can we talk about that part? Yes. Honestly, the crazy thing about life before 32.
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Now that I have perspective and I've done all of this studying and work,
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you're not an adult till you're 32.
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Between 28 and 32, you go through something called a Saturn return,
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which is when you actually enter adulthood. You have a serious adult thing that
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happens to you between 28 and 32.
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And it is only going through that difficult growing up phase that you become an adult.
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So what you go through between 28 and 32 makes you grow up and become a grown up.
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Before 28, I was just really lost. You know, all this trauma of growing up with my,
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you know, with absent parents, with an unwell parent, with a father that was
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overwhelmed and did not have the emotional capacity to even talk about this
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with us. My parents are wonderful people.
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They just were broken and struggling, you know.
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And then our extended family not understanding the situation.
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I'm Indian. We don't talk about mental health, which is insane because India
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has been so advanced in healing and in spirituality. But in modern day India,
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you don't really talk about mental health.
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We were seen as abnormal and our entire extended family cut us out or ignored
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us. We were like an island.
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When I went to college and my grandfather passed away, my mother had a full nervous breakdown.
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She had epileptic fits. She stopped leaving the house. She was not okay.
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She would stare off vacantly into space. She would not be able to speak.
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And my father would not even have the energy to diagnose her.
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So nobody even knew what was wrong with her.
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For the longest time, there was absolutely no help because...
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It was just brushed under the carpet and they were overwhelmed with it.
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They didn't have the emotional muscle to deal with it.
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All of this is happening in my life as I'm living with you in New York and we're
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doing our thing. I'm just lost.
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When the place that you grow up in is so painful, you want to be anyone but yourself.
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You want to escape into people and places that make you feel safe because home
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is not a safe place. I was lost in a haze and a daze and I had no direction in my life.
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I was doing a job that was a job.
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You know, I was living a life that was fun and kind of escapist.
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We lived a very escapist sort of life.
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That's your 20s. My sister met her husband when she was 21 and they got engaged when she was 24.
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And at 25, she was getting married. I was her older sister.
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And even though no one put pressure on me. I want to get married and I want
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to have kids. And you know how much I love kids. I always loved kids.
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So I was like, if there's anything that I want in my life, it's a baby,
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you know? And I said, okay, now I'm 27 or 26.
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It's time for me to find someone, the first person who seems okay and just marry them.
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So with that mindset, I met my ex-husband and you know him. We all know how
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strongly everyone in my life felt about me being with him. You know, he was not okay.
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Maybe he's okay for his family right now.
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But for me, for my life, in that stage of my life, in the state that we were in, he was not for me.
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And it was very bad. Nobody in my life really endorsed it because I completely changed.
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Yeah. And I was not happy. I remember when you first met him,
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we followed you to the bar to make sure he was safe.
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And then when he came back to the apartment, I looked at him and I said,
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if you hurt her, I will kill you.
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Maybe I told him I would take off his balls. My four foot tenness and his six
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foot tallness. I would have knocked him over and smacked him.
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You really could do that. I was
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miserable. He was not okay. It was an emotionally abusive relationship.
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Maybe he's grown. Everyone is different in every relationship.
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Maybe he's really happy right now with his family.
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But for me, I was not okay in that relationship.
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We got married and none of my friends or family were really a big fan of him
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because of the way I was with him.
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I moved to Dubai with him. Very quickly, after about a year,
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I decided that I was going to leave him.
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I remember I picked up the phone and I called you. Do you remember?
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Six months before I left him, I picked up the phone and I called you and I said,
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Maria, I've decided to leave him.
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I can't believe that it was six months before you actually left.
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Cause then I remember the phone call when you said you were, you had left.
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So I said, I'm leaving him. So I realized after being with him that he's just,
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you know, there are three signs of a person being mentally unwell.
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One is when everything you're going through is somebody else's problem.
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There's absolutely no, I'm unhappy at my job. My boss sucks.
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This person is horrible.
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That person is horrible. Number two, you're not able to make new friends.
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You're not able to make new relationships.
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That's number two. And number three, be happy. There's no joy in life.
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There's a constant complaining.
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Everything is your fault. Nothing is my fault I
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am not to blame you are to blame I started feeling like there
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was something not okay and he was just not happy I would wake up every
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day and it was a horrible existence yeah
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it was a horrible existence there was no joy there was
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absolutely no calm and peace and and I
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had to change to accommodate him and I was walking on eggshells
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it was not working for me I decided because my experience
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growing up with you know mental ill health sort of
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made me determine that I am not going to live this
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life I'm not going to live a half-life you know I'm not
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going to sacrifice my joy and be with someone you know
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but I knew that I could not go home and live with
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my parents because I'm not I've never grown up in India I've never lived there
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I didn't want to be at home it's just not the place I wanted to be my best friend
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from college worked for a publishing house and I had been writing and helping
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her for a while she got me an internship and I worked that internship.
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I worked for free for six months and I worked my ass off.
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One of the magazine's editors resigned and they offered me a job.
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It was a very low level starting as a junior lifestyle editor.
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I knew that once I had that freedom of my own career and my own job, I could leave.
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So I told him that I was done.
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And then he said, okay, a few hours later, he was like, no, let's work on this relationship.
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The way it works here is you're on your husband's visa. and on those days it
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was the sharia law which is you know the the muslim law so basically you're
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under your husband's visa my father was like,
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you've just got to leave. You can't stay there. You've got to tell your job
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that I'm not going to come back till I get the divorce.
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I can't have you be there under this visa.
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I just picked up my bag overnight, packed my clothes, three tops,
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my jewelry and my wallet.
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On my 31st birthday, I did not plan this to be my birthday, but what a birthday gift.
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I got on a plane in the middle of the night left him and landed in Bangalore and a file for divorce.
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It's got chills. I remember you calling me, telling me, going through everything that's going on.
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I remember you going through it and listening to it and then working from there, trying to work. Yes.
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So far away, writing articles and being like, I can't stay here forever.
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You see, writing the entire, like doing all my work, working for free and then
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going through this divorce. It was just so difficult.
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But you know, there's so much grace when you're on the right path.
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I think that was the first time in my life when I realized that I was not okay.
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I was really not okay. Because why did I choose this relationship?
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What made me marry someone when I was not happy with them?
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Right from after three months, it was not a happy relationship.
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I was not happy and it wasn't easy. There's one lesson I've learned. It's that.
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Nobody is to blame. He's not to blame. No one is to blame. The only ownership
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I can take is, what did I do to make this happen?
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Like, what is my part in this? And then I realized that my comfort zone is being miserable.
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That's my comfort zone. That's my home. When your parents neglect you,
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neglect becomes your language of love.
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When your parents abuse you, abuse becomes your language of love.
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When your parents love you and respond to your needs, then that is what you know as love.
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For me, a place of ill health and discomfort was my home.
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That's why I was attracted to him. Our dynamic created that home for me.
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So for me, how do I break this?
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How do I break this is by doing my inner work, you know?
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Why did I choose him? Why did I choose this situation?
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After I left him I got the divorce in two and a half months which is unheard
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of the universe really had my back and I came back to Dubai and I lived alone
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for the first time in my life in an apartment and I worked on myself I went
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to therapy for the first time in my life I learned,
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why I had chosen him and broke that I think I really learned a hard lesson I
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broke a pattern an emotional pattern that's the first time I realized how much
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my life had impacted me My childhood talked to me.
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Outside of that, I thought it was completely fine. Totally normal.
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I'm fine. I've gone through all of this, but I'm good. I'm fine.
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So you go on to become the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Middle East, Hello, and Masala.
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You did all of those things while working on yourself and figuring out who you are going to become.
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And meeting your husband and having your baby, coming to visit me at some point
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and squishing on Grayson because he was a baby when you guys were out visiting.
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I'll tell you one thing. I have a lot of strength.
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I have the ability to really do this, to break down and to rise from the ashes.
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So I did it, Maria. I am so proud of myself.
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I am so grateful to myself and for my family and the support system that I had to make that happen.
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I came back. I was a lifestyle editor at Masala.
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And I just worked my way up. You know, in one year, I became the deputy editor.
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In two years, they offered me the editor in chief.
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I just worked my ass off, you know, and I made myself indispensable.
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Yeah. And I really pushed. I was there like 14 hours, 18 hours a day doing it
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all with my whole body and soul.
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A year after I left, I met Shri, my husband, through friends.
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We ran into each other at a party and it just happened. I realized after being
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with him what it feels like to be myself in a relationship.
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You're just yourself and this person and you are just this peace.
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No marriage is perfect but I'm myself and he
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is himself it's easy and that I'm myself you're
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calm you've met him you've seen like he's so wonderful I mean I he's good for
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me he's for me you know this is me so we were together for four years and I
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was like I need to be with somebody if I do this again I'm going to make sure
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that this is right so we were together for four years and then we got married.
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During this time, I became the editor-in-chief of Masala. I got offered to launch Hello!
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Magazine in the region. I became the editor-in-chief of Hello!
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And launched it in the Middle East.
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It was spectacular. I thought I was winning at life, you know. Here I am.
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I am good now. I have broken my pattern. I've met my husband. I'm pregnant.
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I'm, you know, the launch editor of Hello! magazine.
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And right now I love babies. I was so happy. I was the happiest pregnant woman
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in the world. I can't tell you. I was so happy.
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And I didn't even have morning sickness. I used to eat three meals a day,
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two pieces of cake. I worked till 7pm. I gained 24 kilos happily.
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I was so happy and fat and I enjoyed every moment of it. I was like,
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I'm going to eat. I'm going to live.
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I went into labor at 3am. I was working till the last minute.
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It was good I was good we moved
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homes when I was eight and a half months pregnant I did
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it all I worked I was active I was joyful I
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was happy and so then when I had Ved the
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moment he was born a few seconds later I went
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from a hundred to zero I could not breathe I
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had a panic attack with him next to me when he started crying I
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was shaking I've always wanted a baby you know
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and it didn't improve I did all the right things I breastfed him I was there
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but inside I was constantly on edge and scared I could not be alone in a room
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with him I could not be alone in a room with him it was petrifying you know
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and then I got offered Cosmo I became the editor of Cosmopolitan Middle East after he was born.
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On the outside, it looked like, oh, she's got it all together.
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She's the editor of this and she has a baby and her husband.
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But I was in a very dark place, Maria.
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I was in a very dark place and it went on for a really long time.
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I was not getting better.
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It was very hard for many, many years. So your postpartum lasted for years until
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a doctor was able to say, let's get you help and figure this out.
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In life there are two seminal parts
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the two major parts of life are this 28 to
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32 and if you look back on your life and
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think of what happened between 28 and 32 something happened you start breaking
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down at 36 when you can no longer be the person you were with all of this trauma
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and baggage and conditioning it starts falling apart much like a snake sheds
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its skin and a baby leaves a womb.
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At 36, the labor pains begin.
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It's time to shed that past, leave that behind and become yourself.
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At 36, I started crumbling.
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He was three years old and I was still in this horrible dark place.
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I went to a lot of therapy, but nobody was able to help me.
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And then I interviewed Dr. Shefali for the magazine. I just turned 40. And 40 is a magical age.
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It's a magical age. It's when everything blows open
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you know it starts at 36 you start crumbling
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then at 40 it just blows open and you
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either let yourself crumble and
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feel everything or you continue
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to just disintegrate the universe
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knocks at your door at 36 wake up wake up you don't wake up it starts banging
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at 40 you don't wake up it starts banging on it things get harder and harder
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and harder and then 50 something crazy happens so if you wake up at 40 then
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50 can be a rewarding time but if you don't wake up at 40 then 50 is.
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Even harder. You know, it's like it compounds. So at 40, she told me when I
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interviewed her, I said, you know, I have deep postpartum distress.
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My son is three years old and I don't understand why it's like this.
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And then she said, you can't give what you didn't get.
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I may have heard this before, but when she said it, something broke in me.
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I realized how malnourished I am.
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My parents are wonderful and they've done the best they can.
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But no, I did not have parental presence for the majority of my life.
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I grew up emotional often. There was no one there, Maria.
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I remember when I was in boarding school, I used to defecate in my pants.
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Now I know that when your body is in that panic fight flight state,
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your brain shucks off everything, including your digestive system,
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so it can go into danger mode.
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That happens when I And I get panic attacks, more anxiety, panic attack, anxiety attacks.
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The first thing that happens, panic and anxiety.
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Oh, Maria. Yeah. But that 40 number, Kavita, that 40 number blew me open and
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I stopped weighing myself on a scale.
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I went and saw this amazing woman, Christine, who is actually an episode right before you.
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She helped me heal myself. My sister and I used to call each other and she was
22:05
going through her own work.
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And we would have the same remembrances of experiences in our childhood.
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And she had a different version than I had, but it happened at the same time.
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She would say, I didn't know that happened or I didn't see it like that.
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And I would go, Christina, I didn't see it that way.
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We went through a few years where the two of us just would just be digging and
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things would just keep bubbling up. I'd have dreams about random stuff,
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but instead of ignoring it, I would say, okay, what does that mean?
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What am I trying to learn from this? What is that experience teaching me?
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I got to the point where you sit inside yourself and you talk to the child that
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didn't get what it needed or needed to heal in some way.
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And we went through all of this work and it was at 40 that it blew open. and.
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Now I'm what? I'm turning 46 on Monday and it's the best time of life so far
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because babies were hard.
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Easton, I love you, was hard as a baby. I had postpartum.
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No one checked it. I didn't check it. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
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Poor Ben would get phone calls in the middle of work while he's sitting at the
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trading desk and I'd be bawling into Easton while trying to feed him.
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We struggled with that connection that you're supposed to have immediately
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when you have a baby and like no one has it no one
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has it what is that you don't want you're you're filled you're
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you're given this like joyous you're gonna connect and
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look and be like and i loved
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him and i wanted everything for him but i felt ashamed that i didn't have that
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it took years to create that connection with him it sparked a couple years ago
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and he's gonna be 12 i adore him i think he's funny as hell.
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We connect now on a level that we never did when he was a baby. It just wasn't there.
24:04
Grayson was just this lump of smush.
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And he was such a pleasing baby. He was appeasing, right?
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I don't know if you're born like that, where you just know you're supposed to
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do the right things all the time.
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There are some kids like that. Oh, yeah.
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I think that's... Those are the kids to watch out for.
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Because he's going to need the most help. okay that's good to know all right
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so that's a whole other episode let's get it i digressed but,
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you're diving deeper you're figuring out you're slowly starting to heal the inside,
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then i just quit my job maria i quit
24:41
because i was like i i can't do this anymore i just
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can't do it anymore i was just not feeling
24:47
like myself like this is not me i was so miserable every day and then COVID
24:52
happened and I was so uncomfortable I was like I need to start this business
24:56
and that business and this thing and then COVID happened and I just broke down
25:00
I said you know what I don't know what it's like to have a mother but I will
25:03
never let my son not have a mother.
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I will heal I will walk through the fire to be there for my child I found the
25:12
right healer that's the universe really answers your prayers when you are aligned
25:16
and you're walking the right path you get all the help that you need.
25:19
That one year of COVID, I just broke down. I used to take care of my mother
25:23
at night. So every time Ved cried,
25:26
My nervous system would remember me taking care of my mother from a very young
25:32
age, from the age of eight, from all of these memories.
25:35
And I think at some level, I was that child who knew what to do to help my parents.
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So the good child, you know, my sister, I think, suffered less than me.
25:46
She didn't break down so much because she was quite rebellious.
25:48
She wore her feelings and her rage on her body. She didn't really suppress anything.
25:52
So for me, yeah, I relived everything. I went through all those moments.
25:56
I relived the pain of every moment of my mother breaking down and me taking
26:01
care of her in the middle of the night.
26:03
She used to scream and I would have to hold her down.
26:07
So my baby was unwell. Every time I felt sick, I could not deal with it.
26:12
I was panicking. I used to throw up. It was just horrible.
26:15
So I spent this entire year breaking down.
26:18
And I think I was so ready that within a couple of months, I started feeling better.
26:22
I used to spend my life going to other people's homes, having toxic friendships,
26:29
really enmeshed friendships, and having ridiculous expectations of my friends.
26:34
When you don't get that met by your parents and you don't know how to meet those
26:38
needs yourself, you expect other people to be the parent that you never had. But it's nobody's job.
26:44
So people were like, what is wrong with you? You need to get some help because
26:48
I was such a mess. Some friendships fell apart.
26:51
I was devastated. and I was alone and it
26:54
was the best thing to ever happen to me yeah to finally
26:58
be alone and have no one
27:01
to rely on in that you need to save me kind of way you know Sri is wonderful
27:06
our husbands are wonderful but they don't know emotionally men are not equipped
27:11
to understand emotionally what we've been through so he was there he's wonderful
27:15
he's a pillar of strength but emotionally I had to do All the work on my own.
27:20
So then after that, I started studying under Dr. Shefali because I was like,
27:24
now I know why I've lived the life that I have.
27:28
I just felt an inner calling. Why have I always loved kids? Why did my son wake me up in this way?
27:33
My healing journey has been very much precipitated by motherhood.
27:37
I thought leaving my ex-husband was my healing. No, it is the way this really
27:43
woke me up to, how malnourished I was. So I studied under Dr. Shefali.
27:47
I got certified as a parenting coach and I wanted to study more.
27:52
She went to this university in California called CIIS in San Francisco,
27:57
which is the only university in the world that does mind, body, soul healing.
28:01
And I applied, I got in, I was at the information session and there was a Sri
28:08
Yantra symbol, an Indian symbol.
28:10
And I was like, oh, why do you have an Indian symbol? And they said,
28:14
well, we're founded by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.
28:18
And I had no idea about this.
28:21
My husband grew up in the Sri Aurobindo ashram.
28:24
His entire family is from there.
28:26
His parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, aunts, my brother-in-law works at
28:34
the ashram. It was like magic.
28:35
I have finally, I know exactly where I am and where I'm meant to be in my life.
28:40
It was just like this message from the universe that yes, you're in the right
28:45
place and my son brought me that.
28:48
When you started studying, did you know what you wanted to do?
28:52
Did you know that being a parent coach and going into that or did you just want to learn more?
28:58
I wanted to learn more but I know that I wanted to help parents.
29:02
I want to help parents and I think we're parents before we even have children.
29:06
We're parents to ourselves.
29:08
I want to help people be parents because I feel like every parent is doing the
29:13
best that they can by themselves and by their children, but we're all struggling.
29:17
My parents are kind, wonderful people, but anything that they did was because
29:23
they were struggling and they didn't have any help and support in their life.
29:26
Yeah. I feel like that's true for all parents. I want children to have parents.
29:31
Yeah. I want children to have whole parents. That is what I want.
29:34
And I know what it feels like to not have that.
29:36
Maybe healing through that in that way has given me, you are your greatest textbook.
29:41
I just finished my master's last year and I'm going to start my PhD.
29:47
I'm, you know, in the process of starting the application that I know what I'm going to do.
29:51
So, yeah, and I've been doing this for five years. Today, I had a few sessions
29:56
with clients and I said, I can't believe this is my life.
30:00
This is me. I'm finally myself. When you meet with parents for the first time,
30:05
are there general pieces of advice you like to give them or practices they can work on?
30:10
To start getting in touch with their inner child and their traumas they need to heal.
30:18
I don't believe in giving advice because it doesn't help. Advice doesn't really help.
30:23
When most parents come to me, and I work with people who have children and people
30:27
who don't have children.
30:28
Just today, I had a client, and she has certain struggles around addiction.
30:34
We just started talking to each other, and I told her, if there's one thing
30:37
I want you to do, you know what it's like when you binge eat, you know? Yes, I do.
30:42
I've been there, you know? And I said, I want you to do is, for example,
30:46
let's just say someone's addicted to cake and they've eaten a lot of cake instead
30:51
of the next day you have such a shame game.
30:53
You know, I said, the thing that you're addicted to is your parent.
30:57
I was like, this cake has been your mother.
31:01
I was like, so just eat the cake and tell yourself it's OK.
31:06
We won't need you to be our parent anymore. so if there's one thing that I say
31:11
is just learn to be kind to yourself you know this world is so.
31:17
Cruel and the things that you've been through are so hard we spend so much time
31:22
telling ourselves that we should not be a certain way and we should be a certain
31:26
way and it's okay we need time and a lot of compassion to be imperfect and just
31:35
learn to speak to yourself differently,
31:37
let yourself just break to me that is
31:40
the beauty in the breakdown if you have the strength to come up
31:43
from it there and just accept yourself like
31:46
tomorrow if you're a mother if grayson or
31:49
easton you know i don't know how god forbid
31:52
has like an eating this let's just say i'm eating you're not gonna you want
31:56
to be there for them bad boy you did this you're gonna be like i want to be
32:00
there for you and help you through this so let's use the same voice with ourselves
32:05
yeah yes kavita you're addicted to cake. I want to be there for you.
32:09
The irony is the more you're there for yourself when you do this,
32:13
the less you really want to eat the cake.
32:15
All we want is love. All we want is acceptance.
32:18
All we want to do is to feel better and to feel loved.
32:22
When parents come to me, the first thing they say is, my child is not okay.
32:27
I need to help my child. Like he's biting or he He has ADD, which is a diagnosis
32:34
that is handed out like candy these days.
32:36
For me, everything that is wrong with your child is actually something you are
32:44
projecting onto your child.
32:46
Children are blank slates. They are emotionally pure beings.
32:51
They reflect what you project onto them. There is nothing wrong with your child.
32:56
And there's nothing wrong with you. they're just whatever challenges you have
33:01
with them indicates what you're struggling with,
33:05
what is add at its root at its root and gabor marty talks about this in his
33:11
book scattered he says add is the inability to be present.
33:17
Why does a child not know how to be present? It's because the present moment is too painful.
33:23
So they learn to escape and escape. So they just could not be present because
33:28
their childhood was too painful.
33:30
They went through very painful times in their formative years.
33:34
And so their instinct began to escape.
33:36
They don't know how to be in their bodies. They don't know how to be in the moment.
33:41
So a lot of ADD is that elemental pain.
33:45
Without medication you can heal ADD
33:48
it's compounded with screen time parents not
33:51
having time with their children and parents with no
33:54
support system overtly busy schedules not enough connection not enough nervous
33:59
system regulation not enough connection with nature you put all of these things
34:03
together and it becomes an entirely different animal then the only way you feel
34:08
like you can get control over that animal is to by giving it medication we see
34:12
the effects of the screen time with the kids.
34:14
Like, Easton can't manage himself, so we manage it.
34:19
And Grayson just goes off the deep end, so it just gets taken away.
34:23
There's no balance with it. For most parents, we are busy, and the connection
34:29
times, we've lost our way in how to do that.
34:32
How could you have that time, Maria? You're cooking, you're cleaning,
34:36
you're managing the house, you're trying to make some time for yourself.
34:40
It's not your fault. You're trying to do it all.
34:43
But you should not have to do it. Where is the time to really connect with your
34:46
child when you're doing a thousand things and you're not meant to do all of these things?
34:51
Yeah. I have a very black and white perspective on screen time.
34:54
I just don't allow it. Yeah.
34:56
For me, it's a hard no. Like there's absolutely no video games allowed in my
35:00
house and he doesn't ever get to use an iPad.
35:02
He can watch the TV for a limited amount of time and with content that is very
35:08
controlled because the TV doesn't really do that to you.
35:12
Yeah. Yeah, that is a limited amount of time. Mostly I pulled him out of school
35:15
and put him in a school where there's absolutely no digital exposure and no
35:20
phones because I know how much it can damage you.
35:23
When he turns nine, we'll see whether I change that or keep him in the school.
35:27
I think that's really benefited him. There's a push in schools to not have any devices.
35:32
And I think it's going to happen. I think that's going to stop.
35:34
Because our middle school, we don't have devices are not allowed.
35:38
And the kids have magnetic pouches. and it's changed the dynamic of the school
35:42
and the community because the kids actually talk to each other now and have conversations.
35:46
So I think now there's a movement backwards and I see that happening and that's wonderful.
35:51
When I speak to parents, it's very much that whatever you think you're struggling
35:55
with with your child is actually a struggle that you have within yourself.
35:58
You don't need to say anything to your child. You do your work and you do this inner child work.
36:05
And your child magically transforms in front of your eyes. And one of the things
36:08
that I'm so passionate about is astro-psychology.
36:14
When you have a bone problem, you know, if you break your bones,
36:18
you get an X. If you have a problem with your body, you get an MRI.
36:22
Nobody really has a map of your internal psyche, of who you are.
36:26
And so the birth chart really is, and this is thousands of years old, Maria.
36:31
This is nothing new. when we became extremely rational
36:35
beings i think therefore i am we lost
36:39
everything that ancient wisdom
36:43
brought to our doorstep astrology is a science that connects you to the cosmos
36:48
we are a part of this universe one of the most profound things i do with children
36:52
and even with adults is look at the birth chart for example if you give me easton's
36:56
date of birth time of birth and place of birth. He's a unique being.
37:00
And I tell you, these are Easton's emotional needs.
37:03
These are his strengths. These are the challenges that he struggles with.
37:07
This is what he needs to do to become.
37:10
A stronger version of himself. You can really help your child.
37:15
One of my favorite quotes is
37:16
by Carl Jung, who was an avid astrologer and used astrology in his work.
37:21
He said, the greatest privilege in life is to be yourself.
37:25
That is the power. How do we let our children be themselves and not project
37:30
ourselves onto them? How do we become ourselves?
37:33
Work through this conditioning and trauma that has disconnected us from ourselves.
37:37
And so this is something that I love doing. Like when somebody comes to me with
37:41
their problem with their child, I'm like, well, this is what you need to do
37:44
for your child to really be themselves.
37:47
Don't tell me that this is your child when this is actually you in your child.
37:50
It's powerful. It's very beautiful. And it's a great tool. I will.
37:55
It's fascinating because not everyone's different with the way you interact with them, right?
38:00
Like the way I interact with Ben is different than the way I interact with one
38:05
of my wives. Who? My wives.
38:07
So I have like my six best friends here are my wives.
38:10
Oh my god. We could literally just live together.
38:15
I'm also your wife. You're definitely a wife. Like when I moved here, I didn't know anyone.
38:21
And over the years, I met the most incredible women. And those women are my, they're my people.
38:29
We are in this all together. If the kids can't get picked up,
38:32
somebody else is picking them up.
38:33
Someone can't get somewhere. Someone else has it. If someone's sick,
38:36
someone has dinner. This is your village. This is my family. They are my people.
38:40
And the way we interact with each other is different because our personalities
38:43
are different. But for some reason, it's because kids are kids.
38:47
I stopped realizing that Easton's a human too.
38:50
He's not just a small person. And I always talk to them like they're somewhat adults.
38:56
I've never talked to baby, talked to my kids. I always talked to them with real
38:58
words out of respect for them and felt like they can understand this.
39:02
But I think it's taken a long time for me to realize that they have their own
39:05
personalities, desires, wants, needs, favorites, and dislikes.
39:09
This is the stuff they don't tell you when you have babies. They don't tell you this.
39:14
They tell you how great it is. They tell you you could have postpartum.
39:17
They don't send you anything.
39:19
You might have a tear in your vagina when he's coming out.
39:22
But after that, the books are so stupid. I'm sorry. It's stupid.
39:27
I haven't read any good books about any of this.
39:31
And there's no real guidance in any of this. Can I tell you what I'm doing right
39:35
now? Just with this. You know the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting? Yes.
39:39
I'm working on creating a course
39:42
from before pregnancy to the first seven years of your child's life.
39:47
Literally, it's what to expect at every milestone, like everything.
39:52
The first week, this is what you should be eating. This is what will happen.
39:56
This is how you're feeling emotionally. How to do your emotional work.
39:58
This is what you need to watch out for. This is what you need to do.
40:01
Literally, it's like a manual. If this is happening, this is why.
40:05
This is needed. There is a parenting manual. no one
40:08
has written like no one actually tells you this no one
40:11
tells you your parents tell you what they
40:14
went through and what they thought it's so different for all
40:17
of us in our age groups and how my dad would do things one way and my because
40:22
their age difference is so big then what my mom would do my dad would just be
40:26
like you'll be fine sweat it out cover yourself in towels you'll be okay my
40:31
mom calls him a witch doctor love you daddy my mom would tell you another way
40:36
i think changed generationally.
40:37
We've changed a lot in how we think about things.
40:40
So now we're in the stage of like, I mean, my kid's 12.
40:45
Nobody tells you what's going to happen when your son, they'll tell you about
40:49
puberty and stuff like that.
40:50
But no one told me that boys have peaks and flows with their hormones that become
40:55
explosive. It's like a girl having a period.
40:57
No one explains that to you, what's going to happen. And.
41:00
I think that's such a brilliant and needed idea, Kav.
41:03
No, no, it's not an idea. It's there. It just needs to come together and I'm
41:07
launching it next March because it's needed.
41:10
Yeah. How powerful to have this information. Can you imagine?
41:14
We wouldn't be lost. We'd be lost. And you wouldn't be crazy.
41:17
And talk about connection too.
41:19
You wouldn't feel shame.
41:22
It's horrible what we go through as parents. Yeah. And we're supposed to put
41:26
a smile on and create the joy everywhere when the joy isn't there.
41:32
So I want to know what's next. You're going to write this manual,
41:35
which is going to be amazing.
41:37
What is it that you're doing next? What I'm doing right now is working a lot
41:41
with clients, one-on-one work.
41:43
And I'm in the process of launching this course that I've been planning for
41:48
a while, which is a lot of detail. I'm doing it milestone by milestone before
41:53
you even think of having a baby.
41:56
When you get pregnant during your pregnancy and then post-pregnancy,
42:00
the first two years is when 80% of the brain develops.
42:03
If you get the first thousand days right, including your pregnancy,
42:07
your child will never have a physical or mental problem for the rest of their lives.
42:11
No, no rheumatoid arthritis, no diabetes.
42:14
If you get the first thousand days right, you know, imagine having the knowledge.
42:19
How do you do this correctly? So I'm doing it milestone by milestone for the
42:23
first seven years, because that's when you become a whole being.
42:27
You know, I'm doing that. And then I'm also doing a lot of work with trauma therapy.
42:33
Yesterday, I had a talk about it, educating people about it.
42:37
I'm working through that. I'm also going to be applying for my PhD.
42:41
So it's a lot of things. I want to do it thoroughly and slowly because I believe
42:46
that this sort of knowledge is only amassed after years of work.
42:51
Now I'm ready to put this all together and do this online and in person. So it's a hybrid.
42:57
I'm really excited for people to have the knowledge and resources to,
43:02
I don't know, raise emotionally regulated children and to more than anything,
43:06
be connected with themselves.
43:08
You know, to not suffer, Maria.
43:11
Suffer in a way that liberates you. Yeah.
43:17
Kava, I'm so damn proud of you, who you've become, who you are.
43:22
I just love you. You know that. I love you so much. At the end of every episode, I ask three questions.
43:29
So I ask those three questions to you now. Yes. So what is something you have
43:33
changed your mind about recently?
43:35
I think I changed my mind about this about four years ago, that I decided that
43:40
I don't need to do or be anything for me to love me.
43:43
Tomorrow, if I stop doing this work and I just say, you know what?
43:47
I'm done. I can't do this. And this is not me.
43:51
I'm okay. I'm okay being nothing. I don't need to be a success in anything that
43:56
I do. I just need to love myself.
43:58
And that's it. I am enough. I am more than enough.
44:02
Can I walk in that for five minutes, please?
44:05
That, I'm going to take him. When I take Ali for his hike today,
44:08
I'm going to sit in that car. That is everything. That is brilliant.
44:12
That is a gift. Don't, I mean, don't do anything and still like and love who you are.
44:18
But that's what you want to tell your children. You don't have to do anything for me to love you.
44:23
You know, you don't have to be anything for me to love you. So,
44:27
yeah, I changed my mind about what success looks like.
44:32
Success is literally loving myself
44:35
unconditionally. That comes with no standards that I have to aspire to.
44:40
It's my meditation today. Thank you for giving that to me. That's what it's going to be.
44:45
What is the most random thing on your bucket list?
44:50
Oh my God, the most random thing on my bucket list. You don't want to know.
44:57
I'll tell you after this call. Let me tell you, it's a good one.
45:01
I'll tell you something that is appropriate for this call. What is on my bucket list?
45:06
You know, I just want to go away for like 40 days and not talk to anyone.
45:14
There is this thing called a vipassana, which is you just don't talk to anyone.
45:19
You like don't talk you put your phone away you don't have a book you don't
45:23
have a pen you have nothing you just sit with yourself and it's for 10 days
45:27
i would love to do that for about a month
45:30
you go through life not talking or you
45:33
know it's just a 10 it's a 10 day thing that's
45:35
called vipassana but you just you just want to be alone you
45:39
know like you it's like you don't talk to anyone you have to sit
45:41
with yourself with no distractions and meditate
45:45
there's no pen no people no book it's just learning to
45:47
be with yourself and quiet that
45:50
voice so yeah that's something i really want to
45:53
do i'm with me i could do it for
45:56
two days kav and can we go to a spa afterwards because i'll
46:03
give you two days and eight days at a spa okay the
46:07
last question is what is one piece of advice you would give your younger self
46:10
i don't know whether i need to give my younger self any advice there is no advice
46:15
to give your younger self because you don't have the neurological capacity to
46:19
take any advice but what i would do is tell my younger self that,
46:24
you're perfect you're beautiful i i do that every day you know that the younger self lives within us.
46:33
I touch it every day yeah every day you're
46:36
perfect you're beautiful and you're in pain i would
46:39
acknowledge all my younger self's feelings i would
46:41
just say i don't need to tell you anything i just empathize with
46:44
everything you're going through and all your feelings are valid and real that's
46:49
it this has been the best oh i love you so much i love you i miss your face
46:56
i miss your face thank you for being on the podcast with me okay i love you very much love you bye.