Latest / Beyond Limits With Olivia Marie / What Our Daughters & Sons Actually Need From Us | Dr. Shefali

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What Our Daughters & Sons Actually Need From Us | Dr. Shefali · Beyond Limits With Olivia Marie

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Beyond Limits podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I am joined today by Dr.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Shafali, who is a clinical psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and has two new books out, Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: She's also been called the Eckhart Tolley of Parenting.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Shafali, welcome to the show.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hi.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've never heard that actually.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: On Oprah's podcast, I was listening to you.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, because my publisher, uh, when I when I gave them the manuscript, I said Eckhart's answer to parenting.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love Oprah much.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had completely forgotten I said that.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, for people who aren't aware of what conscious parenting is, what does conscious parenting mean?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I began talking about conscious parenting in 2007, it was a very revolutionary concept back then.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But now everyone knows about it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's basically the parent understanding that they have to raise themselves as much as that they have to raise the child outside them.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And to understand that there's this parallel process happening where you are having to discover your own unhealed self and kind of nurture that inner self, parent that inner self, mother, father, that inner self.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the more you can do that beautifully, the more you're going to be able to show up for your real child and honor the real child in front of you.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do that, you will project onto the child outside all the needs and unmet fantasies and expectations that you did not get on the inside.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then you'll use your outside child to fulfill your inner child's needs.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is this where you see people like they try to make their child be a dancer or go to a certain college or become a doctor or a lawyer, something that they wanted, but maybe didn't get a chance to do?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I know for me, my mom wanted me to be a doctor because she tried to get to med school, couldn't go.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you need to be a doctor, you need to do this.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like that's a perfect example of what I'm saying.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's so obvious, but sometimes parents can be very subtle about it.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why don't you wear your hair like this, or you didn't call me on Mother's Day and you don't love me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in many ways, we can kind of pull the strings off our child's self and puppeteer who it is we want them to be through guilt, manipulation, control.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And because our children don't have a really strong sense of self when they're young, they kind of have to use us to regulate them.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: They have to use our emotions to understand their emotions.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of mirroring that the child relies on can be manipulated by the parent because then I can mirror anything that I want the child to pick up, you know?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be very conscious, very elevated to constantly monitor yourself that you don't use your child.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to use your child.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's called conscious parenting.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're unconscious, you'll project onto them.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll do it.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think people do it maliciously necessarily.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: They do it without realizing perhaps that they're pulling the string of some.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing it all the time.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing it in almost every relationship.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: The more intimate the person, the more you do it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: You do do it to your partner, you do it to your mom, your mom does it to you, but you definitely do it to your child because your child is so young and helpless, it's like, buddy, you know, why how can I not do it?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy to do it.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I wanted to teach conscious parenting because I saw that that is the place where the children are the most vulnerable, the most defenseless.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I really, the ego comes out the most there, and I wanted to challenge the parents.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really hard.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And parents have a really hard time accepting that they are loading their child with their blueprint, you know?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why do you think they have a hard time accepting that?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because you want to accept you want to believe that you're, you don't use people, first and foremost.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a user.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then you want to believe that you're conscious, then you want to believe that your love is pure and unconditional and untainted, which no one's love is.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You want to believe that you are some, you know, Buddha, that you would never ever stoop so low as to manipulate anybody.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And actually the people who don't want to look at their shadow are the most dangerous.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you uh when I when women come to me for dating advice, I often tell them, like, can you please check how open and accountable your date is to his unconsciousness?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if he pretends or she pretends to be conscious, you should run.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's gonna bring up every relationship, it's gonna bring up stuff in you you haven't looked at, shadows you haven't done.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And as you're becoming a parent and then parenting a child as they grow older, it's gonna bring up all those different things, especially as they age.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure what they bring up at two years old is different than at 12 years old.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the willingness to look in the mirror, the willingness to be accountable takes a lot of courage.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say conscious parenting is not for the faint-hearted.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's really something very courageous you have to do because this is not about the child.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, most parenting theories or experts or books will tell you, okay, now did you tell your child this and tried this script and tried to do this?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all child, child, child, child, child.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is about really, well, did you look at this inside yourself?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think this is about inside you and why are you getting so triggered?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And is this your ego?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And who wants to hear that?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's so unglamorous because you can't blame anyone.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like why are they doing that?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what is this bringing up in me?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't really fix it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And people don't want to come to a therapist who forces them to look at themselves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when I wrote my first book, The Conscious Parent, uh, you know, parents would tell me, damn, you fooled me.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was turning the pages, waiting for the strategy, and there was no strategy.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of it, I realized, oh my goodness, she's talking about me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was a revolution back then, you know.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's so commonplace with your generation.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But back then it was a it was a big deal.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you have now two separate books, raising conscious daughters and raising conscious sons.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is like the biggest difference as to why you wrote two separate books and why daughters and sons are different?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say it's the kinetic energy versus like relational bonding or very good.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do my research on my guests.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is the biggest difference?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason I put it into different books is because I think that in our effort to generalize and to see no difference, which is a beautiful thing, and we should see no difference at the end of the day.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh children are children, we also can then throw the baby out with the bath water and fail to recognize, honor, celebrate the distinctions between us.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we know women and men of ours, we're very different.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh our estrogen drives our oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone, and we discover who it is we are through relationships.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And boys, because of testosterone and dopamine being more predominant, they discover who it is they are through their, you know, selfhood, through their ambition, competence, drive, novelty, adventure.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they have a lot more physical energy, uh, most boys, and they need help to channel that physical energy.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: They need to be told that that energy is beautiful.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: The masculine force is as gorgeous, beautiful, pristine, and profound as the feminine force.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow in our culture, we've over-exalted the feminine.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And because masculinity has been so toxic, we've said all masculinity is bad.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's true.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think masculinity is beautiful, and we need to allow boys to feel like they can be wild and big and free, and it doesn't mean that that's a bad thing.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful thing.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, boys, we need to allow them to be wild and free.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to a parent who feels like that's a lot?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like my boys are running around, it's so much energy, it feels like they can't either maybe focus in school or like it's overwhelming for their nervous system.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say to a parent who's kind of dealing with boys in that situation?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the school system is not created for the boy.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's created for more of the feminine energy.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, your boy is going to be like a powder keg waiting to completely explode by the time he comes home because he's supposed to be f bloody running three hours a day.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Get all that testosterone out, get him to move, get him to feel, get him to embody.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then you'll have a regulated boy.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't have a boy sitting still on his testosterone and you expect him to be regulated.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Movement and energy and action and adventure is the vehicle for a boy to regulate.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And for a girl, and I'm talking very stereotypically, yes.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is to talk.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, when you're upset, you're gonna are you going to go like sweat it out?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like a typically a boy will be like, leave me alone, I'm going to sweat it out.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I need to go move.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: But a girl will be like, Let me call my best friend and let me really talk and like process, process, process.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're very different in the way we approach problems and find solutions.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So even with the school system, I think you've seen that boys need more of that movement.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when you try to put the boys and the girls the same one, or even at home, if you've got boys and girls at home and you're treating them the same, that's gonna create conflict because they're not the same.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're incomparable.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're absolutely incomparable.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Every child is incomparable to the next child.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then when you have boys and girls, you're gonna see that they kind of have different tracks, they have different hormonal blueprints, they have different neurochemical uh timelines.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to allow if it shows up, if it doesn't show up, it's fine.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't shove the boy into the girl, the girl into the boy, or the boy into the boy.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Allow it to emerge authentically, but be aware of what's underneath and understand that the algorithm is going to be manipulating them in very distinct ways.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you like it or not, the algorithm understands what your boy is going to respond to and what your girl is going to respond to.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I wrote these books is so that parents can be prepared for I better, better start having conversations that create the antidote for what the algorithm is going to create in my children.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say algorithm, I'm guessing you mean social media and online and how it preys differently on different people.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you've spoken a lot about how it preys on women, girls in general.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you elaborate on that for us, especially when it comes to the relational bonding and how the increase in self-harm is up?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I forget the stats you said, but there was one in seven, one in ten.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was something crazy like that, and how it's escalated with the filters and the social media and needing to look like that.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then also perhaps how that doesn't really foster relational bonding because it it's so skewed and so masked and so contorted and AI now, and how that's all playing out.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the algorithm is tracking whether you take a selfie.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you've taken a selfie and you deleted a selfie, it'll send you beauty products.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: My feed is so different than a typical man's feed, and embarrassingly so, you know.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to click on the shampoo, I'm going to click on the shoes, and I'm not even that much of a girly girl, but just my instinct versus rugby or race car driving or camel hunting, you know, in um I'm just talking stereotypic.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the algorithm understands that we girls, we women, are raised in a pressure cooker of a culture that constantly externalizes who we are based on how we look, and we have been conditioned.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to click on the selfie that is the most filtered.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to want to look like a certain type of way because we've all been raised in that culture, which is why now you see more plastic surgery online.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you see plastic surgery, the more plastic surgery you see online.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So now it just feeds you to think that, okay, I'm 28.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I should get my nose job, I should get my chin job, I should get it's just becoming so normalized because they're flooding you with this indoctrination that who you are as you are is not good enough.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And women respond to that because it is our vulnerability.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have been conditioned to believe that who we are is how we look and how we're perceived by the world.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in my book, Raising Conscious Daughters, I teach parents, listen, this is what's happening to your daughters, but this is what you can do.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And every chapter has tools and strategies, reflections, stories, client stories, case examples.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried to be really succinct, but very profoundly directive as to what the parent needs to do.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like you do these 30 things in the year, you'll be immuning, immunizing your daughter against culture of pressure.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I love that you talk about is kind of like the anti-fragility, because I think sometimes people are so scared or parents are so scared to let their daughters crumble or to want to fix it or micromanage or control or over-protect or a helicopter parent.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love for you to speak on why you believe so much in that anti-fragility and how that actually creates resilience in women.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I just see that we've we've so taken out the struggle of day-to-day life.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: We bubble wrapped and protected our children so much that now at the slightest struggle, at the slightest fall, they have like a total meltdown collapse.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I see it with my daughter, she's 23.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: She won't like that I'm saying it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But her tolerance for like waiting for her Uber Eats is like kind of.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's true.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Everything is Amazon today.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can get it instant.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can get it.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, take it, return.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then she's like, where's my Uber Eats?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I look at her like she's a lunatic, but I have to understand that she's raised in this culture where things just show up.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I never even under, never had anything be delivered to me ever.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: The the most luxury was we go to a restaurant and we bring a doggy back home.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's like coming to the door, everything is coming to you.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's no search, there's no struggle.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and people don't realize that it seems luxurious, but it's actually dumbing dumbing us and zombifying us because we are less resilient, we are less purposeful, we are less agentic.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the less we use these skills, the more easy we are to control because we actually lose these skills.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I even think about it when it comes to AI and how people overuse AI, they don't even think anymore.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like there's no problem solving.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, I don't know the answer.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let me just Google it or have AI do it.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, what about our critical thinking skills?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: What about brain development?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you know that as kids age, they're over-relying on that.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, the Amazon's here, everything's instant.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what about the um illusion that you actually know these things?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: So now they think they know all this stuff, you know?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I watch on Instagram or TikTok, like people clearly reading ChatGPT scripts, and now they they think they sound amazing, but they actually don't.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But they're staying in that illusion instead of going out there, figuring it out, understanding.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when ChatGPT came out, even I was really excited.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: But now I see it everywhere, I'm appalled now.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm turned off and repulsed.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be my own imperfect, unique writer.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a writer.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to write the way everyone else is writing.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it gives people this illusion that they know more than they know, which is very dangerous because then they have arrogance, they don't have humility, they're not students.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to teach our children that it's okay to not be that smart, you know.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be humble and let's be real.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not fake that we can write this well.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not your writing.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get the illusion that you're so smart, you're not, which is actually a healthy thing.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know it sounds so it doesn't.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds it's good to know.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to know your strengths and weaknesses as they are, not fake.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, what would you say to a parent who's keeps jumping in or keeps trying to protect and micromanage that feeling that maybe they get anxiety or maybe they feel like I can't watch them, like I need to either do it for them or help.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: How does a parent start to not do that anymore?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, especially in a world where everything is so blanketed and cuddled, now you should say to your to yourself, good, good, good, they're struggling.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, I can't wait for some struggle.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's rarely any struggle left.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So now when there is struggle, she's like, Oh my god, the washing machine is broken.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like happy that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, there's no light, the where's where's the light?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or the light is so dim, I'm happy.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm so unhappy because in two minutes the it gets fixed, or Amazon will send the replacement, you know.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm but now when there's stress and tension, I now hold myself back only not because I'm not a fixer and anxious, only because I see how dangerous it's become where we literally have very little struggle left and everything is a luxury.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So now I like hold back on my interference.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: The world has given all sorts of interferences.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So now at least I hold back on my interference and act really dumb or inefficient or I'm not available because Chat GPT is available and so efficient, and Amazon is always there.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now I at least don't add.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I've become really dumb and not present.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So at least she experiences something.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, at least some sort of friction or like collides against something in real life that seems real.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that builds character, I think.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you people grow and evolve.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Growth comes from friction, from tension, from experiences.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: If everything is handed to you and coddled, and you never go through anything, you never grow and evolve as a human.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you never become conscious.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You never, you never really learn how to live this life in in the gritty, raw sense of life.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You just are hanging out in your basement in this fiction world, proxy friends, everything is a surrogate.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go to the Vatican, you don't go to uh the Great Wall of China because you see it on online, you know?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Instagram, yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, what else would you say are kind of like the big differences or another big difference between daughters and sons when raising them?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as I've said, you know, girls like to talk, boys need to move.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think we need to celebrate boys for their big energy and not not train them to suppress it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And similarly, if you have a boy with small energy, don't make him feel like he needs to be big energy.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think we manipulate boys as much as we manipulate girls.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Our culture does.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we shame boys as much as we shame girls.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's really astounding, but we do.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're raising a boy today, grab this book, Raising Conscious Sons, because I give you the blueprint for what a conscious masculinity looks like.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the pillars of a conscious masculinity is authenticity.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Being who it is you are, whether it's high on testosterone or lower test on testosterone, but not to be caged or pigeonholed or boxed into a particular definition and not judged for that, and not told that you need to be more or less of whatever you are.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that masculinity isn't just toxic masculinity.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because I agree with you in terms of the pendulum swing.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like people think there's toxic masculinity or none at all.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: They don't realize there's also the healthy, like the gods.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a great healthy masculine.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you need that.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like we need that healthy masculine.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like there's no masculine.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: We like the feminine.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: The feminine is nurturing and soft and receptive and brave and uh wide receiving and so caregiving.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then we don't like it when when I use masculine terms, feminists are like, no, we don't like that.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because we've so paired it with toxicity, and I understand, but we got to uncouple it if we want to keep the healthy parts of like a conscious masculinity, like direction, purpose, leadership, protection.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Feminists are like, I don't need anyone to protect me.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not about you needing someone, and no one needs to protect you.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is the element, it's the energy of protection.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: We can have masculine energy too.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if somebody has a lot of masculine energy, don't make them feel like they're toxic because they're very assertive and very loud and very brave and very brash.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: A woman can be that, a man can be that, you know.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not about shaming either one of them, because I think the shaming, it's like they can't get it right.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if you're this, it's wrong.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's that, it's wrong.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like there's no right.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that also probably puts a lot of pressure on kids, whether either a daughter, a son, either or.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think our boys feel that.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they're more and more isolated.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot stand rejection, they're locking themselves in base basements and feeling like, help me.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why they turn to the manosphere or adult content.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we parents need to be like, is my son following some manosphere guy?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's going to the gym a lot.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's asking me for 13X today.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on with him?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, let me let me go check and see what he's looking up online.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll be shocked.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been looking it up since he was 11 or 9.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find a lot of your work is with like older kids as opposed to like maybe 10, 11, 12, 13, rather than like two, three, five years old?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because parents typically wait till the shit hits the fan, so you wait, right?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: But by three or four, I have parents coming to me where the shit has hit the fan.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, it was like only a minute, you know, where the parent feels completely out of control.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot handle this kid.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: This kid is too wild or this kid is too shy.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, by three or four, I'll get because they they've started going to preschool and they're hitting, you know, thresholds there and not able to overcome the thresholds.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So parents will come to me.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I get all sorts of parents, all sorts of ages.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I get before pregnancy, you know, even before you're pregnant, I get a a meltdown, an anxiety attack.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Should I be a mother?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Should I not be a mother?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I love my husband, but I don't want to be a parent.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: One wants to be a parent.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many crises that people experience at every stage of life.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: The other day I had a mother, two children, she will wanted to know whether she should have the third one, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a problem.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We can create a problem out of anything.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think we create problems even when there maybe aren't them there?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because we we don't trust ourselves.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we want everything to be just right.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We want every situation to be controlled and micromanaged and perfect because we don't feel okay until we know everything.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: But knowing and predictability is an illusion, but we're trying to get it anyway.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And no matter how much you try to do it, it doesn't actually feel any more relieving.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Never ends.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Never ending.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to know your thought because we were talking about boundaries and protection.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking with a client the other day and she was telling me how she doesn't make her three-year-old daughter hug or kiss anyone that her daughter doesn't want to.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: But in a lot of other families, I've seen people be like, that's your grandma, that's so-and-so.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have to give them a hug and kiss.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the child clearly feels uncomfortable doing that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: As a parenting expert, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that whole forcing physical contact among children.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I went both ways with my child.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I first thought told her not to do it, and then I would then I succumbed and I was like, maybe you should do it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was so confused.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm all for not doing it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can say hello very nicely, you can shake hands, you can do the etiquette, but why do you need to hug and kiss them?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you say no?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it's a custom and we do it in Morocco, we do it in Turkey, we do it in Paris, sure, do the etiquette, but don't force the hug.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't have to hug people.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't feel safe.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they feel like it's too much, you know, invasion of their boundaries.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should allow children to understand that there's some etiquette and they can do the basics, but they can do the very basics, you know?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I completely agree.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I feel like when people, like going back to what we were talking about in the beginning, force their child to do something, it's like, no, you have to get a hug and kiss.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's a well, that to me feels a little violating for their little bodies, and that teaches them to abandon themselves and that they can't say no.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they can't say no to their own body.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And like to teach little girls that they can't say no, that's alarming to me.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I agree.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, they should use the opportunity to say, you don't have to say yes.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to hug someone you don't want to.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is so empowering and liberating, but we teach the opposite.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to raising boys as opposed to girls, I know you speak about boys, like they shouldn't be necessarily the outcome of their dads, and they shouldn't necessarily have to fill that role.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: How does especially a father not necessarily project that onto his son as opposed to how women because I find like women project differently than men perhaps do?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard for fathers because in the typical scenario, the father himself was not nurtured.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: The father himself was not allowed to be vulnerable and be emotional.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was told to be a man's man.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So now when he sees that vulnerability or that quote unquote weakness that he thinks is weak, he's going to try to shut it down.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, it's also hard for the father.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, it's also hard for the father to trust his son and pass the baton, like, here son, it's your next era, you're my leader, I'm going to give you this power, I'm going to give you this confidence.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: You fly, I will follow your lead.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard for fathers to do that as well.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this is the opportunity.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when a father can truly mentor his son to be the next leader and surrender his desire to be the alpha and give the baton, it really gives supreme confidence to the to the son.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a beautiful thing.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it happen, and when it happens well, it's really a special thing.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it sounds amazing.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: But through all of this, I feel like there's so much parents have to be consciously aware of.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: How does a parent not get overwhelmed by being like, oh my gosh, I have to be so aware of this and how I say and how I speak?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And am I doing this wrong?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like people can hear this and be like, Oh my gosh, now feel overwhelmed, and then they freeze response and they don't actually do anything, or they go, but I'm doing this wrong, I'm doing that wrong, and then they get into shame about their own parenting and it almost creates more of a problem.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So how can people start implementing this without getting like, oh my gosh, I've been parenting unconsciously the whole time?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, we all have been parenting unconsciously.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still unconscious.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is a journey, not a destination.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have a conscious parenting and coaching, conscious parenting and life coaching institute where I train people for five months.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a practice, um, but no need to feel guilty or bad or resentful or regretful.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is about starting again, right here, right now.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Conscious parenting is a philosophy.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have to read all my books.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: By the time you finish the books, maybe do a course or two or join my institute, you will be a conscious parent.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you won't, it won't end your quest for being a conscious parent, but you will begin to be one.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a profoundly transformative process, but you can't just listen to a podcast.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have to like do the inner work.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a pathway that I take parents down for five months, and it's intense, and you cultivate the skills, but at the end of the five months, you are a revolutionized, healed, aware parent.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we want to give our children.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: We want to give them the chance of our healed self.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I teach parents.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think about the beautiful ripple effect of like you're a conscious parent and how you parent the kid.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: That kid then has a different experience than we had growing up with unconscious parents who then parent their kids.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, it is.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just like for you in this one relationship.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it affects your whole family life.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm not even trying to be perfect in this life.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I never will be because we're undoing generations.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: But a little tweak there and a tweak next week, and a little bit there, and I didn't say something there, it adds up in this cumulative way and and creates this tidal wave eventually.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it's about small moments.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's micro moments of like instead of screaming for 10 minutes, I scream for seven minutes, and then I don't scream at all, or I walked away, or I didn't say something I was just about to say.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just about being mindfully awake and aware and attuned moment by moment.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: As you were saying that in terms of the screaming, if someone what is feeling agitated by their child or frustrated, what would you say that they should do?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Should they just walk away?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the ideal thing is to zip it and walk away, go for a cold shower, go for a run, like get out of there because you're going to regret it.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can't regret it, then you try to shorten it.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you can't and you've totally blown it, then you apologize really well and go see a therapist or go begin to work on yourself.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't feel bad.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I haven't met a single parent who hasn't lost their mind.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other day a mother came to me that she had slapped her kid.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: She was so guilty, she was drowning in sorrow.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time she ended the session with me, she began to see exactly why she did it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And now she had something to work on, and she was ready to heal, you know?
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a profound mirror to look at your very humbling, because you think that you would never do what your parents did.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You think you would never lose your shit.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then you lose your shit and you're like, oh my God, I've like scratched the Bentley, you know, like how do I undo this?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have to accept it and you have to move on.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: I still remember the first time.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I was so good, so good, so good, so good.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, I had one more day, I haven't, I haven't, and then I lost it like year three, almost turning three.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, damn, now I've created a trauma.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't get stuck there, you have to evolve.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and kids are pretty resilient.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot survive chronic trauma, but I I think one officer, they they can survive it.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find it hard for parents to apologize to their kids for doing something?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know for me, my mom would never has never apologized for slapping me across the face or anything, like never once has taken ownership.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's generational Gen X and above, uh, don't apologize, but we've taught your generation to apologize.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you guys do it too much now.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we look at you going, okay, like even me, I'm like, okay, you're overdoing it now.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else you want to leave our audience with when it comes to conscious parenting, something that you feel is super important that you want to get out there?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wrote these two books because I wanted to raise the alarm bells and give hope and strategies and a blueprint, but we are parenting in a different era.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I need your help to spread this message.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So buy these books, spread it because um our children need us now more than ever.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Children need conscious parenting now more than ever.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree more.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna gift them to all the parents I know because it's so important.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think what we're doing has a direct impact not only on their mental and emotional health, but how they grow up to be as adults and how they are then in their relationships.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it'll show up in their romantic relationships and you know how they thrive in the world or how they thrive in conflict or how they thrive in workplace.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like I would say it's probably like the number one thing we need to focus on is like being conscious.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Especially now.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, especially now.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's an absolute pleasure.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: We will link everything down below, including where to purchase the book, where to follow her on Instagram, and I cannot wait to see you guys in the next episode.