The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
Becoming Conscious (with Dr. Shefali) #30
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Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice
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Show Notes:
Have you ever lashed out at your child and wondered "Where did that come from? Why am I so triggered?"
Spoiler for this episode, it's your childhood... and the reason we do this is because most of us are totally unaware of this unwanted inheritance.
Jon is joined by Dr. Shefali, the pioneer of conscious parenting, who shares her insights on how our childhood experiences shape our parenting styles. Together, they delve into the concept of the subconscious contract between parent and child, exploring how implicit memories and unresolved issues from our past often resurface in moments of stress.
Dr. Shefali emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and healing in parenting, offering practical advice on how parents can break free from harmful patterns and create a healthier environment for their children.
The conversation touches on spirituality, neuroscience, and the essential role of self-awareness in raising emotionally healthy kids.
Timestamps:
- 0:00 - A Saturday morning meltdown: Jon’s story of losing his cool
- 2:43 - Introduction to Dr. Shefali and the concept of conscious parenting
- 7:57 - The power of implicit memories: How the past shapes our reactions
- 13:53 - The subconscious contract: Understanding toxic parenting dynamics
- 22:19 - Practical steps for conscious parenting and breaking the cycle
Resources Mentioned:
Join Dr. Shefali's Institute Cohort CLOSING 9/9/24
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast. My name is John. I want to take you to a Saturday morning. It was about a week ago and most Saturday mornings in my house go something like this my two older kids they're seven and four they're running around the living room chasing each other with this insane happiness, slash, aggression, slash, screaming. It's the mood of 7am at my house. My youngest is still crying. He got up too early and everything is overwhelming to him. I don't remember if it was his cereal being too soggy or not having enough milk. Honestly, it could have been anything.
Jon @wholeparent:And at this moment I am just on the edge. I'm tired, I'm grumpy. I wish that I got at least one, maybe two more hours of sleep. And I don't even remember exactly the moment when I got to that breaking point. I think it was just the noise, honestly, the unrelenting, constant sound of humans. I know that at one point somebody knocked over an entire cup of water.
Jon @wholeparent:Suddenly, I am screaming at the top of my lungs at my kids calm down, which I just want to take a moment here. If you've ever yelled at someone to calm down, you know that this rarely works. I don't remember seeing their faces before that happened, but I do remember the look on their faces immediately after All of the playfulness, all of the joy gone, fear, confusion. And that is when it hit me that I wasn't really yelling because of them. No, I was yelling because of something inside of me.
Jon @wholeparent:There are things in all of our childhoods, knots, that we haven't untangled yet, and the reaction that feels so natural, so reflexive, that seems to belong to me or you. In those moments it belongs to someone else entirely my parents, maybe even my parents' parents. It was an inheritance that I didn't really know that I had gotten and I certainly didn't want to pass down, but somehow I was just passing it down again. Today, on the Whole Parent Podcast, we're asking what does it mean to become conscious of this as a parent, conscious of your role on the journey of parenting and especially conscious of what we bring along on that journey, both good and bad Our childhoods, our perspectives, our worldviews, our assumptions of what it means to be a parent in the first place, and with me to talk about this is probably the best person in the world to talk about conscious parenting the inventor, the creator, the discoverer. You might just call her the parent of conscious parenting, dr Shefali.
Dr. Shefali:When I see the younger generation taking on. You know, things that I started or, you know, envisioned many, many years ago. So I was in my early thirties, 20 years ago, when I first kind of pioneered this whole movement which it is now of conscious parenting.
Dr. Shefali:but no one talked about consciousness in the parent back then. No one talked about that parents need to heal. Back then I was one of the first ones to do that and it's so refreshing for me now, as an old lady, to see young people like you take it on. I mean, I can't believe it.
Jon @wholeparent:Just talk a little bit about that, because I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding of what conscious parenting is. Obviously, you're the creator, you're the trailblazer. You get to define these terms if you want to For those unfamiliar. Why is this such a radical shift from traditional parenting to parent more consciously?
Dr. Shefali:And it is a very revolutionary, radical paradigm shift that I'm so proud that I could be the spokesperson for. And just to back up a little bit, when the book came out in 2010, the radical book called the Conscious Parent. Back then, literally, we didn't have Instagram, we didn't have mailing lists, so it was through the force of the word. Until I began writing about this, most of us were following the traditional parenting paradigm, which had in its undertones the message that the child needed to be fixed, discipline was to be given to the child and that the parent knows best, and it was a very rigid, traditional, hierarchical model.
Dr. Shefali:And when I came onto the scene with my awakening that the ego, this false self of the parent was actually creating a great disconnection because of the parent's unhealed self and I discovered that, through my meditation practice, through my spiritual practice, through my deep inner psychological healing as spiritual practice, through my deep inner psychological healing as a mother, but also as a clinical psychologist taking other parents on this journey, that I just literally, in an epiphany, put it all together and wrote this book called the Conscious Parent, which has now revolutionized how we do parenting. Even if people haven't heard about me per se, people like you and all the next generation are heavily influenced by this work right. So it is a radical shift away from being child-centered, meaning child-focused, fixing the child to the parent beginning to do that inner work to heal themselves.
Dr. Shefali:And I really go strong and heavy and brutally against the parental ego because it is the parent's unhealed self and I promise you to this day, my daughter's 21. It is my unhealed self that ruins the moment and ruins her self-esteem. It's not the child, it is the parent. And I do it in a gentle way, in a compassionate way, because I show parents that if you heal yourself because of your child, you're actually giving yourself the biggest gift.
Dr. Shefali:so my gift is to the parents and my latest book, now number seven, is called the parenting map and it's out there and it's a step-by-step solution to how to raise the most empowered child but to raise the parent right.
Jon @wholeparent:Well, and that's and I think that that's such an important mindset shift to just say like we're moving from the concept that the child needs to be controlled, that the child, that all of the problems within parenting come from the child, and we're flipping that on its head and we're actually saying no, what?
Jon @wholeparent:The fundamental issue here is the childhood wounds of the parent, often right Like the parent is then enacting their own childhood wounds back onto their own kids. And I love what you say in the book, at least in I think you talk about this in multiple books. I've read a couple of your books but sometimes they blend together where you're talking about the mirror and that's this opportunity with your kids to actually reconsider your own paradigms. And when you talk about it from a spiritual perspective, it's really interesting to me. I think we come at things from different people, come to different the same, the same location from different avenues. And I look at all this budding science into how we go through these massive neural prunings and stuff like that when we become parents and it's like, oh my God Dr Shefali was saying this from a spiritual perspective what we've now observed from an fMRI perspective, that my gosh, like this is actually physical changes happening in the brain.
Dr. Shefali:So you're right that this mirroring and our mirror neurons are always colliding and feeding off each other, especially in the parenting process. So we don't really know for sure what is our stuff and what is the child's stuff. That's why what I teach in terms of mindfulness and raising your consciousness is so important, because our children's mirror neurons are feeding off us all the time. So until the parent becomes conscious, mindful, present, attuned, they will be projecting stuff onto their children and thinking that the child is sending those signals out.
Jon @wholeparent:Okay, wait, hang on. I'm going to interrupt us for a moment because I think that there's some neuroscience here that can help us understand what's going on, and it has to do with how memory works, or maybe more accurately, how a memory doesn't work. We often think of memory as kind of explicit details, clear, vivid recollections, like the first day of school, first kiss, that embarrassing moment in middle school For me it was when my pants got pulled down and those aren't always accurate. In fact they're rarely accurate. But that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the other kind of memories that our brain stores. They're called implicit memories. These are subconscious emotional imprints from our past, particularly from childhood. They're not memories that we consciously recall, but yet they shape how we feel and we react in the present moment.
Jon @wholeparent:Implicit memories are powerful because they don't just sit quietly in our minds. They form these sort of undercurrents of our emotional responses. They're memories, experiences, sensations and emotions that get encoded in our brains when we're young, often when we're not even aware that we were even forming a memory and then they become sort of triggers for us. Think of it like an emotional residue that's left behind from experiences and then they become sort of triggers for us. Think of it like an emotional residue that's left behind from experiences like fear, shame or positive things like love, safety. They're raw, they're visceral, they're deeply ingrained, they're buried in our limbic system, not in our conscious memory. And so when we get triggered, like I did in that moment with my kids a couple of Saturdays ago, it's like these old, hidden memories can actually take over our brain, they can hijack our brains. And this is because, as one psychologist, dr Dan Nicholas, says, there is no time in the mind, and so the brain doesn't distinguish between our past and present threats to our survival. Very well, our survival very well.
Jon @wholeparent:When our kids do something that we did and were punished for or shamed for, whether that's a laugh that's just too loud or an unexpected mess, it doesn't just activate the minor irritation of our adult minds, it actually activates our deep inner child. And so understanding this is crucial, because it shows us that these intense emotional reactions that we sometimes have as parents, they aren't just bad habits or character flaws. They're implicit memories that are trying to protect us in ways that no longer serve us. Remember, the brain is wired to protect us, and that includes sometimes protecting us when we don't need protecting. This is why becoming aware, or becoming conscious, as Dr Shefali puts it, is so essential. It's about recognizing those old patterns, the implicit memories, the relics of our past that don't need to control us anymore. But I'll shut up and let Dr Shefali talk. Here's the metaphor she uses to describe this.
Dr. Shefali:So just picture that the child, a little puppy, a child, a plant, all these very new saplings have come into your care. They have an essence that is waiting to blossom, but it takes time, so, till it blossoms on its own, they are de novo, they are kind of ready to absorb the water, the sunshine that it needs to receive. Now the parent is the water, the sunshine that it needs to receive. Now the parent is the water and the sunshine. If the parent is not healed, if the parent has muddy water, if the parent's sunshine is blocked, if the parent is not in fresh air, if the parent which, let me tell you, all of us are not, we haven't done the work.
Dr. Shefali:We're in our early 30s. For the most part, we are raw, wounded, bruised from our 20s. We don't know what's hit us, we don't know what this thing is called the child. The child is looking at you and wanting to say to you hey, see me for who I am, help me develop into my apple tree or my pear tree, or the tree that I'm supposed to become from my own essence. But we, because we're so contaminated, we're like forget your apples and forget your pears. I think you're a rosebush, so I'm going to treat you like a rosebush, but the pear tree is saying, no, I'm a pear tree. So now the child is looking to be mirrored for its essence, but the parent, because it was never followed and understood for its essence, is looking for the child to complete it. So the child is like, hey, I want to be me no-transcript.
Jon @wholeparent:I mean, I think we could have an entire conversation about culture here, where different cultures enact this differently. But every culture enacts some form of hey. It's not just wisdom being passed down, it's not just hey.
Jon @wholeparent:I've seen some things and I think parents can be amazing mentors and I know that you believe that too but they have to be mentors that understand the natural essence of their children. They cannot be mentors that are looking for an intended result, and so frequently what I'm experiencing in my own parenting journey are all of these moments when I feel the most triggered are the moments when what my child is doing is not fulfilling some unnamed expectation, and I think we think of extreme examples. You know, you have, like, an immigrant parent or something who, like, didn't get to be the thing that they wanted to be, and we, we kind of hyperbolize in some ways when in reality often it's just like my child does not like doing the thing that I like to do and that bothers me deeply For some reason that's so offensive to me, or my child doesn't like the political party or the religious tradition that I'm a part of and that's wounding to us, and we get triggered.
Dr. Shefali:So what do we do when we're getting triggered we cannot see our children as separate is because we ourselves are not yet differentiated, whole, autonomous, abundant people. We are tethered to the approval of our parents, our culture. We are so infantilized through our own lack of development that we are so emotionally, you know, enslaved to the opinions of others. Now, because we live enslaved, licking everyone wanting their opinion, wanting their validation, wanting their praise, of course, then we transfer that enmeshment and codependency onto our children and now go, now, I want you to be someone who can, I feel like I can approve myself from the others with. So I use my child to get that approval. I use my child to get that validation, you see. So it's an extension of my hunger.
Dr. Shefali:So, of course, now if my child shows up with different ideas, different moods, I am very triggered, because my intention to have this child is not that the child grows up to be their own person.
Dr. Shefali:I am barely my own person myself. I am using my child to get my own crumbs of validation and approval from society, my parents and culture. Therefore, I cannot bear for my child to be different, because my survival, my emotional survival, depends on this child, and this is why parenting is so toxic when we are not awakened. That's why, when the child drops a glass of milk or says F you, god forbid, we will beat them up, we will lock them up and we will justify it, because it is anathema to us that the child dares to be their own spirit. You see, our subconscious contract with our child is listen, child, I'm going to give you money and I'm going to raise you, but please, you are going to give me a sense of self. So please go to the, please go to the right schools, because I need you to give me the approval that I've never gotten on my own.
Jon @wholeparent:Hold on a sec. I want to take one more pause here and unpack this idea of the subconscious contract between a parent and a child, because it's a game changer. It is how I really started to understand my own stuff and I think it can be really helpful to you. Understanding the roots of toxic parenting dynamics really come down to understanding this contract. What Dr Shvali is getting at here is this unspoken agreement that we have that we often impose upon our kids, something that they never signed up for. And it's this psychological deal that says, like I'll provide for you, I'll love you, I'll support you, but in return you're going to have to make me feel like I'm enough, like I've done okay in the eyes of my parents or whoever. I'm looking for validation from my culture, my society, whatever.
Jon @wholeparent:And this is where the problem starts. Most of us aren't even aware that the contract exists. This is why consciousness or awareness is what Dr Shefali is talking about. That's the whole point here, right? This is why we call it conscious parenting. We have to wake up one day and decide I'm not going to use my kid to feel better about myself and my childhood wounds because the deep-seated need for approval approval that we often didn't get growing up or that we constantly need to earn because we were told that that's all we're valued for. We have to get that from ourselves. It has to come from inside of us. It can't come from our kids. And so, without realizing it, we often start projecting these needs onto our kids and until we become conscious of the reality, it's just gonna be our existence right, it's just gonna be manifesting. We're not gonna be able to be the parent that we want to be to our kid and, ultimately, that our kid needs us to be in order for them to embody their true and authentic self.
Jon @wholeparent:And actually, dr Shefali has a perfect quote about this. It's something I put into my own book and it's something that I asked her about. Quote I know that you already know the quote before I read it, but I'm going to read it for the audience In the Conscious Parent. It's got to be the most pulled out quote of all of the quotes, but it's the one that I include in my book and so I wanted to read it. I just wanted to get your take of.
Jon @wholeparent:You're almost 15 years later now, probably 15 years since you wrote this, because it takes so long for a book to come out you wrote when you're a parent, it's crucial to realize that you're not raising a mini me, but a spirit throbbing with its own signature. For this reason, it's important to separate who you are from who each of your children is. Children aren't ours to possess or own in any way. When we know the depths of our soul, we tailor our raising of them to their needs rather than molding them to fit our needs. Can you? In 15 years, is this still true? How would you respond? Are you doubling down? Are you saying I wish that wasn't in the book because I would have said it a different way? Give me your, take 15 years out.
Dr. Shefali:I mean, I will tell you that the reason I can so you know, loudly and daringly, be a voice of this message is because almost everything I said in 2010, which I really began thinking in 2007, is 1000% eloquently, spot on. There's nothing I've changed, because the wisdom of this message is so true that I never have to think about it. It's just part of my being, it's part of your being and my being, because it rings so true. It's not gimmicky, it's not strategy, it's not a quote that I pull out, and I don't have these pithy maxims. This is wisdom that is for the ages.
Dr. Shefali:So look at that quote, right? It says until we know the depths of our own soul, we will not be able to attune to who our children are. What this means is, if we don't know who we are, if we haven't discovered the joy of being alive within our own authentic freedom, we will not be able to give that authentic freedom to anyone else. The reason we cage other people is because we live in cages. The reason we are racist with other people is because we live separated from our own heart, our awakened, diamond heart. People who live in their diamond, awakened heart allow others to be seen for who it is. They are and people will gravitate toward those people and they will be beacons of wisdom and a message. So if people listening right now go, damn, this is like preaching and I need this in my life. Well, now come and learn and declare yourself a student and a seeker. You know, I've been doing this for 20 years now and I've honed the message and this is what I teach.
Jon @wholeparent:I know that you have advice for parents. How do we get through this?
Dr. Shefali:Okay.
Dr. Shefali:So first, parents listening to this have to feel right now. I'm showing you right now how to begin to awaken a consciousness. So, as you're listening to this, tap into your body right now. Do you feel a resonance? Do you feel like, oh my God, they are talking about something that I know in my soul but I've never articulated? First, we begin to feel things in an attuned way, connected way, present way, here and now. Now we have to then realize oh my God, I have to learn this method that she's talking about and I have to apply myself as a seeker, as a student. Right, you have to first send out to the universe I am ready to learn what she's talking about. Right, we have to send out that declaration. These emotional, intentional shifts are the first place. Without this, it'll just be give me a strategy, dr Shefali, and then you're going to forget about it.
Dr. Shefali:The people who follow me, who come to my podcast, who listen to my podcast every single week, who take my courses, join my institute where I teach a method. They are seekers of this message. So, declaration and intention. Okay, number two once you begin to take these courses, learn this method, then what will happen? John is in the moment, when they're triggered the next time and they are about to react, they are going to be trained by me to know whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, like red flag, red flag, red flag, red flag. This is what she was talking about.
Dr. Shefali:And then I teach how to regulate yourself in the moment by saying things like I'm safe, my child is not an enemy, my child is just being a child, my child is of their own essence. I am feeling robbed, abducted, stolen, reacted to. I'm feeling like I'm in a battle because of the fact that this is reminding me of a memory from my childhood. I'm safe, I'm not five years old. And then I teach people how to ground themselves in their bodies. You know, this is what my institute teaches people how to do. It's a parent school and we practice how to ground, how to create emotional safety, and then, when you're resourced, then I teach how to connect with your children.
Dr. Shefali:So even in my book, the Parenting Map if you can't spend any money, but $15, my Parenting Map book. Listen to it on audio. I give you 20 steps and I give you exercises. Listen to it on audio. I give you 20 steps and I give you exercises. So what I'm basically saying is it's in the present, it's in the moment. You have to learn to calmly regulate yourself. You have to see your child as a child, not your enemy. You have to understand that your own inner child is on fire. Your ego is coming to protect the inner child and once you learn this terminology and this way of being, you can see it and then you begin. I have t-shirts that say I'm an inner child, I'm an inner child.
Dr. Shefali:I'm an ego. I wear my t-shirts so I can remember I'm still unhealed. I begin to have compassion for myself and I begin to do the reparenting work. I mean, I began talking about reparenting way before the term even began being popular and that's what we need to do on the daily, in a seeking way, like I'm a seeker of my own healing. I'm not here to fix my child or create an Ivy League graduate. I'm here to use this opportunity to heal that has been left unhealed for generations.
Jon @wholeparent:Yeah, and I think that this is. I just feel like you're, every once in a while, have somebody on the podcast who, who really challenges the way that I think about parenting and, and I'll be honest, this is not that conversation, because everything that you're saying is just so, it just fits, it fits so cleanly. And as much as we talk about the brain hacks and the neuroscience and how we can get out of our limbic system in the moment, and we have all these fancy terms for it and all of these ways of thinking about it, ultimately it comes down to realizing that in the moment when you're with your kid, the reason that we default to punishment shame, blame, aggression, shame, any of those things isolation, disrespect is because ultimately we feel in that moment unsafe and we feel in that moment out of control, and it's not because our child has made us feel that way. It is because we feel that way and until we deal with us, we can't fix that Correct.
Dr. Shefali:We can't do anything with that.
Dr. Shefali:Correct. And imagine that traditional parenting model never told parents that it's you. We can't do anything with that. So imagine, by beating your child, punishing your child, shaming your child, you are communicating to that two-year-old, that seven-year-old that they are bad, they are the cause of my outrage. The parent took no responsibility and it's only work like mine and yours now that puts the spotlight. I wrote in my first book, the Conscious Parent. It's time for us to put the spotlight on the parent. Enough of focusing on the child. It looks like we're so caring, but it's not caring at all. It is our control of another spirit and their essence and taking it hostage because we've not done our work. Now listen, I have great compassion for the parent because the parent never had it from their parent. So this work is about the evolution of the parent, because I believe it is the future of the planet. Somebody once asked me what do you believe is the future of the planet? And I said the person who holds the key is the parent.
Dr. Shefali:It is in the parent's evolution, that the future generations will be healed, and that's what my mission is in this world. I'm just focused on it, not because I love children, but because I know the toxicity and the dysfunction that we pass down and what has destroyed the planet. What has destroyed, you'll say, corporate greed. Why is the corporate leader greedy? Because the corporate leader is a little boy, for the most part, who is screaming for see me, see me, see me.
Jon @wholeparent:You're preaching.
Dr. Shefali:Because my 16 Bentleys is not enough. I need to own the island. I need to own America.
Jon @wholeparent:Yeah, no, you're preaching. I mean, you're preaching to the choir. You know I occasionally will get approached by politicians who are like, can you endorse so and so? And oftentimes I'll reject any sort of like. I'm not going to get involved, and the reason why I do is I go, look, if you want to change like I understand that you want to get elected or you want this person to get elected but ultimately, if you want to change the next generation, you have to realize that the reason that the dysfunction exists is because how people were treated when they were kids, that they were treated in a certain way. And then you're asking adults to change and I'm not saying that adults can't change. Obviously, both your work and my work is about adults changing. But adults actually have to want to change, like kids, like the way that we parent. If we can change a generation of even 10% of the parents, 20% of the parents, the next generation is going to be so much more equipped and you can already see this with your own daughter, right, like how much more emotionally regulated.
Jon @wholeparent:Again, this is something that I talked about with other people who've been doing this work for a long time. They're like I just didn't have the problems that other people had with their teenager. Why? Because at two, at three, at four, I did my own work. I got in my own body, realized what I was doing was problematic. I shifted the paradigm, I became conscious and, as a result, my 16-year-old wasn't seeking for autonomy like a 12-year-old or like a two-year-old, and I didn't have to worry about a lot of the problems. And so this is parenting for the long term, not just for the long term of your child, not just for the long term of your family or the generations to come, but the long term of your child, not just for the long term of your family or the generations to come but the long term of the world, and it is world changing stuff.
Dr. Shefali:If people want to ever do what I do in the world, they can learn from me and my institute, or they can visit my website and take a course or follow my podcast, where I coach people in real time. So what I'm basically saying is it's not enough to just want to be a good parent. You have to cultivate it, and there is no parent school till. I created my institute. So you have to learn the skills, dedicate your life to it. You know people will spend money on you know, vacation to Europe for four. People will, you know, buy big, fancy cars, sports cars, but they won't dedicate the effort and the intention to become the most conscious person and parent. Well, this is this is why you and I do this work, because we are inviting people to come and learn these skills because they never did learn. We've not learned any of this in college or school.
Jon @wholeparent:Yeah, I think that's such a compelling and important point, just first off, that we need to start prioritizing these things. Tell us more. Yeah, I want to hear more. You've kind of alluded to it a couple times. Obviously, we can link below the parenting map you also mentioned you have a cohort starting. Can you tell us more about that so parents know how they can get involved?
Dr. Shefali:Okay. So before I talk about my institute, I do have a free podcast where I coach parents in my method every single week. So parents are coming to me with their issues and I help them reframe and understand the conscious parenting approach. The podcast is called Parenting and you with me, dr Shefali, so please tune into that every Tuesday. That's free for you. And then I have a parent school and a life school. It's called the Conscious Parenting and Life Coaching Program. It's in my institute.
Dr. Shefali:I certify people to do this work with others. I teach them my method. They see me coaching and I teach them how I coach, what I'm thinking about. It's five months, it's online. It's twice a year. The next cohort starts in a week or two, but they can join the next one. But they should come and explore it and see it for themselves, because it is their redemption for their own childhood that was robbed. It's their gift to give it back. I teach you how to reparent yourself and then I teach you how to teach others to do it for themselves, and it's two weeks money back guarantee. You can just check it out. But it is the parent school that we never had.
Jon @wholeparent:Yeah, I love that and I would encourage parents who even if, you know, I don't know all the details about it, I'm just learning about it too but I will say that in my own journey to educating and when I wrote the book like, this sounds very I think that you'll understand this.
Jon @wholeparent:This may sound weird to people who are listening to this after the fact, but even when I read, reread my own book, I realized that it's almost an out of body experience. To go actually learning how to teach people is how I became the best parent that I could be, and that it actually if I, if I stopped at just learning how to become the best parent I could be. There's so much that, like then I'm always playing, I'm still playing whack-a-mole. It's actually through coaching other people and through walking with other people and friends and really building that village cohort to help people to parent more effectively consciously, you know, with their child in mind, with their child's development in mind, which I think is part of this too, and we can talk about that another time. But understanding all of these things at once, then becoming the teacher, that's often when you become the best student, and so and isn't coaching.
Dr. Shefali:I know that that's given me purpose. Absolutely. You and I get so fired up and you know, you and I know, after we've had a session with a parent or a human being any human being and we've helped them, doesn't that feel damn good.
Jon @wholeparent:Literally, this is the most fulfillment I get out of my like my entire whole parent thing is sitting with parents. Usually it's like five to 10 parents at a time and going, okay, what's going on this week? And parents coming to me and going you know, yeah, I got this and I got this and I got this and, and just simplifying and being the outside observer who can go, you know what A lot of this comes back to just this one thing that happened that you, you're not seeing, and then parents are like God, I didn't know. And it's such a rewarding experience.
Dr. Shefali:It's and it's you know, know. Parents don't know what they don't know. People like us are laying the path, but people have to invest in it and see this as crucial for not only their children, but for themselves and I think that that's the real plug here, right, like if we're going to end this on it on a really powerful note.
Jon @wholeparent:It's that this is not about raising like this is not something that you should do if you feel ashamed that you're not the perfect parent. This is something that is paying dividends and investment for you Becoming a conscious parent. However, you do that, whether that's through the cohort, whether that's through you're going on and taking one of your courses on your website, going listening to the podcast, which is obviously free, getting a parenting map, getting the original conscious parent, like any of those things. This is actually paying into you as a person, because in the internal validation piece, I'll tell you from personal experience the internal validation piece this has made my life better. It has not made my parenting like my parenting is better because my life is better.
Dr. Shefali:Yes, yes, yes, yes. And learning you know what I teach in terms of spirituality and wisdom is makes you bulletproof, and people don't realize there is a way to think and live that can make you bulletproof. Yes, it can still be hard, but you're kind, and so that's why, if people feel resonant with my words and my energy, that's what they should follow. Start following the breadcrumbs. If you feel like John is talking to your soul, follow the breadcrumbs. People have lost touch with following what shows up in their lives. If you're listening to this, it means it's for you. Now, what you do with it, like John said, to what extent, is up to you, but don't not do something. Follow the breadcrumbs of your life. They will lead you to where you need to go.
Jon @wholeparent:And this has been so powerful for me too, because I often forget that so much of this is a spiritual process, that I spend so much time talking about neuroscience and again, we could just go into that forever and mirror neurons and this we kind of alluded to it, Neural pruning we could talk about that. Ultimately, this is a spiritual process too, that that just knowing everything about your kid's brain, just knowing everything about your own brain, just knowing everything, all the tricks and tips and tactics, At some point you're a spiritual being encountering another spiritual being. If you don't get that stuff on lock and we know from a neuroscience perspective, nerding out, that it actually does change your brain too, that focusing on that stuff physically changes your brain anatomy. So thank you for all of your work, not just today on the podcast, but all throughout. Give us a final word.
Dr. Shefali:Yeah, I just want to say that, and that's why having one umbrella place where you learn all this, so my parent school, my university, my institute is I talk about the brain, I talk about trauma, I talk about body approaches, I talk about ADHD, autism, all the diagnosis you can think of, and I teach meditation and integrate the Eastern spirituality and I talk about the inner child and how to heal it. I mean, that's why it's five months, it's very intense, it's 130 hours. It's like a master's intense, immersive course and it changes your life because once you're equipped with the language and the wisdom, you have the east and the west. Now you have a holistic framework. But, john, you are fantastic and I just want to tell everyone you know join his mastermind, join his workshop. Each one of us speaks a different language and you can begin to follow your breadcrumbs, but don't just sit there. Take the next step and take an action.
Jon @wholeparent:Yeah, no, it's. Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. That's. That's so humbling to hear and you know I'll be sending you. You're on my list. I just didn't get your address yet. Don't tell it on the on the podcast, but I'll be sending you an advanced copy of the book so that you can check it out and especially read that chapter that that really was so influenced by your work. Yeah, follow me. Obviously follow Dr Shefali, but don't just follow one of us. You're not going to get everything you need from me. You might get everything you need from her, but if it's easier to hear from me, I'm I'm happy to be that voice. And, dr Shivali, if you ever need a guest lecture to come talk to millennials about kids' brains, you know where to find me.
Dr. Shefali:I love it, john. We will be in touch forever. Thank you so much, and everyone, for listening.
Jon @wholeparent:Yes, thank you. If you have enjoyed this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, please don't forget to support us. Go onto whatever podcast platform you're listening on right now and rate this show five stars. Please write a review. I read every single review that we get and it's your reviews and your ratings that allow me to get amazing guests like Dr Shivali. If you have found this conversation to be helpful to your parenting journey insightful, inspiring, whatever share it with your friends, people who could benefit from this new, fresh perspective on conscious parenting. You can also follow me on Instagram, facebook, tiktok, wherever to get updated on future things that we're doing on the Whole Parent Podcast. I'm again at Whole Parent and Parenting Tips. That's where I do most of that. This is my long form content. That's my short form. Anyway, thank you for being a part of this journey. Remember it starts with us. We continue to learn, we continue to grow. Parent with purpose, with consciousness. We'll see you next time on the Whole Parent Podcast.
