Shefali Tsabary: The Awakened Family
An Interview with Shefali Tsabary: The Awakened Family
by Sandie Sedgbeer
Shefali Tsabary is a world-renowned clinical psychologist who received her doctorate from Columbia University, New York. She specializes in the integration of Eastern philosophy and Western psychology, making her an expert in her field.
Her message has the potential to change people’s lives for generations to come.
Dr. Shefali Tsabary is a keynote speaker who presents at conferences and workshops around the world. Some of the venues at which Dr. Shefali has presented are Wisdom 2.0, TEDx, Kellogg Business School, The Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education, and much more. She has had key collaborations with Goldie Hawn’s MindUp Foundation, Kids in the House and many educational and transformational centers around the world.
To listen to the complete interview of Dr. Shefali Tsabary by Sandie Sedgbeer on the OMTimes Radio program, What Is Going OM, click the player below:
Sandie Sedgbeer: In your new book, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting, you say that we live in a culture that sets up parents to fail by defining how a child is supposed to be. Say more about that.
Shefali Tsabary: Children by their inherent nature are beings that live in the present moment. They come ready to follow their authentic voice, and they do this through the gradual unfolding of their self. I believe children come with this desire to be seen as inherently possessing the blueprint they need to become their highest expression of self. Now comes the opposing and contrary nature of this thing called the parenting paradigm that we all live under. We seem to be steeped in a parenting paradigm that says children should become something, achieve something, and that as parents we need to have anxiety about their future, which we need to make sure they are successful and happy.
These are what I call the modern myths of parenting that go against the nature of children. Children who live in the present moment desire nothing more than parents who recognize them and can be in the present moment with them. But, the way the cultural parenting paradigm is set up creates anxiety in parents. We adults, we parents live in the future, or we live in the regret of the past, and we miss where our children are. These cultural paradigms that we subscribe to my child should be ahead of the curve, my child needs to be happy, etc., take parents out of the present. We then disconnect with our children, they disconnect with us, and there’re dysfunction and toxicity in the home.
We need to revamp how we look at this parenting journey so that we can meet our children where they are.
I think we have always seen children as one of those natural checkboxes – you know, college, career, a decent job, marriage, and children. So, children were always seen as a means to some end. My thesis is that we need to stop seeing children as a means to complete ourselves in some way, or to check a box, or be seen as more holy, or to help around the house.
What I’m saying is let’s change the entire paradigm where we understand that this relationship with our children is possibly the greatest portal to our higher consciousness, and let’s use this journey as a mirror to ask how can I grow up right now? What is it about my ego that’s so scared, that’s so raging with inadequacies that it needs to control another human being?
Let’s use this relationship to tame our ego and therefore, evolve. And the minute we revamp the journey to make it about our evolution, then we not only set ourselves free, but we allow our children to manifest their highest expression.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You say that most of the anxiety parents experience is based on fear—that their child may not be successful, may not get to the best school, may not be able to do all the things that parents want their children to experience.
Shefali Tsabary: Yes. In my role as a therapist and leading workshops around the world with parents, I see this. We know that children are possibly the beings that we are are the most in love with, the most attached to. And in this powerful love, there also is a shadow side—this great fear for their well-being because we know our destiny lies in their hands.
However, I believe that we mistake this attachment or the fact that our children came through us to mean possession, to mean ownership. And we then contort that to mean that we can control them.
And the greater fear we have in our inadequacies is that if we didn’t fully become centered in our authentic selves, then we will use our children even more to fulfill ourselves.
We can only see any being, especially our children, in wholeness to the degree that we have healed our brokenness. So, children more than anyone else become that mirror of how we see ourselves because no one is closer to us than our children.
But in that attachment lays deadly enmeshment and then the projection of ourselves— our fears for our being get dumped onto our children in the name of love.
As a mother, I find it so hard to take away my baggage from my child and understand what’s my stuff, my agenda for my child’s being. But this is the call to higher consciousness.
Sandie Sedgbeer: It seems today that there is so much pressure on children to grow up quicker, do things sooner, to accelerate their childhood. It’s as if we want our children to have the resumes of a 40-year-old by the time they’re 10.
Shefali Tsabary: It’s fascinating to me, this rush to the future because I think it’s too unnerving for us to stay in the present moment. And children are inherently beings of the present moment. So they challenge us—can you stay here, can you slow down and be quiet with me, can you attune to me, can you listen deeply to what I’m trying to say, and can you allow for my spirit to unfold. These are faculties that we are not acquainted with. We didn’t learn this at school. So, we clash with our children. We use our children to compensate for our lack, and I’ve seen how I do it with my child. You know, I’m uncomfortable, and I’m feeling unworthy, boom, I want to fix her, manage her, tweak her.
So, yeah, we’re rushing them to adulthood, the utopia of happiness and success, hoping that at the end of this mythical rainbow will be peace, joy, surrender, ease and spontaneity and transcendence. And guess what? It will never happen.
Children are full and complete. Why are we saying, after you go through a fancy Ivy League education, and I spend millions of dollars on fixing you and tweaking your resume, then you’ll be complete? Children say to us, no, I’m complete now. Can you meet me here?
Sandie Sedgbeer: Your book is quite brutal in the way it confronts the reader with all the double standards, the things we expect from them—to be agreeable, even-tempered, flexible, well behaved all the time. We don’t expect that of our partners, our friends. So, why do we expect it from our children?
Shefali Tsabary: Because this is the blind delusion of control. This is a reflection of our inner lack, our discontent and our deep yearning for peace. The tragedy is we’re looking for it in the wrong place. And we’re not doing it out of malice. We’re doing it because we’re lost. We’re on our cell phones all day long, but then we demand that they don’t get on their phones. We bully them at home, but then ask them not to be bullies. We are grossly unconscious. We not only expect them to be a better version of ourselves, but we’re also doing this on steroids.
So, if the child lacks in some way, which of course every human being is, we can’t take it. We want super looks, super achievement, super wealth, and all because we can’t accept ourselves as we are.
Sandie Sedgbeer: What do you think is the biggest myth that sets us up for failure?
Shefali Tsabary: I think the biggest one is the delusion that, just because they come from us, we get to control them versus, yes, they come through us, but they come to us for this sacred task of us raising ourselves to the highest level of consciousness.
We’re ruining our children, chasing them, doing, doing, doing, and it creates so much anxiety. I’m not saying not to expose your children to activities, but to do it in a way that’s joyful, that’s attuned to who the child is, not from the need and the agenda of the parent. And this is what I try to teach in this book—taming our own ego is our own liberation because no one’s really having a good time chasing the medals and the rainbows. And that’s the tragedy. Modern parenting isn’t fun anymore; it isn’t joyful.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You make a good distinction between defiance and defensiveness in children. When children push back, as they inevitably will at some point, we tend to regard it as defiance. But, if we could see it instead as defensiveness, we could avert a lot of arguments, friction and unhappiness. How do we learn to switch our perception?
Shefali Tsabary: It’s really our own fear talking. We interpret attacks from our children as defiance. Our fear gets triggered when our child doesn’t run our course, when they need more time or seems to always “be difficult.” We forget that this is the inherent nature of children.
Children are going to be distracted, dawdling, unmotivated, forgetful. But, every time they forget their folder at school, we look at this as a great inconvenience, and we shame them. It’s really all in our own fears of our own inadequacies, of am I a good parent?
How do we make the shift? It’s about moving from fear to love. It’s about moving from our head and this control-based ideology into our heart. How would I like to be treated if I was late? How would I like to be treated if I left my folder at school? Asking those questions, having deep empathy for another human being who is a slave to our control, our whims. Our children have no power, really. And many times we treat them as cattle without thinking.
It’s up to us to have empathy, to understand that, oh, my child is slamming the door, not because they’re evil, not because they came here to make my life inconvenient, but, maybe because it’s me who is pissing the hell out of them, who’s not picking up the signals that I’m overwhelming my child, I’m not empathizing with their needs, totally in my own movie.
We have to call ourselves to task here, and not in a shameful judging way, just in a matter of fact way. But, we’re scared to confront our ego, to confront our fears and our shadows because this means that we would have to take ownership. You know, we talk about wanting our kids to change, but we don’t want to be called on that.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You make some great points about triggering; that parents think the child is doing it on purpose, but in fact, it’s our insecurities, ego, and anxieties that are being triggered; and when we get triggered, we become like a child ourselves.
Shefali Tsabary: You know, it’s just like a little toddler who can’t help but eat with a mess on the table. Part of this is just childhood. Part is building awareness in children, constantly reminding, setting them up for success. And this takes time, commitment, patience, and discipline within our own selves. But who has time for that? We’ve cluttered our lives with a thousand activities, filled it with a thousand social obligations. We barely sit still.
So when our children too forgetful, or too distracted, these small daily occurrences become a cause for a great wounding within us because we feel, God, I can’t even have control over this five-year-old. It brings up our primal wound of not being heard, not being understood or being highly ineffectual. You know, we didn’t have control as children, and that’s why we end up acting like five-year-olds ourselves, screaming for control. And we look ridiculous.
We’re frothing at the mouth because a five-year-old doesn’t listen to us. I mean, seriously? We’re yelling at them for yelling, and we’re slapping them for slapping, and we’re getting angry with a teenager for rolling their eyes, and isn’t that what teenagers do, isn’t that what you did?
Sandie Sedgbeer: What do you think is the most important thing our children need from us?
Shefali Tsabary: Parents think it’s about providing opportunities and exposure, an iPhone, a trip to Disney Land, hiking in the Himalayas. Well, guess what? Our children don’t need these things. They need parents who are coherent, who are present, who are spacious in their own beings.
They need to be seen, heard, validated, to be approved, to have our unconditional presence. And that can only come from a parent who’s already aligned and who’s listening.
Sandie Sedgbeer: You talk about taking the opposite point, resisting the urge to match your child’s energy. Say more about that.
Shefali Tsabary: When a child is in a state of anxiety or anger, we foolishly think that the way to combat that is to enter the same state ourselves. If the kid is angry and yelling, we’re yelling back at them telling them not to yell. If the kid is anxious, it triggers our anxiety, and we’re telling them don’t be anxious while we’re anxious. We don’t see how we’re actually creating a domino effect.
So, I say to parents, take the opposite pole. If your kid is in anger, become the water that is the balm. Don’t enter anger thinking that you’re going to control it with anger. When we take the opposite pole when our kid is angry, it may look like we’re giving up control, but actually, we’re in the most control. When we become the steady, calm waters, the child naturally enters a state of calm.
Sandie Sedgbeer: The best thing that we can do for our children is to take the time to develop awareness about ourselves.
Dr. Shefali Tsabary: Oh, my goodness, yes. They are fine; they’re whole. All our worries are our own and completely fabricated. What a disservice to them and us. So, this is the way to enjoy life again, to make it simple as life should be.
Let’s enjoy the moment with our children. You know, time is timeless, but life is short, so this is an invitation for every parent to start re-enjoying this journey as it was meant to be. 
The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting by Dr. Shefali drshefali.com.
Sandie Sedgbeer: Veteran broadcaster, author, and media consultant, Sandie Sedgbeer brings her incisive interviewing style to a brand new series of radio programs showcasing the world’s leading thinkers, scientists, authors, educators and parenting experts whose ideas are at the cutting edge.
A professional journalist who cut her teeth in the ultra-competitive world of British newspapers and magazines, Sandie has interviewed a wide range of personalities from authors, scientists, celebrities, spiritual teachers, and politicians. sandiesedgbeer.com
Listen to Sandie Sedgbeer on OMTimes Radio’s What Is Going OM, Thursdays at 7 PM ET.
