Dr. Shefali: From Chaos to Connection With Conscious Parenting

Summary

Podcast Summary: Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen

Episode: Dr. Shefali: From Chaos to Connection With Conscious Parenting
Date: February 5, 2026
Host: Chrissy Teigen
Guest: Dr. Shefali
Topic: The transformative power of conscious parenting and practical tools to build connected, healthy relationships with our children – and ourselves.

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth, lively conversation between Chrissy Teigen and Dr. Shefali, a pioneering clinical psychologist and creator of the "Conscious Parenting" movement. Together, they explore how traditional parenting methods—rooted in control and inherited patterns—often fail today’s kids, and advocate for a radical shift towards self-awareness, inner healing, and authentic connection. Dr. Shefali draws on her personal experience as a mother and her new Audible Original, From Chaos to Connection, to share actionable insights, reflect on breaking cycles of dysfunction, and provide hope to parents at any stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Conscious Parenting?

[02:38]

• Dr. Shefali explains conscious parenting as a paradigm that asks parents to raise themselves first:

  “You don’t have to raise your children, you have to first raise yourself. That is the fundamental paradigm shift... turning the traditional parenting paradigm on its head.” — Dr. Shefali [03:03]

• The approach emphasizes self-awareness, confronting inherited patterns, and seeing parenting as an opportunity for personal healing.

2. Parenting as a Mirror: Our Triggers and Unhealed Patterns

[05:45]

• Dr. Shefali asserts the biggest obstacle is not the child, but "our own unhealed patterns.”

  “We are very rarely in the right reality, always in our projected reality... we are in our movie.” — Dr. Shefali [05:58]

• Her method uses parenting as a portal for self-reflection and growth.

3. The Importance of Early Connection

[08:19]

• Connection and attunement, even in infancy, are more significant than material provision.
• “The best parenting is for free… Children care that they have a consistent, reliable, predictable, safe caregiver.” — Dr. Shefali [08:47]
• Chrissy reflects on her own childhood wounds relating to physical affection.

4. Breaking the Cycle: Compassion and Rewriting the Script

[10:10]

• Dr. Shefali stresses the importance of compassion for both ourselves and parents who may have been ill-equipped:

  “You can only give what you have in abundance. So this mother of yours was really an unmothered soul herself.” — Dr. Shefali [10:19]

5. The Seven Traps of Parenting and Control

[11:06]

• The most common “trap” is parental control disguised as love.
• Parents often unconsciously mold children to meet their own needs or to validate themselves.

6. Navigating Pain: Projection vs. Reality

[12:34]

• Chrissy reveals her fear of releasing control as her children grow.
• Dr. Shefali highlights how our own fears of abandonment or pain project onto children’s experiences:

  "You're projecting. And as long as you can remember that, you can have the possibility that what you are imagining they're going through is not what they're going through." — Dr. Shefali [13:07]

• Mindfulness is essential to discern projection from reality.

7. Parenting Against Your Own Conditioning: Reparenting Yourself

[15:17]

• Both discuss the difficulty in parenting differently than they were parented.

• “Sometimes I’m literally watching him screaming, and I have to, like, break free of myself... My impulse is to honestly be like, ‘toughen up and get it together’... and then I’m like, ‘no, no, no, no, that is what you had to do.’" — Chrissy [14:23]

• Dr. Shefali reassures that these moments are opportunities to reparent our own inner child and break generational cycles.

8. Breaking Free from Conditioned Mind & Cultivating Mindfulness

[16:53]

• Mindfulness allows us to “tame the impulsive mind” and choose conscious responses over conditioned reactions.

9. When Is Correction Really About the Parent?

[18:03]

• Real-world examples show how parental reactions to their child’s choices (e.g., college major, haircuts) are often about the parent’s own issues, not the child’s needs.

10. Discipline, Boundaries, and Power Dynamics

[21:52]

• Traditional discipline is criticized as “a sign that you are out of control, not in control.”
• “Discipline has been bastardized. We've tarnished what it should mean because of traditional parenting... Traditional parents were really abused by their traditional parenting.” — Dr. Shefali [21:58]
• True discipline involves logical consequences, role modeling, and setting conscious boundaries—“connection before control.”

11. Navigating People Pleasing and Guilt in Parenting

[26:59]

• Chrissy opens up about difficulty confronting even her children’s hurt:

  “I live my whole life never wanting people to feel bad... I've grown to be, like, a people pleaser.” — Chrissy [27:14]

• Dr. Shefali connects this back to unresolved childhood experiences and emphasizes restorative feedback over punishment.

12. Modern Pressures: The Emotional Landscape for Kids Today

[31:49]

• Dr. Shefali is writing new books on raising girls and boys, stressing the current crisis:

  “We are on such a hurtling, slippery slope into the abyss of disconnection as a global society... our boys are literally in the gutter. Our girls are holding on... but drowning in anxiety…” — Dr. Shefali [32:05]

• The effects of social media, technology, and gender expectations are dissected.

13. Repairing After Mistakes: Honesty and Humility

[38:07]

• Dr. Shefali offers frameworks for repairing after a parent “loses it.”
• Accountability, naming your mistakes, and letting your child witness your commitment to self-growth are key:

  “The more you tell your child, ‘You know, I’m sorry, Mom is really like — and you tell your child, have you seen Grandma? I came from Grandma... I’m working on me. I promise I’m working. I’m sorry. You are absolutely right.’” — Dr. Shefali [39:42]

• This models healthy emotional processing for kids.

14. Protecting Children’s Nervous Systems & Authenticity

[41:18]

• Dr. Shefali describes children as “exquisitely connected.”
• Parents’ self-regulation is vital:

  “Every time I stay regulated, I thank my daughter for that moment she gave me so I could practice mindfulness... I’m not contaminating her nervous [system] based on my dysregulation.” — Dr. Shefali [42:45]

15. Keeping Children Connected to Their True Selves

[43:08]

• Parents must “burn down their own movie” and attune to the actual child before them, not the child of fantasy.

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Toolkit: Dr. Shefali’s Five Core Practices for Conscious Parenting

[45:30]

1. Release Control

   • Let go of the “perfect movie,” the fantasy child and perfect life.

2. Look Within

   • Ask: “What’s coming up for me right now?” Bring awareness to your triggers and patterns.

3. Slow Down and Attune

   • Be present daily — even just 20 minutes — to truly witness your child’s unique essence.

4. Build Collaboration

   • See your child as a partner, not a subject. Create agreements, contracts, and foster mutual respect and sovereignty.

5. Prioritize Your Healing

   • Your inner child matters more than your real child, because your triggers arise from your own unhealed places. “Raise yourself as your first child.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You don’t have to raise your children, you have to first raise yourself.” — Dr. Shefali [03:03]
• “Parenting is an opportunity, a mirror, a portal to your awakening. Isn’t that amazing? What other relationship does that?” — Dr. Shefali [05:20]
• “My impulse is to honestly be like, toughen up and get it together... and then I’m like, ‘no, no, no, that is what you had to do.’” — Chrissy [14:23]
• “Discipline is a sign that you are out of control, not in control.” — Dr. Shefali [22:44]
• “Every time you lose your shit, it’s a mirror to something stirred inside you… an invitation to be lovely to the little Chrissy who never got this. And what an amazing thing you’re doing for your child — breaking these generational patterns.” — Dr. Shefali [16:16]
• “We are on such a hurtling, slippery slope into the abyss of disconnection as a global society… parents need to resist the matrix.” — Dr. Shefali [31:57]
• “The more you tell your child… the child doesn’t internalize it. The more accountable you are and the more you will actually make a change.” — Dr. Shefali [39:42]
• “Regulate yourself. And thank your child for that moment to be mindful.” — Dr. Shefali [42:45]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:38 — What is Conscious Parenting?
• 05:45 — Parenting as Self-Reflection; Triggers
• 08:19 — Early Attachment and Its Role
• 11:06 — The Trap of Parental Control
• 14:23 — Chrissy’s Struggle With Conditioned Parenting
• 18:03 — Examples of Parental Projection
• 21:52 — Discipline, Boundaries, and Power
• 26:59 — Chrissy on People Pleasing & Guilt
• 31:49 — The Modern Emotional Landscape for Kids
• 38:07 — Repairing After a Parenting “Fail”
• 41:18 — The Child’s Nervous System & Emotional Safety
• 43:08 — Helping Kids Stay Authentic
• 45:30 — Dr. Shefali’s Five Core Practices

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Final Takeaways

This episode is a rich resource for parents and anyone interested in breaking cycles of unconscious behavior. Dr. Shefali’s model challenges parents to go inward, heal themselves, and foster genuine connection, rather than control. Parenting becomes not just about raising children but about personal, even spiritual, transformation — with real, actionable steps to get started now, no matter where you are on your journey.

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For deeper guidance, Dr. Shefali’s Audible Original, From Chaos to Connection, and her upcoming books on raising conscious boys and girls, are recommended resources.

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to Self Conscious with Chrissy Teigen, an Audible original podcast. Join me as we explore the cutting edge of health, wellness and personal growth with the world's leading experts and thinkers. From inspiring stories to actionable insights, our conversations aim to help you lead a healthier, happier and more productive life. Every parent I know wants the same thing. To raise kids who feel loved, safe and free to be themselves. But most of us are still using the tools we were raised with. Tools that simply weren't built for the world our kids are growing up in today. That's why My next guest, Dr. Shefali, matters so much right now. She's the creator of Conscious Parenting, Oprah's favorite parenting expert, and a world renowned clinical psychologist who blends eastern philosophy with western psychology to help parents raise their kids without losing themselves. Dr. Shefali's new audible original, From Chaos to Connection, breaks down the seven hidden traps almost every parent falls into the old patterns we inherit and repeat and shows us how to move from control to connection, from fear to curiosity, from reacting to truly seeing our children. Today, we're talking about how to build the kind of relationship that helps our kids feel safe, strong and grounded in who they are. But most of all, this conversation is about understanding yourself so you can finally understand your child. Dr. Shefali, welcome to Self Conscious. Doctor Shefali, congrats on your Audible original.

[B]

Yeah, I'm so excited.

[A]

Congrats. First of all, the topic is very near and dear to my heart. Do you have children?

[B]

Yes. Yes. So I have a 22, 23 year old daughter now. I've been doing this work since she was, you know, since she was born.

[A]

Oh, beautiful.

[B]

So I'm so excited about this Audible original because I just packaged the key principles that parents can follow in a very easy way. You know, just listen to it on their drive to school or to the supermarket. And these are just daily reminders that we need as parents to come back to the present moment to embody attunement and mindfulness, because our children can unravel us.

[A]

If people don't know your work, what is conscious parenting and how is it different from the way most of us were raised?

[B]

Yeah. So I founded this movement that I call conscious parenting. And my first book, the Conscious Parent, came out in 2010, 15 years ago when nobody was talking about mindfulness, consciousness or the parent looking at themselves. So I was one of the first ones who made this tremendously provocative paradigm shift. For the first time, I was telling parents, you don't have to Raise your children, you have to first raise yourself. So that is the fundamental paradigm shift, turning the traditional parenting paradigm on its head. And I remember, you know, Oprah has been a big ambassador of my work and I've been on her podcast, her shows many times. And she used to tell me, man, these parents are so defensive, right? Because they were so triggered to look at themselves in the mirror in 15 years and in the last five years, I agree with you, there's been such a change, but it's taken a lot of effort and it's taken a lot of chipping away. Why? Because the traditional parenting paradigm that you and I were raised in, the parent had the ultimate superiority, had the ultimate power. They were never questioned. Dare anybody tell a parent, maybe you need to look at yourself or you're losing your shit. You sure this is not about you? The parent had every right to go off on the person, like, don't you tell me this is my kid. So there was this ownership, there was this control, there was a lot of heavy tyranny. And children were supposed to be seen, not heard, and follow tradition. Well, now, because of all the self help work we've been doing, we realize that if our children are not allowed to have a voice and if they don't follow their authentic signature, they will be in therapy when they're older, just like we are. So we're trying to undo the damage, we're trying to disrupt the patterns. But I have a whole philosoph, I have a method, my last book is called the Parenting Map, where I have a 20 step map that clearly takes people down. Well, what do you do? What do you do next? And it's not easy. And parenting is not a script. And we wish we had a map. But I've tried to create as clear a pathway to help parents become the most conscious. Because here's the most amazing thing, Chrissy, is that when we realize how powerful the journey of parenting is to make us more conscious. You see, because no other person in your life will take you back to your childhood the way your children will. So you're going to relive your first C grade, your first heartbreak, your first pimple, all the things inside you that are still not free, that are still caught up. If your child is overweight, if your child is obese, if your child has a disease, all the parts in you that are not healed around those areas are going to get triggered. I look at it as an opportunity, as a mirror, as a portal to your awakening. Isn't that amazing? What other relationship does that.

[A]

I love that so much because so many of us think we are so far gone. But why do you say the biggest obstacle to conscious parenting isn't our children? It's our own unhealed patterns.

[B]

We don't realize that every relationship is a projection. We are very rarely in the right reality, always in our projected reality of things. So basically, we are in our movie. So we write the script. Oh, this is how our children's childhood is going to be. We're gonna be in this neighborhood, this school, and we cast them in our role in what we've given them, and we write the script, and we are in the director's chair, and we think that's good parenting. What I've been teaching is that those kinds of ideas are simply a repetition. You are on autopilot. You are just repe your past patterns. When you act like that, when you act like your children are your possessions, they're here to do as you wish. But real conscious parenting is to realize that the child before you has a unique signature of definite blueprint. And your job is to keep them authentically connected to that blueprint as possible. That's what authenticity is. Authenticity is a true alignment between our external Persona and our internal state of being. We want our children to be authentic. To be authentic, we need to not dislocate them, to become a puppet of our imagination. So we want to keep them as aligned as possible to who they are. And as you must have noticed and observed in your life, our tendency is to keep casting people into our fantasy. You know, oh, look, my child can hum a tune. Let me enroll them in singing lessons, right? Or, look, my kid is strong. Let me make him a boxer. We're always trying to make something out of our children that comes from our unhealed patterns of wanting significance, wanting the medal. We want to be seen so badly that we are contouring our children into an object for us to get validation, to say, hey, mommy, Daddy, do you see? I'm not a loser. Until we can really see that, we won't go deep in our own awakening, that we're using our children and using ourselves really to get crumbs of validation we never got as children.

[A]

What age would you say that real parenting begins?

[B]

It depends what you define as real parenting. But it is very much in the early years of infancy. Even though their eyes are shut and they look like a blob that poops and cries, bonding is taking place in utero. They are constantly connecting. Children learn through connection, through their relationships, and they don't have to need a lot. So if you're a single mother listening, and you don't have a lot of things in your house and possessions, guess what? They don't need things. They need consistent, secure caregivers who are attuned, present and attentive. So the best parenting is for free, right? You don't need a lot of money. You don't need a lot of sophistication. You don't need fancy trips. You don't need a big tree and things under the tree at all. Children don't care about this. Children care that they have a consistent, reliable, predictable, safe caregiver. And if you do that for seven years or 10 years, your kid will be, to the best possible potential, immunized from addiction, violence, depression. Now, I'm not saying it's a guarantee because there's a genetic component to many things, but you've created a strong foundation for them.

[A]

Well, like you said, there's no guarantee. And I really don't remember a lot of my childhood, but I know that I had a mother that didn't touch or hold me often. Diapers were left on for days. And that has affected me to this day, despite not having any memory of having a parent that didn't do that or did do that or whatever. But that is what fascinates me about all this. Is it really. You're right. It starts so little. And even though I'm not gonna ever remember those times, the fact that they happened did something to me. It's so fascinating.

[B]

It is fascinating and something we have to have compassion for. Compassion for you especially, but also for that mother who wasn't mothered herself because she had nothing to give. Right? You can only give what you have in abundance. So this mother of yours was really an unmothered soul herself. She didn't know how to do this. If she knew, she would not have done it. So this is your legacy now, to own what pain you came from, but to rewrite the script, to alchemize it, transform it, transcend it, disrupt the patterns. And that's what you're doing now. And that's the best we can do. We are not looking to be flawless. We're not looking to be perfect. There's no such thing. But we're looking to disrupt toxic patterns.

[A]

Your audible original talks about these seven hidden traps. Which trap do most parents fall into without realizing it?

[B]

The most insidious one is that they control their children and don't think they are. They think it's love and care. And I'm controlling my daughter till just before, like two hours before. And she's 23 almost. And she has to keep reminding me, mom, that's you. That's not me. I'm not you. You know, I go, thank you. You aren't mine. You're not my puppet. And I think the other really sneaky. We want our children to be happy.

[A]

I dread the day I have to deal with heartbreak, watching their faces fall or them going through trauma and toughness and having to, like, you know, buck up and still go to school despite having, like, big feelings and big emotions. And I always thought that you're right about the controlling part too, by the way, because I think parenting is really gonna get hard when you just have to release them and let them fly. I'm terrified of that. Like, I wouldn't consider myself a controlling parent now, except, like, I look at all the activities that I make them do and how regimented their schedule is, and I'm like, okay, maybe I am a little bit controlling. You must have it hard having a 23 year old flying out there on her own. Now, what is that like?

[B]

I can't wait. She's actually not flying. She's clinging to me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

She's so happy to be at home. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Go already? Yeah, I'm the oppos, the kind of mother who's so ready. I've been ready.

[A]

Well, that means you did an incredible job.

[B]

Yeah, sometimes you can do too much. But what you're saying is powerful because seeing our children in pain hurts us so much. And part of the reason why it hurts us is because when we went through pain, no one was there to hold us. Our pain was deeper, harder, stronger than our children's because we've been there. So it's different pain because you didn't have anybody to hold you. You've been with your kids so already the pain is. But we project our pain onto our children. Oh, my goodness. They're gonna feel what I felt and they simply won't. Because you've been a different parent than the one you never had. So you have to realize that you're projecting. And as long as you can always remember that. Am I projecting? Oh, there I go again. I'm creating my own movie. And if you can just have the possibility that what you are imagining they are going through is not what they're going through, like, just open yourself up for every human. You think you know what people are going through and you impose your ways. Well, they Are not you. But I think for you in letting them fly, your own abandonment is going to get triggered some way. You're going to remember being abandoned and it's going to feel like a personal thing when they don't want to be with you versus a healthy thing. And you have to brace yourself for when they say, I hate you or I don't want you. Like, you have to practice that or you have to be exposed. Tell your therapist to expose you from now on. So you get used to it, that it's not you. It's not you.

[A]

You honestly, you know me so well because that is exactly what is going to happen.

[B]

So if you can realize that, then when your child is unhappy, but you're right there, you're absorbing the shock, holding.

[A]

Them, witnessing them, which is so hard sometimes. And I get really frustrated with myself because my son can get in crazy moods every once in a while, like they all do. He's 7 years old, and big feelings, will. And I have to fight that within myself since I'm not used to being coddled even in adulthood. Nobody really held my hand through anything. Sometimes I'm literally watching him screaming, and I have to, like, break free of myself and what I feel to do. My impulse is to honestly be like, toughen up and get it together. Slap a smile on. And then I'm like, no, no, no, no. That is what you had to do. That's not okay. People don't talk enough about how challeng to go against every urge from your own childhood and be like, no, I must be a different person right now. And it almost feels fake.

[B]

It feels so fake. Like you're this robot and the mindful, conscious way feels like bullshit because you're like, I'm totally faking it. I really wanna run away right now. I wanna scream right now. I wanna throw this kid into the closet. And I have to go, ooh, right?

[A]

But what you're doing now, I have to be soft. I have to sit down and hold him. And that kind of makes it better, is realizing like, oh, my God, this is working. He did need this. Okay? And then hopefully I do that enough times to where I'm like, okay, this is in me now to where it won't feel so fake and unusual to me. And I don't have to be this hard, tough person on him. I'm hoping that it'll happen enough that it gets easier.

[B]

Well, not only will it get easier, you're actually rewiring your internal mother for yourself. He's actually helping you Reparent yourself, which is what I teach. The core of the conscious parenting method is helping you re parent yourself. Every time you lose your shit, it's a mirror to something stirred inside me every time I react like this. It's a mirror to how I must have been treated as a child. Wow. So when you have that instinct, toughen up, man up, get up. That was actually what was told to you. So now you're getting a window into how you were treated. So now it's an invitation to be so lovely to the little Chrissy who never got this. But what an amazing thing you're doing for your child, breaking these generational patterns.

[A]

God, nobody talks about how hard it is to do the complete opposite of your own urges. It's so crazy.

[B]

Oh, my God. This is what mindfulness is, right? Mindfulness is taming the impulsive mind. It's creating these transcendent mind that can observe the base mind that is conditioned, that mind that is pulling you to be neglectful and rough and tough. That mind is your conditioned mind. And most of us live 24, 7, 365, decade after decade in the conditioned mind. Most people are living there. They have no idea that there's another possibility. So imagine what traps and what prisons they live in. And the rest of us who are kind of getting mindful and breaking free, we're like, look. But I have great compassion for people who are still stuck because that's all they are the ones who are spewing racism, the ones who are spewing hatred. I don't condone them, but I can see that they're stuck. You can have compassion for everyone who's hurt you now because you're seeing how hard it is to break the pattern. It is so difficult.

[A]

What is one example of a moment when a parent thinks that they're correcting a child, but they're actually reacting to their own history?

[B]

Oh, I just was with a couple just the other day whose child was applying to school, a 17 year old boy. And they were just livid. And I was like, what's going on? And they're like, you won't believe it. You won't believe it. He doesn't wanna go to med school anymore. And, you know, I've seen it all, heard it all. And I'm like, okay, talk to me. And they're like, you don't understand. Dageshpali is ruining his career. He wanted to do communications. Okay. You would think that this guy is gonna become a drug dealer. They were like, acting like it was Doom and gloom, right? Y they told me what they did. They said, we talked to him, we were begging him. I was crying. The mother said, now see, in their eyes, they are optimizing their son's potential. In their eyes, they're celebrating his intelligence. It's a blasphemy that he do nothing short of become a Nobel laureate, right? And win a academic prize as the best surgeon. That in their eyes they are being loving. They cannot imagine that they're being oppressive. They can't imagine that. And the son is so upset. The son is thinking, he is a failure for choosing communications. And he's thinking now he's forever going to be lesser than when he's actually full on, legit, strong, hard working boy. But he's not being seen. He's going hoarse trying to tell the parents. But the parents are on their own trip. But in their eyes, they're loving. The other day a woman came to me, mother of a 13 year old who wanted to shave her hair off and have a buzz cut. And the mother was like, are you kidding me? Look at her hair. She's beautiful. She has these long curls as if it was her hair. And she thinks again, I'm protecting her. Her friends are gonna make fun of her, grandparents are gonna be angry. I'm protecting her. But these things, which are not life and death, as you can see, they're pure ego. They have nothing to do with anything. We project our opinion, our medical diagnosis, our predictions of the future, and all of it is baseless and we don't see it. We think we're loving and we lose sleep over it and we're exhausted.

[A]

This is a big fear of mine. What do you do when you know that they are making a mistake? Do you just have to let them make it?

[B]

Okay, so there's two kinds of things. There are red flag behaviors. Self harm, drugs, vaping alcohol, chronic absences from school, addicted to a screen in the wrong company, and things like that which are now looking to be out of the norm and are disrupting his normal functioning. You can tell he's not healthy anymore. That's when you absolutely, unequivocally, with compassion and steadiness, you intervene. And I've done that for families because they've not been able to be the bad guy. And I can't really be the bad guy in my family either, but I would hire somebody else. So they hire me to be the bad guy because I can come in and break the pattern and be the intervention is, we need help, we need support. No Problem. But the rest of the behaviors, like cutting my hair, or I got a C grade, you know, once in a while, or I want to study communications and not computer science. This shit is like green flag stuff, which is probably a parent problem, not a child problem. So then I help the parent to dig in and discover why it is that they're so enmeshed, why it is they're so triggered with a lot of love. I do it, of course, but I shake them up, I wake them up and then they go, oh, my God. This is because my sister and I were never allowed to play the piano. I know. And now I want to play the piano. They immediately discover why it's such a problem because I show them in real time it's not a problem. So why is it a problem? Oh, it's a problem in my imagination because of my story. There's a difference between stories we've created and real problems.

[A]

Many parents believe discipline equals control. How can you help them rewire that belief?

[B]

The term discipline has been bastardized. We've tarnished what it should mean because of traditional parenting, which follows the Bible. Spare the rod, spoil the child. That kind of ethos has given parents carte blanche, superior tyranny, that they can do whatever they want to their child. I didn't like how you looked at me. Come here. Let me punish you. Let me take away your things. It just gives the parent this dopamine hit of like, I can do what the hell I want with you. And most of our traditional parenting was based on this ego trip. I'm the parent. I pay for everything. Just give it back. I gave you an iPad. Give it back to me. Oh, really? I'll break your iPad. I'll break it on your head. It's just a power trip, right? Traditional parents were really abused by their traditional parenting. So they are now going all to town being the little mini God that they can be with their children. Right?

[A]

Yeah, I've definitely ripped a PlayStation out of the wall before and thrown it in the trash.

[B]

Right? The same PlayStation that we gave them, right? That you gave them. And now you're like, oh, really? I'll take it back. Right? It gives us a little dopamine hit of, you know, just a little artificial power. But it's really because we don't have inner power. The kind of work that I teach parents to do with their children has to do with accessing our inner power so we don't have to exercise stupid, arbitrary, senseless, mean spirited, shaming outer power. And if you look at the narcissists in our world who are leading our world today. They all love to exercise outer power because they don't have inner power. And that is where it starts from when you start shaming your children. Now listen, I've done everything in the book too. Like, I've snatched things, taken things, yelled at, But I know that's because I have actually been out of control. So discipline is actually the traditional. Discipline is a sign that you are out of control, not in control. Now, true discipline would involve not letting the child get away with things, but talking about real life consequences. If your child hits you, a real consequence is you feeling the pain of it. Now, if you have a three year old who hits you, obviously you don't feel much, right? But you want the child to learn. The consequence of hitting someone is that you hurt someone. So then you do a little acting developmentally appropriate. You teach the child, you hit me, it hurt me. And let's go get a band aid. Be a doctor. Let's go. Take care now. I have to lie down now. You lost your play buddy. We teach them the real life consequence in bite sizes, in little pieces. And I teach parents to role play because through the play we can teach, quote, unquote discipline, we can teach boundaries, we can teach consequences. So the two things I teach parents, number one, if it's red flag behavior, seek help. Number two, teach real time consequences. So if you have two siblings fighting, stop them right there and let them talk about what they are truly feeling. If your child steals something from the shop, teach them that that is gonna cause the shopkeeper pain. We're going to take care of it right here, right now. Oh, you lied to me. Okay, now let's take care of the wound that is caused in me. I don't know whether to trust you. Now help me trust you. And you do all this before your child even turns 12 years old, right? You're doing this all the first 12 years. And the third thing I teach is conscious. A mother came to me and she was complaining that her nine year old kept leaving the lights on. To me, it's not a big deal, just shut the light. But to this mother, it was a big deal. As I teach people, they have choices. Conscious boundaries is about you making a choice. And your choices are change something or accept it or leave it. Like ignore it. So she wanted to do something. I'm like, okay, what do you do? You can keep begging your child, put off the light and get angry, Punish them, take away the iPad, their shoes. But that has nothing to do with the connection of the freaking light. What do you do with the light? Take out the light bulb. Then you've ended the problem. A conscious boundary is if I keep giving you my car keys, Chrissy, and you keep taking my car and you keep fucking it up, sending it back with a dent, I have a choice. One is to yell at you and beg you, please don't do it. Please don't do it. But you keep doing it. My next choice is, don't give you the keys. Chrissy's going to be upset. But a conscious boundary is something I get to create. So when I told the mother to take out the light bulb, she. She was like, what kind of intervention is that? I said, that is the most brilliant intervention in the world. Everything will stop. And so she did it. And she's like, oh, my God. My daughter cried and called me the worst mother. She was horrified. She told her friends, and guess what? She never did that again. It stuck with her so clearly that when the mother put it back because they entered a trial period. Okay, let's try the daughter never messed with her again. Instead of saying, don't eat the cookie, it's, oh, I just won't buy the cookie anymore. I'm gonna take this into my control. You see, What a difference. But then you stop fighting with your kid.

[A]

As you were talking, all I could think about was how my dad would take the hinges off our doors if we were bringing too many friends into our rooms at some point or a, God forbid, a fucking boy or something. He definitely did that with my sister. But while you were talking, I realized that I have a real problem. We already talked about my instinct and urge for discipline, which is like, take something away. I also do this thing, though, that I genuinely live my whole life never wanting people to feel bad. So, like, I never want to, like, hurt anybody's feelings. I've just, like, grown to be, like, a people pleaser. Oh, yes. My whole life. People pleaser. And I've seen it manifest into not wanting to even, like, hurt my children's feelings by being like, ouch, that hurt, mama. Cause that would make them feel bad, and then they'd feel sad and I would feel sad. So I think I'll just take it. And then I realized my dad was like that. He can say one word now and it'll send, like, a chill up my side. But he always felt so bad for disciplining us in any way. And then the tears would come. And I'm wondering if that is where it Comes from for me. Then I saw so much of that that I don't. I don't want Miles to feel like he hurt mom and then feel bad for the rest of the day.

[B]

Yeah, but here's so much to unpack. Number one, I'm very glad you pointed out what your dad did, because what I'm talking about in taking out the light bulb is not impulsive. It's not irrational. It is genuinely explaining to the child, you know, this light bulb is burning out and no one is using it. When light bulbs are burning out and no one uses it, we've got to respect the light bulb because I paid this bill. So we're teaching respect. We're teaching that we are in connection with the light bulb. We are in connection with electricity, in connection with power. We're in connection with water. You cannot leave the tap on. We have to respect the earth. We're actually teaching a beautiful lesson, not just going in there and taking out the light bulb. We're doing it through compassion, that if you can't honor this beautiful thing, I have to resist giving it to you for now until you can grow into it. In the same with the PlayStation, I have overestimated your brain, and I'm so sorry to your brain because now I've given it this cocaine and I need to take it away. And the second thing about you feeling bad that they're feeling bad is because, again, when you felt bad, you felt bad because there was nobody there to help you. And in a way, now you have an extremely unrealistic idea of your own ability to handle pain. You are the person who takes everybody's pain now to the point of too much, to the point of your self betrayal, self denial. You've done that. You have now taken on everybody's pain. You're out of touch with what was real, what was really yours, and what should never have been yours. Now you're going to create that same unrealism with your child where he will feel like, oh, I can keep hitting people, and there is no consequence. It doesn't have to be a punishment. It needs to be an explanation, a real empathy or developing empathy that you can't just hit me. And you don't have to make them feel bad. You can show them that they took care of you. And, wow, you're such a good doctor. You took care of me. Thank you. You made mommy feel so good again. There's a lot of power, because the truth is, they're not allowed to hit anybody. So you cannot create this unrealistic bubble that their kicks don't matter or their kicks are so special, but you have taken on too much and you have been crushed under the weight, and that's what you don't want your children to feel. But they will not feel that. But in your effort to not even make them feel a little bit, you're actually throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[A]

You're very right. My therapist had me reframe in the way that I even speak to my own best friends. Like, I don't like confrontation again, I don't want to make them feel bad for anything. And he had to have me reframe it as. Don't you respect them, though? Don't you think that they are strong enough to have this conversation? Don't you love them because they're strong, multifaceted and emotional? And yes, it's going to be a hard conversation, but it's giving them a form of respect that you know that they're strong enough to have a conversation like this. And so maybe I'll try it with my littles as well.

[B]

Yeah, it's because you don't feel strong enough to have the conversation.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

Because you don't want the backlash, because you don't want them to look at you and say, wow, you're being a real bitch. That would just kill you.

[A]

Kill.

[B]

That's what you don't want. Your little Chrissy is terrified of being called a bad person because that's where your shame is. That's the unhealed part of you. And until that is looked at and you grow up in that, you will be protecting everybody else's little children inside them.

[A]

What has changed the most about the emotional landscape that our kids right now are growing up in?

[B]

I'm writing two books on the current landscape, one for girls, one for boys, because things have changed so much. If conscious parenting was vital 15 years ago when I wrote it, it is now 1014. We are on such a hurtling, slippery slope into the abyss of disconnection as a global society that the ingredients for what makes a healthy childhood are disappearing in front of our eyes. Children need to play. Children need to be spontaneous. They need to be wild. They need to be unfettered. They need to be in their bodies, connected. They need to be in real time. They need to be touching. Eye contact here and now, physical with the tribe, with the family. And we are going further and further and further away into our silos, into isolation. Reality isn't reality anymore. Now it's my reality. And what's your reality. Reality is reality. And we all have a distorted version of reality and we call it the truth. And it is imperative for parents to resist the matrix and understand the toxic elements coming at your children. And it is no time for parents to pussyfoot around and no time for parents to take their time. It's an urgent clarion call. I know I'm so worked up about it because I'm literally writing the books right now. But it is so desperately needed because all the statistics show our boys are literally in the gutter. Our girls are holding on. They're doing better than ever in external statistics. They're getting more jobs, taking over the boys, but drowning in anxiety, perfectionism, and self harm. The boys are drowning in loss of purpose, loss of direction. The poor boys, they're like, how do I be masculine? I don't know, should I be soft or should I be strong? One side is telling me I need to be soft. The ultra right is telling me, oh my God, you're such a wimp and a pussy. You need to be different. And I am getting throttled in between. And the parents are toggling. We don't know. We're like, be soft, be hard, be this, be that. And we don't know what masculinity is anymore. And in my books, I'm gonna be really describing it so clearly that parents would just need to follow what. But it is a crisis and we need to rise to the challenge because we've let our children walk into the trap.

[A]

I love that you've separated them by sons and daughters. Sons and daughters. I love that you've separated them because it really. I don't talk very much on it at all, but, you know, I look at social media and I go through and women that I love and look up to have become really comfortable hating men and thinking that men are useless. And it's kind of just like the running joke. It reminds me of like the wine mom joke. Like, you just get so used to hearing something that it plants a seed in your head and you think it's okay. And I can't tell you how much of my Instagram is devoted to being like, we don't need men. Fuck men. They're the downfall of the universe, the end of society. They're all that's wrong with the world. I cannot imagine what that is like for a young boy to hear at this time. Like, girls are definitely. It's gonna be taken wrong, but girls are winning in that regard. Women feel so powerful and strong and empowered now, but we are killing our boys. Like, I can't imagine what it feels like for them to hear that. And then to. Also, I can't imagine getting used to hearing that, that to where it doesn't mean anything anymore.

[B]

Women have been prey and victimized. That, you know, it's very easy for us to forget that we are now, perhaps, in our own way, kind of becoming the perpetrators, not in the way men ever are. See, that's the thing. We have been, you know, messed with. We have been abused. We have been victimized. To this day, women are. Right now, as you and I are talking, there is a woman being domestically abused right now by her father, by her brother. It is a fact. However, it is also a fact that we need to step back as a society and ask, what are we failing our boys by? Because we are failing our boys. Those men who become the perpetrators that we claim to rail against were once boys. And we need to reclaim the boyhood that they have obviously not been living in beauty. They are suffering. Our boys are suffering. Our men are suffering. This doesn't mean that they are not toxic. Men and women haven't been victimized, but we must pay attention to the boys. So that's why I actually started writing Only the Boys book. But of course, I had to write one for girls. So I'm so excited by them. They're called Raising Conscious, Raising Conscious Daughters, and they will be out in September. But it's so important, and it was vital for me to separate it, because although there are many common elements of being human, our boys metabolize pain and culture very differently than the girls metabolize pain and culture. Now, both can have eating disorders, yes, but the degree to which a girl is going to have an eating disorder is gonna be very different than a boy is going to have an eating disorder. Disorder. Right. It's just very different. Puberty shows up differently, even though they are intense in both. So I wrote it separately. But the ideal situation is that the parents read them together as complements of each other.

[A]

What does healthy repair look like after a parent loses it? My losing it, obviously, is very different from other people's losing it. For me, losing it was turning around and being like, shut the fuck up. And oh, my God. I thought about that moment all day. I said, mommy lost it, and Mommy is so sorry. I feel so bad about it. Whereas another moment of losing it can be ripping a PlayStation out of the wall and being physical and having to feel like I have to break something. When that happened, I was like, oh, my God. This is so ingrained in me that I can feel it in my nerves and in my bones. And to fight it made me feel sick with myself. I felt like a shit parent for even having the urge. What would you say to a parent that needs to repair something with their children?

[B]

Every parent gets triggered by their children. It is a chaotic, mad, feral, uncontrolled world. The more children you have, the crazier you're gonna feel. And parents need to stop expecting themselves to not get triggered. You are going to get triggered. The fact that you don't go nuts or break things. I'm sorry. I feel like a saint. When I don't raise my voice for a week. I give myself the sainthood prize. But here's the thing. What do you do when it happens? So first you're not shocked when it happens. B. You are compassionate with yourself because the more compassionate you are with yourself, the more accountable you will be and the more you will actually make a change. We have to be honest. Honest, compassionate, have a sense of humor. Let our children know that we are defective in many areas. Now, my daughter knows, and she. And I make a joke of it because I know what my issues are like. I have this stick about what food she eats. I cannot stop it. I'm mean about it. I can be shameful about it. And I'm not ashamed to say that I don't yet have control over that part in me that wants to control her food. So the minute we can put it out there, you see, now both you and the child can see this little monster and the child, doesn't it internalize it? So the more you tell your child, you know, I'm sorry, Mom is really like. And you tell your child, have you seen Grandma? I came from Grandma.

[A]

What do you expect?

[B]

I'm working on me. I promise I'm working. I'm sorry. You are absolutely right. There is no question that I should never have done that. I should take myself to therapy and I'm going to work on it. So you tell them, you know it, you see it, you name it, you claim it, you're going to work on it, what you're going to do, and that you need forgiveness and it's going to take time and this is what they can do. Next time you do it. So I've told my daughter, next time I do it, please walk out of the room. Walk out of the room. Because I deserve to be alone with my sickness. You don't need to be there.

[A]

Your sickness of telling her what to eat?

[B]

Yes, because I'm like an OCD person. Like, I cannot stop it.

[A]

Wait, I just. Just for my own curiosity, what is it that she's doing? Cause you would hate me.

[B]

Like, if she orders, like, I can't say. But if she orders, like, some fast food with, like, some onion rings, I'm like, onion rings? How can you have onion rings? She's like, mom, I should hide it because you can't handle onion rings. I'm like, I cannot handle onion rings. But it's annoying to live with somebody like me, and I own it. I go, my God, I must be so annoying.

[A]

You know, I doubt that.

[B]

So we can own it. And then telling our children that I reflected on what I did wrong teaches them that they don't have to be afraid when they hurt somebody. They can go up to them and say, I've reflected what I did wrong. The world would be a different place.

[A]

Wow. I don't think I've had better days of being a parent than any time I have acknowledged a mistake I made to them. They have never once ever made me feel bad. They've been like, we totally get it. And it is, like a really beautiful bonding experience. What do you wish every parent understood about a child's nervous system and their need for emotional safety?

[B]

Our children are exquisite, exquisitely designed, exquisitely connected. If you see a child between 0 to 5, oh, my goodness, they are exquisitely on point. They cry when they're sad, they're angry when they're angry, they move on.

[A]

I love it.

[B]

They're in the moment. They're not staring at the mirror. They're not in their ego. They are not concerned about whether you're Chinese or Thai or black or white. They can be vicious and greedy, but they're human in their instinct. In their body, they are fierce, fearless, and connected. We take them out of that internal connection. The more you keep your child connected to their essence, whether that essence is to be, you know, a slug on a couch or lightning rod on a field, whether it's to win medals or to cook soup or to take out weeds and raise the cattle, it doesn't matter. We deserve. Our children deserve to live lives of alignment. And we. We take them out of alignment, and then they have disease. So their nervous systems are so exquisite. They absorb us constantly. This is not to put guilt or shame or pressure, but to use this as a wake up call, to regulate yourself. Every time I stay regulated, I thank my daughter for that moment she gave me so I could practice mindfulness. I say, thank you, and I Feel proud that I could weather the storm. And it doesn't mean she's suddenly an angel. The point is, I'm not contaminating her. Nervous based on my dysregulation. I'm not here to control or care about what she does as much as I'm here to not put on her what is not hers.

[A]

Already you sound like the most incredible parent ever.

[B]

Yeah, I'm so not. I'm so not.

[A]

So then how can we as parents help our children stay connected to their authentic selves?

[B]

The first thing is we have to watch enlisting them in our movie. And we have to burn our movie down. We have to burn. And you're already deciding like you're trying to be benevolent. It's okay. I guess it's harmless. Like you don't have an opinion. Like, it's not your place to have an opinion unless it's harmful to self or other. And Even then, after 21, what can you do? Your movie is creating judgment and conditions you don't realize. So keeping a child aligned to their authentic self means burning down your movie and entering who it is they are are. In my book, the Parenting Map, I talk about different essences of your children and to attune to that. Not the child you wish you had, could have had. Your neighbor's child, your cousin's child, your child that you were when you were a child. No, it is the child you have before you, the more you keep attuning. Okay, this is not the child of my fantasy. This is the child that is before me. You will do better in allowing them to stay.

[A]

I'm finding myself feeling so bad for people that have a mid teenager and feel like they already messed up.

[B]

You have not fully finished messing up. So there's a lot more. So at least let's not mess up more. And then we can empty the ocean with a teaspoon. It may feel like an ocean with a teaspoon, but let's start emptying it out. And don't underestimate the power of your child evolving through your redemption. So I think that's an excuse sometimes. Like, oh, it's too late. No, no, no, no, no, no. There is so much good you can do right now. There's so much power you have. Your children need you right now. First, they need you to not do more harm, but they also need you to clean up your past home. So there's a lot of things you can do to heal them. To help heal them.

[A]

And now for the toolkit. Each episode, our guests Distill their expertise into practical and actionable insights. Today, Dr. Shefali shares her five core practices for conscious parenting.

[B]

Chrissy, I'm so excited because now I'm going to take you and the listeners through my five key practices that I cover in my amazing audible original. So let me just run through them with you. Okay, so the first one is release control. And this we've already talked about. Release your idea of the perfect movie. Stop trying to make a perfect child. Stop trying to be the perfect person with the perfect life. Instead of control, drop into connection. Connection before control. Number two, you always have to look within and ask, what's coming up for me right now? You know, what kind of pattern am I in? Am I just repeating, Repeating an old childhood pattern? So bringing awareness to your triggers and to your patterns, not being afraid to look in the mirror. The third practice, the core practice, is to slow it down. Because in order to attune to our children, we cannot be on our phone. We cannot be distracted. We need to be with them, even if it's just 20 minutes a day. But really witnessing the essence. Who is it that is before me? Who is this child? Not the child of my family. Fantasy number four. We must try as far and as greatly as possible to teach our children how to collaborate with us, to teach our children that they are our partners. We are not their tyrants. We are not their rulers. They are our partners. So we try to build agreements, we try to create collaborations. We write these contracts and we build respect this way so that they have a voice and they feel a sense of sovereignty and ownership. And the last, most important thing is you have to prioritize your healing because your inner child matters more than your real child. I'll tell you why. Because every time you're triggered with your real child, it is really constantly about your inner child needing some attention, needing some parenting, needing some mothering. So we have to to look at ourselves as the first, most important child that we have to raise.

[A]

Thank you so much for being here on Self Conscious.

[B]

Bye. Thank you.

[A]

You're so wonderful. Thank you so much.

[B]

You're welcome. You're so lovely.

[A]

Doctor Shefali, I want to thank you for joining me today on self conscious. Dr. Shefali's From Chaos to Connection 7 Modern Parenting Pitfalls and the Conscious Pathways out is available only on Audible. Until then, tune in, turn on and feel better. This is Chrissy Teigen and you've been listening to Self Conscious, an Audible original podcast. This has been an Audible original produced by Audible Q Code and Huntley Productions Host Hosted by Chrissy Teigen Written and executive produced by Jimmy Jelinek Executive producers for Q Code Shen Yan Hu and Alexa Gabrielle Ramirez Executive producer for Huntley Productions Chrissy Teigen Executive producers for Audible Andy Beckerman and Stacy Creamer Recorded and engineered by Ben Milchev Filmed by Bridger Clements Production coordinator Brian Coulter Edited, mixed and mastered by Ben Milcheville Head of creative development at Audible Kate Navin Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2024 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2025 by Audible Original.