MUSIC
OPRAH: A good parent is a loving one.
That's another myth.
DR. SHEFALI: That's another myth. All you need to have is love.
OPRAH: Oh.
DR. SHEFALI: I tell my --
OPRAH: Haven't we seen a lot of messed up kids who came from that?
DR. SHEFALI: From a lot of love.
OPRAH: Yes.
DR. SHEFALI: First I tell parents, love your kid a bit less because the love
love is messing this up because love is blind.
And what that means is not that it's unconditional.
It's truly blind.
You're not even seeing the child in front of you.
You're just so consumed by your need to be loved back.
By your need to feel love yourself. It's all about you, you, you.
So let's put love aside. And now let's talk about consciousness.
Because love without consciousness becomes need. Dependency.
It becomes control in the name of love.
And that's what we're doing with our children.
But I love you.
OPRAH: That's so big, the producer's writing it down.
That's so big. That is huge.
Love without consciousness becomes need and dependency.
DR. SHEFALI: And control.
OPRAH: And control.
DR. SHEFALI: How many parents have you heard --
OPRAH: Oh, my gosh, is this a tweetable moment.
Because I know so many of you, like -- like I am.
You're listening and you're thinking of friends
who were raised this way, yourself being raised this way,
and how this has shown up in your life. Yeah.
DR. SHEFALI: You spend a thousand dollars on your kid's birthday party.
Your kid dares to have a tantrum in the birthday party?
What, are we going to react with love?
Where does love go in that moment? Right?
It's not about love. It's not love for the other.
Because true love for the other comes with freedom.
Liberation. It comes without any condition.
Without any hand asking for something back.
OPRAH: So this is interesting. As I'm listening to I'm thinking,
and when I was reading The Awakened Family, I was thinking, wow,
if you could just be conscious, you sort of enter the
same flow as your children, easier said than done, of course.
I know that. So don't tweet me about it.
And it just becomes easier. Parenting becomes easier.
It becomes a part of who you are.
And you sort of gracefully move into that.
Or, if you're pushing against it and resisting it
trying to prove that this cannot be true.
DR. SHEFALI: Yes.
OPRAH: Then it becomes harder.
DR. SHEFALI: So who's making it harder? We're doing it ourselves.
OPRAH: We're doing it ourselves.
DR. SHEFALI: The keys are now in our hands,
and we're not opening the door to our freedom.
Our children are saying to us,
let go of your script of who I need to be.
Enter my as is.
OPRAH: But you know why that's so hard?
And I can see why you all resisted as parents,
because it's not convenient.
DR. SHEFALI: And who has time?
OPRAH: Who has time? It takes so much time and interest and presence.
DR. SHEFALI: Right.
OPRAH: Yes.
DR. SHEFALI: But this entire life is designed for us to enter presence.
Whether we like it or not.
What are the biggest lessons people learn after a huge trauma?
I have to let go of my ego. I have to let go
go of the should have and the fantasy life and enter the as is.
I have to surrender --
OPRAH: Yeah.
DR. SHEFALI: -- to the grace of this moment.
So our children are teaching us this every moment.
OPRAH: Mm.
DR. SHEFALI: They are taking us to our greatest courage.
But we are not taking the invitation.
It's the most profound and easy invitation.
But it requires a moment by moment presence.