An interview with Dr. Shefali Tsabary, clinical psychologist, New York Times Bestselling author of the book, The Conscious Parent, and others including The Awakened Family and Out of Control.
Is Dr. Shefali Tsabary a perfect parent?
I have followed and adored Dr. Shefali Tsabary for many years.
And I often fall into the fallacy of thinking that one who writes prolifically, speaks on stages across the country, and interviews extensively on the subject of parenting…must be a PERFECT PARENT.
So when I got the chance to interview her, it was one of the first questions I asked.
“Have you ever made a parenting mistake? Have you ever felt insecure?”
Her response? There is no perfection.
As she goes on to explain: conscious parenting is HARD. “It is hard to put these principles into practice because it requires evolution and evolution requires a dedicated practice. ”
Dr. Shefali advocates radical self care or “supreme self care”: meditating, healing past wounds, and relentlessly practicing mindfulness.
And in this way, parenthood can never be perfect, because the ego and our ineffective behaviors are habitual and deeply ingrained and require constant vigilance and practice.
“Maybe the only place where I’m different,” says Dr. Shefali, “is that I just know that this is part of the process. I don’t expect perfection. You see, I expect messiness. I expect my ego to come forward. I expect my child to be constantly showing me my wounds. I don’t have the delusion of the narcissism off perfectionism. Parenting is eternally chaotic. It’s a fumbling, stumbling journey of constant mistakes. And I don’t look at it as failure. I look at it as an invitation.”
Watch the full interview to hear Dr. Shefali talk more about using failure as an invitation.
Tell me in the comments: do you expect perfection? How can you let that expectation go today?
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