Dr. Shefali Tsabary - Radical Awakening

In this episode of Let’s Talk Love, Robin is joined by Dr. Shefali to explore themes of self-discovery, authenticity, and the journey towards becoming an awakened individual. They discuss the importance of shedding societal beliefs, redefining love and relationships, and the significance of setting boundaries for self-love. Dr. Shefali emphasizes the need for women to embrace their inner power and the concept of the 'Awakened Queen,' who embodies strength, compassion, and discernment. This conversation invites listeners to reflect on the role of consciousness in personal growth and transformation, offering practical insights into reclaiming one's power and stepping into a more authentic self.

Takeaways:

• The journey of awakening is ongoing and cyclical.
• Women often live disconnected from their true selves due to societal expectations.
• Deconstructing beliefs is essential for authentic relationships.
• High love begins with self-acceptance and authenticity.
• Boundaries are crucial for self-love and personal growth.
• Consciousness quotient helps in discerning relationships.
• Awakened individuals co-create their reality and take responsibility for their lives.
• The awakened queen embodies strength, compassion, and community.
• Self-awareness is the first step towards transformation.
• Social media can create feelings of lack and insecurity.

We want to hear from you! Send us your anonymous questions for the Podcast as well as our weekly IG Live Ask The Experts Q&A. https://realloveready.com/submitaquestion

Links:

https://institute.drshefali.com

https://courses.drshefali.com/aradicalawakening

FOLLOW DR. SHEFALI: INSTAGRAM | TIKTOK | FACEBOOK | YOUTUBE

FOLLOW RLR: INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | X

Watch the podcast on YouTube: youtube.com/realloveready

Credits: the Let’s Talk Love Podcast is hosted by Robin Ducharme, recorded and edited by Maia Anstey, and transcribed by Otter.ai.

Transcript

Robin  Ducharme l Hello our beautiful community, and thank you for joining us today. I am just so honored and so happy to be joined by the most beautiful and wise, honestly, Dr Shefali. I've been looking forward to this for weeks and weeks and weeks, and here we are today. So I really I finally get to speak to you and meet meet you. And thank you so much for being on our show today.

Dr. Shefali Tsabary l It's such a pleasure. I'm so excited. I can't wait to have this conversation.

Robin  Ducharme l I have been loving your book, A Radical Awakening. It was, it was fantastic, Shefali. It really, really was I. I gained so much wisdom and actually, so much confirmation when I read your book, I want to just read a quick excerpt about what you about, why you wrote this book, or what this book is about. It is teaching women how to transcend their fears and illusions, break free from societal expectations and rediscover the person they were always meant to be fully present, conscious and fulfilled. So you tell a story at the beginning of the book about how you became an awakened I mean, you've been working on your growth and your awakening for a lot, a lot of years, right? And but you tell a story about how you were in your car one day, and your car came derailed off the road, and it was like this, wake up call for you. Can you, can you talk about that, please? And then just like, really go into why you wrote the book?

Dr. Shefali Tsabary l Yes, thank you. I do have to say, out of all the books I've written, this one is the is the real deal in terms of packing a punch and being a full on journey, right. You read that book, and you will come out at the other end transformed. I mean, I've had so many women reach out to me telling me how this book has been their complete 180 So, yes, so I started the book with this accident I have a mother. I'm in a PhD program. I'm trying to be a good wife. I'm trying to be, you know, all things to all people. And I was so exhausted and so fatigued that I fell asleep at the wheel and derailed my car. And thankfully, nothing happened, but it was such a traumatizing wake up call, which then led to many more wake up calls, which call to my attention that I was severely disconnected and I was living the role, and many roles, but not really living from the soul, right from the heart. And so dangerous is that severance from the self that I can guarantee you every single woman will resonate with, that we begin to do things and make life choices from a severed place which can only lead to more inauthenticity and more turmoil. And then one day, you find yourself at whatever, 65,45,75 going, who the hell am I like? How did I end up here? But, but when choices are made from the conditioned self, from the fear based self, it's very easy to become somebody you can't recognize and have a life that you don't feel part of. And it's so tricky, because culture supports this disconnection for women, because a connected woman is a dangerous woman, because she begins to speak her truth and and clamors to be heard, and she's an inconvenience. So women are told that it's better off for us, that we were better off playing small and being quiet. So that disconnection actually serves us well in a tragic way. But you know, it really is not the way we need to live our lives. We don't deserve it, and we need to give ourselves permission to enter a new rebirth. And that's what this book is about. I wrote it in my divorce, like when I was in it all the way till I was out of it. 

Robin  Ducharme l Wow. 

Dr. Shefali Tsabary l And so it's very rich and very emotional and very real, but I had many awakenings. I was actually more awakened then than even now, because now I'm in another kind of cycle, right? So the cycles never end, but when you learn to alchemize the cycle for your highest transcendence and your renaissance, you actually elevate to a place that you can't even imagine. And that's my invitation to women reading this book is lean in and be curious to all the things you haven't yet even discovered about who you are.

Robin l I just oh my gosh. I love everything that you just said around just being in how we are going through we're constantly going through cycles. And I was talking to my partner about this around like, how it's like, we think we're like going through the same pattern again. But if you are living consciously and deliberately, you know, with that awareness, it's like the rings it's like going up a spiral staircase, isn't it? 

Dr. Shefali l Yes. 

Robin l So you might be seeing a pattern that you've been in, like it's entrenched, it's deep, however you're looking at it from a different perspective, a higher perspective. So hopefully, from that new perspective, you can recognize a pattern. It might be still there, but it's like, okay, the choice I'm going to make now is going to be different than before. So you are 

Dr. Shefali l 100% 

Robin l Right.

Dr. Shefali l Absolutely. It's not about ever thinking or having the delusion that you're going to be pain free and suffering free. 

Robin l No

Dr. Shefali l What, what this, what this work of conscious awakening is about, is that spiral of a transedence of learning to tweak that pattern just a little bit, you know. And today I was able to speak up in truth just a little bit more. And I always tell my clients, and I have a coaching institute where I coach people to do this today, just aspire to speak from your authentic truth just a little bit more. So if your authentic truth is at this level, but you're on this level of superficiality, you can't just expect yourself to go to this deepest level of truth. You just go one layer down. Is there a more authentic version of what I can be? And just enter that place, and then tomorrow, you're going to enter a slightly more authentic version of what you can be and bringing into awareness all the parts of you that are terrified to be authentic, the parts of you that want security from the outside, and therefore you lie a little bit, or you get dressed a little bit more sexy because you're really feeling inadequate today. It's not about eliminating the insecurity. It's about bringing to awareness all the parts of you so that you can live a more integrated life, you know, and that is the radical awakening, is to understand that you are co creating your reality. There is no victim, except if you're a victim of something physical. Every emotional victim is a victim that co creates their reality. Every physical victim can be truly a victim, but emotional victims are definitely co creating their reality. 

Robin l Yes something I have been doing, which you are teaching throughout your book, is shedding beliefs, shedding old beliefs. And what are beliefs anyways, right? 

Dr. Shefali l Yeah

Robin l I think about how so many of my beliefs that I had deeply like, oh, this is it. I'm gonna die by the sword, right? And now it's like, that was useless. Well, that is, that was not serving me. 

Dr. Shefali l Yes 

Robin l And so I think this is, this is such a key, is like shedding this, the stuff that we were taught so much growing up. Of course, we are. We're surrounded by our family, our friends, our traditions, our culture that is, beliefs, beliefs, beliefs, good, bad, black, white, and the more beliefs we can shed, I think the better off we are. 

Dr. Shefali l Yes 

Robin l This entire relationship,

Dr. Shefali l Absolutely, this entire book is about what I call a deconstruction process of eliminating, or at least deeply questioning your cherished beliefs. Because when we deeply attach to beliefs, they will come in the way of our connection to human beings, because every human being has different beliefs. So the more we cling to beliefs, we actually stunt our capacity for the deepest union with ourselves and with each other. So every chapter of the book is deconstructing some big belief. I've deconstructed the institution of marriage and divorce and love and beauty and sexuality. So all of that is clearly deconstructed. And it's been a provoking book, because to deconstruct your beliefs and to loosen your attachment to them is very provoking because, like you said, we've been raised with our identity around that belief. I will be the perfect mother. I will be a skinny woman. I will be, you know, a religious human being, these belief systems have carved and grooved our identity. So now, when somebody like me comes along and pokes at that that is very threatening and provoking, yet, you know, the Buddha himself said that Nirvana and enlightenment is a place where you have no more beliefs, because you don't have to attach to anything as your identity. And that is when you truly enter your emptiness of self or truly a oneness with the universe. Because as long as you identify, you actually create separation. And so just by me saying, oh, I'm an Indian woman automatically, by me saying that doesn't mean that you don't appreciate who I am, but by me identifying as an Indian woman immediately creates separation between me and you, Robin, because you're like, oh, I better back off. I don't know what it means to be an Indian woman. So just there, through my labeling and my attachment to the label I have created a separation. You know, parents do that a lot with non parents. Oh, you or know what I go through because I'm a parent. On some level, that's true, but on another level, that's not true. And as long as we create these bifurcations, I'm Jewish or Muslim, we are actually creating separation. 

Robin l Yes. One of so there's a from, I don't know what chapter going on, but, I mean, I would say, like, at least a third of the book really talks about, like you said, the deconstruction of marriage. And I mean, with Real Love Ready, we are all about love and relationships and helping people build skills to be better in relationship and different perspectives. And of course, there's the lies of love, right. You've got a chapter all about this, and all section talking about how we've been fed a bill we and it's still going, still going very strongly, the bill of lies around the other about finding your one, right. And so, and you, you talk about this concept of twin beggars. I want to, I want to quote you on this because I just, I love this part of your book. You say that you talk about the lies of love that many people fall into. You say falling into need, possession, control and familiarity. To love someone is to feel for them, without our own feelings about ourselves getting in the way. So I think it's like we've been it's like there's so much codependent relationships and not this free love that we all want to have, but we're not really. A lot of us aren't there, right? So what does it mean? We all like, the twin beggars. Like, what is that? What does that mean? Please and like, explain that to us. And like, how do we shift out of that?

Dr. Shefali l Well, society and culture has definitely set us up for this idea that this other person is going to be your, you know, your perfect, you know, other part and together, you're going to create this perfect family. What that does is enforce and in, you know, perpetuate an enmeshment and a codependency. Because what culture really says is that this person now belongs to you, and you belong to this person. And that is really a delusional way of looking at adult relationships. We don't belong to anybody, and when we have that idea. It sounds so lovely and romantic, but it's actually a very toxic codependent message, oh, she belongs to him. What like no, but we want the other person to belong to us, because we want to own and possess the other person. So we come into these dynamics with these delusions of ownership and possession and control and enmeshment and dependency, and we actually end up being what I call twin beggars, because each one is looking to be belong to by the other and belong to the other as if they are our mother and our father, and we come needy and hungry and desperate and demanding and controlling and tantruming, just like a three year old wanting candy, and we expect, and culture tells us we have a right to expect. I mean, it's legally sanctioned. It's by the Justice and by God himself or herself, to demand complete fidelity, loyalty, attention and focus, and it's just such a toxic encagement of each other's spirits, and we don't want to own it, right? We don't want to accept that that is actually the agenda. And how do we know it's the agenda? Because the moment our partner dares to even be emotionally connected to another human being, we call them as as if they're cheaters, really they can't be emotionally connected if they are the if they are of the gender or sex that attracts them. We're not allowed to do that. No, we're not allowed to do that. You know, so out of all these beautiful masses of human beings, we can only have eyes for one, and if those eyes stray and forget the genitalia, we will sever the relationship because it's a conditioned relationship. It's based on a binding to each other, and it's really unfair. And not just unfair, it's downright unrealistic, which is why most marriages dissolve, because it's predicated on lies that, that we can do this, we should do this, and this is the only way to do this.

Robin l Right. So when you, I mean, you've This is the work that you do. You're working with you're working with couples, right? You're working with your you specialize in parenting, of course, but there is this side of your job, of course, that is working to help people with their marriages, their relationships. So we have that, that construct, and then we have, you know, what I really aspire to, which I love, how you talk about high love in your book, and how what that means, what that really means to have, like the deep, the that that love, that actually, I think we I, I think I'm aspiring to it. I'm working towards it in my relationship right now. But how do you help people get there, out of what we're conditioned to, to that place, like, people have to be on board, right? Don't, don't they? They both have to be like, committed to their awareness. Right?

Dr. Shefali l First, high love starts with yourself. 

Robin l Within, right

Dr. Shefali l Then do you have high love for yourself, right? And you fully accept yourself as a very flawed, imperfect and limited human being. Are you honest with yourself? Are you authentic to yourself? Most of us are not even telling ourselves the truth. Forget each other.

Robin l Let alone know ourselves, right? 

Dr. Shefali l Yes, yes. And when you know yourself and you accept that you too are imperfect, flawed, limiting, and you you too can stray, then you will accept that about your partner and not take it personally when they have affection for another person, or when they don't love you the same way, or when you are no longer a match, allowing the fluid, fluidity and the adaptability of ever growing relationships is the hallmark of consciousness. But most of us, because of the marriage box and because culture puts us in this box that's supposed to be for life, we actually stop growing together and stop confronting hard truths. I'm all for living together forever, but I'm also very much a pragmatist and a realist that if that does not continue to work for people, there should be an adaptability and an evolution that is permissible without scorn, judgment, scathing, you know, ostracism from culture, but culture doesn't allow that. It's very limited. And, you know, we weren't designed for long term pair bonds. We weren't designed to live with one person first we weren't designed to live this long. And so while I advocate living together for as long as is possible, I also advocate for growth and advocate for health and functionality, as opposed to just staying together as a statistic of a married couple, but you're actually miserable roommates who are not growing together.

Robin l Right

Dr. Shefali l And many people are just miserable roommates.

Robin l Yes but are they really wanting to shift that dynamic into like, I think if do you have, let me ask you this, do you have clients that come to you that are like, okay, I can see that there's, there's a lot of stuff going on, and you're helping people like, identify, all right, you think that that's about your partner? No, it's about you. Let's work on that, right? So then we can change the dynamic. And so are you, like, that's what you're doing, right Dr. Shefali, you're helping people 

Dr. Shefali l Absolutly

Robin l Like, just because this is what your book is about. Is about introspection, changing your beliefs, deconstructing all of this so that you can appreciate and know and fully love, love yourself, love all parts of yourself, so you can love another in a better way. 

Dr. Shefali l Yes

Robin l Okay

Dr. Shefali l Yes that mean that people are always coming to me asking to fix the relationship, but then we discover that they are so broken and damaged themselves that they can barely see themselves as whole people. So when you are not fully in love with yourself, you cannot expect your partner to be in love with you, because you are not showing up as your truest, fullest, biggest, largest, the most authentic part of yourself. So when you love yourself enough, then you can be in a matching relationship with another human being who also loves themselves and who can take you in, but they don't need you to fill them up. Right. Most of us are just scavenging off this other person, hoping that they can hold us up and fill us up, and our cup is empty, and we're using them really, to give us an identity, to give us meaning, to give us empowerment, and that those relationships will eventually start to crack, because they're not sustainable, because they depend on another.

Robin l Right. So you got a section, a whole area in the book around boundaries, how you like, what really boundaries are for, and how we set those boundaries and discernment. Can you talk about like these, how these practices help you love yourself more? Like, how would, how would somebody show up if they say to you, okay, I love myself. I don't know what you mean. Like, of course, I love myself. But what kind of behaviors would you be seeing in somebody that's demonstrating absolutely that's not showing self love?

Dr. Shefali l Well, the first sign of a  unloving person to themselves is a victim, right? Are you feeling like you're the victim? So it shows up through resentment, bitterness, feeling like you're always tired and fatigued and sacrificing for everybody else, and you're carrying the burden. Or are you a savior, rescuer? I talk about all these masks, so those are ways that you can identify. You know. What maybe I need to do some inner work, and it's something to do with me. So a healthy person will immediately catch their saviorship, their victimhood, their martyrdom, their bleeding empathy, their codependency. A healthy person will immediately go, oh, there's my disease. There it is. I'm showing up again as my codependent self. So first is awareness and compassion and acceptance of your shadow parts. And then a person who is in love with themselves will be quite comfortable saying no and quite comfortable saying yes, but they will do it with this conscious connection and attunement and discernment of their authentic self. They won't do it to please. They won't do it to validate. They will really do it because it means something to them. And the last and the most telling sign of a very conscious person is somebody who knows that they are on their own path. That is a solo path. You know, it's kind of a lonely path, but it's inevitable to be on that path alone, because an awakened person knows no one else can walk with you. They can walk on their path in a parallel way, but not on your path. Your path is yours, and you have to own it and celebrate it and embody the teachings and understand that you are uniquely here because of your cause and effect. All the causes and effects of your life have brought you here. There is no victimhood beyond the point now if you were physically tortured, yes, but otherwise, you have to own the family trauma that bought you here, you have to own the relationship crisis that brought you here. You have to own that you were unconscious in your own way, and that's why you are here. And by owning your own journey's limitations, now you can grow. And part of that is these boundaries you're talking about, you know. So what are conscious boundaries. Conscious boundaries have nothing to do with the other person. They only have to do with yourself. So an unhealthy dynamic will look like this, can you please stop drinking? When are you going to go to therapy? Have you called your mother? Can you please put away the dishes? Can you please go to AA? Can you please go there? So it's constantly, you know, asking the other to do something, but a conscious boundary is, would sound like this. You know, I'm I'm aware that you haven't done the dishes for 10,000 days, and so what I've done to take care of myself is one of many things I've bought. I've thrown away all the glass dishes. I've locked them away and I only have paper plates. Or I've learned to become okay and Zen with dirty dishes. So all the dishes are there. We don't have any more clean dishes in the house. I only clean for myself. Or I've learned that I want to clean the dishes and I'm going to do the dishes for posterity and shut my mouth so conscious boundaries takes our own care into our own hands,

Robin l Ownership

Dr. Shefali l And I'm the only one here, and I'm going to create my own rules, and whatever that looks like for you, but you own it. You don't keep whining, complaining and waiting for the other person to do what you need to do.

Robin l You're doing what you need to do, to protect yourself and to

Dr. Shefali l Yes, yes. If you have children in the house who don't clean, don't clear up, okay, you have choices. Never do the laundry ever again, or, you know, go live somewhere else, or buy paper plates and, you know, paper sheets, you know, throw away all your clothes. You have choices. And I know that sounds very radical, but that's so much better than living in the vibration of this constant complaining and this worrying, you know, constant anxiety. You know, mother once came to me and she was like my daughter, never leaves, never puts off the light, and she always leaves the light on. And it was over and over and over, and the mother tried to explain, and the mother tried to remind, and the mother tried to put notes in the house, but the daughter would never change. So the mother had two choices, either she accepts it and zips it, or she does something. So what she said, I cannot accept it. You have to give me another solution. So I said, okay, just take out the light bulb. You know, the child is no light. And she was like, Oh, that's so mean. So I was like, see, this is how we keep in this constant worrying loop, because we don't want to take action, because action then would mean that has its own consequences, but conscious boundaries has consequences, and you have to just decide, do I prefer the consequences that come from zero boundaries, or do I prefer the consequences that come with the boundary. Which consequences are more livable.

Robin l Right. So in the book, you also what you say the single biggest practical step that you took for your own you know throughout your awakening is really learning how to pause, right? Right? This is about going It's learning to pause and listen to your inner self, and you know, like you made it a practice. And the more you practice something, the better you're going to become at it. And it's going to become like second nature. But you have to practice like going inside and being like rather than reacting right away or saying that thing that you used to say or behaving in that way that you used to behave. It's like, Hmm, this something is really bothering me here. I'm going to go inside and and really reflect on this, right Shefali?

Dr. Shefali l Yes, yes. So a bigger lesson that leads to the pause is a lesson of owning your co creation, when you become aware that you are also a hazard to your own well being, and you are really standing in your own way, then you will be humble and realize, okay, next time, I better not just pounce on the other person, because that's coming from this delusion that is only their fault. But I'm going to now pause to observe how I am a hazard to myself, and it's that humility to go you know what, I'm I'm kind of fully on board with my own pain. I'm fully creating my own misery. Once you are willing to accept that you are a participant in your own hell, then you will change your pattern. But if you keep thinking it's your partner or your child constantly and you have nothing to do with it, then you're going to, you know, constantly, be at their mercy, and you will not break out of the pattern. Right?

Robin l A part of the book that I was just like, oh my god. So like, I work with one of my best friends, Kirsten, and the two of us before we work on a we work on a podcast together as we read the books, and then we have like, amazing conversations about what we both took away what we learned, and one of the keys was the consciousness quotient. Oh my gosh. I was like, this is this is the words attached to what I already knew. But now it's like, but I don't think that a lot of people really understand this, and I think it is so key. I actually, I've got it. I mean, this book is dog eared all the way, and it's highlighted everywhere. But I've got, I've got page 276, the consciousness quotient. And this is around discernment, the wisdom of discernment. A large part of self honor has to do with discernment. There was one lesson I missed in life. It was to have discernment when it came to people and situations. And you talk about one of the fundamental pieces of awareness I was lacking when I was growing up, is the awareness of how different every single person's level of consciousness is. I presume that just because we were all senti and relatively intelligent, we were of this similar consciousness, and oh oh, how wrong I was. Oh my gosh. It took me at least my entire 30s, and I'm thinking, I think I'm in my 40 I'm 47 now, and I'm like, oh, this in my 40s. I really have honed in on this one. But it isn't true that everyone's heart is wide open, nor is it true that everyone is loving and compassionate. The key determinant is the person's consciousness quotient. Oh, I love this so much. I was like, that is, that is so true. And this, this is like, we're walking around as adults. But like you say so much is like, actually, that person's acting like a five year old. I'm dealing with a five year old right now. 

Dr. Shefali l Exactly, exactly

Robin l They've actually been in their five year old self for most of my life, in their life 

Dr. Shefali l Exactly

Robin l And they're not going beyond that.

Dr. Shefali l Exactly

Robin l So understanding that is so key

Dr. Shefali l It's so key

Robin l So you're not suffering trying to get this person to understand where you're coming from. They're not able to.

Dr. Shefali l They're not able to exactly. So we as women especially, have been trained to morph our being and our essence to anything that's outside of us, and we have been told that we are responsible for making it work. So we put all our energy and all our effort and we contort ourselves constantly to make it work. But that's where we've been given a real, you know, a big load of poison, because it's not our responsibility. And we need to have actually learned instead of eternal self sacrifice. We should have learned discernment, to whom and to where can we give of ourselves? And we need to wait for the match before we give ourselves fully. But we weren't trained like that. We were told that we should sacrifice ourselves for every relationship and just give and give and give without necessarily receiving back. So we never waited for the match. And now, through this process, I teach women that, no, if it's not a match, you don't give. If they give one toe, you give one toe, right? It's like you you have to give it at the level that you're receiving. But we were told that to receive was anathema. To receive was a selfish woman. You shouldn't look at receiving. Why not? Right? I'm not saying not to give, but can we also give ourselves? So this dynamic of, uh which comes about only through discernment, allows a woman to understand that every human being is is going to be at a different level of consciousness according to what I call the consciousness quotient. So along a continuum. We're all on a continuum. Each person is further along, or not further along. So you get to discern, does this person go to therapy? Does this person do the inner work? Have they read books that are going to instigate their growth, and then you get to observe them for a period of time before you invest in them that are Is this somebody I can grow with? And oh, quickly realize that this person is not growing. This is this is not a growth seeker, and this person is going to stay stagnant, and the minute you realize that, oh, he's a level two on a scale of one to 10, you stop taking it personally, and you stop making it your mission to make them a seven, because people who are under seven are rarely going to grow right? They're kind of they're stuck. But hey, miracles happen, but it's not your job to take them to a higher level of consciousness, and many of us women act like it's our job, it's our mission, to bring everyone to a higher level of consciousness. And what that does is it drains us, it disempowers us, and it cripples us, and we don't have to do that to anyone anymore. Let them be at a level two, they will grow organically when they are ready, and that's another lesson I learned. Let people be where they're at instead of constantly rescuing them, because that need to rescue is actually my anxiety and not theirs when they are ready. And they're anxious enough, they will change, but not a minute sooner, people never change for other people, really, they only change when they are ready. 

Robin l Yes you've got it. There's the most beautiful section in your book around the awakened queen, and it just, it's just so everybody has to all women that are listening to this, and men, I just want them to read your book, because the how you describe being the awakened queen, and what those behaviors look like, what those thoughts look like, that the Queen is embodying is like, so good, Right. Like you talk about like we're no longer princesses, which is what we are taught to be as girls. We're taught to be the damsel in distress or looking for their prince. And it's like this, seeking, seeking, lack, lack. And as soon as you meet somebody, it's like they're gonna like, all of that is still so in our society and our culture and how we're raised. But the awakened queen, it is so much about being in her power, being in her strength, being so, and I think that's the other thing about women these days. It's like, if you can get to a place where you are awakened and conscious. You're you are the most loving and generous, but you're also, like you said, discerning. You're taking accountability, you're still you're nurturing, loving, generous self at the same time, very strong and like my boundaries are firm, like it's like having both and embodying both ways of being in such a beautiful way. So

Dr. Shefali l Yeah. And I think part of being an awakened queen is to allow ourselves to not do it all. 

Robin l Right

Dr. Shefali l The awake, the awakened queen doesn't need to do it all, no, because she doesn't need to, she doesn't need to prove herself in every little way. You know, I'm going to be the best cook and the best fast fashionista, and I'm going to go to the gym for an hour, and I'm going to breastfeed, and I'm going to make homemade granola cookies, and I'm going to also be a sex maven in my bed. Oh, my goodness, no, you're and a boss babe, right? That's the new new title, 

Robin l Right

Dr. Shefali l We cannot be at all, and there are phases we have to go through, and we have to honor the phases. An awakened queen knows how to wait her turn. She knows that the cycles will change. She's not in a rush, because she's already the queen. She's the queen if she's just breastfeeding her child, she's the queen if she doesn't have children, she's already awakened to her queendom, so she doesn't need these roles to create identity. And the next thing about an awakened queen is that she brings her sisters along with her right. She is not threatened by her sisters, and she works on it, at least, even if she is sometimes she works on it and she tries to uplift other sisters and brothers. The awakened queen is not here to be a dictator or the hierarchical superior. She's here to be part of a team, and she knows that we are stronger collectively than we are individually.

Robin l She's surrounded. She's surrounding herself with with people who are embodying the same in the fact that they are on a growth mindset and supporting one another and cheering each other on, and you're all the same team.

Dr. Shefali l Yes

Robin l Yeah all of it.

Dr. Shefali l She's she's not living in this competitive, insecure way that where she feels like she has to be the most beautiful or the most successful or the most anything.  Because she knows those are illusions that are transient anyway, and they truly don't bring about lasting, sustainable change or growth or well being. These are ephemeral ideas that will never bring long, lasting abundance.

Robin l When, when I read, when I read your book. Dr shfali, it just was, it was like, coming home, I was like, Okay, I've been I'm on the right path here, because I feel like a lot of the things that you are helping women come to realize I'm working through it, like I'm on the spiral, and I feel like every, every cycle I'm in, okay, I'm feeling a little bit I'm going up here. Okay, my I'm because I'm acting differently than I was before. That was getting me in trouble, right? So like, I'm I'm more grounded. I'm definitely taking more space in my life and just not filling my calendar as much as I used to, right. These are big things, and I'm just not as anxious. I mean, just like Robin, you can chill. Things are good, right. 

Dr. Shefali l Yeah. Yeah

Robin l And like you said, I'm not, I'm not trying to do it all or be it all. I'm just like, actually, just feel the spaciousness. 

Dr. Shefali l Yes, yes. The awakened queen feels so much inner bounty, the queen, the queendom, the Kingdom queendom is inside her. 

Robin l Yeah

Dr. Shefali l That is her awakening, that wherever she is, she is the queen, and she doesn't need to be on a private jet, and she doesn't need to be on a stage, walking a red carpet to experience that inner queendom. It's here. It's inside and and that's what we modern women have to really work hard on, because in many ways, social media and this whole Instagram world, it's pulling us like, why am I not there? 

Robin l Oh sure is.

Dr. Shefali l Why wasn't that invited to that and and that is designed to strip us of our power, to take us out of our reality, you know, so part of my practice now is to really detox from social media. And when I find myself scrolling and then comparing and then judging myself, I notice it immediately, and I go time to shut it down, and then I get off it for few days at a time, because I can see that it is designed to create a lack, designed to create insecurity and competition. And I'm falling into it, right. That's my co creation. So I am here now, wherever you are, whoever's listening to this, embody own and celebrate where you are now. You don't have to be where another person is. Let them do that. You are fine and abundant exactly where you are. You know, all of us see this glitz and glitz, and all of us think that there's a part of us that would do so well there. But when you then meet people who are doing the glitzy, glitzy things, you realize that they're tortured by it, right. They're so anxious, and we don't want that, so we have to sacrifice that level of you know, I often think about fame that I don't want fame because 

Robin l It's the last thing I want

Dr. Shefali l Right. The last thing because it strips you away from you living for yourselves, you soon become a pawn, living for your audience, and that is the most tragic way to live.

Robin l It really is. So tell us what you said in the beginning of our conversation about your Is it a course that you offer around this? Around is it?

Dr. Shefali l Well, I do have a course, A Radical Awakening course, yeah, but I have an institute, on Conscious Parenting and Life Institute where I coach people to do the work I do and to break their patterns and find their inner radical self. But there is a course on this book as well. It's on my website, so if people want the course, they can go and download it.

Robin l Beautiful. Well, I hope people, I hope people take it and read your book and just, there's just so so many gems and tools, really. That's what this is about. Is like, how do I get there, step by step. And it's just, like you said, it's just, it's taking, it doesn't matter where you are in the spectrum or where you are on the ladder, whatever those things are. We don't need those analogies. But it's just taking the steps, right and making the changes, and they will build on each other.

Dr. Shefali l And the first step is awareness is so allowing the words to just open you up and open your curiosity just a little bit and and it creates a ripple effect of a consciousness transformational seismic shift within you. Just one small idea that begins to rattle in your brain can have a seismic level, you know, effect,

Robin l Yeah, well, I want to thank you so so much for all the work you're doing this world. And just 

Dr. Shefali l Thank you. 

Robin l The person that you are is just beautiful. And I close all of our podcasts with a blessing with your words. So we'll do that. May we awaken to the knowing that the love we get from ourselves is more valuable than the love we receive from another, may we connect to ourselves differently. May we have our own backs and trust our own voice. May we see ourselves as magnificent beings that we are and put ourselves first. And may we as awakened beings work from our hearts as well as our minds receiving, as well as giving, fully settled into our worth and desire, nothing more than to empower others to know theirs as well. Thank you.

Dr. Shefali l Oh, thank you for having me. So much. Thank you so much.