The Awakened Family Quotes

“Do you see me?” This is the big question your child is asking every day. “Can you recognize me for who I am, different from your dreams and expectations for me, separate from your agenda for me?”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“The idea that “I need to be happy” or “my child deserves to be happy” comes from a sense that the present moment is somehow lacking. In other words, we see our life through a lens of scarcity, noticing all the things we don’t have instead of the abundant way the universe provides for us. And so, as the Declaration of Independence sanctions, we set off in “the pursuit of happiness,” not realizing that this can never bring us happiness. On the contrary, it’s the breeding ground of discontent and disappointment. You”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“We cannot control our children. We can only create the conditions for them to rise. What this means is that we need to stop expending our energy on trying to control who they are and how they turn out in the future. The real challenge is to keep our eyes on the parameters that are truly under our control - ourselves, and the way the home functions.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“We are triggered not by their behavior, but by our own unresolved emotional issues.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“So many parents are puzzled when their children seclude themselves in their room and refuse to leave their sanctuary. They wonder, "Why don't my children want to talk to me when I'm so open and willing to discuss things?" The reason our children turn away from us is that they sense that our desire to talk is all about us - our need to manage our anxiety and exert control.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Disconnection doesn't occur when there's dissent, but when there's intolerance of each other's differences.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“In an awakened family, parents are aware that every relationship in their family exists to help each person grow. Parents view their children as mirrors through which they are able to see how they themselves need to mature and develop. Instead of fixing what they see as faults in their children, these parents seek to work on themselves, raising their own levels of maturity and presence. The focus is always on the parent’s awareness rather than the child’s behavior. This is the core insight of the book. When parents are aware in the present moment, learning and growing alongside their children, the entire family thrives. Free to actualize their individual destiny, each family member lives unencumbered and unafraid. Empowered with self-awareness, boundless in self-belief, liberated in self-expression, each feels free to explore, discover, and manifest their authentic being. This is the mandate of the awakened family.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“Do you enter a situation and notice all that is right with it or all that is wrong? Your answer will have a huge effect on how you raise your children. It also reflects the degree to which there is an emptiness inside you, where your essence failed to flourish.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Our discomfort with confronting ourselves in the naked stillness of absolute quiet leads us to eat too much, drink excessively, socialize mindlessly, and engage in a host of activities out of a desire to simply avoid being still.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“I pledge to: No longer look for an experience to be other than what it is. Not need an experience to make me happy but instead to make me grow. Not look to what I didn’t receive but instead to introspect on what I chose to give. Stop interpreting experiences based on outcome but instead interpret them based on process. Resist judging life or myself for not being perfect and instead to embrace the wholeness of the imperfections.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“The problem is that in our great desire to see our children do well, we interact with them through the lens of fear that they might fail - a fear that our children absorb.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“To move away from all illusion that our children are maliciously intent on triggering us is an important step on the path of awakening. When we dare to let go of the mainstream idea that they push our buttons on purpose, we awaken to the true extent of our own immaturity. Without having them to blame on any level, we are now forced to confront our inner lack and discover the reasons why it exists.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“Our expectations are a disguise for our fears and unmet inner needs.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Our children come into our life to present us with an opportunity to raise ourselves, growing ourselves up. Thus every moment in the parenting process serves as a wake-up call for us. The promise of this awakening is great, as it helps liberate our children from the shackles of our expectations and empowers them to develop into their most authentic selves.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“powerful self spoke up. But when I reacted from ego instead of from the calmness of my own empowered essence, this triggered her ego, and so we became locked in a battle of egos. In the heat of the battle, it didn’t occur to me that my daughter wasn’t behaving in a particular manner because she was “bad,” but because of a healthy need to defend herself from my ego. So wrapped up was I in my ego that I had failed”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“architects of a new model of parenthood where parent and child are seen as equal, serving as mutual partners on a path of growth founded on increasing consciousness.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“Teaching children the art of negotiation is one of the most important lessons we can pass on to them. When children learn not to be threatened by conflict they are able to move in and out of disagreements and don't crumble in fear of them.

They learn not to attach personal meaning to differences, but instead, to embrace the fact that each person has a different approach to life.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“We react with a feeling when we are unable to handle our emotions.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“When we are able to notice what we are feeling, whatever that may be, and simply allow it to wash over us, without being overwhelmed by it, we learn to tolerate the feeling state without getting caught up in an emotional reaction.

Feelings are organic responses to life situations. Anxiety, as a feeling, is natural. However, when we don't know how to simply sit with our anxiety, soothing ourselves, it can take us over.

When this happens, emotion floods us and blocks what we are really feeling. Emotions carry a charge of resistance.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Did she take a risk?
Did she learn?
Did she try?
Did she feel?
Did she express herself clearly?
Did she engage with full-on presence?
How different this is from a unidimensional expectation that only wants to know: did she win.

Placing the emphasis on present-moment engagement of a task frees not only our children, but also ourselves, from the burden of determining outcomes.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Children who learn to engage with life in the present moment begin to understand that although their thoughts and fantasies may direct them to believe certain things about themselves, what actually is manifesting in their present moment reality is what matters.

In this way, they shed their obsession with any event in the future, and instead learn to harness their attentions to the present moment.

Children who receive this message feel immediate relief that the outcome doesn't determine their worth, but that their efforts and their curiosity matter far more.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Intentions, in their purest sense, have nothing to do with the expectations of the other person., and only to do with the acceptance of a vision for ourselves. Truth be told, there are very few of us who set intentions without huge judgment, conditions and huge expectations of ourselves, others, and life itself.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Without realizing it, we equate happiness with the outcome of events, not the process. We see the end result of the event as the measure of happiness.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“The focus is always on what makes our children grow to be their most resilient and empowered selves. Not what makes them happy or comfortable in any given moment. Inherent here is the awareness that life doesn't always provide pleasure or comfort, nor should we want it to. Without the jagged edges, we simply wouldn't grow.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“Our expectations come from a place of heavy judgment, where without our conscious awareness we create images of how things should play out. When we operate from this place of "should," we inadvertently give off energy communicating that we are right and anyone who opposes us is wrong. Before we know it, we occupy a place of rigidity, superiority, and close-mindedness that immediately pits the other against us. As we all know, once both parties are locked in this dance, it's hard for either to break free.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: A Revolution in Parenting

“They need us to affirm their intrinsic goodness, regardless of the ugly things they may say or do at times. This is how their natural inborn belief in themselves becomes solidly grounded instead of masked by ego. A sense of our children’s worth flourishes when the way we look at them, the way we listen to them, and the way we speak to them reflect just how lovable they are. This is how we empower them—how we draw out in them their innately powerful sense of self, which is what will carry them successfully through life. Only when we can separate our fantasies concerning who our children should be from who they actually are can we do justice to their original essence and craft our parenting to allow for this essence to flourish.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children

“They need us to affirm their intrinsic goodness, regardless of the ugly things they may say or do at times. This is how their natural inborn belief in themselves becomes solidly grounded instead of masked by ego.”
― Shefali Tsabary, The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children