Dr. Shefali: The Hormones Behind First Love, Heartbreak, and Hookup Culture

0:00Children don't understand the nuances, so it's really up to us parents to deconstruct it for them. But how can we deconstruct it if we ourselves are enslaved by it? So to be a conscious parent really means to see through the bullshit, disentangle from your identity, being dependent on other people and culture and what it says, and teach your children to protest, to stand up against, to be immune to cultural predation. because culture is right there at your doorstep, but now it's in the bedroom on the bed with your kid. It's right in his pocket.

0:38Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm here today with Dr. Shefali. She's a clinical psychologist, a New York Times bestselling author, and really the founder of the conscious parenting movement that redefined how families understand selfhood, connection, the inner life of children. And today we're having a conversation about her newest book. She has two out this week. raising conscious daughters and raising conscious sons. You've probably seen her all over social media or listening to her talking with Oprah. I was struck that she really specifically wrote for sons and daughters around how we can support them. One of the things that she talks about is dating, romantic relationships, porn, all of these things that are kind of uncomfortable to talk about, but really important.

1:30Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman, developmental psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, associate clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast. I am so glad you're here. I want to focus on something that we haven't really talked about and you addressed. And I want to talk about how you talked about girls being wired to bond through oxytocin and estrogen and what that actually means for how our daughters experience their first crush or relationships compared to how our sons do. I'm so excited that you addressed this. And I think we don't really talk about that experience much, and we don't really know what to do with it.

2:14Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. You are an amazing mentor, friend, sister, and just the work you do. So I'm so excited to be here with your people. and we're going to delve into these two books. I'm sure you've already talked about it, Raising Conscious Daughters, Raising Conscious Sons. They just released and I'm so excited. It was a big risk to separate the books by sex. And I decided to go ahead and do it anyway, because there are vast hormonal circuitry differences, neurochemical differences between our boys and girls. And we see it in menopause. We see it with our partners, if we are in a heterosexual cisgendered couple, we see it and we cannot dismiss it because when we actually learn about how vastly differently we are wired, we actually reduce the suffering.

3:06We get into flow. We get into attunement and alignment. So we all know through our menopausal experiences, women like you and me, that our freaking estrogen bloody, when it plummets, man, suddenly we look different. We are moody. We have less of the bonding hormone. Why do you think women in their menopause don't give a damn? It's because estrogen, which really binds to oxytocin, which is the love bonding hormone, when that reduces and tanks, we have no patience. We don't give a damn. And we don't put up with stuff that we would have put up with before. So because of our young daughters having their puberty and having estrogen spiking, they are very relationally attuned, very relationally sensitive.

3:57And if you have a daughter, I think you have a daughter.

4:00Dr. Aliza Pressman:I have two daughters and a stepdaughter. Yes. And you have a stepson. Stepson. So this is... You're so lucky. You get the gamut. Yeah. I only have one stepdaughter. I mean, real daughter, sorry. She feels like a stepdaughter. Your biological daughter. Biological daughter. And she has shown me how attuned, how synchronous, how resonant she is with my moods. And we know that our cycles can, you know, synchronize. Well, there's a reason for that. It's because we are wired to be in relationships much more deeply than men are. And if we look at our evolution, it makes sense. The men go out to hunt.

4:40We sit around and gather. Now, many feminists don't like that. And they think, you know, this is putting women down. I think it's amazing. I think it's fantastic that all of us don't have to go hunt. It's divide and, you know, rule. So we rule at things we are wired the best to do. But again, it doesn't mean we're not amazing, you know, CEOs and not amazing at everything men can do. Of course, we can do it as well. But it's what we're wired to do. And if we flow with our wiring, we understand each other. and suffer less. So now take the puberty, you know, the girl at puberty who has had her first big love affair.

5:19She thinks she's found her soulmate. And in her mind, she has bonded so intensely and she has connected so deeply. Now you add sex, her first sexual experience. Oh my goodness. That's it. Now the boy, we'll talk about him in a second. He doesn't realize though, that this woman, this girl has now bonded deeply to him. And it's just natural for her because her estrogen and oxytocin is at a peak, any kind of physical intensity turns that on, she's kind of now gone. And then when that heartbreak sets in and he kind of leaves her and walks away cold heartedly and brutally, she thinks it's about her.

6:00She thinks that she is crumbs of dust. If only she realized that his testosterone and his dopamine, the way that interacts, makes him just move on to the next conquest. Testosterone is known as the novelty hormone. So he's like, that's it. Who's my next conquest? She's thinking it's about her self-worth. It's about who she is, her identity. And she suffers. Therefore, we need to teach our daughters from a young age, like eight and nine, listen, your estrogen and oxytocin is going to bond to the next pair of pants. So you have to be careful. You have to choose. You are the chooser. You're not the chosen.

6:41See, in our culture, we think we're the chosen. No, no, no. We are the choosers and we get to choose. Like the peahen chooses the peacock and the peacock has to work very hard for her. Similarly, we need to choose. But where are the peacocks? And we fools, we are becoming the peacocks. We are not the peacocks. We have to choose. So if we don't choose, listen, Aliza, If we don't choose, we will suffer because we bond too deeply. We bond too fast. So we have to protect our hearts, you know?

7:12Dr. Aliza Pressman:I mean, when I think back to how many times I met the love of my life when I was an adolescent, and each time I was like, this is forever. This is the person. How much heartbreak we go through. We think the men and the boys are mean, defective, defiant, or deviant, or dicks. but they're not. They're really not. They are wired differently. You know, testosterone is the reason why our men can hunt and then come back and pick up a baby. It's a very compartmentalized brain that they have. Their left and right don't talk as much and deeply as ours do. We're interconnected. We are the gatherers of the village and the hearth.

7:55I don't know why women think that's a demeaning or demoting thing. I think it's a wonderful thing.

8:00Dr. Aliza Pressman:We just don't need to be the same. And I think we have so many beautiful strengths. Yes. And we also don't need to be forced to do anything. That's what we don't like as women, that we've been just stereotyped and put into a box. We don't like that. So if there's no box, then we get to choose and we can align with our wiring as much as we want. And we can choose to walk away from our wiring, but we should do it with consciousness, not because we're told to do it, not because we're forced to do it, or not because we're reacting against it either. So I've seen with these, with teen girls, and we'll get to sort of how to talk to our boys, but I have seen with teen girls, the attitude of like getting a guy to like them and that that is some kind of win.

8:45Dr. Aliza Pressman:And it's like, that's, first of all, to your point about hormones, it's not such a win. Yes. But it's more just the approach of thinking like, this, you know, I'm getting a guy. And so what are the conversations we're having at eight, nine, 10, 11, into adolescence that set the tone and not just conversations, but also probably how we're living our lives that set the tone that we are choosing. We are not teaching them to be sitting there to be chosen in quotes. That's it. You see, it's because we have inculcated and indoctrinated our women, our daughters and ourselves with this kind of princess fantasy that we are passive, right?

9:32To be rescued, to be chosen. Actually, as much as it's been made magical, it's actually handicapping. It's actually suffocating because instead of being the princess waiting to be rescued, we need to teach our daughters, there's no one coming to rescue you. sure you can be in partnership but don't be in in helpless mode and you choose as much as you think you should be chosen you need to choose and therefore people have to meet your standard people have to rise to your standard and if we train our daughters that they are simply not to be chosen they are to be the choosers it shifts the game it's a different mentality what are ways where

10:11Dr. Aliza Pressman:you feel like you were showing your daughter, I am not an object to be picked? Well, just in very subtle ways when, you know, I would hear people talk about people being fat or thin, I was trying to be conscious not to use those adjectives at all. And so when she would ask me, am I fat or am I thin? And instead of like reassuring her that, oh no, sweetheart, you're so skinny. I just used to try to tell her, you know, today you may be fat, tomorrow you may be skinny, and then fat again and skinny again. You have to learn to be okay with your body, because there's some days you're going to be this, and it will be too much this and this much that, and it doesn't matter.

10:53You have to be comfortable living in your body. So messages like that need to be carefully thought out by the parent, because if you don't carefully work through them in your own mind, you will project onto them. For example, you know, my daughter came out into

11:07Dr. Aliza Pressman:the world with brown eyes and we know how Eurocentric our culture is with green eyes. I have green eyes. Well, I can see that being extra difficult because you have these startling eyes. Correct. But let me tell you, it's startling only because we live in a Eurocentric, white, idolizing culture where light eyes and light skin and light hair is idolized. But let me tell you, genetically, biologically, green and blue eyes are genetic mutations and they're weaker actually in melanin, right? So they're actually more inferior eyes, but just because we idolize the white Eurocentric look, we have now decided that this is better, right?

11:48But when we all lived in Africa, this was not, it was considered a mutation and you poor thing, you're going to go blind, right? So it depends on the age we live in. So it's our job to let our children Renault that we shouldn't fall for cultural stereotypes. So from a young age, I used to tell her, oh, I wish I had brown eyes. I said, I like my eyes. They're okay. But you know, brown eyes have more color and pigment is good. It's better protection against the sun. And so she grew up kind of knowing and realizing that she may have actually the stronger genetics. So in little ways, I tried to stay away from cultural stereotypes, but I'm sure I failed.

12:25I'm sure when I ate the chocolate cake, I was like, oh my God, I'm going to be too fat. I'm sure it came out of my mouth only because it's so indoctrinated. But our goal is not to be perfect, but our goal is to be as vigilant as possible of when these cultural stereotypes, especially around body issues, sexuality, and exterior, external appearances show up in the critical voice of the mother. You know, we can't escape it. It is horrifically punitive, this critical voice. In fact, the more better looking you are, the worse it is. I've never met a woman who doesn't have a critical inner voice around her appearance, her age, her beauty.

13:05And it's so sad that we live like this when the men who actually should be the ones looking after their peacock feathers, they are just nonchalant. They don't care. They go on stage looking ridiculous. and good for them, right? Good for them. Yeah. So I think about another thing that you said,

13:26Dr. Aliza Pressman:which speaks to kind of how the peacock version of what's going on, which is this hyper-sexualized adolescent and even younger kids, this for girls and how they're hyper-sexualized on the outside but under-experienced on the inside, which is what you said. And I just want you to talk a little bit about how that looks day to day and how we can help guide our daughters when it comes to that, because I do think it's all related to their early dating habits and why they're doing it. In the beginning, it's not for a sexualized purpose. It's just because what they're seeing and they're not even thinking about dating.

14:06Dr. Aliza Pressman:But I'm just curious, kind of walk us through that and how we can best support those girls in those eras. You know, if we as parents are not aware of our own stereotypes, our own triggers and inadequacies, all of this conversation is moot. So if you're listening right now and your daughter is already in her 20s or 30s, like Aliza's and mine are, don't let this conversation take you into a spiral of panic or guilt or shame because we all could have done better. This is not about guilt and regret. This is about what can I do now? But if you do have a young daughter, then it's really up to you to make sure that she doesn't tie in her identity and her worth with her grades, with her fashion, with her friends.

14:54You know, it shouldn't be part of her mind frame that she needs to perform in order to get validation. So you try to uncouple numbers, trophies, grades, looks, praise of the external things in her life to her worth. So what does that mean? You try to show her that she's valuable to you, that she is significant, safe, soothed, successful, not by what she does, but who she is. So it's up to you as the parent to just tell her things like, man, I just, I pass you and you're just sleeping and my heart melts. or I just love just being with you. You know, I just love listening to you talk. I love watching how you think.

15:38I love observing how you look at the world. These are all formless things that are in anyone's wheelhouse, right?

15:47Dr. Aliza Pressman:Sleeping, thinking. Yes, your love does not rest on the splendor of your accomplishments. My love for you does not rest on the splendor of your accomplishments. And it's not I love you because. It's just like you're observing all of these things and how wonderful to feel, especially for girls, that you are this worthy human without all of that stuff, because the world will keep telling you that you are worthy because of those things. Correct. So you as the parent have to make it incumbent upon you and your awareness to overdo the antidote. So you have to know your daughter is being slammed by over-perfectionism, hypersexuality, competition, comparison.

16:31She's feeling scrutinized, perceived, vigilantly, obsessively taken apart by culture. You know, just today I was on an Instagram live. I had a few comments about my eyebrows, my nose, my cheeks, my skincare. I'm like, and all by women, right? So therefore we have to further, you know, over exaggerate the other side, meaning we need to tell our kids, you will feel like you're in a fishbowl. You will feel like you need to buy the latest makeup products and the latest skincare. You will leave your Instagram and social media feeling worse about yourself than better. And this is why, and I need you to know that these are false messages of a culture that is capitalistic and wants to get you to buy stuff.

17:18Do not give in. We need to make them, you know, very aware. And if no one tells them all of this, they're going to be bathed in those, you know, chaotic waters and not know that that's a filter, that's fake, that's a lie, right? And imagine how they feel. I know how I feel on social media. I feel like, oh my goodness, I'm 60 years too old and I'm not even 60 yet, right? I feel like whatever age I am, it's too old. But that's a very toxic message for young girls to imbue, you know?

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20:08Dr. Aliza Pressman:I remember hearing when I was young, older women in my family and just old friends of my family saying things like, wear that while you're still young, enjoy that while you're still young. And it was such a terrible message because it was like, because getting older is terrible. That's essentially the message there. I remember being thrown off by the adults in my life, feeling insecure. Like I was like, oh my God, this doesn't end when you become an adult. You don't, you still worry if your pants look good on you. This is very upsetting to hear. So I love if we could have consciousness about all of the crap that's in our head and realize how much it impacts us and how much it impacts our kids.

20:54Dr. Aliza Pressman:And I wonder if, what if you have a daughter and you're also, So you're raising your daughter, but you also have a son. What kind of messaging can you share between them so that it, you know, going back to dating, like what are those messages on the flip side that are going to our sons? Yeah. So let me just say one more thing. In this book, Raising Conscious Daughters, I talk so much about what to do about perfectionism, comparison, competition, anxiety, body harm, sexuality, and how to give your daughter a voice, authenticity, self-authority, anti-fragility, sovereignty, sisterhood. So these are the things I'm teaching parents how to do because I'm seeing that child after child, daughter after daughter is missing these things.

21:42Let's talk about raising conscious sons. You know, we have to understand as parents of sons that something really huge, cataclysmic, volcanic, torpedo level happens in puberty, which is that their testosterone boosts between 15 to 50 times what it was when they were four. And even that was more than most girls. So what is testosterone? It is this raging force, a current that is there to protect our humanity and our species. But it is a force of aggression and sexuality, right? Frog said, Eros and Thanatos. It is a life force that if it is not carefully managed, it can truly be violent and predating and hurtful to women, children, and the earth.

22:31And you can see that the masculine has become toxic because no one has taught our boys and men to integrate their sexuality and their aggression and their anger. So we parents have to do that and help them when they turn 11, 12, 13, oh my goodness, and their testosterone shoots beyond their control. We need to think for them, feel for them, and understand what they're going through. They don't have the words. So what do we need? We need a brotherhood of elderly men, uncles, fathers, to really stay close in a circle around these boys. And what's happening tragically, most of our boys are growing up with single mothers.

23:08Single mothers don't know what an erection feels like or what a wet dream feels like. Just like a man cannot initiate our daughters, we cannot initiate our sons. I'm sorry. It's a fine man in the village

23:19Dr. Aliza Pressman:if there isn't a co-parent who's a man. Yes. some men in the village to be mentors. Yes. Go look at the YWCA, the YMCA, ask the YWCA to find it at the YMCA. Go to the Boys and Girls Club, go to the Big Brothers Club, go down the street to any conscious male, you know, go to your friends and say, can I borrow your older son who can come and hang out with my kid? I'll pay him. I like that you said conscious though. They have to be conscious. So you have to interview them for sure. And you want your boy to learn what it means to be a conscious man from male role models who can relate to him, understand him.

23:59So you have to go into society and find those men who you admire. And I think it should be part of the conversation because men know that there are very few conscious men around. So the few conscious men need to step up and start training others, being part of this conversation. There are many men's groups now, Aliza, of men trying to heal from toxic masculinity themselves. ourselves. So we really need to help. So we need to teach our boys that they need to look for male mentors. We need to talk to them about their biology. We need to teach them responsibility for that biology. Just because you have an urge doesn't mean you get to manifest the urge.

24:36You have to understand what sexual consent means. You need to check other men. You need to check your brothers. Instead of joining in on the locker room talk, you need to be accountable. And if we don't teach our boys accountability and hold them to it, how are they going to know that that's a sacred responsibility?