Dr. Shefali: Why Modern Parenting Is Failing (And What to Do Instead)

26:34Exactly. It's not your child's fault or responsibility to not.

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30:20Now imagine Gen Z one day becoming parents, right? Wow. Their brains don't even know how to be present, right? So how are they going to sit and be present with their children?

30:33Darin Olien:Can you imagine? Right. So that's why we need to intervene now. There's a little bit of time, like right now, left, where we parents can step in and save our children and give them the childhood that they deserve. These angry outbursts, this moodiness, this irritability, this lack of regulation, it's not because my child is defective. It's not because they hate me. It's because my child's brain is abducted. So we need to detox as a family. And before I take the device away, I need to pledge, declare that I am capable of being present. Right. I remember taking the phone away with my daughter and her best friend.

31:16Darin Olien:And they took her best friend's phone too. I took them both because I used to make pledges with the parents. Can you please not bring your addict to my addict? You know, can we both? And the kids used to get so angry with me because I was the Debbie Downer parent. Like, keep the phones outside. And so one day I was like, look at you both. You're supposed to be playing with each other, having fun, and you're so robotic on your screen. So I took the phones away. And then, so for 20 minutes, they had, you know, pangs of withdrawal and anger and moodiness. But then their life force came back. But then they turned on me.

31:53And they're like, okay, we want to do your makeup. They were young. They were like 14, you know. Right, right. And back then, they were real 14-year-olds, not like 14-year-olds being 24-year-olds now. And they were like, we want to do your makeup. And I was like, oh, shit, I should just give them back the phones. But then I said, now they want to be with me.

32:11Darin Olien:So now who am I to? Now how can I, should I step in? Right. And I could yell at them, you're 14, go play on your own. But they wanted to be with me. So then I had to step in. and I was regretting taking away the phone because now I had to be present. But I made that choice. And after 45 minutes, we had a beautiful connected experience, albeit they've effed up my face and I had to deal with it, but they enjoyed and we connected. So that's the trade-off, you see? And as parents, now imagine Gen Z one day becoming parents, right? Their brains don't even know how to be present. Right? So how are they going to sit and be present with their children?

32:58Darin Olien:Can you imagine? Right. So that's why we need to intervene now. There's a little bit of time, like right now, left, where we parents can step in and save our children and give them the childhood that they deserve. Wow, that just flashed on a just a... Yeah, I tell my daughter all the time, I hope you are not planning to have children. I said you can barely take care of your own hair and your own face. And then you can barely take care of your cat who's very self-sufficient. I hope you're not planning to become a mother. What does she say to that? She goes, oh, please, I can do it. I was like, you think you can.

33:41They have no idea. They have no idea. Yeah.

33:45Darin Olien:So like, I mean, you've been dealing with conscious parenting. for like how did that how did that journey start for you so i was uh very much immersed in eastern spirituality you know i'm from india but that's not why i was immersed i grew up in mumbai and delhi but when i was living in india i was not immersed in indian spirituality because there's so many charlatans that I was turned off. But the moment I came to America, I turned to it, particularly meditation. And in meditation, you learn about the false self and the ego. And so I had my meditation practice, but then I was becoming a psychologist and working with people and working with crazy parents and thinking to myself, my goodness, like how are they ever going to raise stable children, that they are children themselves.

34:43But I was helping parent after parent. But in my egoic mind, I was like, wow, when I become a parent, I'm going to be so amazing because I'm a meditator, I'm a psychologist, I have helped so many people. I'm never going to be a derelict. I'm never going to be a crazy lunatic. And then I became a mother, and I promise you, I say this candidly, like I was horrified. I was not only a lunatic, I was a psycho lunatic. Like within six months, I was done. I was like, I can't do this for 60 years. Like where's the expiration date? I couldn't even handle it for six months and the baby is cute and they don't even talk back.

35:25They're adorable and I was noticing my thoughts. I'm like, I was impatient. I was exhausted. I was already a victim. I was like, I can't do this.

35:34Darin Olien:Wow. I wanted to divorce my husband back then, I mean, it was a shit show. And I'm watching myself because meditation allows you to watch the theatrics of your crazy mind. So I'm watching myself and I go, wow, what happened to your love, your unconditional love? I was judging her, judging her face, judging her crying. I was like crazy. I was like, no one told me I was going to be a lunatic. They told me I would have unconditional love. And I know I'm a loving person. So what's going on? And then I discovered that what was going on was my unhealed self was full throttle. And I thought I had healed myself.

36:21But you don't really realize how unhealed you are till you have to take care of a person, a helpless human being, 24-7, with no expiration. You can't return them. Then your unhealed tantruming toddler comes out and your unhealed teenager comes out. So you begin to see parts of yourself that you don't see in adult relationships. You see other things in adult relationships, but with your child, because there's a hierarchy and an asymmetry, you can power trip your child. You can totally control your child. You can hit your child. No one will tell you anything. So when I began to have thoughts of wanting to control my child, puppeteer my child, manipulate my child, lie to my child, and I still lie to my child, judge, I mean, I began to see the unleashed ego because the parental ego has no supervision, no restriction.

37:20No one will tell the parent anything. You can do whatever you want to your child. I will have parents telling me, don't tell me.

37:27Darin Olien:I would say to a level. I mean, yeah, but to a level, if you hide the bruises, you can get away with it. So parents will tell me, don't tell me what to do with my child, like my child. So when I began to see that I was acting like that parent, like calling my child, my child, and wanting to do anything I wanted to her, like if I wanted her to join a math class, I could manipulate her. But I was watching all this more than doing it. But I was horrified by what I was seeing in my own ego. And that's what made me wake up and realize the parental ego needs to be checked. And parents need to turn the spotlight on them.

38:08So I founded or created conscious parenting, which at which the foundation of that is the parent needs to raise themselves. And when you raise yourself, your own inner child, the real child will be amazing, will blossom and burgeon. Because children as they are, are perfect. They're whole. They're complete. It's we who project our bullshit onto them.

38:36Darin Olien:Right. And then they receive it. And then they act like that. Form whatever nervous system regulation. Yeah. Yes. So no one at that time was talking about parents healing themselves. This is 2010. And I was very blessed because Oprah picked it up and helped me spread this message into the world. And now it's a thing. Conscious parenting. Conscious parenting, yeah. Well, and it's still a thing because it's consciousness. Yeah, it can never go away. Yeah, and it's always evolving. It's the most powerful thing. Yeah, and we're always, I mean, any pressure, and I can't speak for the child, but I can only imagine, but any pressure in life is pushing you to look at something.

39:20Any relationship, and the intimate ones especially, are forcing you to look at your own inner child. Just with a real child, it shows up even more because you can't divorce them, you can't run away. You're forced to confront what's showing up in the mirror. And your children will show you how egoic you are because we can control them. So if you can control your ego with your child, now you're in control of your ego. Because children are so innocent, they let you do anything to them. They don't know.

39:55Darin Olien:Right, they're looking at you. They're looking with idealization. Right. You are their idol. Yeah, I mean, I think about this all the time. We're all running around with some sort of hurt, some sort of pain from our parents, from our... You can't escape it, right? Cannot escape it. And it's amazing to me sometimes that this world even works. The way it works. Yeah, because people in power, when you see them do something, they're going, oh, that's just coming out of a pain. Oh, 100%. All of this. All of it. The whole theater. The whole theater is wounded little boys in big pants and tuxedos and acting like they're grown up because they can pay the rent or pass a law.

40:42but you can see the tantruming toddlers, all of them.

40:46Darin Olien:100%. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Yeah. Some it's easier than others to see it. Oh my God, that's just a little hurt little kid. Yes, yes. Then you can also have, it's insane, but you can also have compassion within it too, right? So there's that part of the empathy and the compassion of going, oh, that's literally just coming out of a pain. Yes, but when that pain is unhealed, look at the destruction. We're seeing it right now in our world, how much destruction is being wreaked on innocent people because of unhealed childhoods and belief systems, fundamental belief systems that are passed down.

41:32So when I talk about conscious parenting, it's not just about healing your emotional self. It's cleaning the bullshit belief systems of superiority. of delusion of power that you have in your mind that you pass down to your children, like racism and sexism and one religion being more superior than the others.

41:52Darin Olien:Yeah, India is a perfect example of that. There's so much going on, and I love that country. That's like full on. But India too right now is demonically being led into fundamentalism. Is it? Yes. How is that showing up? Well, my president, prime minister, whoever he is may get me into trouble. I'm just joking. No, how is it showing up? So you can edit that little part. How is it showing up? India is becoming more fundamentalist Hindu and turning against Muslims and Christians and minorities. Just like in every country, you know, the predominant religion, it's zealots want to believe that they are right.

42:38They have a right to the right God, and everybody else's God is the wrong God.

42:43Darin Olien:It's just so, like when you say it out loud. It's insane. It's insane. Yeah. I mean, I know my God is different from other people's gods, but my God is the special God. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And it's only, I don't know, it's a whole idea. Like whatever we believe is also can never even match what God is anyway. Right. If there was a God. If there was a God. Right. How can we even know that? Right. So to even speak of that God and then to proclaim like we know how. It's just. Right. It's asynchronous. No, no, no. God speaks to me and this is what he says. Right. Whatever. And then how can you have that creationist viewpoint.

43:30Darin Olien:Right. And then have an evolutionary viewpoint. Right? Yeah. How did the two go together? Yeah. So, like, I mean, like, it's interesting that I'm going right now. Like, tomorrow I leave for Las Vegas. I'm in this leadership program. We're supporting two nonprofit kids, children, teenage organizations. Great organizations. One's called Inspiring Children's Foundation. Another one's called One Teen. And they're helping kids in just bad situations, challenging situations, helping them learn and grow and expand and have life skills again. It's beautiful. Because it's, and it's just interesting that, you know, it's such a, we talk about it, but when you actually look at it and see it and like, you know, you raised a child in this.

44:26Darin Olien:It is quite, I don't want to be so dramatic, but it is dramatic. It's so dangerous where we're going right now. And the detachment that we have to the natural world, that alone is just scary. So just the natural world. You know, in the last decade, the children used to play outside and be outside. Now that has reduced. So they used to play outside like 13 hours a week or something. Now it's become five hours a week. Okay, everybody, are you ready to upgrade your operating system? I know I am. I'm always game to do that. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That's what we're doing over at Super Life Patreon.

45:18Darin Olien:This isn't just behind the scenes membership. It's a global experiment in conscious living that I am connected to, committed with, in every cell of my body. Each week, you'll get exclusive access to deeper podcast conversations, extended interviews, voice notes from the road of me personally, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes footage, community wellness challenges, and even surprise drop-ins that I no longer do on social media because I don't really dig it anymore. We're talking decentralized healing, reclaiming sovereignty, ancient wisdom meets future tech, any tribe of people with you walking the path.

46:05Darin Olien:If you love this podcast, the Patreon is where we go deeper, get more real, and reclaim our power together. Join us at patreon.com forward slash Darren Olin. That's patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com forward slash Darren Olin, D-A-R-I-N-O-L-I-E-N. Join the movement, support the mission. Let's rise together. So children being just, even in an urban city, outside has become anathema. Outside. Forget nature, real nature. and then forget human nature and then forget community. So we're becoming more anti-human, led by, again, capitalist oligarchs who just care about money and they don't care about predation of children.

46:59And children are the most vulnerable. So we must all rally to protect our children. And that's why I do this work, is that they deserve protection. And parents are the first custodians. so we have to step up. Children are not our trophies. You know, people are having children, oh, I'm having a baby. I'm like, do you understand what it takes to have a baby? And I often prick a lot of bubbles and balloons. You know, the pregnant mother comes to me and says, prepare me to be the best mother. And then she leaves my session and she's ready to go like to the club or to the bar to have some wine because I've like depressed her about the enormous sacrifice and compromise and responsibility being a parent is.

47:45It's not a joke. It's not about like enrolling your kid into an Ivy League system. It's about your presence and your attunement. That is their food, their manner. And in order for them to get it from you, you have to give it to yourself. But if you have no emotional food for yourself, you don't live in abundance, then don't have a child because children need your abundant presence. you know but we're having children like trinkets and trophies and then we're giving them siblings like as if we're buying them gifts like i often ask parents why they're having the second child or third child and they'll say oh because i want to give my child my first child a sibling because you you can't give them a sibling you understand it's not a gift a toy do you understand it's a whole other person who may not like the first child and then that's okay too you can't be like I'm having two or three, so I'm giving them all each other.

48:43Darin Olien:Yeah, it turns into this menu thing. Yeah, it's a menu. It's a prescription. And, you know, obviously there's a whole rabbit hole of, like, it's harder and harder to get pregnant. Yes. The world is toxic. Yes. You know, there's all this stuff. So then there's all this other pressure. To, like, IVF. Yes. And synthetic hormones. Yes. And, like, and then there's shame and blame. and then literally choosing eye color. It's a weird... It's now become this delusion of playing God, the God complex that parents have. I write about it a lot. Oh, wow. I mean, so much. So my daughter will tease me. She's like, Mom, you're having a Jesus complex moment right now.

49:28You're not Jesus. She'll tell me to back off because I'll tell her about how parents think they're God. And now we're not only controlling our children's careers, who they marry. We try to control their sexuality. Now you're right. We're doing it pre-birth. The gender of my child, eye color. We're choosing how to create this designer couture child who will be my ambassador, make me feel good about myself. It's a massive ego trip.

49:58Darin Olien:That's where it gets really sticky. Listen, I have ego every day with my child. And she just is so smart. She'll tell me, and whose life is it? Like she just the other day told me, are you talking to yourself? I told her how she should be spending the beautiful summer day, okay? I was like, if I was you, I'd be doing these 10 things. And she said, why don't you text yourself? She said, text that to yourself. She said, why are you texting me? I said, I'm texting you because I'm offering you my ideas. Right. and she's just holding up this projection and she's like that's you like you do your day like spend your day the way you want to spend your day and I every day I see my ego cannot manage its own demonism so imagine if I am having a hard time and I have a strong daughter what will that 11 year old girl do or the 11 year old boy but I would say you know I was about to say that our boys are more in trouble but then I had to check myself because then I remembered all the girls I work with.

51:03But I would still say our boys are more in trouble. And the reason I say that is because they are being raised by fathers who primarily did not have conscious fathers either. So the men who are raising our boys today did not have conscious masculinity. And women's mothers certainly don't know how to raise boys after the age of 12 or 13 into conscious masculinity. So boys don't have conscious initiation into their sexuality, into manhood. A mother will do pretty good with her daughter. I mean, at least the basics. But she doesn't know what to do with the boy. And he's having wet dreams in his room.

51:48And she picks up dirty socks. And she's like, what is this? But no one is talking to the boy and the father cannot handle it and he's absent emotionally so our boys are

51:59Darin Olien:growing up in a void and then it's being filled by the gaps of social media and gaming and porn escapism and the manosphere right the likes of andrew tate and these other insane yeah and it's just filling this weird gap it's filling a gap but that's what we need to understand the unconscious gap. Right. It doesn't just occur. The manosphere didn't grow into its power because parents were present. It grew into power because there was a gap. And so not to blame parents, but that's why I think this book, Raising Conscious Sons, is so important because if our boys grow up directionless, purposeless, with all this energy being suppressed, our girls are going to be in trouble.

52:47so if we love our girls and women we need to take care of our boys

52:54Darin Olien:if you I just feel that it's like it's a thing I don't want to be so dramatic but it is dramatic it's really scary what this experiment that we're losing grip. We're losing grip. Just of being... Yeah. Let me ask you a question. How do you think you grew up into your masculinity and how do you kind of create that masculinity for yourself? What is being a conscious male mean to you? That's a great question.

53:37Darin Olien:Well, first off, I grew up being outside all day. I grew up with the solidity of a mom's love. like you had a strong attachment no matter no matter what she loved me yeah i she didn't understand later in life how i lived my life she's very simple yeah but her love was yeah deep inside yeah which allowed me to actually risk because i had that home my dad was a little more unstable table because he was an alcoholic so the the blueprint of that I was wobbly if I were to look back I was wobbly trying to find that strong male figure male figure yeah my dad came online later and then kind of stepped into that so I started to learn maybe around 12 13 14 like And then we started bonding.

54:35So in your teen years, he stepped up?

54:37Darin Olien:Yeah. Yeah, so he got sober. And then he started teaching me how to fix stuff. And also discipline. He didn't do it in the healthiest way. So I didn't respect him all that much. So later in life, when life slapped me, other people I respected going, what are you doing? don't do that that was shocking to me they checked you yeah yeah so like i i i was realizing i was doing some enmeshment kind of uh not enmeshment it's like deserving things when i did like like a persona you were like trying to well i was i was uh i guess what's the word i was i was um

55:36Darin Olien:like my mom would come in and kind of fix things from my dad's anger so then i expected like if i went to my uncles or something i just ate all their food without asking and then they were like what are you doing like entitled entitled yeah that's the word so i had this entitlement side that was a confusing signal for mom and dad so I had to sort that out but it was because people would call that out and I was like oh that doesn't doesn't feel good if that were to happen to me yeah if someone took advantage of me that wouldn't feel good so I had to learn a masculine kind of accountability yeah accountability and I learned to do that and and And then just, and again, going back to mom, risking never having a conventional job, following my passion.

56:28Darin Olien:And there's always like, and I think because of my mom, respect for women was always there. And appreciating that. But yeah, I think, and also, you know I I know that it just feels good to protect it feels good to stand for all people but women and like it just it's a natural thing because I've cultivated confidence in myself and so taking a stand beyond myself is when it really shows up. So when I show up and I'm not about myself, masculinity naturally comes. Wow. Right? That sense of contribution, service. Bingo. That's what I teach mothers with their sons. Yeah. Make him feel like he's doing something important that makes a difference in your life.

57:36And she's like, but I don't need anything. I go, it doesn't matter.

57:39Darin Olien:Manufacture things for him to do. so he feels that's masculinity. How do you temper your feeling side with your stoic side? That's been like especially in the last year. It's really coming online. I studied psychology 20 years ago. I have a master's in it, and I love to have traveled all over the world, So I've thrown myself into gurus and saints and sages. And so I've always had a curiosity of consciousness. So I think that, but in the last year, it's really gotten to the point, like the confidence has seeded itself in and who I am and who I, what I'm standing for, which is greater than myself.

58:27Darin Olien:But that had to birth itself out of the neediness. it had to heal through i'm looking for love for my dad because he was so unstable i didn't have my dad what really shook me at one point was when my dad was starting to drink again after a new family right divorced my mom and i heard him whine complain for the first time and i was like i was an adult I was in college and I heard my dad whine like a little boy and it was like so shocking yeah and I literally was I was confronting my dad going the fuck you talking about like you know what I mean that was that moment yeah that that it was important to see it yeah because it's really easy to complain it's really easy to make excuses.

59:26Darin Olien:It's really easy. The moment I started taking 100 % responsibility for my life, that probably has a different feeling for women. But for a man, that's like, oh, it feels good. It's a relief in a way. It's a relief because it's not a, I'm kind of in, I'm all in. All in. So as soon as I do this, I'm all in on everything. Yeah. Now the energy actually... It can channel. Yeah. Yeah. And the weird thing is it feels, if on the outside it feels like, how are you doing all of that, it can look stressful. But in actuality, when you literally go all in, you receive more. You receive more because you're not dispersing that energy in substances, women, others.

1:00:15So your father, it sounds like, never really healed that little boy. Never did. And stayed small, and therefore he's dependent on alcohol. He's dependent on something to give him that soothing. But when you go all in, meaning you take accountability for your own soothing, now that gives you so much kinetic energy to now channel. Otherwise, you're looking for soothing. That takes a lot of energy.

1:00:38Darin Olien:100%. And I remember there's a time I broke down not that long ago. It was in a leadership program, and I just cracked, like something just popped. and as I was crying, which I don't often do, right? But as I just let myself, no plant medicines, nothing. I literally felt the lineage. I saw it. As I was like, I saw my dad's pain. I saw his dad's pain. And I just, then I, it may sound weird, but I literally felt generational pain. and I just letting it happen. Yeah, it's intense. It's intense and it's like so, and I felt 200 pounds lighter. Yeah, that you don't have to carry that. Right. And it was only here to bring you to this moment and now you can let it go.

1:01:32Darin Olien:Totally. It's profound. But you released yourself. It didn't release. You released. You were so healed that you were able to let it go. And the willingness to do that because I could easily just like, because you feel it. Yeah. And then you can, ah. Yeah, suppress it back again. Suppress it. But I just, for some, I just let myself. It's just a, so, you know, it's a work in progress, you know. I think the strength of men are healthy, are open, are vulnerable, are protective, are receiving, not pushing. and healthy females know that, feel that, receive that, and give in different ways. And when a man feels the respect of a woman, you can see the way they look at you.

1:02:31Darin Olien:It's like when you see that, then it's like, oh. Because in one respect, we're built to protect. No matter how, whatever you want to say, we're built to to do that but if there's not the healthy I mean number one a healthy male is not going to hang on very long to a woman that doesn't respect him like he's just not going to last he's going to like I got places to go but like when a female shows up with respect and love and openness but strong and fierce in all the beautiful ways it's like it's the best feeling it's the best yeah and men get such a bad rap but the beautiful parts of masculinity are so beautiful and should be nurtured but you know we say the toxic patriarchy and we dump all men in there but we shouldn't because there's so many beautiful men who want to show up and and our sons imagine if we allowed them to show up for us right fix the light bulb It comes to contribution.

1:03:40It sounds like slave labor, but it's not. It's like the son grows into his masculinity by being needed because that instinct to protect is in the testosterone. It's in there. And women, and the girl has it also, but she may do it for her little animal or her little kitty. It's a different kind of nurturing. So sons can really grow up with a conscious masculinity if we're very intentional about, oh, his brain needs this and her brain needs that. And I too, when I was raising my daughter, didn't know what I know now, what the science has shown of attachment and neurobiology. But these books offer that deep insight.

1:04:19Oh, your daughter's not being dramatic. She's just relationally sensitive. Let me tell you, till I wrote this book on girls, I used to complain in my head, like, really? Like, does my daughter have to have like an issue about everything I say? Like my tone, my eye roll. She picks up everything. She's like, well, that was rude. Yeah, that was rude. I'm like, I was not being rude. She's like, no, that was rude, the way you said it, huh? So I want to like clobber her. And when I wrote this book and I'm writing about how sensitive girls' brains are, it made me so much more compassionate to her. I'm like, wow, she's just highly attuned.

1:04:57To me, too highly attuned. But I can't judge that. That's how her brain is.

1:05:00Darin Olien:And she's mirroring. She's such a cute mirror. Girls are scanning. You know how we women are? Yeah, yeah. We're scanning. You have to. Yeah, because that's our way to survive. We may not have the physical strength, right? Totally. So we're picking up on the emotional cues. Totally. Because that's our power. Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. Yeah. It's powerful. Yeah. And again, like, the more we can be healed, the more we can create environments for the children, because it is our responsibility. Yeah. Because they don't have all of this figured out. They don't have it till they're 28. Really? Yeah, because the adolescent brain now...

1:05:42Sorry.

1:05:43Darin Olien:All good. The adolescent brain now, science has shown, does not fully finish forming till the late 20s. And male and female? Yeah, overall. Of course, the girl's brain is more advanced and maturationally more in sync than the boys. The boys come online a little bit later, a few years later. but adolescence continues. We thought it ends like by 19, 20. Now it's late. We just decided that. Yeah, we just decided. But now science is actually showing that. Yes, but healthy adolescence should involve a separation of some sort from the adult enmeshment, right? So I keep, for example, telling my daughter at 23, it's time for you to separate from me, and she resists that.

1:06:34And I go, it's healthy. So I teach parents and myself to stop overdoing it. We should stop overdoing it from like 12, 13, 14.

1:06:45Darin Olien:Let them learn. The friction, to deal with friction. But because of technology now, we've taken away friction. We have so much luxury now. So we not only over-parent, technology over-protects. So our children are never waiting at the bus stop for a bus. they don't even go to a restaurant anymore. They order everything on the app. So, yeah, the other day, my daughter and her friends ordered something from CVS. And I'm sorry, but I yelled at them. I was like, you ordered something from CVS? Like the audacity. They're like, oh, we were just tired. But this is how, I can't blame that because it's all on their fingertip, you know?

1:07:31So I remember never ordering anything online. There was a time I never ordered anything online. Now I just go pop, pop, pop, pop. So I don't blame our children just going, oh, CVS on DoorDash. Who cares if it's$15 more? Boom, boom. Like they're not even handling cash, right? It's just boom, boom, boom. It's so removed, right? We eat the chicken. We don't know where the chicken comes from. That was one set of problems. But now we're not touching. They don't even need to go to the Vatican or to the Himalayas anymore. They're seeing it, and they believe by seeing it, they've experienced it. So many times children of this generation will say, oh, I don't need to go to the Vatican.

1:08:11I saw it. And they mistake seeing it for the experience of it. And when you don't experience things, you're not challenged, and then you're not competent. You just think you're competent. But you're not really competent. And then when that boy goes out and asks the girl for the first date, and she says no, but online everybody says yes, and in porn everybody says yes. So when he actually gets rejected, he loses his shit. I mean, that's what inspired me to write these books, this Netflix documentary, Adolescence. Have you seen it? I haven't. So it's about this boy who gets rejected,

1:08:52Darin Olien:and he kills the girl at 12. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's a documentary. I don't even know whether it's based on real life, but it's to show how boys cannot even handle rejection because they're so safe in their virtual world. Jesus. Yeah. Well, I'll watch that and you watch Down to Earth. I'll watch Down to Earth tonight, hopefully. Well, this has been so much of a pleasure to hear your journey as well, because I think the more men like you talk about your journey into masculinity, the more young boys can be helped. Yeah, we need it. We all need it because there's healing in all aspects.

1:09:31Darin Olien:Yeah. Thank you so much. This has been so wonderful, and I'm so glad that you're taking your history of conscious parenting and pinpointing it on this very big issue with children. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks.