We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sapna Rad a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sapna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

What makes a child brave, kind, and resilient? Parents who create the safety for children to be their authentic selves. What makes a parent have faith in their children’s nature and their future? Someone who has done their inner work to become aware of their thoughts, fears, and anxieties. Parents who know the “what” behind the “how” constantly examine beliefs that hold them back. Be a maverick when it comes to your children.
All parents love and want the best for their children, but what gets in the way of that love is fear.
Since I made that discovery, I have been uncovering its roots and shedding them layer by layer. While some fear is good and keeps us in check, some fears are irrational. Knowing which is which has given me choices—different ways to think about situations that were keeping me stuck.

Sapna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

It’s 8 a.m, your child is refusing to go to school and you have an important meeting at 9.00 a.m, sound familiar? Stress and anxiety are considered normal. Children are buckling under pressure, unable to communicate with adults while adults are being hard on themselves trying to do it all. It is possible to create connections that go beyond communication. Here’s how! conscious Parenting is a powerful and rare blend of Western psychology and Eastern wisdom, and it lends to deep healing and awakening. Conscious Parenting encourages the parent to look inward and connect with themselves so that they can then can now connect with their child and spend more time laughing and less time stressing.
Sapna is the author of the book “yelling to zenning”, Trained in NLP, EFT, psychology, wisdom teaching, and mindfulness, She helps parents and caregivers around the globe to connect before they can correct.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“He is taking too long,” I thought.
“Are you done yet?” I yelled out to my four-year-old son who had been in the bathroom for a while now.
I walk into the bathroom to find him washing his underpants in the tub.
“He is playing again,” was my initial thought, before I could start yelling.
I paused… My child looked frightened and terrified.
“I had an accident, Mommy. Please don’t be mad.”
Instead of being a parent whom my child came to—a calm, understanding, helpful parent—I was stressed and anxious, and my child was actually scared to come to me.
Where did I get this idea that my child should be potty trained by a certain age and time?
Or that he should learn by the third or fourth attempt?

Why is it that every time my child was being a child—spilling milk, crying out of exhaustion or hunger, feeling rejected, normal reactions to everyday life—I was turning into a raging monster, anxiety-driven, feeling out of control, wanting to fix every aspect of his life?

These questions lead me to go on this quest to uncover the landscape of our inner psyches learning that all most all of the parenting frustrations come from the parent’s unhealed baggage and knowing how to release this baggage bit by bit has helped me build a lifelong bond with my child.

In fact, I have written a whole book on unlearning called “Yelling to Zenning”.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I saw an example of what a connection looks like when I overheard a mother talking to her daughter. Her daughter had had a car accident and had called her mother to tell her about it.
The tone and demeanor of this mother were unlike anything I had seen before.
I heard her say in the most gentle way, “Honey, are you ok? The most important thing is that you are ok. We’ll figure out about the car and the insurance. I am with you and you are not alone, ok? I am coming now. Do you need me to stay on the phone in the meantime?”
I could replay the scenario in my head with me in it.
Fueled with anxiety, I would have said, “What is wrong with you? Why weren’t you looking? How many times have I told you to focus while driving? See, now, what happened?”
Or my child wouldn’t have told me about it, figured out how to fix it alone, and I would have found out when I got the call from the insurance company.
I didn’t want that to happen, but I realized I had to do something about it.
We love our kids so much, so why are we so unloving and unkind to our kids? What gets in the way of our love?
How do I get from where I was to where I wanted to be? The kind of mom who is a pillar of strength to her child and one who is not swayed by her own anxiety.
This reason keeps me going. Keeping my “Why” in the foreground reminds me every of what is important and why I need to work on myself. My Why-My relationship with my child.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sapnarad.com/
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• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sapna-rad-coaching/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCevIMHIsKc5J9ctLaNLr1UA