The Parent Tap

How to Stop Losing Your Temper & Process Parent Guilt

• Ryan McDonough • Season 1 • Episode 4

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You can build the perfect household systems, but if the operator’s internal software crashes, the whole network goes down. Today, we are talking about what happens when you completely burn out. I am joined by Philipp Kobald—a meditation instructor with over 30 years of experience and the author of Spiritual Parenting. If that title sounds like theoretical fluff to you, don't worry. On The Parent Tap, we don't do theory.

Philipp and I strip away the mysticism and translate three decades of mindfulness practice into an actionable, operational framework you can use right in the middle of a toddler pasta meltdown. We break down the messy reality of raising kids, how to process the guilt of losing your temper, and a literal 60-second "circuit breaker" protocol to stop explosive anger before a system failure.

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THE EPISODE BLUEPRINT (TIMESTAMPS): 00:00 - Cold Open: The Honest Way to Process Parent Guilt 02:00 - Intro: Stripping the Fluff out of "Spiritual Parenting" 02:50 - The "Beginner's Panic" & Operational Curiosity 07:00 - Meditation vs. The Toddler Pasta Meltdown 09:50 - Partner Alignment & The Giant Parenting Mirror 12:30 - System Failure: Processing Guilt When You Lose Your Temper 18:00 - Emotional Honesty: You Don't Have to Like Every Activity 21:00 - Staying Real in an Artificial, Digital Age 24:50 - Detaching Your Ego from Your Kid's Chaos 28:00 - Rapid Fire: The Biggest Myth About Meditation 30:00 - The 60-Second Circuit Breaker for Explosive Anger 31:00 - The Supermarket Tantrum Extraction Protocol 33:50 - The Single Most Damaging Thing for a Child's Development 38:50 - Energy Drain, Community, & Connecting with Philipp

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Cold Open: The Honest Way to Process Parent Guilt

SPEAKER_01

You want the honest answer or the political correct okidoki answer?

SPEAKER_02

Honest. Always.

SPEAKER_01

Are you sure? Yes, I'm not sure. Well, you you have a person. You're a person, right? And you felt angry at that moment. We're trying to protect children. That's our number one. That's what the government wants, and that's where we got all rules and regulation, how to treat children, and they're super correct, and I'm 100% behind them because there was way too much violence in the old generation, how they educated kids. So yes, I'm 100% behind. But I think we also got a little bit too far, and we have to balance it correctly. But it's very difficult to give this advice I'm going to give right now because so many people are not under control. I think you're controlled, you're reflective, you said you feel guilty, so I guess you're not gonna every day shout, everyday beat, and be a violent person. So you can handle my advice, but there are a lot of people out there who cannot. So that's why the politically correct answer would be good. But at the other hand, I honestly think that our kids deserve honesty, and our kids deserve also emotional honesty, and our kids also need to understand that we are beings and that we also have stuff to We reverse engineer toddler meltdowns and we rely on rigid systems to keep our households running efficiently.

SPEAKER_03

But what happens when you, the operator of those systems, completely burns out? Today we are tackling our internal software. My guest is Philip Kobold. He has been a meditation teacher for over 30 years. He hosts his own podcast and he has a brand new book out on spiritual parenting. Now, if you are a systems-minded parent, that phrase might sound like fluff to you, but today

Intro: Stripping Away the Fluff of Spiritual Parenting

SPEAKER_03

we are going to strip away the theory and translate three decades of mindfulness practice into a highly tactical framework that you can actually use in your living room. Philip, welcome to the show. I have to be honest, when I hear the words meditation and spiritual parenting, I immediately picture quiet rooms and deep breathing. But the reality is I have two kids treating the living room like a professional wrestling ring while I'm trying to get shoes on their feet. So let's go ahead and get started with it. First of all, and I do have a slightly selfish question because this pertains to uh starting something new. And this is the second week of my podcast, just to be full disclosure with you. And it's new territory for me, and frankly, dealing with the learning curve, the technical glitches, and the inevitable imposter syndrome. But it's been a massive test of my own internal systems. So when

Navigating the "Beginner's Panic" with Curiosity

SPEAKER_03

someone is stepping into something completely new, new chapter of their life, whether that's starting a new project or having their first kid or navigating a mission a massive life transition, and their old framework no longer applies, what is the spiritual standard operating procedure for navigating that beginner's panic without shutting down?

SPEAKER_01

Well, that's simple. I mean, it but spirituality is always the same answers. That's the good thing. It's the 8,000 years and we have not come up with anything new. And that of course would be uh simply curiosity. That's what you know been carrying us all along. And if you come from a place of excitement, then it's great to be excited. But if curiosity is what is driving you, it should fall in naturally in place. If you want to make a career, become a million dollar, have followers, there's like a lot of pressure. And but if you start for being curious, want to discover, want to see what's going on, and that's what the growth happens. So, from a spiritual answer, most likely it would be to just nurture your curiosity and uh have fun.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think I love that taking the pressure off of yourself and just having fun with it, going with the flow. For me, it's more about building a network, trying to find like-minded dads and moms, and it sounds like you are a parent, right? From the background bios I was gathering.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, yeah, you say you're your dad. I'd say go with the flow, just to start to have to pick up the wording. Curiosity, cure curiosity, that's an that's a state of mind. We're open when something new and exciting happens, when we're giving ourselves the chance to open up and try out of our comfort zone. That's I wouldn't call it go with the flow. It's just a state of mind where we're just more open than we've been before in our regular life. It's very hard to be every single day of the life super open. That would be like a Buddha kind of a state of situation. But then there comes those great moments, like a new project is going up. And it's almost like if you're I don't know, if you're a hunting man, if you go to the forest and you want to hunt an animal, it's not what we do every day, but we have to look at all the senses, we have to smell, our ears must be awake. We're very much in tune with what's going on because we have to provide for ourselves and our family, and that's this kind of openness that I was referring to, to just be really precise. And yes, I'm a father, a former 12-year-old, and I think I know the drill that the meditation and 12-year-olds hardly ever go together.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, like staying still, being calm, relaxing is not something my kids do well. My my daughter often will phrase or say, I don't know how to sleep when you're like, you do it every night. You know how to relax, you know how to sleep. You just don't feel like you don't still want to. I appreciate you correcting me though. I feel like the openness was more of your response rather than going with the flow on that first question. And yeah, that's that's it for me. I just looking at it as like a journey, it's a fun challenge, it's something that you know I just doing. And so I'm glad I did it. Took a life event and nearing 40 to really like get out there and take the plunge, but I'm glad I did it. I don't want to have regrets when I get to the end of the line here.

SPEAKER_01

The exciting part of doing something new is that it's just unpredictable. We don't know. Is it gonna go well? Is it gonna go horrible? What's gonna happen? And that's it's the stuff you should embrace right now because that's a super beautiful moment. Because once that has passed, you're gonna go with algorithms and CEO and HSEs and all the stuff is gonna come your way. It's just hang on two or three months, and it's gonna be there, and all the fun's gone. So you now have the most beautiful moments of podcasting, and everything that's waiting for you is gonna get a lot more serious, tamering the questions, all that stuff. And it's gonna happen, it's natural how it involves. But right now, you're having fun. And it's the same what they say with the first kid and the second kid. The people who have the first kid, they're all nervous and everything, it's pressures and everybody's freaking

Meditation vs. The Toddler Pasta Meltdown

SPEAKER_01

out. And with the second kit, you maybe can enjoy from time to time. That's the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. That's a great, that's a great, great way to put it. All right, Philip, you've been sitting in meditation for 30 years now. You've mastered internal silence. How does a parent take the profound peace you find on a meditation cushion and actually apply it when a toddler is throwing a bowl of pasta in the kitchen?

SPEAKER_01

Well, that makes me very happy because I'm a passionate cook and my my kitchen is game and make me very happy. The more pasta is flowing, the happier I am. Yeah, we got crazy pictures of me and my daughter making cooking experiments, and it's more than welcome. I love when it's hands-on and I'd be very proud. And a part of what my book is talking is exactly the giving kids the chance to do all of these things, and it's a good thing. But yeah, 30 years of meditation and is it's good, it helps you say master illnesses, but that's not what you really need in this moment when you're a parent because you have a job to do, keeping your kids safe, giving in the stuff you need, and it's a serious job and it's an important job. What I hope meditation can bring me is just to be fully focused at the moment, to be aware, trying to be present at the moment, but you don't need to be a meditation master to do if that's your mission now, if that is your job now, if that's what you want to do to the fullest of the experience, then that's what you will do, and then you will get the feedback. This is about the state of mind that I very much believe there's a time for everything in life, and when we are in college, it's partying or whatever. And when we are fathers, we are fathers, and then when we are pensionists, we're pensionists. I very much believe that there's a time for everything in life, and I always want to do what is my role right now to the fullest and try to enjoy it as much as I can. So I don't know if that's an answer, but that's what I have.

SPEAKER_03

Amen. Yeah, no, I love that. That's awesome. And my next question is in any business, if the co-founders aren't aligned, the system fails, in the home, you often have one parent trying to implement these mindful practices while the other parent puts us in survival mode, which is usually me, honestly, with the dynamic between me and my wife. I'm usually the panicked, exhausted in survival mode. So, how do you prevent resentment between partners? And how do you get buy-in from a spouse who thinks maybe the mindful stuff, mindfulness stuff isn't their stuff?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, doesn't have to be clever like me because I'm Austrian. My wife is from Serbia, so I don't speak Serbian, she doesn't speak German, and our English is so insurance I can't really talk.

SPEAKER_03

That's it. Oh my goodness. How did you all meet

Partner Alignment & The Giant Parenting Mirror

SPEAKER_03

inside? That's so you're from different countries, or did you meet?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely, different countries and different cultures, and so we had to right from the start, we knew that it's gonna be a hell of a ride because her family has expectations how things should be done, and that's alright. And my family and my background has expectations how things should be done, and I do have expectations, and my wife has expectations, so it was clear from the start that this can only work with a tremendous amount of respect, trying to ignore each other as much as we can. But it's a combination of both.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I know I get it. How long have you all been married if you don't mind me asking?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I think it's 15 years or something, right?

SPEAKER_03

Wow, congratulations. That's amazing. Yeah, personally, I've known my wife almost 20 years, so it's yeah, I can relate.

SPEAKER_01

We were young kids at the time, but yeah, it's to be more serious with your question. Uh sorry, to be more serious with your question, I think that uh again, if it stays civilized, those conflicts are good because we have expectations and we come in with our own story and our own values, and if we can express them and if we can form compromise, I think this is a good thing because that's how we also reflect of our we can learn a lot about ourselves when we have those needs or those wishes and we want to project them on the kids. This is happening a lot, and then it's great when your partner comes in and says, Where is this coming from? And this is necessary. So by the end of the day, it's a real huge mirror because you know that the children copying us like crazy, that's what they do all the time, and that's why it's so vitally important that we are in this reflective mode. And I think it's really important as a young parent to look as often as one finds the time in the mirror and says, What the hell am I doing here right now? And just where is this coming from? These needs, these urges. And if one has a good partner, if one is respectful, tries to keep the communication happen and talk things through, then I hope that the worst can be avoided.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, that's beautiful. I love how you put that. Yeah, next question here. So, and I did this last night with my daughter, I'm not proud of it. But so, like when a parent loses their temper and yells, the immediate default is an intense spiral of guilt. I was full disclosure, editing the last podcast episode. She's shaking the bed, she's doing as much as she can to get my attention. But it's late at night, I'm tired of trying to get this done so I can prepare for today's podcast, all that stuff that we have to do. Obviously, I felt horrible after raise your voice a little bit, and I was like, oh, sorry, baby. You're good,

Processing Guilt When You Lose Your Temper

SPEAKER_03

let me give you my attention. But from the question standpoint, from a strict mindfulness perspective, what is the actual psychological or spiritual mechanism to process that guilt so it doesn't ruin the rest of the day? I'm honestly still thinking about it and feeling ashamed of maybe my response. So uh how would you go about kind of processing that whole situation ordeal that's not hanging over my head?

SPEAKER_01

You want the honest answer or the political correct okidoki answer? The honest, always. Are you sure? Yes, you you have a person, you're a person, right? And you felt angry at that moment. Uh, we're trying to protect children. That's our number one. That's what the government wants, and that's where we got all rules and regulation, how to treat children and they're super correct, and I'm 100% behind them because there was way too much violence in the old generation, how they educated kids. So, yes, I I'm 100% behind, but I think we also got a little bit too far, and we have to balance it correctly. But it's very difficult to give this advice I'm going to give right now because so many people are not under control. I think you're controlled, you're reflective, you said you feel guilty, so I guess you're not gonna every day shout, every day beat, and be a violent person. So you can handle my advice, but there are a lot of people out there who cannot. So that's why the politically correct answer would be good. But at the other hand, I honestly think that our kids deserve honesty, and our kids deserve also emotional honesty, and our kids also need to understand that we are beings and that we also have stuff to do, and this needs to be balanced well, of course, but honesty is crucial, and I think, first of all, if you react emotionally or shout a little bit or this or that, it's okay to apologize and say this was not a good behavior, but you need to also stand your ground and said I was here focused, I was concentrated, I needed half an hour to do my thing, and you also need to learn to respect when I have a job to do. I need to have also my time to be focused on doing this. I'm sorry I yelled, but the reason I yelled is because I was focused, you interrupted me, and you gotta stand your ground.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, amen. That's a great answer because it does want to eat up, eat me up inside, honestly. I feel like, oh man, I shouldn't have raised my voice and got, but it's also at the same point, yeah, there are boundaries I feel like we have to establish as the parents, like the wind down time at night, that's my wife and I's time to watch TV or get work done, or you know what I mean, get stuff off our plate before the next day. And so that's very important to keep that sacred and have my daughter actually sleep at night and not be interfering with that because it's hard to make progress, especially with the new podcast and all this stuff going on in my life.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it happens, but you know you can't make plans like this. There's one thing is about emotional honesty, and one thing is wishing to have a downtime, but we didn't have downtime for a really long time because our daughter was super active and she didn't want to sleep. So, what can you do? You have this is not how it works. That's a different thing. One thing is being honest, also emotional, and communicate to the kid that one is now focused on doing a job, and there are also safety reasons concerned when you're in the kitchen working with a knife. The kid must respect that it needs now to give you the minute to work here and do the thing. It's a complicated stuff, but making your schedule and hoping that the kit will fall in place, that's something else, and I think one can hope for it, one can try, but one should be prepared to fail.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yes. I appreciate you correcting me there because I think that, yeah, that's the distinct hope, is that there will be a schedule and and this the kids will comply to that, and that doesn't work. My my kids are four and one, so it's wow, no way. It's yeah, yeah, I'm way off of that hope. Yeah, sometimes, and that's why I started this podcast was like I'm trying to grab tips from experts and I trying to bring it into my own life here. So I appreciate you and bringing over your expertise and letting me know the difference between these misconceptions I have.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of people come home and they are stressed in the job. And I think it would be great if we can come back with a smile and are now full daddy at the press of a button, and we're here and we're doing, and then all of it would be amazing. I'm more worried because I'm a spiritual guy. I wrote a book, Spiritual Parenting. So maybe my take is a little bit different because I care a lot about honesty. And I think it's okay to tell the kids not with four, but when they're like, I don't know, eight, nine, ten, eleven, when they're slowly becoming real what's going on. Say, hey honey, I had a tough day. I need a moment, that's my little routine I need now. I need a couple of minutes, and then I'm there and let's play something, let's do something. And also there, I'm really about honesty. And we and my wife tried to manage that. That are there's a lot of things I like to do with my child. I like to play games, board games, whatever. I love that stuff, but there's like a lot of things I don't like. I don't want to like drawing with her. That's maybe not my thing, as an example, right? So it's also for me okay to tell her, hey daddy draw me. I don't like

Emotional Honesty: You Don't Have to Like Every Activity

SPEAKER_01

drawing, that's not my thing. If you want to play it with a board or whatever, and here, let's build something, great. I'm your guy, but drawing, maybe ask your mother if she's got time. So for me, emotional honesty is important, considering that you have things to spend time with your child, that you have things that you like doing with her, or that you like doing things like I love cooking, so I always invite my daughter to cook with me, and I'm super okay if she says, leave me alone, I'm not in the mood. Okay, she's not in the mood, but the invitation is there, and from time to time she's coming on board, and I enjoy it so much. I'm so happy when she's there, and we love to watch cooking shows together from time to time. For me, it's really important to be honest to her. The stuff I like doing with her, I like doing it, so it's really nice. And the things I don't like, I also tell her, sure, honey, I don't like doing it. And and taking her with me of stuff because my wife and me are both into art, so we are constantly bringing her to museums and art galleries, and she's oh no, not again, the boring painters. We love it, and if you can give us 20 minutes, and I remember when she was like four or five, we were we paid a huge ticket for some crazy exhibition, cost a lot of money, and we got four minutes because that's the time we got. But my wife and I said, No, if even if we pay the money, we love to see art, and if it's four minutes, we're doing it four minutes, and it was anyway so funny because it was Andy Warhol, and that crazy museum decided to put million-dollar pieces on the floor because it was some very progressive exhibition. So, going with a four-year, five-year-old in a museum whether it's Andy Warhol pieces on the floor. We had three security guards behind us walking, they tried to be like discreet, but free security guards cannot be discreet. So it was uh a real fun experience. I felt, I don't know, the president having a secret service team around me going through this exhibition, but it was what you boost that guy. Let's get it. But it's four minutes, it's four minutes, but being honest is I keep repeating it because obviously I'm a spiritual guy, so you know it seems to be important.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love that, and that's a hilarious visual of just because I as a parent, I'd be like, my daughter walks around class, and I'm like, oh gosh, you're gonna break this. And especially when you go over to someone's house and like, uh, you can't break anything. I'm like, Do you know my kid? So in that situation with million-dollar paintings on the floor, I yeah, I would probably request more security people to assist us because yeah, I think that would be a bad thing. But yeah, I love your response about honesty and emotional honesty, and it sounds like just opening at least this is my take. Opening up and being uh honest with your kids, it really uh uh does a lot in terms of just uh showing

Staying Real in an Artificial, Digital Age

SPEAKER_03

them that we are uh humans. We do like you said, we have our own distinct interests and uh dislikes and all that makes us human and uh individuals, and yeah, opening up and being honest with them is just a huge step and something that we all can do with our kids. Philip, the next one is this. Oh, sorry, just age appropriate.

SPEAKER_01

Age appropriate sorry.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, I might not be there yet. No, you're totally right. All right, Philip, the subtitle of your new book, Spiritual Parenting, specifically calls out raising children to stay real in the artificial age. Um my audience is highly systems driven, which means our kids are growing up surrounded by screens, algorithms, and highly curated digital environments. The question how do we oper operate how do we sorry, how do we stay real? You know what I mean? What is the specific framework from the book to help a child maintain their authentic spiritual self? When they are constantly plugged into an artificial system.

SPEAKER_01

I don't have all the answers in the world. I can, and I can only give you my answer, if it's right or wrong, you work on it. But for me, the solution simply is it's like a counterweight. That's a very simple answer I can give you. If I always teach about balance so many, so much of my work and my one-to-one work is about helping people find balance and help people dealing with life energy and how to keep this, keep this flowing in the right way. So my answer is balance it out. And if your kid is having screen time, having all of it, then you need to make sure that they're spending time in the forest or that if you have the possibility, go to local farm and there buy some food and show the kids how it's made. Make sure that you have friends over from time to time and cook a dinner or make a barbecue. Make space for these things, simply more conscious that you might not be done before the digital age, where kids had naturally summer camps and things like this with others. Now basically we have to a bit more address it, I think, be more focused that we say we have to bring the children into the real world, again, age appropriate, is it volunteering, is it camping, whatever it is, it depends where you live and what possibilities you have. But I would wish or recommend that you very clearly sit down with yourself and say, where is here the balance? What can we do to make sure that our children know how to sew a button on the trousers or that they some basic things, some real-world stuff that this is not completely missed. It doesn't sound like a super cool tip, but by the end of the day, that's the best I've got.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I know I appreciate the realness and the authenticity there. I think that's I love it. I love how you don't give me uh political answers. You just go with go with the flow, go with your gut, you know what I mean? The gut instinct, and I appreciate that response. I think a lot of the parenting frustration I have comes from my own ego. When my kid has a meltdown in the store, or my two-year-old or almost two-year-old smacks me in the face or steals my hat and runs off. And that's just like the embarrassing moments, especially when family's over or something like that, or it happens in front of a crowd. So, how does a spiritual practice help a parent detach their own ego from the toddler's chaotic behavior, or even doesn't have to be a toddler in particular?

SPEAKER_01

You're doing it already. You're there because you're thinking and you're reflecting. There's nothing more you can do. That's your job, and you're doing it. You're checking yourself and you're talking with me, and maybe you're talking with your friends and you're expressing your emotions to your wife or to the world and the podcast. So

Detaching Your Ego from Your Kid's Chaos

SPEAKER_01

you're aware of these emotions, you're aware of this, and you also must probably understand that you're leaving imprints because these kind of problems leave imprints within the kid's soul. If you are a very messy, hectic person, you'll be surprised that your kid's room most probably is chaos, and that's okay. It's just simply how this works, and there's nothing you can do about it. And then going into your kid's room and say, No, clean it up. But then kids look at you and say, You're a mess, daddy. So, what you need to is first to look in the mirror and say, Yeah, I'm a mess. My life is over and over, but I don't want to pass this on to my kid. But also, I need to be honest about things. I need to make some changes and some adjustments, and then I can also expect from my child to look at this and say, No, that's not the way. So, again, this reflecting, that's the trick. That's it's that's the spiritual way is always the hardest way because we don't have any ready-made answers. That's always the spiritual is always the most problematic solution because it requires you to look into the mirror, look at yourself, reflect on your behavior, try where it comes from, why is it there, what is the core of these needs that I have, and how can a little bit release them, nobody has to be perfect, but just a little bit release them, reflect on them and try not to push too much of it to my child as possible. But then again, you are a person and your failures has created you as your talents. Both you're not a god, you're a human being, and you are wrong and you're right. And the some of these made you, and it's your kid, and there is basically one should be really more calm and relaxed, and it would help a lot, I say.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I love that. And the example too of my kids' room is a mess, and they look at my room and they see it's a mess too. And so I don't have really have a right to get upset because that's the example upset is I don't put laundry away because it's I honestly that's one of the last chores I run out of time for every week. It's like doing the kids' laundry, putting it away, all that stuff. We do all the other stuff the trash, the cutting the grass, taking care of the pool, all the other chores and all that. But laundry is like the last thing that for some reason I hate and I just can't stand. And yeah, I I can't get mad if my daughter doesn't put her clothes away because she looks at my room and sees three baskets of laundry just sitting around and well, no wonder she's the way she is, and that's okay. Like you said, life is messy, and it's not a huge priority right now, so I'm really not trying to let it eat me up like I would in the past, too. Did you want to do a quick rapid fire? I usually try to end like with five-minute quick kind of questions. Do you have time for that?

SPEAKER_01

Sure, go ahead. Let me see if I know how to do that. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, just whatever kind of runs to your mind.

SPEAKER_01

I just have to make a spiritual joke. After 30 years of meditation, I hope actually nothing is in my mind. You try to play, you try to be empty. That's right.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that's funny. All right, so what is the biggest myth modern parents believe about meditation?

SPEAKER_01

That is relaxing.

SPEAKER_03

It's just relaxing.

Rapid Fire: The Biggest Myth About Meditation

SPEAKER_03

It's more than that, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. It's it's supposed to be a state of awareness. People maybe feel that they are relaxed once they reach a certain amount of realness and awareness. It takes a lot of them, but that's not the purpose. Relaxing is maybe a side effect, maybe a question mark, but actually it's a conscious exercise of clearing yourself, being aware, being present and being part of this moment right now. That's what we want to achieve. It's uh nobody ever tried to relax. That's it's a side effect. It's like when you train the weights because you want to weight something and you want to be strong, most probably gonna lose some weight in the process. But actually, all I care is to be able to get a lot of weight up. So there are side effects, and maybe relaxation or better sleeping or hard thingies, that's all a side effect of meditation. But basically, as a meditation teacher, I couldn't care less if you're relaxed or not.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, wow, that's I love that distinction you made. Because I think that honestly, I'm a little naive to the subject, and so you're really educating me on this, and I think I'm learning a lot on this episode here. What's the absolute worst piece of parenting advice you consistently hear? And sorry if you want to backtrack on what I just said, go ahead, go for it.

SPEAKER_01

Just go ahead, it's your show. First parenting advice, anything connected with being perfect, being a role model, being better than who you are, any of this, it's too much. And you're setting yourself up for failure, emotional failure, heart failure, whatever failure. Just be who you are and maybe a bit better. And that's that'd be my worst parenting advice that people try to overreach.

SPEAKER_03

None

The 60-Second Circuit Breaker for Explosive Anger

SPEAKER_03

that all right. Give me a 60-second circuit breaker. A parent can use the exact moment they feel themselves about to explode.

SPEAKER_01

What they should do in that moment, always what to do to stop exploding. Oh, that's easy. Uh, we have millions of exercises. Their meditation comes in handy. Just when you a little bit press your fist or when you put your toes together on the feet, just whenever you go back into your body is a circuit breaker number one. It's the easiest thing you can do, and it always works, or in the worst case, you can pinch yourself a little bit, nobody will notice, nobody will see, or you press your fingers really hard, all of that stuff. And if you can manage after you've done the impulse, a bit of one deep breathing, you go back, your emotions are under control, and you can look at the situation, and you should anyway never be embarrassed of your child if it makes a tantrum in the supermarket. Who gives a damn? Nobody's life is so busy that

Supermarket Tantrums: Why You Should Never Be Embarrassed

SPEAKER_01

they cannot wait two or three minutes for a small child expressing anger because they didn't get a candy, crying out loud, I want to jump on the floor if I don't get my candy because I'm a bloody diet. Yeah, I understand the kid and 100% on its side. You should get a candy. It's bad for your sugar, but go ahead. So come on, why is anybody so important? Days important, time important. What on earth? Close your eye. I don't know, go shopping somewhere else. Just leave me alone. Let the kid be.

SPEAKER_03

I love that. I love that. Yeah, but I can relate to the diet thing too. It's like, I'd kill for a candy at this point. But it's a certain age, I'm like, it doesn't matter what I eat, I can't I can't eat anything good right at this point. But yeah, totally get it, and I I love that mindset of not caring what other people think. You know what I mean? That's one of the things I got caught up with a lot in my 30s, was like, I'd be too worried what other people thought about me, and now I feel like as I grow, as I get older, it's like you said, who gives a damn? I'm never gonna probably see these people again in my life. Doesn't matter. It's it's the focus is on you and you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01

And the question is why does the kid I'm all about I'm European and I'm all about uh behavior and well-behaved and all of these things, but that's something that needs time, that needs development, and it needs to be grounded. And that moment in the supermarket where kids freak out, it you have to be on the side of your kid. Your kid must know that you have her back at all times. In this moment, the kid is the only thing that matters, and not anybody else around. After she comes down at home, you have to explain her. This is a public space, and this is no, we don't eat in shops, and we don't do that, and this is how we are respectful to others. You don't want somebody shouting in your ear, you don't shout in other people, but that happens a lot later. That happens at home, and this needs to be constantly done. At that moment at the time, kid is angry because it didn't get what it wants, and I'm 100% on her side because I also always want the things I want, and we have to understand it's just unfiltered emotions. That's but over time when they grow, they have to learn to control it, they have to learn to bring it in the correct form. But this needs time and it needs the space. But at that moment in the supermarket, you gotta have her or his back, and you gotta give him the moment to express it, and the world will keep turning no matter what.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, I love that. And it feels like there's a time and place for everything, like you said, in the supermarket, have their back, but at home you can have that talk with them and let them know the expectation going forward in that supermarket. So, what is the single most damaging piece of technology for a child's spiritual development right now?

SPEAKER_01

Simply loneliness. It's the same for us grown-ups, and

The Single Most Damaging Thing for a Child's Development

SPEAKER_01

it's not a and whatever caters this loneliness, as you said, smartphone. Whatever disconnects you from going out there and having friends and being in the backyard and playing with the ball and being helping mom and dad in the kitchen or whatnot, or making some music or dancing, being alone that's that's really dangerous because that's not how we are built. We humans are social beings, and we have to learn as much as possible. We have to listen to no. We have to argue that our friend says, Oh no, you're stupid. No, you're stupid, that's important. And we we cannot think that our ideas are the best ideas in the world. We have to be part of a group where we say, no, let's play soccer, and everybody says, No, we want to play basketball, and you have to say, I want to play soccer. And all of this is super, super important. We need to learn with that stuff as young as technically possible. So your answer is whatever takes the kids' possibility away from being social, that would be to me the most dangerous equipment at that time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I know I love that. And I feel the isolation too. I work remotely, my wife works remotely. I don't I don't interact with anybody at the office for the last eight years. We're in a new place, new city. And so really, and I just lost my dog recently. So it's like the only interaction I have is with my family, my my two kids and my wife. So I get that. I don't have any I don't have any friends either. So it's I think this is also what's what's thrust me into the podcast space is you get to meet interesting people. I get to meet somebody across the country that I would have never met, right, before I've done this. So I think that's maybe the whole premise of why I'm doing this. But I feel like that's important too, because I know that when my kids are using technology, especially my four-year-old, she's very in this daze and she's not interacting with anybody, and she's not she's not playing like uh she would typically. And yeah, that's sometimes a danger I see with technology is it's very isolating. It can be very she sees the kid influencer, so to speak, and she wants to be that. And so she's getting caught up in that whole world of seeing the fancy houses, seeing the fancy cars, seeing all the toys they have, all the birthday parties where their birthday party is like a like a wedding for most people, right? The kind of money that they have. So I think I feel like that's some of the dangers that I'm seeing on my end as well.

SPEAKER_01

There's a horrible thing because money is lovely, everybody wants to have money. Okay, why not? Sure. But you got food on the table, you got clothes on your body, and uh I think having love, having community, having friends over, making a barbecue that's worth a billion dollars because I got a lot of friends who are really filthy rich, and honestly, most of them are lonely all the time. Yeah, they can go all the fancy places and all of it, but they don't have real connection or very little, actually, close to none real connection. They got a lot of paid connection, a lot of people buzzing around them and all of it. But uh that's even more empty. They say, Yes, sir, and good morning, and this and that, but they're paid for doing so. If you stop paying, then they're gone in the second. And that's that's something else. So we are quite obsessed right now with these idols who have a lot of money, and I'm sure it's nice, and I'm I live very comfortable, so no question. But uh but I try to value and develop my friendships and the people around me, and I try to host regularly. For me, telling it, I think it's very important that we haven't forgotten to host and to have people over and to take the effort. And if you look at any school group, you see always two or three parents, no matter if they're moms or dads, who are the ones organizing the parties and organizing the trips and doing the things and taking the effort and bringing people while everybody else is maybe in for the ride or not, and it's just sad that we live in a time where these community activities, this getting together, this sharing stuff, is simply it's a little bit dying out, and it worries me from a spiritual perspective that this community elements are quite under danger right now.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. I yeah, and I experience that too myself. I feel I don't know my neighbors, I don't have barbecues, I don't do the things you had just described, and so I very much would like that in my life. And I I just envy that lifestyle that you have where you're comfortable and you have friends and you have that community, and no, that when you don't have that, it just feels very maybe that's why I do feel very isolated. And so I appreciate you putting that into perspective. As we land the plane here, I just wanted to see if you wanted to do. I know you have a book out, and I just wanted to let you to see if you wanted to let our viewers know where we can find you, where we can get your book, and any other things you wanted to mention while we're still here.

SPEAKER_01

So on my website, you of course find the link to my book. It's about spiritual parenting. The first half

Energy Drain, Community, & Where to Find Philipp Kobald

SPEAKER_01

of the book is where we really look in the mirror together and a little bit see what's going on with us ourselves as parents. And then the second half is really looking at the kids, but very hands-on, very practical advice, not so much philosophy. It's the idea, and we didn't talk so much about what I think helps children develop spirituality. We didn't have time to talk about it, but in a nutshell, I translate the word spirituality with the word curiosity. That's what I figure out. If a kid is curious, if it's an open mind, then it will find its path to spirituality. So, my solution to bringing spirituality to children is not sitting with them and meditating. That's not what I propose. What I propose is bringing it into the world, giving it real-world experience, make developing their curiosity from within. And I hope a curious mind will ultimately ask the questions where we come from, where we're going, is there a God? And then in an age-appropriate time, it will start to seek this information. So that's in a nutshell, what is my book about? But it's a lot of soul searching at the beginning from within us parents, what state of mind we should have to help kids develop this openness and that curiosity. So that's my book, and of course, I do services like Life Energy, where I work with people who feel that they're drowning, that they're energetically drowned, that they're energetically exhausting. And we look at what fills them up, what empties them, and we look at this balance because I've noticed that so many people have an app, how many water they're drinking, what nutritions, vitamins, everything gets measured, but life energy, what goes out, what comes in, people are not aware of it, and it actually is maybe something really important to realize what's going on in one's energetic life, and so I help people rediscover and make their own, find their own path to have an energetically fulfilled life.

SPEAKER_03

Wow, that is awesome. That's almost that's a great line of work, and I'm so stoked that we connected and I'd love to. I feel like we just scratched the surface here. There's so much to talk about that we really didn't get into, and more educating, I think you could do for my viewers, but also myself, because I don't have honestly a great background on your expertise. But I think that's always what makes a good show is like bringing someone in that can open up your own world and your own beliefs. And and I feel enlightened. I hope that people watching this feel enlightened. I just like I said, I hope we connect later down the road. And I'd love to learn a little bit more about your book creating process and kind of what went all into it and all that too, because I think that's super interesting. That's something that I've always wanted to do myself, and I've never got the push to get it over the edge and get that book out in the wild. But that's got to be super exciting time for you to have the new book and to have all those exciting projects going. I checked out the YouTube, you got lots and lots, hundreds of videos there, and some great conversation. So I'm a new subscriber, I'll be following along there too, as well, and just trying to see where you go.

SPEAKER_01

I started a year ago, by the way. A year and two months. So I recorded the episodes in a year and two months.

SPEAKER_03

Wow, that's that is a crazy without the live streaming. Without the live streaming, yeah. That's awesome, man. That's great. That sets the that sets the bar really high, but I I love it. And I've seen all the statistics about 90% of podcasters quit before episode 10. And yeah, you could feel that. So, like your perseverance and your ability to push through that and keep going and produce excellent content, and that's that's awesome. That's an inspiration to especially a new podcast. Anyone doing something new, right? It's like you always suck at the beginning, it doesn't matter what it is, and you just have to push through that feeling of oh, this isn't great, and to get to that consistency space where you feel like, oh, I can do this in my sleep. You know what I mean? It's almost like I'm a runner too, just to kind of give you an aside. And so when I first started running, uh, I couldn't run a mile, you know. And then after a while, it got to the point where it's oh I could do 10 miles without stopping, and but it didn't work, it didn't come overnight, but it came over months and months of consistent training and belief in myself. And so I feel it feels like there's a very there's a correlation there that I can see between anything that you do in the beginning versus how you become like a veteran in it and it comes to be second nature. So, anyways, just wanted to let you know you're an inspiration to me and everyone else out there that in the podcast land that's starting up to try to keep going with it and hopefully we'll be where you're at 14 months later down the road. Are you yeah, 14 months, right? You started at the beginning of 20 2025. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

I'm sure you will, and I I don't feel that poppy these days because I had a really great start and the numbers were like three, four thousand, and it was really good. And now uh YouTube, YouTube since January really hates me, and I have now maybe 20, 30, 50. Views. So from 4,000 to back to 20 views, I'm like, YouTube really don't like me right now. But obviously that's how the game is played. So I don't feel so poppy right now. I wish I would be there where I was back in last October. I had really strong numbers and things are really rock and roll. And I fought I'm the king of the world. And now I feel like I'm the loser of the year. So I guess it's um it's part of podcast. Podcasting that you're up, you're down, and until you really break through the ceiling, you're just having this situation. And I know it's happened to a lot of people, and you might never break through the ceiling, but with spirituality, it's anyway one soul at a time. And if you can afford to do it for fun, and if you're financially comfortable and you can just enjoy having this exactly and I exactly do the same thing like you. I started this because I like to have these conversations. I'm I have a lot of interesting people in my life, but I've met 120 interesting people in a year. You can't beat that. It's so inspirational. I actually starting to have the problem because I have so many great conversations that I need time to process. Because some of these people, I have some real famous people on my podcast as well. I don't know how, but I'm lucky sometimes. And in the spiritual world, famous. And they are so inspiring, and they're saying such crazy things, and you need time to process, you need time to think about it and learn from these people, and that's the great stuff because in spirituality I can learn as much from you as you can learn from me, because you can sit here with the Dalai Lama, and he can learn a ton from you, and you can learn a ton from him. With spirituality, it's about being honest and being authentic, and we all can manage this. We can spend 30 years, like me, sitting and meditating and having groups and centers and whatnot. But if you're honest right now, you know as much as I do, and the other way around.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I love that. And let's do this again. I learned, like I said, I learned a lot about myself and just about spirituality and how it can really help your perspective on things. And so I have another YouTube channel too, just quickly aside. And I've I've been through those highs and lows, and I run my daughter's channel too. She gets she has some videos that get 30,000 views. Oh yeah, you feel like you broke through, and then you there's some views that get like 30, and you're like, what is going on here? So I totally get those highs and lows, but I think that it's just pushing through and remembering why you started doing it, started doing it because you love the community, you love the networking, you love meeting interesting people, you love learning from them. And I think that I'm on the same wavelength as you, where I'm just this is my fourth one, but like everyone is so different, and everyone has so much wealth knowledge to bring back to me and to hopefully make me a better person, better father, better podcaster. So I just appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to seeing myself on your channel. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, thanks, buddy. I appreciate you, and we'll talk soon. Okay, you take care. Thanks again for your time.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you. All right.