Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - Growth Through Challenges (Zoom)

so the topic tonight is growth through challenges and the topics that I enjoy speaking about it because it's something that I try to try to live by these ideas that I'm going to speak about now and obviously there's a lot that we can discuss about this but I'm going to try to tackle this subject from a few different few different angles that can be seen well yes we see well I'm just gonna put everybody on mute um and then you could just unmute yourself okay everyone's a mute if you could unmute yourself okay so I like to I like to start by I like to start by mentioning a short little video that Rabbi Avril torski very famous psychologist psychiatrist dr. Rabbi Abraham twisty posted on the internet a few years ago and the entire video is 90 seconds long and you can find it if you look on YouTube right now hour afterwards you can find this video and the concept upon you the name of the video the concept behind this this video was adversity let me just look at the exact title that he used her it grew up through University basically the same title of our lecture today and Robert whisky makes a very interesting observation and he says that if we look at the way a lobster grows we can learn a lot about how we as human beings can grow and it's interesting a lobster is very soft but it has a hard shell around it and the hard shell of the lobster one could ask how does the lobster grow if it has a hard shell what allows the lobster to grow and as iris-t points out the the lobster as it grows gets very uncomfortable in its own skin and underneath this show and in a certain point it pushes off the show and at that point it grows and an additional shell comes comes out of the lobster and then the lobster continues to grow become more comfortable under its shell push off the shell and continues to grow and makes interesting observation he says that if the lobster would have chosen to take a valium maybe even to go to some therapist and not actually tackle the issues or put it this way not actually allowed himself to continue to grow they never would have pushed off the outer shell and the the concept behind this is is that for a person to really grow and this is this little video went viral and hundreds of thousands of people saw it and literally like went viral all over the Internet because there is there's there's a strong message there's a strong message behind this and that is that for a person to really grow they have to be willing to be somewhat uncomfortable and I'm gonna discuss this one look like I said from a few different angles I like to start by mentioning a very interesting idea that I heard from my father tonight's topic was advertised as geared for married couples if someone's on this call was not married I'm sure they'll benefit well I'm going to use some practical applications to marriage because I know specifically during this time a lot of couples are struggling with different aspects of what the corne theme of being in in the same space as if spouse for such a long period of time and other different challenges that came about specifically during this this period of the the pandemic so I'm going to just I'm gonna apply certain aspects specifically to marriage but a lot of them are talk about applies to order to every person every situation or many situations so my father in many of his classes on the base from the settlers had talks about these ideas and he's really part of the inspiration for what I'm speaking about today and I asked him a short time ago I said how would you how would you define growth through challenges so he said something very beautiful and he said that in essence the human being is very much like that lobster the human being is in soap we are infinity we have literally unlimited potential and are unlimited what we can do and then there's we're living in the world of struggles we're living in the world of of limitation and these two things in a certain sense every time a person has a challenge it's there aints off hitting the sofa it's the Infinity hitting the limitations and when we hit that limitation when we get to that point where we hit the limitation we feel what we feel stuck we feel stuck and if you think about it you know let's say a person is challenged by by a family member causing them to feel impatient or they've become impatient around certain family members or a job that they're in or different situations that they have that are challenging them in essence he was putting it I think it's a very beautiful way to look at it is there's an insult that there's an infinity that being stop against a sense of limitation and there's a beautiful example this Thomas uses to describe this we know that it's it's us according to the Torah the only garment that really has to have scissors is the four-cornered garment which today we really don't work for corner garments except to have the mid services and at the corner of the tits Asst we are supposed to put the strings the white strings and the blue strings now recently in the last 50 years many many scientists and raava is believed that we found the original blue string sailors that comes from a snail and is the very strong evidence to it I I wear the the blue that comes from the snail and the way that the famous is supposed to be is that you have the and then you have the white and why is it why is it I apologize with that I think something went wrong but I think we're okay now can everyone hear me can you guys hear me somebody just turn on your screen and put your thumb up so I can know that you can hear me okay thank you sorry about that so the the the trailer the blue the blue string is to sit so the matrix tells us that why does a person it tells us that the blue is supposed to remind us of the ocean which reminds us of the key suhaka vote the the the seat that God sits on and basically the blue is supposed to connect us straight to the shaman straight to heaven so the star 7000 spent on the before corner garment at that point what does that symbolize it symbolizes a place in your life where you feel limited a place in your life you feel stuck you feel like I can't go anywhere I'm stuck I'm at a corner and exactly at that point you have the blue string that reminds us of the insult that reminds us of the infinity that lives inside of all of us and the unbelievable potential that each one each and every one of us have so one aspect of looking at challenges is this idea of the aim stove and the stove of the limitations and the and the and I'm really at a very deep level are almost unlimited potential I'd like to talk a little bit about some practical ideas about this and one of the ideas I like to share with you is a very very interesting study that I saw a recently we're the the very large study of hundreds of thousands of people trying to find the people who have them where they would consider every aspect of success they have financial success they have physical success emotional success they're happy they're like the people that have it all not only are they financially well-off they're physically healthy and they're is emotionally healthy in their they have a purpose in life and everything seems to be right and they tried to find that common denominator of those people what is unique about those people that seem to have it all and the only thing that they found that was common denominator of all those people was there every one of them had gone through a significant challenge in their life I have every single one of them are going through a challenge and when we talk about goofy challenges a lot of it has to do with this this this concept so in essence we often look at our challenges as as a necessary evil we look at our challenge as I wish I didn't have to have this problem I wish I didn't have to go through this difficulty partially this has to do with our society's perspective that we look for quick fixes we look for solutions that we believe oh this is gonna solve all the problems I don't want to get into politics right now but if you look at what's happening with the riots and the whole approach that the media and the society is taking to these real issues it's quick fix solutions to very very significant and real issues and we tend to look at our challenges as being I wish I could live a life without any challenges at all this there's a very interesting author Malcolm Gladwell wrote very interesting books about psychology and business and very interesting I highly recommend his books and in one of his books he discusses a certain boy who grew up it was dyslexic he had a very hard time reading and this boy somehow found himself in and in on Wall Street he went to Wall Street he was a it was barely like it was like maybe 20 years old he went to Wall Street and he he basically found out found a way to hitch a ride to the airport with a high-level person in I believe in goldman sachs and somehow through that car ride he convinced the person to give him a start give him a try in his his company invest in investing and this this person became Gary Cohen who is the CEO of Goldman Sachs and interestingly enough in the studies a Malcolm Gladwell did a huge proportion of people with dyslexia become very highly successful in life much higher than random the amount of people you would think even if those people did not have any enemy cat people with dyslexia have a considerably higher chance of becoming very successful in life and again you would think if you're growing up with dyslexia and even until today Gary Cohen I think as a vet what I've read is a very hard time reading till today but he managed to become very very successful what he does not just in spite of his challenges but I would say through his challenges through his challenges he managed to become what he what he became there's there's a there's an idea that I show it couples when I give my relationship class before marriage and one of the concepts I share is an idea that I call marriage is not supposed to be comfortable but it's supposed to be very pleasurable and understanding the difference between comfort and pleasure and this is a very very important thing today in our society because we live in a society that it's extremely comfort driven we are constantly looking for comfort we want things to be as easy as possible we want technology to make a life as easy as possible the goal is to exert as little effort as possible and we live in very very comfort driven society but the reality is is that as human beings we're created we're we're not comfort things we're pleasure beings now pleasure doesn't just mean a physical pleasure pleasure also means much higher levels of pleasure that a person you know a person can have pleasure by accomplishing something that making any difference to the world by bringing a smile to someone's face all of these things can give a person tremendous amounts of pleasure but we as a human being we are given so you have a pleasure not driven to live in comfort when we're comfortable we actually feel depressed we actually feel down a certain level of comfort is not bad but when a person is when a person is driven to live just in comfort they do not necessarily feel happy at all and one of the things I share in my marriage class is the idea that marriage is not supposed to be comfortable but is supposed to be very pleasurable and we have to switch those ideas in our brain we have to change our mindset from being a comfort driven mindset to a pleasure purpose driven mindset the Gemara tells us if the person makes one bushel of wheat from their own field it's more valuable to them than 10 bushels that someone gives you as a gift where is the pleasure that you get from making something from you on your own but it seems that there is a pleasure there there's a pleasure when a person accomplishes something there's a pleasure when you get a degree you see that degree on the wall and you know how hard it was to go through that when when you see a child who you put so much effort into bringing up living a certain way there's a tremendous almost unlimited amount of pleasure that you get from that but that's not comfortable nobody would argue that bringing up a child is comfortable but it can be very pleasurable I often quote the Atlantic magazine study that they did where they asked people who is happier those with children or those without children those with a loved one that they have to take care of a mother or father who have to take care or those who don't have an elderly loved one that they have to take care and across the board those without children and those are the outer level to take care of were happier but when they ask the question differently and they said who has a lasting sense of happiness not a superficial I'm happy I'm I'm free I could do whatever I want but who has a real deeper sense of happiness then it switched entire the other way and those who have to love want to take care of those who work we're actually in a position where where they they have to exert a lot of effort had a much more lasting and meaningful real deep happiness you know we have our America was built on the concept of of happiness but the problem with this happiness is that very often the happiness is a very superficial kind of happiness not a deep meaningful purposeful happiness still another study just very very interesting study that they've done Sean Archer and others have done this study where they asked people who won the lottery two years after winning the lottery were they happier than the ones who didn't win the lottery and talking about a significant lottery and statistically they were not happier it was the same some we're happy or somewhere less happy but they were the same level of happiness as those who did not win the lottery that may not come as such a surprise to everyone because we all know that winning the lottery is not necessarily a solution to our to you know a lot of a lot of problems can come from that but interestingly enough they did a study with people who became god forbid paraplegics who lost the ability to use the lower half of their body and the same results were found that two years later those initially there was a tremendous drop-off and their happiness but two years later their happiness level was the same as those the ones who do not become a paraplegic that means just picture this for a moment because it's hard for me to wrap my head around this that means they lost their ability probably to drive they lost the ability to walk their most ability play sports they lost their ability to walk do ninety percent of the actions that they were able to do before and yet their happiness level is the same on average as it was before and the only reason that this is the case that I can believe the only reason is because before they weren't truly happy before they were happy because of this because something happened because something came their way because of something that wasn't real and now it caused them to see what is my real happiness this is very very interesting memoir of Christopher Reeves when he talks about his life after he became a quadriplegic and he had everything he had in the money that looks the anything that a person can imagine the same and and and then he became a quadriplegic he lost his entire ability to use his body except he could speak with a voice machine and he could use one finger and he writes and his memory that initially he didn't want to live at all and then as many of you know he became a spokesman for people with quadriplegic with spinal injuries and at the end of his life he very famously said that if I had a choice to have this not happen to me I would not have taken that choice I'm gonna let that sink in for a minute because again every time I say this I just I still can't fully believe that this is the case but he said if I had a choice of this not happening to me I would not have taken that choice because he said I thought I knew who I was I thought I knew my value I thought I knew who I was but then when that all was pulled away from me I realized what my true value is and going back to this the discussion about growth growth and happiness so when we talk about comfort right so so this in this class I give it about marriage I say marriage is not supposed to be comfortable but it's supposed to be very pleasurable so if a person is looking for comfort marriage is not a very good place to go to why because you're going to have a conference going to be issues is going to be disagreements there's going to be different things that will come up over time in a relationship however if a person is looking to grow and to become a greater person through their life experiences that marriage is an unbelievable opportunity for growth right one of the things that I teach as well is that marriage is supposed to be about growth life is supposed to be about growth the reason why the Torah put such an emphasis on us getting married is not just so we should have children that's obviously important part of it but is because you're supposed to grow as people and when you bring another person into your life you expand yourself to allow another person to come into your life you have grown and it challenges you to constantly grow when you children it challenges you to grow it challenges you to become a greater and better person Kabbalistic they say the reason why you have to be married nine months before you can have a child is because you need nine months of marriage to become less selfish to bring a child into the world that'll make you even less selfish and then when that child starts talking back to you you'll become a little bit less selfish as you hopefully grow from your other experiences and how to deal with the child and how to deal with all of this children and spouses have a way of getting under our skin that other people cannot because then they understand us they know us you know they think they know we were about but sometimes that that's hard to hear if we have a mindset that we're in this world to grow that our purpose in this world is to grow it unbelievably changes every aspect of who we are in life and definitely in marriage in a recent class that I gave I spoke about a very interesting book that my son introduced me to called mindset by Carol Dweck and in this book mindset car was what it talks about two different ways of thinking and fixed mindset we're looking at the world and a growth mindset way of looking at the world and many people probably fit somewhere in the middle or in some areas they're fixed in some way or group this book has taken education by storm business by storm and it actually is now being used in relationship guidance and marriage counseling as well what is the concept the concept is are some people everything has to fit within a framework of their perspective this is a fixed perspective a growth perspective is I can grow I can expand I can become something different than the way I was before Judaism very much emphasizes a growth perspective if a person has a growth perspective it changes so many things one of the studies calls what it talks about it is a lower-income school in in the urban school in California where the students were were literally way below grade average and this principal came in with this growth oriented mindset and had third graders reading Shakespeare people that it didn't make any sense that they were able to do the math that they were doing we're doing extremely extremely well because she took a growth-oriented perspective to their studies and to their education when people get married they have a perspective and this often this can be given to us by Hollywood this can be given to us by the comfort driven society we live in and the perspective is my spouse is supposed to do X marriage is supposed to look like this we are supposed to do this this is how it's supposed to look and if it doesn't look like that something's wrong sometimes it's because that's what they saw with their parents marriage and they expect their marriage to be the same to be many different reasons why we have these ideas but these fixed mindset ideas cause a tremendous amount of stress to our relationships and if we can switch to a growth-oriented perspective to marriage and how the perspective I was going to read with you you read you a few lines here often people have a perspective you deserve to be with somebody who make me so happy so and this is this is actually a recently someone showed me this on social media of post that that said the following you deserve to be with somebody who makes you happy somebody who doesn't complicate your life somebody who won't hurt you like this is a right okay I'm gonna repeat that you deserve to be with somebody who makes you happy someone who doesn't complicate your life and somebody who won't hurt you now this kind of quote this kind of quote is so damaging to our relationships so damaging because the quote basically the message the idea behind it what's the message the message is that I should expect everything to be just so and if it isn't just so something's wrong something's wrong with this relationship something's wrong over here right a much healthier perspective that one can and should take is to look at life not as not from a fixed perspective but from me from a growth perspective of what about the situation can challenge me to grow as a person to become a more patient person a kind of person a better person I believe that the Torah wants us to be growth oriented and I believe that you know I will often ask my students I say what's more important your actions or your beliefs it's a bit of a trick question because we know that you need you need to have beliefs for your actions to have meaning but I believe that your actions are more important than your beliefs because your actions actually define you the way you live your life changes who you are as a person when you do acts of kindness you become a kind of person when you act more patiently you become a more patient person and this type of growth mindset this type of growth mindset makes is very very very big difference when a person is in the challenging situation when a person's in a situation and this quarantine was extremely challenging for so many people I think for everyone was challenging but for some people was more challenging than for us but when a person is in a situation where they're challenged there you know there used to be their spouse was going to work every day and now the spouse is home with them all the time and they don't have space for each other and they're feeling like they're claustrophobic and in that space or they're feeling frustrated by um no not understood etc whatever it is that's bothering them there is an opportunity there's an opportunity to go outside of yourself and to grow and to build your character in a way that if you were not under that challenge you wouldn't have the opportunity to do now I know this sounds good and this sounds nice but what I'm suggesting is that if a person really really takes this perspective and this mindset it literally is a it's a game changer in how and how they live their life and how their marriage plays out and how every aspect of their life plays out I wouldn't shoot this from a personal personal experience I believe that this growth oriented mindset he's like a muscle okay we had a charity event at MF a few weeks ago and the big thank you to everyone who participated and even just anyone was part of it in any way during that we had a live production going on which I really hope to continue was really amazing production big shout out to Keiko media for organizing that and helping us with that and during that production one of my close students friends and partners in Emmett Alex Bob Muhammad spoke last night of the campaign and he said something which I've said this but the way he said it I couldn't say it better and he said that giving is a muscle and just like you if you don't experience if you don't build up your muscles you will not have muscles and then when somebody says to you can you pick up this 20-pound bag you'll say you know I can't pick up the 20-pound bag it's too heavy and a person who does not experience what giving can do they literally not able to give it's not that they don't want to give they can't give because they don't have the muscles and I think it's such a beautiful way of looking at giving which is so much a part of growth and so much a part of marriage is about giving but I think the same thing is very true in the growth in every aspect of our growth if we look at growing if we look at challenges as opportunities to grow from a perspective of like it's again as a muscle if you look at a challenge and you you're able to train yourself as a challenge comes up and set and say to yourself oh my gosh there's another opportunity here this is opportunity for me to grow there's an opportunity for me to become a greater person and this is not something that happens easily there's not something that you just like slap er you know a switch and you become growth oriented or you become have this perspective but I believe the perspective to look at Chou as growth opportunities which unfortunately is still against modern society so against what what unfortunately our culture in our society has become which is the quick fix just shut your brain off just do this don't think just do whatever know little as little effort as possible but if a person can train themselves that when there's a challenge whether it's between them and their spouse see them and their children them and their boss them in themselves if they get through a situation like where they feel depressed they feel down they feel anxious and able to look into themself and say you know what how can I grow from this challenge how can I grow from this experience if we take that mindset it's a game changer in how we can become better people and literally every problem we face in life becomes an opportunity to grow an opportunity to make ourselves and the world around us a better place and I think that if we if we can try to take this perspective it really it really changes it changes a tremendous amount of and and it's it's literally a game-changer I like to just share a few a few other ideas and then if people have questions I can open it to questions one of the tools are so to speak of one of the approaches to having to grow through your challenges to be able to grow to your challenges is to be clear about what your purpose is okay to be clear about what is your purpose what am I doing this for because very often in life we don't have that so clear we don't really know so clearly why am i doing what I'm doing I'm just going through the motions because everyone goes through the motions and I'm just doing my thing and going there and I don't really have a purpose I'm not really living with a clear vision of my purpose and if a person has that it's much much harder to deal with challenges if you don't have clarity about your purpose if you have those clad clarity and you have a clear first mission goals you're much more motivated to get there and to feel successful and to be able to overcome you the challenges in going and getting to that point if we think about it for for a moment right what is the point of marriage right what is the point what is the point of a person of a person getting married and again if a person has a mindset of I deserve this I need this and all those those type of things and it's going to make it much much more much much more difficult but if they have a mindset of I want to grow I want to build I want to expand beyond myself it will it will change it will change it will change the dynamic tremendously another thing I would just add as well turning often in life when something is going wrong we tend to take out our stress on other people and when we do that it tends to escalate and the situation gets worse one of the important things to try to do in a stressful situation is to look into yourself remain open positive problem-solving state and very often when you have that perspective the answers will flow to you and you'll realize that so much of what you are able to do is already in your control you know we get very frustrated when we feel lack of control but when we realize that very often we do have the control and the control really isn't how we react to a situation one of the things that often manages the compost it's interesting in life we don't really have an ability to see our own face right we see someone else's face we don't see our own face so very often in life what happens let's say you're upset about something you may not even realize that you're upset you come home from work your wife or your spouse sees that you're upset and your spouse was actually in a good mood your spouse is sort of mirroring with you and the spouse gets a little bit down and then you're like why you down and you actually blamed the person for responding to what you actually brought to the table you're the one who was down to begin with and you blame the other person for remembering that back and you you know there's there's a there's a tendency very often to to overreact to situations to you know I often tell people that most people live their life either under reacting or overreacting but really actually reacting appropriately right and if we're constantly in those overreaction or under reaction type of situation we're setting yourself up not for not to have that sense of growth and sense of control and sense of perspective like that so just to sort of summarize everything that yeah we've been talking about a person should strive to have a growth-oriented perspective to see themselves as as not a fixed object but actually as someone who can grow you know the the the hebrew word for man is a dumb what why is man called a gum because Kabbalistic allah we say that man and have one thing in common they're both they both have potential the definition of man of a human being is potential when when when are dumb where the first man was created the Midrash tells us that that the Angels thought they were saying God himself angels literally thought they were seeing God because just like God has unlimited potential we have almost unlimited potential unlike the Angels that don't have unlimited potential when when Hashem creates man it says that he created man in His image and what's the only thing we know about her scheme' at the point of gracious when he creates man there's only one thing we know about our stuff we don't know that he's compassionate and kind and we don't know those things we only know one thing what's the only thing we know about a show we know that our son is a creator and if he's a creator and created us in His image that means that we are creators our definition our essence is we our Creator and how do we create we create to our actions which create to our challenges we created when we get to a situation and we feel stuck like the corner of that garment we feel stuck and we like the lobster push off that thing that holds us back and allow ourselves to grow allow selves to become greater than we thought was even possible and if we have this perspective this growth oriented perspective literally the biggest challenge has become the biggest blessings and you know one of the things that I'm sure many of you on this on this call or would be watching this recording later will probably appreciate is that during this quarantine during this pandemic we were challenged in so many different ways but I really believe that if you have a growth-oriented perspective you're able to see the blessings even in the limitations you're able to see how we were pushed spend more time with our family members we were pushed to connect with ourselves in a deeper way than we were otherwise things that we just took for granted like we have to have fuse weddings and all these things are now being questioned maybe we don't need those things maybe they're not that important what what's really important you know I'm getting phone calls left and right from people calling me and telling me rabbi I want to start keeping Shabbos now just out of the blue I want to start keeping choppers I want to put my kids in yeshiva I want to live a more meaningful purposeful life people calling me and all of our staff at Emmet many you know a whole group of students from st. John's University right in the beginning of the pandemic as a group they decided we want to keep shopping stronger than we did before many that one keeping Chaves at all and they said we want to start keeping shadows now because they realized which is a true testament to who they are they realize like what's really important what's really meaningful to to our lives and how do we not going through those challenges I don't think we'd necessarily be able to we be able to appreciate it and and I really believe that our mission our job in this world is to grow our job is to grow every moment that were alive we're supposed to be growing and and every moment we're alive we we have to be in a state of growth if we're not growing we're dying there's only two options and to grow to grow very often it doesn't fit with the mindset that we thought it had to be to grow is to take the challenges that were faced in front of us to take the opportunity and look at them as opportunities and to use them as ways to grow to become stronger to use them as ways to build our muscles to build to build like the lobster to break screw and that limitation that we had before and rise up to a different level of growth that we may not have never even thought was possible rapid shaper very often quotes the the the famous example of the of the four-minute right everyone thought that it was impossible to run horn many mile to a book written by you cannot really form in a mile and then mid-1950s the first runner ran a four-minute mile and then the last half of that year another 40 people ran a four-minute mile and now it's an expectation that a good runner runs a minute mile but we put that limitation on ourselves because people thought they couldn't do it and therefore they couldn't do it and this is just one small example of the limitations that we use very very often that we very often put on ourselves sometimes it's because of our childhood environments at home sometimes it's because of the schools we went to that somebody never taught us that we can believe in ourselves whatever it is that's holding a person back if we can put into our mind we have so much so much potential and therefore the challenges we face are the learning opportunities the growth opportunities to build our character to build build our ourselves to do the to strengthen our core it's an unbelievable game changer that literally there is literally nothing that can come your way that cannot help you grow some somebody asked a question I'm going to address the question if I can open it hold on a second sorry about that [Music] the spread of the question although technically difficulties here okay some reason I'm not I don't seem to be able to see the questions being though the questions that he asked me privately okay here they are okay how do you suggest the handle a situation where you feel like you're the only spouse working and I'm your son yourself you know this is a very common question that that people ask me how do you deal with the situation where you feel that you're the only one who's working at who's who's working I'm gonna just say the other question as well a person said my [Music] question is in general not necessarily related to a spouse what is it that one can say to oneself during an anger or anxiety attack like what if you get so angry to the point that you know you should tell yourself to calm down and you go over all the lecture in your head when you listen to and do the breathing and you know what's wrong but you just can't hold the anger back and anger becomes anxiety and you're drowning in this what do you do okay so okay so basically I'm gonna answer the first question first yeah I'm answer the first question first so what do you feel you're the only person who's working on the relationship this is a question that I've been asked many many many many times and I'll tell you how I feel the right answers first and foremost you may think that you're the only person working on the situation but you may actually be wrong because the other person might be working on any more than you are it's just in the area that they're working on it those things are easy for you okay and I cannot underestimate this enough okay we see things from our perspective so for you it's easy to be patient and your spouse it's difficult for them to be patient or for you it's easy to communicate and your spouse it's hard for them to communicate you're going to look at communication as an easy thing and the fact that they're not communicating means that they don't care but the truth is you're a very different person than they are and I would just say to that person who asked the question he's very very careful in this area because again we tend to look at things from our perspective and very often we get frustrated because we feel our spouse doesn't care because if they care they do things the way we do things but the problem with that logic is is that you didn't marry yourself if you married yourself hey then that would make sense but you married a different person who has different challenges than you and what's easy for you may be hard for them what's hard for you may be easy for them so just keep that in mind and try to remember that and give them the benefit of the doubt and if you realize this again there are some situations where one spouse just doesn't care maybe they gave up on the relationship maybe there are other reasons they don't care it's very it's possible but be keep in mind that there definitely are situations I know many many many of them like this we assumed that we knew what it was for the other person but we didn't have a clue how hard it is that other person like a given example situation I was involved with recently a woman grew up in a house where there was tremendous amount of negativity in that house tremendous tremendous amount of negativity so she went into her her marriage with a lot a lot of negativity and seeing things as like you know the world's against me and seeing things with a bad eye and all distended like an eye in Ryan all these stupid things and even though her husband actually I can say this as a fact did so much for her in her mind she really saw the negatives just stood out of so much and a certain amount of paranoia that she had and she saw him very negatively which obviously hurt the relationship a lot but this particular person went through a lot effort to work on seeing things positive with the positive thinking classes and a lot of different things now this person still has a long way to go but I think what that spouse needs to know and I want to try to share with the husband the particular case is that you may not realize that for we really your spouse went from before to where they are now there was a tremendous tremendous tremendous change tremendous tremendous change so this is very important to keep in mind I'll just share with you a brief little sort of humorous account of this type of situation my wife and I taught at an ekala many years ago very special couple was still very much in touch with them and the I was only with the guy my wife Annie was running with the wife and with the fiance and about three weeks before the wedding the the the fiance mention to my wife and she says no my husband I said I love you too Mia and she said I know he loves me but he never said the words I love you and we my wife told me this sorry I made up the speech to the guy about it you know I mentioned to the guy I just said something like you know who brought you your fiance flowers and he's like just to understand a little bit about this guy very nice person not so communicative not so emotionally expressive works in a high level position you know in a firm in Manhattan like in a actuary accounting firm and he so he said no is it important to buy him flowers I'm like yeah it's important and then he's like asking do you give her a card he's like no I never gave her a card is that important so it was Thursday night I said to him I said tomorrow before Shabbat I want you to buy him flowers and give her a card I'm gonna follow up with you Saturday night to make sure that Saturday night I called him and I said you do buy her flowers he doesn't know we went to the florist and the florist to finalize arranging for the for the wedding the florist gave her flowers so he was like okay I'm up there I'm off the hook cuz and I said you give her a card and he's like no so I got a little deeper and I asked him I said did she give you a card he's like a card she wrote me a book she wrote him a 29 page letter of all the different things that she loves about him and all the dreams that they have together and I realized that he feels whatever he gives her is nothing compared to what she gives him and this communicate education side and therefore he doesn't even try because he feels like I can't do anything compared to what I showed him was is that because she knows that his heart freedom even if you make a small amount of effort in this regard it's gonna feel like gold to her and this is because she knew that this was a this was a challenge for him but I do think it's very important to keep this in mind and to be conscious of what is maybe it's easy for us could be a challenge for our spouse I'm just going to the other question for a minute so the question was if they let me just find the question in person if the person has if a person has anxiety I'm having a hard time finding B I'm sorry I'm using a device that I don't usually use to my son's Kindle and beautiful okay so so if a person if a person is angry if you get so angry to the point that you should know that you that you know that you should tell yourself to calm down and you go over all the lights in your head and do the breathing and you know it's wrong but you just can't hold this anger back and anger becomes anxiety and you're drowning in this what do you do is there anything to do at this point to stop yourself from losing yourself into a spiral of anxiety anger and frustration so there's obviously a lot a lot to this to this question I would suggest that this person could probably benefit from seeing from seeing a therapist but I would just I'll just say the the following very often if a person finds himself with this type of anger anxiety like just swallowed up in like an emotional mess the the issue is that the they're allowing themselves or they've allowed themselves to live in this type of stress for way too long we can very often get used to a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety and unhealthy behavior and we don't even notice that it's a problem because we're so used to it we just understandably expect it and potentially and I don't know this whole burden this person's situation but potentially the solution may lie like I said in going to therapy but you're not going to therapy you may lie and becoming a common person one of the things I strongly suggest is doing like aerobic exercise walking at like you know 45 minutes a day very fast walking different things like this that comic written down put them more in perspective the person says that they're doing deep breathing but are they doing deep breathing when they already stressed out when they're already anxious the person is already in a state of a panic attack and they start doing deep breathing they are pretty late to do it but if they can train themselves to calm the reading down one of the benefits of aerobic exercise is that your your resting heart rate can go pretty low and when your resting heart rate is low that actually calms you down that comes your heart it comes you down tremendously and you're breathing so one of the suggestions I would have is trying to make changes in your daily pattern of your life like for example waking up a half hour earlier than you normally do and spending that half hour with positive visualizations about your life with the printer with with you know making sure you drink enough water all these type of things starting off your day even if you're tired even went to see the 2:00 in the morning wake up earlier so you can get your day off to a better start see things in a healthier or positive direction and sometimes that can help from getting into the very stressful situation okay and another another question over here is okay what if you don't have the will or correct tools to grow through your challenges what if you don't have the will or correct tools to grow through your challenges so my answer to that person's question is just the fact that you recognize that you don't have the will or the tools your 80% ahead of the game or maybe 90% ahead of the game the the biggest issue is very often in life is not realizing that you that you even have a problem so if you realize that you have a problem like I said you're way ahead of the game you may need a coach we need Ruta like a study partner somebody to like push you to motivate you and I think something else that I think is really really crucial in life the reason why I'm speaking for myself I throw screws for many others the reason why we don't grow is because we set the bar too high were too much of a perfectionist we expect too much from ourselves and from our spouse because our spouse is so close to us so we expected from our spouse we expect so much from each other that because we have such high expectations we don't allow ourselves to make that little next step of growth the little bit of growth I was just talking to Robert Kraft my co-director at Emmitt about this he said that the shoes that he heard from the panoply boards exactly about this idea that the most important aspect of growth is that a little bit outside of our comfort zone a little bit that pushes us to do a little bit beyond and I think that this is a very very crucial point when we talks about when we talk about growth that growth is not comparing yourself to another person not comparing yourself to what you used to do when you're a teenager not comparing yourself to your parents or if anyone else is comparing yourself to your own self and swall tangible areas of growth are extremely extremely important they're extremely important in a relationship because like I said before in a relationship our spouse wants to see that we care more than anything else like in our relationship with Hashem Hashem wants to know that we care our spouse wants to know that we care we say in the Shabbat the full lubob the hormone with Fr but they have to start with LaBeouf's if we don't show that we care the most expensive diamond is most expensive jewels will not mean anything because we don't care so if you show that you care and sometimes to show that you care especially if your hopefully living with a not very materialistic person even a small tiny amount of of caring will show your spouse that you care so this is a very important thing to keep in mind as well that growth that it could be just answering that person's question it could be you setting the expectations too high and you have to spend much more realistic and smaller roles and growth expectations and secondly to keep in mind that your spouse and others around you will probably appreciate your growth more than we do our self we can be most critical of ourselves you know there's psychologists that are shown that if you take the self-talk that a person says to themselves on a given day that another person would say that we can put them in jail or for emotional and abuse we can literally if you think about the negative self-talk that we often give to ourselves so very important to keep that in mind as well as far as to your spouse they can very often really appreciate even your small levels of growth more than we appreciated our stuff there was another question here let me show you get this out again hold on a second screaming okay got it so okay this person asked the question my husband is very hard-working works very hard in his job but isn't motivated to do things at home he wants to relax and watch TV after work how am I supposed to be okay with this I want - Davin learn get out exercise be present at home and with the kids and basically she's saying that he worked hard in his job she appreciates that but even motivated things at home he just wants to relax and watch TV after work how am I supposed to be okay with this I want him to learn and grow etc but my answer to that question is twofold first of all it's very possible that the spouse the wife in this particular case is not giving her husband enough space okay and it is not a place to talk about this topic right now but one of the most important things I talk about this almost at nauseam is in a healthy relationship we have to give each other space we have to make space for the individual and one of the things challenges during the quarantine was that space was much more limited but we need to give space for each other one of the reasons why it's usually not a good idea to work with your spouse on the same business is because they're not giving each other space to be your own people your own person there's there's it could be that this spouse this wife needs to allow her husband they have a certain amount of time where he knows that's my space for an hour I don't know after the kids go to sleep he has an hour to do whatever he wants just to let off the steam for the day and and give him more space that's number one it could be that he's not getting enough space however it also could be that for whatever reason he's not so motivated to make changes in his life to be a healthier person more active more physically active more with the kids exception all these things this is an extremely challenging situation because as a spouse it's very very hard to try to get your spouse to make these type of changes usually it causes a lot of resentment and negativity when you even bring up these topics to your spouse I don't have a clear simple solution my only suggestion I would say is first of all try to do those things yourself don't worry about your spouse trying to do those things yourself and healthy growth is contagious when one spouse sees other person being healthier it tends to make them want to be healthier also that's number one number two we want to stick with the light some people call it the five to one the ten to one the four to one positive to negative comments so if you find your spouse doing something that you do feel is good make sure you mention that a lot and that definitely will encourage the person to do other things that are healthy as well we have a few other questions over here how can I resolve issues with my husband if we disagree on many aspects what what should I be working on to grow so it's a very broad question maybe I just asked the person who asked that question to to re reframe the question a little bit more specific what their question is the next question is I want him to work with me to motivate the kids instead of spending so much energy in trying to motivate him now this is obviously a an issue and when we have different perspectives between us and our spouse as far as how much motivation is healthy with the kids is it healthy to motivate them a lot not as much at cetera one thing I would just say to that person is that be cognizant of your family background versus his family background your expectations versus his and just because you assume that the healthy amount of motivation is maybe what you grew up with or what you think is healthy be aware that that may not be the healthiest thing and one of the things I would give that person is the go speak to an outside and non bias third party and actually find out if maybe what your the motivation you're trying to do for your kids might be too much you know motivation is a very tricky thing if we tried to are to motivate people we turn them off and one of the very two things of our marriage is that we tend to marry people who are emotional equals but we also tend to marry people who are somewhat different from us we're attracted opposites where a person was very timely might be attracted to somebody who's more relaxed and they can complement each other well sometimes it doesn't work as well and you have to learn to accept the other person but it's possible let's just take this as an example it's possible they you and your spouse um have different approaches maybe you're a more of a Type A personality and your spouse is more of a relaxed person and as a couple that makes you work well together but now when it comes to bringing up your kids you assume that the right way to bring up your kids is to be Taipei's and your spouse assumes the right way to bring up kids is to be relaxed and this can be a difference and maybe you have to find a middle ground between the two because the same way you and your husband marriage works well hopefully it works well because of the fact that you found a way to balance the two maybe you and your spouse need to also do the same thing with your children to find the balance between the two so we have another question over here I know we aren't supposed to expect anything from our spouse however if your spouse actually likes to sit and talk and listen to you and you tell the spouse the thing that actually bothers you and the small things you would like from them and the spouse still doesn't do it should we just give up okay so I'm going to just take this apart a little bit I know we aren't supposed to expect anything from our spouse I don't think that's accurate then we are not supposed to expect anything from our spouse I think we aren't allowed to expect a lot of things from our spouse I think we have to have realistic expectations from our spouse but we aren't allowed to have expectations if your spouse actually likes to sit and talk and listen to you that's a very good thing and you tell the spouse the thing that actually bothers you and the small things you would like from them and the spouse still doesn't do it should we just give up and my answer to that question is no don't give up but also realize that just because you told someone what bothers you doesn't mean that person necessarily is going to be able just under dime to change their personality we know that to make a change in our personality it's a tremendous amount of effort to change a character trait and if your spouse asked you to let's say put down your phone when I talk to you but the spouse is addicted to looking at their form 24/7 which is unfortunate reality that many of us struggle with I'm difficult you told them not to doesn't mean they're just gonna be able just not do it so just be the conscious be conscious of that that this might be a significant struggle for them I'll just want to go back before we anyone else has questions feel free to message them to me I'll try to respond to that question that was a little bit open-ended before how can I resolve issues with my husband if we disagree on many aspects what should I be working on to grow so basically if I understand the question correctly the person is saying that um we disagree on many things and it sounds like this person feels overwhelmed by the amount of disagreements they have with their spouse maybe they see the world very differently from them and they're constantly feel like they're they're you know jamming into each other okay hold on they actually are clarifying the question as we speak hold on a second so the person is asking they're since I suggest that they have a growth-oriented perspective how can they resolve issues with their spouse if they disagree on many aspects so my my answer would be is start small and stuff start small have realistic goals and also maybe you need to accept that it's okay for you and your spouse to disagree about a lot of things you know sometimes again so just going back to what I was speaking about before we have certain assumptions in our mind that in marriage we're supposed to only see eye to eye we're supposed to always have the same view we're supposed to always you know if my spouse is liberal I have to be live with my spouse you think this I have to think this a healthy marriage is supposed to be like that and I think maybe what you need to incorporate again I don't know your situation so well but it could be need to incorporate into your mindset is that is that it's okay for you and your spouse to see things differently it's okay for you and not to have the same perspective and sometimes just become comfortable with the differences makes it a lot easier to focus on the really important ones that are really crucial to face and to deal with and to compromise on but if we have an assumption that we have to agree about everything we end up fighting and arguing about so many different things that are actually you know it takes away a lot a lot of energy from from the relationship I don't know what that is that fully answered your question but I think that that is an important perspective to keep in mind that that it's okay to not to not agree about everything and it's okay to see things differently because it's going back to your question how can I resolve issues with my husband if we disagree on many aspects and again the the question you know potentially is are you trying too hard to see things eye to eye and not accepting enough that you're different from each other and that's what makes you both unique and special any other questions yeah you can chat it you can you can post it or we can wait till next time problem it's been a pleasure everyone I want to wish wish everybody a good Shabbos tomorrow I'm the same and the same link I mean I read several 4/5 10 a.m. my father will be giving over the Sabbath beautiful ideas miss class Emma's also this same link next week we have around my craft every morning at 12 o'clock Monday through Sunday through Thursday Robert yokomen 11 o'clock as well every day we also have Sunday night mrs. Kegel is giving a very fascinating lecture and Monday night rabbi I'm sorry dr. Perlman is continuing her parenting workshop also the same linked Tuesday night by maximals and Wednesday night rabbi rabbi Yochanan and then Thursday night we will we'll find out soon okay somebody is asking a question I'm not really sure I understand the question but then he asked it to everyone so maybe they could clarify the question now really sure I understand the question about so many yeah after marriage I'm not sure what the question means they could clarify the question okay so this person is asking a question about during the time when a husband or wife are supposed to be physically separate from each other how they are struggling with being physically separate during that time so I'll tell you my perspective that I take on that first and foremost that's usually a good sign that you have a good marriage okay because if you didn't feel that I need to be close to each other during that time if there was like oh we're not able to be physically close now like wow this is great I'll go read my novel um that marriage is probably not the healthiest and strongest marriage so first of all from a perspective the fact that it's hard probably means that the relationship is actually strong okay that's just a perspective I would say first and foremost secondly secondly although I can't go into depth about the the concepts of family purity and everything like that at this moment but I would I would suggest that you keep in mind you know one of the things that I very often talk about when I do relationship classes is is the triangle I call the physical emotional spiritual triangle that make up life all of life is those three things spiritual emotional physical and how you know really healthy relationships we want in relationships we want to make sure that the emotional the physical the spiritual are all strong each one should be building each other think about like a triangle within the triangle and one of the things that happens when you can't be physically close to someone is that if you have a really healthy relationship and you have a growth-oriented perspective you say why don't we use this opportunity to become more emotionally close the comes because sometimes if we're just physical physical physical that could be a band-aid for a lack of true emotional connection so one suggestion how it happens is to try to use that time not to ignore each other but to spend time with each other to get to know each other in a deeper level again I don't know this relationship what point to the relations maybe but you could tell me if this is the beginning of a relationship for you probably makes a pretty big difference what point of the marriage it is but but I would say there it's an opportunity to focus and strengthen the emotional the emotional side of the relationship during that time and lastly I mentioned previously a few minutes ago about the importance of having your own individuality within marriage and I think one of the beautiful things that the laws of family purity does is it reminds us that the other person is a separate human name the fact that you can't sleep on the same bed as that person it's nice it's jarring it's like boom aren't we one what happened well why can't I be close with that person why can't I be physically close with this person it seems it seems weird it seems strange and I do believe at a certain level the message is obviously we keep these missiles because I shouldn't hold us to keep them it's work and because it's god-given it affects us on many many different levels physically metaphysically spiritually but I believe that one of the messages that it gives us subconsciously the messages it reminds us that that person is a separate human being and why is it important to remember that that person is a separate human being because if I remember that that's a separate human being I'm not going to take that person for granted as much as I would otherwise and one of the biggest problems in marriage is we get so fused with our partner that we stop respecting their individuality and when you stop respecting other person's individuality then their ego actually gets much louder and this is a whole separate discussion about this topic but I do believe within the laws of family purity we have an opportunity to remember that this is a separate person which should hurt if it doesn't hurt something's wrong but that pain is not about creating separation that pain is about not taking the person for granted and ultimately getting closer to them as the relationship progresses I often ask this questions to couples before they get married and I say now that you're getting married if you become one or you still two individuals and it's a trick question and I have to say I enjoy sometimes seeing their responses but the reality I believe is is that you're not one with your spouse Kabbalistic ly spiritually your souls become on the ketubah makes a commitment to be faithful to each other but you're still chewing vigils striving to become one and how do you become one and I believe more than anything else the way you become one is they never stop respecting each other's individuality and never stop respecting your own which is very counterintuitive but ultimately if you do that if you take the other person for granted or you take yourself for granted you're not going to be able to fuse and become one because what happens when you respect someone else's individuality what does it make them do it makes them respect your individuality but an even deeper thing happens when you respect someone's individuality new ego gets very quiet when you eat Oh gets quiet you actually let go of yourself and you allow yourself to become one with your spouse I'm just gonna there's a few other questions that came in over here during arguments between husband and wife usually men argue with logic and women with emotions how can we find the middle ground now this is obviously somewhat of a stereotype because there's many situations where it's the other way around women are not always there most of the ones but let's say you have a situation where your spouse is more logical and the other spouse is more emotional how do you find how do you find the middle ground so again my approach to that would be is being cognizant of this of both spouses if they're cognizant of this you know rabbi Jacobsen as fascinating such a great class if you haven't watched it watch it watch it again beginning for Emmet called how to like the people you love and exactly really talks about the addresses these difference between men and women he says men are like waffles they put everything into a little box women are like spaghetti everything gets mixed in together and he has this hysterical little piece there where he talks and gives an example of a husband and sitting with his wife and the wife sees that the husband is really able to open up and talk and and she starts talking to him and everything she says he files into a separate box and yeah you have to watch it I don't want to give it away but it's worth watching it it's there aren't very big differences but you can learn to appreciate the differences and and it makes it makes a very very big difference so I think again the solution is not so much to fix the problem but is to be cognizant of it and for both parties to try to be to work around that the other question that okay this person is saying we're going back to the question of the the time when the husband or wife are not able to be physically close with each other what if the pain of separation isn't expressed in their spouse what if what if what if this is a husband writing what if I feel that she doesn't even care about this time and she doesn't appreciate that this is difficult for him so this is a good question I would suggest that that person speaks to a rabbi he or a therapist privately about this because it might be worth to try to understand this pain that this person is having and maybe this person does need to work on becoming more emotionally expressive because sometimes when people are looking for physical very often what I found is that you can appear to the spouse as being oh this person just wants physical but in reality that person might not be trained to express themselves emotionally and the only way they really feel close to their spouse is when they're physical and it could be what this person needs to do is to work on themselves to become more emotionally expressive and maybe that's what their spouse needs needs and makes it hard for their spouse to understand to understand what their what they're not getting from their frustration that's one possibility another possibility is that this relationship might need some help in other ways like it could be that the wife or the spouse and his wife may not feel like her needs are being taken care of to a certain extent maybe she doesn't have enough time for herself and she feels like she's always there for kids at the husband or somewhere else and that's creating a certain amount of resentment and negativity in her and we know that the marriage killer is resentment and could be she's built up a certain amount of resentment because maybe she and her mind feels like he has been easier he just comes and he goes into this and he and she's become resentful of the expectations on her and it could be that she just needs to have a little bit more her time to take care of herself so here's a lot of different possibilities there just throw that out okay I think I think that's it I'm not 100% sure but God willing we're gonna continue this next Thursday and we'll continue it I think what I would like to do next Thursday is do this as a question and answer type forum what people send me questions in advance or during the thing I think this this question answer form was very meaningful so God willing next Thursday we'll continue with the question questions I think there was okay one final question here the person says I think would be beneficial for my spouse my husband and myself to speak to someone to help fine tune our marriage but but my husband is adamantly opposed is very opposed to just speaking to someone about the about the relationship so it's very hard to force somebody to talk to someone else especially some people have negative stereotypes or assumptions or maybe bad experiences speaking with others I don't have like a clear great answer my best suggestion would be that that person goes themself and gets help themself one of the big myths no MERS in relationships is people assume that it takes two to tango it takes two to fix a marriage takes two to break up I don't agree with that very often all it takes is one person to be the bigger person to work on their character traits to the become a better listener to become and that changes the dynamic of the relationship and allows for much healthier pattern I'll just give you an example of this one of the things I talk about in that class before wedding is I talk about something called the infinity loop or call it the positive reinforcement but the negative type of positive reinforcement what does that mean the negative type of positive reinforcement so in science right if you have two microphones next to each other it creates a deafening sound right um I only know this because my father's a scientist a hurricane is created through positive reinforcement again this is not the good kind of positive reinforcement this is the tropical indentation that starts off on the coast of Africa that turns into a hurricane in Florida and Cuba and that's because of the cycle of the air and you can read how this works now how does this play out feedback loops there's somebody put in that right exactly how does this play out in a ring the marriage so I just used an example that I often use but it could be made different examples let's say you have a quality wife who has an allergic reaction called an allergic reaction to somebody raising their voice maybe because she grew up in a house where people used to scream yell at each other maybe she dispensed ative to sound she has a sensitivity to it whatever the reason is if someone raises their voice she goes into a shop now her husband is really a great guy but he has an allergic reaction to being ignored okay and again this could be reversed the way it could be the other way or husband could be displayed but she's used this example the husband doesn't like to be ignored you can scream him in his face he doesn't mind but if you ignore him he gets upset and imagine this couples doing really well and then something triggers this guy something happened at work one of his employees was disrespectful to him something happened he's not feeling well who knows what's going on and he raises his voice at his spouse meanwhile how did she react she goes into her shell when she goes into her shell what does he do he starts screaming louder the more he screams the more she goes in her shell and it becomes a speed bag of this feedback loop hadn't stopped that loop the answer is son of one Mike if one Mike shuts off the whole thing comes down and then they start thinking know what maybe we're actually okay and we just got into a bad situation right and I do think that that's important to keep in mind and my suggestion to the wife in that case her husband doesn't want to go to get help it is she should go herself to get help and whether it's speaking to her friend whether it's taking a positive thinking class whether it's reading books whatever it might be work on themselves to be the best that they can be and hopefully their spouse will will come along okay I think we are done so it's been a pleasure yeah hi how do like the people you love yes how to like the people you love okay so I recommend watching the full presentation forever why why because it doesn't amazing job of explaining it but I'll just give you my take on it and this is the reason why I chose that topic for him to give at that time love is the way he puts it and I don't disagree love is a feeling of oneness and connection of being one with your spouse liking is respecting the differences and you could feel love with your spouse you can feel love with your child you can feel love with your parent but not enjoy spending time with them not be not feel good in their presence necessarily but you and what his point was and I think it's such a powerful important point is for a relationship for a marriage to really thrive there has to be like and low like meaning respecting the differences love any feeling that oneness and connection I would even go a step further and say that the way you come to love is to like that the only way you fell in love with your spouse I made fun in my lectures I make fun of the term fall in love because fall in love to me implies passivity in Peyer something happens to you doesn't come from you think about how people quote-unquote fall in love it's because they respected each other there's differences they cared about each other they thought about each other they were involved with each other's feelings and emotions and thoughts what happens often when we get married we'll take each other for granted we get dressed up to go take out the garbage but don't think about how our spouse feels we were not we're not showing that attention and feeling and that really is emphasized was idea of liking and respecting the differences rabbi Jacobsen beautifully brings us out about Rabbi Akiva students because we know a keeper students and the market tells us they passed away because they didn't show proper respect for each other and yet nobody Kiva was the one who said that I have to learn and I'll come up with love your neighbor like you love yourself and the answer that the shame is more the socket everybody says is that you can love and not like but you need to pose love and like that's the idea okay I think we have a ok as we have a good night everyone and there's not the shaman will see him when next week Thursday night okay [Music] you