Chizkeinu Women's Support Network: FINDING HEALING THROUGH IDENTITY

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. What I'm about to share with you um is a healing perspective that I find to be life-changing, life clarifying. And there might be certain things at first that may seem hard to digest. And if they are, my hope is that it might take a couple of days to chew over and unpack. But what I'm hoping is what we're going to discuss tonight will open your mind to see yourselves a little bit differently, to see other people differently, in a good way. But let me start with a story. Um about um hold on my screen is okay. All good. About 10 years ago. Hold on. Was the screen thing just changed? Okay. So, you guys still see me? Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I just found you. But I take it off. >> Um >> I don't I can take it off. >> Yeah. I think it's better the other way. Sorry. >> I'm being a difficult You guys just met me and I'm already starting in on you. Okay. I'm kidding. Okay, thank you for your patience. Um, so about 12 years ago, I was a young yeshiva student. I was working as a dorm counselor, dormatory supervisor in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. and I was working together with a friend and we both took different shifts, took different turns, taking attendance, making sure the guys were okay, making sure nobody was unaccounted for and nothing too crazy was going on in dormatory life. The yeshiva, the school, and these are young students, older teens. Um, they were going on a Shabbaton weekend getaway. They were going to be going to New Jersey for Shabas for Shabbat and my friend who was the other dorm counselor was going to be coming and I was going to have the week off. He was going to be shaperon and I was going to get my time. I come to the dorm room Friday afternoon hours before we're supposed to go and I see my friend is in bed. Said, "Meny, what are you doing? Aren't you like leaving soon?" He says, "I'm not feeling well." He says, "Who's taking you?" So I said, "Who's taking you over?" He says, 'I don't know, maybe you. I don't know. So, here was my master plan as a mature, brilliant dorm counselor in charge of watching your children. Avoid the principal because if he doesn't ask me, I'm not going to know. And if he doesn't see me, he can't ask me. And then I don't have to come because I was expecting to have the weekend off. Okay? So, I'm doing whatever I can to avoid this principle. Okay? you send your kids away to college or yeshiva, right? These are the people watching your kids. Um, guilty is charged. I'm doing whatever I can to avoid the principal, but I got cornered in this hallway where he's walking by and I'm walking by. Okay, don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. Don't make eye contact. I finally pass him. I go, "Yes!" in my mind and actually said it out loud. And then I hear my name being called. Oh, man. I turn around. He says, "Josh, you have a quick second." I said, "Sure. Your buddy was supposed to come on the Shabaton. He was supposed to be the chaperone. He's not feeling well. Can you come instead?" I don't like to say no, but I didn't want to say yes. And there's that tension. What am I going to do? Who am I going to be? So, I said, "If you'd like me to come, I'll come." This man, this rabbi was a brilliant educator. And he said something to me that I will never forget. And what I see is a lesson in personal development, a lesson in relationships. I said to him, if you'd like me to come, I'll come. And he says, I don't want you to just come. I want you to want to come. Get back to me in an hour, please. I was like, wow. It just so brilliant. so brilliant on so many levels because when we're showing up to relationships and and by the way I mean any relationship whether it be a marital relationship, a romantic relationship, a professional relationship, a relationship with God through the the um through the lenses of Torah, any relationship we're showing up to and any relationship we're in with someone else whom we want to show up. We want that other person to show up. Whether it be an employer, employee or spouse or whatever, we don't want just to be there or the other person to be there. We want to want them. We want them to want to be there. We want ourselves to want to be there. And that is huge. That is like the million-dollar question. How do we become present in relationships? How do we become present in life? Now, there is a a bit of a myth. Okay, I shouldn't say myth because it might not be nice, but there's no research behind this. People say all the time that, well, if you want to show up and be more present, improve communication. Whenever I ask I meet with couples, I often start our sessions with what are we here to talk about? And they'll say communication. It's interesting because there's no research that says communication is good for relationships. I'm sure you know couples that have horrible communication and very happy marriages that have a lot of longevity to it. And I'm sure you know couples that had worked on communication and have succeeded on working on communication and don't have longevity to those relationships. Communication will enhance what'sever whatever's whatever is already working. It will exacerbate the current reality. So for some communication might empower them to connect better because they're connected and for others it might empower them to have more articulate insults. I mean that that's so what is the trick behind relationships? Okay, being present, right? But how do you become present and I'm and again this is in any relationship. This is at work. This is a relationship with ourselves. Any interaction you have is some sort of relationship. Now confidence, resilience, healing, joy, happiness, all the things that presence comes with all has one source. Now, people often don't like when I say this because they say nothing is one sizefits-all. This is not one sizefits-all. It isn't because this one source is going to be very individualized, very customizable. But everything you're looking for in healing has one source and it's called personal identity. And if you have a personal identity, which means you know who you are and you believe in yourself, you are going to succeed. You're going to succeed in relationships. You're going to have better skills in communicating with other people, not by working on communication, but by working on who you are. Or you'll be able to recognize that this relationship isn't going anywhere because you realize what you're worth. Something good, some change or movement is going to happen when you have personal identity. And that starts with believing in yourself. I mean, think of one of the most influential people to embrace the earth, Abraham. Abraham who had inspired an entire generation to believe and to connect. He believed in people. He believed in himself. He's willing to pray for other people. Think of Noah. Noah who built an ark, stood there for 120 years, and didn't manage to get anybody on that ark. And commentaries say he didn't believe in himself. He didn't pray for anybody. He didn't believe he could actually make a difference. But it all starts with personal identity. And in order to to heal, to be happy, to be confident, to be resil, whatever you're really looking for, uh because I'll I'll tell you a secret. I shouldn't say this, but I'm already I've already started. A lot of these things are really the same. We just say them in different languages, which is why when I work with clients, I I try not to stick in my own language. I try to stick to their language because when you say happiness, you might mean calm and peacefulness and you're just using the word hap, everybody means something else. When they say a particular word when they describe a certain identity. So you have to find your identity. You can't have somebody tell you who you are. You have to know who you are. And that takes a lot of work. But here's the thing. In order for this personal identity to heal you, serenity. I see somebody. I'm okay. Okay, I'm I'm overlooking the comments here. Okay, somebody wrote serenity. I think that's a great word. In order to experience serenity, to experience healing, peace, calm, you need two things. You need an identity that is true. You need an identity that you're comfortable with. You need both. If your identity isn't true, it's just comfortable. Um, I mean, you're going to have to face reality one day. If your identity is very true, but uncomfortable, you're going to have to face the human side of you one day. And somehow bridging the gap and aligning these two is going to create identity. When you find that version of you, this is what I call the best version of you or a better version of you, right? It's it could be evolving. But when you find that um a few things are going to happen. You're going to unlock whatever you were looking for and you're going to start seeing it everywhere because the reality is um who you are in the inside affects how what you see on the outside. Which means if you're trying to figure out what the problem is, if you're trying to figure out what is wrong with you, why is this relationship not working? Or forget that, let's think deeper. What is wrong with me that this relationship is not working? Right? Those types of talking down to ourselves. You know what's going to happen? We're training ourselves to start seeing life that way. This is real research that I'm that I'm sharing with you. This has been researched. If you find out who you really are, the best version of yourself, you find hope, you're going to see more of that. Problems are an endless pit. They are. You never really know what the problem is. You You don't It's impossible because I mean, is it a biological problem? Is it a psychological problem? Is it a cognitive problem? Is it a sexual problem? Is it an addiction? Is it a medical issue? It it's it's endless. Um it it's to it's endless. Hope is also endless. And the more you find hope, the more you're going to see it. And the way we find hope is through personal identity. I'll I'll give you an example. I'm going to give you some uh ancient examples, then I'm going to give you some contemporary examples. Sounds good? Let's start with the ancient example. One of my my favorite examples in ancient times from the Torah is is Moshe. It's Moses because Moses was called upon God by the burning bush at the age of 80 to let the Jewish people know that he's going to set them free. And he has this six day argument with God saying that they're never going to believe me, that they're never going to believe me, the the Jewish people. It's just not happening. There's different ways of understanding the text. Some say he was critiquing the Jewish people. Some say he was critiquing himself. Who am I that they would believe me? Do you know what God answers to Moses? To Moshe? He says, "What is in your hand?" And Moshe says, "Mate, a staff." And God show shares with them the various miracle miracles of the staff. But the commentaries, the malim explain something fascinating. God performed what we call a Freudian slip. There is different words for staff in biblical Hebrew. There's three words for biblical staff in Hebrew. For biblical staff, there's three biblical Hebrew words for the word staff for a stick. There is mate. That's what Moshe said. There's a Mel and there's a mishet. A mishet means like a cane. Somebody who is senior and has a hard time being mobile or ambulatory, they need what's called a mishet, some sort of crutch. A mel is a staff used by shepherds to intimidate sheep and round them round them up. A staff of force. A mate you a mate means a staff but it means a staff of royalty staff also means tribes the tribal leaders were called mate m. So God says to Moshe what's in your handsh looks and he says a mate a staff a staff of royalty. God says, "Gotcha." You're trying to figure out how could you be this person that you need to be. Look deep in down inside cuz it's literally there. It's literally there. You know, they tell a story of um if those of you who have teenage children will might appreciate this, especially if there if you had to like teach them how to drive. They tell the story of a 15-year-old girl who's driving with her dad. And as she pulled down the block, you know, she's learning how to drive. She had never driven yet. She has a permit. And she pulls down the block and she starts to panic. She's like behind a real car. Like, this is dangerous. This is like a weapon in this traffic. And she's moving slowly and says, "Dad, I can't do this. I can't do this." And her dad turns to her and says, "I don't know if you can or can't, but you are." So very often, you know, we ask questions and I see some questions in the um in the comments here. Um if relationships can't work with autism or if I don't know who I am, right? These are these these are very important questions. I think we have to challenge the premise of these questions. I think there's times where relationships have worked for you. I think there's I think there's times where you knew who you were on some level because here here's I know I'm digressing a little bit, but I I have to say this. This is an important rule in life. You cannot want something if you haven't sampled it. You can't. Impossible. An addict can't want sobriety if he or she had never sampled sobriety. You were born an addict and were always experiencing addiction to the same level, right? You um if you want something and I and what I mean by something, I mean like things that are fundamental, right? If I want to be a billionaire, well, I've never been a billionaire, right? But there's something more fundamental behind that. Why do I want to be a billionaire? What is that going to change inside of me? Who is that going to make me? If I want that, it already exists on some level. You want a relationship? And maybe you've never been in a relationship yet or you don't feel like you've been in a relationship yet. You can ask yourself questions like, "What kind of person are you that knows you can be in a relationship?" Like, "Why do you want to be in a relationship? What kind of person does that make you if you were in a relationship that existed already on some level? Um, but I want to talk more about that soon, okay? If there's time, but let me just tell you a couple other stories. Story number two, again, this is more of an ancient story, but I'm going to tell you contemporary stories that I've that I've had with real clients. Story number two. In the 1920s, there was a yeshiva that was in the town of Lavich, Ukraine, moved to Rustav and then moved to another 20 other locations due to communist um Russia, the Soviet Union, where uh religious studies was prohibited. And one of the rabbis of the yeshiva was dedicated every time the yeshiva moved, he'd pick up his family with the yeshiva and move with them. His name was castle. So Kelman is teaching a Torah class at night in some basement underground. It's illegal. This is the 1920s, 1930s. They would have two yeshiva standard students standing post outside, make sure no KGB cards come and he'd be studying and teaching his lesson inside. The KGB got word of what was going on and they positioned the guard to enter the classroom and hide behind the door before the class had actually begun. And the guard is listening on the class waiting for the opportune time to pop out. And Rabim Kessleman is getting very involved in his lesson. And what you see in Kessleman, those who knew him, what you saw was going back to presence and serenity and identity. I mean, he was like the epitome of all these things. The KGB officer pops out with his rifle. Everybody's frozen and he says, "Now what do you have to say?" And without skipping a a beatman slams his fist on the table and says, "My riv, evening services. Let's pray." The guard was just like like he totally just sidestepped him. What? He was so baffled by this that he actually let them complete the prayers. He then arrested and thankfully his only um prosecution or punishment was a citation. He had to do some sort of community garbage cleanup. But this was so special. You know, for if I'm being honest, if I was I had to do community garbage cleanup, I'd be like, "Oh, come on. Like what did I like God? Why are you doing this to me?" But to him, it was a badge of honor. He realized why he was doing it. He would wear his Shabbat clothing, his job as finery to this community service because to him it was a badge of honor. To him it was an identity. When we have an identity, we are literally unstoppable. And this identity you're looking for exists. You're not looking to create an identity. You're looking to notice an identity. You're not looking to create something new. You're looking for something that is already there. Think about what is most important to you. The values that are most important to you. Take them a little take it a little deeper. Ask yourself, why are these values important to me? And if I were to live by these values, what kind of person would that make me? If I were to be able to invest in the relationship the way I wanted to, despite the challenges, despite whether it be autism, whether it be any mental health issue, the challenges, we we know how limited we are by these challenges. And I never want to minimize that. God forbid. We know how inhibited we have felt in the past. But if somehow despite all of that, I managed to enter that relationship the way I wanted to. I managed to be able to learn about who I really am the way I wanted to. What kind of person would that make me? You don't have to share this because this is private, but think about this. Put try to label it with one, two, three, four words. What kind of person would this make me? Because the kind of person it would make you exists within you and there's evidence that it exists. I see this with clients and there's and there's research behind this. It's not just my own experience. There's evidence that the reality you're looking for exists. Which by the way on a on a theological level as well. I mean God wants the world to look a certain way. He had a certain vision in create in in creating the world to bring holiness to this world. It exists on some level even though it doesn't look like it and we have to start noticing it. And and so I see a great question here in the chat. What if you just have no idea it it's I'll tell you a story. I was working with a client um this happened to have been a single fellow who was having a very difficult time in the dating scene um finding his match. He's in his younger 30s and you know when the longer it takes the harder a time you have that for some people there's like this perpetual issue because it's you start questioning yourself and like what kind of person am I and what's wrong with me and how do you show up at the next date how do you show up at work right when we do that type of selft talk and it's natural natural selft talk. It's normal, but it's harmful. And he was having a very difficult time because he was having a hard time jumping back into the dating scene. And he says to me, "How can I get a girl?" I'm talking to a group of women, so maybe you'll answer the question. He says to me, "How can I get a girl to respect me if I don't even respect myself? I'm not proud of where I'm living. I'm not proud of my job. I'm not proud of how not that he wants to be a frequent dator. He wants to be married, but he's not proud of how infrequently he's motivated to date. How can I possibly get a girl to respect me if I don't even respect myself? So, I I'll tell you what I heard when he asked that question. What I heard is he wants to respect himself, but isn't that what he just said? What he's really asking is, I'd like to respect myself. Because whenever somebody has a problem, there's a change attach there's a desire for change attached to any problem that is voiced. Whenever you're venting, whenever you're sharing issues, attached to that issue is a desire for change. Maybe you're not ready for that change and maybe it could be invalidating if somebody gets there too too uh too early or pushes it on you. But he says, "How could I get a girl to respect me if I don't respect myself?" So, what I heard was, "I'd like to respect myself." But here's the thing. I also knew if he wants to respect himself, that means self-respect exists. Disrespect, self-d disrespect also exists. I'm not there to minimize that. And he had good reasons to disrespect himself. I'm sure he did, but he had good reasons to respect himself. You can't want something you've never sampled. And that thing that you've sampled is still there. It doesn't disappear. You guys with me? Make sense? So I said to him,"Well, what do you respect most about yourself?" Right? His question was, "How can I get a girl to respect me if I don't respect myself?" So I said, "Well, what do you respect most about yourself?" And some of you asked, "What if the answer is nothing?" Or, "What if you don't know, right? You have no idea." Which is what happened. He says, "I no, I don't resp I disrespect myself." I said, "I know you do." And that must be a horrible feeling to disrespect yourself. But you want to respect yourself and you want girl a woman to respect you. So what would you say you do respect most about yourself despite all that dis self disrespect? I just asked the question again because I believe in him. I refuse to believe that he wants self-respect and doesn't have it. It's just clouded by the disrespect. They're both real. We're so used to validating, this is where I get a little controversial, but it's reality. We're so used to validating people's pain, we don't validate them enough. And pain deserves validation. It does. Pain deserves empathy. It does. It should never be dismissed. Nobody should ever dismiss your pain or challenges. But you, not just the person, not just the pain, but you deserve validation, too. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to validate him. What do you respect most about yourself? Silence. And he begins to describe a beautiful identity, a rich identity, and really beautiful, amazing qualities. Again, the qualities that he was not proud of were still there, but the qualities he was proud of were also there. And if he puts when he puts more energy in the qualities he is proud of, there's going to be less head space, less time, less literal ability to fuel the qualities he's not proud of. He described a a beautiful person that was there masked by so much that he had forgotten about. This interaction was like five minutes. This this segment of our discussion and it was five minutes of change that led him to wanting to actually go on a date. Finally, it le it led to motivation. We're so used to thinking that change happens when you hit rock bottom. And change could happen when you hit rock bottom. Or you could hit rock bottom and somehow realize that you haven't really hit rock bottom yet. There's still more to go. Like the Jewish optimists say, right? Some say it can't get any worse. And the Jewish optimist says, "Yes, it can." But change also happens when you want it to happen. And everybody wants something. I I'll tell you I'll give you another example. Just a couple of days ago, I was on the phone with a with a with a lady who was she's in her 70s. Um I know her for quite some time actually and she is panicking because she's not feeling well. She had just gotten back from the doctor and the doctor says there is potentially a very scary diagnosis here and it's one of two things. It's real issues that I can't even pronounce. And the doctor says either it's going to be incredibly painful and dehabilitating or it's going to be fatal. And we'll find out which one it is. Now, God runs the world and we don't know that that's for sure the case. But she was scared, understandably so. And She she was I mean there was there was a lot of unknowns here. What is she supposed to do with that information? How long is it going to take to get the diagn I again I was empathetic to the pain. You have to be empathetic to people's pain. I I don't want a lot of people say oh you're you're being too optimistic. No, no. I'm not being optimistic here. I'm just being real. I said to her, can I ask you a question? You are going through a lot. There's a lot of unknown here. You don't know what direction your life is going. Where do you draw hope from? Now, I knew she wanted hope because why was she reaching out? There's only one reason she's reaching out. She She wants something. And I knew you can't want hope if you don't have it. So I said to her, this is just a reality. So I said to her, where do you draw hope from? Silence. She says, she even says to me, that's a good question. So, it came to life. But she began answering it. She says, "I've had illnesses in the past. I've had scary illnesses in the past. I've had close calls in the past. And I fought. I'm a fighter. I have grandchildren that are babies. They have to know me. They have to know their grandmother. I'm not ready to die. I'm just not ready. What she was describing to me was an identity. She was describing who she really wanted to be. And that literally gave her strength. I didn't preach to her, just be hopeful, just believe. Because you know what happens when you tell somebody just believe? That's code word for I don't think you believe. Well, that's not very nice and that's not very true. I I I work very hard to try to believe in everybody. I try my best. And I know she believes. I know she's hopeful. So I just asked her, "Where do you get hope from?" And she starts describing an identity. That identity is healing. The single fellow who is going through dating turmoil, tornado stuff, the identity he had discovered is healing. Um to to answer the question, what happens when you have no idea? Um I I don't I don't know who's asking the question. I don't know you. So, this is going to be hard for me to just I'm going to go on a limb here. We we tend to put things in black and white terms. So, what if we were to rephrase the question to what happens if it's difficult to notice who you are? What happens if you only have some idea? Let's change the question. Instead of what happens when you have no idea, what happens when you only have some idea and have no idea. Um, you have some idea. even a little bit. Follow it. Follow the train. Um, somebody wrote also in in one of the questions. I have another story for you, but I just want to honor your questions here and address them. Um, it's very hard. >> We can do the questions. >> We can do the questions after. Okay, we can do the questions after. So, I'll share with you another story. I was working with a couple um a little while back again going through marital discords. Um I mean there were there were there were a lot of real issues and real challenges and identity was a big part of them figuring it out. was the classic blame game of he's not doing this and but that's because she's doing this and and a lot of pain and a lot of a lot of but I knew they wanted something different. I followed that hope that they came in for. One of the questions I asked them in our three hour, it was three different sessions, 1 hour each. One of the questions I I asked them, I said to the husband, you know, she she was one of her her challenges that he was not being present enough and he had reasons why he wasn't being present. He didn't feel comfortable at home. There was this ugly dynamic of him waiting in the car to pass the time when he got home because he was afraid to walk in the door or intimidated not like like afraid of abuse but intimidated to walk in the door. And she was like you walk in the door and you don't really you're not really there. There was this vicious cycle. So I said to him, imagine you walk in the door and your wife was spying on you with a camera. You didn't know she was spying on you and she busts you being the best version of you just for a couple of moments and she was like so what would you be most proud for her to to bust you doing? And he starts describing the version of himself who he wanted to be the more present version of himself. The version of himself that is respectful to his in-laws that were at the door that was part of, you know, she was offended by that. The version of himself that gives his child attention, who's in the high chair, the version of himself who's not on the phone but present. So, by the way, I didn't know any of these issues were there. He started solving his own issues. I didn't know that he was I mean not on the phone and that he was that he was on the phone and not talking to his I didn't know any of these things. But I knew an identity is going to help him figure out what he needs to do and who he needs to be. And that's going to be healing. So here's what I'm going to do. I want to leave you off with a question that I think will help frame things and help you figure out identity. Um, and then we'll uh if anybody else has any other questions or Q&A, we can we can go from there. My question is like this. And again, I I like to tailor these questions to the individuals I'm talking to. I don't have that ability in this particular case. But I I want you to imagine that you're about to show up to where you want to be most, but where it happens to be hardest. Again, that's different for everybody. You might want to show up to work and be the best you, and that's hard. H hard to show up confidently. Might be at home. It might be in the bedroom. It might be anywhere. Um it's and you you just you have things getting in the way. And for some it might be conditions that you're born with like autism. For some it might be experiences like trauma. It might be anxiety or there is real challenges that you feel are stopping you. But imagine you're about to show up and the weight of these issues that are weighing on you. The weight of the challenges that are weighing on you. You left it in the car. You left the package in the car. You're going to find it again. It's going to come back. Don't worry. It's not permanent. But just for a couple of moments, you felt a little bit of relief and the weight of the challenges. I'm not even saying the circumstances left. And for for some people, the circumstances might not leave if it's if it's a a a a a deep, you know, part of you, but you were able to manage somehow just you accidentally left it in the car. and you felt a couple moments of relief from those couple of moments, who would you see instead? What do you think the first thing someone else looking on the outside might notice in you? What might they see that's different? Hey, something's different. just for those couple of moments. That's the version of you that is going to be healing, that is going to give you resilience, that is going to help you find the relationship and the love and the connections you're looking for. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. >> Wow. Thank you.