227. A Wedding, A War and More!

Transcript:

 And we are live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. Today is a solo episode, and as I’m saying, and we are live, I’m remembering one of my clients, Rebecca, hi. I miss you. And she told me that every time she starts listening to my podcast and says, and we are alive, she thinks, yay, we’re alive.

And ever since she told me that every time I think of it too. And today is super appropriate to be celebrating the fact that we are alive because we are in the middle of a war. And I’m gonna tell you about the wedding that we made for my daughter one day after the war hit. So that was exciting. So let’s get into that.

I was thinking to title this war and Wedding because that is the theme. There’s also going to be an update about why we haven’t published any episodes in the last month. And it has everything to do with the fact that there was a war. And actually I was really proud of myself because I planned ahead the whole month of March to have podcast episodes drop on time every single week because I knew my daughter was getting married March 1st, and I wanted to make sure that you guys didn’t feel that hiccup, but that was funny, right?

So man plans and God laughs. So last time I spoke to you guys, I was planning a wedding and I was feeling a little stressed and I was using all of the right things that I teach my clients, and I was really leaning in on trying to be as aligned as I could with what I’m teaching and with what I tell other people to do.

And so I was very conscious about when I use my phone, I was conscious about taking care of myself. I was on top of all these wonderful things that I spoke about and that episode and then. It’s getting closer and closer. I don’t know if you guys heard, but like two weeks before the wedding, we did not have a wedding dress.

’cause the thing we thought we had wasn’t the right thing and it wasn’t working. And then we sent it in to clean and the cleaners didn’t clean it well, and then it came back and it was dirty and it was not wearable. And my daughter started crying and I was like, listen I don’t know what to do. And thank God it’s always like that.

I plan something for my clients and then I end up loving it and totally needing it. So thank you God for decide with calm, which was a program I came up with. When was it? Two months ago, I decided to come up with an easy, short, concise. It’s not really a program, it’s like a, I guess a product that you guys can buy and get into my world, learn about the calm method, learn about how I do it, get some unique examples coming up from the audience and then we can really hit it off.

What ended up happening was that I ran decide with Calm and it was awesome and then we didn’t have time to actually take personal questions or unique situations and I really wanted to workshop the, other people’s issues. So I ended up doing a second session where we all came live on Zoom to workshop, everybody’s things, and that was really fun because I came just as everyone else.

I did exactly what I was going to tell everyone else to do. So I said what we’re doing, and then I said, okay, now we’re gonna be quiet. We’re writing. And everybody went down into their papers and pens and journals and whatevers. And we all wrote. And what came up for me was that I really want my daughter to have a good dress.

Like a part of me in the way that I was reacting to her was like, ah, another place. Another place. Like how many places have we gone to look for dresses? And nothing is good enough and everything is, just not right. And why can’t we just find a dress like you’re beautiful, you’re easy to find a dress for, but turns out not so much. And so I was getting frustrated as a mother trying to think like this was supposed to be easy. And I think that was the mistake, was that I was frustrated that it was more than. I bargained for, I was not planning on going to every single thing that offers dresses to try to find a dress.

And I also was not willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money to buy a dress that you wear one day, even though I do think that they are amazing. And I do appreciate, now that I’ve seen so many dresses, I do appreciate the amount of work that it takes and the amount of expertise to make a dress like that.

So I’m not saying that it’s not worth the money, I just don’t think that we need to buy a brand new dress that is custom made for my daughter. Maybe for other people that is what they want, and I totally respect that. But, and being that I have eight children and she is the first, I was, and I grew up this way too, we wanna spend our money in different ways.

So I said we’re gonna go to all of the. And all of the rentals and whatever you need to do in order to find a dress without having to get a brand new one. I think the difficulty was that her friend got a brand new one and she went with her to see the whole process. So it was a little bit hard to get her off of that once she already experienced it.

And still, I think this is part of our value system where you don’t just waste for no, whatever. You don’t just waste money. And in our family that is wasting money because we didn’t have the extra money to go and spend on it. So if you do, good for you. And I’m very happy for all of the wedding designers that there is a market for new wedding dresses.

So I got to decide with calm part two. The work shopping part. And I started journaling about how I want my daughter to have a magnificent dress and I want her to be happy and I want her to feel really good about this way wedding and about this day. And I want it to be accessible. And I said, I don’t want to go and spend so much money.

And now that it’s two weeks before the wedding, I don’t even think it’s, it makes sense to start looking into anything new. So I prayed that we should go and find a dress and that it should be great and that Hashem should be with us. And thank you, God, for coming through because soon after somebody gave us this tip to go to Efrat that is in the Gush is in.

Frat is a beautiful town and they have a beautiful community and they have a center for all of the chessed, all of the good deeds. They have a kitchen there that makes food for people. They have dresses for rent, and a, for a gemach prices, which was so wonderful. And the lady there was so beautiful and so amazing.

She’s so yummy. I love her. She had so much patience for us. She was so sweet. Even though we were coming in last minute and like totally exhausted and we didn’t know what we were doing. And we very much knew what we wanted. She already knew. She came in and grabbed a dress and said, this is the style you want.

And my daughter grabbed it and said, yay, this is my dress. I was so happy. So she tried it on and she tried on a couple more just in case, and we decided to boil it down to two dresses. She went I don’t know this one, that one, this one, that one. And thank God she went back to the original first dress that she was all excited about.

And we walked out of there being all excited. Now, here’s the cool thing though, because the night before we did the decide with calm workshop I set my daughter, oh, and also we got there 15 minutes before she came. So we had 15 minutes to sit and talk. So we got outta the car, we sat down looking at the beautiful view on the rocks, and we’re watching kids walking or watching the beautiful nature that they have there and the scenery.

And I said, let’s go through. Every single place we’ve been through and see what we learned from each one. Because if we’re just gonna go jump, jump jump, jump around and not learn anything that’s gonna be a real shame. So my daughter started going through all of them and she says in the first one, I was so impressed with the lady that she makes time for her husband and makes it holy.

She told us, I don’t care how long you stay, but at seven o’clock I go to pick up my husband and then we eat supper together. So you’re not going to be welcome anymore. And my daughter was so impressed at the boundaries, at the priorities, at the beautiful couple, at the way that they live their life.

And let me tell you, these people have a bajillion kids and she still goes and picks him up and has supper with him. So cute. So that was really cute. The second place we learned things about ourselves and the, the third place, she mentioned something really nice about something else that I can’t remember right now.

And every single place it was like, oh, I’m so happy we went there because then we met that person and oh, I’m so happy we went there because she gave us a good tip about this, that, and the other. It was just really sweet. And after we finished going through all the different places, lo and behold the lady gets there and she opens the door for us.

And so we got up and we went and we had this great experience. We found our dress. It was awesome. Thank you, God, we walked out of there. Very happy. And we paid 600 shekels, which is very little for such an amazing dress. So first of all, I highly recommend going there. I’m also going to put a picture of the lady and how happy my daughter is.

And also a side note, she’s the mother of Dassi from, which is Circles of Happiness. We grew up on that when we were little. So there was this girl, DASSI, and she passed away from cancer, I think at the age of, I don’t know, maybe she was 19 or 20. She was really positive. And she talked about the circles of happiness and how when you.

enlarge your circle and fill it with gratitude and fill it with happiness. Then you touch other people’s circles and that has a reverberating effect. And she wrote books and songs about these things and she was really into it. And then when she passed away, her mother really published all of it and made it into a whole movement.

And that’s when I was a teenager. I remember Dassie, I remember her circles of happiness. And, my kids even did art projects in school based on Dassie and her circle of happiness. So it was really beautiful. It’s like circle within a circle. And the, the art teacher gives them like, pastel colors and they make circles and all the circles together look so beautiful on the wall.

It’s so cute. Anyway, so I knew who she was and my daughter knew who she was because of that project in school. Meanwhile. So she tells us that she’s Dossey’s mom and we get all excited and we take a picture with her and we’re all happy. But besides that, she’s just an amazing person and I’m so grateful.

And let me just tell you like, fast forward to giving back the dress, returning the dress was also a pleasure. So I drove all the way there and I brought my mother and my daughter’s ’cause we had to get an outing and everybody was out of school, spoiler. And we brought her the dress and she had her great grandson with her because her grandson, no, her granddaughter’s husband, which would be like her grandson in-law.

In the army. So her granddaughter came to stay with her kids. It was so cute and she’s so delicious with her great grandson and it just blows my mind that you could have such a beautiful woman so young at heart and so vibrant and active, have all these little babies around that are just like so cute.

These toddlers. Oh, so delicious. So anyway, I highly recommend if you are looking for a wedding dress, you should go there. Efrat in the Gush Etzion area. So sweet. Her name is Bruria. I’ll put her information down below. And if you are subscribed to our email, then you’ll also get the email with her picture.

Because I love her. Anyway, so that’s that. We found a dress and it was fantastic and the only thing we needed to do was change something in the sleeves and take it in a little bit. So we found a dress maker that is local and we brought it to her and she was so sweet and she helped us. And, oh, let me just tell you also another amazing person.

There is a ACH here that’s local. Of course, we went to that one first and also very sweet and very amazing, a little bit smaller and didn’t have something that fit my daughter height. I guess that was the biggest problem in that in that was that most of the things were too short. ’cause my daughter was very tall.

She’s taller than me. And so we went to her to get parts of dresses so that we could find. Fabric to add the sleeve that we needed for this new dress. So I am impressed beyond belief at how gracious and how loving, how abundant all these women are. They are not here as competition or oh, you should have come to me or whatever.

No. They were like, let me tell you, this one has this style and this one has that style. And they’re so cooperative and so collaborative, so loving. Oh, so yummy yummy. I love them. I love them all. These are people you wanna hang out with. And I feel like now that we went through this whole experience, I feel like one of the biggest blessings

was being able to meet so many of them, right? Imagine if my daughter would’ve found the dress at the first place, then we wouldn’t have had all these experiences finding all these amazing women around. And these are women who really mean and really have all of the love and all of the compassion in the world.

They have so much patience for all these teenagers who are trying to get married, and they’re still not mature enough to like, not care about certain things. I’m totally laughing and joking about it, but really these are the kids that we are marrying off, and thank God that there are adults out there that have so much patience for, oh yes, it has to be exactly what you like. Yes, I’m totally with you. This does not look good on you. Go find something else. And meanwhile, I was trying to sugarcoat it let’s just get away from here. Move on, get a dress. It fits you.

Nice, let’s go. And no, it has to be perfect. It has to be perfect. They were so supportive of my daughter’s dream and I felt like I was not as patient and exhausted. Okay. I was exhausted. So it helped me bring myself back. And it also was a gift to me that I got to meet all these women along the way.

So thank you, God, for this opportunity. And also I just wanna remind all of you that when you feel like something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, it’s ah, we’re just supposed to walk in and find the first dress, or it wasn’t supposed to be this way, wait until the end and see why it was supposed to be that way.

So for me personally, I feel like it was a gift to have had so many experiences with so many of these AKs and rentals so that I can now give advice and be more in touch with what amazing people there are in the world. And also, I feel like for my daughter, it was really important to see so many homes or so many women who are giving of their time for free and being there for brides, it was absolutely amazing.

So that was about the wedding dress. So for all you guys who are praying for us and waiting for closure, that is closure. And it was a very big anchor. And why am I saying that? Because on Saturday night. No, Saturday day on Sabbath. The day before March 1st, and March 1st was our wedding. My daughter already went to Mikva on Thursday and we had a Mikva party and all her friends came over and it was really beautiful.

My mother made food and she bought these tambourines and she gave us acrylics, and everybody decorated the tambourines with beautiful decorations. And instead of taking them home, we kept them all so that at the wedding we can dance and sing with them. That was such a blessing. Okay.

Parentheses such a blessing. Anyway, everything was already ready. She was already all done with preparation. We had everything ready to go. Everybody had their dress, everybody had everything. The last person to have their dress was me. I went in last minute, lemme tell you. Okay? I have to tell you a little bit of my dress drama.

I had two dresses to choose from because I bought a bunch of things from from Shane Shein, whatever you wanna call it. Because I just didn’t have time to go shopping. And when I did go shopping, nothing was my style. Nothing was my type. Ugh. I wasn’t, ugh. It was really difficult for me to shop, and I don’t like shopping because it’s so depressing.

It feels like all the stuff in the store is from Shein or Ali Express or China, and you are just paying more money because it’s local. It doesn’t actually make sense. If it was a local store that had local made stuff and it was more expensive, I’d be like, happily take my money. Because it would fit better.

It wouldn’t sit wrong, it wouldn’t feel like it’s plastic. Like all these things that you get when you, you know. buy from China, but it just didn’t feel right. There wasn’t any options for me, the mother of the bride to actually find something in my style. So I was scrolling on chain. My daughter got me the app and made me do it.

And then they also started telling me which dresses they want. We bought a ton of dresses and every girl sent me things that they want and it all went into the cart. And we kept doing shoppings after shoppings of deliveries. And we started getting all these dresses. So one of the first dresses was this beautiful dress that was white with purple flowers that I loved.

But then I put it on and it didn’t sit right and I felt oh, what a disappointment. I wish it sat right. And so I put it back in the bag and I was just gonna ship it back and it was in the box of returns and I already in the app pressed return on it alongside with other things. Meanwhile, my daughter got something that was like a beautiful purple thing and it was also V-neck and it matched my vibe and it had like flowers underneath.

It was very cute. And then a different daughter got herself something very shiny full of sequins. And she ended up not liking it, but it fit me. And I ended up thinking, okay, this is doable. Also has a v-neck and it has a lot of sequence. So it, it makes sense for the mother of the bride to look so sequency.

I couldn’t find a head covering for the sequence one, and I couldn’t really connect with the the first V-neck one because I couldn’t find a shirt to put under and it was V-neck. And so you need something for under. And also the arms were open, so I would need a shirt to put underneath. And we went to the store and they had something that wasn’t exactly matching, so it was clashing and it was very frustrating.

So then we went one shade lower and that sort of looked like it was just a regular dress and it didn’t make it look fancy at all or whatever. It just killed the dress. And here I was trying to decide between these two for like two weeks, I’m just this or that. And my friends were giving me each their own opinions.

And then one friend came in and said, you can’t wear that to the sequence one. And I felt very frustrated ’cause I was leaning towards the sequence and while we were at the seamstress fixing my daughter’s dress with the, the arms and the taking it in. She said, you look so good in that first one with the flowers.

Why don’t you go back to that one? And I’m like, because it didn’t sit right. It wasn’t comfortable. I don’t know. It wasn’t nice. And then I had this aha moment. I should bring it into a seamstress and we should fix it. So I did. I went into that box of the things to return, and I pulled it out and I tried it back on.

And then we fixed it. We pulled it up on top, and we made it look a little bit more put together, and it was a lot better. And suddenly I was in love with it. And I was so happy that seamstress said that. So thank you again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was the story of my dress. And if you wanna see a picture, of course you can get the email and see all of the different things.

Or you could go on Instagram at Connected for real and see there are pictures and there is a little bit of a reel of the wedding. And it’s cute. And I’ll keep posting there because that’s my main place to post.

Oh yeah. Meanwhile also when I went to get my eyebrows done, the lady said, oh, I have a beautiful head covering if you want. And it was the perfect color for that beautiful dress that I wanted with the white and the flowers. So it all worked out really nice. It really did. Last oh, why did I start talking about my dress?

’cause I was the last person to get the dress on Friday afternoon. I drove to the seamstress to get my dress. Okay. So that was like the scariest part was I might not have a dress, but it was totally worth it. So on Saturday morning when we got an alarm, like a siren, that there’s a attack, we right away, because we’re already pros at this, it’s not new round here, it’s not our first rodeo.

So as soon as there was a siren, we all went into the safe room, which in our house we don’t have a bomb shelter. So we have a hallway that is the quote unquote safer room, so it doesn’t have any windows. We close all the doors, and it’s a hallway that basically keeps us safer. And so we all squished in there and all of us were home.

Nobody was missing because everybody was here for the Shabbat before the wedding. So not only was it us, it was my parents and my husband’s parents, and the unc was the uncle here, I don’t remember. But the niece was definitely here, and everybody was here in the safer hallway. And then my daughter starts saying, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?

We better not move the wedding. And my husband ducks at her and says no, we don’t move weddings. Weddings are not movable. You picked a date, you already prepared. You are already ready. You’re gonna have a wedding no matter what. And she was very relieved and also very in alignment with not moving it.

And then she starts. Telling us all the things that better happen. The makeup lady better come and the hair lady, and oh my gosh, what if the photographer can’t come? And what if the music guy is called up to be in the army? And what if? And we’re like, don’t worry. Everything’s gonna work out.

Everything’s gonna work out. So the whole job is the entire Saturday. We are stressing over what is gonna happen. And my husband’s so calm and he’s whatever it needs to happen, we are going to do it here. It’s fine. We’ll just do it. It’s gonna be okay. Meanwhile, we know that in our town, just in our like four blocks radius, there are three girls getting married March 1st.

Our daughter. Their daughter and their daughter. Okay. So we realized that we’re not going to be the only ones fighting over, fighting over quote unquote, trying to get the wedding to be local. So right away we started thinking we should talk to them and maybe try to make a trio wedding, or maybe the hall will let us use the wedding at different hours or maybe blah, blah, blah.

I don’t know. Anyway, we started talking about a lot of theoretical things because nobody knew anything. First of all, it was Sabbath, so there was no phones. Even though, yes, we were all on our phones trying to figure out what to do with the sirens. Are you allowed to come in? Are you allowed to leave? Is it safe?

What’s going on? Is there a war? All that stuff was coming in through messages that, because I’m part of the security team, I had to be on my phone. So we had our phones for that, but we weren’t using it for communicating with other people, obviously. And we were trying to keep as much of the Sabbath environment as we could.

So we didn’t know anything. Nobody knew anything until Sabbath was over. And then people got communicative. So first thing was making sure that the groom was not called up and that he is nice and safe and thank God he is. And then thank God he was with his friends and his friends. Were all still local and were not called up and.

The music guy, which was the most important guy the musician with all of his backups and everybody, they were okay and they were gonna come. So the people who mattered said they were still coming and I’m very grateful for that. I wanna tell you, the photographer, amazing guy, I’m gonna put his information down below.

Very good photographer. He came from down south and he didn’t care. He was like, I am still coming. If you guys are having a wedding and you still want me, I’m coming. The makeup and hair lady for the bride. She came in from she lives half an hour away or something. She came in, gave her kids to her mother-in-law and then came here for the morning.

So that was really beautiful. Amazing. We had a makeup and hair lady for the other girls who also came in from Jerusalem and said, don’t worry, I’m still coming. So all these amazing people were very helpful just with the fact that they cooperated and continued to live their lives even though there was a war.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, because you really mattered. You made the wedding ’cause you were the things that were anchors. Nothing moved yet from the main things and the whole time during the, the whole Sabbath, I’m like telling my daughter, don’t worry, there’s a dress that’s the most important, right?

Because here I was dressing over the dress for all these months, what am I saying? Months. We only made the wedding in six weeks. So there was only six weeks to stress over address. But anyway, there’s a dress. Don’t worry. There’s a dress. And I just kept that as my anchor. Like anything happens. There’s still a wedding and there’s still a dress.

Like you have what to wear. The makeup lady’s coming. You’re going to be beautiful. It’s gonna be fine. Everything’s okay. Now, the biggest deal was that we thought we could use the hall because the hall has a safe room. And it would be so nice if we could just do it at the hall and go into the safe room in case of an emergency.

But the law was that you’re not allowed to get together at all. Nobody is allowed to get together. So the government or the governing bodies here did not allow the hall or any other government building to be used for gatherings. That made it very complicated because we wanted to use the girls school, the boys school, the high school, the hall, all these places that have safe rooms.

We weren’t allowed to use them. And then people started calling us and saying, you could use my yard, you could use my yard. You could use my yard. The problem with that is that it was supposed to be cold, freezing cold, and my daughter did not want everybody to freeze and not have where to go. Like sometimes it’s nice to have an outdoor area, but then if people are cold, they can go inside or they can go use the bathroom or something.

But like going into people’s yards and not knowing what to do in case of cold is probably the worst thing. So that was the hardest part, was just knowing that it was gonna be very cold, colder than usual, and not have a place to go. And by the time we went to sleep that night. We only had all of the re regular things that I just mentioned the photographer, the makeup and the music, the three main things.

And we had the dress. And besides that, we didn’t have anything else. So we figured let’s order food because that will take overnight to make and tomorrow morning we’ll deal with where it’s going to be. So we ordered food from this caterer and she said, I can’t do more than what I can do. So I said, make whatever you can, and the rest make sandwiches.

And she made salami sandwiches and a pita with humus and she cut them into quarters and she put them out on these beautiful platters. And most of everybody who was there ended up eating sandwiches. Only the main people, I don’t know, the family, the grandparents, the friends. Whoever were real adults got real food.

There was like chicken and rice and string beans and whatever, but most of the friends and the youngsters all ate sandwiches. And I wanna thank you all for being so flexible and so cool because that was impressive. It was impressive that everybody was so chill about the fact that at least they had something to eat.

What else were we supposed to do overnight? We didn’t even have 24 hours to plan this wedding. It was from 9:00 PM until 12 noon. That’s all we had. And most of that was night. Okay. So the food people stayed up all night to make the food, but we were all trying to piece it together. Thank God my mother stayed up until like midnight getting flowers from some lady who has a flower ga.

A ga is like a good deeds center. I don’t know, like people who have things out of their house that they’re willing to rent out or lend out, and it was really beautiful. People were so nice and that’s the main thing that this wedding came out so magnificent was because people are just so nice and people are so loving and people are so warm, and people are so giving and people are so compassionate.

Really, so much goodness has come out of this wedding and it touches my heart that we were the people who had to deal with this because, I don’t know maybe I needed a reminder about this or maybe I needed to see it firsthand. How held one can be when in a situation of wedding and war, trying to like juggle all these things.

So thank God the wedding happened at noon. Now listen, because it was not legal to get together, I also wasn’t telling anyone about the wedding, so it was like word of mouth or if I needed something from you, then I asked you and told you the details. But a lot of my friends were like, I wish I knew I was down the block.

I could have come over. And I was like, I didn’t tell anyone. So apologies for not telling you that the wedding was at noon. And, all that stuff. By the way, we ended up doing it in a daycare center that was private and without permission, like retroactive permission. It was really beautiful.

And I’m very grateful to everyone, but also I was so scared of being stopped or being told on, and so I ended up being very hush about it. So that’s how it worked. So apologies to everybody who thought they were invited and didn’t get an invitation to the second round or something like to the actual wedding.

Anyway, I hope you understand. What else? The actual wedding, there were four sirens during the wedding. One before the chuppah. It was, she was sitting at her seat and her friends were dancing around her and everybody was just getting ready for the wedding type of thing. The part before the main thing and suddenly there’s a siren.

And she didn’t care. She just could not get herself to go into a safe room because the whole time preparing there were sirens all morning. All morning. There were sirens and the makeup ladies and everybody was working under like crazy. Situation. The crazy was not tangible, how crazy it was.

And so we were already sick of all these, like we didn’t even start and we’re already exhausted. So then somebody came to her and said, you’re the cala, you’re the bride. You have to get into the safe room. And she was like, okay. So she got up and went and all her friends were dancing around her and trying to make her happy.

So, she committed to being happy and she committed to going with the flow. And that was, I think, the biggest gift that she could have done for herself and her, for us. ’cause imagine if it would’ve been the opposite, it would’ve been so terrible and difficult. But no, she was so good about it and I’m so grateful to her.

We walked her down the aisle. I don’t exactly know. There was no aisle. We went down the hall, out the other side to the sand castle. I’m just getting to where the kids play with sand. And thank God my mother made a chuppah and my father got four sticks for it to be held. It was crazy.

Crazy. Four guys are holding these sticks and my mother’s chuppah is up there and every time there was a siren, they would fold it up, put it down, go to the safe room, then come back out, put it back up. Crazy. Now it was probably the longest COPA because every time there’s a siren, you have to go into the safe room.

And thank God we have two safe rooms in this place. So there was a boys safe room and a girl safe room, and there everybody danced and sang and danced and more danced until it was safe to come out. And then everybody came back out. We continued as if nothing happened, picked up where we left off.

And then the next siren again, everybody walked out and in and out. And then it was crazy. By the fourth siren, I went to my friend in the safe room all the way in the back, and I was like, I don’t know how much of this I can take. And she was like, I get you. I just, and I saw my daughter, she’s sitting on a chair.

She’s no longer dancing. She’s no longer like bouncing. She’s tired too. It was so exhausting. The sirens are very exhausting. And besides the fact that physically you’re walking in and out, walking in and out, but there’s also like the stress level of what if and what’s going to happen and, making sure that everybody’s safe and so on.

Thank God. So four sirens. The most memorable siren, of course, is the one where he got the ring and was ready to put it on her finger and say the, the verse that you say in order to get married. And of course, woo, the whole thing starts. And it was like face palm, really. So the rabbi almost took it away from him and said, okay, I guess after.

And my husband said no. He already started. He has to finish. He did, he finished and they did it. And then they went into the sirens, into the rooms. It was very entertaining, not, but if you wanna see that video, I’ll post it for you. I’ll put it in the email or I’ll link it below. It’s a funny one ’cause you actually hear the siren while he’s saying it.

When I think back to the wedding, I remember my grandmother who was there, who said that the thing that she was so excited about was the human warmth. And that’s what she was lacking when she was going through the Holocaust. That’s what she felt was a big problem. When she was growing up and she just couldn’t stop smiling the whole week after the wedding.

She could not stop smiling because she felt like overnight you picked up a wedding and you made it beautiful and you made it happy and everybody was fully there to show up and do whatever is needed. And that human warmth that was felt in that room was worth every ounce of stress and worry and, every penny.

It was so magnificent. And I think that wedding was one of the happiest weddings I’ve ever been at. I’m very happy for my daughter that she got such a thing and I think it’s very apropos ’cause both of them are real. Real gems of people. So it’s very appropriate that they receive this type of wedding.

And now I wanna talk to you about the help that people gave and how to actually show up for your own friends and your own community. Some people sent me a message saying, hi, how can I help you? And I was like, I don’t know. That was my answer. In the WhatsApp you get a million WhatsApps because it’s a war.

So people wanna see that you’re okay because it’s a war. But also you’re making a wedding and you’re trying to communicate with all these real people who you need to communicate with. The music guy the mother of the groom, the, how are we gonna get my grandmother here, whatever.

All these different things. And suddenly people are just like adding noise. Hey, how can I help you? It is nice, but it’s not helpful because I don’t know how you can help me. And the only people who really were able to help me were the ones who said, okay, I’m available now. Should I come over? I’m available now.

Where do you need me? I’m available now. What? What should I do? Those are the people. I was able to say, okay, if you’re available now, go over there and help set up. If you’re available now, then come over here and help me with this. Like those were the most helpful things. Were people who just said, I’m available now.

Where should I be? That was one thing. Okay. The other amazing message I got was out of the blue that morning, I get a message from Maria, a girl who lives here. She’s a teenager. She writes from her mother’s phone, hi, I am Maria. She gives her name, her full name, and she says, I learned makeup and hair and I am willing to do whoever needs makeup and hair, where should I come?

That was amazing because we were lacking a makeup and hair person, and so I said, come right now, we need you. And she saved the day. And I feel like not only did she save the day because she was willing to do the help and she was, showed up and whatever. But the way she wrote that message, she gave me who she is, what she’s able to do, and was available right away asking me where she should be.

Now I’m going to just put it aside. Side by side with a different message I got, and I’m not judging this other person, two people actually who both also did makeup and both sent me a message saying, I do makeup. Do you need any help? And to those two people, I said, yes, come right now before Maria say yes, come right now.

And one of them said, oh, let me see. One second. I’m not really available this minute, but can you come to me? That was a reaction that wasn’t helpful because no, I can’t come to you. I’m running a million other things. And also the person who I need you to do makeup on does not know how to get around.

She’s here, she needs you to come here. So that was one thing. So it was nice that they meant to do well and I really appreciate, but I can’t come to you. The second one also is oh, I just said I’m able to, but I’m not really available. Thanks, why, what for? Oh, it was exhausting to have to manage other people’s stuff while I’m managing my own.

So Maria, I love you and such good communication. Thank you for being so awesome. And then by the way, right in that same thread. After I said, yes, come here. And she’s I’m on my way. Give me the address. I gave her the address. Then I get another message. Hi, I am, I think her brother is Salle or something.

I’m sorry if I got it wrong. I’m Salle and I’m her brother. How can I help? I’m really good at schlepping things. I’m really good at picking up and moving and doing manual work, like manpower. And I was like, thank you. That’s another thing we need is to move chairs and tables around and try to figure out how to make this place, wedding able, I was thinking livable, but that’s not what we were trying to do, wedding a bowl Anyway, so I sent him to go to the place where the wedding is and I said, go talk to whoever is in charge there and ask them what you could do.

So those were two very delicious teenagers who were very exact in how they can help and. I’m impressed. I’m impressed to the point where now I’m teaching everyone how to actually help. Now, this is not something new I heard from my brother the same exact thing when he experienced his terror attack that killed his wife.

And thank God this week he’s getting married, thank God to a new wife and they should be successful and well and all the wonderful blessings. He said the things that were the most helpful when people were specific about what they can do, when one guy said I am going to come every day and make sandwiches for your kids, for school.

And he would follow up with the kids and, did you like it? Did you not like it? Do you want something different? What do you want? And he took that upon himself. That is real help. Real help is thinking of something specific that you can do and. If you can make food, say, hi, I’m so happy you had a baby.

Can I make you a meal? But if you’re not into making food, don’t say, Hey, how can I help you? Say, I’m really good at folding laundry. When should I come over or say, I love cleaning. Can I come clean your house? Or what my husband did, or for a couple of his friends one of his friends broke his arm and the other one broke his leg.

He would just show up and say, I’m taking your garbage out. And he would just do it over and over again the entire month until they felt better. So think of something specific that you are capable of doing that does not break you and is very helpful for the other person. And then show up and do it when you show up in person.

And actually help is most helpful when you call And just yap not helpful when you send messages that are vague, not helpful. Okay, so those are just like, I’m educating you as I’m going. I hope you appreciate that. I wanna talk about the power of the youth. A lot of people are like, oh, the youth these days?

No, my friends, this wedding would not have happened if not for the youth. I think there was more youth than actual adults involved in this wedding, and I think they were the powerhouse that made this place so beautiful that made the couple so happy, that made the music so awesome that made the dancing and the singing so cool was the youth, the amount of energy they have and the alignment that they feel to real values and what really matters.

Youth today is not what people are saying. Oh, today’s youth, especially not here in Israel. The youth here is powerful. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. They are the future and they are the generation of the redemption and is not a small thing, and I’m very impressed with them. My, my son-in-law. Oh, I get to see that now.

Yay. My son-in-law’s friends were amazing. So amazing that if I could, I’d go kiss their feet. Really? So amazing. They showed up first thing in the morning. They were willing to work all night, but I told ’em to go to sleep. They showed up first thing in the morning and set up everything and cleaned up everything and moved things around.

I was so shocked and impressed at how much they did nonstop and everything I asked them to do and everything I followed up and did, I asked for more and more. They just said yes to everything. Hey, can you take out the garbage? Hey, could you move this over there? Hey can somebody wash the floors?

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You guys are amazing. I love you very much. I think that any girl who gets these types of guys is going to be so happy because these are men who really show up. Really show up. It’s so beautiful. So I was very impressed with the youth. I have to tell you, I think that we are in good hands.

The girls were very helpful too, by the way. Very shale. My daughter has two friends who showed up in like crazy ways and I told them they really deserve a vacation because I think they did more work than 400 people combined. Really very impressive. Some cool things that we had four generations that was really beautiful.

I have two grandmothers that came to the wedding.

It was really beautiful to see that we got to experience such a historic moment with women who went through such history. So both my grandmothers experienced the Holocaust in some way. And that was really beautiful to have that sort of it was funny ’cause it’s like full circle, but really it is.

’cause here you are hiding from the Nazis in Paris as a little girl thinking that there’s no other Jews around everybody dead. You’re the last Jew alive. She didn’t know anything about what’s going on in other places. All she knew was that they were all taken. And she grew up finally figured out, no, it’s not all the Jews are dead.

She found my grandfather and they got married and they came to Israel and they, had two kids and everything was miraculous. Everything the doctor said she couldn’t have kids because of the traumas, but thank God she did. And everything just so beautiful and how they raised their kids and lived in Israel.

And now for her to be able to experience her granddaughter’s daughter wedding, so beautiful in Israel, and again, under attack, during war, but in a completely different way, the war that didn’t make us feel alone, but made us feel more together. And a situation where she just felt the happiness and the love and the human warmth.

I think she, she just put it so beautifully. Anyway, that was really nice and touching.

If you live outside of Israel and you don’t know what’s actually going on here, and you’re hearing all these different contradicting messages, it is because every single person is living through a unique situation. And I’m going to link back to my grandmother again because I think it’s so important.

When my daughter’s school asked my grandmother to come and speak to the girls about Holocaust Day, my grandmother didn’t know what to say. She felt like she didn’t. Belong in that room. Like it, there’s people who went through real Holocaust stuff and I was just hidden. So what can I tell you? She moved around a lot.

They took her in the middle of the night and they moved her to a different place and she was in an nunnery and then she was at people’s homes and, in farms and like her experience felt to her, now that she heard other people’s experiences, it felt to her that it was minimal, that it wasn’t as war drama as some of her friends. ’cause now she lives in a assisted living home. So there’s a lot of women who have gone through the Holocaust, A lot of men too. There’s a guy there who’s over a hundred who has a number on his arm, and it sometimes you just feel like you’re a lot smaller than they are because they’re giants.

And I remember my grandmother saying this, and I told her this was so many years ago we probably have the recording somewhere of her speaking to the girls. I think it’s on YouTube if you wanna look it up. Anyway, we might actually find it and put it in the email too. So now this is an email you wanna receive.

Make sure you sign up to our newsletter. The link is going to be below this video. So just like that, a person who’s going through the war here is going to have their unique experience, is going to have, their unique approach, is going to have their unique. Inner world and how they’re taking it. And so some people are going to tell you, I’m petrified I’m gonna die any second.

This is terrible. I don’t dunno what to do. The sirens, they wake us up in the middle of the night, we have to run and we have to hide and blah. And that’s one person. And then another person’s gonna be like, oh, it’s so chill. What’s gonna happen already? Big deal. Whatever. God knows. I know people like that.

Very chill. And sometimes the chill people make you even more anxious because you’re like, you’re not supposed to be this chill. And the anxious people make you more nervous because you’re like, oh my gosh, they’re like making it worse than it is, right? So there’s like a lot of this mishmash of dramas and.

It’s also very dependent on if you have a safe room in your house or not. Are you sleeping in a safe room and you don’t actually have to move when there’s a siren? Or are you going to have to wake up and move to a safer place? Or do you have to go down the block? Like for us, where we have a bomb shelter, but it’s all the way down the block and around the corner, so it takes us longer to get there than the siren actually runs.

So it’s not very safe. And that’s why we stay here and we go to the safer room. But when we’re awake and we’re dressed and we’re happy and running, then like during the day we do go to the safer room, to the, bomb shelter. Anyway, I’m pointing this way ’cause that’s where it is. But if you’re not looking or and you’re just listening, then that’s what it is.

People ask me, where can I see the video on YouTube? There’s a YouTube video for every podcast episode. So if you’re listening on the podcast thinking, oh, I wish I would see her talking, then get on YouTube and watch it. And if you’re on YouTube thinking, oh, I wish I could just put it in my ears and, work and clean and do the things go, we are on every podcast app available.

We’re on Spotify, we’re on Apple Podcast. We’re everywhere. Okay, so now you know. So if you have kids who are in the army, that’s a different experience than if you have little kids and they’re all home and there’s no school. And that’s a different experience than if you are a traveler and you’re quote unquote, stuck in Israel now because there’s no traveling allowed.

So it’s a very unique experience, and so you’re gonna get a different story from every single person. Also, if you have a kid who’s anxious and freaked out, is gonna be very different than if all your kids are like chill and all cooperative, right? So everybody’s unique and every situation is unique.

And I wanna remind you that because a lot of us are hearing stories that aren’t matching up to our stories or maybe are hearing conflicting stories. And that’s the reason. It’s because every single person who is living in Israel right now is experiencing a completely different war, even though it’s the same war.

And that is why we have to not judge. And we have to love the person the way they are, and we have to just be extremely understanding of their uniqueness and their situation. And I think that’s what’s going to really be the tweak that will help us get through this is just, lean into that.

Okay. Lean into being able to understand and really internalize that every person has a unique situation and story. And then, once my grandmother was able to understand that when I spoke to her then she was able to speak about her own situation and really give the backstory and why it was hard for her, and how being alone in the attic not allowed to go near the window was very hard and very lonely.

And how her mother kept taking her from place to place and paying a lot of money for her to be watched. But really she felt like her mother abandoned her. These are inner experiences that don’t match up the reality, right? They don’t really make sense. Your mother did everything to save your life, and then you think, oh, she didn’t care about me.

It makes no sense. But these are the experiences that we experience, and especially as kids, totally legit. And then of course, as an adult, you can go revisit and heal those things. So I highly recommend you do that if you ever experience something that comes up like that. And also, I wanna tell you that one of the anchors that has been helping me so much during this war are my clients.

And it’s been so fun. Yes. Some of my clients who live in Israel asked to defer their. Coaching for after Passover, which is totally fine. And I let them, even though I don’t usually, stop coaching in the middle and let people just move it around. But this made total sense and I was happy that they asked, and I’m usually very flexible with these things.

And my out of Israel clients have been so much fun to work with because they are living their lives and they’re still dealing with their stuff. And it’s been really fun to help them go deep into the relationships, deep into themselves, deep into how they relate to the world and to God, and to their husbands, and to their children, and the sessions that we’ve been having since the war started.

I don’t know why, but there is an energy of redemption. There is something that clicks into place so much easier now. I don’t know why, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s very powerful. So I feel like God turned on the volume on connection with yourself, connection with God, connection with others, turned it on a higher intense level, that now is a good time to sign up.

So if you’ve been. Thinking about joining my coaching program, if you have been wondering about balance for God’s sake, and you’re thinking, I don’t know, I really should, but I am. This is a good time. First of all, you’ll be supporting a family in Israel, which is always a wonderful thing. Second of all, you will be changing your life for the good forever.

Forever. You can’t undo what you do in these sessions. When you finally click into something that has been really eating at you for so many years, and suddenly you see it differently and you feel it differently and you understand it differently, you’ll never be able to experience that pain or suffering again because it just won’t make sense anymore.

It’s almost going to the core and digging it out and then cleaning it and healing it, and then it’s over. It’s gone forever. And if you ever revisit or have to reestablish some sort of. Pattern. It’s not the same pattern anymore, and you now have tools to know how to deal with something that comes up that feels like it’s the same like in the past, but now it’s not because you’re different.

There’s just something so powerful about working together, especially now in this season. Okay? So I know you’re going to have all the excuses in the world, but it’s a war. But Passover is coming, but then this summer and my kids, and I don’t know what, I don’t care. I’m telling you right now, you deserve to take care of yourself and your inner life and your inner world so that you can experience life differently forever.

Like it’s a one, you do it once and it’s done. You don’t ever have to do it again. And I’m not even the one to say it. My clients get on and the first thing they say is, I’m so happy I have you because I don’t know how I would do this myself. So I just love being that person and I love that this is something that I get to do, especially now during the war.

It gives me something to live for. Like it really gives me a good place, an anchor for my space. So I invite you to come work with me. ’cause now I actually have a lot of availability because all of the Israelis in the group, you guys don’t see it as a group because each one is an individual.

Because my program is one-on-one and is three months long, and anytime there’s a holiday or a break, then you get extra time. So actually now, before Passover is a great time to sign up because you’re going to get a full what is it, two or three weeks because of Passover tacked onto the end of your coaching, so it’s a good time to join.

The first thing you do if you’re thinking of joining or wanting to join or wondering if it’s the right thing for you, is scheduling a discovery call. So I call ’em deep dive discovery calls, but, discovery calls cool too. You will look down below under this video and you’ll see the link for a discovery call.

So balance for God’s sake is called that because we are balancing your life, we are making sure that your marriage and your business are working. We are making sure that you and your relationship with yourself and the relationship with God that you have and the relationship with your husband that you have are all working.

We are making sure that you are able to expand your vessel so that you can contain more, so that you can have more abundance, so that you can overflow to others. We are making sure, oh, like the beautiful circles of Dossy isn’t that beautiful how everything just pulls together. I love it.

Anyway that is what we’re doing in balance, for God’s sake, is a one-on-one private coaching program. You don’t actually get to be part of a group. You are on your own with me and we. Have each other for the entire time. So even between sessions you get to have access to me on WhatsApp or email and is magnificent. I highly recommend it. Everyone who has gone through it highly recommends it. I have some really big names who have worked with me, and it’s really sad that I can’t say who they are, but I’m also really happy that I can’t say who they are because I feel like that is the privilege of having this business is I am here for you even if you don’t want anyone else to know that you’re getting help.

And actually, I’m very proud of getting help when I need it because I see the effect it has. And I also want to model to you how important it is to have a coach and to have someone on the outside who can help you and keep you accountable. But also, I totally get it. If you don’t want people to know that you’re working with me, that’s totally fine.

That’s also why I don’t have that many testimonials, even though I have had a lot of customers and they’re all very happy. And most of my testimonials are anonymous. So I just wanna let you know that it’s totally legit if you help other people and have your own following. I feel like that’s my specialty.

That’s all I’m gonna say. What else? So in balance, for God’s sake, we have four pillars. All of my work, everything, my podcast all of the work that I do, four pillars. God is at the core, marriage and business work together, and you are the container holding all of that.

So that is exactly what we do in the program. We meet for a free discovery call and we put together a plan that works for exactly what you want. we’ll find together what the core of the issue is or what you really want and how to get there.

And then I will create a plan for you to actually get there. And then together through the three months, we are going to be tackling all the little pieces that have to do with your goal. So by the end of it, you will get the result you want. And I cannot guarantee anything ’cause I’m not God. But also I guarantee that you’re going to see results just because you’re gonna show up as soon as you commit to yourself.

There is no way you cannot see results. Most of my clients say that by the first session, they’ve already reached a lot of the things we talked about in that discovery call. Just because they’re in, they’re committed, they showed up for themselves, is crazy how quickly things move when you are willing to give yourself that gift of your own presence.

This is amazing. So I am welcoming you and inviting you to come and work with me. The links are going to be below. I also will put in all the links of the cool things I talked about and I’m gonna try to find the video I was mentioning and thank God she’s married now. It’s wonderful. And the war, I don’t know, they say it’s almost over.

I’m looking forward to it. And last but not least, if you are not in Israel, I really recommend you start getting your way here. That’s all I have to say. I know this sounds counterintuitive and it doesn’t make any sense. Everybody’s trying to run away or everybody’s trying to find their way home.

But when redemption actually happens, like we’re in the birth process now, so we’re going through the very, very close contractions before the baby’s actually born. We’re getting signs. We’re getting warning signs every time there is a little contraction, like Corona, like the war, like this war. Now they close down the airport.

What else do you need? You see it with your own eyes, it’s oh, we closed the airport. Okay, fine. We opened it back up. Now you have another chance. But nope. Here we closed it again. Okay, now we opened it back up. And now, so when the actual redemption is going to happen, do you actually think that the airport’s going to be open?

Probably not. So I suggest getting yourself here and creating a plan for when things are running so that you don’t get yourself caught in like last minute. Oh. Oh. I thought once Hir came, then I would come. It doesn’t work like that. You’re supposed to already been here. Okay. So don’t be that person who’s what do you mean?

But I thought I could come into the test right as the test started. No, I closed the door. That was it. It’s over now. Whoever’s inside can get it. Whoever’s outside, eh? So I’m not saying you’re gonna be left out or anything, but I just wanted to take care of you and make sure that, there were warning signs.

They’re gonna close down the airports when the actual thing’s happening. And you don’t wanna be caught in that situation where it’s wait, how do I get there now? I have a lot of people who I love who say, oh, I’ll get there when mashiach comes. Guess what? That’s now. Okay. So get here now. Get ready.

My husband wrote a book, right? So this Passover is a very special one because it’s moving forward in very good directions. Just saying that I’m not gonna say more. Okay? Ah, I love you all. Thank you for listening to my big rant about the wedding and the war, and I will see you next time.

Now, what does next time mean? We canceled all of March and all of the podcast episodes because even though they were all prerecorded and ready to go, they were not able to be posted. So, We are going to start again in April or right before April, that Sunday. And everything that was March is going to be in May.

Okay. So don’t worry, it’s all coming, this is how you roll around here. And isn’t it ironic that the theme was flexibility? So funny. I just find it so ironic. So yeah, that’s the heads up about the podcast. We’re on top of it. It’s all good. I still love you all and we’re still showing up, but we have to be flexible.

Great. I love you. Thank you for listening and don’t forget to be connected for real.