239. How to Stay Strong Through Life’s Hardest Moments

Transcript:

 And we are live. Welcome, everyone, to the Connected for Real podcast, and today I have my mother. And this is a really fun, fun opportunity to speak with my mother, and this is the first time I am doing an in-person podcast episode. So Ima, introduce yourself and- Okay … we can get into it. Okay. Hi, everybody. My name is Naomi Gez. I’m very proud to be here with my daughter. And, uh, let’s see. Yep. Today our topic is words and you. So, you know, we can start by speaking about how you speak to yourself and the words that you use in order to encourage yourself or help yourself, so let’s talk about that a little bit. Okay. So- When it’s a regular day, it’s very easy, right? Everything is okay, and I am happy. I water the garden. I look at my flowers. I am happy to begin my day. The question is when you have challenge, when it’s hard, so this is the challenge. And, uh, I find that, in the times of challenge, I have power from inside. I have a lot of faith in G-d, and, uh, I’m very motivated to elevate myself, to tell myself everything will be okay. And I take a example from the history of people that had troubles, and I tell myself, “You know what? Things are not so bad.” For example, I’m playing with my brain, you know? Like, in the time of the corona, of, uh, COVID, so I saw that I’m very strong. I had friends that were like, “Oh my gosh, I cannot go out. It’s terrible, and we have to work on Zoom, and it’s so terrible.” People really, really were hysterically desperate, didn’t know what to do with their time. And I find, like, listen, I’m second generation to the Holocaust. This is a piece of cake. This is nothing. Like, I’m in my own house. There are not enemies coming to kill me. Nobody’s looking for me. There is food. There is electricity. There is water. I can do all my work on the Zoom. I am connected to people, and also, I’ve so many things I like to do, like hobbies, that I can color and paint and do my jewelry. And my husband was making bread and cheese, and it was like, wow, what an opportunity to take out everything you have in yourself and to do with it, not to feel that you are, you know. Of course, that it wasn’t pleasant to know that there is a disease lurking everywhere to kill me. And this was, like, in the night when I put my head on the pillow, suddenly all the fear was coming. It’s dangerous. Mm. But I, I tried to sleep and to forget about it. So in the day I was okay. When came the night, I was afraid, and then I was praying and I was saying, you know, “God, only you can take me from this problem.” But it was really scary. Yes. You know, there’s a pasuk that you just, uh- What is a pasuk? Uh, a verse. Yeah. Thank you. I, I told Ima that she has to speak English, and now I’m doing the same problem. Um, there’s a verse that says, A burden … a burden on other people. So it’s also something that we have to think about. Like, when there is a challenge, you have to say to yourself, “Ooh, how hard is this challenge from one to 10? Where I am?” And to frame the problem so you know your limits, and you know how much you can play. And, you know, because, uh, uh, to be desperate, always we can be. It’s, it’s an option. Okay? But I think that we have to measure the how big is the tragedy or the problem or the challenge, to frame it, and then to say, “Okay, what can I do about it?” If I cannot do anything, I just pray. Because I know that I am in the hands of God. Always we are in the hands of God, but the question is how much responsibility we have on the situation, how much we can do something. If really we cannot do anything, we just pray. And we use our brain and we try the best that we can do, you know, to be safe, to be… But, uh, who said that life is easy? Who promise us a garden of roses? Nobody. Oh, yeah. So as I was saying, today I took my kids to the park, and to my surprise, my mother came to visit me in the park and meet me there. That was really fun. But before she got there, my kids were playing very nicely. And my daughter, who’s eight, who has been coming up a lot on this podcast, so you guys must know her already, she was doing this hard thing. You know, you go from, from, you climb and you jump and you go over. They have this game where you have to start and not touch the floor or something or rather. Anyway, and the whole time she’s telling herself, “This is so hard. I can’t do it. I don’t know how I’m gonna do this. It’s so hard. This is so hard. This is so scary.” And I see her doing it. I see her doing it, and I see that the other kids who are younger than her are following her. And for some reason, she feels the need to say how hard it is, and how it’s impossible, and she can’t do it. And so I asked her about it. I said, “Why do you think you need to speak these words when you’re, in reality, showing yourself you can do it?” And it made me realize that really, it’s, it’s the way that we act also. The first thing that comes into your mind is, “This is so terrible. How are we going to deal? This is, you know, impossible. What’s it gonna be? Ah.” And maybe we can change the words that we’re telling ourselves. Okay, thank you. I will keep it in mind. Not always I feel that I can do it. Really? Yeah. I think you’re the queen of talking to yourself. Right, right. But in the really hard times, I’m very, very good. But in everyday life, many times I tell myself, “No” It’s too hard. Oh, I’m not capable. And then I tell myself, “You know what? You got a zero already. Let’s do and see if you can do better than zero,” you know? Mm. And, you know, we can do it but it’s very human that you’re afraid, and you have to talk to yourself, and you have to Talk to yourself inside, like your brain, your heart, feelings, and it’s a work. Yeah. It’s not easy. Yeah. But I think that if I have to think of a person who has mastered the way of talking to herself, it’s you. You see why I’m here. She thinks very highly about me. And I feel the same about my mother, and of course, my grandmother, Orli. May she rest in peace. Amen. Yeah. My grandmother in the Holocaust was a, a partisan, and she was doing very brave things to save Jews during the Holocaust. And I took from her personality. And she’s a role model for me. And my mother, too, that didn’t have a childhood from four to 10 years old. So it’s heavy. But this is what made me who I am. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I told you who said that life is easy. But, uh, we learn from, from the past, from the people before us. You know, life is a chain, so… And I transmit you what I got, and I’m happy that you see me as a strong person because, you know, you don’t see yourself. But, uh, yes, I know that in times that I have been to be strong, I’m strong. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, when we were growing up, one of the main sayings that kept coming up is, “Nobody is going to come and, you know, be the clown and make- Yeah you happy.” Yeah. “You are in charge of yourself. Take responsibility to make yourself happy.” Yeah. That’s how I raised you, that I told my kids, “Nobody in the morning will come with balloons to your door, clown, and telling you, ‘Have a good day. I’m here to make you happy.’ Nobody. So we have to be the clown for ourself.” And yeah, this is really, really true that that’s what I’m doing. And also, I feel that I can control my feelings, although there are things that bother. Everybody has things that bothers. Life is not, uh, easy, not smooth. But we are responsible to smile to people around us. And it’s very nice because in the Talmud, it’s written that the face of the person is not his own property. Mm-hmm. It’s the property of the public. So the face, in Hebrew, is inside, panim, panim. So you are responsible to show a beautiful face to people, and you cannot be like that because it’s not fair for people. It’s not fair for the community. It’s not fair for the public. Your face is not only you. You don’t see your face. So you have to take responsibility and to be respectful, and to be nice to people, and to smile, and even when you don’t want to smile. So, you know, the muscles, when you do this- I think it’s the same muscles to do this. So you fake it until you make it, and it influence you, too. So you are allowed to be sad or to be, you know, not in the best feelings. But once you leave the door, you put a smile on your face and you say, “Thank you, God, I can go out. I am healthy. I can walk by myself. I can go outside.” To appreciate what you have and not to think about what you don’t have and all the problems you have and all the challenges. You have to see the beauty of life. You have to see the flowers and the trees and, uh, to hear the voice of the birds, and to appreciate life because everything is a gift in life. And, uh, many people walk in the street, and they even don’t see flowers and plants and birds and the sky. Look at the sky. Look at the colors. Life is so beautiful. So go out from yourself and stop it. That’s it. Stop it. Not to be so much about yourself. Be around you. And it’s very important to go out. Yeah, very, very important. Yes. Very important. Yeah. You see where I get it from? Yeah, it’s very important. Yes. Yeah, you change the scenery, change the mind. You go to bre- you breeze. You know, to take the garbage out, this is excellent. Yes. Excellent. You just go outside, and you see new things, and you come back home. Two minutes, but you change the scenery. Yes. Yeah, I love that. You said about smiling. It, you know, it’s actually proven that if you put a pencil in your mouth and use those muscles to smile, you will feel better in two minutes. I don’t need a pencil. You don’t need a pencil? I do it. Even when I was in labor of you. Ah, that’s me. My beautiful girl, 22 hours. You. Yeah. So when I felt- But it hurts me. I was saying, “Ah, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good. Ah, it’s good, it’s good.” And the nurse asked me, “Are you okay?” I said, “Yeah. Why to say it hurts me when it giving me very bad feelings and I’m lost?” I rather say, “Oh, it’s so good. It’s so good.” So I feel stupid, yeah, of course. But at least I’m making everybody around me happy, and I do myself happy. I lie to myself. I don’t care. I can do it. I don’t even know if it’s a lie. Because look, it was a lie. Yeah, yeah. Right. The result was excellent, but the journey wasn’t so pleasant. But you know what? Uh, I think that you are allowed to do everything to make yourself happy when you are in a situation that really it’s very hard. And not to let yourself fall in the pit because it’s not good. It’s not good. It’s really not good. And there are things in life that only you can help yourself, not your husband, not your children, not your parents. You’re alone with yourself, and you tell to God, “You are here with me in the room. I’m not alone.” And to talk to yourself and say, “Wow, I can do it. We will do it together. God, you don’t leave me, right?” “You’re here with me.” And, uh, you know, to convince yourself that it will be okay, and in five minutes it will be okay, or in an hour it will be okay, or in a day it will be okay. In a year it will be okay. Depends what’s the challenge. But you know, you cannot go to the pit because it will be very hard to go out, and I am afraid to be afraid. I’m really afraid to be afraid, so I do everything not to be afraid. Hmm. This is my- Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I’m so afraid to be afraid. You know that they did a lot of studies about the subconscious, and turns out the subconscious only knows two languages: words and images. Okay. And it believes whatever you tell it. So if you’re using words to say, “This hurts, this is terrible,” you know, they even found that people who had regular jobs, and they said, “This job is gonna kill me.” Mm-hmm. They actually- Kill them … would have heart attacks that almost killed them just to avoid going to work. Their body was trying to save them from something that they believed was dangerous. So it’s, it’s very powerful. The words that you say to yourself are very, very powerful. Right. And the same thing with images. The things that you see, you are projecting, “Ah, I can’t believe it. It’s gonna be terrible. The house is gonna be a mess. I can’t handle it. Everything’s going wrong,” you’re, you’re already making it happen. And it’s, it’s almost crazy to say, but if you just speak the things that you want and see the things that you want, it has been proven to work. So start practicing it, ’cause it really works. If we talk about this, about, uh, cleaning and house and all this, what I do is not to feel a slave. And if I feel that it’s too much, there is a lot of tasks to do in the same day, first of all, I try to split it for two or three days. Okay? For example, the day before I cook, I peel everything, I put it in water, I leave in, in the refrigerator, or I cut it, I leave everything in the refrigerator in bags or in water. Depends, you know. If it’s potato, you don’t want them to be black and all this. So I split the work. And also, when I feel that I’m tired, I don’t kill myself like my mother did. She was killing herself, and she was very frustrated, very, very tired. And when you’re tired, you don’t know what you’re doing. So if I like to color, I just stop one thing that I’m doing, I take, like, an hour, I begin to color, I put music. I treat myself. And then I come back like I was in vacation in Japan. You know? I make myself happy, or I go to the balcony and I drink something. You know, I take time to relax and to take care of myself because I say, “These 20 minutes or an hour that I take will give me power for two hours to work, or three hours,” whatever we have to treat ourself, and to respect ourself, and to love ourself, and to say, “Nobody can do it for you.” Because if I have a list of to-do things, I have to do, you know? So if people are around and they can help me, I am happy. But if I have to do things, so I have to take care, you know, like also to do the laundry. I can fold it the next day. I don’t have to do it the same day. Not to feel that I’m like, “I have to do 10 things,” and I cannot. It’s too, too much. Right. You know, I really like that you said, “Not like my mother.” There was a generational thing that every mother saw her mother killing herself, and so she felt like that was the standard. And you’re, you’ve decided to put a stop to that and say, “No, I want something different, and I’m going to treat myself differently.” And I really appreciate that, because that really stops it from continuing on to the next generation. And I like that. And then I also hear you saying, “Life is hard. It’s hard. Nobody promised you it’s gonna be easy,” which I agree with, and I know is, you know, is the way that it feels, but I feel like a lot of what I’ve been working on is letting it be easy. Why does it have to be hard? Maybe it can be easy. Maybe it can be- What, what I mean, Bat-Chen, is that in life you don’t know what will happen. Right. That’s what I, I mean. You’re not in control. Right. You’re not in control, and things fall, boom, on your head. And I think that we don’t have to be naive, you know? Even in the Bible it’s written that we born here to do a work. We are not here for a picnic, right? Although I love picnics, you know? But … But, but we’ve to, to be realistic, so what can I tell you? So yeah, I think that even that, the words that you’re saying to yourself, you enjoy life until you suddenly realize it has to be hard, and then, ugh, it feels heavy. But it doesn’t have to be hard. Even like you said, hard things happen, and we’re not in control. But if you think about it, “Okay, this is what I’m here to do, and I get to do this,” not I have to. But when it’s hard, when it’s hard, I don’t tell myself that it’s hard. Ah. Only after, in perspective, I say, “Wow, this was hard.” Yes. And in that point, you’re able- You understand? And then I appreciate myself and I say, “You’re so strong. You did it. You did it. Go, girl. “” You know, good for you. But, uh, you know, my husband had a stroke. Three days after, they told me that I have breast cancer. So I felt, when they told me I have breast cancer in the phone, next to my husband that is after three days in h- a stroke in the hospital, I felt like in a movie, Disney, that Mickey Mouse, you know, he’s running, is slip on a banana peel, and then, is jumping, he’s running, and boom, he fell in the wall with his head. So I saw a movie like that and I say, “I don’t believe it.” Like, my husband after after three days, me, like, “Hey. Hello. God, life can be a tragedy or a comedy, so let’s laugh together.” That was my reaction, to protect myself. You understand? So I feel really that I’m strong. And since then, I took control on everything to help my husband, to help me, to find a hospital, to find, you know, where to do the surgery, which doctor to take. I did research. I had to do a lot of things. And all the time I told myself, “Don’t worry, I have to take care of this couple.” Don’t worry. There is a couple here I have to take care of. Like, I was really out of the problem because it was so big, and it was so frightening, but I didn’t want to admit, number one, that it’s me. It’s not me. It’s a little Naomi I have to take care of here. She has a problem, and I will help her. And she has a husband, and I have to help her husband. So, you know, I had to disconnect myself and to work with my brain and to do the right thing to save it. Well. And thank, and thank God we’re- And thank God four years later, three years later? Less. Yeah, yeah. And then October 7th happened, just to put you in- Yeah, a week after, a week after. Yeah. A week after the surgery. To put it in perspective. So, you know, so, uh, we lost everything, like. Yeah, it was, it was challenging. It was. But, you know, it was the time that I was with the most faith in God because there is nothing to do. Right. There’s nothing else to do. It’s, it’s, uh, we’re very lucky that we have an address to talk to. Right, God. Yeah. Right. Right. We’re very, very lucky that, uh, we understand that we don’t manage life. We don’t manage anything. We have the choice to choose how to react, and this is a good thing. Right. That still we have what to do. Mm-hmm. So we can be proactive. You know, we cannot sit like potatoes and say, “Oh.” Not I’m desperate and not somebody else will take care of me. Nobody will take care of me, right? I have to go to the hospital. My husband has to go. Pa-pam, pa-pam, all the process. So yeah, I’m very proud of myself, and I thank God that he gave me the power and the, the brain. Really. Yeah. The brain is very important here. You have to use your brain and to tell your feelings, “Uh, feelings, we don’t have time now.” “Uh, after you tell me how do you feel. Now, we don’t have time for that, okay? No crying, no na-na-na, na-na-na.” Right. “No, we don’t have time for that. Now, we have to act.” And thank God that here is my grandmother. That what? That, that was like that in the Holocaust. She didn’t have time to na-na-na. No. She didn’t have, have time to say, “I’m afraid.” No. She had to save her daughter that was four years old till 10 years old, and she had to take Jews from the border of France to Spain, and she was very, very brave, and she helped a lot of Jews, and she was hiding people, and she was eaten, and she was looking for food for everybody. So she was very proactive, and all the stories of her bravery made me strong and with the brain, with the logic, with the not panic. It will not help you, panic. After we can think about and to say, “Wow, this was really challenging, and how did I do it?” And that’s what I meant. Yeah. So, so that’s what I want to really put my focus on because Whenever we’re just sitting around and talking, if it’s about life is hard, or you can’t control anything, or, ah, it’s, you know, things are just gonna fall out of the sky, which they have fallen many times out of the sky. Yeah. And even just in the last three years, like we’re saying, it’s like, you know, somebody asked me in one of, uh, there was like a group therapy thing, and I said, “It’s just a babushka thing, you know? Like, there’s tragedy after tragedy, like thing after thing.” It just, you know, she’s talking from her angle that, you know, three days after her, I found that I was pregnant, and I was, went through the whole pregnancy alone in, here in Israel. They were there. I couldn’t go to them. They couldn’t come to me. So then there was- And then the result? The result? A baby. There, of course, a baby. And Baruch Hashem. A beautiful baby. Thank G-d, yeah. So… You know, but it’s just like there’s so many things we go through. Now the question is, are we going to say, “Oh, life is hard. There’s so many things that happen. So much-” And people know, people know what happened to your brother? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So- You can say it. You can talk about it. Yeah, so- You can just say it … we had the tragedy, uh, of, uh, a terror attack, and the wife of my son, my daughter-in-law, was killed on the way to the hospital to have a baby. Tzeela Gez. Yeah. Tzeela bat Galia and Shmuel. Hashem yikom damah. Amen. Very, very tragic, and, uh, they saved the baby, but only for- Two weeks … two weeks, and he died also. So we lost also our grandson that was two weeks. And Bat-Chen lost also her aunt and the baby. No, she’s not my aunt. She’s my sister-in-law. Oh, s- sorry. My kids- Sorry. Yeah … my kids are like her aunt. Right, right, right, right, right. So we cannot say that it’s easy. It’s, it’s really, really, really hard. It’s really hard. And- Yeah  I think I wanna change the words of easy and hard to challenging and maybe hard to understand. Because the reason why it feels hard to us is because we can’t wrap our heads around why this makes sense, but it obviously makes sense to someone, and that someone is running the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh- And that’s what’s keeping me going, ’cause I’m like, at least He knows. No, no, no, of course, of course. I, I, I have beli- believe in G-d, that He knows what He’s doing, and everything is planned. But when I see the kids that lost their mother and the baby, when I see my son, it hurts. It hurts. So yeah, yeah. So you don’t want to say life is hard. It hurts I think life is- It hurts … is, you know, is challenging. And like you said, when you have a challenge, you have a choice- Right how you’re going to react. Right, right. So- What can we say? Yeah. That we don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know. And in those moments where everybody’s, is really talking about how to be resilient and how to go through these things, right? Like, we go through life, challenging things happen, and we have a choice. And then the question is: What are we going to tell ourselves? What words are we going to use? What attitude are we going to choose to get us through it, and then to also help other people around us? ‘Cause I think one of the things that I realized from the terror attack of Tzeela is that we’re so interconnected. And the way that you react and the, the choices that you make have so much impact on everyone else. And the way she lived impacted a lot of people, and the way she died went viral and completely touched every person in this nation. Every human being- Every human … all over the world. Yes. Yeah. It was all over. Anybody who heard about it was touched by it. Yeah. And then when I think of the baby, I think of how many people prayed for this one baby. Just the amount of prayers and the unity that was created. And it cut through all the different layers of types of people and location and different, uh, points of view. But, Bat-Chen, I, I, I cannot lie to you. Yes. You know, after the Holocaust, you know, to lose the next generation, it’s very painful. It’s very, very painful. And in our land, it’s very, very painful. And it’s… Ouch. It’s very deep. But of course, that we have to thank God that we continue. Yeah. That we have the power to continue, and the hope. We have the hope to continue. What can I say? That we cannot give up. We cannot give up. And also we cannot, as Chananel, yeah, our son, your brother, as he say, “They killed my wife, they killed my baby, but I cannot let them kill myself.” And to kill my other children. Like, we cannot give them to kill us. So also for that, we have to be very, very strong, and to understand that we’re part of Am Yisrael, of the Jewish nation, and we want to live. And all our history is tragedy after tragedy in a big picture, yeah? Nationly-wise. And okay, we were chosen, but we will not give up. So this is from the brain. Now, the feelings, depends what time of the day. We cannot lie, right? Yeah it’s normal that sometimes you tell yourself, “No, it cannot be. No, it cannot be. This tragedy, it cannot be that it’s our… No.” And, you know, we are human. For sure we’re human, and I think it’s very important to process the emotions as well. Right. You know, um, Savta Etla, your grandmother- Yeah … she was very strong and very, very- active during the six years of the war. And then after her husband came back and the war was over, she didn’t have the capacity to hold all of that. Right. And it sort of like, whoop, sank in. Right. And I think it just shows us the importance of allowing yourself to have feelings. Yeah. Allowing yourself to process them, hold them, be with them, because pushing them away is not a strategy, right? So when we’re talking about use your words to your advantage, I’m not saying lie to yourself. I’m not saying push it away and never come back to it. But sometimes you’re going to have to say the thing you want more than the thing that’s going to bring you down in this moment. Right. But of course, we cannot judge her, right? We cannot judge anyone. No, like- I’m not judging anyone. After six years that you are afraid every moment that they kill you, and kill your daughter, and kill your family, and… Ugh, we cannot even- Oh- … think about this situation. Also, I think that the- So extreme having her husband come back and, you know, giving her the news that everyone else died except them, like they were the only ones left- Right … is also a very difficult thing to carry. Right. So it wasn’t that, you know, all of her fears basically came true, except that her own daughter is alive and she was alive. Right. And basically, that was all that was left for her husband to come home to. Right. So it makes sense that, you know, this is her reaction and how she lived. Right. But I’m saying I think it’s important to know when to sit down with your feelings and have a conversation about, “Oh, I’m, I’m feeling you. I’m seeing you. I know that this is how we feel.” Versus when I need to take action, I need to function, and I need to move things along, and I can’t just suddenly… You know, as, as my daughter is doing the, the, the, going through the hoops and stuff, she’s saying, “This is so scary. This is so scary. This is so scary. This is so hard. This is so scary.” Is that helping her? I’m not sure, right? And if she says, “Oh, look at me, I can do it. I’m doing one thing. I did all those. Maybe I can do more.” You know, it’s, it’s a way of practicing. I think that’s, that’s what I’m really getting to. I don’t know if it’s connected, but this what I feel to say now. Yes. That sometimes we think that if we worry, so we are in control. Mm-hmm. I have to worry now so I protect the person that I’m worry about. Like, I am afraid for my child, I am afraid for my husband, for my parent, for myself, so I worry so I’m in control. That’s not true at all. If you worry or you don’t worry, what has to happen will happen. So we have to take out the worry. Yeah. We really have to take it out. This is not a medicine for control. This is not a medicine to protect ourself. This is just to kill ourself, and to kill our present And if we do it all our life, we kill our life. Yeah. We don’t have to worry. You know that worry, I heard once, is the worst way to use your imagination. Right. Right. You have an imagination. You could come up with a million ways that this thing can turn out, and worry is just basically saying, “Worst case scenario, this is what I’ll focus on now.” So I learn, um, because I’m an educator, I learn that the brain can think only on one thing on one time, meaning you can be multitasking, yeah, but when you think about one thing, you think about one thing. And there was a situation in our family, extended family, a baby had cancer in his eyes, and I took it very, very hard. Really, I didn’t know how to deal with it. It was such a shock that I began to do FIMO. I began to do jewelry from FIMO, uh polymer clay, and I did beautiful, beautiful beads, and then I did the chains, and earrings, and everything. And I felt that I train my brain to think about the colors I want to choose and the beads that I want to choose, and this really cure me from the fear, and the shock, and the pain, and the I don’t know. How come? How come a baby that is two months old has cancer in his eyes? It was such a shock to all the family. I didn’t know how to deal with it. And this was my way to deal with it because I felt that I, all day long, think about it, go to a pit, don’t know what to do with myself. I felt so desperate, and I tell myself, “You must help yourself.” And also, I couldn’t talk to other members of the family because it will make them more pain. So this is a problem that you cannot always share with the most close people to you, like your parents, your children, your siblings. You cannot share the, the, the fear and the pain because it will affect them, and it’s not the place. If they worry about the baby, I cannot come and tell them, “You know, I didn’t sleep at night.” They don’t need me on their, on their back, right? Because they have their challenges and, and the grandparents and all this. So I feel that I did such a good thing to the world because I said, “You know what? He has a problem in his eyes. I will do things with colors and with jewelry and something to, to give life to the world and to myself.” Yeah. And it was my way to get normal. I don’t know how to describe it even, because really, really, I came from school, and I was working like six, six hours a day with my jewelry. And I didn’t think about the problems. I didn’t think about this baby and the pain that I had and the frustration and the shock. So this kept me. Yes. It was many years ago, and I remember- Right, right … it was, it was a, a big life shift- Right … That came from a choice. Right. Right. Because this was my way to deal, with the, this trouble. Thank G-d. Thank G-d. Thank G-d that he is good now, and he’s big, and he’s in school, and nobody talks about it, you know? Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Thank G-d. Thank G-d. But, you know, it was a very, very, not- challenging. She doesn’t let me say hard. I let you say whatever you want. No, no, no. We cannot say it’s hard. We have to say it’s challenging, yeah. Tell you what, it’s hard. Like, my brain will say, “Don’t worry, it was challenging.” It was very scary. It was very hard. It was very stressful at the time. But- And the pain, the pain. Yeah, because it- The pain … it envelops you, and it takes you into this, like, tornado of emotions. Right. And you don’t know how to get out. Right. So being able to choose or have, like, a s- tiny spark of a moment where you’re like, “Oh, I need to do art. Oh, I need to get out,” something, and just grab at whatever is coming at you and do it and help yourself, it means that this hard became the challenge. It became the option. It became a way that you can react in a different way. You know, I must thank my parents and thank God that I got a very good education, not only in school, you know, to go to learn, but also to have hobbies and to love things that makes me happy, like to play piano, to do art, to do ceramic. Uh, the love for flowers and plants came from my mother. Uh, the curiosity about geography come from my father. So I cannot say that I’m bored. Always I have something good to do, like crochet. Like, uh, now I do a, a mosaic, right? Mosaic and, and… Life has so much to offer, and if you’re not good with your hands, you can always do something with your brain, like, uh, to read, to go to the library, to go to museums, go out. Life is so big that h- Endless possibilities to make you happy. And to be happy, you don’t have to be rich. You have to be curious. You have to have motivation. You have to appreciate what life has to give. And a day that you don’t see something new, boring. Very boring. So you like to be in the kitchen? Every day, different colors, different vegetables, different recipe. Go to the internet, look to something. Make your life happy. It’s in your hands. And that’s what I do. There are people that say, “Every Shabbat, Shabbos, I eat the same thing.” And I was like, “Really? I don’t know what I eat.” Depends. I open the fridge, I create something. I look in the internet. I learn. I like to change. I like to make life fun. So in everything, you can do fun. You can go pick flowers from around your house, in gardens. I don’t know, to ask your neighbors if they have beautiful plants just to cut to make a beautiful bouquet. Even if it’s for two days, who cares? Enjoy these two days. Every day is a day. Yeah. Every hour is an hour. Whatever makes you happy. Yeah. I once went to a class with Mrs. Stefanski Okay And she said that the thing that really gets us is that we think we have to do it more than once. Like, “Oh, if I make him coffee, now I’m gonna have to make him coffee all the time. If I go out and do this thing, now it suddenly means I’m that type of person that has to go out,” da da da. So she says, “Just tell yourself, I’m doing this only once.” Right. “I’m gonna do this nice thing for someone only once. I’m gonna do this one thing to myself only once.” And give yourself permission to experiment only once, and then see how it felt and decide if you wanna do it again or not, and it’s fine either way. And it is very freeing because you get to be a lot nicer and a lot more creative when you don’t have the pressure of feeling like this means something now, you know? This doesn’t mean anything. Just let yourself flow with it. That’s nice. Yeah, I liked it. Okay. I will fold the laundry only today. Tomorrow, I don’t know. Next week, I don’t know. Only today. Yeah. But, you know, why not? Right. Why not? Yeah. We have to feel that we have choice. Also, you know, a lot of people say, “I have to do this, and I have to do that,” and I found myself changing that to, “I get to do this, and I get to do that.” Oh, I want. “I want to do this,” because not everybody gets to. Right. You know? A lot of people… I remember when I was pregnant, in one of my pregnancies, I had to be on a little bit of a bed rest, and it was very frustrating that I wanted to do all these things, and I couldn’t do anything. And I’m seeing all the things I wanna do, and I don’t get to do them. It’s very hard. So when I can do them, I don’t have to, I get to, and I can enjoy it, and I think that’s very motivating. With my experience of life, if I don’t have to go for a treatment in the hospital every week, I tell God, “Thank you so much. Give me a day off” Vacation. You give me a day, a gift. Because if people have to go every week to the hospital, or there are people that are, you know, so many stories that we have to appreciate. And I thank God that I had this experience to appreciate more what I had and what I have. Yes. So everything is the way that you take it. Somebody can say, “Oh, what it happened to me,” to be bitter, and I say, “God is the king.” The king decided. I don’t argue, because it will not help me. Can you argue with the king? You cannot. The king is the king. So the king decided that that will, will, what will happen to me. And I take it as a lesson to appreciate my hair, to appreciate my health, to appreciate that nothing hurts me, to appreciate that I can eat, to appreciate everything that works. And during the treatment, not every, everything was good and worked, and it was a challenge. But I told myself, during this time, I told myself, “Listen, Naomi, this is not the book of your life. This is only a chapter. And this chapter will end, and we will open a new chapter.” So this is also very important to know, that life is round. And when you are here, don’t forget that you will be here. But when you are here, don’t be so confident because you will go here. So, as Chananel say, uh, he heard it, I think, from a stand-up comedy, that, oh, you, you have a challenge, or you will have a challenge, or you are after a challenge. So, this is life, and we have to be smart and patient and to try our best, and not to think that we are the most important people on earth, to know our limits. And on the other hand, to know that we are in charge of ourself, and to play between the two lines, that we’re nothing, but we’re everything. Right. Life. Yeah. I think wrapping it up, I, um, what’s coming to me is the understanding that every person is going through something. And that we’re going through something, they’re going through something. You don’t know what people are going through. Even if they tell you what is going on, that’s, like, the tip of the iceberg, and there is so much more that they’re not telling you. There are things that they’re afraid of. There are things that are keeping them up at night. There are things that are happening to their family or extended people, or, you know, friends that they can’t talk about, but they worry and love them. And so everybody is made up of so many parts, and so many- And, and, and childhood Child- yeah. They, they carry their childhood and the pain. It’s not easy. Right. So, you know, childhood and present stuff- Right … and everything that’s going on in your life. Right. And you think to yourself, “He should know,” or, “They should be nicer,” or, “They should understand.” Like, nobody should anything. Everybody is carrying their own thing. And now we get to interact with each other. So, either you’re communicating properly and saying what you need right now, and hoping that they really understand. And if they say, “I can’t give you that right now,” then being okay and understanding that, you know, you don’t know why, but that’s not available, so let me find it somewhere else And just being kinder to each other, you know? I think that it changes, it changes everything. Recently, there was a situation that I felt like, “If they only knew.” And I was like, “But they don’t, and I’m not gonna tell them, so whatever. They can deal with being annoyed with me, and I can deal with letting them be annoyed with me.” And I left it, and I thought, it’s fascinating because if, if I was able to see the stories and the things and all of everything that is invisible that’s going on in you, then we would all be so different. We’d be a, a very, much kinder to each other. And that brings me to words in you, which is, how do you be kind to yourself with everything that you’re holding and all the things that are happening to you? Can you give yourself more space? Can you create more of a, of a safer environment for you to be going through the things that you’re going through without having to be so judgmental about the things, the way it should be, and how it’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and all of that stuff? Can you allow yourself to hold whatever is happening and say, “No one else knows what I’m going through, so I’m the only one who can really give myself this safe space”? But- Yes with all what you said- Yeah … when we need help, there are many nice and good people around us that have a lot of values that want to help us, and we have to know how to help them to help us. Yes. And I find that the Jewish people have the same values all over the world. And never mind which school you went to, which kind of school you went to. The fact that you are part of the Jewish people, you are a very, very special person. We have a code of kindness, and giving, and care that we can be so proud of ourselves. And we were raised in a way to give, to help, to donate. You know- We never knew what is to get, than to receive. And with the challenge that we had last years, we learn what is to get and to receive. And for people like us, when we give, we feel that it’s natural. It’s, uh, why not, right? Somebody need, so you help. You go, you do, you talk, you call, right? You give a good word. You ask somebody, and you feel that it’s, it’s normal. This is part of our education. But when you are in a need and people suddenly come to you, give you a flower, give you something, give you a cake, give you salad, come and ask, “How are you doing? What do you do?” Make you something. For you, it’s the world. For you, it’s the day, it’s the week, it’s the year, because you say, “Wow, they care about me.” Or they write you a email, or write you letters. You know, people really, really care, and I cannot mention how important we feel and how we are not left alone. So we did it all the time in our life because we are givers, because that’s our education. But it’s so nice that the teachers and the rabbis taught also the other people, not only us. So it’s amazing. It’s really amazing. We were teachers all our year, these years. My husband is a rabbi, and suddenly people from the community and students from previous years gave us, and send us, and call us, and encourage us, and it gives you such a power. So it’s, it’s good to be part of a community. Yes. And when you are Jewish, you are not alone. And thank you, Hashem. Thank you, G-d. Really appreciate that. And, uh, it’s a gift because, uh, you know, the Torah was given, the Bible was given to all the Jewish people, and everybody got something from the Torah, but in the bottom line, we have an excellent country, excellent nation. Yeah. I want to say something about that. Definitely ask for help. And I think that part of creating that safe space for yourself is also being willing to be honest with yourself and see, where can I let it be easy, right? We said life doesn’t have to be hard. If a challenge comes, I don’t have to carry it myself, and there is no medal at the end that says, “Yay, you did it all by yourself.” Right. That’s not the point. The point is there’s a challenge, and I need to figure out what is going to help me, what is going to get me through this. And so, if it’s asking this organization, and raising your hand in this community, and asking for the right help, it’s very helpful for the people who are helping to know what you need, because then it matches up, right? A lot of times, I’ve had friends who gave birth or, you know, were in certain situations, and I wanted to come help, and there was almost, like, nobody at the door. “No, no, I don’t need anything. No, thanks. I- I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” And it’s very difficult to be the giver- Right … when there isn’t a clear what I need to receive. So, I definitely think that asking for help, being very clear about what you need is going to help you create that safety for yourself to be able to go through challenges, and also help others help you. And- Yeah … because you’re very creative and very original, you can always give to somebody, even if you don’t know what he needs. You could be very creative and give something that makes somebody happy. Yeah. It can be a phone call. It can be a WhatsApp. It can be food. It can be flowers. It could be- Listen, I’m sure you can come up with what to give. Right. My point, my point is- Right … that for you to create that safety for yourself and to take responsibility for the situation, allow yourself to let it be easy. Allow yourself to come up with whatever you need in order to not have to hold it all yourself. And the other thing I wanted to say is that the biggest help that came throughout this year of the, the terror attack and, and Teheila being killed actually came from a non-Jew, and I felt very touched. I feel like- Like you said, we were all taught, and it was obvious, and it was normal, and it was the thing. It was almost expected, even though it was appreciated. But then when a person who is, you know, God-fearing, non-Jew- Right … which a lot of my listeners are not- Of course … necessarily Jewish, but a God-fearing, non-Jew turned around and gave me the feeling that I am not alone, that I’m being held, that I am almost, like, unconditionally loved, you know? I’m not part of your nation. I’m not part of your community. I’m not part of your, you know, value system. We have different political views. We have different everythings. Like, I, it almost like we would never have met if not for the coaching program I was in. And she turned around and gave me something that I don’t think anybody else could have given me, which was that feeling of, wow, people are good. It’s so nice. All people are good. Yeah. It was, it was a surprise. It was nice. It’s so nice that you say it, because now I remember a priest from Africa came with his community O Chananel And they came like 10 people. And they were so nice to us. They came especially to say that they are shocked from what happened. It was very comforting, and I felt the love, as you say, as human being, that they are the good people, and they are the evil people. And it was really uplifting. Yeah. Yeah. It was really, really beautiful. And this gives the power and the faith in the human being. Yeah. Yeah, I think there’s something really, really powerful about the fact that we’re all in this together. And I go back to the Holocaust. Right. That there was a priest that helped my grandmother to save Jews and to take them out from France, and to cross the border to Spain. So, you should know that parents invited him to the wedding. And yeah, they wrote his name also in Yad Vashem, in the Museum of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. And they wrote about him. And something amazing, that in every situation, you have choice to be good or to be bad. You have choice to be proactive or to go to the pit. Uh, we never, uh, we never can say, “I don’t have a choice.” Of course you have a choice. You can be in bed, and to say, “That’s it. I don’t go out.” Or you can put yourself, uh, dress yourself nice, put makeup, lipstick of course. And go outside. It’s your choice. It’s your choice. You cannot blame nobody. I give you permission to go outside without makeup, ’cause I do all the time. I, I never wear makeup. Don’t listen to her. My grandmother told me always to put lipstick. Always to put lipstick. You see that? And I’m not following in their ways. Are you hearing? No, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m kidding. You do your choice. It’s okay. Yeah. Listen, you are beautiful, more than, you know. Yeah. But, uh, anyways, y- you understand the, the message. Yes. And my grandmother, uh, used to sleep on the clothes that she has to wear the next day. During the Holocaust, she put the clothes, and on that, the mattress, so it will be Nice and neat because she couldn’t iron, of course. But only to show you that you have choice to look like a person in every situation. So, uh, it’s nice. It’s nice to know that we have still room for decisions in every situation. So, you measure where we are. And thank God, always we have to feel like that, that we have all the screen, all, that this is the blessing of God. But sometimes when our possibilities are like that, still we have to make the choices. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for asking me. Oh, this is so great. Yes, it’s really great. And I really hope you guys appreciate that tomorrow morning there will be a podcast coming out, ’cause it almost didn’t happen, but it was really important. Yes. So, thank you. She has a choice. I had a choice, and I chose to make sure to show up for you. Okay, so we bless all of you, and make good choices. And you can write in the comments what is your choice and what is your challenge, if you want to. I love that. Go for it. Yeah. Let us know. I’m always curious, and I always like to know what’s going on. Yeah. Let us know- And- … and we’ll cheer you on. And if we can help, with pleasure, we are here for you. Ah, this is amazing. Thank you for coming, and thank you for listening, and don’t forget to be connected for real. I’ll see you next week