Has 'Unconditional Love' Destroyed Our Children? - Rabbi Shimon Russell & Rabbi YY Jacobson

the yeshiva.net thank you Reb Galia it's great to see everybody this wonderful uh beautiful morning so I just want to tell you this conversation that you're about to be part of we're about to be part of is unscripted I don't think we even prepared uh one question or one answer a flow of Consciousness let's call it that and really what we try to do here we've done it a few few times with a lot of is be very practical pragmatic and also give a voice to all of the different parts in ourselves this journey is a journey that's fraught with uh pain with uh questions with dilemas with deep struggles someone who says that this journey is just simple and easy and gmak and delightful is either not on this journey or living in another world or completely emotionally dead or detached so you know there's there are real questions emotional ones hasic ones intellectual ones spiritual ones social ones so that's what we're here really to do and uh open our hearts and our minds to uh the depth and the truth of this journey of trying to grow our ourselves and help our children become who they're destined and who they're supposed to become according to God's mission for each of them and it always begins with ourselves so I think uh let's begin ready when you are I apologize always before if I ask sometimes questions that are personal you know because that's the nature this is these are very personal intimate conversations by the way I embrace I just want to tell you you mentioned um that we we we get personal so it is uh it is my feeling after all these years that if we don't get personal if we can't be honest if we can't embrace our own flaws and warts and Imperfections if we can't look at them so we can't be real and as I say many many times it's the lack of our safety to be real that shuts us down and disconnects us so we live alone so every time you do it I must tell you I so value that you start off like that because I think if we don't get real and honest then we're not getting to the heart of it and it's um that the value is diminished so I'm okay with that so here we go the Journey of Ki The Journey of of helping our children who are struggling I think often expresses itself in great great changes in a marriage what does it do to a marriage how does a couple ensure that instead of undermining the marriage which it can probably do very easily because of two reasons number one he may have a different opinion than her number two even if they have the same opinion the pain and the blame oh if you would have been a different type of mother if you would have been a different type of Father you were out for lunch you would go finishing B and youri when I was home alone with these crazy kids you didn't know how to be a father cuz you're your father and your X and your elter this trauma if you would have been a little more secure and confident and not keep them on a computer for 29 hours a day if they would have been at a shabas table so with all that pain that comes with blame and maybe different perspectives of how to deal with it and maybe other elements of pain a marriage can easily be undermined what would be your personal advice and I know your uh soulmate is here with us it sounds like you spoke to her before spoke to my wife before I you spoke to all the wife look here's the facts um can I speak openly good okay his wife said of course he could speak openly so this journey first of all there's no such thing as a perfect marriage let's be honest there's no such thing in fact everyone here who has a perfect marriage you can leave you can okay nothing happened okay here's the reality you know Kesh made men and women in a way where we cannot get along naturally it's l TV this is a fact made it that way different there are so many aspects of how we function and how we live terms of our emotions our intellect outcome oriented process oriented we know this these ties but men and women do not get along naturally that takes work and I believe made it that way that's the uh separation of aarish to separate the NAA take it out and then say now now go work it out because if you if you're that connected there's no work work the disconnect is what creates the work where we have to constantly constantly forever from the beginning to the end of our Lives constantly be sensitive to try and work out how to make that work so everyone has a marriage everybody that is constantly being challenged the relationship the sensitivity and it takes enormous amount of work that's for all of us you know we enter this parisha all of us with already a normal challenged marriage now here's what happens when we initially I know what happened to us and I'll share our journey and perhaps that'll be helpful we were caught completely by surprise what it happened to us it was an absolute shocking phenomena that we you know got the phone call and we told about something that went on with one of our children we didn't see it coming we didn't we didn't know what it was we didn't feel it and there it was almost everyone when you get firstly in this parure are terrified we're all terrified what's going to be especially today when we are so aware of how dangerous it is when a child goes off we are terrified even prior to the shame the embarrassment but we're parure terrified about what's going to be how far is this going to go will they get when will they get kicked out of school and Sh and life and shame and everything the the whole your life collapses it implodes on you when you realize you're in this paraa and you terrified people who are terrified you know it's the same thing with the pre CeX right you shrink your compassion you shrink your empathy you shrink the normal inter you know relational skills because what you want to do is survive and what happens is you get tunal Vision where you believe this intervention this is what we got to do we got to stop our kid being friends with that kid because that's the whole reason it's all happening this is how enter the parisher we limit ourselves believing if this one rebi would just be nicer if this one friend wouldn't be slapping her down if we could just stop her doing this or stop him doing it's like one thing we think we actually believe I mean I can see already there smiling faces you know we we we fool ourselves which is it's a human reaction till you learn the Su and you actually believe this thing thing is the thing that has to change and if we can get this under control we can stop this whole thing that's the demion we all enter this suia with the funny thing is though when you check him with your spouse you discover they have a different thing that has to stop that has to change and it's not yours you see the chances of it being the exact same thing are very slim and if it's not this one the next one will be different so what happens is is you're both in panic mode terrified about what's going to be with your brain informing you that this is what's going to change it all so when your spouse enters in not quite agreeing with you which is very highly likely and more likely the spouse to tell you actually it's less likely it's them maybe you need to spend more time with your kid and it's not them at all it's not that it's you so you get even more terrified this is going to challenge the best of marriages this phenomena is unavoidable and will challenge the very very best of marriages as we went through this we're talking 30 years ago but when we first went into this Parish we were terrified nothing to talk about we took turns at being depressed we the anxiety was obviously extremely high and we struggled in the very early days we were B we had a good marriage to begin with but we struggled very very much when this Panic set in and the debate started in panic mode about what's the right thing to do next we then I think if I remember correctly vacillated between the panicky I've got to do something now to being so depressed I'm out of it I need time off we actually developed a model for ourselves where when we got to that brink of exhaustion of frustration we granted each other time off and one of us would Retreat into the safety of the bedroom and have a few days off out of the parer because we couldn't cope but the marriage will inevitably be affected now here's the Paradigm and the Paradox that's so amazing it's actually the strengthening when you're assuming your marriage now there's a different Paradigm for single parent homes the works just as efficiently I'm going to deal with the marriage one yes is that okay yeah sure the the Paradox of all of this is again what we over the time and years began to understand is the gift of this struggle required that we came together we recognized that our children desperately needed a secure attachment with us they needed a clear secure picture of what we were doing to try and help them which absolutely required an elevation of our relationship of our connection that was way beyond what we ever actually perceived we needed and we're living prior to this event and so what's occurred for us over the years is this and that's the Paradox is so amazing that the the para itself challenged our marriage very deeply forcing us to address the issues that we had not yet done you know how many of us just leave stuff you know there's stuff in your marriage but you know what as long as it's not driving you crazy you leave it alone you walk around it's unpleasant but we leave the unpleasantness and just get on with it because I don't know we just there's a possible then that our children are unconsciously going into the struggle to save their parents marriage so I will tell you that's not funny you know that's that's not funny in in systems theory you think laughter was coming from expansion or from tragedy it's so amazing because in systems theory family raw hardcore family therapy the classic triangle is exactly that triangular theory that the child perceives the parents is struggling and they notice something they don't do it deliberately I I don't think so but here's what they notice is when they struggle suddenly their parents pull it together and then everything seems to be better to help the kid right right it's like this the the triangle and then of course things the crisis is averted and the parents go their own ways again because they didn't do the work and the kid falls apart again and they come together again and then they slowly the crisis is over they fall apart again and then the kid falls apart again and this cycle repeats until it's like a programmed cycle an unconscious programmed cycle until TTI and mamy get the message and then they go to kesi and they get the message right so this is critical we talk so much about our children but maybe a big part of the conversation has to be healing ourselves and our marriages there no sopic that the entire crisis approach the way I understand it the way we developed my wife and I developed this together over the years it prioritizes our relationship with each other and our relationship with our children prior to us doing the clever work of you know intervening in the children's life you know whatever we're going to do to try and help them the priority is actually on us because otherwise you know basically you're doing sticky little things sticks it sticks and it's not going to have longlasting effect they drove us to finish off a lot of the work that we probably would have left alone that I believe most couples kind of leave Al you know you reach a certain plateau of okayness right and then there's the little stuff and who has the energy for it and you don't feel it's necessary that's the way women are and that's my husband you know that's the way men are what are you going to do kind of let it be and they go to their friends that's the end yeah exactly this para requires you can't do that it actually forces you if you're really going to be successful into such a glorious place it it just it forces you to look at those bits and pieces in your marriage and like work on them so that the children have the secure home the secure attachment you know on so many levels it becomes the place they want to return to it becomes the place of safety now what would you say are one or two or three paradigms that happened to you and your wife what experiential process did you go through to bring your marriage to this new place of there you personal we didn't agree on this I apolog okay so I'm going to speak for myself um I think the hardest struggle the hardest struggle for me um was recognizing I got a big fat ego and um I probably thought I knew what I was doing you know I was a professional that was after I you know I went through the depression period of deciding not to be a therapist anymore because it was hypocritical you know when I came out of that and got going and really you know try to work through the sugya it's it's letting go of you know it's going back to what I started with letting go of that belief your brain informs you you think you know what you're doing and you get very attached to this belief that it's you know this this intervention this thing this friend is the we got to do this and uh it took tremendous work on my part to realize that was just today's this and then tomorrow there's another this and the next day another this and who who even knows if I'm right and um what I discovered was that was far less important and relevant to the children than then observing us respectfully getting along with each other the letting go of the ego and being openly M of each other like listening I don't know who's right or who's wrong I know we have different feelings and opinions just modeling for the children and letting them see us process that respectfully with each other without a hierarchy of who's right or wrong I think I as the professional came into this you know with an uneven hierarchy am I right that I had to get over yeah she nodded yeah she nodded it's really you're saying the pain that shattered the ego that allowed for a different type of relationship yeah yeah it was it was so unbearably painful look everyone here knows that pain I don't have to talk about that pain it's a pain that shatters us it's a pain that puts us in our bedrooms crying on the it it's a pain that makes us feel like our world our life is imploded it's the pain when we get to the place where you literally mourn the loss of a vision of a family you actually thought you were going to have you know we all fion we all F ourselves every bris and every kiddish you know we held that baby and we fantasized who that baby was going to be you know which which Nish of which halik must be in this baby you know and how they were going to change clol and we had this picture they are just in a different way and um we in order to readjust to the reality of who our children are we have to mourn the loss of that so it's enormously painful these processes for those of us in a marriage again out single parents there is a way to do all this I just don't want to you know mes it in now it will be confusing but in a marriage that's what our marriage is for and and when you reframe it in your brain that actually my children are going to give me a better marriage like when you just let that truth trickle Ines through my children is going to give me a marriage I never believed or dreamt I could have a partner a connected partner an equal with me together in life where the ying and the Yang the is and the ISA you know cabalistic are merging together to make this work where each are completely equal and equally supportive of each other each fulfilling their place I guess we have to graduate from the Paradigm of blaming each other and just open to each other in our pain our raw pain yeah and hold each other in that pain that's exactly right and that's again that's not an event that's a process it took us time you know I I I think I told my wife this once that I was well if I didn't this is going to be shocking but let's see I hope I told her but I was um at the very early days when we were in the pain I had a wakeup call from one of my kids because I was driving one of our struggling kids I remember very clearly County Line Road in Lakewood we were driving back from Jackson I don't know where we've been but we were driving and she turned to me and said are your mommy getting divorced and I was so flabbergasted I was so shocked did I tell you this oh good I told her but I had no idea like I was flabbergast I said what do you mean and she said something well it looks like it you know we were in so much pain wow so you know I think you know in certain times we we wouldn't talk to each other not because we didn't like each other there was nothing to say we were just in so much shock and pain watching our family just like completely unfold under our feet but that gave me a wakeup call that was one of the many cataly istic moments that uh maybe pay attention because I realized it wasn't just she was asking that she was scared of that she was scared that that that might be happening and she needed us to pull it together so but a lot of fathers and mothers feel very guilty how can they enjoy their marriage and really be even playful when my kids are on drugs depressed suicidal anxious tattooing themselves numbing themselves and we're supposed to be happy what are we narcissistic self-centered Woodstock 60 products my kids are suffering I'm a Jewish mother you want me to be playful bis migga so I'm going to say something even on a good day my mother didn't like when I was playful what are you sitting on the couch for there's three lasagnas to make for there's 20 guests and you want with my kid depressed I should be playful with my husband you cuckoo I think you mother Point go clean so this is going to sound bizarre but I uh I'll tell you what I came to see how we got there I can't authentically tell you I don't remember but I know there was it wasn't an event that we got there but we actually got to a place where I recognized that my children needed to see that our life our Toral life our value values our our our life was not impaired by what was happening with them in a certain way it was being enhanced they were that you're part of our Tor life your struggles are part of Alor life you know I I say I said this story here again but I've said it you know a number of times how at one point I was so deeply depressed I'd heard about another child going off it was a Friday night night and I'd come home and I was so utterly miserable so utterly miserable could barely Mumble kidish you know in an undertone had a quick meal and uh and I left the table left my wife with the kids I benched and I went upstairs I just couldn't I was in too much pain on the way up the stairs on the landing I met my uh one of our daughters who was on the way out the house to party and have fun you know wearing her big day kuna you can imagine you know she was on on the way out and and I was she'd been at the table briefly she'd left cuz I must have been toxic in my depression and um I mean I really mean it I couldn't say kidish properly it was my Ru was so shut I couldn't do it and on the way up the stairs she looked to me and she said something that was so profound and changed my life in this Thea because she said to me doesn't seem like your to mitzvas is working very well for you is it and then with that she left wow and uh those were her words yeah it was a killer and I uh I went upstairs and I I was up the whole night and I made a commitment that I'm going to live my ashas I'm going to live it I mean what everything we learned in Yeshiva you know everything we we absorbed in the shum in the DS like I wondered how where where had it gone where's it went it wasn't working well that makes no sense the first place I wanted them to see that was that I can live a happy life a joyful life while going through this parion she made you a bcha at that moment didn't she she did you had to develop a relationship with God I I want to tell you my kids probably taught me more about rusa than everything I ever learned right so 20 years 25 years and Yeshiva and kylo did not teach you what these it wasn't you know what it was like it was all there in theory but it wasn't activated it's like the kids came along and pressed the button the act I knew it all I just I don't know why it just didn't I didn't live it in the active way I learned afterwards to live it so the first place I went I knew was that my wife and I needed to live a life a loving happy life where outter mitas would continue completely totally happily as normal we were G on with life it was so crucial to what eventually they picked up because the unconscious message to them was you were not interfering you're not outside the framework of God's Will and TS you're in you know if for example you know I would say to the kids many times let's say a kid was smoking on shs and I would say to them if it's okay I mean again you have to know which stage and time to say this I'm just cutting through a cross-section at a moment but there was a moment when I was able to say like do me a favor around the house if you don't mind that's our place you know where we're keeping shabas what you do in your room is between you and aadesh Hashem is in there with you and what you do is in your room is your business I felt it was really crucial that they understood Hashem is there in that room with you you're not outside to mitzvas you're not outside our world and you're not interfering with my life you're actually going to empower my life and I think there's something psychologically and spiritually so profound in them realizing that that okay so we're going to work out you're our kids we're g how to embrace you and how to make this partial work I don't know but I tell you this the tur tells us everything and he tells me how to handle this and I'm going to handle it within my framework so we actually were very playful on one occasion or more as they got much older and they would like freak out you know about something and they would inquire afterwards you know tati you know you okay CU they like freaked out on me and I would let them know very openly I got mommy mommy and I have a great life we're actually enjoying our life my pain is for you my pain is for you and your life I'm having a wonderful life I'm enjoying my life and you know what they told me later they became adults how important it was to hear that even though obviously as teenagers they could care less but there was something it went in on some level that later on now they you know adults with their own families they've told me how powerful that was to them that we were not falling apart that we were on the contrary we were loving each other more supporting each other more we were enjoying our life also absolves them psychologically from the feeling that they single-handedly destroyed father's and mother's lives absolutely burden and you're exonerating them from that bur same daughter see this one one of my daughters has been my mentor and I mean she has that's the fair right my wife is nodding and and she knows it she she knows she and I extremely similar in personality which is you know probably why we clashed who knows but she's been my mentor all the way through and especially in this department of giving me the appropriate feedback one time she blasted me I remember with a a long painful crying hurtful rant against me I think she was even married already it was such a valuable rent I can't even tell you because the essence of the rent was when you keep presenting yourself around me as if you're a failure that means I'm a piece of garbage every time you wallow in self-pity every time you apologize and tell me how ashamed you are how embarrassed you are every time you go to this place of self-deprecating you know you know painful acknowledgment of how you you're ashamed of yourself and you feel like such a failure she blasted me that that means definitively that she's a loser she's a piece of garbage and she blasted me for it it was so powerful I can't even tell you so sometimes in Our Endless experience of pain for our children we think we're helping them we're actually harming terribly if I'm I'm walking around with this self-pity that I'm a failure well that means they're all failures that means my kids are terrible horrible people losers losers that is the most horrible thing to say to a kid so sometimes the best thing we can do is really be happy well that's exactly it that's why it dovetailed into that and we recognize the power of us being happy and getting on with life and being positive about our lives the Y mama who was taught for 48 years that your mission in life is to worry about kids and it's in every cell of her 70 trillion Jewish cells so they have they have like this ladies s you know by the bras of the beginning they put pH you know that because every day they go on a guil trip right so I recommend the ladies get the other the men's sit because we don't have it in our s we don't put pH in there yeah we just go to The KES exactly so yes yes it's really it's really inculcated that's true is a beautiful message of M nefes yes for family yes which by the way God even gave that to the Animal Kingdom laav that mother especially elephants and lionesses they go sish for their calfs which is incredible y but does it sometimes get to orded and misconstrued to the point that Mommy and tati don't know how to celebrate themselves so they're not grateful for their own breath of life and they start living vicariously through their children in the positive and in the negative so if you're doing meas I'm the happiest Jew in the world if you're in pain I am the greatest loser in history and how do we heal that then see we my wife and I we went the root I was fortunate enough to go the rout of kazal and and toah opened up to me as a matter of fact this is fascinating I don't want to go into details about this but I put tremendous tremendous tremendous Haria into my marriage to work on being respectful and equal and creating this model because I really believe it wasn't just I she did it too sorry I'm we both did but I'm just saying for myself I noticed this amazing that the more effort and energy I put into my personal B of Z to connect equally things opened up in toet to me it was crazy I saw things I'd never seen they just appeared it was like remarkable but what appeared most of all was this idea everyone knows I talk about it all the time you know we know this all of us here live on these now right right that we came back and we chose and we accepted and I found the kazal talking to me I had friends who sent me kazal you know I had people started sending me stuff and it just built a rich a rich literature of tah where it was so black and white that I chose this before I came back there was it was so real to me so therefore this how am I a loser on the contrary and I know it sounds funny but you know I've said it many times I think people get when they hear it but the one time he said to me shim he said if I was the r sh I would only give you struggling kids I wouldn't waste my time with the others and and he meant it warmly and lovingly you know and he really did because we had reached a place where they weren't interfering with our ter they were enhancing out our life they were taking us and I understood that because I understood that c and be before we came back we had asked and accepted this and knew it that's what said that's what it says so you really feel that if you could rewind your life uh 55 years you would want to go through all of this again so this is a fascinating heroically peculiar concept I I mentioned here that um I've got a lot of good feedback on the book I got recently someone very veryable person Tom H good friend has been writing backwards and forwards me took exception to one line that he felt wasn't true it's not true and you and you shouldn't have said it when I said in one of the late chapters that my wife and I came to a place where we recognized the gifts that we had had through our children and I wrote the words we wouldn't want it any other way and we had actually come to the place where in hindsight we would not have wanted any other way impossible just imp take a look around this room any other way we wouldn't be here at least not with me now think about it you know we one of my daughters came you know they gave me some sort of award some years ago here they I thought they were going to raise they thought they were going to raise money NE I feel bad for them but there it is I think they lost money on the plaque but um but they invited her up I was terrified I didn't want anyone here I don't didn't want any of my kids to know that somehow we had got some sort of award associated with that sorus so we didn't tell any of our children about they knew nothing Galia you know um Gable you know obviously felt no no no the kids should be here and he secretly invited up one of my daughters one of our daughters when I saw in the lobby that moais my heart fell apart I this was the last thing I'm ever going to want that she's going to see me get an award because of her sorus are you kidding I I I was frozen matter of fact I had a drer that I couldn't give and when they now we sat together I was completely Frozen and they invited me up to accept this thing it was like a Non-Stop train there was no way to stop this Galia was going to give this award whether I wanted it or not it was going to happen my dear dear friend anyway I went up there and I I told theam that in the far corner of the room sits our eldest daughter liba and I said to theum if you don't mind I want to talk to her instead and I asked her to take a look around the room it was packed it was a huge packed room and I said to Ala take a look at this room we're here because of you I said to we're here thanks to you not that I'm happy of what you went through but what you went through what we all went through together as a family and fought our way through this this is here because of you and we my wife and I we we really believe that we really believe that showed us each other he showed us these kids he showed us these Nas he showed us the pain and and he said this is this is for you you want it or you want to stay here wherever you know Madre you got in ganen but you want to go back this is what you need this is your journey the work you need to do why is this T friend taking objection to this line in that you're grateful for the experience I don't really know but I think I think what is it triggering in [Laughter] her I'm just joking I I think he's stuck behind as we D every morning Al let me do my ticken without it but this is post I think he's there no so he's stuck on the he understands how I embraced it that's fine he's stuck on if you go back and do your tick and there in other way like why are you happy for this doesn't make sense maybe because that's what God wants well that's what we believed I don't believe I had another choice you got to write to him I stopped asking what I need from God and I started to ask what God needs from me yeah yeah it was it was the journey I understand for us has been the most Prof Prof found spiritual Rus journey of Our Lives this empowered our Rus it didn't defeat us and diminish it it empowered it as it's meant to because that's our gift so isn't it fascinating because when we start coming to Kashi one of the deepest emotions that so many parents have is what sin did I commit to have such a gam in this world they always told me geham is in that world geham in this world especially when my comes my father comes the uncles come the the the shame the the is coming yeah I'm supposed to be learning with my kids a whole night no that's what we're supposed to do the night of sh they should show up sorry it's what your soul chose even the type of tissues we get that's that's [Laughter] love preus she wants you to experience her tears her tissues a okay second best unused I will keep it with me and what you're really saying is there's a there's a paradigm shift which comes with tremendous B when you say I'm here to be a conduit that actually these struggles turn you into an they you actually become a real conduit for hashem's Mission and and and love and energy rather than arrogantly imposing what Judaism is supposed to look like on God God and on my children everyone here I'm pretty convinced I hear the feedback after coming here for even one chabas even one chabas people tell me I go home and I feel my Rus got elevated here this sh one shavas something changed inside me said people are nodding something changed inside me and I become more of an authentic Jew without compromising my values Myas my to you know the technical side of the interventions with the kids we work so hard in and hash to fine-tune it and get it right that it fits my gosh you know it's like I always say we're not permissive we're we're the this fits our world we're not permissive we're M so on the contrary this the the these challenges like all nist take a person to a better place you know to become a stronger person I always say in the they have a 100 meters Dash in the Olympics then they have 100 meters with eight hurdles which one's the stronger athlete see the the the ones without the hurdles get there quicker but the stronger athletes the one who jumps over the hurdles on the way that's us that's who we are there there's no question that from very early in life in ways that none of us can really identify precisely but our children's nishas and Destiny are intertwined with us as their parents in ways that it's almost impossible to put your finger on just like when our children are born so we know the very limited neural Pathways right to move I think we discussed this once or twice right the're very limited neural Pathways and how do we map how do we as parents M we map their brain for them through our inter interaction with them I don't think it's far-fetched to believe that we map their spiritual journey through our relationship with them in fact it's pretty obvious that's exactly what we do and if our souls chose our Destinies their souls chose their Destinies I mean it it goes to me it's axiomatic I once went to and asked him this question I'd seen a I'd seen I thought it was a desire that said it specifically that parents choose their children children choose their parents um I couldn't find the M I went and asked him he wasn't he couldn't remember the M either but he told me it's true he told me it was true I had a witness with I had an aid with me he told me it was true I had actually taken to him the uh the uh I taken him some I think went back to the shora I think it went back to the sh I had it with me and um that pointed out that we choose everything in this world and he kept saying to me you have it you have it you have it here you choose everything including your children and your parents well it would make sense then in terms of in when we chose to come back and go through this that the children chose us because of this interaction we're going to have and because of this stretching and this work we're going to do to to help them as they help us and it works both ways healthy people certainly spiritually developed people make what we call Reckoning am I on the right path we could be skeptical of ourselves we can ask ourselves tough questions we can be introspective that's the sign of all growth the last few years you obsessively talk about attachment attachment attachment healing the amigdala getting to prefrontal and everything in your Su with rash and all included you do you ever and you preach it not just to yourself and your wife you preach it to thousands of people you pontificate it you talk about it you have charts YouTube now a book etc etc you ever sit back back make a and say is it possible that me with maybe another few Partners but primarily me are single-handedly sometimes maybe causing so many people to make an error where instead of disciplining their children telling them what's right and what's wrong in the cherish tradition of our I am maybe single-handedly contributing to the spiritual damage of so many families maybe I'm right but maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm right 50% of the time but maybe I'm wrong 50% of the time and all these poor parents who have been now up for three nights in a row so their prefrontal is shot already from the Thursday night chanta was done after shabas they're all on the migdala level of survival and now they're open to hear all the rhetoric you're going to inculcate in their system and go back and everything they fought for for 50 40 30 years in terms of what's right and what's wrong is now out the window do you make such a sorry for my question you know the mafia says it wasn't personal [Laughter] oh [Music] gosh yeah I think I'll take a scotch that all they got is water at this point so I'll tell you I um I live with a of this I live I li in it it isn't something I every now and again sit back and wonder about it's something I'm equally obsessed about about getting it right fine-tuning it I'm aided in that that I have to do whether I like it or not because I get emails and whatsapps and visits from people and letters attacking these idus all the time that I have to respond to respectfully and thoughtfully and cogently in a way that helps people understand it and um I think that there's a testimony that sort of looking back lfra the uh validation I've received for how it really works has been so profound that I think it's an unarguable fact that it works to me attachment you know is the uh the heart and soul when I first saw it you know I learned it in school like everybody else you know John Balby we learn attachment you know secure anxious avoidant disorganized you know we learned it all and then everyone else's research afterwards and attachment I'll be quite honest I didn't really pay much attention to it in school it was just another interesting Theory I had no clue yet of the implication of what this model was it didn't hit me yet it was just it was another group of ideas about childhood development and how we become personality-wise Who We Are but I didn't think much about it it was the disconnect of the children that I saw in our family and professionally what was happening in clo when the word attachment disconnect attachment you understand when that when I saw every the kids disconnecting something rang a bell in my head that well what are they why are they disconnecting why weren't they attached properly in the first place is that the reason what's impairing the attachment the cause of the disconnect that was when I began to understand the word trauma and why you know in my description it's really not a definition but a sort of trauma I always say if it was Yiddish Aramaic or he you know or if WR Hebrew we'd have to translate it into English so for me the working the working definition of the word trauma is disconnect because a Kish gave us the ability that when we see or experience in the close proximity of something deadly or horrific you want to distance from that you don't want to stay there you don't want to be ever connected to that again you want to disconnect from it so trauma disconnects and I watch the children our children disconnecting from us from school from home from Faith so I wondered what was pushing them away and then I wondered were they ever attached properly in the first place what how does attachment work so I went back to the books and started reviewing attachment Theory again and it was actually at the very first Kesha Nai conference it was right wasn't here it was in the rally the very first one when I was invited to come and speak and they didn't actually tell me what to speak on just come speak and I sat down and was very thoughtful what message could be good for us and I spoke about attachment the response I don't know any of the people were there way back when but the response was amazing it it gave it gave a an envelope a framework that made so much sense and more importantly than that it gave us what we did at home it gave us a very practical Mahal see when I saw later on in the journey I saw parenting From the Inside Out by Dan seagull and um there he he operationalized the attachment and there was this one little page or two where he mentions his four 's you know it was his and it was just agav he know it was like he said so many brilliant things in the book this was just one it wasn't even that big by him not at all it was just another idea of understanding attachment when I saw it it hit me like I like probably I've never been hit before when I realized we were looking at a window go into healing attachment for our families for our our how for us how something we could operationalize and that would make attachment work the more I did it and started experimenting with our kids we we would look at it and I would think with my clients and I would actually say to people when they came in let's you know and I hear about their struggles do you mind if I just give you a model and I'd like you to think through with me were any of these missing in your childhood and I go through briefly safe secure scene ued and astonishingly people would identify immediately as I explained it frequently tearing up and having a deep like emotional experience when it was put to them what they were missing because they never really knew all I knew is my had this rotten childhood and I didn't feel S I didn't feel good I didn't know what that meant safe secure scene and sued which again he says almost like agav amongst many brilliant things for me was the attachment model it was a model that both explained how we went off what happened what was missing and then I saw it on so many levels I mean on all levels of Life attachment Theory starts making sense brookers and gash everything and then it became a model for healing because I could talk to parents like us and we could say let's work on making your child feel safe with you so it might not be a bad idea to stop hitting him that might be helpful what do you think you think spay ped might be you know not a good idea tell me ways you think your child might not feel safe with you do you get aggressive do you get angry do you get threatening and how about the subtle ones like saying you're never going to grow up for anything if you if you don't go back to school or whatever it is you're going to be worthless think through the ways you make not meaning to you don't mean to at all you just you know just trying but think does it fit into say you know when I I did this enough with many of my clients I'd go through this quite passionately with safe secure seeing the ask yourself are you making them are you helping them feel safe ask work for the next month on secure understand are you creating Security in your relationship with your kid and then the same with seen and soothed so one of the people I was working with he looks at me he said so basically you want me to completely shut down stay in my bedroom and never interact with my kids is that what you're saying and I said that might be a good start that might be a good start because if you when you come out you make them feel unsafe unsecure unseen and unsoed well then you're giving them a one-way ticket to who knows where attachment is is the key to mental health to living life you know we we we talk about the she is this mider of helping people feel a child when we bring up a child it should feel healthy and mind and body happy capable of self- Lov loving others it's the it's the it's the of of together produce a healthy human being if insecure anxious disorganized whichever attachments is a contradiction to that it actually contradicts that a person's entire life is social to be successful in this world you have to be able to be social you've got to be able to connect with people we don't live on a desert island we live with people we have our homes and our Shores and am and communities and extended family and Simas and Life Social turns out social skills high social EQ is far far more important to life success than IQ far far more important is that what you learned in Yeshiva we'll come to that and guess what helps person activate their their own greatest potential in social skills because we will all based on our own makeup have different potential but what helps human beings activate the greatest level their greatest inherent potential in social skills is attachment is good attachment secure attachment so basically the gift of ATT attachment turns out to be the greatest long-term lifelong gift we could ever give our kids ever it isn't about keeping them from you understand it goes way beyond that it it maybe is that too but it's way way beyond that it's the actual it's the build it's the DNA of emotional development and Success Through the course of an entire lifetime turns out to be having those secure attachments when you're early in life which then builds that DNA for good social skills because with good social skills good EQ you're going to have to to activate your unique potential the hasem gave you will enhance everything in your life everything I my wife and I often talk about it that I you know I I have such compassion for people who've come through especially you know those streams of people in our world who have not had parents who had parents who could give them secure attachment and we understand what that means I did I had a mother and I credit me what's activated in me to my mother my mother Shan gave me the four SES all of them it was she didn't know who they were but she gave them to me she she am I right or wrong yeah my wife's nodding she gave me like she had the I don't know what can I tell you she she her PhD was in the four attachments you know that she was gifted and she gave him to me and I didn't know I had him but as I went through life I discovered that that's what fuels me that's my DNA how do you empathize so much with trauma victims if you're not one of them yeah so first of all I am a trauma victim which is fascinating cuz you had a [Laughter] father no you spoke about your mother yeah yeah no my father through the war he was he didn't have him to give to me so I had a lot of our fathers so exactly so I had plenty of trauma over there absolutely I had the story my grandmother was killed when I was nine in front of me she was killed right in front of me and I believed it was my fault at the time and there was Zero trauma treatment let's understand that but you lack developmental trauma or development trauma I did not right maybe a little for my father but I didn't I really didn't have it but I had resilience you see had resilience so your mother gave you that core yeah I had the core of resilience of bouncing back it was like you know I remember just one anecdote during the 60s in England there were the coal strikes coal strikes they would shutting down the mines and they had coal strikes and um electricity went off during the 60 early 60s if they didn't have power yet and the cold strike shut the country down frequently and at night suddenly especially in the winter it went black and this was miserable for everybody miserable in our house it was the greatest Delight it was we felt it was magical because we had you know in the old days the j&f used to send out these Hanukah candles little boxes you always had more I know we I don't know why we had leftovers but there was always leftovers kanuka candles it was like strange every home had leftover Kana candles and we had a piano and when the the lights went out my mother jumped up lit these few Hanukah candles on the piano and my brothers and I stood around the piano cry and we sang and we she played the piano we sang and it was magical and I think that she put into us that you know you what however hard it is you're going to grow from it you're going to have a good time so what the whole country was miserable about the cold moments of blackouts we sang we looked forward to it the moment it happened we leapt up and we started singing and lit candles and in the light of those candles she put into our DNA that it's going to be good it's going to be okay let's have a good time secureach attachment as you just started to cry what was the feeling you were feeling her love you I was uh I was feeling gratefulness incredible gratefulness for what she put into us you know because like I said attach healthy attachment is the DNA of life it's the G it's the greatest gift we ever give our children [Applause] it should probably not come as a surprise to most of us because the first thing that the T says is not good is not idolatry or even adultery or not listening to AEM which are all not good but the first thing that's the first thing is that's the first not good thing in the alone amazing never thought of that so when that's not in place you can't build anything you can go to m you could leave you can have but you're alone and when you're alone you're broken at your core and when you're broken at your core W there's no self to serve God or to celebrate has wow they it never thought of that gave us a world and life that has to be interactive has to be and then what is worse is I use religion as a substitute for attachment I use feeling good about me being from or learned or having Nas as a fake substitute for lacking emotional attachment so now Yiddish becomes toxic for me well I I think not only do I lack it I have a counterfeit attachment because of a fakeness well I mean in in turah in as I understand it the Pinnacle of all of Tyra Mitzvah is doab attachment attachment the Pinnacle of everything is to connect to B and everything on the way is meant to yield Direction support all mitzvas are an attachment is never intellectual it's visceral it's very visceral it's in the nervous sister that's where we can go wrong yeah cuz we have become very intellectualized people yeah and we have a good system of intellect yeah yeah the the the gift actually again I go back to the gift I feel my children gifted me was taking the intellect the knowledge and bringing it down here I didn't cry like this years ago it's like I'm not just a crybaby am [Laughter] I but I cry naturally and freely now when I engage myself here in a very authentic and genuine way I know know it brings me to tears it brings me to tears you know there's a book on Tears by the way and anyone should get it it's the most fascinating book that um this book on tears where this researcher studied tears different types and noticed that the molecular structure of tears are different based on your emotions wow yeah there are tears of gratitude that are molecularly different than tears of Shame yeah it's fascinating so I think you know when you cry you know the talks about you allowed to cry on shabas but that's that type of cry right that's mourning the Lost type of cry but if you can't cry when you see a deep Insight the connects with your soul or when you sing a tune that touches you on a deep level and shars attachment and to vacus and that doesn't bring you to tears he still here right those tears are are beautiful tears they're connecting tears tears of gratitude have to be the most beautiful tears the again the kids bring us there I'm grateful to them grateful to my mother what she gave me and I'm certainly grateful to my children for activating me out of the doldrums of intellect wow into the heartfelt lived experience the present moment of connection I don't know there's any richer experience any of us will ever have than the experience of connection of true connection that connected moment and this para forces us there because if we don't get there we're not going to succeed it's not going to work so you're saying I cannot provide my children attachment if I don't know what it is correct as my father didn't know mean he was scarred from the war and so he had areas but there were pockets of attachment my mother and I do not understand it she also went through the W she went through you know the she was taken away from home her whole teenage lives years finally she lived with goam in the countryside during the blitz of London that she just was one of those strange unusual briers in the world and she just did the attachment well there was never a doubt with my mother that we were going to be successful and happy and we were poor we were very very poor after the war yeah my father lost the house it was um the mortgage was £10 Sterling a month and it was too much and he lost the house because he couldn't afford £10 Sterling a month so we lost our house we were poor but we felt Rich that's what my mother did what would be the steps you would guide people to begin healing attachment with ourselves one two three steps that we can do so because when when everybody goes home so if one of their one of our sons might come into the kitchen tonight without a yam one of our daughters may come in dressed with big and we right away get R all like my family and I have little kids and and and your mother-in-law is coming for Shu of course to witness the preash experience so we were Ki and we heard Russell attachment attachment attachment prefrontal prefrontal prefrontal for 's and all that and we heard all the speeches and everyone is inpired I'm going to say the right thing but I think what you're suggesting is that if I'm not internally Anchored In My Own attachment if I'm not attached to myself if I don't have empathy for all my moving parts and really I'm attached to my experience I'm not just to my head I won't really be able to do it for my kids in a very genuine way it may be superficial I may say the right thing but I will at some point either collapse or get so triggered or become passive aggressive and the middle of the meal just make this horrible comment so how do we begin healing how do we experience attachment so we may have not had your mother yeah yeah so you're asking me how can we all get this work done before [Laughter] cuz the mother-in-law is coming now you said you had tough questions but I grew up I grew up I don't remember even once anybody talking about loving God from an emotional perspective we learned SM we learned a lot anybody sitting down and saying what is your experience ofes do you experience love do you experience all it was all in the head head head head head head head some of us Excel tremendously that connection with the body with somatic with the nervous system this was not part of the language that's why when you talk about it and others talk about it myself included some people get very unnerved it's like this new Judaism is this Buddhism Hinduism pop psychology this sorus liberalism is this leftwing Harvard University what's next you know what what what else are you going to teach next like the body the body the body was atick garbage it was your alaz to get out of this sick world to get to youra and suddenly the nervous system the nervous system the body have you ever seen a kid a young man a young woman a teenager who has left yish where you couldn't identify by any pain it was basically your system is weird I just want to explore life I'm a curious person I don't need all of these restrictions I want to eat and do whatever I want I have no issues with my parents I love my parents have a good family good Yeshiva I even respect Orthodox Jews you know besides those who don't hold the door open and Costco or whatever and they drap rappers in the zoo but uh you're fine I mean you give kidneys and you do good B and whatever so I'm emotionally good with all you guys you know some are crazy fine I also have crazy friends but I have no trauma have you ever seen in other words there's no pain nothing nothing about attachment I mean 20,000 people that's I'll tell you a funny story yeah I once spoke at a conference and uh and I spoke about love and loving our kids and um it it was I regretted what I said at the time but I said something I really regret it I must tell it but I was trying to be cognized talking about OD and add I said and these kids are ool out of love out of love whatever I regreted saying it but um anyway it was well received Russia afterwards a family came over to me as often happens and they said uh can we speak to it's really important and I figured they you know which imagine it happens to you too they pull you aside and they say how grateful they are and they amazing drer and and you know you could help us with one of our kids you know they compliment you and praise you you've had the experience ever yeah probably once or twice so this family trying to heal from the need I can help freak so they uh pull me into a room and I'm prepar myself for this and they ripped me to shreds with Fury and anger they had told me they probably never felt so embarrassed and hurt in their lives and uh they said to me they have a son who they love dearly who loves them and he went off and he's very respectful comes put a Yama call on Shas when he comes to them no problem but he lives in Manhattan he's completely secular not interested God doesn't make sense what you're saying was the first time I'd ever heard of such a person I apologized very very much to them and they accepted my apology and I asked if they would ask him if I could meet him I'd like to meet him and he lived in Manhattan and I went twice out to dinner with him in Manhattan I called him and I said could you teach me tell me what I'm missing and I took him out for dinner and we talked and I was pretty confident that there either was no trauma of any sort I could be there's something unconscious he didn't know he was masing to me there could be but there was nothing there and he was just a nice young man who said to me just didn't work for me it never worked for me but I respect I'm very happy for my family that he works for them so this is one man in your history yes from 20,000 yes wow one and the other 19,999 you always identif boys really easily easily so when you preach about attachment this is not philosophy not at all it's it's it's 20,000 people experience experience with 20,000 people whatever the numbers it's solidly researched and it's so incredibly simple to talk about it because look if take religious attachment right for a child a young child for whatever reason whatever abuse learning troll it doesn't matter what they've experienced but they've experienced something they because none of us knew about building the profound importance to build really strong attach we didn't know none of us knew so when trauma Struck it wasn't strong enough and they rebelled when they Rebel think about the word rebelling you know it's it's a technical world you know they but it's really nothing to do with Rebellion actually what they're doing is they're not running from they're running to what are they running to at that moment they're running to anything that will make me stop hurting anything that will soothe them soothe them yeah they're looking for anything that would help me disconnect or Soothe My Pain it isn't about a lumus of what's wrong with Fillin it's I need right now anesthesia I need to disconnect or dissociate so I need something and as parents in school Community system they recognize the children the religious expectation almost always interferes with their capacity to run to the thing they need to disconnect to soothe because there is so much pain unwittingly we don't know this none of us knew this what we thought we saw was Rebellion so we either used the traditional historic Model S pet Musa you know you just got to let them know they can't do that I mean someone's got to tell him yet on filling like tell him because apparently he didn't know it's not how we walk around in this house you know that yeah it's not how we walk around in this house they that they're only here for 18 years yeah they didn't know exactly how would she know how would she know yeah so they're not running from it's not Rebellion but we didn't know that right so we start giving them Musa and consequences and rules and structure to force them including bribing threatening musing begging to keep the ter mitzvas and all that happens is that this of T Mitzvah which I'm being bribed and conrolled into becomes the enemy because it interferes with my ability to run to the thing I need to soothe my pain and inadvertently we parents Community Schools Reis the whole works all of us together we build religion into the enemy not realizing that they're not running from religion they're running to soothing disconnect now that model is if the source of the trauma was religion then you're really in trouble right you take a kid that's not following inside with his finger and tell the rebi goes over and says hold your fingers like this the fingers that are meant to be following and hits it with a metal rod hard now just imagine the finger that's meant to be following text is now struck with a metal rod heart so unless you have a stonish'. I don't want to have that I can't I don't know why because no one told him yet he's got add or OD no one told him he can't follow because he's dyslexic or he has a processing problem no one told him your disability your inability to follow is not your fault no one came over said to him don't worry if you can't follow so for religion is the source of his emotional breakdown and destruction right so when he's 16 years old now he's eight but when he's 16 he's done well he's done and what's worse is we try desperately till we understand to get him to be religious either religion inter simply interferes with his ability to get to the place of soothing the place of Disconnect where I don't feel like I want to die or religion was the source of the reason I needed to run to a place of soothing so giving more religion is simply reinforcing it's completely crazy it's completely crazy enforcing the pain which reinforces the need to run exactly so we're trying to help our kids often and we're actually causing them that's why much more dist that's why when you do this model properly and you work you say let's put the consideration so to speak of religion aside for a moment and let's heal the attachments with me then 10 or 20 years later I don't know but it's not going to happen next week and it's certainly not happening by can do but later on they feel so attached to they don't need to soothe with the drugs or the girls or the whatever they're doing they don't need that because we soothe their wounds and now frequently what we observe is their willingness especially where religion wasn't the source of the trauma it was just the thing that interfered with their ability to soothe so now they can soothe I can read what if religion was the source of the trauma for example all learning trauma was caused by the gamar correct right or even sexual trauma was caused Maybe by a person who had P who had a y who did it on chabas using shabas yeah or purum during the Milla whatever it is so it's all religious trauma what happens then so I may be a wonderful mother and father and this deep attachment but shabas Yamin tius Sid sure no way so even marrying a Jew yeah yeah yeah yeah 100% so how do so I don't know if we do heal it fully in this Google I don't know I don't know but what I do observe is where religion was the interference but not the source young people as they mature willing and wanting because they're attached to us to go back and readdress and re-evaluate their relationship to religion voluntarily and even when religious was was the source and I'll give you a perfect example one of our sons experienced that with gumar his head didn't work and I didn't know this but the more he tried to learn gamar the more traumatized he got until he fell out of school you know Waterberry n you know the works today's married and his for and the thing he learns he only learns two SP pick a that's what he loves both reach him emotionally both nourish his vacas with Hashem but he won't touch Kamar and I've observed to him so what this is your gamar this is your tah find your tah where talks with he got traumatized with I don't think you'll ever and you know what's Magic I tell you this is so crazy just two three two weeks ago one of my sons-in-law told me that they started learning gamar together twice a week he's trying to deal with that trauma too now twice a week he doesn't even know I know I think right he does now whoops whoops hi but he found the the thing he found his way back to learning T was p and he loves p and he Lear P he loves it so maybe what you're suggesting is that even when religion is the source of the trauma if there's such healthy attachment these children could learn that the religion that was communicated to them was horrifically distorted from what M Rao really gave and there's aspects of religion more importantly than the negative if you if you don't mind more importantly in that what they begin to understand is there's a world of parts of religion that are not related to anything that ever traumatized them where they can find access and meaning for the themselves if we're patient enough never to say it to them you understand you can't go back and oh Russell said so you should be able to find learning his son's learning office can you learn office like leave it alone you have to wait patiently till it comes but yes I think that our Tyra and Mitzvah is so huge it has so many aspects so many facets there's so many areas where a person can connect in ter mid as in a meaningful way you know it's unlimited actually you know they have they have gak and Lakewood I remember when they first started I thought it was so amazing they started the gak gak that means like this they had so many gaks you wouldn't know what they are so some bright guy opened a Gak there was the gak his gak was to know all the G so now if you needed to know is there a Gak you go to the Gak we're that means we got everything every G there there's every way in t Mitzvah there's a myriad of possibilities what they grew up with many of them was a very very limited picture of what it means to activate your jewishness in relation to hasem you want to be related to God well they gave him a very very narrow picture of how that works the reality is it's so huge it's literally unlimited that's amazing which means you always learn what your heart gravitates to I remember I was when I was in BMG I was learning one time I had intended to be no I learned all the time I don't mean that sorry one of the many times pry yeah no so Mya wasn't there or left early second SED I took a kazari and I found it interesting to learn kazari and someone came over to me well meaning I know again I I don't want this to sound cynical I really honestly don't I hope I just it it would hurt me if it sounds cynical he meant well just to Kar is a philosophical work yeah by RAB right and he came over to me he said to me sh he said I was planning to be a rabbi then reab he said if you're going to be a rabbi stick to the don't learn anything else don't learn anything else and I remember I shuted afterwards that I didn't know what it was but this coming felt so off yeah it felt so strange I didn't know what it was at the time but later on as I matured and developed I realized how bizarre that wasem gave us this vast Tire of Mitzvah probably also very insecure all like coming from insecurity probably for sure for surealism I'm I don't know something I don't know again I don't want to knock the person I'm I'm being D schy me sincerely be stick to don't look at anything else that's like crazy in hindsight again he met well I think what happens with our kids is if we recognize drop the religious stuff why do we say drop the religious of again what we permissive H for we're trying to heal our kids we're trying to heal allow them to heal and they have to run to various things to so them if we make religion the culprit of why they can't run to these things we are directly disconnecting them we're destroying their attachment to to because they're not running from it in the first place that's what so many people are not understanding they feel that the attachment is coming it's the price you pay because of at the EXP sense of yish what you're saying is the opposite the exact opposite is the actual ra comes through the attachment focusing on helping out imagine what the child feels like when we tune in that right now he's 13 14 or she's you know that age and desperate you know not much going on up here like I always say it's offline right it's offline all they want there in the Olympic you didn't mention it yet I don't know why but you know it's your old favorite Olympic they're in the limic they're maybe even the survival you know and all they want is their marijuana right now so they don't hurt they are not sitting down making like a philosophical you know let me think let me think this through I could put on my phone or I could smoke up so let me let me do comparative religion analysis of which ones you know can me bring me closer to God it I need my I need my fix I'm hurting comes along T well meaning it says just put on F in first just five minutes what will it hurt you it's such a complete lack of grasp of any mus of the pain he's in or she's in that moment that I need that marijuana and you're put and Rel is the reason not what the heck with religion that's what's going on inside you're you're you're you you're doing the exact opposite the last thing you want to do is try to get them to do some religious Behavior at that moment and and I want to say for all the people who are listening the feedback I get all the time from the lambon and they mean well go in please did I do anything cynical you no she would away she sits in the front row for that purpose I I get my peripheral vision gets this the feedback many people confront me on is we got to keep put on the more he does it he's gonna so one time I was trying to help a group of people I I was actually talking to a group of and that was the cas we're doing Regus we're getting them to do it over and over again all so I ask them you know my all-time favorite therapeutic intervention I ever do you want to hear it so someone tells me like this this is what we're doing you know we're going to get this is the best intervention I ever do I lean forward and very respectfully say well how's that working for you and just wait how's that working for you it's not I'll tell you why it's not because K say there's a v on the end he has to do it it's his pulus not pul your pulos that you're pushing on him it doesn't work it only works if it's his is something he chooses and if someone chooses to do something because he wants it so badly and he does it again and again and again and again then it becomes him because he wants it there's a v on the end but when it's there's no such thing as your it's also his his whole internal trauma is being triggered by it's being triggered he wants his marijuana cre more Defiance exactly he's running too and we unwittingly commit the sin of disconnecting him from religion by always putting this m there of religion first until he hates it hates it so what happens could you give me an x-ray of the brain of this boy or girl who walks into the shabas meal or the shu meil without a yaka or in big yep uh or other or lack of it or he just drove and put the car near the house and walks and fiber of being of tati or momy is triggered deeply it's it's chabas it's y I mean a little respect a little respect you brat just a little but but I'm nice I'm K parent so uh by the way I'm gone by now I'm already he G he's gone give me an xtray of the brain uh yeah I love you but yeah you respect Zade is here Bobby is here the family alltime favorite you think Zade went to eltz for this what you do in your room is your room a little respect you know how hard mommy worked I mean a little just a little respect eat a little cheesecake just a little fish yeah and if it's a bad moment until you do chva go to your room and don't come back or live in another house you could live in another house I'll find you another house and I have a bunch of little kids they all have to see that a brother or a sister is a perer is a come on I need an agel in my house I need a car pulling up and you want me to be nice and you want me to be genuine and authentic so I'm just going to say the truth I know I want to be a truthful person he has a truthful father he has a truthful mother I have for I sacrificed everything for my kids should have you know how much I have so I should throw it out the window cuz Rosel has some limic brain Theory I learned gamar I never learned about your limic brain I'm not an elephant and I'm not a chimpanzee and I'm not a reptilian I'm I'm a I only have prefrontal as you know you see how I am don't you what happens to that child's brain what happened inside now when he she observed tati your mommy being a little angry and rejecting them a little bit what just happened in their brain I I can tell what just happened in mind and you had a tax and you had a Taxman you little by the way this is my therapy session oh gosh not so easy to get a therapy session with you'll forgive me everybody I hope you're [Laughter] enjoying so what we know and you can see it you know there's a You Ever Seen The Psychotic look on your kid's face you know he's 15 or you see the psychotic look when you do something wrong and they look like they're going to kill you they just they look psychotic actually what your looking at is the prefrontal cortex offline it just went offline where they went their Consciousness went immediately into the limic system where they took one look at your face one look at that face I promise you and they're gone now this face is different this is the other face this is a good face keep this one trust me but the other can't even look now but the other face the you know what I see in the other face the you know should I tell you many people we have a thoughtful face or a tired face a struggling kid sees an angry face we're just thought for a tired they see anger that's why you have to smile all the time I tell them man carry one of your it's filling you know the ladies have a compact right in your pocketbook or something but them is it called compact what's he called what's it called I don't know I it's not called a compact I youon but they can use their Fillin they don't have phones they sign to the schools they don't have phones so but they have a Fillin mirror keep the I they even sign their kids don't have phones I guess so so you keep the mirror and you take a look because if you walk in and you're not smiling they go right into the limic the you know what the lyic asks the limic brain asks am I safe I loved that's all it asks am I safe and loved that's exactly where the thank you I appreciate you changed your pace I feel more comfortable I feel more comfortable question and so when they walk in and you take one look at the lack of yamaka and your face goes into this dark place of you know shame anger they go out of the prefrontal cortex in a moment a millisecond into the lyic and if you don't fix it instantly they go into the survival part of the brain and they're gone I'm out of here he's either out of there physically but he's certainly out of there in his Consciousness and that's when you get the psychotic look because the consciousness of the prefrontal cortex is not there and it looks like they give you that stare wow you know that's what's happened what are they experience fear fear fear for their safety fear for my safety right now I'm fearful I'm going to be embarrassed well remember if religion has become which it does to most of them the interference with my ability to get my to smoke up to read to see watch a movie whatever I need to do well the longer you keep them like how long you need me of this meal can you get on with Kish because they may not last more than two minutes and they don't want to be there because they need to be in their room detaching so they're in the they're in out of the prefrontal cortex so that's when I always say why would you even try to reason with someone who is unreasonable because they're out of the prefrontal C they can't reason you're just a masic but now imagine when they come down slinking down expecting this is what is going to happen yet again and they come down in their big day or before the you know whatever and you go over and give them a big hug and kiss and say I'm so happy you came come comes in next to me and you mean it and you mean it now just imagine that moment in their lives what's going on in their brain you give them a big hug and kiss and walk them and put a chair next to you and say come sit next to me sha sit next to me what happens in their brain so the safety turns back on the security the attachment they come back to the prefrontal cortex and many many many times when you do it right they look at you say you know what give me one minute let me just go get a sweater and they cover up because you made them feel safe you made them feel attached so they don't need to disconnect right now this moment I don't need to run to the movie or the smartphone or the marijuana because the only reason I was running to it in the first place was to feel safe because I was in I was frightened and hurting in pain and instead when you embraced me like that so you became the source of the reason I have no pain and therefore I want to S with you and I don't need that right now now the chances are once you make kidish and you start getting busy with your other kids and they lose that connection they'll leave they'll that is not an insult and what what you do is go after them and say thank you for being here for those few minutes it meant the world to me and you let them you know go and again they maybe I'll stay a little longer what do you understand what happened by allowing them to go and thanking them for being there again they don't need that to soothe because you twick if you we would understand neurologically what we're doing every time do you know there's one synapse that connects the limit the migdala to the prefrontal cortex one it's on off it's so crazy when you understand this it's on off so you could turn the kid in a moment with genuine authentic love and connection and I'm not going to stop you I'm not going to ask you to stay I'm not go g I just want to thank you for being here and in that moment of that love and acknowledgement and acceptance full acceptance that you got to go I understand they actually hesitate about leaving because again you put them back in the prefrontal context and they want a Stakes they feel good being with you and then when you get distracted or God forbid you said about they're out of here right Shalom out of that's when we you know I devel Thursday nights by me for 20 years was the most serious work my learning on Thursday nights were trying to craft div too that didn't sound like d too that's what it was we had for about and it's really amazing the kids and grandchildren remember that for about how many years decades more 10 15 years here was my ver at the table three boys went to play baseball that was how I started for about 15 years the at my sh's table three boys went to play baseball and everybody was completely looking forward to what was coming next because it was always a story about how they got into trouble and someone broke something or someone lost something and the question is do you think he has to pay for it you know was a gramar I didn't go into the the language of Gramma andik and I didn't do at all it was just a story about but it it they they were wild they went wild oh my gosh we had debates at our table like Puma I'm telling you it went wild and especially when oh my gosh the girls women am I correct cannot grasp how if your so just pay don't be an idiot like what's wrong with you yeah it's a m male men say should I pain you and the women were crying at the table Furious if you part just pay up well you're an idiot and so if I could lead them into those kind of moments and I worked hard at it three boys went to play baseball boy did we have stories with these baseball games and the kids love it and those kids stayed am I right or wrong they stayed so in summation what you're saying if I could give a summation is for many of most of these children or all or many of these children yish kite somehow becomes a source of tremendous pain correct and therefore in their own mind their healing their soothing their survival their comfort is by detaching from remember it's not just the source of pain it's the interference with their ability to the place they want because if it sh and I need to so right now so shabas says I so is the enemy of survival that moment that's right now TTI has to choose do we join the enemy Force very good or do we become an alternative say this again this is it say it again it's so good yides somehow has become the enemy either because it's the source of my trauma or it's certainly interfering with what I perceive as survival what I need to do right now to survive now tati and Mommy have a choice do we join the enemy y we're Jews we're from we're mitah in other words my mother and father are also the enemy well at that moment I allow my Yiddish kite to leech into interfering with their ability to take their and do their thing then yes yishai becomes the interference and we're part of that we're part of the enemy we're part of the problem which is why so amazing when we understand this we get this is so clear to us do you understand how this is not therefore permissive because they just need this and me I got to give it to them it's strategic it's strategic not that's right I'm going to strategically you know help them and encourage them because by doing so religion is off the table as the interference y doesn't have to be the enemy it's not and and mam are part of the solution rather than part of the problem correct take the obvious case the obvious case and your your child needs something right now and could kill themselves if you don't help them and you help them and give them money for marijuana so they don't have to go downtown and God forbid how so many girls I met who went downtown and had to give up their bodies to get drugs because I didn't give them the money for it and they found out very quickly they could sacrifice their body to get the drugs and the drugs is just to keep safe do you understand to to soothe my pain and there'll be even willing to do that and imagine if at that moment I facilitate that instead I become I become the champion of survival the source of attachment becomes the the source of caring and love and understanding intuitively and our kids went through whether smoking or drugs and all gave it up on their own without rehab without 12-step work without anything they gave gave it up because they had you and their mother to soothe them because that's what we worked on we wanted to be the source in other words technically speaking I will not let religion or me interfere and force you to go and get drugs I will replace the drugs by being a loving source of connection in your my wife went for years we always said my wife had four wheels two legs and four wheels she was a taxi service nonstop for years of her life leaping into that car every opportunity to buy a slurpie or go to the mall or do whatever they needed she was there and she went she gave her life and it wasn't a question it wasn't a doubt it wasn't a suff she was gone fing them taking them going doing buying whatever they needed so that she became the source of their love and connection so they needed less of that stuff that's how you heal the hole in the heart because you you understand they need it and you but but you you understand it so deeply not F you need drugs is the money that doesn't heal anything it makes them mood do more drugs cuz they feel your pain and resentment are resentful but when they feel you understand it and you deepen that understanding in a sensitive and compassionate and and total understanding and you and and you support them and understand it they need less because they have you and that's not magic and that certainly is not going to happen before I'm sorry at least not this maybe Aus you understand maybe but not this that can take a decade so what we worked at this for we've been we put 30 years into this forgive me for this extreme example but guide me the Boy comes to his tati who has a big beard and pis and wears a stral or not a stral but a nice Jewish hat learns I don't know half the day and his father was in K na already six times with his mother so he knows you know he knows thetick T I'm getting a tattoo I'm getting a tattoo okay you're the father please so and TTI wants to call the kadisha for himself everything he dealt with marijuana shabas but the tattoo yeah there probably be a few skeletons Hali Ali maybe some other stuff Ali skeleton and here's a really a good father a good mother good people him they're trying to do the right thing they also have another nine kids to educate so look the the this is this this question honestly not to mislead anyone would take a workshop to answer then the reason is because we haven't defined where where is the kid holding what is you know where on their Journey why do they need this tattoo you understand because there's places they're wounded this kid is wounded a lot of if we could just cut a sliver and in this sliver we know very well that I'm not going to talk him out of it no we've all can we assume yeah we've gone that route yeah and smacking him say oh yeah I'm going back to your I'm becoming a yeah yeah all right I never thought that weal to do tattoos all right oh I'm going to go to G okay bring me back to yes I'm done could we learn a whole night gamar please it's much better than aat he's not in that place okay that makes it easier okay but let's assume what you say will not change his mind there's nothing you can say or do that's going to stop him and what's worse is remember this what is the one and only reason that you would stop him getting a tattoo the one and only reason is your religious values so when you stop him you stab religion for him you have to understand that you're telling him religion is unsafe for you religion is the antithesis that's right of your safety we have to understand that or we can't get this basically telling him yish is your number one enemy that's right that's what you need to fear because with yish you will not be able to cor now if you really understand that and this I'm going to expand your story as a kid who's doing drugs kid is m shabas a kid in is very very immature very very impulsive which probably why he wants the tattoo cuz his friend got one and he wants a bigger one right or he wants to show the family that he's done with this community forever whatever but he's impulsive you can't talk to him and he's in a dangerous place the dangerous place where do you think this you see before before we even Analyze This by in need a workshop what do you think is going to happen with this kid if you say no so is par that he's going to hate religion more because he knows there's only it's not because you can't afford it he knows you said no because your embarrassment or technically how logically I can't you know it's very unlikely that you don't want him to have a tattoo is not coming from embarrassment and shame very unlikely so I'm embarrassed and shamed and angry about religion you know because you're throwing away my religious values and all that kid's feeling is that where is he going to go with those feelings imagine what's going to be with this this kid if that's how he walks out after he said t i want a tattoo what's he going to where's that going to take him those feelings of estrangement anger at his father who more his shame and embarrassment stops me getting my tattoo which might tattoo I look at it and I feel healed I feel soothed I feel disconnected to my trauma and pain when I look at my tattoo and you're taking that from me because of your busher and your religion I hate you and I hate God that's the place he goes to and that can be a very very dangerous place for him it's funny we talked about this last time and I had very unusual feedback someone sent me an email this week about my answer to you last time about this question but I'll give the answer first and the answer is imagine when we say to him come no problem you sure you need it yeah I abs you've gone there you've done that and you take him I told a story last time a true story of a father who took his kid on my advice when his kid wanted they tried many many times to talk him out of it explain the consequences and blah blah blah you know nicely respectfully but the kid came back and he made his decision he has to have his T tattoo and he's in a very bad place the father took him this is this was in Israel and the father went into the tattoo parlor with him he wanted him to actually choose it with him yeah and he did while he was being done the guy the ponytailed tattoo artist stopped for a moment turned to his father and very emotionally said I wonder if I'd had a he said to the boy rather I wonder if I had a father like yours maybe I'd still be from wow yeah wow a father came over to me and he said he has a dream of making such a shabbaton for teenagers who have left y he asked his daughter who's struggling and she said of course I would come as long as no fathers are there no mothers are there no rabbis it's just us to have fun and he wants to do it and here's the question if you now were not speaking to this crowd but you had in front of you 600 16 17 18 19 20 year old boys and girls who are deeply struggling with yish with their Community with t mitzvas Etc and you could speak to them for uh between three and a half and four minutes maybe they'll give you 40 seconds if you're lucky what would you tell them you're not speaking to their parents speaking to them I'll tell you exactly what I tell kids and they're all dressed in the pristine mode of humanity before we sinned I'll tell you exactly what I do tell young people like this when I first meet them that I I tell them I'm embarrassed and ashamed for what we did to you and it pains me very deeply you're all good kids you have a perfect Misha and we let you down and I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed and I I'm really sorry I'm trying my best to fix it and if I can help you in any way just let me know that's what I would [Music] [Applause] say we don't realize you know we don't have these are precious Nas like anybody else who so desperately need us so desperately need our attachment to them our connection to them they're not bad kids they're just not bad kids and we allow ourselves the ego the buer the embarrassment the false in my opinion the false perspective on our responsibility to make them do mitzvas you know we as parents we have a of you know what that means it's fascinating it means we have a to Ed at our children about the parameters of what Mitzvah are and to try and Inspire them to do it we do not have a to make them do it if anything if there's in life to make people do MIT it's on the Sedin and the bin we're not the police we're not bin we have no to make them to mitas we have a to teach them you know nobody got that memo no one got that memo it's like so bizarre we have no to make them do it and in the Zeal to make them do it we undermine their attachment with it yeah you're saying our real obligation is to make ourselves connected and happy of course not we Inspire them through our hhog our Behavior the love we give to our spouse the love we build a home home with and we don't threaten them with Onish and pain and suffering oh my gosh so here how do we really learn to give ourselves what we need so that we could show up for our children genuinely authentically with joy with inner contentment fulfillment without living their life life and becoming part of their pain and blaming them for it and reacting unconsciously to our own anxiety and shame and pain and ego and religious ego how do we really go to a place of inner authentic connection and attachment with ourselves especially if we didn't have a mother or a father that gave it to us and we need to use the words of and I want to find how do we really do that like give me one two three uh I got back to the question so we need to be truthful you know we need to come out of our own denial we need to be willing to face ourselves and look at our imperfections not as something because kidra is coming up you know I better do some quick quick work it's l there nothing to do with that I need to be able to look at myself and ask you know why do I react the way I do in ways that I know keep making it worse keep hurting more why and the answer is probably because of my own childhood trauma because of my own imperfections and I have to commit myself to a genuine honest journey of my recovery where the doggish is not on my kids fixing them the doggish is on fixing me and let my kids witness that let them see you know how many of our kids when they got married you know the kids when they get married they write you this beautiful letter you know it's just something special before and they thank you all our kids wrote in that letter they reflected to us how they saw our willingness to work on ourselves as being more important than working on them they saw it wow we're all imperfect we're not bad we have to dissociate the word and concept of bad from imperfect being imper perfect doesn't make you bad acknowledging your imperfections makes you halic we have to allow ourselves to go on a genuine journey of looking at our own childhood traumas finding people who can help us with it work out if it doesn't work this way find another way but keep working till you heal it find a place where you you know where you know you you have to get to a place where you stop hurting people you love you take control you know it says there's hope at the end of days the children will come back to we live there together I say a little different after all the struggles of lives ours and our kids we go through struggles with it's hard what's the hope at the end that the children we will return to our own self-imposed boundaries and self-control be able to take control of ourselves so we stop hurting people so we can love people and love our children we will take control of ourselves that is the only hope that mhia will come at the end of days that we we take control of ourselves sh are self-imposed boundaries that's the place we have to get there where we can take control of our facial expression body language tone of voice what we say so that our children will discover they don't need to run to something to heal because they can actually stay with us and heal there that's the answer [Applause] we have nine minutes so one last question is it possible that sometimes a mother or a father experiencing so much pain from one child two children three children maybe more and they're walking around with this intense painful experience constantly father mother both of them and it sits in them and and and it's genuine they're good people but is it possible that a lot of their pain which they're blaming on their children's lives is really their only way of discovering that this is really their own unresolved pain they are miserable deep inside they never dealt with it but they don't have the courage or the know how to say I am in so much pain so somehow my child's Journey and pain becomes the fake container for my own unresolved pain and that's where I really have to go to nobody listen to this CLA nobody was ever angered into agreement you can control through anger you can't make someone agree with you by being angry with them And if every time you try to interact with your child it's coming out through your pain or anger you know you need help you have to it's your kades it's probably the most holy thing you could do in your journey in this world is to deal with that source of your pain it's more hailing than putting your filum in the morning one of my clients asked me something interesting tell very interesting thing maybe we can finish with this thought me kind of off the record it was interesting the session was over you know that kind of all therapists you have those moments and this this client said to me do you have a focus every day like of how you think about your life it's interesting question and I told them I did actually I told him that when I get up in the morning I ask Hashem for help that I won't hurt anyone unnecessarily today can I get through the day without any hurting anyone unnecessarily I understand in therapy sometimes I challenge and it's going to hurt I get that but can I just get through the day without hurting anyone unnecessarily that's it that's how I boil it down to that fascinatingly this person sent me a photograph or picture had a picture of the Kish saying that the greatest a anyone can do in this world is to try not to hurt anyone I think if we recognize what I'm trying to say is in our let's take it out of a technical you know therapy mental health issue to help my struggling kid I got to work on myself and go to therapy and learn about my reactiveness my trauma and you know like not approach that question or issue from a you know a mental health position but shift into a place of the most halic halic halem more halic probably than any Mitzvah it could be if I'm right the Kish said that too that it's more than all Mitzvah is is to reach a place of your own self- Perfection where you don't hurt anyone because imagine what our children will be to when we create that in who we are so that we can repair those attachments connect them to us and change their Destiny and ours forever I I argue with of the highest level there is no higher level why do you feel it's holier than till and it's the highest level because it brings us to AES directly there a direct this is going to bring us there all MIT the kades says the how to get there this is the Pinnacle of all the AES vac attach V attachment to reconnect connect to Hashem in a humble way there is nothing higher than that so the kids gift us this because if we don't do this we can't connect with them I mean what a holy thing this is the way to come to and so you're saying attachment with Hashem really means true attachment with self with self of course true attachment with all your parts with your core experiencing gratitude for every moment of life and only then can you show up for your children only that's right only then can you show up for your children only then can you have an authentic journey in your to MIT and only that thank you you're [Applause] wel this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at w.the yeshiva.net SL donate