Reducing Anxiety by Creating Space Between Thoughts and Feelings - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

[Music] so I'd like to welcome everybody to the class my name is rabbi Daniel Shawn buck I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in Brooklyn and around the world via Skype we're continuing tonight on my series on a new book called thing coda will be good implications of practical psychology positive psychology based upon the writings of dr. Victor Frankel and Jewish wisdom I introduced the book last week talked about the power of positive thinking from the Torah perspective as we know the Torah's understanding of positivity and positive thinking is not what the world calls positive thing just think good it will be good positive thinking in the Torah is a very deep profound is built upon a very deep and profound relationship with the colors barraco that everything's gonna be okay it's a godly based positive thinking process not just on thinking good it will be good we talked a bit about it last week I want to go deeper into it tonight and in this class I'll be opening it up to any questions you have as a Marriage and Family Therapist treating both individuals and couples and families I'm happy to answer any questions you have not even related necessarily to my topic things about you to claim things about marriage questions about depression anxiety OCD or trauma so towards the end of the class I'm going to open this up so please feel free to ask any questions you may have to see if I can be helpful to you turns out that in order to think good first you have to have a calm mind to do so if a person's feeling too agitated the person's feeling too overwhelmed if a person can't find a point of serenity it's very hard then to focus on positive thoughts so in my book I talk about several steps to build up to the point of thinking positively think of it like a house where you have to build a foundation or think of it like a pyramid at the bottom everything's built if you don't know the foundation house can't exist so the first step in the several steps I mentioned the first if it's called creating space creating space if you can't create space in your mind then you can't easily focus on positive thoughts so I'm talking tonight about this concept what we call creating space and like to talk to you why that's so incredibly important and how how the mind works it only works in this way according to modern psychology and something called cognitive behavioral therapy that if we study Kabbalah as you do it in Jewish thinking and muster think mustard farm as well because I'll also describe consciousness working in the same way as parts of modern psychology so let me give you an example how this really works if you experience anxiety for example or you experience depression or OCD this will also be extremely helpful to overcome before a person feels something they first think something we're not always aware of that because our thoughts and our feelings are often fused together there's a fusion of thoughts and feelings but I can guarantee you that if we were to playback your mind in slow motion we start learning things about what you were thinking before you felt it so let me give you a great example I usually give us the children that I treat for anxiety and OCD and anybody with depression or anxiety imagine you're in bed at night it's 12 o'clock at night and you're under your blanket you're snuggled in you're just about to fall asleep and you start hearing some scratching at the window and you think it's a robber how do you feel it scared everybody anybody would be scared right imagine now you think it just leaves touching your window and floating away how do you feel now really so we understand from this clearly that what you think deeply affects what you feel Aaron Beck a Jewish psychiatrist had the honour of studying with he's now is I think later 90s in Philadelphia also uncovered this in modern psychology probably about 40 years ago he explained that first a person has certain thoughts which leads to certain feelings which then lead to certain actions so it's thought feelings and actions the network most people get stuck in the feeling stage they come to the psychologist or they come from there feeling so what do people and they certain behaviors so you think there's a robber you feel scared and your heart starts racing and you scream thought feeling in action what Aaron Beck wanted to point out to is that if we slow it down we'll see that there's thoughts preceding your feelings and therefore if you want to help something with anxiety and depression you first have to target their thoughts because they're going to precede their feelings but at the point where somebody is panicking if you've ever experienced and everybody's had some extra heartbeats it's normal part of life everybody's experienced a rush let me give you a perfect example you walk across the street one day and a dog comes up to you it he's gonna run at you and it's gonna bite you so what do you do how do you feel this takes just a five step three two seconds how do you feel terribly scared without even thinking forget about thoughts and feelings being fused this is thought feeling in action being fused with in a second you just put up your hands you run away but even before that your body gets incredibly strong like that how does it get strong courage Barfield created in the human being um chemical a hormone called adrenaline an adrenaline is able to give you super strength in an instant powerfully powerful in most powerful chemical in the world adrenaline what happens when your adrenaline is flowing your heart start racing people get flutters you start breathing quicker you start tightening up because tightening up means I want to be strong me powerfully reactive to the the danger in front of me just goes on for a while you start sweating your knees will wobble you get a stomach ache and get a headache pupils will dilate all these things happen under tension because the dog is running after you let me give you another example you're thinking about flying on an airplane and suddenly a heart starts racing right or suddenly you get a headache or get a stomach ache something's bothering you suddenly you don't know where it's coming from your heart's racing and you're feeling miserable but there's no dog there what's creating those thoughts and feelings what's praying with feelings of anxiety those dog biting it and the answer is your thoughts it's no accident you've been thinking about something recently worrying worrying you you've repressed it and it's just gonna pop up as an anxiety attack because you're not consciously thinking about it so how do we help somebody in that state if we actually find out so what are you thinking about what is causing that anxiety it's usually not our depression it's usually not so far-fetched I can ask something in a few seconds what are you worried about before you add your anxiety attack or what was bothering you the week leading up to your anxiety attack of your feelings of depression so we can find out in a few minutes what somebody is thinking about and what their requests and what they're going to experience so the key again is to be able first of all to find out what are the thoughts going through a person's mind then we can help them react it but there's one big problem if I can't slow down your thoughts for long enough then that cave and get you in the process of examining your minds and then changing your feelings and your behaviors so first of all we have to create some space so to speak now it turns out in the talk this concept exists it's called ma sha late aha life when the mind rules over the heart it's the power of the month so huzzah understood that our minds eats rule over hearts it's the same same manual we talked before you if you have thoughts from his place of the run in control and your feelings gonna be out of control so there's some great stories of monks all tile life there was a was a during the Napoleon Wars there was a fellow named Moshe Aeschylus and he was a spy against Napoleon and the spy so how did they how do they rat out a spy in those days they didn't have truth detectors no lie detectors when they put on and watch your heart rate go up in intensity and they can do it and electricity yet so what do they do they'd actually think about make sense somebody would put it a hand on the person's heart named in his beginning the story that the polling went up to him because he was a spy against the Polian and he went up to me says that you were spying on us why and he put his hand on his chest the story is his heart kept on beating an irregular rate where did he get this from the concept of Moya shelter life the Mudgett sir Rebbe very famous Rebbe he's produced thousands of Mugu knew that many of us sing in our schools we don't even know that it's Mudgett surrender I think he wrote an egg in a day and he went through a terribly painful surgery but he refused to use anesthesia instead he was singing a during the anesthesia during during assuming the procedure because he was able to create some space he was able to concentrate on something so deeply and he didn't allow himself to feel feelings there's another story of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn his son Menachem Mendel this was at the time after the Soviet the Communist revolution was extremely dangerous to be a Jew in Russia however Joseph you talk was going to meet somebody in Moscow but it was incredibly dangerous meeting he could have been killed at that meeting and his son-in-law his future son-in-law said to him and he noticed that Roberto said it's like we're sitting his house before the meeting taking care of business for his community worrying about them but oh it's worrying about the schools that he was running across Russia he didn't seem to have any emotional reactions those the dangerous about to face so he asked me said what's going on he turned to me said that's luck of his Mun it's luck of his maan means success in time what did it mean he explained he was able to be present at the moment at that very moment and not worry about the next moment he was able to create space between the thoughts and his feelings long enough to focus on what's happening presently in his life right now you're taking care of his community right now he was worried about the danger other Jews were facing in a few minutes he would face the danger he was about to enter into in Moscow right now he wasn't going to do that so he was able to call upon this power of Moyes salt olive and the son-in-law says I've heard of this before but to such an extent he'd never seen before so where does this exist we see from the Torah sources the kabbalah and so on they exist also in psychology i wrote my book on a doctor named dr. viktor frankl Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor who survived three concentration camps his wife was killed his new new bride was killed his parents were murdered in Auschwitz he survives remarkable tragedy and remarkable tests in his life he went on to survive and write one of the most famous books to the 20th century called man's search for meaning many people read this book about his experiences in the camp and the psychology of what is known as logotherapy the therapy of meaning and Viktor Frankl said as follows between stimulus and response there's a space what is stimulus response when somebody pushes you that's a stimulus if your neighbor is rude to you that's a stimulus if your children are rude to you that sure is a big stimulus chutzpah we're all getting angry there's a stimulus our response is our anger aren't the stimulus is our hutzpah when somebody insults you in public it's a stimulus when somebody cuts you off when you're driving it's a stimulus but between stimulus and response says there is a space there's a space and in that space exist all human freedom as well and on this is my quote now I'm putting into his words as well as all emotional health because what is anxiety depression one of the things we deal with other than various stimuli things that bother us and how we react to them we're reacting internally to something going on we feel we're out of control or we feel disappointed or experiencing anger but right there he says is where we experience at the same time as we have stimulus there's a space and in that space exist often the freedom and the turrets called disruption it's called free will right there existed free book press bar who gave us his power he told us to choose between good and bad if you life and death we have the ability of heart the behind we have the ability to choose life that matira is that space we have to get in touch with that little space and expand the space we have to do what I call in the book we have to create space the power of the human being is to make the decision decision comes from lanna word to cut off we have to cut off other possibilities in order to make a positive decision in the right direction but we first have to exercise somebody has experienced anxiety depression overwhelmed always angry has no space they can't experience free will yet and they don't experience they can't make a positive decision so we first have to broaden that space so what creates that space according to Viktor Frankl there's some very powerful things which create space one thing that great space is imagination this is a uniquely human power that we could imagine something different than the response we want to give so for example let's take a kid in school so one of your children comes home and tells me Kulik pushed me in school today he said what happened see I pushed him back stimulus and response there was no space he got pushed back so the first thing we need to do to utilize is imagination what's imagination how could I react differently what are my options instead of pushing back well he can tell his principal or he can tell the Rebbe or he can tell the lunch monitor or the recess monitor he can tell the child you know something he pushed me and really hurt me I'd appreciate you don't do that again think about this with your children when they get upset at you think about this the people that annoy you and when we react quickly to them if we were act quickly to people that bother us were showing there's no space between stimulus and response we need to create space imagination create space how can I react differently and more effectively I do a lot of marriage counseling I just came from a set three sessions in marriage counseling right now with husbands and wives for one case now with a husband the wife is highly reactive emotional very reactive the husband was a very distance person he was very busy businessman you would come home and he wouldn't smile and he wouldn't be friendly his wife wanted to be loved so much and she was also very emotional and gonna control our emotions so I I said let's look at our imagination how could you both react differently how could you both act differently when you come we've planned out in advance so I asked her if she was overwhelmed when the husband came home tell her husband it's so nice to see you and smile and I'm very overwhelmed right now I love to greet you warmly but right now one kids running running around without a diaper on one kid wants to take a bath to her crying teeth dinner right now I'm overwhelmed but it's so nice to see and I asked him also despite the conditions in the home when he walked in to be very friendly when he walked in with this smile they tell us the most husband so I'm at marriage counseling before I tell husbands the goal of a husband marriage the two goals is to spread positivity and optimism that's what a father needs to know men do not have to discipline their children all the time it will happen will happen with love with patience but what your children need from you what your wife needs from you is a smile when you walk in the door she needs to know that you're happy to be home even if you're miserable inside there's Israel Talbert many of you've heard of him it's thirty years ago I heard her share I lived in a veil of inertia line for a number of years I lived in Arkansas for ten years my wife is a good of shiron of his daughter and I would listen to him speak at other times he told a great story that and I I you know Branca Shem I'm a therapist I'm a rabbi so I've taken all the Torah and all the creeks humming I've learned from and Siddiq him and I give this to my clients and therapy because it's tremendous advice they give us advice till today too many couples I tell men as he did he said he was a businessman rabbi tawbah and he would pull up his car in his driveway and before he went in the house what would he do he would eat something because his blood sugar up you have some cookies an apple juice to drink what it was and then he'd walk in happy you can't walk in the house really hungry I have to get a that's it no one's smiling we'd have to eat hard you know so it's wrongly he was using his imagination rabbi Tambor he was imagining himself behaving differently in getting himself to a point where he was behaving differently but first to use his power man how can I enter in the home differently what else can I do you know so whether it's a child in the plague playground who says you know you hurt me or it's a couple that comes complaining and she says he's not friendly to me he doesn't love me and he gets she gets angry had him all the time and his fellow gets overwhelmed he had a hard childhood also turned out and he can't regulate so easily and it gets overwhelmed so I asked her to use a technique in marriage counseling which is basically to switch from you messages to AI messages this is tremendous imagination what is a you message versus an iMessage a you messages you're always late you don't love me you didn't call me if I tell you what's wrong with you how do you feel terrible right what are you gonna do when I tell you what's wrong with you give me some examples you'll either what you'll do the opposite you could tell me what's wrong with me also or you can withdraw for me you couldn't you could you could distance yourself because you wanted to be criticizing it's gonna hurt me if you distance from me then I'm gonna feel distance from it's gonna be even more painfully and walk away from me so instead we talk about in marriage therapy to use something called an iMessage was it iMessage when you were late I was scared something happened to you I talk about how I'm feeling it's so powerful I have to tell you most of the time this works I get a couple to use I messages as opposed to you messages we see a very quick switch in their emotional relationship if a person could talk about what they're feeling like inside I'll give you some examples of powerful AI messages I'm feeling really sad I'm scared I'm feeling alone I'm scared of abandonment I feel like I'm a failure I'm scared I don't measure up through expectations those are very very powerful messages extremely powerful and you know why they're so powerful because the other person can't disagree with you if I tell you you're always late you know what you'll tell me no I'm not if I tell you I'm scared when you're late you can't tell me no you're not you can't tell me when I am inside so if you want to be powerful lower your voice and use an iMessage it's just it's disarming the other person but this is using the power of creativity how can I respond differently all the parenting classes all the books you've read are about imagination how could you listen so kids will talk right and talk so how they'll listen you imagine a different way of responding it's only natural if your kids are bratty and obnoxious to get really angry at them right that would be like basic human behavior somebody's mean to you child or whoever and you're mean to them that's this makes sense logically but we know it doesn't really work you cannot be angry at your kids because they have a temper you can't scream at them and hit them because they're in a bad mood you have to use your imagination how could I respond differently okay so the point here is that imagination is one way of creating more and more space pausing is another way to create space emotionally when you pause he poked in Hebrew when you hold back it's very very powerful I think it says by Yosef Atari you thought Peck he held back from his tears didn't want her when his brothers came to him he didn't want to reveal how what he knew what the pain he was in he held himself back it's extremely powerful yet took the Vino held himself back there are those who were able to pause and not react the rebel to create space so just one simple technique is if you're really upset give your countdown from 10 everybody knows this example you can try it I do it upset count back ten nine eight I have people push the pause button and imagine push the imaginary pause button buzz it you know take a deep breath take a breathe breathe then respond and you'll see you have created space Futenma bothers you and you'll have the composition the ability of Maya Chantal lave now to react with imagination so pausing would precede imagination another way to create space is conscience what's wrong or right what is the right way to respond what's the wrong way if you cut off my car as I'm driving is it right or wrong for me to crash my car into oh is it right or wrong if you hit me is it right or wrong for me to hit you back perhaps the Torah says don't hit back perhaps the Torah says if somebody hits you tell them that it's wrong that you're hitting me you distance yourself from the person but does it say to you you can hit them back if you're under threat at the moment of course you can fight back but it said little low seat or elliptical do not have revenge and not bear a grudge do not have revenge against the person so there's a level of conscience where we have to know is it right or wrong for me to respond right now what is the right or wrong way for me to respond they'll cease the season sfe thump above fo do not hate your brother in your heart ok ok I've took half a tummy tuck I rebuke your fellow neighbor but do not have hate for him in your heart so we have rules what is right and what is wrong and we have to access our understanding our consciousness understand what's right is it right to hit a child is it wrong to the person is it right to scream in a person is it beneficial so using our consciousness we're able to think about what's right or wrong am i doing so we're able to make a better decision about how to react in that circumstance so these are just some ways that we can learn to begin to learn how to create that space I want to describe to some deeper ways of doing this as welcoming in psychology we call this metacognition metacognition is just a very fancy name for thinking about thinking so instead of thinking something and then feeling something I like you to consider thinking about what you're thinking thinking about what you're thinking will slow down your thoughts so if the initial example is somebody insulted me and I'm feeling so angry and hurt I have to insult them back I want to hit them trust us all before that happens slow it down and explain to yourself in your mind's eye what you're experiencing tell yourself I'm feeling very angry right now I'm feeling overwhelmed right now I'm really scared feeling tremendous pocket right now over something that may or may not occur when you describe to yourself what you're thinking your thoughts slow down and you have an option since I'm thinking these negative thoughts I'm thinking the worst will happen so I can choose now whether to follow my thoughts or not but if I don't think about them and I just feel them I'm going to act upon them because I want to discharge my anger right now and I'm gonna scream I'm going to attack I'm going to withdraw perhaps so try to first of all describe to yourself what you're thinking you're feeling I'm feeling very sad right now because someone didn't come for Shabbat I'm feeling very sad because I wasn't invited to an event think about what you're thinking think about what you're feeling and describe it to yourself and then you could choose whether you want to react to it or this is very very powerful in fact you could even look at your thoughts after describing them imagine your thoughts a visual thought I'm very angry because she insulted me take those words put the man in front of you look at them but it's very important and I tell people all the time don't fight your thoughts or feelings watch them and learn how to accept them accept your thoughts are doing this is what I'm feeling like right now but then allow the thought or feeling imagine it just putting it on on a leaf on a river and just imagining it floating away or take a thought and put it in a filing cabinet it's a great technique open up your filing cabinet either way I'll store it away right now let it be there how many blondes of something that's important watch your thoughts accept your thoughts but commit yourself to your values use your conscience use your value system to guide you not to be reactive always just to your emotions another way to do this to create some space as I talked about in my book is imagine your boss yelled at you and you had a miserable day and you missed your bus it was raining and your clothing got wet and you came back just miserable and you yell and you're upset when you're angry because your boss yelled at you and you probably scared you losing your job right but I'm sure this has happened to most people in it you know there's a half people in a bad mood and you're overwhelmed at that moment there's no space between your thoughts and your feelings you're filling the fear of losing your job you feeling angry intervals so if you're overwhelmed I'd like you to see I like to suggest that you project this imagine this happening to somebody else instead of you pretend it's somebody else I'm sure we've all seen this other people will respond better to certain things that bother us so imagine it's your friend and describe in detail my friend was at work today and the boss yelled at him my boss my upset my friend smiled my coworker smile he didn't react as intensely he was able to continue well fact is the computer kept on working or game after work he went in the exercise and he came home he was a better mood he went to sleep calmly imagine it helped happening to somebody else projecting it onto somebody else and kind of watch them react differently than you would react this is a tremendously powerful thing I learned but I live in your chillon when I was single I for Hashem was able to spend Shabbat in many hundreds of people's homes over the years watching other people it's so important watch other people who respond differently than you do and learn from there I've always been amazed when I watch somebody with Dignity responses oh that's a beautiful thing monster ain't Cain if you had a parent or you grew up in the families a lot of high action it kind of gave you license to highly react as well when you've seen a lot of reaction we've seen a lot of emotionalism when you've seen abuse god forbid it gives you a license that in your consciousness this is okay could also act as this is how I was reacted to as well so it's important life to defuse that energy I watch other people watch their calm reaction watch how they they react with dignity despite their conditions so this is projection to other people as well another way to do this is by learning how to practice he Bona notes or learning how to contemplate things very slowly slowing down your thoughts so just give you a few ways to do that it's a little complicated but it's not so hard spend it a minute or two a day just describing things that you see I'll tell you why they're so powerful if you are worried about your past you often become depressed if you're worried about your future you often experience anxiety so past or present or future excuse me thoughts usually create either depression or anxiety where do you want to be want to be in the present in the moment and the only thing happening right now is that very one moment is happening and if you want to remove yourself from your intense thoughts learn to use another part of your brain not past thoughts or future thoughts just begin to describe things that exist there's a very powerful technique so the way you would do this is you just look at a picture you look at something interesting and just describe it to yourself it's very calming for example if we looked at that that the boring oh I'm looking at a golden board with a brown background it's about 50 or so maybe more golden little plates with carvings around it with circles at the bottom and if you spend a few minutes to subscribing what is you will see your mind relaxing you'll see that your mind can calm down when you describe with it so this is very powerful another very powerful technique I use for people with a lot of anxiety for example is I have them use a lot of math do a lot of math in their head so somebody that suffers from OCD or anxiety I have them count backwards from 100 by 7 I could do a thousand I could do 2,000 great so I'll say a hundred minus seven is 93 86 79 72 or allsafe's pick a really big number 2422 - 7 - f - f you will find that if you distract your thoughts use your logic of your left brain or think and describe something else your mind begins to slow down and then you've created this wonderful space now I can react now I can make a choice how I'd like to react I can even make a choice something positively now unbelievable which is the title of my book think good it will be good now I have the opportunity to utilize the power of positive thinking but the first thing I have to do is I have to create some space and this is done in several steps and here's the good news the more you practice this the easier it gets the more you practice look at this as an opportunity to improve yourself look at life as a learning experience but each time you react differently creating space the stronger guy it is like a muscle right there's atrophy of muscles you don't use it it gets weaker and smaller if you start using this muscle more effectively it gets larger and you get stronger so the key is to start exercising non-reaction the exercise the power of non-reaction and when people do that effectively they are able to reduce your states of anxiety reduce the states of depression for example you're feeling very depressed one day so what it could do so you can go eat something or you can people start looking on their phones people start getting about all types of negative behaviors or if they go to sleep for too long or they'll yell at somebody you know cause you're feeling depressed change that pattern depression is just an overwhelming thought which is causing a certain feeling and ask yourself the question what's bothering me right now I always ask this question to my clients I say don't overlook the obvious if you're feeling depressed or anxious something is causing us so push your pause button CreateSpace slow down what is bothering me right now and the last thing I'd like to mention once you have that space is you can utilize the power of cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome most fears and most feelings of depression by analyzing and using what we call thinking perhaps I'm going to share with you a very powerful method in fact this method is so powerful and the reason I like cognitive behavioral psychology is because they don't have to rely from me as a therapist once you learn these techniques right now you can take it with you is called the portable therapist wherever you go in life so I'm going to share with you what are these thinking traps thinking traps are distorted thought patterns they're rules in your brain which we utilize axioms principles rules that we utilize over and over and over again which cause us a lot of distress when you share with you the top thinking traps that I've discussed with my clients in therapy as well one of the thinking traps is called black and white thinking black and white thinking I'm either really good or really bad my friends really love me or they all think feel you're laughing you all experience me just because you have black my thinking doesn't mean you got anxiety depression you're just a human being but this is what we do you know I grave I gave a great lecture or I was a terrible failure I'm either very fat I'm very skinny I cheated on my diet so I'm a total failure black and white thank you it's extreme thinking it's rigid thinking if you're in rigid patterns oryx green fought patterns you're gonna feel a lot of anxiety too terribly depressed make sense right black one thing another thinking trap is fortune-telling predicting the future based upon your past experiences a more extreme form of that is called catastrophizing oh that's terrible the worst scenario is can you picture the worst scenario happening in your life this miss eventually the kids are then and you come up with scenarios and airplanes though and you live in a terrible state of anxiety it because and what you're not doing is what we're talking about tonight is think good I tell my clients all the time it's a them it won't cost me anything to think good so try it you could catastrophize about the worst thing happens if you're already using your imagination negatively use your imagination positively it cost absolutely nothing just try it and see well said if it this crashing and this being this got there safely and again a great time and even though it was painful we worked through it I mean you can choose to do that as well if you catch the thinking trap of catastrophe this is the next year the most powerful ones people do it's called filtering negative filtering what is negative filtering the very fancy term is called selective abstraction negative filtering is I only pick up the negative things don't look at the positive right I didn't do well in one test but I did great on four tests I'm terribly depressed about his test go back to black when thinking I'm a failure oh boy is that create depression you know I I'm very good to my kids but I screamed at my seven-year-old daughter yesterday you're laughing I'm a failure of a parent right negative filtering I'm just filtering out the negative and I look at my positive but I'm loving to my daughter most of the time or to my son I'm really carrying that safe loving home I lost my temper you can lose your temper ice cream that was awesome a terrible parent children hurting them if you're hurting them you have to stop but if you made one little mistake and negative filtering people walk around they get it something a lot they feel depressed over generalizing is another great thinking trap if you find yourself using words like never and always you're the thinking trap of over generalizing my sabich's table is never my food is never good enough I am my friends never accept me for who I am I'm always failing but here's the trick you want to do if you do a lot of Nevers and always push the pause button great space and change it change my never in always to sometimes right sometimes my food doesn't turn out the way I wanted to sometimes their friends don't accept accept accept me like I like them too but change that rigid pattern of never and always to more positive power see me powerful ones shoulds musts and half twos and Parker's they're called imperatives what does that mean I should be perfect I must never lose control I have to help everybody who comes to my door for help if use a lot of shoulds must in half Tunes you suffer from perfectionism you'll have a lot more anxiety in life and suffer perhaps and depression because you never can rise up to your expectations or so powerful your expectations of yourself and others people shouldn't do that it should be nice to me my husband must be nice to be knocks on the door shoulds must and have to so how do you change what's that well what ifs are right that's a little different than shoulds you know we'll get to what else is ever this should is very painful for people I'd like you to change that if you if you want you don't have to okay but I want you to change it to the word prefer this one word has changed many people's lives one single word earth would prefer it is so powerful the word prefer I prefer I would have preferred my husband spawn when he came to the door but perhaps it was overwhelmed I prefer to be the most perfect ball buster in the world but I can't always be the person I expect myself to be because I'm only human it is so incredibly powerful I prefer to give the perfect lecture but I know people make mistakes sometimes and it happens and I'm only human you change from your half t-shirts it prefers I've literally seen people's live strain literally seen a change you'll go hiding evaluate two states of acceptance it doesn't always work in every case but it is a very powerful thing it's all about language and these these words affect our minds very deeply they're called principles axioms they're called rules intermediate thoughts there's nothing for them but they're extremely powerful and once you then can work through your thoughts your principles and your mind you need to shift your whole life and this is so incredibly important because you want to be available what's really important in life so I have a meditation in my book called the godly self Magali self so according to consider thinking in two souls nefesh mamita and you're not Michelle okay the animal soul in a God willing so you have your eat Sahara you have you ate your toes similar concept but somebody that suffers from depression anxiety only sees the nefesh maja me they only see their negative self or animalistic self their physical zone they see their sad self they see their dissapointed self but we know there's a deeper soul it's the godly soul the epoch popov Nesmith time and God breathed into his nostrils a breath of life when a showman's craniotomy shown performed the first CPR in human history breathe into a part of himself burned the Cibola God breathed the part of himself and within us it's neshama the cure being adopted me to hora he that's pure our lifetime the lives are hard with mistakes it's pressure is pain and we start we start forgetting the cure neshama within us that pure spark within us we often view ourselves from the negative perspective and just consider this meditation if you would for a moment imagine yourself now whether your eyes are open or closed now imagine this is diamond inside of him and if you've ever seen a diamond in the rough not the one you buy in the jewelry store but the one they extract from the ground a diamond is an ugly piece of stone that's black and chipped and sharp and dirty but what do you have to with the diamonds you simply have to polish off the outside of the diamond and it's the most beautiful stone in the world like you to contemplate for a second that there's this diamond deep within you it may have been roughed up over the years we've experienced a lot of pain they've been stepped upon but I want you to just walked up to that diamond inside of you and gently brush off the dirt on the outside and rub it a little bit and just imagine that little diamond inside of that it starts shining a light inside of you and expand that light fill in your whole body now with that perception of light coming from that diamond fill it in with you and brighten that light such an extent that the light shines outwards towards other people I call that the godly self meditation I gave that to a young woman who was suffering from OCD terribly she had trouble leaving the house she had trouble and she became I said why don't we just stop all this I was doing cognitive and herbal therapy those who D how do you feel about yourself I said and I gave her my book and she said Wow hey don't usually look at myself in a loving way I don't have a lot of empathy for myself if you try to use this meditation meditate on your goodness and so on meditate what's really there give yourself a break reduce your shoulds and half twos stop overgeneralizing of course don't think it's a black-and-white terms but also begin to have empathy for yourself have self-love for who you really are which is your godly like soul and she found it extremely relieving and such here it's interesting her OCD went down but it was emanating from the lack of empathy towards herself so it's incredibly powerful we'll continue next week or the next time you get together to discuss the second step which is going above so we'll get there but I just like to finish by opening up to any questions for the next few minutes you have about psychology therapy family counseling anything it's important to parenting brown people anybody have any things like to talk about the question was how do you stop eating as much if you're an emotional eater I understand how do you well let's take these examples here of this apply if we can what we just talked about is there's something called emotional eating right a lot of people suffer from emotional eating they've tried every diet they can't stand the diet because they're emotional eaters I happened to do a lot of reporting for people that are experienced a pre bariatric surgery asked to do the valuations for them and I talked them about this as well because many of them suffer from emotional eating and it is important to utilize the same principles we talked about with creating space with food as well if you can try this so you see something naughty you know you shouldn't need it you know I'm talking about chocolate-covered peanuts and some ice cream and you know cookies and whatever so slow down push the pause button okay create some space between you in it what am i feeling like what am i thinking about what am i feeling like right now I really want that but what I'm really thinking is that I can't get through the day and if I don't have food I'm gonna starve or you may be just very worried about something right or it's feeling sad or angry at someone at that moment not necessarily but it could be and what thoughts am i utilizing what are my thinking traps I'm utilizing at the moment and what will happen is because I can almost prove the scientifically if I can shift my thinking towards creating space and analyzing what my anxieties are coming from and where's my depressive thoughts right now or my fear of hunger and lack of satiation I can then arouse positivity at the moment I could think very positive thoughts I believe if you arouse positivity deeply enough you'll also get a sensation of food in your body meaning a sense of satiation from it the proof is if you've ever been really happy at that moment you probably didn't need to eat anything when you're really happy right you're really happy if you're watching a child being born you don't have to break and get something to eat and go back to the baby correct in the joy if you're at a Haasan of somebody that you love that's getting married I mean you do eat at asanas but at that moment of Dancing with them you know have to stop to eat because you're just so happy so working on these principles I would say in general and creating space and watching your thoughts improving your sense of well-being lowering depression anxiety and then arousing a deep sense of positivity could only help you in eating better fruition the question was I mentioned before about helping him one with OCD like doing the godly meditation on herself and having empathy for him and helped her in the answer and how could that be because the person has repetitive thoughts mo doesn't have to do with that I'll try to answer this on one foot but anxiety could be a way by which a person first represses bad thoughts about themselves and channels it different mechanisms so some people are prone to more anxiety states it's a neurology some people are prone to more depressive States but primarily if their self-image of themselves and in fact Aaron Beck says this exact same thing I mentioned before you have your thoughts then you have your feelings and your behaviors they flow down thoughts and feelings in Aaron Beck says is a stop step before your thoughts which are your beliefs about yourself it's a deepest part of your unconscious what you believe about yourself and he said primarily there are three core self beliefs negative self-beliefs which clog depression anxiety and here they are worthlessness helplessness or feeling unlovable unlovable the something defective them and no one could love me worthlessness hopelessness helplessness excuse me or feeling unlovable those are the three core self beliefs he believed if you have one or up to three I work with people out of all three and there's hundreds of calories to those defective being helpless being powerless Israel for all reason these three core self beliefs if you have them here let's call this super conscious it will cause thoughts or negative thinking traps to arise this will then cause your feelings and cause your behavior so it stems from a self perception if I truly believe I love and good according to Erin Beck you wouldn't have such negative thoughts or negative feelings it goes back to your self-worth and simple terms goes back to your self esteem OCD is an anxiety disorder with a special extra kick the OCD brain has over activity in a small part of the brain called the caudate nucleus they've done F MRIs and they've shown that people the OCD have a special predilection for it's repetitive thoughts because the part of the brain which regulates a lot of repetitive thinking has more activity in brains with OCD it's a biological it's called the violet violet bio psychological problem it's coming from a physiological problem but it interacts with anxiety and you see the mechanism it's the fear of things not being perfect or the fear that I'm going to be sick or there's fear that there's contamination the fear of one's thoughts repeating OCD or obsessive thoughts and compulsions which they utilize like washing their hands or checking things are constantly on them obsessive thoughts but according to Erin Beck the source of a lot of these problems is my beliefs about myself so if we can change a person's self belief business Koski was saying if I can have empathy towards myself actually filters down with my thoughts and my feelings of my behaviors so with his young woman when I got her to meditate on her goodness I was working on her self releases though I am good and therefore it fouled but Aaron Beck claimed to happen is that once he worked on her goodness inside she actually reduced her symptoms really cure her but it was very helpful for her to feel better about himself well the question was should you think a lot as opposed to doing and the answer is yes to know primarily you're correct that if you do a lot of good and don't give a lot of space for negative thoughts then you'll be in a better place so I'm all for that but this is what Viktor Frankl talked about as well is that you don't want to just focus on yourself all the time in your thoughts this is the tension of modern psychology this is why Viktor Frankl and I write about this in my book Viktor Frankl believed that Sigmund Freud Alfred Adler and even Aaron Beck and all the psychologists he didn't talk about that could he implied it that the therapies which person goes to therapy for ten years five years for you and just talks about themselves can be counterproductive according to Viktor Frankl because what you're doing paradoxically is you're focusing focusing more on ourselves and then you're only what's that I agree because I'm a psychologist and also practices the works of Viktor Frankl so in logotherapy they don't just focus on yourself you're supposed to focus on the other beyond yourself he says the example you can't pick yourself up by taking your hand behind your self and picking your back up you need something higher than yourself to pull yourself out this was Viktor Frankl therefore he disagreed with Freud and Adler and all the psychiatrist's cuz he said you're just spending more time talking about your edge and your ego and your oedipal complex in your childhood but it's not going to pull you out of where you are however you don't want to disregard the need to talk about yourself especially if you've suffered trauma repetitive patterns and abuse and so on and telling but at a certain point that that is only addressing one half of the person you're not addressing the other half which is man's search for meaning man's need to fulfill tasks to be healthy and that's why Viktor Frankl said and a very controversial way he said those in the camps that believed they were going to fulfill a meeting after the camp's had a greater chance of survival the minute they gave up the hope that they'd be fulfilling something whether loving somebody leave being reunited Viktor Frankl was once on a death march and if he would fall in a death march they would shoot you he had to stay awake and conscious so for that moment he dissociated and pictured himself years later after surviving outfits giving a class on the psychology of the concentration camps and he was transported to his classroom once again at times he would talk to his wife again who was in the other side of Auschwitz we found it later was murdered but that love for his wife the belief that she may be alive and that he would teach one at one point others about the psychology the death camps kept him alive and one final story I'll conclude with this he was also dying one night of a disease called typhus which was spread by lice in the camps and he knew as a physician that if you fall asleep at the first night of typhus with 104 fever you'll probably suffer cardiovascular collapse so even though he suffer from 104 and those of us had a hundred for fever no delirious again said despite that what did he do his main manuscript called the doctor in the soul was a very big book that he had with him to publish his manuscript when he walked into the gates of Auschwitz and they took it away from him and that night in Bavaria and when the camp's he was in dying from typhus having to stay awake he stole or got some scraps of paper from some inmates or somebody and the night he had to stay awake he recreated it his book that was taken out of his arms and he claims that kept him alive because he was fulfilling a future meaning so to answer your question I was around him that way yes you're right but there's a balance there's times you need to talk about yourself but not too much you need to focus doing you need to stop focusing on oneself and focusing on something greater than yourself according to Franklin and that creates a really healthy balance psychologically the question is that somehow I'm a man Gedaliah merits as well say women should not listen to the newscast okay maybe all people shouldn't listen the newscast because what does it do for us we suffer from such anxiety about Isis in the world and our fears and we do absolutely nothing about it we just sit there suffering is it so interesting so it's it's a fascinating idea and it says in measures Don Huma i'ma say Who I you car that doing is of the essence and I would agree with you we should put down our newscasts and spend more time learning Torah and doing facet for other people will be so much healthier and happier that's a very good point see you next time [Music] you [Applause]