Rising Above Life's Challenges through Faith & Trust - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

[Music] welcome to marriage matters my name is rabbi Daniel Shawn Bach I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in New York and around the world via Skype tonight we're continuing the lecture series of my new book think good and it will be good and last week we dealt with the question of how to create space in your mind so we said if you want to think positively you first have to have enough space space between your thoughts and your feelings to slow down the thought process so you can introduce positive thinking so the first step in this system to achieve a greater sense of well-being in spirituality is to create space once you've created space the second step I talked about in my book is called going above and that's tonight's topic is going above and it's all about seeing things from a higher perspective I'm gonna speak to you both about Torah and about psychology in terms of how I integrate the therapy of emunah or the concepts of moon into therapy there are people that believe that there's two different worlds is the world of psychology in the world of the Torah I try to bring them together in a professional way of course both sides have their purpose we have to have professional standards in psychotherapy to protect the client and to protect the therapist and we should never make them feel uncomfortable but there are many clients who I've met over the years who want to talk about God who want to talk about Emunah who want to talk about spirituality but most therapists are taught never to talk about spirituality and about I call the G word the God God we were told in graduate school don't talk about God we were not just told us directly but indirectly religion and psychology or science are two separate roles that can never mean why is this a big problem because most people who have suffered anybody comes to a psychologist suffering from something whether it's a little s or a big as a small suffering a large suffering they all want to talk many people would like to talk about what gives them strength what gives them hope in life which is root which is spirituality but the vast majority of therapists not only are not trained to do that they're told not to do that so the reason I wrote my book think good and will be good is to introduce psychologists in the community that you can introduce a munna into the cycle into a psychotherapeutic process but you have to know how to do it carefully so this concept of going above is the second step it teaches people how to do this effectively well it turns out that I didn't start this concept we learned this from close all thousands of years ago there's two great stories of those who taught us to go above in life to see life from a higher perspective one was Rabbi Akiva the other one was nothing Mishka mizue so the story of Rabi Akiva the famous story from the Gemara was that he was travelling somewhere and he tried staying in the city this this village and he knocked on one door and they said to me no you can't stay here so rebbi akiva said coleman to evade rahman on the tava vide everything that God does it God does is for good okay it happened once he went to another house and he knocked on the door says can I please stay over here I have no I had no place to sleep now I can't sleep on the street on the road so they said I'm sorry I'm not interested yes we said Coleman daveed Rahman on the top of it everything that God does is for good so he went out to the forest and he slept in the forest that night and he had three things with him he had a donkey he had a rooster and a torch so what's the donkey for well you don't have there weren't any Honda Civics in those days so you had to drive around his donkey it was his transportation you didn't have Ober right that's how he got around so what's the rooster for well he didn't have a cell phone or an alarm clock those before electricity was in bed than a few thousand years ago so we had a rooster right the rooster crowed crooks that they at the crack of dawn and the rusticles cockadoodledoo when you wake up I guess they woke up early in those days 4:35 zone and he brought with him a torch of course need the torch for light and for warmth maybe for cooking but what happened that night is a some type of wild beef some type of lion came and ate the donkey killed the donkey and another animal came and ate his rooster and his torch blood a wind came in Mill Knight and his torch blew out and ran beekeeper got up and said Coleman devide Rahman on the top of it everything that God does is for good what happened it turned out that the the Romans invaded that village killed everybody in the village and m'avez donkey would have been alive that he would have started making noises when he heard the soldiers the rooster would have been croaking you know cockadoodledoo in danger and if they would have seen his torch he would have been seen and he would have been murdered so Coleman - of a drachma inlet Ave that's one level Munna that we're able to see let's say retro actively or believe in the future that everything that God does is for good this is a deep level of Emunah but there's another level of Nahum each gamsu he would used to say gum Zulu tava that's what they called nakamise gums ooh gum Zulu means that this also is for good what is this also instrument what is the level that we're talking about we'll see the psychologically as well what is the level we're talking about of a moon oh this is higher than rebbi akiva Reb Akiva was talking about the past and perhaps the future or something that just happened Nakamichi gums it was talking about this itself is for good I can see goodness in this very thing and there was a time where the Romans were attacking the Jews their lifes were threatened so they sent knock'em each comes with a casket a treasure of jewels to appease the king and the Emperor and he went to give it to the king he stopped over an inn that night and the innkeeper saw in this box because it was weight that there's probably something very expensive inside there was good stuff so he took away all the jewels in the middle of night and he replaced it was sand Nakamichi gums have picked it up and he could feel there was a change and he already knew their sin he said gum Zulu Tova this itself is for good and he went to the Emperor and he presented him this box and the Emperor opens up the box and he doesn't see these jewels he sees send and offer their heads at that point san from the Jews so they say Eliyahu Hanavi was his assistant and he said you know these these Jews are not crazy I mean if they brought you this stuff this is probably very good stuff in this this sand must be very powerful and there's a story of rama v know when he was fighting the four kings he had sand they need to throw the sand up and the sand returned two Spears and two rocks and attacked his enemies so it has to be something pretty good and the story is the Romans picked this up threw it up in the air and it did it was it turned into these Spears of these rocks and it was very powerful and he it saved the Jews but the point of nakamise gamsu was to show gamma Zulu tava even in something that is painful there's something powerful waiting a person and this is so powerful if somebody has suffered it's so powerful to know that it's like a lot not just going to the synagogue or to the rabbi but psychologists can share this with people if they believe in God the meaning the client believes in God that there is meaning in what they're experiencing there's always meaning hidden behind what a person is experiencing I call this in psychology zooming out just imagine for a second I just saw this video recently exactly this picture somebody who advertising a services used a zooming out video imagine we're sitting here in this room and there's a camera on top of our heads he's taking a video and the camera suddenly has a hole in the roof it goes up in the air and you see this part of Flatbush and it goes even higher and you go up to the clouds and you see all of New York City and you see parts of the United States and you see the Atlantic at you see the Atlantic Ocean to the east and he goes even hiring you see the United States of America into the East is Eric's astral and you see the Old Globe and it pops even higher up in the air and it's hovering above the earth like a stylus use the entire earth and keeps going back to the moon and and so on that's what we call zooming out this is what a good psychologist will to help a client is tell them zoom out from their situation there's expression in English myopathy myopic is when I see things just up close but I can't see them from afar wanted overcome myopathy want to help a person perhaps explore deeper meaning even in their suffering I was once giving a workshop on Internet addiction I was running a support group and it was in turn addiction it was people people had mental health issues depression bipolar disorder and I know there's a whole group of people that bipolar disorder in this group I was this is roryd Oxman and one of the people asked the question how do I overcome feeling terribly depressed how do I overcome so another guy and this is what supports group do for you they have other people offer information to help you one other person said he said every morning I wake up and I say I give gratitude to our son for five things probably mentioning that before I make like five things because you know the guy says I've been working on this for years so he said something unbelievable just happens me and listen to the schizos a true story I said something unbelievable happened something small but something very profound he said yesterday it was raining and I was a bit sad from the rain so I was trying to think well how can I look at this in a different perspective how can I take a rainy day into a beautiful day what can i buy then he realized and if anybody you're mostly many if you drive you'll know that certain days I'm not sure I don't remember what is either parts of the winter parts of the summer you've Drive early in the morning and he get blinded you get blinded by the Sun you just can't see cover your face and you almost Canada's almost dangerous she said borrow Hashem it was a cloudy day yesterday which means I wouldn't be blinded when I drove out early to work in the morning so he was able to on his own see some goodness in something that most people would say there's no goodness but if you can actually help somebody do this you're going to see a remarkable psychological change take place in their lives or in in your life for that matter it's interesting Viktor Frankl I write about in the book was a Holocaust survivor and he lived through Auschwitz and two other concentration camps and he claimed that those who believed they were going to fulfill some type of meaning in their life after the camp's not knowing if they live or not but they believe they probably would live and they're gonna go back to their classrooms or go to their synagogues or love their spouse again if they believe deeply that they were going to accomplish something they had a greater chance of actually surviving the camp's so Viktor Frankl spoke with a lot of experience about having overcome suffering as well and he created a formula to help his patients understand when I write about this in the book as well that if they could find meaning in their suffering they could find some meaning they could overcome their suffering and he had a formula it said D the letter D equals s minus M despair equals suffering - meaning in other words if a person finds some purpose if a person can find some meaning and what they're going through they will not experience a much more profound deeper sense of despair so we have to we must help people zoom out and find some meaning when you're stuck in something at the moment when you're stuck in a painful situation we know according to the theories of anxiety you have this fight-or-flight mechanism a person becomes very myopic very short-sighted when you're under a lot of stress you don't see the bigger picture because you're finding the stress I'll give you a perfect example because I'm a marriage therapist as well and there are so many couples that I know that come to me with problems saturated stories have very difficult marriages they're always fighting they're constantly fighting and I often found that when I reflected to them what was their marriage like when they just got started when they were dating they often start reflecting at a time where they had less stress in their life and I often find that helps them accomplish more in terms of their marriage to the point where I'll just say and listen I think there's a lot of stress in this house I need you to go out more often why don't you go out once every two weeks and just relax even need a babysitter I used to say once a week and I really through most people can't handle going out once a week it's not reasonable let's try to make a date with each other once every two weeks or maybe once a month will be great when you go out with your spouse who might it you might have had tension with or conflict it could be over the kids it'd be over Parnell but you just go out have a little bit of a break many couples I can't say all couples but many couples experienced relief in their marital problems because they're seeing their marriage from a different perspective so you just see the incredible power of finding meaning shared meaning with another human being so Viktor Frankl said we have to help our patients discover more meaning in their lives when we do we help them understand the meaning of their suffering we take away from them a tremendously powerful burden I'll just give you a story a person came to Viktor Frankl complaining I think it was an elderly Jewish man in the story his wife had just died of a terminal illness and he was terribly depressed and alone and he came to Franco and terrible despair Franco says he improvised for this man what did he do he said let me ask you my dear friend what would have happened if you would have died first he told this man he asked this man said it if he would have died first his wife would have suffered unbearable suffering she would have experienced tremendous pain watching her husband died so he said to him isn't perhaps true then that the reason she died first was to help her avoid the suffering she would have suffered if you would have died first so you're out living her had the meaning of reducing your wife's pain and it says in that story that this man was feeling better from his depression was able to keep on living because his suffering had meaning his suffering had a purpose there's a psychotic psychologist named dr. Jerry long who was a student of Viktor Frankl who actually died within the last years there's a famous video Viktor Frankl you can watch us on YouTube a Franco speaking to this quadriplegic gerri long was going to be a baseball player for endlessly powerful athlete and one day he was he went diving and you didn't know it was shallow water and a shallow Rock and he broke his neck and cracked his neck at the height of his he was just about to launch at the major league baseball he broke his neck he was a quadriplegic and you'll see the videos in YouTube of him with his one hand I think moving going with his electric wheelchair into the studio and talking to dr. Frankel and he was from Texas and he wrote dr. Frankel letter dr. Frankel was in Vienna most was left after the war and he wrote dr. Frankel a letter about his life and as he sat there in the hospital bed realizing he'd never move again in his life he suddenly Eddie he'd lose his career as a baseball player he suddenly discovered a new passion in life he decided in his hospital bed that he was going to become a psychologist who was going to help those who had suffered from terminal illness or disease or had suffered illness such as breaking the spine their paralyzed he was going to be the therapist is gonna help all these paralyzed individuals around the world find deeper meaning in their lives and Viktor Frankl actually invited in they flew him to Germany for a conference where he gave his paper and at the end of this paper he said my neck was broken but it did not break me the friends this is so incredibly powerful what Franco says we should do and I believe this and the Torah says is as well we want to turn our tragedies into triumph we can turn a tragedy into triumph based upon our attitude towards what we're going through and this is what we talk about in the book and Viktor Frankl talks about this is the last of all human freedoms he says the Nazis could imprison us they could torture us they could take food away from us but there's one thing that cannot be taken away from a human being is their attitude that's the one ultimate human freedom and Jerry long story tells the story of a person that despite his conditions despite what he was going through was able through his attitude to transform his life and the life of many people around him I once a few months ago I actually ran a conference on Viktor Frankl and spiritual therapy and we had with us a wonderful rabbi who was known to be very effective in reaching out the thousands of hundreds and thousands of young women in our communities he runs an institute ii as he has residential centers for women in distress and so on and he got up at the conference and i asked him to speak about addiction and the torah because I thought he's if there's anybody that knows this he's gonna be a great he's a great speaker and he'll talk about the diction of the Torah so he got up to speak and waiting for this great lecture it was you know everybody's excited but and I was busy in the back of the room I was organizing lecture very busy I mean hearing him speak he says ladies and John want to tell you that I myself am a recovering addict and people look to him inside what he the Recovery Act he's the one who saving hundreds of people's lives or attics is recovery goes yes he said and this is public knowledge he says that as a child he was abused by two or several people at all and he swore when he got older that he would never let anybody that he knows in his community ever suffer from the Buse again and he wanted to create this wonderful organization that's helped literally hundreds and thousands of young people and families and save girls lives today but this is what he said even deeper and I couldn't say this because I think God never experienced the type of physical abuse but only he could save us and this is what he said he said if I was given the opportunity to not have been abused I would not choose it I would never give up my abuse because it turned me into what I am today now born I would not give that advice to clients I'm sharing with you a true story about a very famous rabbi who shared that with his clients he was able to transform a tragedy into a tremendous personal triumph there are so many stories of this you would be surprised how many great people today we mentioned rather goostman and the swiss was learning with him for several years his son was killed right in front of him by the Nazis went on to build wonderful yeshiva Narron sister all many years after that but I can't tell you there are so many great people when you see a great person one should question whether they suffered beforehand because many great people are great because they overcame something many people you'd be surprised and there are many stories of people that achieve greatness from overcoming difficulties in the lives the Prime Minister of Israel right now Bibi Netanyahu his brother was killed at the raid on Entebbe in the response to the rate of Entebbe with his brother's death he created something called the Jonathan his name his brother's name is yoni John notes on Jonathan he created the Jonathan Institute it was the International Institute a member as a child reading about that he was studying and researching international how to stop international terrorism and now he's the Prime Minister of Israel the Asia kodesh a very famous rabbi who died in in the ghetto in in in varsa and Warsaw was the Rebbe of thousands of children he was he was called the of the orphans Rebbe in Warsaw there's a famous shul called the H kodesh in the five towns motion weinberger he wrote many far and beautiful Safari I'm at education about reaching out to children this is over 100 you know 100 years ago at these books and it turns out that he was an orphan as a child his father Don I think when he was two so he understood he understood what it meant to be an orphan and he became the Rebbe of these orphans and there's so many other stories of people that have overcome terminal illness to live that had the will to live and despite their illness despite their difficulties were able to transform what looked to be dark going back to rebbi akiva again he saw from the outside if you look at her we look at our lives from a very small perspective you know the hotel was was full that night so we had to drive to the next hotel and then hotel was also full so we slept in the forests and it looked really bad I mean who would not if we go to university I'm a Samba prevent your sign present your scientific research if there's real suffering here who would say no to the real suffering locked out of hotel lockdown the next hotel sleeping on the streets the scientists would say bro the scientists say this is pretty bad this is suffering what is rebbi akiva say Cholmondeley Rahman Allah Tommy he was able to to zoom out he was able to pull back from his very short-sighted myopic as we say perspective and was able to to see life from a much greater perspective so in Torah psychology in my book think it'll be good we talked about going above the importance of going above could help people through depression overcome anxiety disorders suffering post-traumatic stress disorders so I'll often explore with my clients the whys behind their suffering but you can ask a question and I always do what do I know about people suffering even moshe rabbeinu did not get the answer why do bad things happen to good people he went into our scene I he was as closest as he could get with the cutters barraco this is Moshe Rabbeinu he saw some punny Mel Putnam he was right there at the cottage Marco he asked Hashem show me your ways the more explains this Rashi brings us down the himesh the Torah he asked the chef show me your ways and as Shem says no he turns around and a shed and Moshe Manor sees the back of his head he was by the rock it's character fill in the back of the fillin which has certain implications for us so softly and spiritually but he didn't answer motion Banias question why do bad things happen so if Moshe or Boehner didn't know what bad things happened how could we know I could Viktor Frankl again the answer is that we don't really know but I believe that with a client who's coming and discussing their suffering with us they may have some insight to why they suffered and therefore what we do and I talk about in the book again as we enter into a therapeutic dialogue with somebody who suffered you know we asked them several questions not that we know the answers but in the dialogue some very interesting things can emerge for example have you ever seen any good come of a seemingly hopeless situation have there been times in your life when you have been instructed to do something you didn't want to do but in the end found out that it was actually good for you did experiencing a difficult time in your life ever make you stronger is there any possible good that emerged from your own trauma it's not that people have immediate answers to these questions but believe me when somebody has suffered if somebody has the facet to engage in that conversation with them they start perhaps discovering things I remember a true story of somebody that I used to live in Eretz Israel for 10 years we lived in in heart in the old city and in Morocco we had friends in different neighborhoods and there was a time in the 1990s that I personally experienced I was in front of several terrorist attacks I either heard them or saw people and very very overwhelming but I remember a friend of mine told me there was one bus that they came from her nofe that blew up going to the Kotel I think and he was he missed his bus he was very very angry that they really wanted to get downtown to the Kotel and he only found out later that because he missed his bus his life was saved there are so many scene there's so many stories that we're not really ever fully aware of but if we step back we begin to appreciate that there's a divine hand in our lives and how do we find that divine hand we have to just open up with questions about that divine hand we have to sort of speak we could squeeze out meaning from situations which were not easily accessible but with a little bit of time with a dialogue with another person like a therapist we can engage in a discussion and uncover some possible reasons perhaps why now we can see why that suffering made us stronger or we learn something from it or somebody else's life was saved or like the story we heard before about person they could work on bricks and it saved his lives these are the types of stories which are happening all around us we're just not aware of them we get so focused in our day-to-day lives we get so focused on making a living and dealing with children and we're going on should do him or whatever the things in our life that are difficult we often don't step back to really appreciate how we can benefit from getting a greater perspective in their lives and how it can actually change people's lives who have depression and anxiety okay so let me give you some exercises now then I talked about in the book that I found that my clients found very helpful when they were suffering when they going through difficult times which kind of alleviated some of their pain when they're able to go above I want to just offer you some of the things which I found on the Torah itself which helped us go above so one of the things I discovered was we could use certain lines in the Torah as mantras repetitive statements and help us overcome what we're going through so try some of these if you're in pain or going through a hard time say the words over and over again rebo no Sholem rabona show the master of the universe or a node Nevada a node Nevada there was no other besides him if you find yourself in a difficult situation if you could meditate deeply on one statement which brings a lot of meaning and perception in your life keep on repeating it till it sinks into you actually experience it psychologically chavita Hashem linetti tamid I have placed God in front of me at all times try these four lines and there's another one Schmeisser allah Schemmel okay Noah Shem Akkad that's the fourth here o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one understand God's divinity in the world understand the gods one in the universe that everything is part of God and godliness these statements if said at the right time and practice enough can fill your mind I know we spent that you just do if you would chart out your mind for a second how many negative thoughts you live with every day many to many was mentioned last week that Hamim the Rabbani minutes as well said people should not on women and people should not be watching news all the time well we all watch news right how many negative thoughts you have from watching our CNN and our webcast and all the news and the newspapers that's the D from Viktor Frankl to despair right we're suffering without meaning we have no meaning in these things we all walk around with terrible thoughts because it's a scary world were living in the world of Isis and post 9/11 and terror and all so we live with such negativity so just make a chart how many negative thoughts do we have and here's the nice thing this is a totally free this will cost you nothing why don't you replace some of the negative thinking with statements like rabona Shah aalam master of the universe or a note mill vada there was nothing there's no one besides him in this world or Chevy TSM the neg d'etat Mead I've placed a Shem in front of me at all times it won't cost you anything it's free optimism is free as I mentioned before and it will help you dramatically change your thinking if you find yourself in a vacuum an empty space of meaninglessness or god forbid even worse feelings and thoughts about sadness why not replace it with statements like rebozo la Morena of Movado one one technique another technique I call this in the book feeling the world love you imagine that the world was not such a scary place imagine that the world was not so threatening why don't we change everything - the world is the place of love the world is a place where God is taking care of you at all moments imagine that thought just change your perspective change your attitude for a second life is not so scary Conner's Barr who is taking care of us at every moment everything in world is working to take care of us imagine such a perspective what it would do here's a meditation you could close your eyes or keep them open look around at the walls in the room where you're sitting understand that those walls are there to protect you from the wind and from any disturbance outside of your home look up at the sky and notice the clouds that bring rain to nurture the earth and the Sun that gives us light and warmth imagine that the Sun ceases to shine it's rays for just a few moments the earth will cease to exist all of this is sustained for you by God in every moment consider how the piping in your home brings life sustaining hydration that water was created for you to live and to enjoy also consider the tens of thousands of people who are involved in maintaining the quality and delivery of water to your home all of this is sustained for you by God at every moment think about your breathing for a second notice yourself breathe breathing in and out in and out become aware of the wondrous power of your lungs breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide look at your hand and notice the complexity of its shape muscles bones and its dexterity all of this was created and sustained for you by God at every moment feel the chair behind your back holding you as you sit comfortably notice the floor under your feet that is maintaining your balance and keeping you securely grounded all of this is sustained for you by God at every moment and finally consider that every aspect of creation and every part of the universe is created for you by God contemplate how the universe loves you and is giving you life in every moment and increase your awareness of all the love that is directed towards you from God available for you at all moments just within one minute imagine what we've done here we were able to change our orientation from CNN to godliness from seeing the world as it isn't the world as it really is according to the Torah and imagine what it does for a person emotionally you're able to look differently at the world by just a little bit of simple minute a few a few seconds of meditation can just transform your emotional states just feel the feelings of what it means to be loved or pursued by goodness I also believe and I share this with my clients and therapy that there's certain pursue teams certain stanzas in the Torah which are tremendously therapeutic the reason we don't always experience it in this therapy because we read them too quickly we rush by our so game we rushed by some of the things I can't say everybody as I do right to shul shock treatment come are evil running running running but how long do we slow down and really absorb let's her out what does it really mean and you can try this with any part of the Torah anywhere read it really slowly turn it into a meditation as I did in my book I took the tell'em I took the capital Huff gamma 23 and everybody knows this one Shem row Amy's Moroni Davi - mrow helo XOR but let's look at this let's go slowly don't say it quickly say it slow and watch notice your emotional states changing as you read this because what I love about this is what Devin m/l gave us this powerful omona that he had that can transform states of depression and anxiety just by slowing down and reading it I've been so fancy it's not so complicated mieze more the Davi - mroe Louis or I'll do it in English the Lord is my shepherd I shall lack nothing think about this I'm guided and protected at all times by God who cares for me as a shepherd cares for his flock due to his love and benevolence I should never worry that I'll be left alone and lacked something that I need second sentence he lays me down in greener pastures he leads me beside still waters my relationship with God allows me to experience calmness and relaxation at times I will be able to sleep calmly as if I'm taking a nap on the grass on the grass and a park on a beautiful spring day other times I will sense a feeling of tranquility like someone sitting by the lake and enjoying the calmness of nature the next passage he revives my soul he directs me in paths of righteousness for the sake of his name despite the difficulties life may bring each day I wake up feeling renewed with optimism to face and overcome any obstacles God wants me to succeed and open up opportunities for me to make good choices enabling me to follow my conscience by doing what's right and meaningful though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me your rod and your staff they will comfort me even if I face adversity I can turn towards my Shepherd who will hold me and ensure me that he is with me at all times although I may face emotional enemies I'm still anointed with oil meaning that I'm granted protection from above two more you will prepare a table before my enemies you've anointed my head with oil my cup is full although at times my thoughts may be painful you have opened up other possibilities that life may improve for me you have given me unlimited opportunities to experience spirituality and positivity in the world and finally and this is the main attitudinal shift that people would greatly benefit from October has said your defu Nicoli may high the shaft of a session l ook een claim a higher only goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of God for many long years meaning there is ample goodness in the world and goodness is pursuing me at all times I just need to open my eyes to become aware that abundance and goodness of surrounding me every moment I'm a child in God's home protected and cared for by my father in heaven that is the main point October Cassatt your defu nikola may hi only goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days on imagine being pursued by goodness people that I treat that have depression and anxiety what do you think they're pursued by exact opposite people that suffer from depression anxiety are pursued by negative thoughts imagine the extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD it's intrusive compulsive everywhere they look they see germs people with OCD you know I see a nice handshake they see a disease I see a cookie on the table they see the possibility of germs that's their entire the entire life in their mind somebody's OCD is constantly being pursued by negativity but think about our lives if we don't have OCD how much do we think we're being pursued by negativity right become comes more obvious that everybody is dealing with this question but imagine shifting that imagine shifting your orientation to octave 'his said your definite column if I only goodness and kind imagine feeling now I'm being pursued by goodness it's an unbelievable perspective a change in our perspective I'm being pursued I'm not just neutral the world is not a neutral place this is a place of tremendous goodness there are impediments along the way there's obstacles there's Saurus there's family issues there's pronoun issues there's suffering in the world but primarily the universe is the place where I'm being pursued all the times with goodness and if we can shift to this perspective then what we're able to do we were able to go to a higher level and then really experience the goodness which is to think good and to be good think good and it will be good chocolate benzine good we now have gone from the first week we talked about creating space we've moved now my thoughts are slower I take a deep breath if you here last week we learned about that I pushed the pause button I look at my thoughts I noticed them happening from outside of myself I create space I react less the things happening to me today we're learning about going above once I have that space now I can go above and start looking at things from a fresh and a new perspective once I've done that I'm then able to fill my mind with positive thoughts which is chocolate bins I could which we'll do next week that is the basis of how we build a person from depression anxiety OCD towards a higher state of happiness towards the highest they've been meaning in their lives but people need both a sense of deep meaning in their lives and a Torah meaning and a godly meaning you could have religious Jews that suffer from depression anxiety we could help them discover more meaning in their personal lives and their their professional goals in how they're helping other people how they're accomplishing certain tasks how they're experiencing life in a more profound meaningful way that's logotherapy that's Viktor Frankl correct you could be you could be religious and this is exactly what rying to show before was if we take something like capital 23 if the hilum and thank you how many of us who are in the Orthodox world slow down enough to meditate upon it so we could have the Torah but it's like we don't have the keys to it we have it we have it we can look at it but we don't experience it if a person yes yes Aria Kaplan yes if we would take the deepest meanings of Turin absorb them through meditating upon them that would resolve most depression and anxiety no question about it I have no doubt about it therapists can help a religious Jew a religious person for that matter access their own religion from a psychological perspective yes and that's why the second part of my book correct that's why the second part of my book is ho Velva votes these duties of the heart we have a new translation that I broke down in a daily level and in fact I'll conclude with this point when I ran my conference on Viktor Frankl I encountered a very big psychologist at Harvard University this will prove my point exactly to answer your question name is dr. David Ross Mirren he's in New York he's very famous he goes between Boston and Harvard is a professor at Harvard Medical School and New York City treating anxiety and I brought David to my conference because he presented what I saw on the internet of his studies of what he's doing in Harvard one of the best universities in the world right they took a group of people that were suffering from anxiety they broke them into several groups one group they treated with traditional therapies CBT and progressive muscle relaxation and one group they decided that they were going to just study the duties of their heart a book on Emunah written over a thousand years ago sharbat to hone the gate of trust that's all they did for a few weeks they spent half an hour a day simply studying his writings the book called duties of the heart and that book talks about how God is taking care of everyone how a person can experience deeper be Tejon not just a muna not just a muna where we believe is a God but the deep belief that God is involved with us and in his program they studied 30 minutes a day for a period of two weeks at Harvard University they did inspiring antidotes about belief they redid patent a red patches from tourist sources about belief they picture a person that you trust and imagine that he or she was sent by God to help you they think they thought about a precious item and tried to imagine that God sent it to them they thought about a stressful time in their past that turned out better than expected and then contemplated God's role in the event they thought about God while engaging in a physical activity while standing lifting or walking and they prayed for help to increase trust in God what they found out is participants had a significantly reduced levels of stress worry and symptoms of depression from following the prescribed bread which I mentioned a minute ago they also reported quote greater belief and treatment credibility greater expectancies from treatment and greater treatment satisfaction than PMR meaning the other treatments progressive muscle relaxation which means that they found out that studying duties of the heart the gate of trust 30 minutes a day for two weeks was more powerful than other forms of psychology only two weeks and they actually found in that study that I didn't quote it all in the book if you read a study it lasted for a long period of time for months and for years afterwards because what it did was more than just cognitive behavioral therapy it changed their orientation to a spiritual orientation proving scientifically that if the tour is accessed properly academically therapeutically we can really transform people's life for long enough course these participants wanted to participate you can't force us on somebody but it's an option that we have that we should utilize deeper than Jon kabat-zinn who believes in bhoot mindfulness based on Buddhism which is a prevailing psychology today I believe we have deeper material in the Torah that we have to access deeper than Buddhism so I believe instead of studying mindfulness in Buddhism people should be learning duties of the heart the gate of trust and I believe scientifically shown at Harvard that monotheistic meditation based upon the cottage bar rabona Sholem is significantly more powerful than mindfulness and this is what we need to talk about as taurah jews to offer just as Buddhism you said before you have to have see one of the reasons I wrote my book was as follows you're correct we are taught in the school of psychology to make a fine line a wall between church and state correct however about 15 20 years ago Buddhism which is a religion started entering and permeating all of psychology and you will know as a therapist that the vast majority of trainings today if you want to go to a training are based upon mindfulness but the reason I wrote this book was to teach people that there's something higher than Buddhism that's called monotheism and we have these powerful sources in the Torah it's meditated upon are more effective than Buddhism and mindfulness and more effective over a longer period of time as well and that's why I actually wrote my book think it will be good to show psychologist that monotheism the Torah are powerful tools to healing depression and anxiety [Music] [Applause]