Chaim Bin Nun, Rabbi Reuven Mendlowitz

punch we're just going to talk about the buffet outside let me tell you what the food looks like if you would only know okay yeah no I'm not in rush I'll wait till people come in not in such a rush ended oh know what did I do my schedule myle I [Music] know to the room so probably this oh the next one's a 240 it's welcome a SE that's right [Music] I see didn't start anywh just introduce myself s you few mons ago did a few sessions and then he stopped I just I cannot confirm or deny that I cannot confirm or deny that okay int I'm so to me either way I'm winning people show up okay if they don't recording the guy asked me how how many guys you think were in the room I said 100 200 300 same said one couple showed up and they were Rich so they paid for they paid half of it themselves okay Mission accompl okay I think we are going to begin whether Everyone likes it or not since this is what it's all about anyways so the subject on the card that Rabbi B shushan doesn't have we're going to take a closer look at it apparently these right here that you're looking up at the desk on top over here these are the pros that's what it says um and I think as you've been learning over this shabas and as you will begin to learn like I mentioned to a set of parents that I had met Thursday night I said okay we're meeting now but I want to have another session mat shabis things can drastically change over this short amount of time and you'll find out who the real pros really are it's not us that are sitting up here it's uh a humbling experience to be sitting in this chair and I speak for myself and I definitely I can imagine what uh Rabbi B has to say about that as well and a shout out to Donnie because that's what we have to do hi Donnie so it's really a privilege and it's a very ambiguous topic it's a very open-ended topic there's no specific conversation that needs to be had so to say but everyone has something on their minds they somehow think that us professionals there's either we have all the answers we know all the solutions what's been our communication with parents what have people said and I'll give just a brief introduction to myself who I am what I do and then we'll go from there and I myself have a private practice I work in man very small nice Village somewhere in Upper state New York if you've never heard of it um down the Garden State Parkway to exit 172 for L witters and it's a private practice that engulfs probably every element of my journey I develop along with my clients it's a fellow traveling journey and very often I'm extremely involved beyond the scope of just the 60-minute session that's what it is for me most of the time and I also have the privilege to be a whatever that means on that level but I get to teach every single morning I give a character development scho which goes out to numerous amount of people and then I give a gar here and I sit with the most uh special people in my life right now after my wife and children and my T my clients and this is what allows me to be here so if that's the definition of a pro it's you the people that are here that make me into that that's you know who I am and what I do so I'm just going to leave that as an introduction and then I'm going to ask uh I am to also introduce himself and then we'll move on from there and we'll try to sift through and figure out the subject that we should talk about since it's so ambiguous and we'll get going want to grab that so so I'm I'm the actual Pro but but no um everything that comes to a psychologist therapist's uh mind is based on experience and somebody with a degree doesn't make him more open to that experience so it's it's really I find that for the most part the parents usually do have the answers they're just some something blocking be it an ego be it a neighbor be it their parents and um but the answers are usually within and uh a good professional be just removing a lot of the external blockers and um bias that that cloud out judgment and then uh the parents know their situation their history and uh their families best and uh the that's what the parents have uh taught me in a nutshell is the the UN undying devotion they have for the children and the knowledge and and intuition that they have that just needs to be unlocked and um allow them to trust and bounce that off somebody else and that's where the The Healing Begins um just very quickly um what this job is is about is is the keser um and that's the parents can give that more than anybody um and a lot of times I I will tell parents that why you know your kid doesn't want to go to therapy but there's no there's no rule in nature that a therapist is going to cure your child um there's certain aspects and certain interactions and C certain ways of being with a person that are Curative and promote growth and parents can do that for a lot longer than the one hour a week that a therapist may be able to do that um so so that's that's where the admiration and the the power of parents comes in they're going to be ultimately the ones the difference between success and failure is usually in in how the parents relate to the problem uh not necessarily what the therapist does in their their time um just uh very very briefly as opening remarks there's there's two mistakes we make as parents how I but the two that I see is that we forgot what it's like to be 15 16 17 18 or 30 whatever you're dealing with and the other one is that we remember precisely what it's like to be 15 16 17 or 18 in 1970 1980 1990 and for the ladies in 2010 um and we and therefore we we think that we did it or faced such a struggle but it's it's not the world is not what it was in 2000 not 2010 um credible authorities state that a business cycle that would take 50 years can transpire in The Ether in about 3 seconds and when I said that very proudly to one of my colleagues who works in technology he said it's not even 3 seconds anymore so the world is evolving in a very rapid pace and that could be a good thing but it also could be a very horrible thing and um we just have to understand that that we don't understand our children and and if we can make them our teachers we're better off of that and U okay I'll take it from there since the speaking about attention spans and right now I think there's a Snapple fact out there that the attention span of a human being is less than that of a goldfish which is 9 seconds so if we don't keep exciting then uh we might all dissipate so um and yeah that does that is very telling like is saying over here how the generation evolves the element of stimulus and constantly being stimulated and to not stop for a second to have a presence and peace of mind to be able to sit for a moment it's one of the benefit of being a therapist is that at least for myself I get 35 hours a week of just sitting listening organically being a human being without having I mean there is a phone buzzing this should didn't say it's not true it is there but to be able to sit there with someone and give them that time and that space for so many of them that's such a undeserving non-existent nonhuman feel somebody people come to a session it's like so what did we do today it's like the common um question that you'll get from many of our clients and what happens in therapy what are you doing what's the point they don't ask that when they're playing you know video games or whatever it is we can know what the point is you got to drown the guy and you get 250 points just for that right and we try to explain to them our games of Shoots and Ladders and how you know you just go all the way up and all way down and these type of things they don't have no idea what we're talking about to go outside and play right you ever tell you it why don't you just go outside and play um all these great ideas from yester year of skitting rocks and all these other wonderful things that we used to know how to do and there's definitely tremendous amount of stimulation that's there and to appreciate just sitting and I don't call it doing nothing it's connecting and spending time and creating space and just talking and sometimes some of my clients begin to realize those are the best sessions that we ever have and some people are even afraid of it obviously there's a big fear to just be present and to sit there and often we need a gloss over it and there's tons of emotion and there's tons of stored up pain that begins to just surface so we got to like keep it going and keep the stimulation happening so what are we going to talk about now what are we going to be doing next and as parents sometimes it just seems like what's going on and we have that question but I think today's subject if we read the title maybe a little bit more appropriately it's um the pros and the parents or something like that and I want to zero in on that um a little bit more specifically to what it's like for us as parents and what we see when we speak to parents and especially at a conference you hear the words sometimes like said the mistakes that we've made the struggles that we've been through the continuous Perpetual challenges that come up Non-Stop and we need to do a little bit of an exercise and I did this at the last kesi event as well that I spoke by and we need to take a moment for ourselves to sometimes slow down and just silently even close our eyes and just be able to breathe and forgive ourselves and to recognize our humanness our own organic State our own fragility our own natural human constantly messing up our constant struggle that we have with ourself and to really Just Breathe It just slow it down enough to be able to go back and not be able to judge ourselves if we are ever going to be able to extend to our children what we're hearing this weekend of nonjudgmentalism acceptance deep love we many of us did not grow up with this this concept you want to be able to give over something that you don't have it's going to be very very difficult it's going to be very challenging and we have to appreciate that about ourselves one second I'm like doing something that I never rece like where do I get this from where am I going to find the strength to be able to do that and to be able to appreciate the mistakes that we make to forgive ourselves to slow down enough and connect with our humanness it's so so crucial to be able to do that there is so much blame there's so much shame and when I talk about shame it's a very deep subject the feeling of ineptitude worthlessness there's no hope helpless really you know it's something that's not talked about enough it's a subject that comes up continuously there's a champion of this just throw out book names I don't really like doing that I'm not giving it out or signing any but obviously Berne Brown is someone who spent tremend tremendous amount of research on this subject so untouched subject and perhaps that's itself is inherent the question and leads us to understand it's rarely explored for that reason alone because it's so shameful we tend not to want to look there we tend not to want to go there to that place but when we show our children like we're doing over here and being here the shabas and coming together and exercising our own vulnerabilities and expressing and ing an a 160th something of what this could be and what this experience is like our children can begin to see that wow this is amazing there's something called vulnerability there's something called Safety we can create that space and we can do it even right here right now how difficult was that there was just a moment and everyone in some way shifts something inside it gets uncomfortable the silences and the deafness of a moment but we can connect we can notice that we can just notice what's happening the UPS the Downs inside of our body just be able to connect to slow down enough to be present and when we can do that and we can be vulnerable then we can give ourselves that self-compassion that self-worth and through that if we have that capacity then we're able to forgive ourselves we're able to then be be there in an understanding way we're now capable we've become a vehicle to be able to be present enough in the way that our children needed to be and again if you cannot yet do this immediately someone of you may be thinking well I can't do that I'm my gosh like this is such a daunting task and we begin to just notice how we begin to slaughter ourselves on the altar almost immediately it's so easy and our kids obviously do this all the time you know I tell parents very often you're better off parenting with conviction and making mistakes than just sitting there and fear like should I you know is this going to make my kid is that going to make my kid you know they need to see us fail and own it and make those ownerships and those mistakes and those apologies and those I'm sories and to forgive and see that we forgive ourselves in order for them to forgive themselves we're just human fragile beings so let's take a moment and do that let's just forgive ourselves let's just connect to our own experiences everyone in their own Journey whether it's your own personal Journey with your child children multiple children parents siblings outside external whatever it may be your systems that you're involved in your culture there are so many pieces that obviously join together that create and complicate sometimes this ability ility to be able to just be and the more that we can exist in that obviously the more we're going to be able to be present for our children you want to continue I should I'm continuing yeah you want open I mean just the to to end off on that theme um when working with parents they're they're somehow we we're accustomed that if something happened there has to be a a cause that's within us there has to be there seems to be a um an instinct to to feel something happened in our family it must be because of us so parents tell me um we were too strict on her when she was in fifth grade sixth grade and that's why she is now this and that and that's that's a great Theory but what's about the next parent who says we were too loose and we didn't say anything and we let her hang out with whomever and buy whatever clothing she has and now that's why she's not X Y and Z or same thing with the boys or it's because there was uh some issues with a other child who was not well or something happened in the family at that time what about you know and then you always go back to aru what was his problem I'm I'm still thinking about that shame also you go back Hashem had a problem with his first child too um it it just always been that way D had a couple and um it's not about tanak is full of it and it's not about you know understanding necessarily what what it is but it's understanding that we don't understand necessarily what it is and it's usually many factors there's maybe a a big bang that that we can say this is it and this is what happened but you're going to find somebody with this exact same story it didn't happen because we don't know the exact Story and there's multiple layers and it's usually unless there's an extenda circumstance not the parents that did it the parents can fix it but the parents didn't break it and blaming oneself is not helpful because the child is probably blaming themselves so a lot of things and blame plus blame is more blame and shame and shame is more shame and hurt and hurt is more hurt so if we take care of ourself and we release some of that pain some of the shame some of that disturbance in the home from ourselves we're making we're creating automatically a healthier environment for our children to to to recover and the others to grow in it and again if if our whole view of ourself is based on a a situation that was probably beyond our control what is that going to do to the rest of the children who may or may not be facing a challenge they don't have parents because their parents are defining themselves by a perceived failure that's really not there um just just a thought from from this week's para that would that can help um the the B and then maral before him ask why why did we need so many maras to get out of MIT you know after five par was ready to let us go and the maral says then what do you need for which was even greater than MIT and what he need the for there we were already free what was the point and he says something very insightful the Bas of says two points he says that the reason why this happened was to was wasn't for the MIT to punish them it was for us for us to feel special so when we by Hashem showing us that he's doing all these maras all these miracles for for us even though the MIM were the ones getting punished we we got to become elevated and the way in the it is that the first Marcus the first part was to get us out of MIT the second half was to get MIM out of us and um by by building the esteem in ourselves in our children if if we're worthless if we're failures then our love to our children is very meaningful but our respect and our admiration for them is not coming from a strong place it's not going to have the same effect um likewise the the B says that Hashem didn't take away from he just gave him the ability to make a proper choice and that I think is where where the mistake is we're not going to fix our children they're going to fix themselves our job is to help them have the strength or help them have the opportunity to recognize when there are choices that they can make a lot of times there's so much confusion and if we add to it they're not going to know when there's a yes and a no there it's going to get lost we by taking away some of that pain or trying to create a healthy environment an open environment an attentive environment that that gives them the opportunity to to to do the work they need to do within themselves and and again showing showing an interest and showing that we're we're willing to struggle like like RAB menel was saying is that the struggle is part of the Cure if you're not struggling you think it's going to be automatic and you're going to hide it a lot of times I don't want my child to know that I'm I I had difficulties growing up I don't want to know that I suffered with this problem as a child or that I encounter this or I'm not doing well in in in one area and again of course personal things are not meant to be shared and it probably does more damage but if a a parent struggles if there's something going on you could share that with the child in a sense that this is what I'm going through or even if it's the child themselves the fact that you're doing X Y and Z is making me very uncomfortable and not in a judgmental way but in a matter of fact way I'm trying to get through it I'm trying to understand you better but x y and z are getting in the way if we struggle and we overcome we're setting a model a role model for the child of somebody who can overcome things that are are are are difficult uh if we're not willing to change how we treat our spouses or our other children or or that child or our parents or our relatives then why would the child change we can role model change what the change is maybe if the child's struggling with drugs or other issues or behaviors or yish that's fine that's their struggle but if we're struggling with we're fighting with people because of our honor and we're not willing to to overcome that then what example are we setting for our children to for them to overcome just I guess going to uh add to this sub something that is a theme throughout this shabis and many other shabas and words that you always hear the concept of unconditional love it brings brain freeze to many people um let's just call it the way it is what does it mean and parents will ask that question so many times what is this stuff who's smoking me or you and it's a common question really common and perhaps we can change it around a little bit one of the things that I think is very clear and that you keep on hearing that that's yeah that's an intrinsic innate existence to love your children it's the way it was it's not necessarily the other way that's not natural that your children will love you and most parents that we are aware of love their children the question sometimes becomes do you like your children that's where sometimes it's a little bit more difficult we love them we'll go crazy we'll do anything you hear your child's going somewhere you'll run across the street you'll chop your head off you'll do almost anything jump into I had this thought recently cuz that car was submerged in a fall like what if my kid went over I'd probably jump in I mean I'm going down where we going down we're doing this together do I like my child and I know that RAB sha tab has been starting a new mantra and program that we're going to start hearing about then maybe Kashi slogan start switching we're going to start hearing about unconditional pride and it's a different concept but perhaps slightly with more accuracy because we all have unconditional love it's never dependent on anything like we said we'll go down anywhere and we'll do anything but do we like our children when we see them walk in the way they do do we glow do we see that you know that infant child that's what's so beautiful I just had a baby two weeks ago thank you very much um thank my wife very much okay um and when you look at a baby and you know most people don't whatever that's saying goes throw the baby out with the bath water what no one does we don't do either of them you look at a baby and it's adorable and we all once held this child as a baby think about your child we all once nursed that child some of us we all you should have been feeding the baby okay um but we all created this loving Bond adorable we got all the clothes from wherever right constantly cooing with it it baby cries we get excited almost like okay it's 3:00 in the morning so what it's awesome and we go through that and the baby does very little for us at that time he not going to school bringing home hundreds on his tests he's not uh being the best at sports he's not staging in front of a gamor nothing his mere existence makes us go Bonkers literally I have the privilege to be married to an Australian which takes me all around the world many different times so if you go to like Hong Kong airport and they don't see kids over there right if you want kids there you can like invest in like a whole you know it's a different they do things differently so you have these guys that are dressed up as soldiers they look pretty scary by the passport control where you might think it's all over like going get to Hong Kong forget about it you're never getting out but these people turn goooo Gaga they go crazy this whole Soldier paratrooper uniform whatever success is that these all their badges turn into nothing they see a baby they explode oh my gosh they drop their guns like get off you know and you're coming with like five or six kids plowing through they've never seen anything like that in their life like one okay what is this and everyone stops the whole airport and we they go nuts and we have that we we go crazy when that infant is there and we've all held this very child and then in a few short years terrible twos right and they start to develop and so do our expect visions and other things and we forget that where it all began sometimes that Purity that excitement that adorableness that H that glow they needed to they could do nothing wrong at that point even though again it's no expectations no nothing they just we just glow over it but really so so often nothing has really changed besides this size of their body sometimes the size of their brain not always let's be honest right and many other things they develop just in size and they have mouths and they begin to talk and they start to talk back and there's by the way one of these processes in the stages of development where a child recognizes around the age of two of big psychologists the ericon fre idian whatever it is but at that point he begins to recognize there's someone besides me here but a baby really is the most selfish existence in the world all that cares and yet we go bizarre over them and that part we can't forget about that part usually remains and is still there they're just getting older they look a little bit more sophisticated they change the color of their shirts or they wear no shirt whatever they do and we need to be able to zero back in on and zoom into this what's this Whirlwind that we see in front of us this specimen that just walked through the door and we're like huh what's this I do I have anything to do with this this didn't come out of me I have no way not a chance and this is the concept that RAB is you know has been promoting with the which we see coming up in next week's par where's creations of the world the mitan wonderful people as we all know right they treated us very well years and years of unknown trauma we're still suffering from the slaver mentality and still who is like one second you guys with the Halos and the angels and all you up here right now malim no no no no you're not saying Shir these are my these are my Creations hard phenomenon to understand this week's Parish begins and it tells us that Hashem seems to have a a little bit of an argument with M it's a little bit bothered he says what is this business in last week's Parish who's basically complaining and he tells Hashem hey you sent me in for the job I signed up you forced me to do this whole entire thing I went down there I walked into par I got it done and two seconds later he goes out let's make things worse how dare you this is crazy what are you doing and Hashem says okay good now you feel like them it's about time that you got to that point now you're going to see now now when you can feel and relate to that frustration you thought it's going to go so easy you'll go in there and that's it you'll get and then there's another complaint he says I don't understand the whole world until now no one ever needed to know me the way you're describing that you need to know me the name of Shak Shin was sufficient I didn't need this YK business I didn't have to give that to them and you would think the conversation should end right there and Hashem should say see later Moses you're done you failed you can't do this you're not like the others you're an absolute loser and Hashem says you know what I'm going to do I'm going to show you the [Music] Y obviously you can't you're not on that madga so that doesn't mean I just let it go I will give you the shame of I will show you I will take it to the next step I will go even further I'm going to try to understand I'm going to try to figure this out I want to go back the last where sometimes you forget everything you look at the whole thing the picture we have no we can't recognize our kids walk in the room it's like who are these people like said to you know what his answer was that this is what God gave me this is what I've got me make head that means roll back the tape look at the videos look at those little pictures of your children it's a hard thing to do you look at the beautiful faces of take out those baby albums they don't make anymore I know you have to get like the scroll whatever but but from those kids it's possibly you still have a baby album and yeah cry do that do that favor for yourself connect to your child see who he is not who he was but who he is that's what does with cl Isel he looks at us and he says okay I don't recognize you guys anymore got 15 million yeen now alive on this planet most of them do not look like the way we do failed system doesn't work doesn't crumble the world he rolls back the tape and he takes out the old videos and he takes out the pictures you remember those days when we were sitting there at Hari remember those days and remind yourself and bring yourself to that place of who your children are that infant that little baby who's adorable is still there so that you can say my I think um time is a little low I would love to go on till uh shabus what we'll do is since there's like we said it's quite ambiguous we'll try to do a q and a open question any subject I personally don't care I'm saying any subject I think should be off should be fine um there we go five minutes perfect um so go ahead either size hands up and uh we'll take your questions and we'll do our best to be able to solve your problems solve everything right now right here and then afterwards I'll show my album of my baby fiction now go ahead I'm trying to connect to my my son he's 15 can I stop right there can I stop you right there just for a second can we appreciate those words I'm trying to connect to my son not much more needs to be said there may be more struggle afterwards there may be we're going to get to the end of the question don't worry I'm not I'm not trying to get off the stage but there's something so beautiful about that we're all here that's what we're doing we're trying to figure it out we want to connect and let me tell you a secret so do they go ahead I don't think they want to have a daughter 17 both they're strongly and me and mahaz will try they reject us they're not interested I don't know how I'm going to give this I'm passing it to the pro so announced Pro the question is how to to connect to children who do not want to connect okay what do they like well they like things that we don't do so do them or F I mean again if you give example but usually it's finding a common ground finding something they can they're excited about again there's different stages it could be about sports so it's not that hard to get into sports yes it's violent and sweaty but it's it's fine if that's what's going to take to connect to your kids and get into sports if if they like a certain singer and especially if if you're on the as a snowm you could probably listen to anything they listen to ask your Rabbi first but or ask them what they see in that singer like I parents told me this guy listens to rap oh very terrible I said what what is the guy singing about I don't know well ask your kid what do you see in this fellow if it's a sports ask them to explain to you the game but if you're not going to be willing to and again it's difficult depending what it is and if there into hero and don't take it with them but other than that you can find something that you can connect no that's right but um I think there's adding to that the element of curiosity we want to constantly remain curious what's going on in your world what interest we don't even you might not even know yet right but curiosity is so so important we don't need a feel threatened that they have different interests cuz trust me they do you know and we have very different interests and that's okay but we need to remain at very curious and a lot of times our language our basic communication and you'll find that they're trying to push it away but remain curious and that'll form connection through the Curiosity B is here we hit our five minutes appreciate the time have a wonderful shabas everybody thank youim thank you rebert