Good Vibes Eps 2: Order, Chaos, and the Black Jelly Beans: Bringing Serenity Through Self-Awareness

[music] Welcome to Good Vibes, [music] the podcast that brings the timeless beauty of Asia Kyle into the rhythm of real life. Each week, we unpack one puzz, but as a spark for honest conversations, [music] refreshing insight, and a little tower light you can carry with you. Because meeting shouldn't feel heavy. And connection [music] doesn't have to wait for quiet. This is good vibes for the Jewish woman who's doing a lot and [music] still reaching deeper. Hello everyone and welcome back to the good vibes podcast. This is the second episode where we will focus on a really useful and commonly noted theme from Bakala which the translation of is her husband's heart trusts her and none of his spoils will be missing. Okay, so let's jump into what puk base is all about. So the overarching theme of this puzz that I want to focus on is a wife's role to manage the home to keep the moving pieces afloat to be a homemaker for her husband and for her children and to keep the home functioning smoothly and calmly. When there is seder order physically it aids the emotional and spiritual order and serenity. This physical and emotional seder can help us focus on our growth and connection which is what we are here for. And we see this brought down in this with these mafarim on the words the mats brings down that when a man isn't in his house he relies on his wife to keep everything in order safe and secure that everything is there in its rightful place everything is being taken care of so much so that he won't get frightened about his possessions and leave what he's doing and go back home and check. Additionally, the Raag teaches us that the husband's heart is secure and sure because he knows his wife is on it. That she knows where everything is and isn't. For example, like maybe when we run out of tissues, and that everything he needs, she will be able to assist him with. So, when I read this, two points come to mind. To me, this shows us how it really is part of an Asia style role to ensure the house is managed, is taken care of. In today's day and age, I believe that this can be translated to upkeeping the home. errands, household tasks, home responsibility, etc. Personally, I always think about the grocery and the dishes because those are my worst jobs or also things like dealing with social security numbers and passports. The mafarium are teaching us that it is a wife's role to upkeep a home and to do her part and make sure her household is orderly and managing efficiently and smoothly. In the world that we're living in, homemaking is almost looked down upon from the outside world. This is a reminder to me that really this is part of what a crowned as Kyle does in a positive sense. It's empowering to me personally. But this leads me to my second point. Is this even possible in today's day and age? Was it ever possible? I'm not sure how to take this information and practically apply it and apply it in a happy and healthy way. So luckily I have someone who's extremely knowledgeable in this area here with us today. Mrs. D'vorah Henner. D'vorah is a life coach, a home organizer, and a self-awareness mentor. She's combined these three skills, coaching women, time management, home organizing, and emotional challenges related to homemaking. D'Vorah's goal is to turn one's individual stresses of home/time management into a practical and emotional success. I can personally say that D'vorah Henner's work has had such an impact internally and externally. Welcome, D'vorah. >> Thanks so much, Aki. >> Thank you so much for joining us. Okay, D'vorah, do you have anything to add before we deep dive into this topic? >> So, I I really love that imagery of the calm husband knowing that his wife has it all taken care of. I think um I like to think of a woman's role as providing stability for a family. When a child knows that his basic needs are being taken care of, he can thrive. In Maslo's hierarchy of needs, the most basic level is the psychological needs. For example, let's say food and clothing and shelter. That's really what we're providing. We're providing our spouses and our children with the security of knowing that they can trust and rely on us with their basic needs tended to. This way they're free to accomplish what they need to in the world. When it comes to managing our time as wives and mothers, I like to divide the focus into two categories. There's the emotional aspect and the practical aspect. The emotional aspect is how we relate to managing time in general. what kind of messages we've received about it, our challenges in this area, our challenges with the role itself, what it means to bear responsibility. Practical aspect is more like making schedules and lists and making your personality work for you in your homemaking, learning tools to overcome procrastination and and many more things. I think many women go straight to the practical without dealing with the emotional and then a big piece can be missing. We know the how but not the what and the why. That's why I often encourage women to combine home organization with the coaching. Also, because each woman is a world unto herself and she has her own personality, her co-host, her childhood views, expectations, her needs, the family. There's really no oneizefits-all way to run a home. >> Wow. I really like that. I really like how you phrased it that the emotional and the practical when it comes to homemaking is so powerful. I think that's a really big insight to, you know, our audience. I think that we don't often realize how much they're interrelated. So, I guess with that being said, what do you think about our second point about if it's even attainable? I think that as a devoted wife, we want to be able to do these things. You know, we want to be able to spray the counters down, the groceries fully stocked and organized, greeting kids home with love and warmth, the doctor's appointments, laundry done, and fold it so that we don't have the last minute, "Ma, I don't have what to wear tomorrow." But how do we do it? Is it even possible? How do we give our husbands and children that security in that seder? Have you even heard these kinds of remarks or am I the first one bringing this to your attention? First of all, I want to say that I feel that in this generation, our expectations are very, very high. We see a lot of pictures of perfection and we think that's normal. And if that's normal, then what's going in our in our homes must be abnormal or is dysfunctional like our kids like to say. So, we want to make sure that we're setting reasonable, realistic goals. To answer your question, while many of these things are often our responsibility, it doesn't mean that we ourselves need to actually be doing all those things on the list. I like to think of it as the command center, making sure that everything gets done, right? Maybe preparing meals is my coke, but supermarket shopping is not. Okay, so that's great awareness. Can I delegated to someone else? Can I shop online? Can I prepare a master list that's gets delivered to my door every week? Maybe I don't mind dishes, but laundry is where I fall behind. Okay, so can I give part of that job to older children in the family? Maybe a cleaning lady. Can I do laundry, but have someone else fold it and put it away? Only from the awareness can we really come to the solutions. A great tool when dealing with challenging situations in general and specifically in homemaking is really to ask ourselves, if I could change one thing to make this situation better or easier, what would it be? Often from this, it really gives a lot of clarity as to what needs modifying. >> Wow. I think that you just kind of fine-tuned and honed in on how the emotional and the practical connect and how they relate. Maybe you could give us some examples, right? Like let's say there's a newly married wife. She doesn't have any children yet. She's trying to navigate running a home in the practical sense and of course in the emotional sense of getting used to this new relationship, this new role and new responsibilities that come with it. Can you walk us through this girl, this new wife, how she would approach her emotional issues and her practical issues in running a home. Okay. So in terms of the emotional aspect, I have two ideas that I would like to share. One of them is accepting your shortcomings. It's really a big one. We spend a lot of time beating ourselves up for what's hard for us. But honestly, whatever we're good at and whatever we're not good at is really god-given. I like to say it's like each of us when we were born received our very own peck of traits. And each has a lot of yummy stuff inside. And then there's other stuff that's not so yummy. I like to say like the black jelly beans. I apologize to the people actually like black jelly beans. Most people don't. So we each have our traits that we're proud of and the ones that we're less proud of, but really we did nothing to receive either one. So we want to just look inside our peek and be curious without judgment about what's in there and work with what Hashem has given us because fighting and denying the challenging parts of ourselves takes up way too much energy and it doesn't accomplish anything anyway. We're all human and we all have those things we're not so proud of. And of course we want to work on ourselves and we want to, you know, get better. Specifically, you know, we're talking about homemaking and taking care of the home and we want to improve. We want to make sure that there's stability in our home, but we don't want to be brought down by the things that are too challenging for us. So, when it comes to managing time and running a home, we want to look at what Hashem has given us and use those traits to the best of our ability. And the things that we're challenged with, we can be honest that we might need some help. Maybe from someone inside our home or maybe someone outside our home. >> That's so interesting. If I can just say that you were saying that our expectations were so high and I think that often like back to the black jelly beans. I think that we all think even though we know that everybody else has their black jelly beans when it comes to our individual stuff and something that's so um intimate and vulnerable like our home. We think that like nobody else has this black jelly bean. I'm the only one that has this black jelly bean and so much shame and guilt is around that when really ideally it should be compassion and curiosity. And I just think that that's a great take-home of like we all have our black jelly beans. Totally. >> And everyone else does also. And the way to approach our positive attributes and our attributes that are we want to work on and even we can say negative. We can say negative. We can own up to having negative attributes. There's nothing wrong with that. is approaching it with compassion and curiosity as opposed to you know shame right this is this is what we have okay so let's work with what we have >> right okay so that's point number one and you were saying point number two yes so the second point I like to speak out about a lot is um self-awareness and that's where my workshop comes in um it's very important especially young women I feel very strongly they need to learn about themselves learn about how we function internally about our triggers our values um how our childhood affects our beliefs awareness about our thoughts thoughts, what we're telling ourselves. Like I said before, honest awareness is the first step and only from there can come solutions. >> I think that's so powerful because I think that we're in a society where we want solutions fast and we just want quick fixes and you know for sure that's the way that our society is set up. But as from yet we we kind of want to challenge that a little bit and realize where it's coming from. And I think that what you're showing us and teaching us is that self-awareness is the first step to all of that. So I think that before we can really work on finding a solution and even a quote unquote quick fix, the self-awareness piece is key. So let's say our newly married wife, she, you know, again, she's working on her emotional piece, but practically how does this newly married friend work on accepting the shortcomings and the self-awareness pieces. Right? So, we're saying that we have this girl, she's newly married. She wants to work on the emotional aspect first. She's taken your course, let's say, and she wants to work on the accepting the shortcomings and self-awareness piece. So, how do we practically how does she do that? How would you recommend to do that? >> So, I think first of all, it's very important that that young women put the spotlight on the areas where they excel, >> right? >> We need to celebrate what's amazing about us. And uh you can even make a list, you know, sit down and make a list of all the things that are awesome about you. Everyone has things that are special and unique and they can use those things to make their homes special and unique. You know, you use your co-host. Many women who struggle with time management are the most creative women. I'm I'm honestly jealous of them. Sometimes I'll go to people's homes and see the things they need to organize like all their paints or all their jewelry or all their whatever it is. They have so many beautiful hobbies that I will never be able to do. So these are amazing things and >> and they should be taken for granted like we should celebrate them and own them that this is something that we have that a gift that Hashem gave us and find a way to incorporate it. Right. >> Exactly. And there are so many ways to incorporate our creativity, share that with our family, make things special that other people can't and we want to really capitalize on that. And once we put the focus on all the ways that we really shine, then we can also have more acceptance of the things that are hard for us. Oh wow, that's a great point. Like instead of just saying, well, okay, I'm not good at this and that and then the other, first, focus on the positive and then accepting your, you know, your negative traits or your shortcomings is not so hard when you already have an awesome list right next to it, right? Your awesome list, right? And then so when it comes to things that are more difficult, so there's also there, you know, just like anything else, it's difficult. We learn tools. We read books. We speak to other women in the same situation. We have mentors and coaches to help us out. And we do the best that we can. >> You know, as our families grow, many women will hire some extra help to help them with the never-ending chores. You know, the ones that just keep on going and going, very cyclical. >> At a certain point in my life, I hired young women to help me with dishes and laundry a few times a week. This was really life-changing. And it went on like this for a few years. And then at a certain point, my oldest daughter said to me, you know, mommy, it's a little weird. I have this girl who's like only a few years older than I am and she's sitting on the couch folding my laundry. To which I replied, well uh guess what that means? And that's when uh my daughter started helping out more at home. Another point is that each stage it brings new schedules, right? New decisions, new dynamics. We have to know that no stage is going to be forever, right? really we go in stages and we have to be honest and flexible and constantly be open to re-evaluating what's working and what's not right. I think that it's would be so comfortable if we just like had a set routine which we do we do have set routines but like a set kufa for like x amount of years but that's just not really the way our lives work. I think that that's not really the way anybody's life works, but especially for women who are baram having kids and raising families and working and trying to take care of, you know, all the moving pieces. And I think it's important to be flexible and to allow yourselves to say like right now this is working. I don't know if it's going to work next month, but right now it's working. And giving yourself the permission to explore what's working now and kind of like foreseeing that it might not work in the future, and that's okay. And we'll have to just shift gears and pivot then. But I think that we get frustrated like when you have a baby, the first week they're, you know, something's wrong, they're sick or then the next week they're teething and then the next week somebody hit them and gone. Okay, so there's always going to be something. So being able to accept that and trying to make it work within that stage is key. So how does approaching these emotional pieces of shortcomings and self-awareness help with house management? like maybe you can kind of hone in on that a little bit more. How does the emotional lead to the practical when we're talking about making your home management more smooth? I guess my question is how are they intertwined? >> Yeah. So, I'll give you a few examples, some very practical examples. Let's say I have a woman who she needs to go through her clothing at the end of every scene. There's a winter, there's summer, and we're constantly going through our closets, putting away the winter, taking out the summer. It could be a big job. When it comes to switching over to the season, it could be this a woman who feels like it's just too much. Maybe deeper. She's really struggling with the fact that she's not the same size she was when she got married. And going through her closet brings up these feelings of sadness, maybe hopelessness, and she sees these, you know, these items in her closet that she's afraid she's never going to fit into again. You could have another woman who might look at her home at the end of the day and she sees a big mess and she can't get off the couch. Now, she might call herself lazy. Maybe someone else will call her lazy. But she really has a part of herself that just likes perfection. She wants things to look perfect. And subconsciously, she knows that her home's never going to look as perfect as that she wants it to. So, she kind of subconsciously is saying to herself, "Why should I even start? I'm just going to keep it the way that it is." You could have another woman who might bristle at the thought of making schedules to manage her time. And when she thinks about it more deeply, she realizes that she had a very timeconscious parent and maybe she's associating schedules with stress. See, these are all examples of women who could really benefit from working on the emotional aspect before getting into the practical. >> Oh wow, that's really telling. I think that we can all relate to one or more of these examples. And personally, I think that we can think of what is it that's a task that's really difficult for me and maybe see that there's something more to it. Meaning when we have a practical issue with running our home in other areas as well, but right now we're discussing our home. There's often a deeper meaning and reason. When we work on approaching that deeper emotional issue, we can then find a practical solution that has the emotional issue in mind as well. I feel like you're saying that really our emotional and practical issues are actually totally intertwined. And when we focus on only the practical issue, we may find a practical surface level solution, but the deeper, more emotional issue will still be there. And vice versa. Is that correct? Is that is that what you're saying? Yes. Exactly. Exactly. This is not always the case. I don't want to make it sound like every single homemaking issue has a deeper, you know, issue underneath. Some women just need practical tools to get them going. But if someone finds that she's tried the practical tools and she still feels stuck, so maybe it's time to see if there's something deeper that she wants to explore, >> right? Which is a really great point that sometimes like you just need a practical solution. Like if you're living in a tiny house and you need more space and you have tons of stuff, the practical solution might just be getting rid of more stuff if it's not hard for you and if it's something that you can do. So then like that's a practical tool. I think it's important that you know for sure the emotional and the practical are very intertwined and I would say even often intertwined but a lot of times you just need a practical solution sometimes but if you keep on trying practical solutions and you try again and try again and try again and you're still not feeling fulfilled and there's the issue is still coming up. I would say that there's a really good chance that the emotional piece is there and approaching the emotional piece could really help you. So let's go back to the wife who has a hard time sorting her clothes. she feels shame, let's say, and she isn't the same size anymore. Maybe she feels like her worth is dependent on it. Can you walk us through how you would coach her to number one, heal her emotional issue, and number two, for the time being, help her still accomplish the practical need she needs to do? For example, she still needs to switch over her closet. So, how does she practically do that if she has, you know, such a deep emotional issue that could take a while to work through? So once we're aware of the deeper issue, then we could work on replacing the mistaken belief or ideas with truth. You know, like I said, the awareness is number one. Knowing that there's something going on, it is already a huge first step. It's half the work, right? So she can explore where these beliefs came from, challenge them. I very often encourage women after they've, you know, walked themselves through it and understand it better to create a mantra for themselves of what they know as truth. But it can be hard to access in a triggered state. So for example that woman who's overwhelmed by organizing her closet, she can come to a truth and you know I can make up my own truth but it's each person is responsible for themselves because they know what their truth is. >> Their world is their reality. >> Exactly. So they you know let's say her truth is my size is not a reflection of my worth or this is not my size forever. I will work on my health and I'll also remember that my nishama is the real me. Right? often accessing this truth really calms our system and then we're able to approach whatever the job is wholeheartedly even though we you know albeit more gently maybe with somebody professional or with just a friend who can help her go through the decision-m process but then it's not laden with all this emotion separating it right it's just okay now now I just need to do the job it's not as heavy as it was before right I really like this idea of a mantra I think that we could benefit a lot from that especially with our lives our hasham being so busy, we don't always have time to really work on this in the moment when we have kids yelling in our ear. We want to be able to be present and to be focused. And having that mantra in our head can really help us get there quicker. Wow. Okay, that is amazing to hear and really empowering for wives struggling to manage their home and keep their home running smoothly. I think this is a great lesson for us that when we see something practically not working out time and time again, consider that there's something emotional behind it, consider that the practical issue and the emotional issues are really two sides of the same coin and that approaching them both with compassion and curiosity will lend itself to a more wholesome and lasting solution which like this PK showed us like the Mafaram showed us homemaking and home running is part of being an Asia. This is what we want to strive for. This is part of our role. And understanding it from a deeper perspective, from the emotional perspective and from the practical perspective can really help us accomplish this and help us work our way towards becoming an asyle. Do you have any other points you want to give us or anything to wrap up? I just want to like point out that the goal is that our home should be a place of simka, right, and positivity. And if that's not coming across, then we want to change something, right? You know, not 100% of the time, you know, obviously there are ups and downs in every home. But the majority of the time, the feel of the home besides that, there's a secure feeling that things are getting accomplished. There's a secure feeling that, you know, things are are bimha things are done happily. There's like a positivity in the home. So, I think that's also something we really need to focus on. How can I bring positivity to my home? >> And discovering kind of like the underlying issues if there's such a deep emotional issue in one area of homemaking. So sima seems almost so unattainable and this helps us make it a part of our reality. Amazing. Wow. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us, D'vorah. If you have any questions for D'vorah or want to take her self-awareness course or to schedule a coaching session, feel free to reach her at d'[email protected]. That's dvora d v o r a henner h e n e r123gmail.com. Please reach out and email us with any questions or thoughts. We'd love to hear from you. And stay tuned for some more good vibes. [music]