How to Break Free from Fear & Anxiety

Hey you, I want to discuss something with you. Because if you've had to deal with this just like I had to deal with it, then this is going to be the podcast for you. I want to discuss with you anxiety. Let's talk about it. What's fear? What's anxiety? What are we actually dealing with? I've talked to professionals and they have told me that since 2020, they have seen this spike unlike anything else and anxiety is a real thing that most people are dealing with. But how do we deal with this? Not from just a scientific way, medical way. Let's talk about how to deal with this within the confines of a real relationship with Hashem. Let's talk about it. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to the Neesee Black Show. As we do here, we try to discuss everything from either a Torah perspective, a Hashem perspective, a godly perspective, emunah faith-based perspective on the way that we look at anything in the world. We need to be always thinking about how Hashem sees it. Not that it's important how we see it. It's about how Hashem sees it. And specifically today I want to talk with you about anxiety. Anxiety is a real thing that people are going through. It doesn't mean that all the time when people fear, most cases when people fear something is actually not real. But the actual feeling, the sensation of this worry, a doubt of these future things that are that are, you know, perceived to come about actually do inhibit a person. They can stop a person from being able to function in their every single day life. And many people have to deal with this on a regular. I've had to deal with it. I want to tell you honestly, I didn't know anything about anxiety. I didn't even know what the term really meant until after 2020. Me myself personally didn't know I wouldn't even be able to explain what it is. I wouldn't even I just was never it was never interesting to me or anything like that. 2020 happens within the first few months of the coronavirus. I catch Corona. I ended up in the hospital. I was there for 6 days. Now while I was there, my health was up and down, up and down. I was on oxygen machine. Eventually had steroids and you know, I was able to go home after some time. There were many, many different stories associated with it. However, I thought that everything was in the clear. Now I did not feel 100% at the time that I left the hospital. My body was still working through some things and I would even say that honestly today, I still don't feel like my body's 100%. Like like I'm ever I I I don't think I've ever returned back to who I was since I had the coronavirus on some level. But there was something that in particular that really, really shook up my world, literally. After coronavirus, I obviously lost weight when I had the coronavirus. But then I took it upon myself to, you know, go on a diet and really try as much as I possibly can to shed as much weight and to really refocus my life and get my health in order. That's something that I really want to focus on. Now all the while I was doing this, something started to happen to me. I remember one late They all started one late one night. I was out. I was going to go pray and I was on my way out to the to the forests I do. You know, I I like to go meditate in nature. And I remember on my way there, I just all of a sudden start to have this crazy panic attack out of nowhere. Nothing was happening or whatever. I didn't know what was going on. I just started to freak out. And I, you know, on my way there, I hit a roundabout and I decided to go back home. And it, you know, lasted for maybe an hour or something like that of me just, you know, completely feeling a little bit I don't know what the word is, but you know, in panic. If anybody's experienced a panic attack, you know what the symptoms are. The, you know, pulsating the heartbeat, the heart palpitations and the the the sweating and the, you know, the this dis dysphoria. I don't know what it is. This dysphoria. I don't know what it is. Whatever it is that I was going through at the time, it was really, really groundbreaking for me because I had never experienced this before. So this was the beginning of this happening, you know, maybe several times. But it turned into something where it became so chronic like every night I was going to sleep after this. I started to feel as if I was dying. I was running back and forth to the hospital all the time trying to check see maybe something's wrong. Maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Maybe different terms for this, health anxiety and different things like that. But the way I came out of that, I want to share with you today because I think that it's important for people to know not all the time. Now I'm not a doctor. I should say this. This should have been one of the first things I said. I'm not a doctor. I'm not here to tell you what you should do medically. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a neurologist. So I'm not going to even touch any of those things. So if you want actual medical advice, I I I I strongly suggest that you go and talk to a doctor who could actually help you with medical things. But I will tell you this. It says specifically inside of the Torah, God says this. He says, "Ani Hashem rofecha, I'm your doctor and I will heal you." And I can guarantee a person that if you really go with true faith and emunah for anything that it is in life, no matter if it is material, physical, spiritual, you know, medical, whatever it is, if a person depends on Hashem, then Hashem will help you. Now he may have many different agents to bring that about. But living and walking and talking and and living a full life with Hashem will be the ultimate cure for everything in life. So I want to discuss with you practically as I like to do on the podcast on ways to be able to overcome this anxiety. And I want And I want for all of you to at the end of this to take it up on yourself to put into implement some of these things in your life because I want you to be free. Hashem wants for you to be free. The biggest mistake that a person could possibly have is to think that it's called real faith when you believe that oh, God's punishing me. God doesn't love me. That oh, I believe in God. So look, but he's just he's treating me bad. That's not cool called real faith. Real faith is believing that Hashem wants to do good for you. Hashem wants to do right by you. Hashem wants you to be happy. Hashem wants you to live a life of tranquility and and sweetness and a life that is completely devoid of fear and anxiety. Fear in itself and anxiety, this is a spirit of the other side. This is something that is completely dark. It takes over people's life and ultimately, if a person wants to be freed, you can and you will be freed. So let's talk about it. So first we need to understand fear. What is fear? What is anxiety? So fear and anxiety a lot of times actually used to interchangeably by people. But they are distinct. The psychology and emotionally, psychologically and emotionally, these things are different. Fear is an instinctual immediate response to a revealed or perceived threat that a person has. It's triggered by external tangible dangers, encountering a wild animal, some of these different things like that. So fear will activate the fight fight or flight response that a person has to be able to react quickly when they see that they are facing something that is dangerous. So this usually something that last short-term. It's not something that last many, many days at a time and different things like that. Fear is something that's immediate. It's right there. And as long as a person feels that they have a threat right there in the immediate place in their in their life, that only then the person actually feels this fear. And when that fear, that threat is gone, then they no longer feel that sense of fear. So, you know, if a person is out, you know, I like to go out into the to the nature quite often to go and spend some time with Hashem. You know, obviously that's something we're going to talk about a lot on this podcast. But I like to go out into nature a lot and go spend some time with Hashem. So when I go at night, a lot of times there's jackals, there's, you know, whatever there's coyotes, whatever they are. And instantly there's a natural thing that happens to a person that, you know, first you get a little sense of fear. I remember the first time I was going out here since I since I moved here to Beit Shemesh and I was very excited to, you know, to have the experience to go out into nature. I lived in Jerusalem for so many years. But so I was I was excited to be able to go back out into nature like I did when I lived in Seattle. So I remember going out for the first night with my friend. We were very in this very It was very dark and it was in the, you know, in the forest. So he said to me right before we separated and went our ways, he said to me that if you see some four-legged animal or anything like that, he says just give it a jerk and it'll run away. So I'm starting to think to myself. I was like, "Listen, if you're not telling me it's a dog or a cat, you know, what am I what am I expecting to see?" But initially a person when I encounter these things, you get a little a little fear. And and usually if you give it, you know, you stand up to it, it runs away. And the truth is is that's the way that fear works. It's something that's instant. You see something that's happening, some impending threat, there's some danger that's right there in front of your life. At that time, that's that fear. Now when we're talking about anxiety, we're talking about something completely different. We're talking about the worry or the fear about something that is in the future, something that's uncertain. There's some uncertainty. As it is, something that we've all been dealing with, you know, in recent years unlike we ever have. Life has become completely unpredictable. So what this has caused in the world is a great uptick, like I said, in anxiety and fearing the things that are unknown. So anxiety could be something that's persistent. It's an internal state of worry, of unease even in the absence of immediate danger. That means that there may not be anything threatening me, but I just perceive that something could be threatening or something could, you know, come to, you know, sort of shake up my world. So it is often triggered by uncertainty, hypothetical scenarios, irrational fears, worrying about the upcoming exam, worrying about the stock market, worrying about my job. You know, this anxiety in its in its goodness, it prepares a person's mind for the potential of future threats or excessive anxiety, however, can be something that can come to a person. This is something that can stop a person and inhibit you from living life to your fullest, being able to accomplish your goals, being able to be the person that you want to be. So, example of that will be feeling uneasy for days about an important presentation, something you have to do. You have to do some type of Some people get it when they do public speaking. But you're okay. I understand that if you have to speak tomorrow, if you have to speak in 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, but if you're thinking about a speech you have to give in 2 weeks from now, and you can't sleep, it's inhibiting you right now, that is called anxiety. That is a fear that is something that is completely crippling you and moving you into something outside of completely the way that Hashem wants you to be living living and functioning in life. So, from a biblical perspective, fear can be that illusion that prevents us from fully trusting Hashem. We don't understand. Fear becomes the the absolute enemy of your ability to be a true servant of Hashem, because a true servant relies on its master. So, if you are inhibited from being able to trust in Hashem, which is one of the key components of our relationship with God is the trust factor, which we're going to talk about more, is is this right here is is unconstant threat when you are dealing with anxiety, when you're dealing dealing with any type of worry or fear about something that is not posing an immediate danger to you, or something that you have conjured up in your mind or in your thoughts, is stopping you from from living with Hashem today. So, this anxiety comes when we try to control things that is not that are not in our hands. When things are not in our hands and we're trying to control them, that is the ultimate sign of a lack of trust in God. That, you know, I feel that I need to be able to fix it. I am the one that needs to be in control. I need to be this from the idea and from the thoughts that we can control what's going on in the world, all of that brings about fear. And it's the biggest slap in the face to Hashem also too, because this brings about so much arrogance. We all have this arrogance, by the way. No person should ever feel as if you're alone in this, right? Everybody feels on some level that they're in control. And and when things are going great, people they celebrate. They become very happy. They become very elated about the things and they they feel very very much so as if they need to praise whatever effort they they they feel that they put in that caused such a great thing to come about. When people are low, they start to beat themselves up. They become depressed. They become in a state of nature. They can bring down the people and the morale of people around them because they feel as if oh, they failed. They messed up. They didn't achieve. This is also form of arrogance. It's not always the person who is overly, you know, in love with themselves more than they are with anybody else and everybody else on in their vicinity knows how much that they love themselves. We have that. That's the arrogance that that everybody knows about. But the arrogance that some of to some degree that all of us have to work to purify ourselves of is that when it's whether it's a success or whether it's a a mistake that ultimately everything is all be de shamayim. It's all in the hands of Hashem. Hashem himself is the one running the show, really. So, what causes such a what causes anxiety at least is when a person feels as though they're not the ones in control, when they feel like they're losing the grip of what's going on in life. So, the Torah says, and this is interesting interesting fact, the Torah says 365 times do not fear. Lo tira, lo altira, however you want to say do not fear. 365. Now, what does that correlate to? The 365 days of the year. God expects for you not to fear. God expects for you to live in a state of tranquility. God expects for you to live in such a way that you are completely relying and throwing your total trust on him and not thinking that everything is on you, that you are the one controlling the world. My beloved, if you love God and you want to grow in your faith in God, please like and subscribe to this channel, because that's what we're about here. And you liking and you subscribing is not only going to help this channel, it's going to help you spread the name of God everywhere, because that's what we're about. On another note, I want all of you to know that I, a few months back, started to build an online community of people like you and me, people that want to grow in their emunah and their faith, and we want practical tools and strategies on how to come close to Hashem, how to scale up and coming close to Hashem. In this community, I put out a few months ago. It was in beta and I got a few people that are really ready to leap the charge, but eventually I'm going to be inviting all of you to join this wonderful community. So, please stay tuned, keep watching all of the content, and when we roll this out, you are going to want to be a part of this. If you love Hashem and you really want to grow in your faith and your character traits and you want to reach the ultimate you. The ultimate you isn't you with money. That will also come, God willing. But the ultimate you is the you that's with Hashem. And if you want that, then we are going to do our best to provide that for you. So, stay tuned as we roll this out. For now, like and subscribe and be on the lookout for what's next to come. Okay, back to the show. So, scientists will say that there's uh you know, many different ways how fear actually affects the brain. So, the brain and amygdala and the cortisol and everything that happens. Uh one thing that also has been uh scientifically proven is that faith in itself, a person that has emunah, a person that believes in God, they would it would actually lower the anxiety and increase the resilience of the individual. It's an interesting thing. Rebbe Nachman himself says that when a person lives in this world and they do not have faith, then they both lost this world and the world to come. Meaning that the person doesn't have rest here and they won't have rest in the next world. They don't have any emunah. They don't have any faith. Everything is running off of their own control and their own precepts. So, what happens is a person like that will constantly be in a state of fear, constantly in a state of anxiety, of worrying about whether or not uh this is going to happen or that's going to happen, because after all, they don't believe in Hashem. They have nothing to rely on except for themselves. And like I've said to you many times before, if you are relying on you, you will fail 100% of the times. That, in contrast, Rebbe Nachman says with a person lives with faith, it says they have it both good here in this world and also in the world to come, because they are always connected to the good. They're connected to the source of goodness, which is God himself. And because God bestows good on those who love him and those who follow after him, then that person is always living in a state of tranquility. That's at least when we get to the ideal place of trust and emunah and faith in Hashem. When we get to that ideal place, a person lives a life of tranquility. They're no longer living in a state of anxiety or fear anymore. And as it says in Psalms, it says that King David says that though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Hashem, you are with me. David Hammelech, King David, made it his business to always be constantly working on his trust in Hashem. Everything that he battled physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, we see this all throughout the book of Psalms that King David is one who is the the type A person of who we should always be looking at, who lived a life with Hashem. He had ups, he had downs, he he fought many many battles, he he, you know, he lived and battled with his own personal trials of of dealing with sin. His whole household turned against him. And every single uh uh time, every single uh thing that he went through, we see there's another Psalm. There's another there's another outpouring of the soul that was coming from King David. So, he lived with Hashem and ultimately this is how he was able to conquer everything, including his fears. So, I want to give you Torah insights on overcoming fear. Because it's very very important that we have to. So, King David is our type one. That's that's already what we need to know. We need to know that trusting in Hashem is the ultimate thing. Bitachon. I want you to learn this word. Bitachon. Trusting in Hashem, relying on Hashem. This is the ultimate cure. When we trust that Hashem is in control, fear loses its power. It no longer has a a hold on you. It no longer has a grip on you. I'm in the hands of my beloved father. Hashem is with me. He's doing good. He does good. He will do good. I'm in the hands of Hashem. So, I trust Hashem. Hashem is with me. And we have a beautiful story that our sages give us from the Midrashic Midrashic text that actually is not in the actual written Torah itself, but it it it correlates together. We have the story of when the Jewish people are standing there and their backs are against the wall. They're standing before the Red Sea. And on the other side, they had the have the Egyptians. And Moses takes his staff, he takes his hands, and he raises his hands to God. He tells the Jewish people that the Egyptians you see today, you will no longer ever see again. He begins to pray at some point here, and God tells him, "Why are you calling out to me? Go ahead. Just just go." And this is so hard for me, even as a person who loves prayer, because when I look at prayer, I think that's everything. That's our communication with Hashem. That's how we really increase our bitachon and our and our emunah. And it really it is. But there are these moments in our life that God says, "Just trust and rely. This is what I'm asking you. It's not the time for any effort. Prayer is effort. Prayer takes effort. That is an effort on your behalf." But he tells Moses at this point, "Just go forward. Just trust in me." And Moses Moses lifts his hand. But what's not in the actual text is a story of a person called Nachshon ben ben Amminadab. Nachshon ben Amminadab says, "I'm going to walk forward. I've already I'm already at that place where I'm I'm relying on Hashem. I I trust you enough." And he walks into the Sea of Reeds. He begins to go into the water into the water hits up into his nose, the sages say. And then all of a sudden at that moment, the waters burst free. Hashem sees that Nachshon was ready to trust in him. And when he had the courage, he was able to build up enough courage to go forward and to rely on Hashem, then the water split. And I'm guaranteeing you that these are all of our troubles. These are all of our fears, our worries, and our anxieties. That the moment that a person relies on Hashem, they're all going to disperse. They're all going to go their separate way. And a person should understand that God wants to already do the good for you. It isn't you know, we have this backwards way of thinking. And the real true way of relying on Hashem and real true way of understanding, you know, some of the ways that at least God has allowed us to know the way that he runs the world is that, you know, we always think that a certain cause creates an effect. But really, it's the effect that creates the cause. Meaning that God already wanted to save the Jewish people. He already wanted that. It wasn't because of of, you know, Nachshon ha- having to make that effort or Moses raising his hand. All those things were the tools by which the actual cause happened. The The redemption was already coming anyway because this was the will of God. So a lot of times when we see that there are challenges and different things and I what we need to be focused on what's the end goal. Right? God already wants to do something great for me. So he's going to give me the tools in every single way that I need to be able to accomplish it. God is going to give me the tools. All I have to do is trust. All I have to do is to do my part. And that's to trust in the go fight them. So most of the time that we see that there are many things that are caving us in on all sides, you need to know this is just this is just all water. And the moment that I'm willing to walk in and I'm willing to face those things and face that anxiety and face whatever it is that seems to be that it's it's, you know, it's holding me back. Once I'm willing to go, then I will see that ultimately the sea is going to split and I'm going to walk through on dry land. So the main thing first is trusting in Hashem. The second thing I would say would be hitbodedut. It was what we call personal prayer. To feel a secluding yourself, getting away from the rest of the world, and going to, you know, to some degree make a some type of ownership on your relationship with you and Hashem. You should feel like this is mine. You should feel that Hashem belongs to me. There's no one else in the world. It's me. I'm not saying that a person should become delusional or not care about other people. But I'm saying that we need to have that time, such quality and loving time with Hashem where we go to him and we express to him all the different things that are going on in our lives. All the things that we we fear. All the things that we have we're anxious about. All the things that we feel are holding us back is relying on Hashem. And that was a huge thing for me. When I was going through the anxiety, I one of the biggest turns for me. I was going to sleep like I said every night. I was feeling like I was I was facing death. I wasn't going to wake up in the morning. You know, there were many different things that triggered it. However, I remember laying in my bed and it was overwhelming to me for from one night. I remember it was so bad. I sat up on my bed and I just start crying. I start bawling my my eyes out. And and I don't want to wake up my wife and my baby was also sleeping there. I don't want to wake her up. I start screaming to Hashem. Screaming to Hashem from inside. I wasn't screaming audibly, but I was screaming. And it wasn't until I screamed and I gave all that I had, I remember laying back down. I slept with so much peace and so much tranquility because I cried out to Hashem. I relied on Hashem and I prayed to him and I talked to him and I let him know what was going on in my life. This is how we have to live with Hashem. And we see that talking to Hashem will directly help a person release the fear. And we see this by talking to other people. And you know, you end up go talking to a person and you got to talk to this person. Like I said before, you end up on his couch or you end up on somebody else's couch and we're all doing this, you know, cycle of that. But we can go and talk to Hashem and tell Hashem everything. And speak to him about everything, our innermost secrets or anything or anything that we're doubting or anything that we fear. We can go and talk to Hashem and leave it all by him. And we need to speak to him, like Rebbe Nachman says, like he's your best friend. Talk to Hashem like he's your best friend. Walk hand in hand with Hashem and make him your best friend. And King David's Tehillim, the the Psalms are filled with raw and honest cries to Hashem. A person should pick up the Psalms. King David said, "V'sha'alti b'veit Hashem kol yemai chayai." He His goal and his everything was to sit and to dwell in the house of God all the days of his life. "Hashem, don't allow me to depart from you. Don't allow me for a single second to take my mind off of you. Don't allow me to think of anything else. Hashem, I want to be with you." And this is the way that King David lived. So I want everybody to take it up on themselves to set aside time, 5 minutes, 10 minutes every single day. If you could do more, even better. Where you will set set aside the time, go spend time with Hashem, make a place, you know, we'll talk about it more as the podcast continues because I think this is something very very important we need to understand 100% how to engage in hitbodedut, how to talk to Hashem, and and to have a better understanding of it. But take 5-10 minutes, make a place for you and Hashem and go speak to him. Talk with him and and let him know what's going on with you. And this is a very simple ask, really. I mean, all of us can find 5 or 10 minutes to do whatever we want. But spend 5 or 10 minutes talking to Hashem specifically about your fears. The fact that you're worried, what the fear does to you, the sensations that you're having. "Hashem, help me. Help me to find the the the point of of of what I can do to perhaps maybe flip this or fix this. Give me tools." Whatever it is, but spend that 5-10 minutes with Hashem. And the next thing is we need to be living in the present. You need to be living with emunah over anxiety. That means that you are just like the manna that was in the desert. Hashem gave the Israelites just enough each day, teaching them not to worry about anything. Same thing as bitokhon. I have emunah. I have faith that Hashem is going to give me what I need, my daily bread, everything that I'm going to possibly need is going to come to me. And each day I'm going to have it. The fear is always All right, this anxiety at least when I'm talking about is always about the future, something that didn't even happen. But emunah teaches us to focus on today. That means that every day I'm living with Hashem. I'm worried about tomorrow. I'm already living with Hashem today. Hashem's right here right now. So this is the way that I'm going to live and conduct a life that includes that that models the fact that Hashem is with me right now today. As let alone not to even worry about tomorrow. Hashem's with me today. He'll be with me also tomorrow. But living right there in the moment. And a more practical exercise for a person is that when you start to feel this thing start to happen to you, you need to ask yourself, "What is in my control right now?" What is it that I can control about the situation? Not about what What is it that I can control right now? And anything that you can't control, give the rest to Hashem. These things are out of my hands. I don't know how this is going to be or how this is going to work. But it's out of my control. I'm giving the rest to Hashem. And the next thing is honestly is guarding your mind from fearful thoughts. These are the thoughts that you conjure up and these are the thoughts that are a product of the intake that you have. You know, I for sure believe and I'm I'm sure there's probably been proven and scientifically proven or whatever the case is that since 2020, one of the reasons why there's been a major uptick is because the news made it their business to try to fearmonger everybody into believing whatever story that they were they were fearmongering all day long and they caused this fear, this anxiety amongst people. People, you know, it became like the thing to do. It's like everybody was selling fear. Everything you looked for online was another something else to be afraid of. And people become obsessed with this, you know, that with being afraid. And it creates more and more anxiety. So the intake is important. The things that you're listening to, the people that you're around. You know, we all have or have or have had people in our life that love to report bad news all the time. Person gets afraid. "Oh, I heard about so-and-so. You heard him and they just dropped dead and blah blah blah." And you keep hearing stories like this or whatever. You notice a pattern of a certain amount of certain type of people you're around all the time. They're always delivering bad news. Which creates and triggers bad thoughts for the person, the individual. So it's very very important for you to watch your intake. Watch what it is that you are listening to and and where you get your news from, where you get your information from. And try to make it a point to listen to things that are inspiring and uplifting you. You don't have You have no idea. You have no idea how much positive reinforcement or positive information is going to help you to conquer your fear. I remember when I was dealing with fear at the peak and I was obsessed with thinking about death. And I'm just being very open with all of you guys cuz I want to be vulnerable. I I just really never dealt with it before. Hey guys, what's going on? I want to tell you really quickly about an organization here in Ramat Beit Shemesh named Colel Korel. Colel Korel is an organization that provides essential support to kids with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. They do everything from making sure that they have personalized lesson plans all the way to advocacy, which is very important. A lot of these kids are falling through the cracks in the regular system and a lot of them are misdiagnosed. But Colel Korel through their assessment has found that most of the time it's just learning disabilities. Unfortunately, because of the war, people have reallocated their funds to different war efforts and misplaced families, rightfully so. But unfortunately, what it's led to is a lot of these kids falling through the cracks. And now this wonderful organization is at the brink of turning kids away. I would never advocate for something unless I was able to personally tell you how amazing the organization is. I want everybody that can, please go to Colel Korel.org and make a donation. We must keep this organization open and running and being able to service all the families that they service. For a long time, when it comes to organizations, many people have asked me, but unless I know personally that I'm dealing with real people, I will never ask my audience. So again, please make a donation today to Colel Korel. That's k o l k o r e h.org. And I can honestly say that you will be changing lives. Okay, back to the show. And so, I remember going through that time and I I wanted to face it head-on. So, somebody had sent, you know, in one of these emails or chats or whatever it was, a video about a person who had died and went to the other world and came back. So, I watched that. And then I saw another one and then another one. And I I know this sounds crazy, but to some degree I started obsessing a little bit with these stories of what is what is it that people experience when they left this world and they went into the other side and they ever came near-death experiences they call NDEs, right? So, I started getting obsessed with this and I started learning more and more about this phenomenon, looking into it, the research. I've heard all the naysayers. I am a believer. I'll never believe anybody tells me this is some type of traumatic thing that happens to the to the body and all that. It's all garbage. There's no such thing as a sham and that's what's real. So, looking at these things, no matter what, whether they were Jewish, not Jewish, anything like that. But one of the things that the key and I guess factors or or components that each and one of each one of these different people talked about was experiencing this love from this awesome light. This this overwhelming just feeling of of love that was unlike any type of love they ever experienced before in their life. And the love was so awesome that came from this light. If you I don't know if you look up NDEs, I don't I don't want to send you down a rabbit hole, but I needed something that was going to help me get through what I was going through at the time. But that became so enticing and so comforting for me. Even if people had crazy stories after, you know, passing this phase of the NDE. But the love and experiencing that light was so attractive to me and it was something that comforted me. And and I started to really shift and that was a a major point for me to start to shift, you know, what it was I was listening to. I was so concerned, what's going to be with this and that and whatever and the touring whatever, you know, the the economy's down, the whole everything, you know, I can't travel, I can't do gigs, I can't but all these worries, things that I I didn't even know before. You know, I I lived my life prior to all of this with a sham and that's how it was. And all of a sudden I get this virus, the whole world goes upside down and I'm dealing with anxiety and these things are on my lap and I changed my intake. What's the intake? More Torah, more emunah, more spending time with a sham. And that's so important because the yetzer itself, the evil inclination, it thrives off of your fear. Just like the news. It thrives off of your fear. And the Book of Proverbs says says, "As a man thinks, so is he." So, if you constantly will think about these things and your mind is is plagued with fearful thoughts all day long, then this is how a person's going to live in a state of fear. So, you have to replace it with emunah-based affirmations and content. So, things like listening to this podcast, of course that's sort of a shameless plug, but to say it. Or listening to things that are going to strengthen your emunah and your faith in God. And then also faith-based affirmations that you are affirming things with your mouth, vocally. You can also do this in your hisbodedus or even even in your mind. That things like Hashem is with me. Hashem is my protector. Everything that happens is for my ultimate good. Hashem is doing everything. I trust Hashem. Saying these things outward outwardly and affirming these things in your heart and in your mind all the time. You feel something, Hashem's with me. Hashem is with me. Hashem is with me. Saying it over and over and over again. Very very important for a person to be able to conquer the fear and the anxiety. So, another thing is a person has to face the fears with action. You have to actually do something. You have to have the courage and you have to have the emunah to go hand in hand because the fear itself will paralyze you, but the actions that a person takes in order to overcome their fear will liberate them. So, you see Yehoshua, Joshua, he was leading the Israelites into the promised land, into Israel. And Hashem told him, "Chazak v'nitchazek. You need to strength be strong and to strengthen yourself." Obviously, Joshua is facing the scariest thing that he possibly can. He's going into the land of Canaan, into the land of Canaan. He's already been told the reports, how big the people, how fortified the cities are and how giant they are and everything else. He's facing maybe seven of the most vicious nations that are completely rampant with idolatry, heartless, careless people, right? And he's facing this and he's being told by God to go with courage. Doesn't mean that he didn't have initial fear. He didn't have anything. God is saying to strengthen yourself and go with courage. But what's the action? Go. Go. He told Joshua to go. So, even if we have anxieties, we have fear, whatever, complete the action. Part of it is fighting through it and going, being courageous. Not letting anything to stop you or to throw you off from what your desired goal is. Whatever it is in life, connecting with Hashem, your financial success, your whatever it is. Be strong and be courageous. So, if you can, you can challenge yourself by identifying one fear that's holding you back. And take one small action against it. What can you do to overcome that fear, that anxiety, something that makes you anxious? And we're talking about, you know, obviously things that a person to some degree can can push themselves, they can actually take an action against. Sometimes and and one thing I have to clear up here is as I said before, prayer is an action. That is that is moving your lips, turning your heart towards Hashem is an action. Contrary to what the way people may look at it, it is an action. And as I always do here in the podcast, I want to give you practical steps. And I wrote down a few things that I want to be able to give over to you because I think it's very very important. So, the first thing I want you to do is to start the day with faith-based affirmations. Your days should be started with Hashem, right? With you you you it needs to be started with increasing your emunah in Hashem, affirming these things, speaking these things, talking about it and and saying certain prayers. And in in Judaism, this is built in. We say modeh ani. We're thanking Hashem from the moment we open our eyes, we're already thanking Hashem. So, it's very very important. If you're Jew if you're not Jewish or I don't know what your background may be, but to start with making affirmations, faith-based affirmations, your emunah, strengthening your faith, the first thing. Number two is to have that daily conversation with Hashem. This is important on all levels, not just about our fear, with everything. This is the way that we live with Hashem is that we take Hashem wherever we go. And we're speaking to him on the way, on the path, on the on the way to work, on on the train. Most people are so busy with, you know, filling themselves up already with the news. First thing, what happened? Oh, the first thing they wake up, they check their Instagram, they check the No, no, no, no, no. Start the day with Hashem. End the day with Hashem. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov says that if a person goes to sleep yearning and desiring Hashem, they're going to wake up in the morning yearning and desiring Hashem. So, if you can, don't keep your phone by your bed. Don't put any any devices by you if you can. Set something that you want to read or something that will strengthen you, put it by your bed. In the morning, wake up, affirm your faith and then make sure, number two, you take time, set it to put it in your calendar that I'm going to spend this amount of time with Hashem every single day. This is this is going to do mind-blowing things for you. So, number three is stay present. Don't let any of the what-ifs control your mind. Stay in focus on what it is that you have to do today. Don't start thinking about the what-ifs, what's going to be and being anxious about things. And number four is when fear hits, remind yourself of a time that Hashem already came through for you. This is the I can't even begin to explain how important it is for us to constantly remind ourselves that Hashem I've been to a very similar place and you've already helped me before. Hashem you were already with me before. Hashem already I know Hashem you're good on it and I know I can bank on you because of X Y and Z. I've seen your hand in my life before. So number five is take small courageous steps to build confidence in Hashem's plan. Your emunah, your bitachon, your trust and reliance on God is going to be based on how many times you're willing to throw yourself on him and it's a muscle. Emunah is a muscle. Your trust and reliance in Hashem is going to be a muscle that you can build. And you may not be able to throw everything on it now because we're restricted. We don't you know to the degree that we know Hashem is how much we can actually trust him. So in the ways that we know him and we may not be in that ultimate place of perfection in that we will call shleimut, but we can at least be in a place to where we can constantly throw a little bit more on Hashem and a little bit more and see that he's good for a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and ultimately we will strengthen our emunah, will strengthen our bitachon. Another big help, which is number six, is to read the Psalms and read the different stories in the Torah of looking at how you know Elijah was able to completely throw his trust in Hashem that even the birds came to feed him. You know, we've seen so many different stories throughout there. We had the story of the the the Red Sea. We have so many different stories. We had King David the way they lived his life even. That people were living in a way where they were relying on Hashem constantly. So there's many different stories and when you read these stories they will strengthen you. The story of David and Goliath. I mean King David, 13-year-old boy, he's like a kid. And he's going to go face this giant. He didn't care. He threw complete and total trust in Hashem. So you reading these stories will give you the the courage and give you the strength to be able to battle the Goliaths that are in your life. So before I close I found myself dealing with this anxiety. As I mentioned this story of me crying on the bed. Once that happened to me I realized for myself that there's no there's no other answers. Nobody can help me. I've been to the doctor I don't know how many times. I I you know I refuse to take medicine for something that just happened upon me. And I said that if if if it was something that I grew up with and I've been dealing with it in my whole entire life maybe I would have looked at something medical. I said but Hashem if it could come that fast it could leave that fast. So I went out every day I strengthened myself and I went to go spend a considerable amount of time with Hashem only talking about this anxiety, this fear. Of course I would bring up other things that were going on in my life, but the main thing for me was to get rid of this thing that was crippling me, that was stopping stopping me, inhibiting me from being able to be the me that I wanted. This distance. And I remember going out crying and really asking, begging God show me what it is. What can I do? What did I do? What How Whatever it was. I remember sitting at the table one Shabbat lunch after having some crazy wasn't really necessarily a panic attack, but I had this um what they would call was a they call it the forget what they call this thing. Where my I became sort of disconnected from reality at some point I had to walk around and it was almost as if I was living but I wasn't living like it was a very very crazy experience. Um I forget there is an actual term for this. But I remember going back to you know to the table. My wife had opened up the book from one of the books from Rabbi Shalom Arush that was the the Garden of Knowledge and she opened up specifically to anxiety and fears. And what I'm going to tell you right now is a lesson that I learned that completely removed this thing from me and it's something that I believe is going to be the end all with all of that advice that I gave you that we're going to deal with daily and practically. But I think it's going to be the end all if a person can really tap into this. She began to read and it said that when a person has sudden fear, has anxiety and different things like that that is an indication that in heaven there's judgments on the person. That means that they have done things in their life they are doing things or have done things in their life that have caused that they are being judged in the heavenly court. When those judgments are upon the persons, when they enter into that you know that the tik that file of that individual they manifest themselves down here into this world in the form of anxiety and fears. Then the person enters into this state of fear, of panic and they live with this. And he says the solution is to remove the judgment. Our sages teach us that there are two courts. There's the court that's in heaven and there's a court that's down here. Now the court down here doesn't have to be the court that a person goes to. It doesn't have to be what we would call a beit din, our rabbis of the Sanhedrin. He says that a person can enter into judgment himself down here by confessing the things that the person did wrong. All the transgressions, all the mistakes that a person did in their life by saying those things and speaking them out with Hashem and really making an effort to change those things a person removes the judgment that's going on in the heavenly realm. And once those judgments are removed the anxiety goes away. I remember sitting at the table when she read this over to me. And I said to myself I'm buckling up my my my my you know my bootstraps and I'm going out and instead of talking about the fear, instead of talking about things that I had instead of talking about everything that I was going through, which I I did I still talked about it cuz it was bothering me at the time, but instead of making that the main focal part of my prayer I spent the bulk and the majority of my prayers on looking for, talking about the things that I was aware that I may have done wrong. I looked deeper in myself that maybe some of the mistakes that I was making on the daily that I just didn't notice that I was making those mistakes. And I became I wouldn't say obsessive, but I became very very staunch. I became a warrior about praying to God and speaking out to him every mistake that I felt that I had made or was would be making in my life. And I prayed over and over and over and over again every single day. And I cannot begin to tell you how fast the salvation came. That I didn't feel that. It was gone. Symptoms. I've had symptoms. I've had symptoms of the things that had caused the worry, the anxiety, the heart palpitations, the sweats or whatever. Passed them all with tranquility. Because I know ultimately that Hashem is with me. Being able to remove that chareidah, to be able to remove the anxiety which are caused by the judgments that are above a person is the most liberating thing that a person could do for themselves. So along with all the advice that I gave you today, I want every single one of you to know that Hashem loves you. Hashem wants to remove fear out of your life. You do not have to live in a state of fear. You do not have to live with anxiety. And I know this wholeheartedly because this is not something that God needs to give you in order for you to come close to him. It could be a powerful tool that can that can push one to start praying like it did for me. But ultimately it's not a tool that you have to have. And once a person removes the judgments they will remove the anxiety as well. Please let me know if you're implementing any of this advice, if you have implemented any of the advice before, or if you have other things that you have done to get over your anxiety, your fears, please let me know in the comments. The podcast I know is moving. We're seeing the views. People are liking the content. We're not getting as much comments and engagements, but I'm getting stopped all the time by people people telling me listen I've listened to the podcast I wanted this and and nobody's commenting. So please down in the comments let me know because you never know. It's not just me. You may be able to help someone else. I'm giving you what what I have, but if you know of anything that has been able to help you with your anxiety with your fears, please leave it down there. Not only that, by you commenting, liking, sharing, whatever it is, subscribing, you're pushing all of this out so that other people can also get the help. So with Hashem's help, you know how we do it here. We either serve God or we live trying. Thank you so much for tuning in.