Rabbi Yom Tov Practical Spirituality: Feeling Feelings

when you were a little child you were the happiest you ever were because you would cry crying is the key to happiness a lot of people don't realize that crying is the key to happiness but it really is the key to happiness how do you know it's very simple we're the happiest people in the world toddlers toddlers are happier than we are much happier than we are and who are the saddest people we know toddlers toddlers and when the boy when they're upset everyone's gonna know everyone's gonna know they don't hold that any they just let it uh you know it could be to the point of like banging the floor banging and kicking the floor facedown screaming and crying I mean II they keep Majan doing that right now yeah what if I like magically could do that like I snap my fingers and all of us just like our pain just comes flying out of us so everyone's like on the floor screaming and crying it takes a few days to get you in for that day in America I get people there only on day three of the seminar work and here in Israel since we have an extra times I live here I do it on day four of my seminars coming at you it's Jeff February 24th in Jerusalem in English anyway the but they've got the joy they get the joy and and I got that drawing because I cry all the time I've already cried today and it's only twelve twenty three crying is crying's the key to joy because it's one valve and you know it's not like in the old days they used to have sinks I don't know if you guys have been in an old building where there's like a hot sink and a cold sink just doesn't make a lot of sense because no one could put their hands under the hot sink but the but today obviously modern day is you have a faucet with a thing and you called you know and so we think we have two different pipes for emotion one for join one for pain but that's a that's a misunder standing and it's not true you really have there's only one thing for emotion for feeling and that is the joy and the pain they all are on the same pipe now what happens is you've stuffed your pipe the pain pipe which is the joy pipe you stuff the emotion pipe yeah you've pushed it down and so that you wouldn't feel all the pain but the problem with that is a couple problems one you don't feel joy to is it starts to compound cuz a lot of painful things and you're you're having all kinds of painful emotions throughout the day that you're not even aware of you would only probably be half aware of it if you got a headache or maybe a stomachache or back inc or if maybe part of your body started hurting would tell you would be a great indicator that something hurt you've emotionally during the day and now you're getting whatever your weak spot is it generally goes after the weak spot so it'll well nail you somewhere if you don't have any weeks but then it chooses headaches cause headaches felt like it's just kind of this ghost ailment that anyone can get but if someone has a weak spot so that's generally where the pain goes but they but we have all kinds of pain and we're feeling it all day long I've had several painful moments today and literally nothing's happened literally nothing so but I'm just I'm with it you know I'm with my emotions and I'm I'm watching them I'm feeling they're minute I mean I'm with them and I'm not a lot of you by the way you guys probably had way more pain than I had today because I'm generally clear of pain and so which means you probably had triple the pain that I had and did you notice all your pain today an emotional pain maybe Lou okay maybe notice some hey you want to be like hyper aware of your pain because cuz it's important as if it's really hurts for examples and burn to cry that's cry time and if it hurts a little so it's not a cry moment it hurts a little but you want to go in there bitten and kind of examine why am I feeling pain over over this like for example I'm feeling I'm feeling the pain of humiliation walking into this classroom you know because I mean obviously I'm gonna keep walking in because the class isn't about me and then not gonna get humiliated but there are gonna be a group of people there and humiliations within the realm of possibility it's low super low if it were high you wouldn't even walk in here but the fact that you're with a group of people means it's on the radar and therefore there was a little pain and just coming in here and many of you never met me before and you don't know if I'm gonna respect you I'm to dis you like you know nowhere where you staying visa vie me and so that's that's again it's that's a painful experience and something that something that you could be aware of and look at and examine a little bit and maybe feel it it's just not a big deal you don't have to cry over that but at least feel it a bit rather than turn it into a headache where you wind up not gonna be coming to class cuz why who would go to class with a edit then you missed the class so or you get all tired some people won't even get headaches they're healthier but though but they'll get tired you know for no reason you look at toddlers they ever get tired toddlers get tired toddlers don't even go to sleep at night okay they pass out we've had some funny moments in my family where like we looked everywhere for the kid we finally had to get the you know the butter knife and open up the bathroom door to find him fast asleep on the toilet you know they they just pass out they're just full of energy these things anyway all of that happened all of that was going on for you when you're young and you felt you felt it felt it but once you turn a little older you stopped feeling it as much I mean you could still burst into tears and seven or eight eight nine and eleven year olds I'll burst into tears sometimes but eventually what happens is the mind builds to a point right around 12 11 12 13 14 right around there your mind develops into your mind gets to the point where you can actually move into another place of experience which is called well it's not an experience you can move into what's called the consent so like I'll show it to you on a Venn diagram you have the experiential come on please put away your phones by the way do not text during class time ever not in my class or anyone elses the there's experiential and there's approval I tell you I'm not used to teaching at Newton unit experiential and the conceptual and at around 12 years old what would happen is you didn't like life much I mean you loved it as a toddler later you didn't like it much I mean you literally did not love your life that much a little later because because what happened was you yeah I mean you just sponge everything in you don't know how to put everything out there when you're 12 you can get saved get the world atomy yeah you have a yeah it's a surgical maneuver you'd yeah it's called a world out of me world out of me a world out of me means to errata me means to remove something out of me and the world and all of its ups and downs and all the stuff going on around me and my parents marriage and in my bully siblings and you know like just get it out of me and what happens around 12 years old is you went numb you just went numb to the world you stopped feeling everything you stopped experiencing life where it experienced what I just got through saying before was how I felt some pain today meaning I was experiencing it I wasn't just turning everything into a concept but what happened was when you were around 12 years old you turned life experience into a concept and you left the world of experience ever since then which is really hard because now you'll notice that when you pray it's you don't necessarily feel anything and you'll notice when you're when you're in a relationship you don't just so they feel anything and you'll notice you'll even get restless when you're with a and you'll get you don't really experience that and those who are married and have this very tough because they'll they'll conceptualize their spouse quite a bit which isn't that's never good you know you know you're not married to a concept you know you're married to a human being who loves you and would do anything for you and so why would you want to turn your spouse into a concept but what can you do ever since you're 12 you you got your ace you got your world out of me and you the surgery was done and and now you just don't experience things I mean I mean anyone ever hear anyone here ever got married in this room raise your hand if you ever got married you married now you imagine you still married not married anymore but tell me were you in the concept of your marriage or in the experience of your marriage then when you the marriage wedding guy I wasn't at my wedding I was like when I was dancing I was like him how do I look you know is this the way you do it you know when I when we were under the Hopa I was like you know these rabbis are coming up to make brought Lessing's and and I was thinking like this rabbit doesn't really hold of me right you know he's basically up here for the honor you know and and you know and then and there are 300 people or 500 P I don't know I mean people were there is like what all these people think of me and and so I was like you understand I was barely there and then you got in-laws who have them you met that day and so you know how much can you party down with them they're probably going like you know who's this jerk that are that are you know our niece is marrying and anyway but all that mental chatter puts you everywhere into the world of conceptual and away from the experience and and sadly many parents miss the weddings are their own kids cuz they're just so busy in the concept of everything that they missed it so anyway I miss my honor how'd you do in yours half half how'd you do oh you were there yeah you would agree you feel like that yeah oh I was so up my daughter's wedding yeah I thought I was gonna ball during the Copa but I actually ball during the bedecking before the hoopla you also did yeah it could be the bedecking gets the father yeah it's like paying me to like everything was great we're drinking shots having fun like everything's fabulous next thing I know I see my daughter like 50 feet away on a beautiful chair you know like and like I just I have lost it and when we were under the hood but you know I'm next to my wife and how was this gig I couldn't stop giggling I just the two of us we're just giddy we were giggling and giggling the whole time and it's like a holy time it's not a giggling time but we just couldn't stop giggling do you ever get in London uh-huh yeah giggling we're I think we were just pinching ourselves the whole time that this had taken place in our lives had taken all the courses that it didn't anyway the but that's what happens and that's the last time you cry you understand that's the last time unless the movie grabbed you or or something really horrible happen which one any horrible thing will knock someone out of conception that's why when you go to a funeral especially a funeral that was more tragic meaning a situation where someone was young or whatever was an accident when something terrible like that the you'll notice that the family are in the experience but all the other people are where they're over here cuz because how does it work the more something scares you internally meaning scares you emotionally more it's something is gonna touch deep chords or fears and stuff like that you'll notice people afraid will start crying like she won't jump off the bungee jump thing and everyone's like yelling jump the whole line of people are waiting for their turn and she might just start crying from so the fear can also cause tears and what greater fear is there than death I mean death is the ultimate fear that people have you know death which is it's really the fear of the unknown but but there's no greater fear and so at a funeral with that big fear coming because now everyone's got to face death right in the eyes you know we got to stare death in the eyes at a funeral and so we're all gonna go conceptual in funerals and so the family they have no they can't help but they're going I mean there are families that go conceptual I was recently at a funeral of a key to be drowned and the father went conceptual he just couldn't get to go there and so I was called in to the Shiva for a private meeting with him while he's sitting Shiva to work with him and oh did we break through to something big and there was a brush with death when the father was a child and it just became his greatest fear and and now it all happened for this child but he needed to open up the early the early brush with death to get to the death of his child but by the end of that hour he was like he was screaming like blood curdles screams of the child's name throughout his house the mother sitting Shiva with him people you could just hear people will start wailing throughout that house and then we ended it in the most beautiful way cuz it was the end of the Shiva so we went in the most beautiful way that we m we invited all his children cuz I said to listen your kids your kids are always vying for your attention there's a constant there's a constant jealousy and children over someone and you just spent the last week focusing only on the one child that's gone I bet you your kids right now feel like chopped liver and are gonna stay with chopped liver cuz they realize now that you're he's the one you really loved and I've counseled many adults who had this happen so meaning they lost a sibling when they were children and that was it for them their parents only love that person because they saw their parents a parent who loses a child is never the same again and so the kids see that there's like there was part a of our fathers life and our mother's life there was Part B of our parents life and and they would never go that far for me I mean they would never like I wouldn't be that important to them cuz we saw how important that kid is today so what we did we had all the kids come and sit on sit all around him and he hugged them all together and explained to them that this week was dedicated to - I don't want to say the kids names to protect privacy this week was dedicated to and but you should know the rest of my life is dedicated to you and we just had to spend a whole week on him and now we're spending the rest of our lives on you and the kids were just so moved little ones just a little all ages but down some really little kids oh oh experience that was and and those emotions are right under us all the time in there they're all over us all the time like we have deep emotion that's just right there it's right under the surface of all of us and even right now you can do just take a deep breath close your eyes a moment mm-hmm just take a deep breath close your eyes I'm not gonna give you anything to cry about but just breathe and let your heart go there for a moment I'm just feeling that place where the tears are where the pain is human beings have great capacity for pain an expression of me just close your eyes and breathe right into the chest where the pain is I'm just gonna open up the valve again we're not I mean you can give yourself something to cry about so you're not necessarily gonna cry right now cuz you have to have a subject to cry over there's no such thing as emotion without first thoughts of painful things you know every every being in the world with with I with eyes has tear ducts to lubricate the movement of the eye otherwise I would get stuck but it's only human beings that produce you know a million times that amount of liquid because when God created us he knew that as psychological beings we're going to be sponging in all kinds of experiences many of which will be painful and the only way that you will be a happy person like the toddler will be to cry out your pain so you don't have to cry now because we're not discussing any particular painful subject but but just let yourself go to that area it's usually in the upper chest area breathe and open that place up you may find yourself crying later today just by opening it now and you can now think of someone maybe in your life that's hurting that you love someone you love that's hurting right now maybe they're lonely maybe they haven't found their soulmate maybe they're going through something particularly difficult think about someone take a moment think about someone you really love just one person you really love who's hurting right now just breathe into that place breathe deep and opening the chest so when you love was hurting maybe you're hurt open up the valve paint no one ever died or got injured from feeling pain okay you can open your eyes and it's just an exercise and letting yourself let yourself go to that place and yeah so letting yourself go to that place it's uh usually shouldn't wipe your tears I'm on my live feed right now I'd tell people all the times it makes your nose run generally you so I tell people blow your nose don't like the deer I think those things are precious let them land in God's God's little flask in heaven because tears are precious to God and he hears the prayers of the person crying so my prayers are to my wife that she should have comfort over the loss of her her uncle slash best friend she got the news about an hour and a half ago that he missed eight years old miracle life for a guy who over smoked and you know as long as he's been on a respirator for a couple years already but meaning uh you know that kind that moves with you with the tank more or less mobile amazing character this guy but they were best for like best friends mentor become best friends she just lost God hears tears and may she be comforted and find a flight and hopefully be on my flight or give me the five spot yeah we're beyond the five sigh we're on the one spot you did great like I said some people so we rather sleep and feel their pain anyway so so and and you should know that that level of being able to cry is available to you it's not like you're like you're different you're not different you can cry and really go into pain and let it go and then be joyful be a happy person I know for myself growing up you know good I built a fortress around my heart of being this light surfer mountain biking beer so again you know lead guitar playing lead singer you know a really tough guy and I didn't cry for I think I didn't cry for 20 years you know I just didn't cry and so the pain just built up and boy did I have some volcanic eruptions once I realized once I realized that the big a horrible mistake that I made who everyone makes it I mean show me anyone who didn't make it them everyone did it never move their life to conceptual and stop crying it's normal I mean I was normal maybe I was a little tougher than I should have been but when I was normal and but once I realized my mistake I went into the work you know I went to seminars where a lot of emotion comes out and I lead a seminar where a lot of motion comes out for me even as the leader sometimes I cry deeply with the people often cry deeply with the people there's been moments you know you know in a particular seminar where where work I was in in Israel where five sisters came to the seminar and each one called me saying can I do it with my sibling puzzling it's not ideal but this is kind of your only chance cuz I'm not running another one for quite some time and and so that all five sisters came so the rule is in the seminars if you ever don't want someone to leave because you feel like you need to share something so they leave anyway so all five of the sisters were sharing throughout the days and so which means four had to go out every time now all five sisters had experienced some really horrific things in their home in their upbringing like really bad stuff and what was happening with all the participants is every time when chaerea like why did they keep leaving why did that your sisters leave they all went through the same you know the same Holocaust but every time one of them spoke the other ones left the last day of the seminar one of them raises her hand she needs to speak gather for get up and as they're walking out the door of the seminar the the sister that one sister says stop sit down enough of this enough of this and she bursts out crying in chairs to share that all four of them had experienced and they're all bawling and I had them all get up in the center of the room and just hug each other it was like this convulsive thing I mean I thought like the whole earth was just gonna fall out of orbit from the weight of the pain that was coming out of them and then I had all the other women coming around them so like they were sandwiched by another like 30 women or 25 women sandwiched them in the whole place but I'm outside the circle we were alike I mean I was crying so intensely like the most intense I've cried everyone was just quivering and you know the deepest sob being there for these girls and but feeling it you know so anyway this is all available to us we just have to start that journey and it's a great journey to be on because yours people will always know you as the happiest person they know and recently recently someone said that I am the happiest person he knows and he's a he's a well-known rabbi in Jerusalem who knows everybody and he said he said that he has ten people that he feels might be happy and I'm the only one he knows is happy and he said the reason was totally different reason the reason is because I I might generate I generate my joy from within I'm not waiting for you to say something nice to me I'm self-generated not others generated that was his answer why and it is true I am self generated but the real answer is not just that the real answer is that plus I cry I cry a lot and I'm I'm the saddest happiest personal you know but I won the award from a rather popular rabbi in Jerusalem as the happiest person he knows visit world travelling rabbi so yeah that was a compliment if I ever got one I didn't even know is that happy but apparently I am yeah that's good you don't need to cry for nothing I mean you want to cry crying for nothing it's worthless think of it figure it out if there is something there yeah no I was only time at your own stuff meanie the pains there anyway so you might as well feel it feel it through I'm timing your own pain throughout the day no time out feeling every every piece of news you hear you know some kid shoots up a school in America and you're we can't peel you off the floor with a spatula you know that's like it's not appropriate maybe it is I personally I don't go there I'm I'm sad for the people I'm very sad for the families and the community but I probably not gonna cry over that but my own paint sure I'm gonna cry that out and it might Ord you sometimes the pain is not that serious but it needs examining yeah emergency workers should go conceptual for sure emergency workers you might want to go conceptual when dentists is about to stick your gums with a needle yeah yeah pretty good conceptual time I was being conceptual today I did this I was at the podiatrist she was cutting out some nail my toe she's like why don't you just lay back cuz I was watch I was like what are you gonna do she's what are you just lay back and I went conceptual for that I don't wanna be part of that thing I'm not gonna be there for that moment so you can go conceptual of those things yeah not absolutely not the depression is having a low mood over time I'm not timing chemically to pray there are people with chemical amounts we're not time at them that's like three presented depressed people have actual chemical amounts the other 97% I don't know how to handle low moods but it's a totally separate subject totally separate sorry and this cannot put you in a little mood this will not but you know it'll but you're not high mood because as soon as you feel it all out you're gonna just be flying yeah when you when you're in those kinds of situations and it's consistent you get out which does not mean jumping off a bridge it means you you get out even if you've got to borrow the money for a flight you just leave and leave and leave and leave and leave and never come back never come back to that except for obviously a visit for a family lifecycle events or whatever but meaning if you're let's say we're living at home in this situation such that you're in that much pain for a month straight two months straight you just that is not the place for you or do your really deep work and see if it's still that painful could be I'm done you're really deep work but you know but in general someone who's already done the real deep work will now be vigilant for their well-being for a high level of well-being which environment effects so if the environment is causing a loss of well-being and you've already done all your inner work and so it's really the environment that's bothering you like for example putting me in a city would be hard for me you know I'd probably need to get out eventually and just never move back there again so I already did that I left LA I left the LA scene I don't know 30 years ago 32 years ago I never came back never went back to a city like that Jerusalem I can explain it away because of a spirituality here okay it's after lunchtime so I think you guys better go eat something so I'm everybody back in two weeks [Music]