Mindfulness, Eretz Yisrael, Chasidus w Rabbi Dr. Rueven Insel - Rabbi Chaim Dalfin

welcome to meaningful interviews I'm here today with a good friend Rabbi Dr Ruan enel a clinical psych he has a degree in Clinical Psychology he served as the Director of the psychiatric facilities both in New York and in err his area of expertise is DBT and mindfulness from a neuroscientific perspective he has an honory POS he's had an honor position as chairman of the crosscultural committee for the New York State Office of mental health presently he's writing and giving shurm lectures integrating mindfulness andus and in particular now because of the situation and er uh Dr Rabbi Dr enel is using EBT DBT and mindfulness to help people go through this period with the situation is so welcome if if you don't mind I'd like to call you Ruan because you're a friend yeah I prefer that yes okay welcome welcome Ruan to the to the program and um why don't you begin by telling us just what is DBT and mindfulness before we get to it how it applies to go ahead uh I just one point at comment what you mentioned earlier is the goal of what I'm doing is is to to create support for for in including two of my son-in-laws who are fighting in Gaza uh that we're doing things here that can impact them that give them support although and that we're uh oceans have AR tof smoke home they don't impact our ability to help them absolutely absolutely so let's start and we're very appreciative that you're adding this feature and this important um therapy method uh again I'm just using it in a loose way therapy to help to help everyone especially there just so go ahead okay um I'll stru I'll start with this defining mindfulness um and what's and I call Jewish mindfulness what is Jewish mindfulness what does that mean how am I adding to the concept of mindfulness then I will briefly discuss like not going to go in depth obviously the the the neurobiological how mindful affects the brain and most important two last things is how and I'm going to cite things from the and from the present reab which underscores how what we do here can actually affect the morale and the way the the perceive the mat okay and then finally I have interesting as P your advice I have two interesting uh cases where actually helped two people who come from totally two different places that you'll see at the end of this but it's amazing they arrived at the same place okay so why don't to go ahead okay mindfulness is a is a I I need you ruing to look into the camera when you speak okay I'm saying you could look at your notes or whatever you need to but I try to face to me okay okay mindfulness is a a awareness and the nonjudgmental acceptance of present moment experiences that's a general definition of and different sources you'll find that's the general definition so live is it living with the moment being fully in the moment B exactly okay okay now now what what is DBT what does it stand for ah okay okay DBT stands for thetical behavior therapy uh I was trained directly by Dr Marsha linan who's the founder she's retired now she was the founder of the electrial behavior therapy uh me and uh a colleague will train directly under her so that we can adapt DBT to working with diverse segments of the treatment population and so is is DBT another word for mindfulness no so let me explain I was going to get to that there there in DBT you have four training modules or four skills training modules the first one is called core mindfulness course mindfulness is is is a a theme which pervades all the other skills words you can't learn the other skills unless you have mind the second thing which Dr Lan uses is called interpersonal Effectiveness skills emotional regulation skills and dist stress tolerance skills but in all these four modules uh mindfulness is the it's the main thing because it allows the uh the the patient to to to learn the skills and to integrate the skills so they can apply them so yes I became familiar with mindfulness through DBT okay but but you're saying it's two different approaches one is not contradict the other mindfulness refers to a specific skill okay DB we have the basis for it is mindfulness but DBT is elal behavior therapy is uh is a a treatment intervention unto itself okay so but today we're talking about mindfulness exactly Contin now from where we left off before I asked okay okay now if I gave the definition of mindfulness right being aware right of U present moment experience that um I would say that beckons a very obvious question okay that who's we say awareness who's who's having the awareness is it the brain the mind the self that's the first question okay and secondly the subject of awareness what are we being aware of okay so for this I'm referring to one of my academic Ms be also that parenthetically does have nothing to do with the session the biggest people in the field were all hi right even people don't know which I the most famous person to use mindfulness is John kabid Zin everybody heard about him I only found out a year ago that he's a yid okay let's go back I got it yeah okay parenthetically okay now so who's having the awareness so for this um I referred to the Daniel seagull Dr Daniel seagull he's professor of Psychiatry at UCLA Medical School ER he was trained in Harvard Medical School um and he's uh founded what's called interpersonal neurobiology which is what I do it's approaching mindfulness through a neuroscientific perspective okay and and finally ER Dr SEO the prolific author the over 25 books he's written I spoke to him a lot about my doctorate dissertation and uh in his uh he also started the in in California it's called The mindsight Institute which focuses totally on mindfulness through his uh neuroscientific perspective oh right so why am I using why am I citing Dr seagull now uh because he used a wonderful metaphor for mindfulness and to answer the questions who's being aware and what are being why are they being aware of he calls this the wheale of awareness again the wheale of awareness this is the Daniel seagull's um metaphor in a wheel he says you have the Hub the center of the wheel then you have the spikes of the wheel and then you have the rim that's is metaphor oh so the hug is that part of the person having a aess the spikes is where a person the spikes of the whale is where a person is directing his uh uh attention what he's focusing on and in the segment of the whe you have different things L for example one segment of the will can be uh emotions one segment of the will can be thoughts one segment of the will can be be uh relationships and another segment of the will can be U wishing kindness to other people oh so that's how we explain so Dr seagull that's how he explains the person having awareness and the and the object of the awareness but again the question is that who's having awareness here is it the mind the brain or or the person themselves the self now okay we have to understand first of all that the self in is clearly not what the self as a Define it let's say in eastern psychology you know they they call the self the nonself okay in s is the the essence of one Soul now interesting although Dr sigle doesn't have a spiritual uh training he bemon a fact that in Harvard University which is the elite of elite well today people don't think that anymore but the old days of Harvard he said you would ask any medical student what the brain is oh they're going for hours and hours telling what the brain is when is what's mind they look at you mind I don't know what mind is so Dr sigo is he says mind is closer to we call Self okay but from a perspective perspective the the mind I would say is the is the of the brain clearly is like we call a k a vessel whereby one can use the Mind towards thinking about whatever the mind directs the person to to focus on okay H and making the distinction is very important because um the Mind once you say make distinction between the mind and the brain that means that the mind can have an impact on the brain the mind can actually uh change the brain in scientific terms we call it neuroplasticity with the B can always change H I'll jump ahead now I want to read something one line from the reen okay and but okay he says this is taken fromat it's very which is very very appropriate to this coming shabas actually I discussed here okay the K the says I'm I just site one line this is from the from the r that through his b one can make a a uh uh scratches and curses within the within the brain yeah his b means meditation contemplation meditation good yeah through meditation one can actually change the brain yes we'll talk about this tomorrow but uh just for right now you know I I I I recall learning this in the previous my and I'm sure it goes back to the AL but I never understood it I I you know what does it mean I mean I you know I trusted the if he says it he knows what he's saying but what does that mean so you're saying that it it it if in the teachings of mindfulness it it makes a lot of sense is that what am I understanding it's interesting though you s you said you stated that uh you found this in by another places when I discussed this with the Mas here in Arizona from the mfta we had we had a beautiful conversation he said he said that the the re he added a word and and and re add the word which makes it even better because at pictures of the brain okay okay the gray matter of cerebral cortex the top layer of the brain you you see folds it's not clle looks fs and CR what's the point straight matter by re using two words he's saying that through meditation or mindfulness but he with his speaking about his Bon you create changes both Within the crevices between parts of the brain yeah the surface part right surface and then it goes down and then it goes back up so re was exacting in his in his terminology okay let's continue okay okay now so what is this what now what does this have to do with you and I on a daily basis oh first um in other words this is my question Ru my question is if we don't if we don't have the knowledge or um why should I engage this is the purpose of this uh interview why should I engage in mindfulness if uh I I've had I have all kinds of other therapies and uh past approaches to uh to be calm to be uh uh healthy you know in other words what is it about let me say it otherwi is be is mindfulness part of cognitive therapy um I would say that um it's cognitive therapy plus because I have a little knowledge cognitive therapy let me give a let to answer your question let me give you a uh a very a very nice uh demonstration a very visual demonstration okay question with demonstration okay it's called the the the brain in the palm of your hand okay I have my hand up like this do you see my hand yes I do okay now the from the wrist all the way to the fingertips is the cereal part of the brain thinking or or and the wrist below is the spinal cord before the wrist you have the what's known as the brain stem which has to do with the breathing and what's call fight and flight and then so that's that this is the outer part of the brain I I'll show you in a second why this is very relevant the the thumb yes you see on represents the lyic system middle part of brain not the surface which has to do with emotions okay H if you fold your hand like this okay you cover the thumb right okay so what this represents is that the the cognitive parts of the brain right uh are connected to the emotional parts of the brain you can change the your feelings based on what you're thinking about yeah mind mind over matter right but more than that but this is again this is based on scientific research the the two middle fingers below okay it's called the middle prefrontal cortex that's four parts I'll say very quickly I'm not going into academic lecture right now you have the medial the middle part of these two fingers you have the vental the front o orbital cortex which is right behind the eyes so this whole part is like for the farad okay and these this part of the brain is very and it's very is crucial once you activate it for creating integration integration there's two types of integration vertical and horizontal what do I mean by that vertical is is a ER between like I said the the the intellect and the limic system via a part of the the mid frontal cortex called an anus single singular which has to do with the emotions and the concentration and most important has to do with h Bridging the Gap between emotions and intellect and also we have two hands the brain is made up from the right right from the right Hemisphere and the left hemisphere through mindfulness and this is all research documented and that through mindfulness we actually can Bridge the right Hemisphere and the left hemisphere and vice versa the right hemisphere is mostly mostly emotions things globally in contr less he spere is more like linear type of thinking and more logic so that when you have neural integration you have you're able to have emotional regulation okay emotional response f uh flexibility you don't act impulsively you think about what you're doing and also what's fantastic it showed as well in research that using mindfulness actually creates in interconnectivity not only within the brain of the person but between the person and other people as well okay so now how does this because time is getting short how does this into the situation okay um I'm gonna quote actually I'm gonna read in English uh from the of the got as a pres my dear friend he should be well with and uh I'll read just a couple of lines from from this and you'll see what the connection is okay this is directly tell exactly oh this is from new test this is from oh yeah this is some mut slave from the previous rebi okay in the year of er 5702 I guess so 1942 is that correct yes okay I'm going to read just the a few lines and then the two lines of's comments okay and that and I'm using sliding the Fe the to sh to underscore the concept that what we do here can have a positive effect upon okay so I'm starting with the the okay we have very short in the realm of thought distance of time and distance of place are of no account knowledge and Imagination can raise a person to a truly high level provided that the knowledge is inward not knowledge as understood inas and is followed by imagination 's notes Here read it briefly in the above paragraph obviously knowledge does not me mean merely intellectual Mastery of Torah text but rather an intimate connection with elus likewise imagination in this context does not mean mere meditation on a Godly subject as an academic exercise but a li a live experience of it this is this is from the fre and yes I'm I'm aware of the it's the beginning the idea is if if we here okay use mindfulness towards H ER becoming calm okay towards having a positive outlook on the M okay we can through that we can actually affect the morale and the of the soldiers themselves in as as the re says in we have S the God is our shadow if we think positive and we're happy and we have and if we sing on like all the soldiers do today then the aish as our shadow he bestows his kindness in a very open way right absolutely that's now tell me now tell me now um tell me now please uh those two stories or one or two of that you you you said I asked you to tell show me through a story real life experience how mindfulness has helped someone please yeah okay I have two stories um initially these two stories seem like these are people on totally two different Journeys but I believe the the the story shows that ultimately they they end up in the same destination although they're both from two Journeys and they're both validated true stories okay one the first story has to do with a a medic and his name is D Fisher D is my son's name so I remember his name Fisher oh he just got out of the army and three months before October 7th he was in India like many Israelis searching searching for God something spiritual he said he was with this Guru they had no cell phones nothing um but October 8th when he left the guru he heard the news he he came running back to that's one person I'll tell you his mice in a second the other mice which is really related to the first I'll tell you how but it's a totally different person totally different background a 92y old Holocaust Survivor um her name is Mrs Feldman I'm sorry no sorry Mrs Walman the Omi Walman 92 years old now let me tell you these two stories see and you'll see p you'll see how how how the how their inner awareness which is whole I'll give you which is whole how the same I think I want to end up with a with a anecdote by Rabbi Dr turski which speaks about the holess of the N beautiful anecdote but anyway let me tell you the mea first okay like you asked me yes now when their Fisher should have was a medic he ran back to of course he came from the I don't like word they use let's let's go on yeah go backround he got two weeks training and immediately they put him in his platoon as a medic okay Mish the second second day of being in Gaza he was shot by a sniper in the neck okay as a medic he realized his injury was very critical and very severe he said he said that what he did at that point was he he start citing a mantra which he learned the words again and again which you learned from a from Guru in India yes he said he did this because this helped him get in touch with a part of himself which was which is unaffected by what just happened okay and besides he says physically it helped lower his blood pressure ER and u which was critical for him to be saved lower B and and his heart rate but his but he cited the Mantra because he to get in touch to totally Focus to get in touch with a part of him which was totally unaffected by what just happened to him okay the me with the me with Naomi Walman was very different she made a video herself to be uh uh played for all the soldiers what was a video it's very hot it's very touching when you what she says mom I had tears in my eyes when I heard this her speak she said that as a little child the Nazi they took the neighbors the family to concentration camp and she said everybody and she was a very young girl they saw anything they knew in t the gar she said in Psalms to H him they start sighting things but as a girl she didn't know much she she was a little girl but she what she decided to do to make keep her sense of sanity this is a six-year-old girl what she was she kept on repeating the following words she said again and again like a like a mantra these words again and again so while people for hour saying to him she kept repeating those words and she says in this video she's talking to the soldiers you should know you have a secret weapon what's the secret weapon in she made a video for soldiers and in Hebrew she said at this point Her Voice cracked when she she could she had a whole back of Tears she says in Hebrew means bread also it's close to the root of Warriors so if you focus on a on God's blessings that he gave you bread this will take the Warriors out of our land oh and she made a video ER for all the soldiers to see this okay okay what does have to do with mindfulness because as we spoke earlier mindfulness is is a totally focus on the present moment when you totally focus on the present moment you're getting in touch with that part of yourself which is unaffected by any external reality okay so fish had one way but ultimately his one way was he was getting in tust with theam and I I truly believe as many other Israeli soldiers who right now are not they'll realize that they're really getting in touch with the shama and the same and Nami wolman was saying taka that she used also repeating manra to get in touch with that part of her so this is mindfulness where you totally focus on in the present moment now how can a person Focus totally on a present moment without worrying about the past and the future and the answer is is very simple the is whole just like hasem is omnipresent omnipotent if you're getting in touch with your you're part of your soul is a part of God you can translate for your audience so terms such as past and future irrelevant right all you have right now is the moment right right the soul the Jewish Soul I'll end up with a for points of brevity I'll end up with a with a with a story told many years ago one of his first books by Rabbi doski and he says an anecdote whether anecdote is true or not I don't know but it underscores the point that the EM of a person is always whole okay as as the fish felt as well as Naomi woman and we have to feel we feel it then we can also it helps for the soldiers and everybody in my okay what is it what is it please what's the Mya uh Dr T call the Houdini story what's Houdini you got four minutes four minutes okay I'll make it quick the the anecdote is people our age okay my age okay let's talk about my age know who was okay he was a famous he a Jew by the way a famous escape artist okay everybody gave him different challenges and invariably he always managed to get out of the challenge right Escape one time a a prison warden came over to him and say I have his cell and there's no way you can escape from the cell okay so who he accepted the challenge like he always did so he was placed in the cell and Houdini spent the whole day trying to unlock the the the door of the cell he couldn't the first time he was stumped he was and was cold the end of the day he he was much exhausted so just sat down on the on the prison floor M gave up he can't escape he leaned on the prison door and voila the the cell door opened up the the warden prison came over him and says I'll tell you the secret here okay you could unlock the cell door because the cell door was never locked in the first place and says the story to bring out the point that the essence of a person is always whole it's not broken we have to realize that and uh to Su up and through mindfulness enables us we totally focus in the present don't think about the past or the future that's a way for us to get in touch with the essence of who we are and when we do that it also helps deed in I just want to say one more thing because it's negated to deed and again I'm I'm taken from the from the from the re from the the menen because we spoke about thinking where we think but I want to bring out also okay go ahead you have a minute okay a minute okay I'm reading from a letter from a GU from from theand just he says like this I have strong faith clear Faith by aing in Judaism in America in the spirit of Torah and dedication it's definitely will have an effect there because regard to spiritual things uh physical borders and boundaries have no relevance right was talking about thought so the the he's talking about if we get stuck here this the course a spiritual thing it helps I would like to take this moment first of all to thank you very much Rabbi Dr ruen enel for the time you spent to explain to us the importance of mindfulness especially today with the situation and the way you explain the connection between mindfulness and how through learning and I want to emphasize that you didn't mention that much but I would like to say as a teacher ofid with online teachings and many books written on the topic to beic and other such of books that I've authored and available at rabid do.com the the the combination of mindfulness fits very with this is very much almost one of the same because we have the idea of Mind Over Matter okay I said you know that whether it's not exactly the same but the point is the mindfulness and and by the way in my first book I wrote your better self which was endorsed by Rabbi torski RAB tski I have a chapter there called mindfulness without at that time I wrote it uh almost 30 years name the book the name of the book you're better self you're better self and and and and the reason that rabit tski endorsed is because of that um so although I didn't uh you know I wasn't studied in in the same you know subjects matters that you took but I believe a lot of the conclusions sound the same so I want to encourage everyone to learn uh Rabbi Dr inel is available in Arizona currently uh