How to Protect Your Kids from Toxic Family Members

I know the end of the story. God is revealed in the world. I know how this story ends. It's a glorious ending. And each family that wakes up and each individual wakes up is getting us closer to that. If my children are exposed to dysfunction and unhealthy behaviors from extended family members and they hear questions and get confused, how do I as a parent respond to them? These family members are hurtful to my husband and myself. Okay. Well, there's a couple things here. First of all, I'm assuming the person who wrote this question already knows this, but I'll just say it. You don't have to expose yourself to everything. Like I said with women, you don't have to accept everything your husband is offering if you don't feel it's safe. Well, there is such a thing as boundaries and making choices about what types of situations I put myself. And sometimes you just have to have more self-respect and be more firm about that. That's part of it. That's only part of it. The other part of it is, okay, so now let's say you're doing your best to protect yourself and your children, but there's still some stuff that gets past the filter and your children are exposed to it. Okay? So, if you're really doing your best to not to not allow that stuff in, but it's still getting through I think it's an opportunity. Your children are going to find out sooner or later that not everybody is healthy. Or to put it in a different more positive way that each of us are at different stages of healing. And sometimes people who we're related to In fact, sometimes people we love are not very far along in their process of healing and they're still doing things that are sick. I think it's helpful for children to understand that these are not bad people. These are people who are unwell and that we have to have compassion. At the same time, having compassion doesn't mean to lack compassion on myself and to disrespect myself by accepting every toxic thing that somebody wants to put on me. I can be compassionate and I can also have self-respect. I can understand that people are imperfect and they do things that are hurtful. That's what you wrote in the question. These relatives are acting in a way that's hurtful. Okay. Where should your children learn how to deal with that other than from you? Hashem is creating the situation. Hashem engineered the situation. Hashem knows what he's doing. So, this is your opportunity to model for your children how to deal with hurtful people. And every situation is your opportunity to model for your children how to deal with a world that's still imperfect. We're closer to perfection than ever, but there are still vestigages of of sickness and sometimes it comes out in ways that are hurtful. But we need to know how to deal with it. One of the ways is not to be panicked. Again, we we were engul for so long that we get triggered so deeply by any threat, any amount of toxicity makes us feel like there's this massive monster consuming us. And it's not true. The clip of today, it's don't feed it. We're the only ones who give it strength. like the woman who can't get rid of the tor because in her mind she made it such a big thing that but that's how it always is. We make it into such a big thing. It's not a big thing. The people who are hurting you are just unwell people. They're just not well. Okay. So dav for them. Say a tilum for them. If you can help them, help them. If you can't, sometimes you can't help them. Okay? You say tillum for them. That's it. We don't have to make it this dark looming monster. You know, elephants in the circus, how do they keep them tied down? They chain their foot to a spike in the ground. But the reality is that any elephant can just pull that spike right out of the ground with just one lifting their foot. So then why don't the elephants all run away from the circus? And the answer is that they catch the elephants when they're babies and they chain them up when they're babies. And when they're babies, they're not strong enough to rip that chain out of the ground. And after a few thousand times trying to do it, they give up and they come to a state known as learned helplessness. Well, I want to ask you a question. You don't think all the mitzvah that were done for thousands of years refined this world and made it a more delicate, more refined place? You don't think all the midnish and the martyrdom and the Jewish blood that soaked the soil had a refining effect on the world? You don't think everything that our ancestors did for millennia had any effect? Of course it did. So today the clippa is so flimsy but our minds give it power. So we think we're chained down and so we would even attempt to lift our foot because we still think we can't. But the real the reality is we can at this point any individual who chooses can be liberated and can can experience a gula protise. A gula protis means that psychologically you can already be living in the times of Messiah. Psychologically, I'm not pretending that the world is all ready for that until the entire world is liberated and redeemed. Okay, we're still in gullis and we're still going to have to fast on tishabove, but it could happen in the next two days that the entire world could become liberated and Messiah will be here and we won't fast on tishab. And if it doesn't happen on a universal scale, then at least let it happen for you. Everything that's terrifying you internally and externally, all these monsters are nothing. There's nothing stopping us today from being healthy. There's nothing stopping us today from being loving and serene and at peace and kind and generous and and and fearless. There's nothing stopping us except for our own internalized gullless trauma. And if I could share any message with you today, it is that I want you to keep your eyes open and watch people waking up. It's happening already. One by one, people are waking up. And you can choose to be terrified by it or you can celebrate it. I'm celebrating it because I know who wins in the end. I know the end of this story. Messiah comes. I know the end of the story. God is revealed in the world. I know how this story ends. It's a glorious ending. And each family that wakes up and each individual that wakes up is getting us closer to that.