The REAL reason you’re STRESSED (and how to stop it)

I start using This Magnificent machine to stack all of these narratives these stories about why I am freaked out and in some perverse way I find that comforting because it's an explanation we love explanations I'm not really stressed because of all these stories I'm telling myself I'm telling myself this story is because I'm stressed how should I start a series on is the Hebrew word for faith a Jewish spiritual perspective on this very very hot topic that everyone's so interested in today I I don't think there's a better way to start it than with a classic Jewish joke so one night Abe is tossing and turning and his wife Sarah says to him uh AB dear what's going on why are you tossing and turning and he says well I borrowed a thousand dollars and it's due the loan is due tomorrow I have to pay it and I don't have a scent and I just I'm so worried I can't sleep so Sarah says to Abe dear who who did you borrow the thousand dollars from who do you owe the money to he says well actually it's uh it's our neighbor in this building uh he lives upstairs you know you know Morris right she says yes of course you know Mars well I owe him the money the money's due tomorrow morning and I I don't have a dollar I don't have a spot I don't have a penny I don't have any of it I'm just beside myself with worry and I can't sleep so Sarah says to Abe Abe don't worry she goes to the window she opens the window and she says Morris and all of a sudden they hear a window upstairs open up he says yeah she says that's you he says yeah Sarah says uh did my husband a borrow a thousand dollars from you which is due to pay back tomorrow he says yeah she says he doesn't have any of it she closes the window she turns around she says you can sleep now Abe Morris is going to worry so I want to talk a little bit about um the god-given survival mechanism that is productive and useful where we react to negative stimuli and it helps us to remain safe and I want to talk about the exact same physiological mechanisms which are triggered by stuff that there's absolutely nothing we can do about and therefore it's a complete complete waste of time and energy and and as I'm about to go into this I just want to make a major disclaimer here my training and my qualifications are solely exclusively within the rabbin it I'm a rabbi I know a lot of people who know my work make certain assumptions about credentials that I have but I can assure you my only certification is my rabbinical ordination I'm not a mental health professional I do admit and I sometimes talk about the fact that my father may be well is a psychologist and I did grow up in the home of a psychologist which does account for some of my anxiety and other issues as well there's no one is messed up as the children of the psychologist um yeah but I am not a mental health professional and I'm not attempting to describe any of these things with any type of authority if I make any reference to anxiety I'm not attempting to do so in any clinical fashion more so what I'm referencing are popular usages the way that people now colloquially use these terms uh like when you heard the title anxiety in tonight's talk what Drew you to come here is probably some type of understanding about what that means so I'm just using the term in the same type of way so I mentioned there are these uh reactions that we have which are god-given as a Believer I have to believe that they're god-given others would say that they are uh what they call biologically advantageous and developed through Evolution I I that's really not my point tonight so I what all I want to say is there are reactions that people have to distress which are important for survival um and again I see it as that's how God made us when you are walking down the street and suddenly you hear something uh and you can't exactly make out what is that sudden noise and you can't identify is that a threat so there's a reason why um you have a rush of chemicals you have the cortisol and the adrenaline and your heart pumps and you sweat and your pupils dilate there are productive reasons for that and it's so that we can quickly decide how to deal with the situation fight or flight uh get out of there or or try to engage with the threat whatever it may be and and that's all very important and we wouldn't want it any other way I mean yeah I mean ideally we want that there shouldn't be negative negative stimuli at all but and when mashiach comes in the world is perfect there won't be but until such a time that there are no threats and no negative things in the world obviously it's good to have a built-in alarm system that's a good thing okay and it's good that the alarm system uses uh cues that get our attention and also not only get our attention but prepare us for some quick uh action so all of that those physiological responses are are good they're a good thing okay that's if we're actually responding to stimuli in our environment what if however we're having the physiological response the stomach ache the tight throat the the headache whatever it is and each of us experience these symptoms a little bit differently um when we get that adrenaline dump in our bloodstream but what if we're not reacting to any stimuli in our environment we're reacting to our thoughts our own thoughts so that's what I want to talk about tonight we're going to we're we're going to be doing this for three weeks it's a three week series there are many different aspects of anxiety but for tonight I just want to zero in on what do you do when your body is going into survival mode as a reaction or response to your own thoughts sometimes that's not what's causing it and we can talk about that in the coming uh evenings but tonight I want to talk about what when what about when it is and in response to our own thoughts so uh maybe we can start to uh we can be biblical for a minute I told you I'm a rabbi so shouldn't surprise you too much um I'll I'll go to the wisdom of of King Solomon malach the wisest of all men and he wrote in his book uh mishlay the proverbs a dog the levish a worry in the heart of Manchester means uh subjugated some some read the verse it subjugates him the worry subjugates his heart or he could really he should subjugate it what does this mean this is the this is the verse in Hebrew in the original Hebrew so this is this subject of a discussion in the talmud specifically in track that Yuma dafa in 75a folio 75a immaculation two of the uh sages of the era of the talmud so sometimes the way the sage is extract meaning from from scripture as you know or many of you may know that the Bible is written without vowels Hebrew was written with consonants only there is a system of vowels but that's a not included in the in the Bible and then there's a reason for that the reason is because multiple layers or levels of meaning are meant to be included in every word of scripture so sometimes a rabbinic exegesis is a process of unpacking layers of meaning from the words of scripture by introducing different ways of vocalizing or vowelizing the same the same word so in the original scripture it says both read it two different ways and please remember whenever there is a difference of opinion of the sages it is not an actual debate or disagreement it is both of these and these are the words of the Living God in other words the truth is much larger than one perspective I know in today's day and age we all live in our search engine Bubbles and we've all been radicalized towards the most extreme version of whatever political opinion we had in the 90s and then by this point everybody is basically completely a caricature of their original views I know that no offense but that's if you have uh internet access that's what's happened to your brain so which is probably probably also part of the anxiety which we'll talk about uh later but I know in 2023 thank God we don't write checks anymore because I'd be throwing out a lot of you know remember we used to write checks and you you wouldn't be able to write the correct year until like April okay at any rate so I know that we all have extreme uh views and we like to have real black and white views it's either this or it's that but in the in the case where our sages have Divergent opinions about their interpretation of scripture or any other matter both perspectives are valid perspectives and different ways of looking at the truth the truth is more nuanced than can be expressed or contained within one vantage point so we need both of these so they read it like this and as I said this is the Gambar in Yuma yasihana you pronounces the shin as a sin those who know Hebrew will be able to follow what that is remove it from your mind ignore it forget about it don't think about it the other one says yes from the word conversation speak it out to others to others very different approaches one is saying ignore it the other's saying talk about it well which one is it they're very different one is saying pretend it's not there that's the first opinion the other one is I'm going to lean into it I'm going to talk about it I'm going to articulate it I'm going to explain what it is so as I said both of these are valid approaches and I want to talk a little bit about where and when each one of these is appropriate and how to apply them so I'll introduce another verse from from King Solomon for a moment here this is from kehalis or what they call Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 29 schleming Malik saysi but see I found another thing I found another truth Yasha that God made a person yahshua Yasha means straight but probably the more literal uh translation in this context would be straightforward like simple not complicated people are not complicated the way God made the way God made us King Solomon continues and says the Hema however they the people themselves they seek out many calculations or many reasons So objectively speaking human beings are pretty simple but subjectively speaking the way that we experience Being Human uh we can complicate it what does that mean it means as I was saying before um Hashem created us a certain way and we understand why he created us that way and he gave us the ability to respond to adverse stimuli and that's a good thing now sometimes we get it wrong you know we're not always a hundred percent accurate in assessing a threat or sometimes we assess a threat and then we realize that it's not a threat but it's better to be safe than sorry it's better to be a little bit more Vigilant and then once you've determined that it's safe so you could dismiss it and you move on so that's a good thing so it's not so complicated really not so complicated my maker gave me this wonderfully sophisticated system that for my own benefit freaks out from time to time it's not a bug it's a feature okay it's not so complicated however like King Solomon says God made a simple we complicate it what happens what happens if we don't understand this if we don't understand that this is the way that our maker and His Infinite Wisdom designed us the Mind Body package we start to search for a coherent narrative to explain why we're feeling the way we're feeling we love narratives we love stories we love explanations that's what human beings do they always want to figure out patterns well why is something this way what's the cause what's the effect and uh we're not that good at it sometimes we don't distinguish between correlation and causation but we're comforted by it we find it comforting to have an explanation so for instance Maybe my heart is pounding and I'm sweating and my stomach isn't digesting food very well because my blood is being pumped to my legs so I can run and it's being diverted from my digestive organs because that's of secondary importance according to my built-in god-given alarm system and and the reason is just because there are some cues in my environment that are telling my survival mechanism that hey it might be good to pay attention and just make sure that you're safe that's that's not so complicated that's simple now we'll talk about later I think not tonight about when the alarm system is broken okay but but for now let's just talk about the fact that um the the reaction the physiological reaction is not such a mystery it's really it's not such a mystery what happens though is Hashem made us simple and we seek many calculations we seek these complex narratives which in our mind make this situation more understandable and therefore feel more comforting but actually what are we doing we're driving ourselves insane what do we do we say aha I know why I'm going into fight or flight mode it's because and we give ourselves a reason now one of the ways that you can tell that these reasons are not valid if you get good at it you can start to release right away they're not they're not valid but even if you're a beginner one way that you can sort of sense that these reasons are not so valid is what we call stacking it's what we call stacking that I'm feeling anxious I'm having physiological symptoms of being not at ease and then I start thinking oh you know what it is it's uh my credit cards are due tomorrow okay maybe yeah maybe that is it maybe that is why you woke up with a stomachache is because your credit cards are due tomorrow I don't think that's really it because why'd you wake up with the stomach right but let's say maybe that's it but then you wait another half a minute my credit cards are due tomorrow and I have a meeting at work with a very difficult client and I'm really dreading that so you start stacking and we're out of milk we're out of milk and when am I going to get the milk and up and now and I'm late for work and I'm having a bad hair day and whenever you said you just start stacking and some of them are big things some of them are little things so what is that clear clearly an indication of okay none of those are the reason those are explanations so I'm my my body is in a state of of fight or flight and then which is a simple thing it's a survival thing but my powerful powerful human brain starts seeking explanations and the problem is I believe those explanations and then those become very um beloved bedtime stories those stories that I write and I literally mean bedtime stories because you're trying to fall asleep right normally bedtime stories are stories that are told to soothe the child to go to sleep these are the opposite these are the stories we keep ourselves up with at night and instead of realizing that maybe I'm just over stimulated maybe I just need some chamomile tea and I need a hot shower and they need to get into bed and they need to turn off the lights I need to put away the screens instead of that what do I do I start using This Magnificent machine to stack all of these narratives these stories about why I am freaked out and in some perverse way I find that comforting because it's an explanation we love explanations rather than just saying you know what I'm wound up right now maybe I need to drink more water maybe I need to get more exercise maybe I need medication but I'm not really stressed because of all these stories I'm telling myself I'm telling myself I'm telling myself this story is because I'm stressed you follow what I'm saying so if that's the case and so often it is this is why one of our two urbanic opinions tells us when you have a worry on the heart ignore it don't think about it yes averted from your mind because it's not the real reason anyway you're not going to get anywhere remember we were talking about the difference between responding to stimuli in our immediate environment and anxiety about something that is not in the Here and Now not something I can react to Abe worrying about the loan that's due tomorrow morning I guess now Morris is worrying about it so in in that case there's nothing productive with that story the story is a fantasy the story is actually taking us out of if there were any productive action course of action to be to be pursued at this moment and sometimes there's not but even if there were the story is taking us away from that because the story is a projection about a future and then there's a whole other discussion which is the flip side of the same coin which are when you stay up at night cringing about all the embarrassing moments from your past that you're sure that everyone in the world still talks about regularly right so but that's that's the same thing that's what one is looking in the past the other one is looking in the future either way there's not anything you can do to be re to react and to be to be productive about something that either took place in the past or may or may not take place in the future okay so again these are stories they're not actual they're not actual realities they're not happening now these are Stories We Tell ourselves if if it's about the past then that's regret and resentment if it's about the future then we call it anxiety and worry but either way those are Stories We Tell ourselves but again we're not stressed because of the story we're telling ourselves the story because we're stressed so like again like I'm saying maybe you need to drink more water and we all do and maybe you need to cut down on screen time and we all do and maybe you need to go on a on a news fast for a month I promise you the same craziness will be going on a month from now you could go on a news fast for a month um or maybe you need to minimize uh unnecessary um interactions that you're having with people who are who are who are uh not safe people maybe that maybe that's the source of it I mean there's a lot of things maybe you need to be doing to minimize stress in your life but the story that we're telling ourselves at night when we can't sleep is usually not the real story and the best proof of it is these stories usually have nothing that you can do about them you know you know the difference between anxiety and fear I mean in in English the way they use these terms anxiety and fear but it's it's a Biblical concept anxiety and fear when when the Jews came out of Egypt so you know the story I mean I'm assuming once a year at least you get together at the Passover seder and you read the Maxwell House and you know about the whole story about coming out of Egypt right okay so you know seven days after The Exodus there was a splitting of the sea right okay so during the splitting of the sea there's a song that Moses and the Jewish people sank and in this song one of the things they speak about is how at that point in history the whole world was in awe of the Jewish people because they'd just been miraculously redeemed from slavery coming out of the most powerful nation in the world and there were ten plagues and then they came to the Sea and there was a splitting of the sea which was also miraculous and it was miracle that the whole world knew about so the term that's used there and actually those who pray three times a day know that this is actually part of our morning prayers we we say this poetry which is actually from the book of Exodus from the Parsha of bashalach so we say the words of a Fahad that the I'll translate it as the dread and the fear of the Jewish people at that point uh fell upon the people around them so what's what's the difference between these two words AMA and so Rashi tells us the foremost commentator and he bases this on the words of the michelta which is he says that Emma isma is felt regarding things that are far and is felt about things that are close and it proceeds to explain that there were Nations that were nearby that were in the path that the Israelites were taking so they had they actually saw these Legions coming and for them it was a response to stimuli other nations heard reports of this they saw it on the news so they had Emma it wasn't happening in their lives but they knew what was going on in the world and they related to it being a human being you relate to that kind of stimulus and then what do you do you put yourself into that narrative so very simple AMA and so if there is a dog barking in front of your house and you and you don't see an owner around and yet you don't recognize the dog and you have to go outside that's now the dog may be safe the dog may not be safe but you'll make a decision and that decision is a productive decision you'll figure out what to do so that's helpful but let's say you heard about on the news that in California a wild dog got out and bit a girl and now you're stressed and being a human being with that powerful mind you created a narrative you project yourself into that narrative but there's nothing productive to respond to there's nothing happening in your environment there's nothing happening there are no actual stimuli that you need to respond to for any productive purpose so there that's the difference between fear and anxiety the aim on the pocket is fear that's productive there's a threat you have to assess the degree of the threat and make a productive decision that's fear Emma anxiety is about something you can't really see you can't touch you can't hear you heard about it you heard reports you heard secondhand reports third hand reports and your real response to it is coming from your meditation and yes I call it a meditation you're going through in your mind sometimes we call it the museum the museum in your head that you visit and you're the curator and you've designed those exhibits to be very uh powerful they evoke very strong emotions this Museum this is the museum that you go visit one in the morning two in the morning three in the morning the museum to your to your suffering to your ah to your complicated life Okay so it makes sense then that at least according to one rabbinic opinion King Solomon's wisdom is if that's what's going on forget about it it's not real if it were pahad meaning if it were an actual response to something in your life then respond to it and make a decision if there's someone you got to get away from there's something you got to get away from someone you got to speak to someone you got to confront fight flight whatever it may be okay that's productive that'll keep you safe but I'm talking about one in the morning two in the morning three in the morning your intense emotional reaction is to a movie that you're playing in your head so in that case the sage advice of King Solomon at least according to one of the rabbinic opinions to Reb Ami is forget about it don't reason with it because it can't be reasoned with because it's not actually logical you know there's a there's an old Yiddish expression of a massive frequency and caches you can't ask story you can't ask a question on a story Jews love to ask questions everything we ask a question we challenge because that's how we learn that's how we learn ask a question but there's an expression Yiddish you don't ask a question on a story and what that means is if somebody tells you a story and you say oh why did he say that and by the way when I say a story I primarily mean a real story story that happened true story so if someone tells you a story you don't stop and say oh why did he say that what do you mean why did he say that's what he said that's what happened right so you don't ask questions on stories it's just that's just what happened if somebody explains an idea you could ask them a question because maybe the idea is valid maybe it's not valid maybe you want to give them pushback so that they should explain the idea they should prove the idea they should argue in defense of the idea but stories you don't give pushback in a story the story is the story you understand what I'm saying you know you don't argue with a story that's what these stories are they're just stories you can't argue with them you can't you can't actually get anywhere by asking yourself well really why me why is my life so uniquely messed up in that particular way like that like let's say you really lean into it and and you decide to like have a sit down with that abusive voice in your head that's telling you about how your life is falling apart in a thousand different ways faster than you can possibly run around and pick up the pieces there's nothing productive to respond to that voice and say well yeah explain to you know why why is that why why why is my life so messed up why me doesn't go any why me is a rhetorical question there's no there's no real answer and they because the only answer is I don't know it's a good narrative that satisfies your your overdeveloped human thinking brain when you're in a state of stress and you just need to come up with an explanation for it and so then this satisfies oh that's why that's why I'm that's why I'm stressed out but they're they're not legitimate explanations and therefore at least according to one rabbinic opinion just dismiss it and and you know the way the mind works it's interesting um there's a rabbinic metaphor or a I guess a an analogy of a mill I don't know how many people nowadays have actually seen a mill but you know the bread that we eat comes from flour and flour comes from grain and the way that they turn grain into flowers through it through a mill so you put the the coarse kernels in the mill and a wheel turns and it crushes the kernels and then separates the the edible part and it creates flower so the metaphor is that whatever you put into the mill if you put barley kernels into the mill so you're going to get barley flour if you put wheat kernels into the mill you're going to get wheat flour okay whatever you put in is what you're going to get and the mill is always turning it won't stop it doesn't stop that is the human mind what you put in it is what you get out and it doesn't stop doesn't stop so it's interesting action can stop you can stop doing things you can just freeze speech you can stop you can stop talking thought you can't stop thought's going to keep going and if you keep on loading in or queuing up the suffering story which is your narrative to explain why you're sweating and your stomach's tight and your throat is tight and so you're going to get more and more of your reaction to that story and it starts to become a uh a vicious cycle so then what are you supposed to do stop the mill you can't stop it so what do you do you load something else in it distraction distraction now distraction is a double-edged sword you got to be very careful with your distraction because if you're not aware that this is a a tool um a tool that you should be using it actually ends up becoming an addiction that uses you when you realize that the uh incessant yapping of the word brain that's trying to assign meaning to your physiological responses when you realize that that is not a real intelligent story that actually has to be responded to okay so then you can distract yourself intelligently and say let me go do something else hopefully something productive maybe go do a project maybe go help somebody or at the very least a benign form of distraction go read a book okay when you don't realize that when you don't realize that and it's just like this terrible Jackhammer noise they're doing construction in front of your house for the past month and you don't know when they're going to go away you said when are you guys leaving and they said we don't know until the job is done and there's a jackhammer going off in front of your house for a month and it's two months and three months how can you live like this so what are you gonna do you start turning up the stereo full blast and you're blasting music right because you're trying not to hear the Jackhammer and and you still hear it and so you just start banging pots and pans and you start shooting off firecrackers and doing everything you can to try to drown it out that that's when you don't realize what's happening so what do we do what do we do we try to drown out the unpleasant reactions that our body is having through distractions which and in in some ways this this itself is the definition of addiction distractions which come to be identified in our lives as our main problem in life but which are actually our best misguided attempt at a solution to our real problem so I start blasting the stereo to try to cover up the jackhammer I'll just use the metaphor eventually my life becomes dysfunctional because I'm blasting a stereo so I identify that's my problem as I just keep blasting the stereo no actually your problem is that you're freaked out by the Jackhammer and when you discovered at some point in your life that blasting the stereo distracts you from that for an evening and then becomes for half an evening and then it becomes for an hour dimensioning diminishing returns as is any addiction because you just get used to it okay and then you all of a sudden you you identify well my problem is I'm blasting the stereo no your problem is that you are blasting the stereo because you couldn't handle the Jackhammer and let me just say what I'm really saying is that you go through life with a pit in your stomach because maybe you're a sensitive person or maybe you had trauma who knows it doesn't matter the point is or maybe you're just living in this generation where there's too much stimuli okay whatever it is so you're going through life with a pit in your stomach and then you realize that lots of screen time numbs you out from that and distracts you from that okay or a chemical a drinking it numbs you out from that and then distracts you from that or drama that's the the biggest addiction that people get into with drama yeah getting into other people's addictions saving the codependent drama right so but whatever it is and then that becomes the thing it's your undoing oh my whole life's falling apart because I can't stop whatever the addiction is the the gambling the pornography the the drinking the drama the whatever no that was you trying your best to drown out something that was making you uncomfortable Okay so he's blasting the stereo because the Jackhammer is making him uncomfortable so what we're saying is that God made us very simple but we complicate it with our narrative God gave us a survival mechanism that sometimes makes our bodies uncomfortable it's supposed to it's an effective alarm it gets your attention okay I have tinnitus people go to my Tanisha know this because I've talked about it in my time this year Monday morning's here in uh this very Library Liberty on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst you're all invited I've spoken about it in the Tanya share and I guess people watch online the time you should know about this as well I have tended to some people pronounce it tinnitus it's actually it's pronounced tinnitus it's a constant ring in the ear I've had it for a few years had it for a few years um I know what it is I know exactly what it is it's an alarm it's my body trying to get my attention okay um now it's it's awful it is extremely unpleasant but at least I know what it is imagine if I went and I tried to discover more numbing activities which was my go-to response in the past when I was younger that's what I thought worked imagine if now at 48 I would go try to discover some more numbing things to do to distract myself from the tinnitus and I didn't even know that that's what I was doing I was just doing it sort of reactively and then that becomes the new problem because in order to drown out the unpleasant stimulus you go and you find that new distraction and then the distraction takes over your life and starts causing uh problems in your life so I don't like having it but I know what it is it's an alarm system my body's trying to get my attention my body's trying to get my attention maybe there are things that I need no not maybe there are things I need to do to take better care of myself and and it'll it'll go away and I'll get a handle on it I'll be okay I got to take care of this mind-body package that God gave me I've got to take care of it a little bit better and it'll go away but it's just an alarm it's not an enemy it's just an alarm Okay and that's what we have to know when the alarm goes off whether it is literally something that sounds like an alarm I have this in my ear literally 24 7. although when I'm teaching interestingly enough it generally gets really really quiet because this is what I'm comfortable by the way interesting now that I'm talking about the fact how comfortable I am up here now you realize why I go on for too long because this is why I'm good this is where I'm this is my therapy over here but no I'll tell you something interesting uh I hope it's interesting to you I am never not nervous before going on I've spoken thousands of times literally thousands of times and the crowd's much much bigger than this crowd um and yet every single time including tonight a second before I come on I'm nervous and it's I feel it's a physiological thing it's I I got a stomach ache my throat gets hot and tight stomach is cold throw this is hot a lot of other symptoms and it's very uncomfortable and then I get up here and I start talking and I'm fine so tell me about aemon tell me about anxiety and fear what was what was unmanageable not the experience itself the anticipation of the experience right as long as it was the aim as long as it was the anticipation of something that's going there which I can't control because it's not happening now so what am I supposed to do like say a talk better that I haven't started delivering I can't there's nothing to do yet and that's why it's so painful and there's it it causes so much so much disruption but at least I know what it is I don't have the secret to make it go away but at least I identified I know what it is then once I'm up here I don't really have any problems because now now there's there are things that I can do I I'm looking in the room I'm reading the room I'm looking at eye contact I'm looking at people's own out look at how much people are looking at their phones and and I'm adjusting you don't know there's thousands of adjusting adjustments that go on while I'm talking to a group like this to make sure that we're connecting even though I'm kind of monopolizing the conversation but I'm it is it is a conversation and it is two-way and I am reading stimuli that you're projecting toward me and I'm making adjustments and therefore I'm comfortable because I'm in a setting where there's something I can do but a second before I get up here there's nothing I can do and therefore I'm sick with worry now I don't know how to make that go away yet at least not at this stage in my development but I know what it is I know what it is just my body trying to be helpful okay so that's why the narrative that we assign to the physiological responses is just so dumb and you want to go write novels you want to be a fiction writer go ahead but don't make fiction novels about your stomachache and then start stacking issues to be freaked out about and put yourself to bed every night with that story just just don't okay we mentioned there's another interpretation you're lucky there's only two usually they say two Jews three opinions so so we had rev Ami and we have revasi Ami said remove it from your mind avert it from your mind as he says speak it out Converse about it with others so which one is which I mean which one is right which one should you do there's a reason why one comes before the other first reaction is dismiss it because it's not the real cause of your discomfort right now it's a story that you made up about your discomfort which matches roughly matches your discomfort but it's not the real cause so forget about it go do something different okay I can't I can't it's incessant it's pervasive I'm ruminating I can't stop okay fine so in that case speak it out to somebody else in that case if you try to avert your mind from it and you know what it is and you know that it's not the real problem but it's consuming your thoughts okay so go speak it out with somebody but again see this this is so important in the first case I ignored it because I knew the story wasn't the real problem story was just a mythology a personal mythology to explain a phenomenon which actually has a very simple explanation my body's freaked out because my my because my Creator made me have that built-in nervous system to respond to to what it thinks may be adverse stimuli okay that's the real reason the mythology is it's because my wife my kids my job that's the mythology okay so I try to dismiss that can't dismiss it but I know I should because I know it's not valid but I can't dismiss it fine you can't dismiss it go speak to somebody but please when you go speak to somebody please don't forget that this narrative you're going to share with them is still not the real reason why you uncomfortable that that was it's very interesting because time moves very slowly and time moves very fast in my lifetime and again I'm repeating the fact I am not a psychologist I'm not a mental health professional um but as a outside Observer of the field it is fascinating how in my lifetime certain axioms have radically shifted specifically about how productive it is to explore these stories specifically in regards to how productive is to to explore these stories a hundred years ago certainly when when Freud was the predominant model they couldn't get enough of these stories and whatever story you came in with oh no we're going to go deeper and deeper and deeper and we're going to keep on finding hidden layers of the story we'll go back to your toilet training literally I'm not saying it to be uh to be glib and today we realize or at least there's much more of an accepted view becoming increasingly uh mainstream that many times talk is not going to get us out of this we're not going to talk our way out of it we're not going to talk our way out of it the alarm system is going off so you created a story why the alarm system is going off because it's easier than in a weird way than admitting that you need more sleep you need more water you need less screen time you need to get a new job whatever it is okay but the the stories aren't the reason for our discomfort and talking more and more and more and more about the stories is not going to relieve our discomfort okay so then why do we talk about it then go back to the first opinion forget about it can't forget about it okay so talk about it why why should I talk about you told me it's not productive it is productive well now you're confusing me okay you should talk about it not because the story is the real problem I'm gonna have to explain to you the way that siddis explains this passage of talmud explaining King Solomon's wisdom okay three layers of rabbinical explanation there's a safer compiled by the lab and the entry for Hoff hey Sivan the 25th day of the Hebrew month of seven which is the month of my birthday it's like four days away from my birthday it's almost my birthday um it says this passage in the talmud machlaikus avert your mind from it speak it out to others and it adds an Insight from the tamak sadik who was the third Chabad it was the grandson of the balotanya again for those who come to the Monday morning time this year it's a little tie-in for you explains what does it mean explain it to others says the Goof others only in the corporeal sense in the bodily sense but they are united with him as inyone they feel they sense his situation his matter explains it perfectly it's not about somebody who can hear your story and decode it and say something smart that's not who you need it's about empathy it's about somebody who can feel what you're feeling and the empathy is therapeutic it's interesting I think it was Carl Rogers who came up with the term unconditional positive regard he said that uh anyone here yeah is that correct so Carl Rogers the American psychologist he had a term unconditional positive regard which basically means that a therapist has to always be on the side of their patient unconditional positive regard um so much so and I don't know if this is a a contradiction or it's a support to this but another American psychologist Eric Byrne once said no man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist and I I thought about that quite a bit um and I think what it means is he's saying something similar to Carl Rogers which is unconditional positive regard when you're talking to me I'm on your side it's like when you go to a lawyer and that's it once I'm your client then you're on my you know you're going to see things my way so no man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist because if the psychiatrist is doing his job he's on her side now really if he's really on her side you should want her to have a happy marriage so he shouldn't vilify her husband but that's a that's a tangent um the point is they studied various different modalities of therapy and what they found was that to a large extent they were all equally effective or ineffective however you want to describe it and what really made a difference was the therapeutic connection the relationship with the therapist when there was a positive connection when the patient felt that they had the unconditional positive regard of the therapist so then it would be productive whatever the preferred modality of therapy chosen by the therapist might be so it wasn't so much the approach it was the empathy the love should ever tell the story about a shab he was the fifth and he was actually a younger brother and he became the rabbit his older brother did not become the rabbit when they were little boys they were playing and you know some kids play cops and robbers and uh Cowboys and Indians but the the Rabbit shab and his brother abdominarian what did they play when they were playing they played rabba and closet yeah so um the older brother told the younger brother who was about five years old at the time I'm going to be the rabbit because he was the older brother so he got the got the cool part I'm gonna I'm gonna be the Devon you're gonna be the closet and you're going to come into me and uh we're gonna have you hit this a one-on-one audience a meeting like because it goes to a rabbit so the younger brother plays his part and he comes in he says I need help I ate nuts on Shabbos what's wrong okay so the altered says that it's better nuts that have shells on them better not to eat them on Shabbos because taking off the shells could be selecting it's one of the 39 prohibited labors at any rate that was his it's very cute because that was his example of a sin that was his example of a problem right that's what he could think of so he says I ate uh nuts on Shabbos so the older brother is playing that bit and he says okay very well my son here is your tikkun here's your rectification your spiritual rectification um When you pray you should look in a prayer book you should look inside the words you should not say prayers by heart you should concentrate on looking at the printed words in the prayer book from now on and the younger brother says what I do wrong so he says the younger brother says as I read the effort die for governor cracked when a rabbit answers he has to sigh and you didn't size so you're not a rabbit it's not about who has a smart answer for you it's about empathy it's about the person who's gonna give a cracked who's going to sigh who's gonna feel your pain and when that happens there is healing the story was never the problem the story was an assigned narrative to try to explain away why my body is in survival mode if I can ignore the story and understand that it's just a made-up story that's the best if I can't then at least let me say it to somebody but the number one thing or perhaps the only thing is the person who I choose to hear this story has to be empathetic I don't need somebody who's a genius who's going to hear the story and say aha you were right all along that is why you're miserable now that's the worst I I don't need that that's the last thing I need in fact I don't even need somebody to say anything I don't need them to add to my story or give an explanation of my story I just need them to absorb it and to hear it and to feel it and there's something intrinsically therapeutic and healing just about that because it was never the story to begin with okay so here we have Hashem two tools in one biblical verse okay King Solomon tells us if you have a worry in your heart those who want to look it up this is mishlay Proverbs chapter 12 verse 25 dog the Lev ish if you have a worry in your heart subjugated put it in its place what does it mean put it in its place two opinions forget about it go do something productive call it what it is it's a made-up story it's Hollywood magic the khadam and the other one of Assi says speak it out to others that explains what means I hate him people who are other only in the sense that you don't you do not share the same body by the way that is the paradox that's the Paradox because otherwise why does it even have to mention that they are means others it seems here that the whole point is that they're not so much others they're they're they're United with you that's the Paradox the Paradox is if I just needed someone who could feel what I'm feeling I'd talk to myself I feel what I'm feeling how come it doesn't work the Paradox is the validation that someone who's not me can feel for me so it's the best of both worlds it's it's not me and yet they feel what I'm feeling and they offer their empathy they're non-judgmental empathy they don't have to be eloquent they don't have to have smart things to say they just have to be empathetic and that itself is healing okay so those are two tools that we have for dealing with the anxiety God willing we'll see you a week from tonight we're going to talk more about some of the other ways that anxiety comes up and other approaches for dealing with it