Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Psychology Series 8: Marat Shpolyansky / Generational Trauma / Relationships / Discovering Passion

Transcript

Psychology Series 8: Marat Shpolyansky / Generational Trauma / Relationships / Discovering Passion · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of Come Together.
• 0:15
  We're live. How are you, Mara?
• 0:17
  Thank you so much for making the time to to talk with me today.
• 0:20
  Thank you for having me join, I appreciate it.
• 0:22
  Yeah, Yeah, I was, I was really excited to, I was really excited
• 0:28
  when I came across your profile, a couple of things jumped out to
• 0:32
  me, but one of the primary ones was the intergenerational trauma
• 0:39
  that you seem to have emphasized for yourself and then, you know,
• 0:44
  or that you seem to talk about a little bit yourself and that you
• 0:49
  practice helping individuals or maybe even is it family units as
• 0:55
  well with, you know, dealing with generational trauma.
• 0:58
  I mean, I think so, I think that it, it started with family units
• 1:01
  initially. And in my work, as I've gone,
• 1:07
  gone on to see clients and seen the effect of that trauma in my,
• 1:11
  in my work, I've gone back and I think honestly worked with, with
• 1:18
  my family, but it's played into how I communicate with my
• 1:21
  family. I think that's the, that's the
• 1:22
  key. It's, it changes the
• 1:23
  communication. If you can begin to understand
• 1:27
  why people communicate the way they do, why they hurt each
• 1:30
  other and the way that they hurt each other, mostly
• 1:32
  unconsciously. So I think that that's, that's
• 1:35
  where it's played back in. And I think that my work with
• 1:39
  clients has informed how I go back into my family and and and
• 1:43
  communicate with them. So you do, so you learn from,
• 1:48
  you learn from the work, and then you take and apply it to
• 1:51
  your own life. Absolutely.
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  I mean, there's there's this idea of heal or heal thyself,
• 1:56
  right? If you're coming in to work with
• 1:57
  people you don't, you will only get as far with those people as
• 2:01
  you have gotten with yourself and your own work.
• 2:05
  I think that's very, it's very important.
• 2:07
  What if you haven't worked on yourself and you haven't done
• 2:09
  your own work? You're not going to be able to
• 2:11
  reach in with the client and, and help them like be, be a
• 2:17
  partner with them. And, and I'm getting better.
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  So, you know, they don't really train you about
• 2:22
  intergenerational trauma in school.
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  It's not something that you, you know, you go through some module
• 2:27
  about that. It's something that you
• 2:29
  experience, you know, in, in your work with clientele, you
• 2:33
  begin to realize, OK, well, what were the conditions that you
• 2:37
  grew up in? What was the ecology of your
• 2:39
  family when you were a kid? Right.
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  I, I can bring examples from my own family.
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  And I think that that's that's where I think that's it's most
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  pertinent and I think it's most real for me at least.
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  Would you mind sharing something happen?
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  Yeah, of course, of course. So, so, you know, my mother was
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  born in 1946, was right after the Holocaust.
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  My grandmother was evacuated from Ukraine during the, the,
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  the fascist bombings of Ukraine in 1941.
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  She at that time had a nine year old, sorry, 7 year old daughter.
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  They were placed in cattle cars in Odessa, Ukraine.
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  And you know, they were stuffed in.
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  And because the, the, the Nazis had crossed the border and
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  basically during a pact with the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union
• 3:29
  had no idea there would be a war with, with the Nazi Germany.
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  So it was all of a sudden people were at the beach and then there
• 3:36
  were bombings and airplanes were.
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  Flying. No way.
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  So that there was no, you know, there was no war like a
• 3:45
  designation of war between the countries.
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  The IT just happened. Yeah, the, the, the Soviets
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  actually had made a pact with the Germans dividing Poland and
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  plant. They basically assume that the
• 3:58
  Nazis would, you know, conquer part of Europe and they would
• 4:00
  capture, you know, part of Poland and that would be the end
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  of it. But they reneged on their pact
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  and they attacked so Union and they attacked right into Belarus
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  and Ukraine. And in those very first days of
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  war, people were not prepared. People were at the beach, you
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  know, relaxing with their kids. And so all of a sudden there's a
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  war. So she got packed into a cattle
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  car, you know, no, no possessions, nothing really.
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  They were, they were dressed in summer clothing along with her,
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  her mother and her sister. And they get shipped off on
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  cattle cars across Ukraine, through Crimea and then on to
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  Uzbekistan. They were, they were kind of
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  refugees in Uzbekistan throughout the war.
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  But on that cattle car, her daughter got crushed to death.
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  And so she had to be the, you know, where the train would stop
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  somewhere and she was buried in a mass grave along with other
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  people that had died on the train.
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  And that was the end of it. And then just pack up and you,
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  you keep going a few minutes later.
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  So if you imagine the, the emotional damage that's caused
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  by that, having a 7 year old child that you, that dies, you
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  buried on the side of a, of a, of a train track.
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  And then you, you continue going.
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  That doesn't just go away. There's no therapist on the
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  train. And so my mother was born right
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  after the, the war. And one has to imagine that when
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  she was born, my grandmother, who was not only still grieving
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  the death of her daughter and also, and my assumption is that
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  she had a very hard time connecting with this new child
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  because she was probably still in grief.
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  And she she was also afraid. What if I lose this daughter?
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  Like, how do I connect with this child?
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  And so my mother really grew up in a relationship with a mother
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  that was very strained on, on the one hand, cold and the other
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  hand very enmeshed. And those were the conditions of
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  her early childhood. So now she ends up having a
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  child. Well, when she has a child, her
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  conceptualization of what a mother is, how a mother loves,
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  how a mother holds, it's not the same as one would have today in
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  in our world. And that then gets carried on
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  into the next generation, right? So now I'm born now many years
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  later, right? But now, now I'm born.
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  So now I have a certain relationship and understanding
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  of, of, of connecting with a child.
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  And so the question is, do I continue that forward or do I
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  break that cycle? And usually what, what I, I see
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  in practice is that when people come in, they're kind of being
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  called forward in their, in their line, in their lineage to
• 6:38
  stop some cycle of recurring trauma.
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  And that's sort of where my work begins with them.
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  Wow, wow, I got I got so I got so much to to to say and ask
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  about or follow up with. One thing that I that, that I,
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  you know, from my own experience that I think, and I would love
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  to just hear what your thoughts are in this, within this context
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  to this perspective, is my grandfather was very, my dad's
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  father was very tough on my father in the typical, you know,
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  I guess, I mean, my grandfather, I guess is in his early 90s now.
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  So, you know, my dad was growing up in the 80s with a typical,
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  you know, 40s dad, I guess. And, and then, you know, and he
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  went out of his way the rest of his life to specifically not be
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  like that, you know, and so he became very anti, you call it
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  anti authoritarian or anti hands on.
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  And, you know, and he basically just wanted whatever made us
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  happy. And he didn't really have too
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  much of A preference. And if he did, he'd generally
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  keep it to himself and try to do everything the opposite of what
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  his dad did. And I, I mean, he definitely
• 7:59
  succeeded in that, you know, and then, and then, you know, 25
• 8:03
  years later, I'm saying, or 30 years later, I'm standing around
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  and I'm saying, I wish that I was, you know, held a little bit
• 8:10
  more accountable in my life because I would have loved for
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  something, you know, I would have loved to have a heads up
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  that, you know, that amount of discipline or work that it
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  takes. And then I'm going to just, and
• 8:20
  then, and so you kind of have the same type of it's, it's
• 8:24
  another cycle, but it's a cycle of a swinging pendulum, if that
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  makes sense, you know, from one end to the next.
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  And is that, is that something that, is there a, would you,
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  would you, if I was sitting down and explaining this to you, how
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  would you go about trying to resolve that?
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  Unless you just say that's what life is and that's what nature
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  is and that's what families are. And the best you could do is be
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  conscious. Or is there an underlying, you
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  know, symptom, I guess cause and the way that they manifest is
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  just symptoms. So it doesn't make a difference
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  whether you're being hands on or hands off.
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  There's a, you know, there's a problem that's underneath it
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  that's causing you to be too much of one or the other.
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  And that's what that's what it is.
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  I think OK, so I, I think the answer is yes and yes.
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  So the, the, the keyword here is balance, right?
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  So your grandfather again, we can use this word, I like this
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  word ecology, like the ecology that created a condition in
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  which your grandfather micromanaged to became
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  authoritarian, like he, he, that there may have been a lack of
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  safety somewhere in your grandfather's life.
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  And So what does he do right? He exerts just overwhelming
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  efforts to control everything in the environment or because he,
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  he does not want to be in a, in a situation where he is unsafe
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  again, nor does he want his children to be unsafe again.
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  So he creates all of these structures and those structures
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  are suffocating. So then your father comes along,
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  he notices all of that. And then he he said, well,
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  that's absolutely devastated me. I'm going to be the opposite of
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  that. The pendulum swings in the
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  opposite direction. The answer is somewhere in the
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  middle, right? Like we need as children, we do
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  need structure. We don't need suffocation.
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  We don't need enmeshment. We don't need a situation where
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  where we have no breathing room and then we cannot develop into
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  the authentic version of ourselves.
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  We end up having having to become whatever version our
• 10:28
  parents squeeze out of us, right.
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  So the answer is somewhere in the middle.
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  And now you have the benefit of seeing both sides of the
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  opposite ends of the swing. And you say to yourself, my son,
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  my daughter needs structure, but she doesn't need suffocation.
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  She can be safe and held without being smothered, right?
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  So this is, this is how you break that cycle.
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  You, what you end up, what you end up sharing with her, what
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  you end up giving her is a sense that she can be herself.
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  And yet there is a foundation that she can stand on.
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  She's not standing on sand, right?
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  And, and, and I think that's, that's the key to developing a
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  healthy psyche. And, and then one in which, as
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  she moves forward with her own children, she will be reminded
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  of the fact that that this is how I was raised and I'm healthy
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  and I and I and I'm functional and I'm, I'm myself.
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  I'm, I'm true to myself. I want my kids to have that
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  meaning. I should raise them in the the
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  flavor of how I was raised and that that perpetuates a more
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  positive cycle, I believe. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
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  Which is what I guess we're ultimately hoping for.
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  I think I, I mean, I think that there's a lot more.
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  I mean, I, I think I'm certain that there's a lot more
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  conscious. I think people are.
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  And maybe it's just what I've seen in my circle, but I've
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  definitely seen that a tendency in the last couple of years for
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  people to start looking more inwardly than I've ever
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  experienced before. And I don't know if it's, you
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  know, due to a certain point in my life that I'm, that I'm
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  arriving to, you know, the, I guess, more mature adult years
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  as, as you know, as you start taking on more responsibilities,
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  late 20s, early 30s. But I've been saying, I mean,
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  and it's, it's really, it's it, it, it makes me feel really
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  hopeful because, you know, I mean, on one hand, they're the
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  kind of people where you talk to them and it sounds like they
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  haven't really put much thought into who they were since, you
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  know, since you saw them last in high school or college and it's
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  been a decade or two, you know, and then there's the people that
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  you talk to. You could see they're really
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  being very, they're really self-conscious and they're on
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  this kind of, you know, journey towards themselves.
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  And I think it's, you know, I think it you there used to be a
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  certain stigma to that, the same way there used to be stigma to
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  therapy and stigma to mental health.
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  That hope is just kind of starting to drift away.
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  Yeah. I mean, they're the awareness
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  today and how how we are moving towards being more in tune with
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  ourselves. I think it's far more profound
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  than it was 20-30 years ago. Without doubt, there is an
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  intentionality to be right with yourself and also to look at at
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  your behaviour. That being said, I think it's
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  still a fairly small number of people in reference to the
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  general public because I, I get a fair number of clients who,
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  you know, people that bring in their kids and I'll meet with
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  the kids. And almost certainly when I see
• 13:45
  children in the office, you know, I want to see the parents.
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  When I see the parents, I I begin to understand the kids.
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  Like everything makes sense. Once I see the parents, it's
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  it's, it's inevitable. I feel the same way with my high
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  school students. It's crazy.
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  I love the parent teacher night because I meet the parents and
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  I'm like Oh my God everything just make everything makes sense
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  now. Like this clicks too good and.
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  And, and, and, and it's interesting because those
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  parents, they, they, there's no awareness or there's very little
• 14:16
  awareness. Like they, they don't see the
• 14:19
  interplay of their behaviors and how they cast a shadow onto
• 14:24
  their kids. And then the kid, the kids have
• 14:26
  these, you know, behaviors or these symptoms, depression,
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  anxiety, ticks, panic, whatever it may be.
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  But they don't see how the ecology of the, of the kids life
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  is perpetuating it. I'm not saying the parents are
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  the cause of it, but many times the parents, because they, they
• 14:45
  haven't done their own work. What's that?
• 14:48
  I, I would, I, I, I picture it almost like they set the stage
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  and you can, you know, and you can do what you want within the
• 14:52
  stage, but you know, you have a lot of surroundings that are
• 14:55
  accessible to you that you know, that you're not necessarily
• 14:59
  choosing, but are just, you know, kind of.
• 15:01
  You think the other the other set the stage or they light the
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  stage on fire. No, they're going to pour
• 15:06
  gasoline on it like they do little to, they do little to
• 15:10
  soothe the, the issues that come up because they, they themselves
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  are not soothed. They, they themselves are, have
• 15:17
  not worked through something. And it goes back to that same
• 15:20
  generational trauma situation, right where we're back to that,
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  that conversation. So whenever, whenever I have a,
• 15:26
  a kid come in by default, I'm almost always going to send that
• 15:32
  family into family therapy because something is happening
• 15:36
  there. And and I see this over and over
• 15:38
  and over again. That's really, really
• 15:42
  interesting. So you're saying when a kid
• 15:43
  comes in, it's generally because there needs to be bigger picture
• 15:48
  work that needs to be done? Not just, you know, this kid has
• 15:52
  ADD and he's sitting, he has a hard time in 3rd grade math
• 15:54
  class or whatever. Yeah.
• 15:56
  I mean, there's, there's, it's kind of systems work or there's
• 15:58
  something happening in the system.
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  And if the system starts to change, things will change in
• 16:06
  the environment, Things will change and that may ease things.
• 16:09
  Does that mean that every kid that that has ADHD has some of a
• 16:13
  problematic family environment? Not necessarily, but we may not
• 16:18
  need to rush to medication, we may not need to, to rush to
• 16:21
  certain things. If certain things in the
• 16:23
  environment can be changed, you know, behaviorally adapting and
• 16:26
  seeing what's happening in the family that a lot of times
• 16:30
  that's, that is so helpful And, and it changes dynamics because
• 16:34
  many times there are comorbidities, right?
• 16:35
  It's not just ADHD, it's ADHD and then there's anxiety or
• 16:38
  there's ADHD and then there's some kind of like impulse issues
• 16:42
  or, or anger issues or depression or whatever, whatever
• 16:46
  the mood issues might be, something else is at play.
• 16:49
  And so if we can tone that down, if we can resolve that, then we
• 16:53
  can look at the ADHD and see what's really needed here.
• 16:56
  So I, I, I rarely rush to medication and people come in
• 16:59
  the first, you know, I think my kid needs, you know, Adderall or
• 17:02
  my kid needs Ritalin or whatever.
• 17:04
  And I'm like, wow, we're, we're on a jump in the gun on that.
• 17:06
  Let's let's just figure out what's happening here and let's
• 17:09
  first see if we can help this child to to navigate their life
• 17:13
  a little bit without rushing to give them medication.
• 17:17
  So what are what are So what would be, you know, a kid comes
• 17:20
  in and a parent comes in, brings a kid in and they're in 8th
• 17:24
  grade. They're having a hard time.
• 17:25
  You know, they, they say they have AD they want Ritalin or
• 17:27
  they want, you know, whatever. And what are some things that
• 17:31
  you would do or tell the parents or practices to that that that
• 17:36
  that would what would what happens that causes the change
• 17:42
  that caused the kid to, I guess, manage it a little better?
• 17:47
  And what's happening that allows it to happen without medication
• 17:51
  is that is that question, is that, is that clear?
• 17:56
  Yeah. I mean, I think what you're
• 17:57
  saying is what's happening in the environment that needs to
• 18:00
  change that would that will maybe help the kid without.
• 18:04
  Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, we're kind of, I
• 18:06
  feel like we're used to just like saying, oh, this kid has,
• 18:08
  you know, some kind of problem, you know, issue.
• 18:10
  It's a learning disability, it's a challenge, it's whatever it
• 18:12
  is. And there's just nothing that
• 18:14
  can be do nothing that can be done about it, you know?
• 18:16
  But I guess I, you know, we're saying that that's not correct,
• 18:19
  right? Yeah, I mean, I, I, I really
• 18:24
  firmly believe that when a child comes in, I want to talk to that
• 18:28
  child. I want to understand, like,
• 18:30
  what's their emotional state? What are, what are they going
• 18:32
  through? And it's hard sometimes because
• 18:36
  for kids to share, especially if they're going through something
• 18:40
  they have, you have to build rapport.
• 18:41
  You have to, there has to be a sense of trust between you and
• 18:45
  the kid that they, they know that they can talk to you.
• 18:48
  And a lot of times you know, they can't, they haven't talked
• 18:50
  to their parents or, or something's happening at school.
• 18:53
  There might be bullying involved.
• 18:55
  There are so many complicated factors that the dynamics of, of
• 19:00
  being a, a young person today, it's very different than the
• 19:03
  dynamics of being a young person when I was a kid, right?
• 19:06
  There's just a lot more. Absolutely.
• 19:10
  I mean, we, we can, we can dive into sort of my feelings about
• 19:12
  social media and about what I've seen it do to kids in these last
• 19:16
  maybe 10 years. But there are a lot of things at
• 19:21
  play. And so I'm going to have several
• 19:24
  meetings with the kid, the parents to understand what is
• 19:29
  happening here. You know, a lot of times with,
• 19:31
  with children, schools these days are much more geared
• 19:34
  towards identifying kids that are struggling and they will
• 19:37
  have them tested. So a lot of times I will, I will
• 19:40
  get reports already from the school, other school
• 19:43
  psychologists or outside psychologists that have met with
• 19:46
  the teachers, met with the parents, met with the student,
• 19:48
  have gone to the school, have done testing.
• 19:50
  There's a lot of work that's been put in before the kid will
• 19:54
  come to me. And now we're looking to see how
• 19:57
  can we best support this child because they've been identified
• 20:01
  as having ADHD. So then I'm going to look at
• 20:05
  what other factors are at play. Are there, you know, mood
• 20:11
  issues? There's, and so many times there
• 20:13
  are, are there are there any kind of anxiety issues?
• 20:16
  Because you know, when a kid is anxious, when a kid is panicked,
• 20:20
  guess what? They're not paying attention.
• 20:21
  They're in their own head. There's negative self talk,
• 20:24
  They're, they're, they're, they're, they're dissociated
• 20:27
  sometimes. And so it appears like this kid
• 20:29
  is not paying attention, but this kid is actually paying
• 20:32
  attention to everything that's happening inside of them.
• 20:34
  And so that needs to be addressed.
• 20:37
  And so that's kind of that's, it's a complicated process.
• 20:41
  It's not just A1 size fits all. I, I need to see what is
• 20:45
  happening. And I really believe that this
• 20:47
  environmental approach, that that's how I've been trained and
• 20:50
  that's, and, and it seems that that it makes sense that we live
• 20:55
  in systems and if those systems are broken, we are going to be
• 20:59
  broken as well. And, and there's another part to
• 21:02
  this and that is resilience. So different kids, different
• 21:06
  kinds of resilience, right? Kids that grow up, they're able
• 21:10
  to sort of they're, they feel supported, they feel like they,
• 21:14
  they have the wherewithal to get through whatever it takes.
• 21:18
  They have a positive attitude about life.
• 21:21
  They're going to navigate something very differently than
• 21:23
  a kid that feels that they're less than a kid that feels that
• 21:28
  they're not supported, a kid that feels there's nowhere to
• 21:30
  turn to for support. And I've.
• 21:34
  Noticed a different outcome. I've noticed, I've noticed as a
• 21:38
  high school teacher, because I used to really, I was very, very
• 21:41
  insecure until, until I was about, you know, maybe 8/17/18
• 21:46
  years old. I, I, I had very little security
• 21:48
  in myself and I was, you know, and it helps me, I guess,
• 21:52
  identify or, you know, I could see similar, you know, kids with
• 21:55
  similar kind of expressions or, you know, body behavior language
• 22:00
  that you know, or tendencies that, that I had.
• 22:03
  And it is incredible how easy and how easy it is to build a
• 22:10
  kid up and actually give him a little bit more of a sense of
• 22:13
  self. You know, I think that I think a
• 22:16
  lot of times what I've seen in the last just a couple of years
• 22:19
  teaching, and I'm only doing it for, you know, there's my 4th
• 22:21
  year doing it. But one thing I've seen
• 22:23
  countless times is that by telling a kid, I know you've got
• 22:30
  more in you, you're, you know, you're great and let's, I would
• 22:33
  love to see it. I want to work with you to bring
• 22:35
  it out. They start to believe it very,
• 22:37
  very quickly. All they need to do is hear it a
• 22:39
  lot of the times, you know, so a lot of times I, I, I, I, I've
• 22:41
  noticed that it almost feels like there's a lack of positive,
• 22:44
  positive reinforcement. And kids that do get that
• 22:48
  probably could get, you know, a stronger sense of resilience or
• 22:53
  or will or determination, I imagine, right.
• 22:56
  One 100% and moreover also being heard because a lot of times
• 23:02
  what happens is parents initial response or even sometimes
• 23:06
  educators initial responses to tell the kid what they should do
• 23:09
  to get better. Like if you did this, you're
• 23:11
  going to do better. And almost immediately it
• 23:14
  doesn't matter what the kid is going through.
• 23:17
  They, they begin to sort of fawn to, to, to the, to these
• 23:21
  statements that are made. So they, they, they, they put on
• 23:23
  a happy face. They try and like achieve some
• 23:25
  things, but they're not really being heard.
• 23:27
  They're not really being, yeah, their, their self concept is not
• 23:31
  being developed. It's just an imprint of whatever
• 23:34
  they're being told laying on top of them.
• 23:36
  And so, yeah, absolutely. I just, I just showed, I just
• 23:42
  showed that my high school, my MY11 class yesterday, the song
• 23:46
  Father and Son by Cat Stevens. And we were talking and the line
• 23:50
  and I pulled up the lyrics while we were talking, you know, while
• 23:52
  we were listening. And there's A and the line from
• 23:55
  the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen, you know,
• 23:58
  and, and, and everyone was able, you know, felt immediately like,
• 24:03
  whoa, you know, and how can I try to explain?
• 24:06
  When I do? He turns away again, you know,
• 24:07
  and it's always the same old story.
• 24:08
  And I was like, how many of you guys have just felt like no
• 24:10
  matter what you try to tell an adult or your parent or, you
• 24:13
  know, a teacher that like whatever you say, they're not
• 24:16
  hearing what you're saying, you know, and they just want you to
• 24:19
  hear what they're saying. And I mean that I think that's
• 24:22
  that that is that is the, you know, that's, that's the pain
• 24:26
  and challenges of being of being a kid.
• 24:28
  I really, I really believe in. I think that's actually what
• 24:30
  causes a lot of the amazing creativity and self-expression
• 24:33
  that usually comes as like a quote UN quote defiance of that.
• 24:36
  You know, that's why the youth culture has always been so
• 24:39
  creative and prominent because it comes from a place of being.
• 24:42
  You know, a lot of times they're being shut down or ignored until
• 24:45
  they just have to be heard and explode into something, you
• 24:48
  know, about creativity or and sometimes disaster, you know, I
• 24:52
  mean, there's a reason why the 27 Club exists and why so many
• 24:55
  great artists die at such a young age at. 100% yeah.
• 25:01
  I agreed. And I love, I love that you
• 25:03
  brought Cat Stevens into the class and, and, and had the kids
• 25:06
  listen and identify with that. It's like, it's like the
• 25:07
  concepts and the issues are timeless, right?
• 25:10
  They just went on and on and on. Yeah, they're just human.
• 25:13
  They're just. Human as we were, yeah, as we
• 25:17
  were talking, I was going to sort of infuse another sort of
• 25:20
  part of this genealogical or not, but sort of this heritage,
• 25:25
  right? This Jewish heritage concept in
• 25:27
  in that talking about resilience with kids, right.
• 25:32
  And how that develops. And I can give you these two
• 25:36
  small vignettes. Like one of these vignettes is
• 25:39
  from my my wife's family, her similar stories.
• 25:42
  She's from the same town as I am, the same city as I'm from.
• 25:46
  And during and during the war, her grandfather, her
• 25:51
  grandfather, her grandmother had this romance.
• 25:53
  They were in love with each other and they had two children.
• 25:57
  And then the war starts and in the very first days of the war,
• 26:02
  the the grandfather gets hung in the middle of the city.
• 26:05
  So he's he's killed. And so the mother is in in shock
• 26:09
  and they get they get evacuated also to Uzbekistan with the
• 26:14
  mother. And these two children get
• 26:15
  evacuated. But the mother is very is a very
• 26:18
  different kind of woman who comes from a very strong Jewish
• 26:24
  family with with long roots in that area.
• 26:28
  They've lived there for sort of hundreds of years and a very
• 26:31
  proud family. So she, she gets with these kids
• 26:34
  to his Becky stand and it's almost like she sustains a joy
• 26:40
  for life like that, that there can be darkness, but you must
• 26:44
  sustain a, a sense of light inside of you, even in the
• 26:48
  darkness. And she raises these kids with
• 26:51
  this understanding that no matter what, you will persevere.
• 26:56
  No matter how bad life is, you can find joy in life.
• 26:59
  You know, they, they end up like, they're basically starving
• 27:04
  in Uzbekistan, like they have no money.
• 27:06
  They have nobody that they know. They're, they get through it.
• 27:09
  The mother works on this in this factory.
• 27:11
  The these are two little kids. They get back to Odessa after
• 27:15
  the war and as so many Jewish families that came back from
• 27:18
  evacuation, the apartments that they had lived in maybe for, you
• 27:21
  know, decades or for more than decades, for hundreds of years.
• 27:24
  Those apartments are now inhabited by Ukrainians and
• 27:27
  Russians who have basically just moved into the apartments that
• 27:29
  were empty. And, and they're told get the
• 27:32
  hell out. You don't, you know, these are,
• 27:33
  this isn't your apartment anymore.
• 27:35
  And, and here you have this mother with two little kids and
• 27:38
  she's walking around the city and trying to, you know, find
• 27:42
  somewhere to go and ends up in a basement.
• 27:44
  You know, there's a murky basement with these two kids and
• 27:47
  they live in this basement for like almost a decade in, in a
• 27:52
  basement in a, a subterranean basement where it gets cold in,
• 27:56
  in Ukraine. It freezes there and, and, and,
• 28:00
  and it's not a good life, but the mother comes home from the
• 28:05
  factory, She sings with the kids.
• 28:06
  She really, she, she sustains that life for them.
• 28:09
  And eventually she actually ends up dying quite young.
• 28:12
  But the kids grow up with an understanding that that life
• 28:16
  moves on and you must stay positive.
• 28:18
  And then my wife's mother, the one that one of the children
• 28:22
  that was in the story, ends up basically giving my wife that
• 28:27
  same sense of joy and optimism in life.
• 28:31
  It's beautiful and. No matter what she sustains that
• 28:34
  optimism, right. They eventually they immigrate
• 28:36
  to United States, they make a life for themselves here and my
• 28:39
  wife and my wife was born in in Ukraine, but but she she
• 28:43
  sustains that sense that no matter what we will make it.
• 28:49
  And that was a very different kind of woman and kind of
• 28:54
  resilience then the resilience that my mother gained from her
• 28:58
  mother, who was broken by the death of her daughter, who was
• 29:01
  broken by the war. Yeah.
• 29:04
  And so it it's, it's it's so powerful what we give our kids.
• 29:09
  They can navigate through so, so much darkness, if we can, can
• 29:16
  infuse that light into their lives.
• 29:19
  And if we can't and they end up sort of like later in life,
• 29:22
  realizing that they don't want to live their life in darkness,
• 29:25
  then then, then we as adults, you know, can move towards that
• 29:29
  as well. We can find a new way.
• 29:30
  We can find a new kind of, of, of motto or a new kind of a
• 29:36
  mantra to live our life with. And that's sort of where I come
• 29:39
  in. That's, that's, that's, that's
• 29:41
  where I try and guide or at least be a partner in that
• 29:45
  process. So that's kind of another story,
• 29:48
  right? We.
• 29:48
  We. Talk about the.
• 29:49
  Trauma, the trauma of, of our people and, and, and, and that's
• 29:54
  just within the last, you know, the last 100 years, it's like
• 29:56
  7080 years. It's pretty amazing.
• 29:59
  Like in there have been so many traumas for us, right?
• 30:01
  There's a if you, if we, if we really go back, there have been
• 30:05
  so many traumas. The stories are endless.
• 30:09
  I, I'm, I'm, yeah. I mean, I'm just there.
• 30:13
  There's so many they choose from.
• 30:14
  It's like I, we, we, we need to figure out what our topic is and
• 30:17
  then I'm sure there's a story to match.
• 30:19
  That yeah, well, let's well, let's keep on, let's keep on
• 30:22
  going because I'm loving I I, I think that I'm loving this and,
• 30:25
  and all the anecdotes and I actually, I actually think and
• 30:28
  I'm and, and so and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this,
• 30:31
  especially, you know, with introducing this notion in mind
• 30:36
  that there that aside from generational trauma, there's
• 30:40
  there's got to be cultural trauma, you know, I mean there's
• 30:43
  got to be just. And, you know, just the fact
• 30:47
  that, you know, a group of people and call any people, it
• 30:51
  doesn't make, you know, it doesn't have to be the Jews.
• 30:53
  It could be the Irish, it could be, you know, it could be the
• 30:56
  Africans, it could be the Taiwanese.
• 30:58
  It doesn't make a difference, you know, but a group of people
• 31:00
  that have that, that, that as a society have suffered and the,
• 31:08
  and there, and therefore the decisions they make as as a
• 31:13
  society and as a community bears the weight of their psychology,
• 31:20
  the group psychology, you know, so like almost the psychology of
• 31:24
  countries or, or, or large entities, I would call it, you
• 31:26
  know, because it's, I mean, it's very, very clear when you just
• 31:30
  look at the world that that is what's causing a lot of the
• 31:34
  conflict today is just generational trauma between
• 31:38
  nations that are just better equipped to, to, to Duke things
• 31:42
  out than two individuals might be, you know, or two parents
• 31:45
  might be or whatever it is. It's much easier to Duke things
• 31:50
  out than it is to actually sit down, talk, heal, find, find a
• 31:54
  way forward. That's a yeah, because you're
• 31:57
  doing it for, because you can't do it for millions of people
• 31:59
  that are part of your society necessarily.
• 32:03
  Right. I think that the cultural trauma
• 32:06
  that that that frame to look through is, is very interesting
• 32:10
  For me. This is small, another small
• 32:14
  kind of anecdote. I remember that that my wife's
• 32:17
  uncle who lives in Germany, right, he's Jewish, immigrated
• 32:20
  from the Soviet Union to Germany.
• 32:23
  And he sat with me having dinner one night and he said to me, you
• 32:25
  know, that it's very important for us, for us as people to not
• 32:30
  stick our heads out. It's, it's a Russian phrase,
• 32:33
  Nivasova vaiset means don't stand out right now.
• 32:38
  I, I thought about that for a very, very long time, that
• 32:41
  statement of don't stand out. What, what, what, where that
• 32:44
  comes from. And it comes from this cultural
• 32:46
  trauma. It's this trauma of being a Jew,
• 32:52
  right? We don't live in our country.
• 32:53
  We did not live in our country. We live in the Soviet Union,
• 32:56
  right? It's different when you live in
• 32:57
  Israel, but to live in another country, to be the minority and
• 33:04
  the minority that that very frequently was not adored,
• 33:08
  right? Very frequently was a vilified
• 33:10
  minority, right? Because we what, what are our
• 33:12
  values? Our values are education,
• 33:14
  family, right? Like that, that kind of
• 33:16
  strength. So, so we send our kids to
• 33:18
  school. We value that art.
• 33:20
  We, we tend to do well because we, we excel at, at these things
• 33:25
  that are hard, but they are valuable to us as a culture.
• 33:31
  And so, but to live in a country like that, you don't want to
• 33:36
  stand out because the one that stands out gets his face beaten.
• 33:40
  The one that stands out ends up losing his job, the one that
• 33:43
  stands out and might end up getting killed.
• 33:46
  And so it's an interesting statement for me because it's
• 33:48
  coming from one generation, a much older generation to a
• 33:51
  younger generation that has not grown up up until a certain
• 33:55
  point with anti-Semitism. I, I really did not know what
• 33:58
  anti-Semitism was, but he did, he thought very clearly, right?
• 34:03
  And so to the, the trauma that he had had to have gone through
• 34:09
  to live his life being meek, right?
• 34:13
  Be meek, be small, be hidden. That's the underlying, that's,
• 34:20
  that's the communication from him.
• 34:22
  Don't stick your head out. Be silent.
• 34:27
  Very different from from how I was raised, right?
• 34:30
  What do you mean be proud? Be Jewish.
• 34:33
  Yeah. Put your head out.
• 34:34
  Right. Look it up.
• 34:35
  Look at all of the successes of our people.
• 34:36
  Look what we have accomplished. Look at this small country in
• 34:39
  the desert that, that that has grown and flourished into a a
• 34:42
  first world nation, right? Be proud of that.
• 34:46
  It's it's, it's, it's like we in some way again, my generation
• 34:53
  was raised very different and wow, what a slap in the face.
• 34:56
  October 7th was right. Right.
• 34:59
  Well, and yeah, like yeah, and and and and subsequent time
• 35:03
  since then. Oh, but I'm saying 100% like
• 35:08
  that, that that's I'm just saying that framework, what
• 35:11
  happened on October 7th and what followed, what a rude awakening
• 35:17
  for so many people. I think, you know, Jews, I meant
• 35:22
  to say, yeah, even in my, in my, in my groups, I have seen how
• 35:28
  that sense of betrayal and that sense of wow, maybe we really
• 35:32
  shouldn't stick our neck out. Maybe we move our head out.
• 35:34
  Maybe we maybe they were right. Maybe things aren't as good as
• 35:37
  we as we thought they were. And, and, and and taking, taking
• 35:44
  stock of that and then realizing absolutely not.
• 35:46
  We are not going to live our lives that way.
• 35:49
  We are not. No one's going backwards.
• 35:51
  The the only way is forward and through.
• 35:54
  So it's another interesting sort of going back to this concept of
• 35:59
  cultural trauma. I think that that the whole
• 36:03
  October 7th situation was so traumatic and it was traumatic
• 36:07
  because for so many people it what we thought was not
• 36:12
  accurate. Like we were, we were living in
• 36:14
  a bit of a delusion, it feels like.
• 36:17
  And now it's like now that we've seen it, now that we've, now
• 36:20
  that a light has shone upon that was shined upon, that we
• 36:25
  actually need to make the world right with what our image was
• 36:30
  like. We, we now realize that there is
• 36:35
  a, a job we're called to kind of, we have a, we have a, an
• 36:38
  important mission to make the world right with, with how our
• 36:42
  vision was. And it must be that vision, but
• 36:44
  it must be that the world is improving that that that
• 36:46
  anti-Semitism diminishes, not increases.
• 36:49
  So we have to now live our lives that way.
• 36:53
  And before we were kind of sedated, we were, we were this
• 36:56
  halcyonic idea of, of the world being, you know, somewhat being
• 37:01
  a friendly. And now it seems less so.
• 37:06
  Yeah, yeah, it's, I spend a lot of time thinking about this and
• 37:12
  one thing that I, and I don't know why I even think this way,
• 37:16
  but a lot of times I tend to, when it comes to a conflict, I
• 37:20
  tend to look inward a lot and see, you know, what I would have
• 37:24
  done to potentially 'cause, you know, a problem.
• 37:28
  And then, and then because I'm usually tough myself and then I
• 37:30
  would, and then I would give, you know, I would give.
• 37:33
  I mean, there are times where you're even giving someone the
• 37:35
  benefit of the doubt, like, you know, behaviour doesn't, you
• 37:38
  know, justify itself. But one of the first things that
• 37:40
  I do is kind of look in and be like, am I acting in a way?
• 37:44
  Am I, am I just being defensive right now?
• 37:45
  Am I just acting like this because I'm just being a jerk
• 37:47
  about it? And I'm like, because me on the
• 37:49
  other end of it, or you know what?
• 37:51
  I, what I care, but I think that, you know, I, I don't know,
• 38:01
  I don't know what to do with all this.
• 38:03
  I don't know what to I, I, I haven't known what to do with
• 38:07
  the last 2 1/2 years of, you know, my Jewish and, you know,
• 38:15
  my Jewish identity, my love for Israel, my love for America, my
• 38:18
  love for my love for people, you know, and, and it just feels
• 38:22
  like no matter what I do or what I think or what, or who or what
• 38:28
  I, or what I listen to or anything that I, or anything,
• 38:30
  anyone that I talk to, everything kind of just ends up
• 38:32
  going in circles. So it's really, I don't really,
• 38:35
  you know, and I think that all this and a part of the reason I
• 38:38
  think this happened is because everything is so entangled in so
• 38:41
  many different perspectives and philosophies and histories and
• 38:45
  different understandings of things that I almost feel like
• 38:50
  everyone can make a case from every single, you know, side
• 38:53
  that they're standing on about everything that they do.
• 38:56
  But then what you know, like, OK, so now everyone has a case
• 39:00
  and now what do we do? Like we're still, we're still at
• 39:03
  a stalemate, right? So, so how do you, so how do we
• 39:05
  move forward? What do we do to move forward?
• 39:07
  You know, and that's kind of what I've been what I've been
• 39:10
  stuck on. And I don't really know, I don't
• 39:12
  think anyone really knows to do about it.
• 39:13
  Or if they do, I haven't found that.
• 39:15
  I haven't found them yet. Well, I mean, I think that this
• 39:20
  is sort of the, the generational impasse, right?
• 39:24
  We've, we've, we've been, we've been standing at a crossroads
• 39:26
  here. Somebody gains an inch, some,
• 39:29
  another person gains an inch and goes back and forth and back and
• 39:32
  forth. And it's been that way now for
• 39:34
  decades, right? The, the reality is that you
• 39:37
  said it correctly. Everyone can make a case from
• 39:41
  every side, right? That's true.
• 39:44
  There's no doubt about that. It just depends on what side
• 39:46
  you're standing on that, that, that that narrative seems more
• 39:50
  appropriate or more right, depending on the side that
• 39:52
  you're standing on. And ultimately, I feel like the
• 39:58
  people, and this isn't maybe like even even a full answer,
• 40:02
  but you know what? There are people that are trying
• 40:06
  to look at everything and say, look, this is all true.
• 40:10
  All the pain, all the suffering, all of it, it's all true.
• 40:14
  And yet we need to find a way forward.
• 40:17
  You know we're not going anywhere, right?
• 40:19
  Jews aren't going anywhere. Palestinians aren't going
• 40:21
  anywhere. We're here.
• 40:25
  Something has to give. We have to find a way forward.
• 40:29
  Because killing each other endlessly till the end of time,
• 40:34
  it's not a solution, right? And and and.
• 40:38
  You don't have you don't have an appetite.
• 40:39
  To know that there is. Like the world doesn't have an
• 40:43
  appetite. The world doesn't have an
• 40:44
  appetite for it, you know? I mean we, we, you know.
• 40:47
  I mean, every war ends, I mean. Yeah, big everything does this
• 40:51
  is this is this. Is Protestants fought the
• 40:53
  Catholics for you know what, 100 years, eventually, eventually
• 40:57
  all wars end. The question is, do we want to,
• 40:59
  you know, do we want to keep killing until, you know, another
• 41:03
  100 years and then, and then find a solution anyway, or do we
• 41:08
  sit down and try and find a solution?
• 41:09
  It, it's, it's, it's very, it's, it is so complicated.
• 41:13
  But you know, reminds me of that.
• 41:16
  What's, what's the, the old saying from the fiddler on the
• 41:19
  roof? I think if, if we all live our
• 41:21
  lives as a eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, we're going to all
• 41:24
  end up being. Blind and toothless.
• 41:27
  Yeah, we're going to all end up blind and toothless, right?
• 41:29
  So, so, so at some point, right, And there are groups, I mean, I,
• 41:34
  I'm aware of this, right? There are groups that are
• 41:37
  sitting down together and they're figuring out how to
• 41:40
  navigate this. They're figuring out how do we
• 41:43
  live with each other and not against each other.
• 41:47
  And I, and I don't have the answer.
• 41:49
  And I, and certainly I am, I am just as susceptible to the
• 41:53
  emotional swings of this, of these last few years, right?
• 41:56
  I, I, I, I am, I, I've experienced the grief, the pain,
• 42:00
  the anger, the sorrow, it's, it's all moved through me.
• 42:05
  I, I, you know, I participated in the, in the Nova, you know.
• 42:12
  The yeah, the museum, that's the.
• 42:13
  Yeah, but. They, they, they, they did A at
• 42:18
  Burning Man. They did a Nova memorial tent.
• 42:22
  And, and my wife and I, we were, we were volunteers at that tent
• 42:26
  and it was so incredibly moving. It was so incredibly moving.
• 42:31
  Can. You tell me about that.
• 42:32
  With all these people. About that whole experience,
• 42:34
  including that, can you tell me about that whole experience
• 42:36
  including Burning Man, just like from the top?
• 42:39
  Because that actually sounds like an awesome story and I
• 42:41
  would love to fill in context for anyone that doesn't know,
• 42:43
  you know, that's not familiar with it.
• 42:45
  Oh, yeah. I, I, I, I mean, this is by far
• 42:48
  one of the most, one of the deepest and most meaningful
• 42:52
  experiences of our, of our life. You know, there was a Nova
• 42:55
  festival in Israel, right? It was the original attack when,
• 42:59
  when, when the Palestinians crossed the border and there was
• 43:01
  this kind of side trans rave happening in the desert.
• 43:05
  It was, it was a, it was a rave for peace and for, for unity,
• 43:09
  actually. And they attacked this festival.
• 43:12
  They killed, raped, maimed. It was a, it was a mass
• 43:16
  insanity. There was a moving museum
• 43:20
  exhibit around the world that moved with, which was
• 43:23
  beautifully done as well, which they sort of explained all of
• 43:29
  it. And they had, they had this
• 43:30
  material, all of these artifacts from the site.
• 43:33
  Anyway, the the original organizers of Nova decided to
• 43:40
  bring the a copy of the tent from the festival to Burning Man
• 43:45
  and to set it up as a memorial to the to the, the, the young
• 43:49
  people that were killed. Because Burning Man is this
• 43:52
  amazing art and music event. I don't want to call it a
• 43:56
  festival. It's not a festival.
• 43:58
  It is a gathering of, of people that kind of live the best of
• 44:05
  humanity, try and exhibit the best of humanity, the values of
• 44:09
  humanity with no, with no commodification, no, no money
• 44:14
  exchanged. And there's, there's beautiful
• 44:17
  artwork, there's music, there's just, it's, it's, it's an
• 44:20
  amazing event. There is nothing on the planet,
• 44:21
  I think, quite like it. And so the organizers gathered
• 44:26
  money. They brought this gigantic tent
• 44:30
  to the desert. They set up the tent.
• 44:32
  They created these spiral staircases and they lined the
• 44:36
  staircases with wooden steps and on each of the steps there was
• 44:39
  an Angel, a cut out wooden Angel with the name of one of the kids
• 44:44
  that was. Killed at the.
• 44:45
  Festival and it was all lit up and then and throughout the week
• 44:49
  long festival they had these art cars which which are these large
• 44:55
  lit up cars, many of them have music systems on them.
• 44:59
  They would have them come and they would they would create an
• 45:02
  environment for people to dance with these angels under the
• 45:06
  tent. And the, the organizers asked
• 45:11
  for volunteers to, to stand guard as guardians of the tent
• 45:16
  and not so much guardians if something bad would happen, but
• 45:19
  to be there to, to talk to people, to help share, to help
• 45:23
  hug, to help support in whatever way was necessary.
• 45:26
  And these guardians stood basically every day for seven
• 45:30
  days, 24 hours a day in shift. So there were, there were, you
• 45:34
  know, I mean, there was like 4 to 6 guardians at this tent
• 45:38
  throughout every night. So basically protectors of the
• 45:43
  tent. And it was incredibly moving to,
• 45:47
  to, to do one of those shifts with my wife and some of our
• 45:51
  friends because people came to, you know, to talk to, to cry, to
• 45:57
  listen to music, to, to bring some kind of a, you know, small
• 46:00
  artifact or something. And we had so many people come.
• 46:03
  We had this, we had this gigantic group come in.
• 46:06
  They were like Catholics or something that had been at a, a
• 46:09
  festival in the desert around the same time as Nova and they
• 46:12
  heard that it happened and they were so moved and so like it was
• 46:17
  so heavy for them that they all came together and they wanted to
• 46:21
  dance under the Nova fan, under the Nova tent with all of these
• 46:25
  spirits of the, of the, the lost young people that that were at
• 46:29
  the festival. It was, I mean, it was
• 46:30
  incredibly moving. And the, the end of the, the
• 46:37
  Nova experience there was the last day, the Saturday of
• 46:40
  Burning Man. It was the day that the man is
• 46:42
  burned. There was a gigantic a sunrise
• 46:45
  gathering. There were thousands of people
• 46:48
  and they brought these three art cars to the sunrise and they had
• 46:52
  this woman, her name is Scarlett Delatorre.
• 46:54
  She is a beautiful singer, guitarist.
• 46:57
  She sang Jewish prayers and Jewish songs on one of these art
• 47:01
  cars to all these people. And they had a basically a
• 47:05
  memorial like a service. And then at the exact time that
• 47:10
  the music stopped at Nova, So at the, at the hour at which they
• 47:15
  turned the music off because the attack had started, the original
• 47:18
  DJs that had been at Nova were there at Burning Man, the ones
• 47:22
  that survived. And they started the music back
• 47:25
  up and, and the whole crowd started dancing.
• 47:29
  It was just. It was just.
• 47:30
  It was insanity. You, you.
• 47:32
  People were crying. You, you, you, you, you.
• 47:35
  The energy of it, the intensity of it, I mean, it was, it was
• 47:41
  the best of us. You know, that's, that's the
• 47:43
  best way I can say it. It was it was really the the
• 47:45
  best of our people. You think that?
• 47:49
  Yeah. I think that there's something
• 47:54
  to something incredible to and I think that it's something that
• 47:58
  we kind of lost recently, definitely during COVID, but I
• 48:02
  think is so integral and that's embodied group experiences.
• 48:08
  And those embody group experiences, whether it's
• 48:12
  Burning Man or whether it's going to a movie with 50 other
• 48:15
  people or 100 other people and laughing or crying together or
• 48:17
  going to a baseball game or a concert or anything like that.
• 48:20
  Going to these embody group experiences seem to amplify and
• 48:27
  bring, seem to amplify, you know, whatever, whatever you're
• 48:32
  experiencing, you know, and, and I, and I've been thinking a lot
• 48:39
  about in general about what a lot of today's problems are and
• 48:42
  a lot of it is isolation and loneliness.
• 48:45
  And I wish that, you know, I wish that there are ways to do
• 48:51
  to encourage more, more of that type of activity because I know
• 48:57
  for my own sake. And I've actually had this
• 48:59
  experience recently, I moved to my neighborhood in Hollywood,
• 49:01
  FL, you know, a couple of years back.
• 49:04
  And I, you know, and there was, and I became friends with a
• 49:08
  group of other young dads who has, you know, anywhere from
• 49:11
  2:00 to 4:00 or five kids. And you know, we hang out maybe
• 49:16
  once or twice a week minimum, even if it's for 20-30 minutes
• 49:20
  at a time, you know, and it just, you know, we just get
• 49:25
  together. If it's a tough week, you know,
• 49:27
  we end up either laughing or complaining or sharing or
• 49:29
  whatever it is. We hang out, we have a beer.
• 49:31
  And you know, we go home before anything, you know, before
• 49:34
  anything. It's crazier before, you know,
• 49:36
  in case you miss any of our responsibilities.
• 49:37
  But you know, there's every single person in the group,
• 49:42
  their personal lives, their family lives, their lives have
• 49:46
  just gone like immeasurably better just by talking, you
• 49:49
  know, just by talking to them that they just feel like
• 49:51
  everything is better, You know, And I, I really, really wish
• 49:54
  that people would realize or I guess that, you know, that there
• 49:57
  would be more emphasis in society on, on more group
• 50:00
  activities like that, because I think that we have these little
• 50:03
  experiences. And then like, even if you have
• 50:05
  a thought and then if you say the thought out loud, it changes
• 50:08
  the way that you, you know, you emotionally process it.
• 50:12
  And then when you say it out loud to a person or five people
• 50:14
  or 100 people, or you share that experience together, then it
• 50:18
  just, the growth is exponential. And it's, it almost feels like
• 50:24
  that's been cut off from our society.
• 50:29
  I can't agree with you more. I think it's you're totally
• 50:32
  right. I think that isolation is the
• 50:35
  death of us. We are at heart social animals,
• 50:40
  right? We don't live.
• 50:41
  We're not, we're not. We might think that we're
• 50:46
  individualistic and we are, but at the same time, we exist in
• 50:51
  social groups. And I think that something has
• 50:53
  been lost. And I think it's not just COVID.
• 50:56
  You know, at one point in this country, there were social
• 51:00
  organizations, right? The Lions, the, the, all the
• 51:06
  social groups right there. There were, there were church
• 51:08
  groups, there were cultural groups, there were the Shriners,
• 51:11
  there were the people belonged to organizations.
• 51:15
  And it was a place for you to go to have a beer, glass of wine,
• 51:20
  to talk to have a dinner and a weekend, right.
• 51:23
  To some degree, the the church and the synagogues that have
• 51:28
  the, the Shabbats and the, and the Sunday Masses where people
• 51:31
  bring food. Those are all conditions in
• 51:34
  which we gather as a community and community is one of the
• 51:39
  fundamental pillars of mental health.
• 51:43
  And the the model that I was trained in includes that meaning
• 51:46
  like how is your relationship with yourself?
• 51:49
  How is your relationship with your community?
• 51:52
  And how is your relationship with your purpose, your passion
• 51:55
  and your creativity? Like if, if those three things,
• 51:58
  if you can answer great to those three things, it's very unlikely
• 52:03
  that you're going to be a depressed person.
• 52:04
  It's very unlikely that you're going to be suffering from panic
• 52:07
  attacks and anxiety. So you said self focusing on
• 52:10
  self. Repeat the three It's self.
• 52:14
  What is your community? It's a.
• 52:16
  Check in right. This is a check in that, that,
• 52:21
  that we do as a treatment team in our, in our practice.
• 52:24
  And, and the question is what is your relationship or how is your
• 52:27
  relationship with yourself? How is your relationship with
• 52:30
  your community? That could be your family, your
• 52:32
  parents, your, your wife, your, your, your greater community.
• 52:35
  And how is your relationship with your purpose or your
• 52:38
  creativity? Those are the three questions.
• 52:42
  If you can, if you can honestly answer those questions and, and
• 52:45
  feel that you are right with those things, that they are
• 52:48
  good, that you, that you are connected well to yourself, that
• 52:50
  you, you, you, you believe in yourself.
• 52:52
  You speak well to it, to yourself, right?
• 52:54
  If you have that connection with, with the people around
• 52:57
  you, they reflect your value back at you, right?
• 53:00
  You're not living in a vacuum. People see you, appreciate you,
• 53:05
  and you have a relationship with a sense that there is meaning in
• 53:09
  your life and what you do either be it creativity, be it meaning
• 53:13
  through the, the, the, what you bring into the world.
• 53:16
  It is very unlikely that you were going to have a mental
• 53:18
  health problem. Does that mean it will never
• 53:20
  happen? Of course not, but it's very
• 53:22
  unlikely. Fascinating So.
• 53:26
  It's it's crazy because it sounds, it sounds simple.
• 53:29
  Oh, is it? I mean, how many people that you
• 53:35
  know, if you ask them how is your relationship with your
• 53:39
  purpose? Like are you, do you feel like
• 53:41
  you're living your purpose and living your creativity are gonna
• 53:44
  tell you, yeah, absolutely. I love my job or I love this.
• 53:47
  I'm I'm doing the greatest. Exactly.
• 53:49
  Yeah, but I don't, I believe that he's working.
• 53:51
  You know, that comes down to education, I think, doesn't it?
• 53:54
  I mean, that comes down to conditioning and, and education.
• 53:57
  You know, I, I, I think we're, I think a lot of people are taught
• 53:59
  to stifle that kind of thing or that there are bigger priorities
• 54:02
  or values than those things. And we feel like, you know, it
• 54:06
  feels like we just experienced a giant, you know, a giant
• 54:12
  countrywide experiment. And the answer is that, that,
• 54:16
  you know, for mental health, that, you know, that the pursuit
• 54:19
  of, you know, money or status or power or position over all else,
• 54:23
  including passion, community and relationships does not work.
• 54:28
  And like you know, and I think that.
• 54:31
  Correct. You know, but I don't think that
• 54:34
  it's so I don't think that it's necessarily hard to do.
• 54:37
  I think we have to adjust the way that we adjust our our
• 54:41
  values. And I think that's actually
• 54:42
  probably a lot more easily done than you realize.
• 54:44
  Think about how, how, how few people, how much fewer people
• 54:48
  drink alcohol today than 5 or 10 years ago or, you know, have
• 54:51
  limited their alcohol consumption and, and, and you
• 54:54
  know, and I mean, I know that a huge part of that more.
• 54:56
  Smoke cigarettes, for that matter.
• 54:58
  Or smoke cigarettes, right? Or, or, or or trying to be
• 55:01
  healthier in terms of the type of processed foods they're
• 55:03
  eating, right? Like these cultural shifts,
• 55:06
  even, it might not take over completely yet or even ever.
• 55:10
  But I mean, once it's in the zeitgeist and once people are
• 55:13
  aware of it, then and, and especially, I think what's going
• 55:17
  to be fascinating is as AI takes away jobs or, you know, and as
• 55:21
  you know, jobs kind of become less and less hands on, people
• 55:27
  are going to be forced to confront these three things.
• 55:29
  Your relationship with yourself, your relationship with, you
• 55:31
  know, your community or your relationships otherwise, I guess
• 55:34
  external ones, and then finally your passions.
• 55:37
  That's the, that's the thing that we're actually kind of, I
• 55:39
  feel like hurling towards. And the scary thing is that a
• 55:42
  lot of people don't even know what to do with that.
• 55:47
  Oh, A. 100% I mean, a lot of my, a lot of my work, when people
• 55:51
  come in to my office and they, they meet with me, the treatment
• 55:56
  plan that I write frequently, it, it, it is essentially a, a
• 56:02
  view into these three directions.
• 56:06
  Like that's, that's what I do. I, I, I'm looking at how do I
• 56:10
  realign with you, right? How do I partner with you to
• 56:13
  realign your relationship with yourself, your relationship with
• 56:17
  your community, and to stand with you as you find your
• 56:23
  purpose, meaning and passion or creativity in life?
• 56:27
  That that is the treatment plan. It's not my treatment plan is
• 56:29
  very rarely take two Prozacs and call me in the morning.
• 56:32
  That's that, that may be a, a very small aspect of that
• 56:37
  relationship with self. Because if you're in darkness,
• 56:41
  in a, in a state of such despair that you cannot see beyond that,
• 56:45
  then we are going to give you something to try and help you
• 56:49
  deal so that you can then look at these three things in a more
• 56:54
  rational way. But that's usually the only
• 56:56
  reason that I would give medication, right?
• 56:59
  So I think that these three pillars are fundamental.
• 57:03
  And I, I, and I truly believe, like, I, I believe it's so much
• 57:08
  that I practice it with my wife on a weekly basis.
• 57:10
  We have our, we have this tradition.
• 57:13
  We do Sundays in the Jacuzzi with our coffee.
• 57:17
  So we literally get into the Jacuzzi.
• 57:18
  We have a small little Jacuzzi outside of our backyard.
• 57:21
  We sit down with our, with our like a cup of coffee and we ask
• 57:25
  each other these three questions like, how is your relationship
• 57:28
  with yourself? How is your relationship with
• 57:29
  your community? How is your relationship with
• 57:31
  your, with your purpose? And, and we talk.
• 57:35
  We, we, we have a, we have a small little download, you know,
• 57:38
  it's, it's not an hour long thing.
• 57:40
  It's like, you know, this has been a tough week.
• 57:41
  I've, I've, I've been struggling.
• 57:43
  It's, you know, I didn't meditate this, this morning,
• 57:45
  yadda, yadda, yadda. But I feel really great with my
• 57:47
  community. Everybody is, you know,
• 57:48
  everybody's well, everybody's happy, healthy.
• 57:50
  And I, I feel like they're, you know, they're there for me.
• 57:52
  So it, it, it doesn't need to be long, but, but to be able to
• 57:55
  discuss that and to, to check in with each other, right?
• 57:59
  Like you check in with your friends and that beer, right?
• 58:01
  That's, that's, that's that check in.
• 58:03
  Doesn't need to be so structured, But this just
• 58:06
  happens to work for us. And, and I think it's, it's
• 58:08
  great because it, it is a, it's a access point into how we're
• 58:12
  doing. I mean, a lot of times we're,
• 58:14
  we're kind of pivoting out of our, we're moving through our
• 58:17
  discussion very, very fluidly. A lot of times when couples come
• 58:21
  in and I and I meet with them, what I get is the sense that
• 58:27
  like their relationship, there's no time for them.
• 58:31
  Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course they discussed like, you
• 58:34
  know, the groceries and the car payments and the this and they
• 58:36
  go to work and they go search their parents or they they
• 58:39
  watch, watch the kids, but but where is.
• 58:43
  They stop dating. Relationship with each other.
• 58:47
  Right, they stop. They stop dating and they start.
• 58:49
  They start the units. Right.
• 58:53
  But, but, but the problem is that all of a sudden you realize
• 58:56
  that you've you've you've poured yourself 2 beautiful pairs of
• 58:59
  concrete shoes. It's like, it's just, it's
• 59:03
  stifling. Like you, you you never stop
• 59:05
  dating. You never stop dating.
• 59:08
  That's the that's the secret of a great relationship.
• 59:11
  You never stop dating. You never stop having sex.
• 59:13
  You never stop. You never stop.
• 59:16
  Yeah. And and the night you do, it's
• 59:18
  like, it's like you. Lose it or lose it in here, you
• 59:21
  lose. Use it or lose it.
• 59:22
  Yeah, you got one sense. 100 percent, 100%.
• 59:25
  How can I ask, how do you get, how do you help people find
• 59:29
  their passions? Because I, I want to know for my
• 59:35
  own sake, but I also know that a lot of people, you know,
• 59:38
  especially people that have kind of been off put to this general
• 59:42
  notion or ideal, you know, for the entire lives.
• 59:44
  And, you know, passions are stupid and you have to have a
• 59:46
  career. Or if your career, if you're
• 59:48
  going to have a career, it doesn't have, you know, it's
• 59:50
  more important that you make money than be something that
• 59:52
  you're passionate about and make a little bit less money,
• 59:54
  whatever it is. But how would you or even do
• 59:56
  something on the side? How do you help someone identify
• 59:58
  a passion when they don't know what their passions are?
• 1:00:03
  Yeah, Oh, I mean, it's, it's actually the coolest part.
• 1:00:06
  It's the best part of the of, of the profession.
• 1:00:08
  So, so, you know, first of all, most, most people didn't grow up
• 1:00:14
  with hobbies or, or, or any kind of pursuits.
• 1:00:17
  They've lost the connection to, right?
• 1:00:21
  That the ability to understand what it means to experience joy
• 1:00:26
  for the sake of joy, right? Not joy for the sake of, I'm
• 1:00:29
  going to make money on the back end of this, right?
• 1:00:32
  Like the question becomes, how do you feel when you are doing
• 1:00:38
  this? How are you feeling when you do
• 1:00:41
  this? Well, you have to do things to
• 1:00:45
  know how you're going to feel. So the most important thing, the
• 1:00:47
  number one factor to to be able to help someone and, and, and
• 1:00:51
  sort of stand with them as they find their passion, their
• 1:00:53
  creativity, whatever is a willing candidate, right?
• 1:00:57
  So you need someone that says, I'm going to do it.
• 1:01:00
  I'm going to go and I'm going to do these things.
• 1:01:03
  I'm going to go take this class, I'm going to go to this event,
• 1:01:06
  I'm going to go dancing. Because if you don't have a
• 1:01:09
  partner, you cannot drag them. You know, heels ground, ground
• 1:01:15
  into the ground and like, you know, a kicking and screaming to
• 1:01:19
  some event or some course, you need a willing candidate.
• 1:01:24
  And so the my first job is to try and convince them of the
• 1:01:28
  importance of this, to find something of meaning.
• 1:01:31
  So I had this client who came in and his whole thing was he
• 1:01:35
  cannot find a good Jewish woman. He's like, he was just
• 1:01:37
  struggling. He'd, he'd gone to the
• 1:01:39
  matchmaker. He did this, he did that, tried
• 1:01:42
  all these different things and nothing was working.
• 1:01:45
  And I said, you know, how about you just go and do something you
• 1:01:49
  enjoy doing and in the process of enjoyment you might find
• 1:01:54
  someone also enjoys. Yes, that's how I make friends.
• 1:01:59
  By the way, What? Does he do?
• 1:02:00
  Because, you know, I've always, yeah, exactly.
• 1:02:03
  He's like, you know, I've always wanted to take a pottery class.
• 1:02:08
  If you saw this guy, you would be like, this is, this is not a
• 1:02:11
  person that that is going to take a pottery class.
• 1:02:13
  The guy is huge, just like muscular.
• 1:02:16
  He works out. I've always wanted to take a
• 1:02:18
  pottery class, like fantastic, you know, finally, he goes to
• 1:02:22
  pottery class in Brentwood. He's the only guy amongst 12
• 1:02:26
  women in the pottery class. He comes back and he says I'm
• 1:02:29
  never going again. He goes, I'm the only guy in the
• 1:02:32
  thing. I feel so stupid.
• 1:02:35
  I said, tell me how you felt when you put your hands in the
• 1:02:41
  clay. I I don't care about the people
• 1:02:44
  there. I don't care about the building.
• 1:02:46
  I want to just know. Can you please go back to the
• 1:02:49
  moment you put your hands in the clay and you started to, you
• 1:02:53
  know, the wheel started turning or whatever you were doing and
• 1:02:55
  you started working. What did you feel?
• 1:02:57
  He goes. You know, I laughed a little
• 1:02:58
  bit. Oh, that's interesting.
• 1:03:02
  I want to hear about this laugh. Tell me more about that.
• 1:03:05
  What did that laugh feel like? And do you ever just laugh for
• 1:03:09
  the sake of laughing because it comes from inside of you?
• 1:03:12
  Not because, because somebody, you know, told you a joke or not
• 1:03:15
  because you made an extra buck, but just you laugh because
• 1:03:18
  something ignited inside of you. That's where we find our
• 1:03:22
  passion. That is the, that is the, the
• 1:03:25
  inner clue that you are, you know, you've, you've, you've
• 1:03:29
  reached out and you grabbed something that has some meaning
• 1:03:32
  for you. Well, guess what?
• 1:03:34
  He goes back to the class and guess what?
• 1:03:37
  There happens to be a Jewish girl in that class who is single
• 1:03:42
  and they start seeing each other.
• 1:03:44
  So you see it's a he didn't go there to find, you know,
• 1:03:49
  necessarily to find the woman. He went there because he wanted
• 1:03:53
  to try this thing that he thought he might like.
• 1:03:56
  And in doing something that he liked, he suddenly had to me to
• 1:03:59
  talk about with someone that liked it too.
• 1:04:03
  And there and there goes the neighborhood, you know, there
• 1:04:06
  that, and that's how it it happens.
• 1:04:08
  And it's a very kind of simple, right?
• 1:04:11
  You said that that whole process seems very simple.
• 1:04:13
  It's just these three things. And it is, it's not complicated.
• 1:04:17
  It's not some massive career in astrophysics, physics, you know,
• 1:04:21
  it's not the next purchase of a corporation.
• 1:04:23
  It's it's in these simple things, right?
• 1:04:27
  That that you find joy. And if that gives you joy and if
• 1:04:30
  you giggle like that, then maybe there's something there.
• 1:04:34
  Now, does that mean that he's going to pursue pottery?
• 1:04:36
  No, but in talking to that girl, they might find a mutual
• 1:04:40
  interest in hiking. And all of a sudden hiking has
• 1:04:43
  meaning. And all of a sudden they're
• 1:04:44
  smiling together on that hike and they're holding hands and
• 1:04:48
  life is different all of a sudden.
• 1:04:50
  So a small story, but but one in which you understand.
• 1:04:54
  How do you help someone find their passion?
• 1:04:56
  I've, I had another young woman came in very low self esteem,
• 1:05:00
  very low self esteem, but this very acerbic sense of humor,
• 1:05:05
  like the way that she laughed at herself, the way that she, that
• 1:05:08
  she poked at herself. I said, you know, you, you, you
• 1:05:11
  should try stand up. You should try and like take an
• 1:05:15
  improv class. And by the way, we, we recommend
• 1:05:17
  in our practice improv classes all the time for low self
• 1:05:21
  esteem. It's a great way to build up
• 1:05:24
  self esteem, to learn how to do improv.
• 1:05:27
  So she goes and she joins this improv class and ends up joining
• 1:05:31
  their comedy troupe. How do you find your passion?
• 1:05:34
  You go first step. The hardest step is the first
• 1:05:38
  one. But once you take that first
• 1:05:39
  step, the path begins to open itself.
• 1:05:42
  So it's like a, it's very cliche, but you know the the
• 1:05:44
  path is not clear before you take the first step.
• 1:05:49
  The path becomes clear when you are on the path.
• 1:05:54
  Is Do you remember the book The Found Head by Ayn Rand?
• 1:05:57
  Yeah, of course. Absolutely.
• 1:05:59
  So there was one particular scene in the book.
• 1:06:02
  It's so funny because I don't know anything about the book.
• 1:06:04
  I didn't know, you know, I just like stumbled upon at one time,
• 1:06:07
  I didn't know that anyone like, felt very strongly about it one
• 1:06:09
  way or the other. And I was like talking about it,
• 1:06:12
  you know, And I was in college and my friends are like, dude,
• 1:06:16
  you know, that book sucks. I'm like, what?
• 1:06:18
  How could that book suck? I just didn't understand that it
• 1:06:20
  was even controversial. But there was one.
• 1:06:24
  There was the particular instance where the guy that you
• 1:06:29
  know, where the, where the, I guess the main sad character,
• 1:06:32
  not really hero, not really a villain, the guy that pursues
• 1:06:37
  architecture just for the prestige and for the sake of it,
• 1:06:41
  but really wanted to be an artist.
• 1:06:42
  There's a point where he calls Howard Rourke, who's the main
• 1:06:45
  hero into like at a certain point in his like 40s or 50s,
• 1:06:49
  he, you know, he achieved everything he wanted to achieve
• 1:06:51
  with his career. And he goes to and he buys his
• 1:06:54
  shed for his backyard and he disappears into his shed for
• 1:06:58
  hours of time at a night. And he doesn't his wife in, he
• 1:07:01
  doesn't let his friends in. No one's allowed to see what's
• 1:07:02
  inside. And and he invites this other
• 1:07:05
  guy, Rourke in and it turns out to be paintings.
• 1:07:09
  And this guy, you know, felt like he had shut off his, you
• 1:07:13
  know, his desire for his passions for so long that he
• 1:07:17
  wanted to see if it was too late to kind of re engage with it.
• 1:07:21
  And, you know, in the way that she and the way that she
• 1:07:24
  describes the book was so heartbreaking.
• 1:07:26
  It literally it made me cry while I was reading it.
• 1:07:28
  And it was really it was an extremely profound moment.
• 1:07:31
  But that, you know, he's looking at these pictures that look like
• 1:07:37
  and it, you know, like some like inner child had tried to draw
• 1:07:41
  on, but like through like, you know, like an adult, like
• 1:07:44
  crudely. And he's just like, it was just
• 1:07:46
  too late for him to pursue this. I think a lot of people, you
• 1:07:50
  know, feel like it's too late in their lives at any point to
• 1:07:54
  really do to really try to do anything or try to do anything
• 1:07:58
  great. And if they're not going to do
• 1:07:59
  it, great, then what's the point?
• 1:08:02
  I, I specifically try to avoid that.
• 1:08:05
  I try, I picked up guitar like 3 or 4 years ago just, and I've
• 1:08:08
  been, you know, at it since. And I'm always trying to do new
• 1:08:11
  things because I always don't feel like it's, you know, I
• 1:08:13
  always don't want to feel like it's too late.
• 1:08:15
  But what, how do we, how do we, how do we get people out of
• 1:08:19
  that, out of that, you know, that space?
• 1:08:21
  Because I feel like it's a really real fear.
• 1:08:23
  And it really is a very it's it's a tough feeling when you
• 1:08:27
  you started something later at life and someone with, you know,
• 1:08:30
  and you're comparing yourself to other people and you're insecure
• 1:08:32
  about it to begin with. And then all of a sudden, you
• 1:08:34
  know, you're not good at it. And you know, what's the point
• 1:08:37
  of even doing it almost, you know, how do you do you do you
• 1:08:40
  do a lot of people express that sentiment?
• 1:08:43
  OK, we're back. So, you know, that's this point
• 1:08:48
  about about not pursuing something because it's not going
• 1:08:51
  to be perfect goes to this whole concept of perfectionism, right?
• 1:08:55
  Do you stop a child from playing a game because they didn't play
• 1:08:59
  it perfectly? Right.
• 1:09:01
  Do you stop a child from doing some kind of art because it's
• 1:09:04
  not perfect? Of course not.
• 1:09:07
  It's not about being perfect. We're not looking to pick up the
• 1:09:11
  clarinet to be a, an award-winning clarinet artist,
• 1:09:14
  right? That's that, that's a musician.
• 1:09:16
  That's not the point. It's like that, the client that
• 1:09:19
  put his hands in the clay and giggled.
• 1:09:21
  It's, it's about just feeling something.
• 1:09:24
  It's about feeling like, you know, I like this.
• 1:09:27
  I, it, it does something. And sometimes it's about being
• 1:09:30
  attuned to yourself. I know that people, you know,
• 1:09:34
  they get older, they kind of lose touch with what am I
• 1:09:36
  feeling right now. But the reality is that you
• 1:09:39
  don't need to pursue a, a, a creative endeavor.
• 1:09:43
  You don't need to pursue something to be the best at it.
• 1:09:47
  We're trained as kids and I think that we do a lot of
• 1:09:50
  disservice to kids when we when we try and push them towards
• 1:09:55
  being this ideal version of something.
• 1:09:59
  Don't get me wrong, we all need our Mozart's, we all need our
• 1:10:02
  Beethoven's, right? They, they, those, those kinds
• 1:10:08
  of outliers are going to always exist.
• 1:10:14
  But as individuals, we do not need to be to create the best
• 1:10:21
  piece of pottery, the best drawing, the best anything.
• 1:10:26
  My house is full of artwork. Many of those things were made
• 1:10:30
  by dear friends. They are beautiful pieces of art
• 1:10:34
  for me. Does that mean that they are
• 1:10:37
  award-winning? They should be up in the, in
• 1:10:39
  the, you know, the Museum of, of Art.
• 1:10:41
  Maybe not, but they have a lot of meaning for me.
• 1:10:45
  They're they, they are very rich for me.
• 1:10:47
  I, I would be more upset about losing those than losing some
• 1:10:50
  piece of art somewhere in a museum that that doesn't have
• 1:10:53
  any meaning for me. So what we do for ourselves,
• 1:10:58
  that is by itself very important that that in and of itself is
• 1:11:04
  enough. We are enough.
• 1:11:07
  And so often we, I think clients flip.
• 1:11:09
  They're not enough. We are enough not for not for
• 1:11:13
  what we do or what we give, for who we are.
• 1:11:16
  We are enough. And when I try and help somebody
• 1:11:20
  as I'm kind of ushering them towards trying to class or
• 1:11:24
  something. Give up on the perfectionism.
• 1:11:27
  No one needs your perfectionism. You don't need your
• 1:11:30
  perfectionism. Just be be completely present in
• 1:11:35
  the moment and ask yourself, how do I feel right now, in the
• 1:11:40
  moment? Am I depressed, Am I anxious?
• 1:11:43
  Am I telling myself that I'm garbage, that I'm not worthy?
• 1:11:47
  OK, let's talk about that. What's real here?
• 1:11:51
  So I think the answer that question you first asked about
• 1:11:56
  how do you find your passion? How do you find your meaning?
• 1:11:59
  It's about being attuned to yourself and and understanding.
• 1:12:04
  What do you feel? I mean, many people are
• 1:12:08
  generally numb or overwhelmed. That's a that's, that's a lot of
• 1:12:13
  the feeling out there right now. I mean, I'm sure that you must
• 1:12:15
  have that around you as well, right?
• 1:12:17
  There's just a lot of numb and overwhelmed.
• 1:12:22
  And if there is a moment when you feel something that is not
• 1:12:25
  one of those two things, God bless.
• 1:12:28
  You found your passion. You found something that has
• 1:12:31
  reached in past the the weeds and grabbed your heart and
• 1:12:35
  pulled you out. And that by itself is enough.
• 1:12:41
  Yeah, Yeah, I think, I think that that's, and it's
• 1:12:45
  beautifully put. I think it's, I think it's right
• 1:12:47
  because I think that if it's a passion, then perfectionism
• 1:12:51
  doesn't even necessarily. I don't even know, I don't know
• 1:12:53
  if that's necessarily true, but I'm sure the people that are
• 1:12:56
  perfectionists are passionate about what the perfectionist
• 1:12:58
  about. But a passion is totally a
• 1:13:01
  passion and. And by the way, there is nothing
• 1:13:05
  about there's nothing wrong when you're passionate about
• 1:13:07
  something. You are constantly in a, in a
• 1:13:11
  state where you are trying to sort of, I'm going to use the
• 1:13:15
  word perfect, different from perfectionism, right?
• 1:13:19
  To, to, to be, to always better yourself in that frame, right?
• 1:13:25
  So I'm, I'm, if I make a piece of pottery, the first piece
• 1:13:29
  might look like, you know, it was made by a person that, that
• 1:13:31
  doesn't know what they're doing. And then as I work on it and I
• 1:13:34
  work on it and I add hours and hours, it begins to, to have the
• 1:13:38
  appearance of something familiar.
• 1:13:41
  Is that perfectionism? No, no, that, that, that, that
• 1:13:44
  is, that is honing your art. That is honing your skill.
• 1:13:49
  That is a normal part of the process.
• 1:13:51
  It's a different story than you creating, you know, an initial
• 1:13:56
  piece and then slamming it and saying that's garbage, doesn't
• 1:13:59
  deserve to even have and see the light of day.
• 1:14:01
  But that that comes from perfectionism like that.
• 1:14:03
  It should be something that it's not.
• 1:14:05
  I should be something that I'm not, therefore I'm not worthy of
• 1:14:09
  even respecting or loving myself.
• 1:14:12
  It's, I'm so happy that you just said that because I just had
• 1:14:15
  this experience with guitar where for a little while I was,
• 1:14:19
  I, I was, I was, I was being tough myself.
• 1:14:24
  I wasn't, I wasn't practicing. I wasn't really playing very
• 1:14:26
  much because I, you know, I would listen to great, you know,
• 1:14:28
  music or I'd hang out with friends that were great
• 1:14:31
  musicians and I'd be like, what's the point?
• 1:14:33
  And then at a certain point I realized that what was so
• 1:14:37
  frustrating for me wasn't that I wasn't as good as them, but that
• 1:14:41
  I didn't know how to express myself on it.
• 1:14:43
  But then at that point, I that almost snapped me right back
• 1:14:49
  into playing and practicing again, because the pursuit
• 1:14:52
  didn't become about perfection. It became about my ability to
• 1:14:56
  express myself and to become myself.
• 1:14:59
  You know, my search for what my sound is and what my tone is.
• 1:15:03
  I know when I write, if I give you come across a poem that I
• 1:15:05
  wrote, or you come across, you know, you know, particular, I
• 1:15:10
  don't know, pocket, you know, pocket conversation style, you
• 1:15:13
  would know that it's me like it's very, very it's very
• 1:15:16
  distinct. And and I and I think that
• 1:15:19
  that's what people find that that's that's a passion
• 1:15:22
  personified is an external or some kind of external creative
• 1:15:27
  act that is expressive of who you are.
• 1:15:31
  And so I think that you're that it's and then the more that you
• 1:15:38
  refine that, then it gets closer to being the most quote, UN
• 1:15:43
  quote perfect or the best that it can be, you know, and that's
• 1:15:46
  even come great. 100%, absolutely.
• 1:15:51
  And so often, unfortunately, that is stifled in US, you know,
• 1:15:57
  as kids, it's stifled. I, you know, I, I grew up, my
• 1:16:01
  parents were immigrants. They came to this country.
• 1:16:03
  They had, you know, they had no money.
• 1:16:04
  They worked, you know, 2 jobs and my mom had two jobs.
• 1:16:06
  She was going to school to become a nurse.
• 1:16:08
  They did not have money to send me to music school.
• 1:16:11
  They did not have money for these extra things.
• 1:16:14
  And so I did not grow up playing music.
• 1:16:17
  And it wasn't until I was really, I think like 15 or 16
• 1:16:19
  years old. And mom said, oh, you know, I
• 1:16:21
  can get you piano lessons. I remember going to play piano
• 1:16:24
  with this Russian, a teacher who had taught in Moscow And, you
• 1:16:28
  know, he, he had me like, you know, repeat these, these notes
• 1:16:31
  over and over again, over and over again.
• 1:16:33
  And then after like, you know, a certain number of lessons, he
• 1:16:35
  said to me, you know, you can, you'll play like a monkey, but
• 1:16:38
  you'll never, you don't have an ear, you'll never play, you
• 1:16:41
  know, be able to just pick up and pick up music.
• 1:16:44
  That was the end of it. The minute he said that, it
• 1:16:47
  killed it for me. I just, I, I was like, well,
• 1:16:49
  what's the point of coming back and, and continuing, right?
• 1:16:54
  And it, it just killed it in me and, and so often and, and the
• 1:16:58
  crazy thing is that I am as guilty of carrying that forward
• 1:17:05
  at as he was for, for, for making that statement.
• 1:17:09
  You know, my son started playing the guitar when he was I, I
• 1:17:13
  can't remember whether he was 5 or 7, fairly young, maybe a
• 1:17:17
  little bit older than that. He, he started taking guitar
• 1:17:20
  lessons and he was so small that he couldn't get his hand
• 1:17:22
  completely around the guitar. But he played guitar, he
• 1:17:27
  practiced guitar. He and, and, and he would play
• 1:17:32
  for me. And I, I knew in my mind, I, I
• 1:17:37
  was, I had the awareness of, you know, only say positive things,
• 1:17:41
  only reinforce like the, the will to continue.
• 1:17:45
  But there was something in my eyes.
• 1:17:48
  I knew that it was, I could feel it like there was something in
• 1:17:51
  my eyes where I could, it was like that teacher had left a
• 1:17:55
  stain inside of me. And it, it and, and you know, a
• 1:18:00
  child can see, they can see, they can see into your eyes and
• 1:18:04
  they, you can't gaslight them because they can see.
• 1:18:07
  And, and I know that it had an effect because over time, he
• 1:18:11
  stopped playing for me. He did not stop playing, but he
• 1:18:15
  stopped playing in front of me. He stopped practicing in front
• 1:18:18
  of me. I went to all of his, you know,
• 1:18:21
  the, the, the shows that he did. I went to all his recitals.
• 1:18:24
  I was so proud of him, so happy. And it took so long for me to,
• 1:18:28
  to eventually come to me and say, I am so sorry because I
• 1:18:33
  know that I, that it's, it's in me like I have this thing that I
• 1:18:37
  needed to change. But after that it changed
• 1:18:39
  everything. Like he, he played and I looked
• 1:18:41
  at him differently after that. So it's like so easy to plant
• 1:18:45
  that seed inside of us and to kill a passion inside of us.
• 1:18:49
  It's so simple to do that. And as you said earlier, it's so
• 1:18:53
  easy to grow something to, to, to plant a seed of growth and
• 1:18:59
  to, to reinforce something positive as you do, I'm sure
• 1:19:02
  with your students, because you have this awareness of it.
• 1:19:04
  So, you know, we, we, we, we should not give up on ourselves
• 1:19:11
  because we have some one else's perspective of what perfect is
• 1:19:17
  in our minds. Perfect doesn't matter.
• 1:19:21
  Our inner joy matters. That's what matters.
• 1:19:25
  Yeah. And that's how I mean, so that's
• 1:19:28
  actually what I find, what I've found to be so contagious.
• 1:19:35
  I think about the Grateful Dead because I just, I've only gone
• 1:19:38
  into the last couple of years and but when I get into any kind
• 1:19:41
  of like band or music group or topic, I love to do deep dives
• 1:19:44
  and I love to read everything and listen to podcasts and
• 1:19:47
  listen to all their lives, you know, as many live shows as you
• 1:19:50
  can, you know, because my ears could process, my brain could
• 1:19:52
  process. And you know, I'm listening to
• 1:19:55
  interviews with Jerry Garcia. And like, the only thing that he
• 1:19:59
  ever wanted to do was just do the things that he loved doing
• 1:20:03
  and. That was it, you know, and, and
• 1:20:06
  he did it and he did it as often as he could, as frequently as he
• 1:20:09
  could and became great at it. And people were drawing people
• 1:20:14
  not were not only drawn to it, they, they could not remove
• 1:20:17
  themselves from them. You know, like, I mean, no one
• 1:20:19
  has a, has had a really has close followings like the
• 1:20:22
  Grateful Dead, Like what they 25 years after 30 years after he
• 1:20:26
  died, it's still, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's
• 1:20:29
  grown even more than ever before.
• 1:20:31
  And he's and he's dead, you know, and this, I think that
• 1:20:34
  there's this unconscious appreciation and maybe I hope
• 1:20:39
  it's conscious, but if people don't realize that, I guess it's
• 1:20:41
  subconscious appreciation for someone that just is great for
• 1:20:45
  the sake of loving what they do and like.
• 1:20:48
  And those people make the best leaders and those people make
• 1:20:50
  the best, you know, parents and the best, you know, the best
• 1:20:54
  roles of their job is the pursuit of the job for the sake
• 1:20:57
  of it, not to be the best of it. Joy is infectious.
• 1:21:02
  And when you are experiencing an inner state of joy, you
• 1:21:08
  magnetize the world around you. I mean, if you think about that,
• 1:21:11
  right, like this sense of that, that sense of joy, you know,
• 1:21:15
  the, the, I'm thinking here of like even the Hasidim, when
• 1:21:19
  they're like dancing and they're like, they're like in that
• 1:21:21
  ecstatic state, right? There's just something that
• 1:21:24
  melts. It's just like it melts it melts
• 1:21:26
  the room it like it melts it. Melts the room.
• 1:21:28
  It's crazy. It, it absolutely.
• 1:21:30
  And, and, and that, that is that inner state of joy, right.
• 1:21:33
  So without a doubt, pursuing your passions, connecting with
• 1:21:41
  with your community, connecting with people that reflect your
• 1:21:44
  value back at you and having a fundamental understanding that
• 1:21:48
  you are enough, that you are good that, that, that your
• 1:21:52
  relationship with yourself is what matters.
• 1:21:55
  Ultimately, it's what matters, because when that relationship
• 1:21:59
  fails, the world becomes a very dark place.
• 1:22:04
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it does.
• 1:22:09
  Well, that's why you have to keep on doing what we do, I
• 1:22:10
  guess 100%. So you have to keep on doing
• 1:22:13
  what we do. It's I, I hope we can do another
• 1:22:16
  recording because there's like 3 or 4 big topics that I didn't
• 1:22:20
  even get a chance to get to. I wanted to talk with you about,
• 1:22:24
  but including including film and psychedelics and you know, and
• 1:22:30
  then actually a little bit more about your back back story.
• 1:22:32
  But Mara, I really appreciate the time.
• 1:22:36
  This is this is awesome. This is so much fun and this is
• 1:22:39
  so enlightening. And the I, I really appreciate
• 1:22:42
  how you didn't only introduce topics, but you really gave
• 1:22:46
  colorful and really important and valuable stories with, you
• 1:22:50
  know, to, to go along and create an actual context in a picture
• 1:22:53
  to, to the context or to the concept.
• 1:22:56
  So thank you so much really for the time.
• 1:22:58
  This is really, really so amazing.
• 1:23:00
  And and I hope to do. I hope to be able to do Part 2
• 1:23:03
  soon. Well, I, I had a great sense of
• 1:23:05
  joy doing it with you. So I'm, I'm going to definitely
• 1:23:08
  make myself available. I, I, I, I wish you the best
• 1:23:11
  and, and absolutely let's reconnect so many more great
• 1:23:14
  topics to discuss with you. I'm very excited.
• 1:23:16
  And next time you come down to South Florida, if it's any time
• 1:23:18
  in the near future, again, please, by all means, I'd love
• 1:23:20
  to. I'd love to introduce myself in
• 1:23:21
  person, right? I appreciate it.
• 1:23:24
  Thank you. Be well, take care.
• 1:23:25
  All the best, take care, have a great rest of the week, bye bye.