Loving Yourself - Weekly Energy Boost

The Kabbalists share that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the most powerful precept of all. And, at closer look, this concept implies the importance of loving ourselves! This week we share why love is the foundation of the golden rule and how self-love is key to loving others. Episode 1 of 5. Original airdate: 6/7/21

Transcript

Good morning,

Everyone.

Good evening,

Good afternoon,

Wherever you are,

And welcome to this week's Weekly Energy Boost.

My name is Ellie Sheva,

And I am here with David,

And we are kicking off a month-long conversation about love.

And the Weekly Energy Boost,

Though we do focus on a spiritual energy forecast every week,

We've been focusing these last few months on a monthly theme.

Inevitably,

The weeks are connected to one another,

And they do have a shared energy.

So one of the things we want to focus on today is the setup for the coming four weeks,

And that's why we're focusing on loving oneself.

Connection to the month,

Of course,

Is that this week we are entering the month of cancer on the Kabbalistic calendar.

And shout out to all our cancer and friends,

Of course,

We mean no offense when we take you apart on the show.

But what's unique about this month and one of the,

It's both the blessing and the curse of this month is that on one hand,

Cancerians are the loving,

Nurturing,

Almost the mother figure of the zodiac.

Many times they operate from a place of lack of self-love,

Neediness,

The confusion between love and need for,

Let's say,

A not spiritual cancerian is a big struggle.

And what happens according to Kabbalistic astrology is that as we shift into the new astrological month,

We all adopt the tendencies of that sign.

So for example,

You may not be cancerian,

You may not have even a drop of the sign of cancer in your chart.

And yet this month you will find yourself behaving a little bit cancerish.

And that's why we have a monthly focus is so that you can use this month to strengthen,

Right?

Specifically today,

We're talking about loving oneself.

The idea is that this month rather than becoming insecure,

Rather than be focusing on your past mistakes,

One of the things that cancerians tend to do as well is,

Let's say in a positive way,

They're very nostalgic and in a negative way that nostalgia can be living in the past,

Trying to recreate past successes rather than looking at the future or the present as the opportunity.

So the idea of focusing,

Beginning our journey this month on focusing on self-love,

Strengthening our connection to ourself,

Our self-knowledge,

Our self-awareness is really the starting point because we have this phrase we throw around a lot,

Probably not only in the Kabbalistic sense,

But also generally in spirituality is the golden rule,

Right?

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Well,

Love your neighbor as yourself implies you love yourself.

And so that's really the starting point for any conversation on how to grow not only your capacity to love yourself,

But to love others.

I actually think that maybe the best place to start is the idea,

We constantly talk about on this show,

The fact that people are going to be mirrors for us.

And I don't think that that's a concept exclusive to the wisdom of Kabbalah.

People are constantly going to mirror for us the things that we can shift and transform.

So if we see,

Or let's put it this way,

One of the benefits of becoming better at loving oneself,

Strengthening our self-love is that that's going to be reflected at us by the people around us.

So it's a funny,

I'm not saying that you should necessarily use it as a motive,

But it is a beautiful side effect of strengthening your self-love is that you're going to recognize and experience love externally from others who are going to reflect that to you as well.

You know,

When I saw this title,

I said to myself,

Well,

You know,

If I was a listener,

I'd be like,

I'm going to skip this one.

It's not that sexy of a title,

Loving yourself.

I mean,

Who's jumping on that?

Clearly David has no self-love issues.

I know it's not even so much because I think no one really like walks around saying,

Oh,

You know what?

I got self-love issues.

And I'm saying that because I don't even want you to pay attention to the title.

Like the concepts that we have are powerful.

And not only that,

The whole idea of how you view yourself,

Which most people aren't even cognizant of what,

How they view themselves.

Like we're not actually aware fully of what we think about ourselves,

But any remedy in this area is going to make huge improvements in terms of your quality of life,

Your peace of mind,

Your stress,

Your health.

Like this is actually the session that will learn a couple of secrets.

They're practical,

But we're going to weave them into catalytic wisdom that will put you in a position where like attracts like,

And you can shift your movie very quickly.

I think this is the movie shifter.

That's what,

That's really what this title should be all about.

Loving yourself is like,

Okay,

It's kind of like the tech,

It's the technique,

Which is cliche the way it's said,

But the way you perceive yourself,

What you know about yourself is going to determine,

As Ellie said,

The challenges you're going to bring about,

The relationships that you're going to attract,

The ideas that come to you.

Because all of that is a reflection of what do you think about yourself and how do you take care of yourself?

I'm excited.

I have at least three deep concepts here.

But if you want to start with something,

Ellie Sheva?

One of the things in doing the reading that I do to prepare for every episode and also obviously it requires some degree of self-reflection,

Not only on my own process,

But on the experiences I've had with students over the years.

I think one of the main challenges on confidently walking around in self-love,

And I don't mean walking around confidently,

Meaning feeling that yes,

This is something I've worked on,

I've made progress,

And now I've achieved it,

Is that if you are a spiritual person and you are on a path of constant evolution and growth,

That means constantly growing and evolving in your connection to yourself and your love for yourself.

If you think about the person you were 10 years ago,

And by the way,

If you're not embarrassed by that person right now,

I'm not sure.

I read that being embarrassed about who you were is a good thing because it means you've really grown and changed.

But I'm sure that you can look back on the you you were 10 years ago and say,

She didn't know any better,

Poor her,

Or you can look and reflect on different missteps you may have made.

First of all,

Those missteps are not who you are,

But the fact is that your level of who you were then is not the person you need to love now.

Who you are now is the person that you need to love now.

And I actually read an article by Karen Berg last night where Karen said,

We always talk about the idea that we're not human doings,

We're human beings.

Karen actually said we're human becomeings.

And the fact that we expect ourselves to be static,

To achieve something and maintain it,

Is often that expectation is what sets us up to feel bad,

To beat ourselves up,

To focus only on the flaws.

In Kabbalah 2,

We teach that our flaws are our friends,

Because it's actually through the recognition of where our work is,

Where we can grow,

Where we can change,

Where we can improve,

That we reveal the light of our soul.

The light isn't revealed by you doing what's within your comfort zone,

By me doing what's easy for me.

I often talk about my go-to easy share is,

What can I cook for you?

So the amount of light that I'm revealing in the comfortable ways of sharing for me,

It's not where it's at.

We just got off the phone with one of our colleagues,

And I have to do some serious work when we finish with the show.

That's where my light is going to be revealed,

In the stretch,

In the effort that I have to make in order to support my friends.

So recognizing that I think that that's maybe the first part is that not only you are not your flaws,

You are not your mistakes,

You are not whatever it is that you are ashamed of or feel guilty about,

The opposite that those things are actually there to show you.

This is an area where you can reveal light.

By simply shifting how you look at those things,

You redefine their impact on you,

And you can grow your appreciation and your admiration for yourself.

Because self-love,

According to Kabbalah,

Is not,

I love my nose,

I love my hips,

I love the way my voice sounds when it's recorded,

Which we know that no one does.

Self-love is,

It's really the recognition or the awe,

That's the right word,

It's the awe for the light within me.

I have a divine spark of the light force of the Creator within me.

And watching that emanate is where my self-love,

If you want real self-love,

Real self-love,

Real self-respect,

It's connecting and recognizing that aspect of myself and not the others.

So there's an epidemic of all of us feeling bad about where we are,

Who we are.

And Kabbalah,

By the way,

Motivates this as well,

Because when you start to study Kabbalah,

What do we learn?

We learn,

Oh,

I got tikkun,

I got things I need to change,

I have this opponent.

And so it actually can take you on this greater path where you start to feel that there's something wrong with you and you have to change something.

And that's a tricky place because everything that you're going to learn,

Especially right now,

There's no like set it and forget it.

Every concept also has,

Because the concepts are so powerful,

Has an opponent,

Has the negative side,

Equally trying to use that concept against you.

So for example,

The first one I wanted to share,

Which is something we all do,

I do it,

We all do it.

And it can be a very positive thing,

But it is probably the number one culprit of hating or judging oneself.

And that is number one,

Comparing ourselves to other people.

So when we start to look at other people's lives,

What they've achieved,

Where they are,

And we start to compare ourselves to them,

On one hand,

What's the positive?

Because if you focus on the positive,

It can actually build momentum,

It can build a successful path for you,

It can build self-love.

But if you focus on the negative side of this,

It can actually destroy you in a big way.

So what's the positive of comparing yourself to others?

Number one,

You can learn a lot.

It can motivate you to be greater.

It can get you out of your tunnel vision,

Because a lot of times we all have tunnel vision about the way we kind of look at something.

And we don't really realize that there's actually more to how to do something than just the way I see it.

So when you compare yourself to other people,

Or when you kind of learn what other people are doing,

And you go deeper into other people's lives or businesses,

You can realize,

You know,

You know what,

Maybe I could actually do something a little better.

Maybe I've been a little stagnant in this area,

While I've been thinking small.

So this is a very positive component.

When we compare ourselves to others,

The goal needs to be to learn,

To learn and to improve.

Now,

That's great,

Because that builds experience,

That builds self-confidence,

Then you start to feel the light of the Creator inside of you.

The opposite of that,

Which the opponent is going to try to attack you,

Is to make you feel how far you are from where other people are.

So the opponent's job is going to be to awaken the lack inside of you.

Now,

Lack is not a bad thing if I'm using it,

Again,

To motivate myself to work harder,

And to push myself to grow.

See,

It's very subtle.

I'm trying to explain it.

It's very subtle.

I'll give you an elementary school way to explain it.

And I learned this when I was,

I used to teach third and fourth grade a long time ago.

So what we did with the kids is we thought about people that we admire.

And this is something that you could do in your industry,

In your peer group,

Whatever it is.

You look at the people that you admire and rather thinking about what they have that you don't,

Or how far,

Looking at them and saying,

Well,

I'm never going to make it,

Or it's impossible.

Looking at what is the quality that they embody that you desire.

We called it benchmarks.

Who's your benchmark?

So for example,

If there is a public speaker that I aspire to be like,

She's my benchmark,

He's my benchmark.

If there is somebody who is kind and compassionate in a way that I know I am not,

They're my benchmark for kindness and compassion.

So rather than looking at the being,

You're looking at the quality and how they eschew the quality rather than who they're being in their life.

Because you definitely don't want the tycoon that comes with,

You don't want their tycoon also.

You just want to aspire to embody that quality that you recognize they have at a higher level than you.

That's such a powerful concept because learning from someone,

Using them as a benchmark of how I want to improve,

That's what we all need to do.

Because if we're not doing that,

We are going to be wrapped up in a different kind of ego,

Which is the ego of,

I know what I'm doing.

I got it down right.

There's no better way than this.

And then you start to learn what other people are doing.

And you realize,

Wow,

I don't really actually know everything.

Other people are doing it better than me.

So there's this positive aspect of it,

Which is it humbles you.

And it shows you how much more there is.

Now,

When you and I,

I'm trying to come up with personal examples that will make this more real.

I remember,

I've said,

I've said this story before,

But with for a different lesson.

But I like to go to seminars a lot and workshops a lot because I like to learn because I want to bring more content for our community,

For our audiences.

So I remember going to this like two-day workshop at this retreat.

It was more business oriented.

But what was very interesting was after six hours of that workshop,

I learned so much and I was kind of just blew my mind.

I left and I didn't stay for the whole two days,

Even though I paid a lot of money for those two days.

Why did I do that?

Number one,

I learned so much that after six hours,

My ego is broken.

I was inspired and I was ready to go and execute.

And I knew that if I had stayed the next,

You know,

Whatever it was going to be,

30 hours,

All that was going to happen was I was going to feel bad,

Feel overwhelmed,

And in the end,

Beat myself up about how far behind I am.

So I made a judgment call knowing how the opponent works that as soon as I learned enough to implement for the next couple of months,

I left.

And I have students that are like this.

They don't come on to like,

You know,

Every class and listen to like 25 classes a week.

Sometimes I'll listen just to one class a week.

Maybe they'll just listen to the weekly energy boost.

Maybe they'll listen to five minutes of the weekly energy boost and they'll get a concept and then they'll run with it for weeks.

That's powerful.

That's a powerful thing because each one of us have to make that call of how much do I need to learn from a person,

From a class,

From a show,

From a podcast,

And then take that information and grow myself,

Grow my confidence,

Grow my self-love,

Grow my ecosystem with what I just learned.

I think that's the formula right there.

And if you go too much,

If you learn too much,

If you spend too much time scrolling through people's lives and seeing what other people are doing,

You're going to fall into the negative side of comparing yourself to others,

Which is you're going to start to feel bad,

Overwhelmed,

Behind,

And not good enough.

So I think it's important also to distinguish in light of what David was just saying that self-love doesn't mean confidence.

Self-love doesn't mean pride or even inflated ego,

Right?

Self-love is that recognition and acknowledgement of the divine spark inside me,

That no physical action,

No words can tarnish.

That spark is indelible.

That piece of us that is our true essence is untouchable.

It is perfect.

And though it can get caked on by negativity,

By exactly those things,

Beating ourselves up,

There's lots of things we can do to dim the perception of that light.

We talk often about how it's like you put curtains or if I have a lamp in front of me and I put towels over the lamp,

Even if the lamp is still on,

I won't be able to perceive that light.

So it's many times those broken belief systems about who we are and what we've done,

The way that we beat ourselves up,

That we feel guilty or we blame ourselves,

That diminishes our perception of that spark,

But it doesn't do anything to the spark itself.

So the work in theory,

Let's put it this way,

The work in theory is twofold.

One is to recognize that spark,

Appreciate it,

Respect it,

Have off for it.

And then the second part is to share that light.

And we talk on the show about sharing,

We had an episode on it a couple of weeks ago,

That the idea of sharing my light,

If I understand I have a unique spark,

In other words,

The same way that there are no two diamonds that are identical,

There are no two sparks,

No two humans,

No two souls that are identical,

Only I can reveal the light of my soul.

There's no other soul around here that can do that.

Now,

Here's the thing,

You may have a voice inside you when you hear that,

That says,

Well,

There's nothing special about me,

Or I'm not unique at all,

Or I've tried sharing,

It doesn't work,

People don't receive it the right way,

So I'm not going to try anymore.

Your business is not how was it received,

Or how did it look,

Or how did it feel?

Your work is to keep shining that light.

Now,

That's one of the reasons we talk about studying Kabbalah,

Practicing Kabbalah,

Is because having that consistent drip of consciousness,

Like David was saying,

Whether it's five minutes,

20 minutes,

An hour on a regular basis,

Helps you to remember and utilize that spark inside you.

But also,

As David mentioned,

The same concepts that can strengthen us can also weaken us.

It's important to have that awareness that it's not only there's this unique way that the light force of the Creator radiates from me,

It's also my responsibility to shine that.

If you think about the things that you are most proud of in your life,

It's not what you've gotten,

It's what you've done for others.

The real way to know who you are,

To see your greatness,

Is when you're in action,

In sharing mode,

When you're giving of yourself.

David mentioned actually a couple of weeks ago,

That when you are,

He was worried about,

No,

You were talking about how you didn't feel well,

So then when you turned on the sharing switch,

You were fine,

You didn't feel bad anymore.

The moment you stopped sharing,

The symptoms came back.

That's a perfect example,

Same example,

Different application.

The moment that you are concerned with,

How can I share my light,

Which might be asking somebody how they are,

It might be singing a song,

It might be cooking a meal.

There's so many different ways that you can share your unique light.

No two sparks have the same formula.

No two sparks have the same ingredients,

So you can't be like everybody else.

You also can't be worse than anybody else,

Because there's no one else to compare you to.

You have the only spark that is your spark.

The gift of sharing that light is,

A,

It's not yours,

It's the creator's.

You came down to this world under the assumption,

The conversation between you and the creator was,

I'm going to share this unique light.

That may mean that I have to work on being a better listener.

That may mean that I may have to be more humble.

That may mean I'll have to be less stubborn.

But understanding that working on those three things,

We're actually revealing that unique light.

We have to go deeper to understanding where self-confidence comes in.

I just googled this,

I'm acclaimed to know this,

But I wanted to know where the word confidence comes from.

It's a Latin word that means to trust.

Basically,

When a person is confident in general,

It means they have a sense of trust in a higher power or in the way the world works,

Which I found that to be interesting because we talk about that a lot,

Kabbalistically,

In certainty.

Then,

When a person is self-confident,

It means that they trust themselves to be able to execute something.

The first thing that came to my mind is driving.

I remember when I first started driving,

When I was 16 years old,

You're freaking out.

You just think every moment you might hit somebody.

But now,

20 years later,

You're driving with your knee,

You're holding your coffee,

You're kind of just like – You're knitting,

Are you?

Yeah.

I saw you were driving,

You were putting on makeup.

I literally drive when you're putting on makeup.

But you know what?

That's self-confidence.

That's confident in your ability to drive,

So there's some level of certainty that comes with that.

But kabbalistically,

What I found to be very powerful and stop me if I'm going too deep here,

But we know that there's 10 dimensions of energy that we talk a lot about in our classes.

These dimensions usually come in pairs of – in sets of three.

The ones I'm thinking about is they're called the Masiyya,

The names,

Because the names are actually powerful.

The Hebrew-Aramaic names that were given thousands of years ago actually have energy.

By hearing it,

We connect to that energy and it draws that power.

It's called – there's Chesed,

Gevurah,

And Tiferet.

So it's the right column,

The left column,

And the central column.

Without going too into it,

The central column represents the self-confidence.

Actually,

Tiferet means beauty.

Something that is beautiful is something that is self-confident,

Something that is also synonymous with certainty.

The way you achieve that central column,

Which is called Tiferet,

Is you have to have the right balance of what's called mercy and kind of like mercy and judgment or strength.

Again,

I'm going deeper here,

But sometimes I know we like to do this on the show.

I think it's also important that for those people that don't yet study Kabbalah that they realize the depth.

There's so much more.

We're just giving the headlines when we're doing the weekly energy boost.

It's so much deeper and we get into it in Kabbalah 1,

2,

3,

4,

5.

You're teaching Kabbalah 5 now with Eitan.

I heard a little bit of it in the car of what you guys were teaching.

You're going to it as deep as possible.

So the balance of judgment and mercy pretty much means one thing,

That I have this ability,

Chesedes,

Mercy,

To be open,

To be sharing,

To let people in.

But you also balance it with the judgment,

The strength,

Which is knowing when to cut something,

Knowing when to leave the party,

Knowing when to end the relationship,

Knowing when it's too much for you,

And having the balance of both.

Usually people.

.

.

Boundaries.

Yeah,

Have that right around kind of boundaries.

Usually people who are lacking self-love or self-confidence are overcompensating chesed or gibberah,

Mercy or boundaries,

Overcompensating one or the other.

Some people are totally closed off,

Very cold and calculative about everything they do and they don't take risks.

That's more the left column,

That would be gibberah.

And some people are way too open.

Open is kind of like,

I'm involved in everything,

I go everywhere,

I do everything.

I was talking to somebody who.

.

.

We were talking about a third person who was very successful,

More successful than anyone in our circle.

And we were talking,

What's his secret?

And we found that his secret was that he doesn't leave the house.

He doesn't leave the house.

He doesn't travel.

He doesn't do weird things.

He's not wasting it.

He's just always in the mode of not wasting time and manifestation.

So that would be someone who's kind of more left column.

And then there's the mercy.

There's the people who's always hanging out,

Always around what's right.

Neither one are fully right.

It's the perfect balance of both.

And when you learn kabbalah,

You learn that you have to constantly be toggling between these two forces.

And when you do that,

Then you manifest what's called tiferet,

Which is you start to have self-confidence,

You start to have certainty.

And I have one more concept,

But I'm going to pass it over to you.

Okay.

So I did not know David was going to talk about that.

So I have something else that I think is very profound and even takes us to one of those levels where it might not even make sense at first.

But if you look out there,

What people say about self-love,

Self-confidence,

Taking care of yourself,

A lot of it is on,

There's this phrase we have called self-care,

Right?

You got to do things for you in order for you to feel good,

Be recharged.

And we've talked about this also on the show in different ways and shapes that it is important to know,

To make sure that you recharge yourself.

You can't pour from an empty cup.

We've gone there already.

But what's interesting to me is that a lot of the self-care messaging is on,

You need to take a break,

Take a break.

You need a smoothie,

Go get a smoothie.

You need to sleep in,

Sleep in.

And there is,

I do think it's important to recognize your needs,

To be in touch with what you need in order to be the best you.

But what ends up happening is that there's a lot of instant gratification involved,

Right?

Like,

I don't want to criticize you for leaving the conference,

But there is a version of that movie where it was reactive,

Let's say.

I'm not saying that David was reactive,

But I probably looked pretty reactive from the outside,

Right?

So there's a lot of,

I know I can tell you,

I actually walked out,

Walked away from a conversation not long ago,

Reflecting.

I could have done it differently.

I was a little bit reactive,

But the truth is I actually walked away in my defense.

I walked away because it was going to escalate from there.

And I knew that I could either leave and it would stay.

We made an executive decision.

I made an executive decision to deescalate by walking out of the conversation,

Not slamming the door,

But just saying,

You know what,

I think this is,

We've gone far enough and I walked away.

Is there another version of that?

There's probably infinite versions of that conversation.

I chose the one I chose.

Why am I bringing up the instant gratification idea is because according to Kabbalah,

Instant gratification is actually not an act of self-love.

According to Kabbalah,

Restriction is the greatest act of self-love.

Restriction means instead of grabbing the energy now,

Instead of grabbing the relief right now,

Instead of grabbing the vindication or the venting or whatever energy I need right now,

I'm going to push back on that need because I know it's going to result in more energy,

Fulfillment,

Love,

Et cetera,

In the long run.

And the best,

I mean,

I know I used this example before,

But I want to give it,

It's not really practical,

But I want people to understand what I mean when I say restriction.

If my child nags me for chocolate bar and I give him chocolate bar after chocolate bar after chocolate bar,

By the eighth chocolate bar,

He's getting sick.

I may mean well,

I may be kind in doing an action of sharing,

But it is actually harming the child.

Now,

If I had said no before the first bar,

Or maybe after the second bar,

A firm no,

Hopefully all of our listeners see the long-term benefit of me having said no,

And the short-term just leave me alone kid,

Take the eighth candy bar and leave me alone,

Right?

That's what I'm saying in that moment.

That leave me alone is actually setting me up for more chaos in the future.

The real act of self-love would have been putting that boundary there,

Saying,

Kid,

No,

This is not good for you.

And even though I want you to leave me alone,

I love you too much to take the easy out.

That's really what restriction is.

Restriction is I love myself too much to take the easy out,

To give in to the easy urge.

And when I have my eyes set on the long-term,

Even when you talk about beating yourself up,

Yes,

It may feel good to beat myself up right now,

But in the long-term,

Is it going to get me where I want to go?

Absolutely not.

It may feel good to give into this compulsive behavior right now,

But if I really love myself,

I won't give into it.

And when I learned that,

I remember I probably fell off the chair.

It seems so counterintuitive,

Right?

If I love myself,

I'll give myself what I want right now.

No,

Kabbalah says,

If you love yourself,

You'll give yourself what's best for you in the long-term,

Which is probably not going to be taking what you want right now.

I had this experience yesterday also with my kid and then it triggered a lesson in my mind and I'm thinking,

What's the best way to share this?

Sometimes you explain something,

Take your kid out of it.

It can be anybody.

You explain something in like 5,

000 words and you're trying to get your point across.

And then sometimes you say something in like two words,

But you feel so secure and powerful saying it.

Like I was studying yesterday and then all of a sudden I felt this like new feeling of the light of the Creator and security.

And then my kid came over and he was like playing with my key and usually that means that I'm not going to find it anymore.

And then instead of telling him like,

Hey,

Give me the key or whatever,

I just looked at him and I said,

Key.

I said,

Key.

And I put my hand out and he looked at me and he's two and he walked over and he just put it in my hand.

And I felt it was so powerful.

I felt like I was like from a movie because I was just studying and I felt like so confident.

So I was like,

I'm going to put my study and I felt like so confident and self-confident and the Creator.

Now,

Had I been like in a bad mood or something,

I'd be like,

Give me that key.

You shouldn't take the key.

And then he would obviously run away with the key.

So it was a really powerful moment where I felt that he felt the light.

He felt this over.

I was calm.

It wasn't even like,

Am I calm?

Am I not calm?

It was kind of just like,

I knew he's giving me the key.

And I just put it and he felt the vibration of give me the key.

I didn't have to say,

Give me the key.

Maybe I'm just babbling.

But the point is there's something that happens inside of us when we feel this certainty,

When we feel this like energy that we've created,

Internet atomic energy inside where all of a sudden doors and gates and things open and you don't need to like talk and explain and react.

And sometimes people,

You know,

I get this question all the time.

We just got it.

Is it coming from the light?

Is it coming from satan?

How do I know?

What's satan David?

I'm sorry.

Is it coming from the light or is it coming from the opponent?

You know,

We also call it the satan.

It's a 5,

000 year old Aramaic word.

It does not mean Satan,

The guy with the horns.

Exactly.

That's why we don't always just throw it out there like that.

So the point is if we're already asking you this question,

It's like,

We're already too in the physical,

We're already in this illusionary world.

Meaning it's not about what to do.

It's about how do I get to that place where I'm in that tree of life connected to the light,

Connected to the energy.

And then all of a sudden the gates are opening.

It's not about what do I do?

Again,

It sounds like it's a deep concept.

Well,

David,

You're opening up another kind of flood gate about kids and boundaries.

There's a misconception,

You know,

That we need to give our kids endlessly and everything they want and not help them curtail their desires.

But at the same time,

One of the things that kids thrive on is boundaries.

So you telling your kid keys,

You're basically saying,

I'm not going to throw energy your way.

We're going to end this now.

And there is a certain piece that the child gets from knowing you have a firm hand here.

It's funny,

But I don't even explain that.

But I'm telling you,

It's a— It's like the energy taught the lesson.

It's a great book.

It taught the lesson in like two years,

Lesson in like two seconds.

There's a great book that talks about that exact technique.

It's called How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk.

Highly recommended.

I've read it three times.

I probably have five copies at home.

I can give one to you if you'd like.

But David is saying what I'm saying,

It's really one and different angles of the same sphere,

I guess you can say,

Is that the intention in what you're doing really does set the tone so that if you are trying to perpetuate energy addiction of— You walk— Actually,

Sometimes I do this if I'm honest.

I'm the worst.

And then you have 20 people that jump in and say,

Oh my God,

No,

You're not.

You're the best.

So that's an energy addiction.

If you really want to cut the cord,

You'll prevent yourself from not only saying that,

You'll prevent yourself from focusing on it.

And when you do,

As an example— Let me think of a good example.

Okay.

Letting people interrupt you.

There's a boundary issue there.

If you let people interrupt you,

Cut you off,

Maybe you're working on something and someone comes to you and asks if you can talk for a second and you never say no,

Those kinds of things.

So it may feel good in the moment to be useful,

Helpful,

To have people need your wisdom,

Your time,

Your energy.

But in the long term,

You're not going to have that— Well,

First of all,

Problem number one,

You're allowing external validation to create your value.

We didn't even talk about value.

At the moment that you need something outside of you to affirm your worth,

That is not self-love.

That is loving other people,

Other people's energy,

Needing energy.

The soul inside you,

That unique spark does not need validation.

What it needs is to be expressed.

That's the need of the soul is to express itself,

To shine,

To illuminate,

To radiate.

I think that that's really when we're asking the question,

How can I share right now or how can I get out of my bubble right now?

That's really the question we're asking is how can I let my soul shine?

Right now,

My opponent is encouraging me to think less of myself,

To focus on my mistakes,

My flaws,

My missteps.

How can I shine the light right now?

Because in shining that light— I don't know if it was clear when I said it earlier— if I made a mistake— By the way,

I've made mistakes.

I'm going to use my walking away from this conversation.

There is a more elevated response I could have had for sure in that moment.

But what I empower myself to do in that reflection of,

Wow,

I could have done that differently is to use that moment of darkness where there was maybe a little conflict or anger or upset to grow and transform.

That anger or upset is no longer darkness.

It becomes light.

There's a whole lesson between our teacher,

Rob Berg,

And his teacher about how the mistakes we make,

If we transform as a result of them,

There's no darkness there anymore.

Even if there was darkness on Saturday when it happened,

You've eliminated that darkness.

You've replaced that darkness with light by growing from the situation.

I hope everybody is listening very carefully.

What that means is that if there is anything in your past that you feel badly about,

That you beat yourself up over,

If there is something,

A behavior,

A tendency you have that you are embarrassed or hiding or feel damaged as a result of,

You can be using that to reveal light.

That is one of the most powerful things.

If you walk away from today,

From listening to today's podcast with one thing,

That is it.

The real self-love is taking those flaws,

Those mistakes,

Those things we feel guilty or bad about,

And using them as catapults to reveal the light of our soul.

All right.

I have one more.

The first one that we said is managing the way you compare yourself to others doesn't mean shut yourself off.

It doesn't mean to lose yourself to thinking you're worse than everybody you see.

The second one is,

And it's a question I'm asking so that all of us can think of what the answer is,

What is my opinion or viewpoint on making mistakes and failure?

And so this is a little nuanced as well.

So people who think there's no problem making mistakes,

And that's two left column,

And there's the people who are constantly feeling bad and beating themselves up about making mistakes,

That's way too right column.

You're not going to achieve the beauty,

The Tifera,

The central column.

So what the capitalists say about this,

What they prescribe is after you make a mistake,

100% of the time,

Every time after you make the mistake,

You need to tell yourself,

I was always meant to make that mistake.

Creator wanted me to make the mistake.

So it's not a reflection on you.

It's not like your credit score is going to get,

Your spiritual credit score is going down.

Okay.

Creator wanted me to make the mistake.

And that being said,

Let me see how to prevent this for the future.

And that's kind of hard.

Wait a minute.

If I was meant to do it,

What do I need to do to prevent it for the future?

There's nothing to learn here because I was meant to do it.

And that is the beautiful balance that our logical brains need to accept,

Which is I need to make the max effort to prevent myself from making a spiritual mistake or whatever the short circuit is.

However,

I should not beat myself up for what's happened.

I need to know if it happened,

It says that the creator wanted me to go down to this very low place in order to capture sparks of light that were lost and then to elevate them.

And so whatever your viewpoint is on mistakes is also going to determine your level of self-love.

And if you need a ritual or some sort of action to help you manifest this new mind shift,

What do I call it?

Mindset?

Mind shift.

Mind shift.

I don't know.

Now that I'm thinking of mine shaft.

What?

Mind shaft?

Like in mining there's mind shafts.

Nevermind.

Diamonds,

We're running around in circles here already.

What you can do is you can make a list of those mistakes that you are having trouble forgiving yourself for,

Letting go,

Not rehashing,

Not blaming,

Not feeling damaged as a result of.

Write that list and destroy the paper.

Put that energy into a vehicle like a piece of paper,

Destroy the piece of paper if you want to tear it,

If you want to burn it,

Just do it safely.

But send that energy,

Mind you,

You're still going to use those mistakes as fuel for growth,

But you're no longer going to allow those mistakes to define you and to hold you back.

And to me,

This is not about self-help or this is not a new age concept.

This is what we were created for.

The creator created human beings knowing they would make mistakes.

Right?

There's actually a beautiful verse in the Bible that says,

You are holy because I am holy.

Right?

The creator is saying you are perfect,

But you came to the world to be co-creators of that perfection,

To take the cloudy,

The distorted,

The maybe even malfunctioning and give it a new function and transform it and elevate it.

And one of the things that spoke to me,

Especially before I started studying Kabbalah and meeting the teachers,

The people who were supposedly walking the walk is they did not pretend to be perfect.

They did not pretend,

Oh,

Here I am on my high mountain and I meditate for three hours a day and I don't react to anything and nothing bothers me and I am an angel.

No.

It's a funny story.

When I was in college,

I took an introduction to Kabbalah course.

I don't know if you got to take that.

In college?

In college.

In UCLA?

Yeah.

Yeah,

I did.

And I hated it.

It was terrible.

It wasn't terrible.

It just wasn't- It was awful.

Okay.

It was a little bit- It was awful because we were at the Kabbalah Center knowing what we knew.

So I went to the teacher and I asked the teacher at the time if I could invite my classmates to a New Moon event at the Kabbalah Center so they could experience this because what we were learning in the class was very intellectual,

Technical,

And not spiritual.

He said,

Listen,

By all means,

I am not a student of Kabbalah.

I am a scholar of Kabbalah.

I know the history.

I know the language.

I do not live this whatsoever.

So please invite them.

And just the acknowledgement and validation,

This was somebody who's written books and is very well known in the philosophical Kabbalah realm.

He was the first one to admit that he does not live his life by any of this.

And so I think it's important also to distinguish,

This is not theory.

This is practice.

And because of it,

There is so- Nobody who's discussing this,

Or at least nobody at the Kabbalah Center who is teaching is sitting there and saying,

I'm done and I'm just going to wait for the rest of you to meet me here.

We're all works in progress.

And that self-auditing,

That self-reflection is an act of self-love if you use it to identify where you have room to grow.

And one of the things I do apropos kids is I ask my kids to help me be more mindful of things.

My son said to me,

The other day,

You can talk to me about anything.

You can come to me with anything.

The one thing that I can't stop doing is I can't stop loving you.

So no matter what happens,

He said,

Well,

Even if I destroy the house and destroy the car,

I said,

I could be angry at you,

But I can't stop loving you.

And he said to me,

Well,

Sometimes you get annoyed with me.

I said,

What do you mean?

How do you know that?

He says,

Well,

I ask you a question and then I ask you another question.

And then I ask you another question.

And at a certain point you roll your eyes and you're like,

So first of all,

Amazing.

Thank you for that feedback,

Young child.

But I said,

You know what,

Can you believe that I didn't even realize that?

Oh,

And he said,

I'm an inquirer.

He said,

I am an inquirer.

And sometimes you get tired of my inquiring.

That's something that he learned in school,

Of course,

To call himself the inquirer.

So I said to him,

You know,

That's so amazing that you would tell me that because I didn't even realize that I make that face or I roll my eyes or I make that sound.

Can you tell me the next time I do that so I can stop doing it?

And that idea that to allow not only our kids,

I think that there's a certain part of us that wants our kids to see us as perfect,

As infallible as somebody to be respected.

And if I'm going to be respected,

I need to have a heavy hand and show like a stiff upper lip.

No,

If you want your kids to work on themselves,

You've got to show them what working on themselves looks like.

They're not going to learn it from a book.

And I want to say that I'm bringing it up because that's something that I learned from my teachers.

That's something that I hope my students learned from me,

But it's important to recognize that we're not here to be perfect.

You're not going to love yourself when you're perfect.

Love yourself now,

And then you can grow closer to that best version of you.

Beautiful.

I got more content we can share them next week when we continue this topic,

But more towards how we treat other people.

And I got several more things to share about this.

Yeah,

So we're going to expand on this throughout the month.

I want to make sure that our listeners know that Thursday and Friday on the Kabbalistic calendar are the new moon of cancer.

So as always,

We use those times,

We use the new moon to recalibrate,

Set goals,

Be the person we want to be for the entire month,

Be that loving,

Caring,

Kind person.

And I think what David shared earlier about the right and left,

The chesed and the guurah,

Really seeing how we can strike a better balance,

Which side do we lean too far to,

And what actions,

What beliefs,

What feelings,

What even words can help us find that middle ground.

For those two days,

It will be easier to do for the following 30.

And I'm really excited next week we'll be talking about loving others,

Which we could probably have eight episodes about as it is.

But we'll see.

Sounds cliche,

But I promise it's going to be powerful.

It's not at all.

It's not cliche.

It's going to be as deep,

If not deeper than today's episode.

Have a fabulous week and we'll see you next time on the Weekly Energy Boost.