2. The Journey From Grief To Gratitude

Join Monica and Michael Berg as they discuss how feelings of lack are an invitation to make needed changes. Explore how appreciation, and how hard we fight for it, leads to radical transformation and deep fulfillment in our lives.

Transcript

You know,

We get a lot of feedback growing up that we should be a certain way or we should respond a certain way.

And we don't spend a lot of time getting to know who we are.

And a lot of it is that we learn to unlove ourselves.

We come into the world loving ourselves through life.

We unlearn it and it's our responsibility to go back to that space where we truly love who we are.

And if you do not believe that you deserve a soulmate or if you do not have certainty that that person already exists for you,

Everything else you do will be limited.

This fundamental first step of really loving who you are or learning to love yourself,

Go back and do it.

Because when you have,

You start from that space,

Then you can grow what you can do,

You can accomplish,

You can attract anything you want.

And there is a formula to happiness.

This is it.

Maybe we got there in the right way and maybe we got there in the wrong way and maybe there are things for me to learn.

But at the end of the day,

Where I found myself or where anybody finds themselves,

That's their soul's process brought them there.

Hi,

Welcome to Spiritually Hungry Podcast,

Episode Two.

We're excited to be with you again today.

And we're going to be discussing pain and how to deal and address feelings of lack that come up for all of us.

So Kyle and I are really excited to be here.

Yes.

And of course,

During this time of the pandemic,

I think many of us are aware it's also a time people are really looking inside and at their lives and figuring out what are the things that they want to achieve and what are the areas of their lives that are still lacking.

Right.

Sometimes when we're in,

Depending on what kind of frame of mind we're in,

Right,

We can tend to hyper focus only on the things that we feel that we don't have rather than seeing the things that are good in our lives.

And that can kind of become a spiral for people.

I think this time in the world is really the polarity of that.

I'm sure that there are many people and I've spoken to many people that have really taken a different view on their lives,

That they feel that they have been too often focusing on what they don't have rather than what they do have.

But I'm sure that on the other side of the spectrum,

There are many people at this time,

I know I've heard of many people who are single,

For instance,

Who have found this time of quarantine to be very difficult for them.

And it actually brought them,

What I would say,

To a very important understanding of what they want to achieve in life and what are the parts that they find that are missing in their lives that are really important to them.

There's an article in the New York Times just recently about the really the travails of the singles.

Every one of us has lack in our lives.

The question is,

Is it a real lack?

Or is it just a focus on an area of my life that isn't that important?

I think balancing those two is really the big part of our work in this life.

Well,

I think it's interesting because as you were speaking,

Thinking about for all of us,

We've had to really take pause,

Stop the automatic thing we do every day,

Right,

Our usual schedules life as we know it,

And create something new.

And with that is an opportunity to create something different,

Right?

For people,

I think like us,

Who I think are really good with change,

Or we embrace new things,

We're always trying to think about new ways of approaching things.

This is kind of something that's been a little bit welcome in that regard.

For other people who,

You know,

Often say,

Oh,

I don't have time for this,

Right,

Can't even think about anything else,

They should have to get this done.

And they live lives like that.

Now to have all this time,

It can be a little bit scary,

And they're not used to it.

When you brought up singles,

I think for many people,

They think about life in terms of oh,

You know,

I'll get to that one day,

It's not a priority today,

Today,

I'm just surviving,

Or today,

I need to make money,

And when I make money,

Then I'll start a family,

Right?

We make these rules for ourselves that are not really based on anything real,

But they make us feel safe,

I guess.

And now we're kind of given the opportunity or forced to rethink that,

You know,

Because we feel really lonely now,

Maybe.

So maybe the priority of having a relationship is something that should be more urgent and immediate.

Well,

You reminded me in one of your books,

Right,

You speak about that concept of people saying when,

You know,

People who go through life.

I'll be happy when this happens,

Right?

I'll be happy when that happens.

So remind me,

Which book was it in?

I think it's Rethink Love.

Okay.

And you use your father,

I think you use your father as an example.

Yes,

Because I've learned something about myself through the years that I draw a lot of inspiration from my children,

From my loved ones,

From my family,

Just by watching them.

And my father really has been an inspiration for me in that way,

Because I watched him,

You know,

He had so many blessings.

And he would say that,

By the way,

You know,

My girls,

I love them.

He was in love with my mother.

He was healthy enough.

I mean,

He had diabetes his whole life,

But he,

You know,

He could enjoy life,

But he really wouldn't fully be present or fully enjoy or be happy in any given moment,

Because I'll only be happy,

Really happy,

Continuously happy when I make the millions that I lost.

And so everything in his life was framed about around that.

And that was his consciousness.

And I remember as a teenager,

And as a young adult,

I took note and I said,

Okay,

Never,

Never do that.

Right?

If you you want to enjoy this day,

Enjoy this day,

Don't assign any part of your life to something that is dependent on something else happening or not happening.

Because you'll be devastated at some point when you realize that fully,

Right.

And I think to some extent,

This pandemic has actually tapped into that for people in their own minds.

Yeah,

I think it probably quickened many processes in people's minds that they would have not paid attention to,

Had the pandemic that occurred and really forcing them to focus.

But I was thinking as you reset,

Right,

It's a reset for some Yeah,

Hopefully,

Right,

Hopefully.

But I think that that lack even before we get to the questions,

I think it's such an important way to to think about lack every single one of us every single day today.

I've had areas of lack now were they small?

Yeah,

Thank goodness.

Well,

I think I think a lot,

You know,

For instance,

Even with you know,

With your children,

Right?

So,

So no day,

I mean,

Those of us who are parents know this,

There's not there's not a day that goes by that your relationship or your interactions with your kids 100% right,

Your kids are going to do something that's going to upset you.

And you're going to feel a little bad about it,

You might feel about the way you reacted to them.

I mean,

Life is filled with light and darkness,

Right with lack and fulfillment.

The question is,

The question is,

What do you choose to focus on?

And for how long?

Right?

I know for me,

In supporting me understand this,

It's not about saying,

Oh,

I will never give any attention to any lack that I have.

No,

It's okay.

It's sometimes it's very necessary.

For example,

This morning,

I was talking to a friend and a student who lost their husband,

And of course,

An unimaginable grieving process.

And you know,

Those of us who've never experienced and hopefully will never experienced that it's something we can only try to empathize with.

But you realize that certainly there are those moments in life,

That not only is it necessary,

For instance,

We were talking about her daughter,

And she was saying how she was crying in front of her daughter,

To make it okay there for her daughter to not just to say,

You know,

I'm just gonna be happy and not even though she's a very young girl.

She's seven.

Yeah.

But it's necessary sometimes to feel the lack.

It's healthy and important,

Both physically and spiritually,

When certain processes to take the time to feel the lack and to feel the pain and to go through it in a healthy way.

I think the interesting point that we need to actually define for people is that what is lack there is real lack,

Like the absence of a loved one that was there now suddenly taken,

Yes,

That there's a void there,

There's a removal of something that was tremendously fulfilling and,

And loving and then there's desire.

And sometimes when we desire things that we don't have them,

We feel lack,

Right?

There is there is a very distinct difference between the two.

Yes.

I often use,

You know,

The these use the 80-20 rule,

I would say the 95-5 rule,

Which is that usually in life,

Where the 95% of times we're upset,

Really,

We should not be.

It's not warranted.

It's really just I want something I don't have,

It might even be connected to jealousy or envy.

Or it might even be something that that's right for me to want,

But not in a way of pain.

Right.

And also,

If you focus on the want and desire,

And you work towards that,

You probably will bring it into your life and fulfill it versus focusing on the lack and that's,

That's dangerous.

And that's where most people get stuck.

Right.

And I think as you were talking,

It came to mind that really,

Lack and appreciation are two sides of the battle,

Right?

Meaning that when I woke up this morning,

Or any one of us woke up this morning,

And something came to mind that brought us lack,

Something that we thought of that,

That is important even.

The question then is,

How long would that pain or sense of lack stay with me?

And the answer to that is how much gratitude do we feel for the other things that we do have?

And it's almost it's almost I think,

An exact correlation.

The more appreciation we feel for the blessing that we currently have in our lives,

The less lack we're going to feel.

The more lack we feel,

The less appreciation we're going to have for the blessings that we have in our lives.

And I know we want to focus more today on on how to deal with lack,

But I think it's going to be important for us to really focus as well on awakening gratitude,

Because you can't live a healthy life with the lack that will always exist,

Unless you're also growing your sense of appreciation.

And then just going back for instance to the example of your father,

It's not that the things that he lost in some cases,

Money,

In some cases,

You know,

A job that they weren't important.

Yes,

They were important.

But even though he said a time,

A matter of time,

But he felt all the time the appreciation for the blessings that he did have.

The question was,

How much did the sense of appreciation wash over you?

Well,

It's interesting,

You know,

I found myself saying to him often as a child,

Or young adult,

You know,

Aren't we enough?

And I really took it on to myself.

It was sad.

But that somehow,

You know,

I was responsible for,

For his feelings,

Right.

And I learned that that was not healthy for me.

And I learned that in a difficult way.

But,

But,

And it brings me because as you were speaking,

I'm happy to bring this up.

I think that we have moments where we feel appreciation.

But like you said,

When is it that that is the thing that guides us through our day?

When we talk about lack,

Yes,

Appreciation is the remedy.

If you appreciate fully,

You really can't feel lack,

Right?

And there's nothing wrong with feeling lack.

The question is the lack causing you sadness,

Right?

I mean,

I feel I don't remember when you finish your point,

But I feel lack every single day in a positive way.

There are things in the weather for myself for a student for a friend for a family member.

I think it's very important actually,

To have a sense of I want and need this.

The question is,

Is it bringing me in the sense?

I think that's,

Well,

This is what's interesting,

Because we are such complex beings,

Right?

It's not it's not black,

It's not this or that it's not only lack or only appreciation.

I know that we all have a go to emotion,

Where it's how we deal with these feelings,

Right?

If we're feeling lack,

Or we're feeling,

Whatever it is,

I have sadness,

Other people may become angry or enraged.

For me,

It is sadness.

So actually,

When I do feel lack,

I tend to get sad.

And the only way I can get out of that is when I remind myself and I make a list of gratitude,

The things in my life that I appreciate that I have,

And I tell myself,

You're going to make a choice now in this moment to be in that space.

And then I don't give energy to the other aspect.

But I think it really also is what I wanted to bring up.

It's not if somebody thinks that they're undeserving of good things.

And I talked about this and rethink love as well.

People think they're undeserving of love as much as they desire to have love and attract a mate.

If you can't have two competing desires or two competing thoughts,

Right?

You can't say,

I want love,

I want a relationship,

But then really at the same time think you don't deserve it.

It's the same thing in life.

If we're talking about lack,

If you approach it with,

And your consciousness is one of victimhood,

Or like for my father,

Who he was,

The sense of himself,

His ego,

Let's say,

Was so attached to the money.

So by not having it,

He just simply didn't think that he was enough.

And therefore that dictated everything else.

And that fed the lack.

Right?

So I think you're saying that you're alive,

Right?

So yes,

You need to have appreciation.

Of course,

That is the ultimate.

But how do you get there?

And I think it's by dealing with some of this garbage that we all have.

That's the sticky stuff,

Right?

That gets in our way.

But the beauty is,

You know,

Consciousness is everything as the route of your father has taught us.

And that,

You know,

The beauty about thoughts,

The beautiful thing is that it can be changed,

And you can choose a higher level perspective at any given moment.

So I think that's what we're trying to shed light upon today.

Yeah,

Again,

I think,

You know,

Like I said before,

I think,

I think an important question to ask ourselves is,

Even the right,

There are certain things that we feel lack about that are not really important.

This person is not paying attention to me or this other person is,

You know,

But they're there are those parts of our lives that we should,

It's the right thing,

It's the positive thing,

But physically,

Spiritually to feel the lack of them.

The question is,

Is that creating sadness for me,

Right?

Is that creating a sense of lack rather than an objective appreciation of the fact that this is lacking my life,

And I need to find the way to get more of this or to accomplish this or that.

But the thing is,

The way to do that,

Right?

It's basically how do you know if what you're desiring is something that is real or something that is not right.

If you give the example of social media,

You can look at a bunch of people's lives in a snapshot and there's a picture that's painted and then suddenly you feel like like,

Oh,

That should be me or I should have that or I want that or they have this many followers or whatever it is that we deal with in today's society.

Is that really a desire?

What is it that what's behind the desire?

Right?

So you're saying that if people just make a list of the things that they think they want and then do a meditation and really connect with their soul and what is it that their soul really desires to do?

And then you know which one to feed.

One of my favorite Kabbalistic teachings on this,

And I try to think about this often,

Especially when things come up that are not,

We'll say,

Initially viewed as positive,

Is if you were not alive,

Right?

If your soul had already ascended from this world,

Is this something that would bother you?

That's good.

And I think the truth is,

If we're honest with ourselves,

So much of the lack that we feel is not a lack that is,

We'll say,

Eternal or lack that would bother us if we were not in this physical world.

Well,

Death is very sobering,

Right?

As soon as you bring that as a question in,

It becomes really clear what's important and what's not.

Right.

Which brings me back actually to when you said to your dad,

Are we not enough?

And,

You know,

When you think about death,

That's probably such a clarifying thought,

Right?

There's a verse in the ancient book of Eichat,

And it says in the original Hebrew,

It says,

Ma'it onen adam chay,

Which means,

Once you have life,

What else can you complain about?

And I think really that's,

You know,

I think it's an important meditation or thought every time you start feeling lack,

Stop for a second.

You know,

We have life,

I have life right now,

And if,

Bezat HaShem,

We are blessed that those around you,

Your family have life and health,

Probably everything else does not deserve any real sadness attached to any lack or further accomplishment that you want to have around it.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Yeah.

So let's.

.

.

All right.

So we'll get to the first,

That was a long intro.

All right.

So here's the first question.

Why does the Creator bless some women with a spouse while others do life alone without one?

Are some women better than others,

More deserving,

The gift of satisfaction,

Children and physical safety?

This observation has made me not want to believe in God anymore due to disgust and weariness to never meeting anyone.

Well,

First of all,

I'm sorry that obviously,

You know,

You're in pain and that you've been frustrated in trying to find a soulmate,

Trying to find a mate in life.

And without,

You know,

Monica,

I would strongly recommend reading through Rethink Love because,

You know,

So much needs to be said about that.

But I would focus on,

You know,

Because we really want to talk about the areas of the focus on lack,

But Monica,

The first part of Rethink Love is the fact that so often in life,

Especially when it comes to finding a soulmate,

Finding a mate,

We focus on the other when in reality,

Most,

At least initially,

Certainly,

The reason we either struggle finding someone or even struggle retaining a relationship with someone is because we either haven't or are not doing enough of the internal personal work.

Unless we change,

And this is true certainly about finding a mate,

But it's true about finding any type of fulfillment in life,

Unless we initially focus on ourselves,

Our transformation,

Our growth,

It will be very,

Very difficult,

If not impossible,

To find a soulmate,

To find anything that we're trying to bring into our lives.

But I think it's important to be clear,

The question was,

Part of the question was,

You know,

Do some people deserve and some people don't?

There's no question that absolutely every single person,

Both deserves a soulmate,

Deserves to be with somebody who loves them and that they love,

And I believe strongly that that person exists for absolutely every single one of us.

Now,

That doesn't mean,

As in all important things in life,

That there isn't some internal work that we need to do in order to be prepared.

And by the way,

And this is something I know that Manicha speaks about often,

You should know that most people who are in relationships already aren't necessarily feeling fulfilled,

Because that internal work,

Both that one needs to do before they're ready to be with a mate,

And certainly even once you've found your partner or even partner in life,

The work continues.

But I think,

You know,

Kabbalistically we often say that if you don't have the vessel,

What is a vessel?

A real desire?

A desire that is with a certainty that I will achieve that.

So which means,

As Manicha said before,

If you are going through life and you doubt whether either you deserve a soulmate or whether one exists for you,

That belief by and within itself will be a great barrier,

Will be a great barrier.

I can tell you that,

And I've had the blessing of being friends with so many of our students who started studying spirituality maybe even later in life and they had never been married,

And I remember having at least four or five conversations like this,

Where people in their 40s and sometimes in their 50s are,

You know,

Is it too late for me?

Will I ever find the soulmate?

Does my soulmate exist?

And with these,

Of course,

You know,

Other lengthy conversations,

I went with that,

But one of the pieces of advice that I gave to every single one of them was you have to have certainty that your soulmate exists.

Because if you don't,

Even subconsciously,

You will be building barriers and hindrances to both finding your soulmate and once finding them,

Really making the most of that relationship.

And I can say,

I'm thinking back at least to the people who come straight to mind,

Every single one of them eventually found their soulmate and was very happy.

But you know,

Kabbalistically,

We know consciousness,

The way we think about ourselves is so important because it manifests both consciously and subconsciously,

More importantly.

And if you do not believe that you deserve a soulmate,

Or if you do not have certainty that that person already exists for you,

Everything else you do will be limited.

So I would start the process there,

I would come to do whatever internal work you need to do to really awaken that thought,

That certainty,

As we call it,

That my soulmate exists,

My soulmate is in this world,

And yes,

There is work that I need to do to find them to discover them.

And more importantly,

Even after that,

To make the relationship work.

And of course,

I want to hear what Monica has to say,

She wrote a whole book on this.

But one other thought that comes to mind is that the Zohar,

The foundational work of Kabbalah 2000 years ago,

When speaking about soulmates,

It uses a phrase which I often repeat,

That you have to merit your soulmate,

Which means you have to grow to a certain level before your soulmate will be either revealed to you or again,

Even if you're with them,

For that relationship to really give you great light and fulfillment and joy.

This is the advice I often give to people is,

Even especially when it's later in life,

When they're looking to find their soulmate,

Have certainty that your soulmate exists,

Have certainty that they're in this world,

And understand that there is work that you need to do on yourself.

And when enough of that work is done,

You will find your soulmate.

Well,

Monica,

You're the expert on this,

At least for sure.

So there's so much I want to say,

I think,

Let's start at the beginning.

My book,

Rethink Love,

Is written in three parts.

And the first eight chapters,

In fact,

Are dedicated and devoted to the most important relationship you'll ever have,

The longest one you'll also ever have,

Which is the one you have with yourself.

And this is a fundamental first step that most of us miss in our lives.

You know,

We get a lot of feedback growing up that we should be a certain way,

Or we should respond a certain way.

And we don't spend a lot of time getting to know who we are.

And a lot of it is that we learn to love,

We learn to unlove ourselves,

We come into the world loving ourselves,

Through life,

We unlearn it.

And it's our responsibility to go back to that space where we truly love who we are,

Is it's hard to live in your body and make good choices when you at your core don't really love yourself.

So what we tend to do is we look outside for that thing we're craving.

We look externally for love,

Romantic love,

It's gonna,

We're gonna meet somebody that loves us enough,

You know,

Loves me enough for both of us.

It's this version of love we mostly see in movies.

As you were talking,

The thought that came to mind,

And this I think is a very important question.

Any person who's having trouble finding their mate,

Or even finding somebody to be with,

The question they should probably ask themselves first is,

Do I love myself?

And I wonder if you ever did a study,

How many people are having trouble finding somebody to be with or a soulmate,

Actually,

At their core,

Don't have enough love for themselves?

1000% I don't I want to do like,

Like I've done with my book,

I have done case studies.

And I do actually,

I'm gonna tell you a story now about a girl named Susan,

Who,

And she's in the book,

And she was a beautiful person in her 50s.

And or late 40s.

And she wanted love so badly.

But at her core,

She thought she was undeserving.

And when she told me her story,

She was crying hysterically and shaking.

And she said,

And by the way,

She's a wedding planner,

You know,

She makes people happy.

She loves this,

But in her own life,

It was completely the opposite.

And she shared that she was repeatedly raped from age six until her teenage years.

And even though she craved love,

She thought she was undeserving of it.

She also believed that she was somehow flawed because this happened to her like it was her fault.

And I know that happens with a lot of people who are abused.

But we tend to carry the trauma around with us.

And even though again,

We desire these great things in our lives,

We desire love,

We still think we're tainted or damaged somehow.

So we worked together for a long time.

And through the process,

She ended up loving herself.

I mean,

The point is,

We're all in the process,

Nobody is perfect,

Not one single person.

And I think for those of us who tend to wear the things that happen to us,

And we identify with that,

And that's who we are,

We have shame,

We don't we don't think it's a real blockage for what can come to us.

So that's the first step is to really learn to love who you are,

Know that you're in the middle of a process,

And no one will ever be perfect.

We're not meant to be perfect,

Because when we are,

We're not actually going to be here anymore.

And it's a it's a ridiculous pursuit.

It's one that will bring zero rewards.

And from that space,

Right,

When you when you start to really learn to love yourself,

Then you're going to be able to attract somebody in your life that mirrors where you are.

Because again,

If you're looking for somebody,

And you want them to give you all the things you don't feel for yourself,

You're not really going to be able to attract somebody at the level that you want.

I can speak about my own life.

I'm very vocal about all of my life experiences.

And I love to share them because I have zero shame and anything that's happened to me,

It's happened through me.

And if it can help one other person feel like they're understood,

Or they can relate to that and that gives them courage to move on like that is my purpose.

So I,

Like Susan,

Like many was just looking for love.

I was in my 20s,

I had never been in a serious relationship or any really relationship.

And I just wanted to be loved.

I craved it so completely,

Especially because I was in the throes of an eating disorder,

Which is a really dark,

Lonely place to be.

I felt so much lack,

I felt so much shame,

Because I was basically starving myself to death.

It wasn't like anybody else was doing this.

And I realized,

Wow,

You think so little of yourself,

Not even enough to feed yourself,

Right?

I mean,

I think that's the lowest you get in terms of lack of self love.

And what I wanted was just to find somebody just to love me and make it all better.

And I realized,

Because I had already been studying Kabbalah,

And I was so devoted to my spiritual growth,

I realized that I needed to really fix this now.

Learn to find my voice,

Learn to speak my mind,

Learn to pursue my passion and really hear the voice within and honor that.

And when I started to love myself,

And I really focused on that,

Instead of looking externally,

Then three years after that,

We met,

We had known each other kind of,

But I remember I walked in your office and sparks flew and we were married nine months later.

And I know as surely as I am sitting here,

Had I not done that work,

There's no way,

No way I would have attracted this relationship,

The Solme relationship.

And that's why I devote eight chapters because I've done the work,

I know what works.

And even though it's hard,

And it's difficult,

And it's something that you have to continually choose to do,

Then slowly that what's now in an audible voice that's really quiet is going to have a stronger volume,

And you're going to start listening to it and honoring it and you're going to feel good about who you are,

You're going to feel good about your choices.

And then that negative voice that tells you you're not good enough,

You're not smart enough,

You're not pretty enough,

You're not good enough is going to get quieter and quieter until it doesn't exist anymore.

So I think that loving yourself means loving all of yourself,

Even though there's things you want to change.

So the ways that I do this,

Even now,

Is that I express appreciation at the end of every day,

I look back to the day and see how it was and count the things that I appreciate,

I often express to you how I appreciate you and I appreciate our lives.

And then I pat myself on the back for choosing such a good life partner,

The choice I made.

And the other thing I do is I choose to focus on the good because if you choose to focus on the negative or like the question,

You know,

What other people have now other people are deserving of it,

We never really know what's going on in anybody's home in anybody's mind in anybody's relationship.

So that for me just seems like a silly thing to do anyway,

Instead of looking at what is lacking,

What is wrong,

Just focus on what is working well,

And then grow upon that.

Yeah,

I would say,

As you were talking to two thoughts that came to mind,

One,

When you spoke about this earlier,

But the fact that when you don't love yourself,

We don't feel that you're deserving of somebody else loving you because of that,

That influences so much of one of my favorite books,

You know,

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.

He many,

I think,

Important lessons from there.

Well,

One of them is the fact that we like to think that we know why we think certain things and why we do certain things,

When in reality,

There's so much going on in our mind that usually we don't appreciate why we do certain things and certainly why we think certain things.

So really changing our thought process on ourselves is so important.

And the second is,

You brought up at the end again,

About appreciation.

You know,

This is already a proven science,

Right,

That if you write down three things a day that you appreciate,

It actually causes an internal physical reaction and your immune system becomes stronger.

And that gratitude or appreciation actually lasts for a month,

Which is crazy.

The amount of influence that we have,

And specifically that consciously awakening gratitude has in our lives.

You know,

The Zora says that there is a force that is inherent in each one of us and in each one of our lives,

And its purpose is to diminish the appreciation that we have for the gifts that we have,

Which means that this morning,

Unless you fight for appreciation,

You're going to lose appreciation to some degree of the blessings that you have in your life.

For your life,

For your health,

For your children,

For your spouse,

For anything that you have.

And therefore I like to use the phrase,

And that's why I like the phrase spiritually hungry,

But you need to fight for appreciation.

You know,

Appreciation is a nice word,

Gratitude is a nice word.

The reality is that unless you're really actively fighting for it,

You lose it.

That's just the reality.

That's the nature of our being.

And if you want to really have a life that is more filled than lacking,

Fighting for appreciation,

Fighting for gratitude every day must be a constant,

A constant companion.

Because the truth is where we place our attention is what grows,

Right?

So depending on how you think about love,

That's going to affect what kind of relationship you draw in.

How you think about your body will affect your health.

How you think about your day will affect the experience you have in that day.

So it's really up to each and every person to decide where they're going to place the energy.

And I always say to people,

I don't care if you're 70,

I don't care if you're widowed,

Divorced,

20,

In a relationship not.

This fundamental first step of really loving who you are or learning to love yourself cannot ever be passed up.

Go back and do it because when you have,

You start from that space,

Then you can grow what you can do,

You can accomplish,

You can attract anything you want.

And there is a formula to happiness.

This is it.

For sure,

For sure.

It's funny.

I'm not sure if this is appropriate to bring up or not.

But Monica and I are probably late to the game and have been watching Money Heist.

And I think that when you think about loving yourself,

I think we need to clarify for some people what that means,

Right?

Because loving yourself,

You know,

We all know people who act with ego,

Right?

So I'm thinking about the head guy,

I don't remember his name in Money Heist,

Right?

He's clearly a sociopath and a crazy person.

But if you met him on the street,

My guess is you would say this person thinks very highly of himself.

Well,

Confidence is not self-love.

Right.

Nor is,

You know,

A person if you ask many people that you meet,

You know,

The way they behave in a way that is either confident or often probably condescending towards other people.

Right?

I would say often those people do not actually love themselves.

No,

It's the opposite.

They appreciate themselves,

Right?

No,

The people I think that truly love themselves are the ones that are able to show kindness when they don't really want to,

When it's not warranted,

Even to those that have hurt them.

And they probably don't need anybody else to know.

No,

And they also don't need approval or recognition.

Because you're simply enough.

It doesn't mean you're perfect.

It doesn't mean there aren't things that need to change.

But it means that in this space that you hold for yourself,

You're good,

Right?

And that does take work.

And then from that place,

Then you can grow anything else that's positive,

Right?

Then you add on more kindness,

More sharing,

More love,

More money,

More of everything,

Right?

We all want more,

We should all have more.

But it has to,

You have to create a foundation that's strong,

That you're able just to hold your space.

And I think the word that you said is really important,

Right?

So if we want to assess whether we do love ourselves,

It's an internal recognition.

It is if any of our love is based on anything external,

Even if it's about somebody important to us,

Then that's not necessarily real self love.

Self love is self contained.

Like you said,

I have enough.

It's interesting.

I don't want because I do want to get to other questions.

But there's a part in my book there,

I talk about the difference between validation and feedback.

And validation is where you look to other people to help make you okay,

Right?

Versus feedback is that you get information from others that help make you better,

Which again,

We're talking about improvement and growth.

And that's great.

But for so many,

The validation is what we're searching for.

And that's a problem in a lot of relationships also.

I mean,

We're not going to,

Today's not about relationships.

So we'll get to that later.

But I think again,

If you are able to provide this for yourself,

You're not going to be able to even focus on the lack soon the lack won't even be there actually.

And then and then you'll be able to attract the mate you're looking for.

So this next question made me sad,

But I really wanted to get to her very quickly because she is in a lot of pain.

She wrote,

On November 10,

My son committed suicide,

I cannot resume my life,

I feel lost and guilt.

What could I have done differently?

I'm lost.

Everyone encourages me to go to church or pray.

I cannot I feel like I lost my faith in God,

I would appreciate any assistance with my situation.

So you know,

Whenever I have the opportunity to meet people in pain,

And like we spoke about in the beginning,

There's different levels of pain,

Different types of pain,

And losing a loved one,

Losing a child,

It's something again,

That you cannot empathize with enough,

You can hope you that you can help.

But you know,

Whenever I meet and I've had the opportunity to meet parents who've lost children,

I have both great admiration and respect for people who are able to move on from from from a darkness like that from a pain like that.

What goes against I mean,

No parents supposed to watch their child go right,

The assumption is the child will outlive them,

Right.

And I think also what happens is that a person's flooded with so much regret,

Right?

They probably go back and look at their entire lives to that point,

You know,

Exchanges,

How many times did they say I love you?

When did they act in ways they weren't proud of as a parent?

What opportunities were missed?

You know,

It's,

That's,

I think that's human nature to go back and replay all of that.

But that just creates more pain,

Too.

Right,

And it's always I find it very difficult to speak to somebody who's going through real,

Real pain in that way.

But I hope maybe some of the words that we share in some way can can alleviate or at least help in some way.

We've all experienced many of us have experienced the loss of a loved one.

And as we said earlier in the podcast,

It's important,

You know,

There are times in life I was talking to one of our teachers recently,

Whose father passed away from COVID-19.

And there are certain people whose nature is to run away from pain.

And there's certain people whose nature is to wallow in the pain.

But there are times in life where you're the right thing to do is to stop,

To experience the pain,

To allow it to be experienced.

But with that,

You know,

Hopefully at a certain point,

You're able to start moving forward.

And I think one of them,

Especially in this situation,

Which is so painful,

Because,

You know,

You in some way you start thinking about and even if it wasn't a child,

You start thinking,

You know,

Is there something I could have done?

And there's a Kabbalistic principle,

Which is true for all interactions,

Whether even father to parent to child.

And that is that every person has their process.

Every person has their life path.

And no matter how we interact with them,

Whether we interact correctly or badly,

Where we do the right thing or the wrong thing,

Whether we say the right thing or the wrong thing,

That's our internal work,

Which we should always be looking at.

But it's important to know that what another person,

Even a child and even a spouse or even a father or mother,

Their process is independent of ours.

Person's life or death,

A person's choices in life at the end of the day,

Spiritually,

What happens to that soul is an effect of only the actions of that soul,

Of that person.

And we have a role,

Right?

Because maybe they're in our lives for a reason,

But it doesn't mean that we are responsible for the outcome.

Exactly.

It happens to anybody.

And again,

This is a little bit of a,

Maybe an example that seems a little foreign,

But I think it's important to really understand this teaching.

And that is,

For instance,

There's in the ancient biblical story of the Egyptians and the Israelites,

The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites for hundreds of years.

And in the biblical story,

The Egyptians were punished for causing so much pain and death to the Israelites.

But the catalysts take a very interesting view of that historical story.

They say the Israelites needed to go through that pain for their process.

The people who lost their lives,

The people who were enslaved,

The people who were in pain.

The Egyptians,

Though,

Had the choice,

Were they going to be the ones who do it or was it going to be somebody else?

And that's a duality that is sometimes confusing,

But it's important to keep in mind at all times in our lives.

So if the Israelites had to experience as a nation that pain and that suffering and even the many deaths that they experienced,

That was something that was going to happen to them,

Regardless of who the enforcer of that.

In this case,

The Egyptians chose that task upon themselves.

And they call it punishment,

Right?

But their effect wasn't because the Israelites experienced that,

Because the Israelites needed to go through that process for their own correction,

As we call it,

Or their own life process.

The questions of the Egyptians are not why did that happen to the Israelites,

But why were you the one who inflicted that?

So that duality,

That understanding that,

Let's use a simple example,

Because I think sometimes from the more simple examples you can learn the greater lessons,

Let's assume you walk over to your friend and you yell at them,

Or somebody who's not your friend.

The view is this,

That person needed to be yelled at today.

For whatever reason,

Maybe because of something they did yesterday or last month or last lifetime,

They needed somebody to yell at them today.

Your mistake is being the one who yelled at them.

And that's something that you should look at,

Maybe I should become a better person and stop yelling at people and so on and so forth.

But that duality of process,

Which means every individual goes through their process that they need,

That is an effect of their soul's process,

Which sometimes we can understand and oftentimes we cannot.

My decisions,

Words,

Actions,

Be they right or wrong,

Do not have the effect certainly on the major effects of that person's life.

They might be things that I need to change and grow and learn,

But not regret in the sense that why did I cause that to happen to somebody else,

Because we never cause anything to happen to somebody else.

At the end of the day,

Each soul's process,

Whether we can understand it or not,

Is an effect of either what that soul needs or what that soul has created.

So I think it's so important in situations like this that,

And again,

As I said,

I think this is a lesson for every single one of us,

Thankfully those of us who are not going through such pain,

But we experience interactions with people,

Be they family members or friends,

And at the end,

Then we regret why did I give that advice or why did I behave in such a way that in my mind caused a certain effect in the other person's life.

The reality is that every one of our life processes is an effect of only my soul's process.

Whether my behavior towards another person is right or wrong is something I need to assess,

But it does not affect their situation.

As I said,

This is not an easy concept or an easy teaching,

But it's one that I have found to be very,

Very positive in my life,

Where we're so often,

And this by the way,

And this is important as well,

Even as it relates to ourselves.

So in our lives,

We make mistakes.

We do things we shouldn't have done.

Let's say an example,

A person's in business making investments and he or she made a mistake and he lost a certain amount of money.

And then we start beating ourselves up.

Why was I so stupid?

Why did I make that mistake?

Why did I lose that money?

The view,

And again,

I understand that this is a duality view,

It's hard to really encapsulate in our mind,

But it's important because this is a very important principle to live with.

I had to lose,

That investor needed to lose that money.

So whether it would have fallen out of his wallet or he would have made the bad investment,

The bottom line net effect in their lives needed to happen.

That needed to happen.

This person needed to lose X amount of money.

The way he or she brought themselves to it was by making that mistake.

So what happens in life?

We beat ourselves up.

We say,

Had I not made that stupid decision or made that stupid investment,

I would have still had that money.

No.

The understanding is that maybe I should learn from that decision and maybe it was a stupid choice and I shouldn't have done it,

Next time I shouldn't do it.

But finding myself in this situation,

Having lost that money is something that for whatever reason,

Whether I can understand it or I cannot,

My soul needed to experience.

So whether it's when we are behaving and acting towards others and even when we are behaving and acting towards ourselves,

The understanding is that where we find ourselves,

We need it to be.

How we got there?

Maybe we got there in the right way and maybe we got there in the wrong way and maybe there are things for me to learn.

But at the end of the day,

Where I found myself or where anybody finds themselves,

That's their soul's process brought them there.

And back to this painful situation,

I don't know that understanding relieves any pain but hopefully as you go through this process in life,

The one thing that you can completely let go of is any regret and any guilt.

Knowing that he,

For reasons that you and I maybe never understand,

Had to go through that process and your actions or inactions or words or actions did not bring him to that state.

That was his soul's process.

And for the rest of us who go through life either with regret,

Pain or guilt,

Either for things that we've done to ourselves or for things that we've done or caused to others,

This is also an important lesson.

We never should feel regret because where we found ourselves and where anybody else found themselves is where they needed to be,

Where their soul's process needed to bring them.

Of course there might be learnings that we should take for our own benefit to change and to grow to become a better person,

But not because we caused somebody else to be in a certain situation or even in this case in finding their death because that was and is purely and completely their soul's process.

But I just want to say again that when it comes to pain like this,

When it comes to pain like this,

I think it's so often important to not try to be too spiritual about it.

That there are certain times in life when pain and that experience is where we are and we don't run away from it and hopefully we can come to experience it and embrace it in some way,

But in a way that in the long term of our lives elevates us hopefully.

So as you're speaking so much went through my mind,

I think it's normal when things happen and we experience extreme pain or loss,

We try to find meaning to it.

Why did it happen?

What could I have done differently?

And when things don't make sense like a suicide or a sudden death,

In my own life giving birth to a child with Down syndrome,

It's not what I expected.

I think there's a big shock and I think like Mihai was saying,

It's so important to give yourself time to experience all of these emotions,

Sadness,

Fear of how you'll go on with this new way of life without him,

Loss,

Grief,

All of that is so normal and necessary and as humans we need to allow ourselves to be in that space and I did when I had Josh.

I think in my experience it was not so much,

And again this is completely different from yours in this regard,

But it wasn't so much that he had Down syndrome.

I had to mourn the idea of what I thought my life would be like with a healthy child and I think that part of your mourning also is how does your life look like now without him?

And you're not meant to die with him and I think that a way to do that,

I've spoken to a lot of people who have experienced extreme grief and pain from loss.

Sometimes people stay stuck in that pain and it eats away and for others they're able to funnel those emotions into helping somehow.

And again I think this is really fresh and new and recent and I don't think you're necessarily ready to do that,

But if I look at for instance mothers against drunk driving,

Those were mothers who came together who lost a child because of a drunk driver and they transformed that pain into helping other people get a message out to not do this.

The same thing with committing suicide that somebody who's going through emotional mental issues maybe you would find some solace in helping people or talking to other families who are going through the same thing to know that you're not alone I think is a big thing.

Like Mikhail said,

Each soul comes into this world with a unique purpose and we never really know,

We can't see the blueprint to a soul's journey.

We don't know really why someone came into this world,

What they're meant to do,

How long they're supposed to stay,

Why they're in our lives.

I think that as a parent I often try to just look at my kids from a space of not putting myself too much in the process,

Helping navigate of course but allowing them to,

Their gifts or their purpose to unfold somehow.

So I think know completely there's nothing that you could have done to have changed this outcome and to live with blame and guilt and regret is going to eat away at you so then two lives are lost.

So I really want you to,

As painful as it is and how hard it is,

To try to really be kind to yourself and compassionate in this process of pain and sadness.

And I think the other part,

And again I'm not sure that you're there yet and understandably so,

Is to focus on the beautiful times you did have together and what you did share.

I try to do that with people that I've lost.

I think about instead of the pain of the loss,

I try to have them live forever in my memory and the beauty of what we share together and what I learned from them.

And that's how you keep them alive.

You keep them alive by honoring that exchange every day.

And again we don't see everything so your pain is that your memory of him is here right with where he's gone,

How he's not here.

But instead you can keep them alive by really thinking about all the beautiful things that you did experience.

Yes,

You know I was thinking as you were just saying that,

You know when I think about,

I don't want to say losing my father,

Tharav,

Because I don't feel that I've lost him.

You know there's an important both Kabbalistic and scientific reality that no energy is ever lost,

Which means that the light and the life of every single one of us really is an energy that remains.

The question is,

You know,

How do I bring myself to connect to it?

And I can tell you that from my own experience and it's been quite a number of years since my father left this physical world.

I continue studying from him and receiving from him both in dreams and in other ways.

And I know that it's so easy to look at our world from the viewpoint of our physical body and think that this is the way things are and this is all that there is.

But when you begin tapping into the deeper energy of our world,

The souls,

And really realize that that energy,

That soul,

Really remains forever.

And you begin finding the ways,

Finding the ways to connect,

Finding the ways to connect to their light,

To their energy,

In my case to the wisdom.

They become sometimes even more alive.

You know there's a Kabbalistic phrase that is often used in the ancient books from thousands of years ago that the elevated souls in death are called alive.

In death are called alive.

And that means that after they've left the bonds of the physical world,

Their light shines even more greatly.

You know,

I'll use the example,

The Rav,

My father had a very,

Probably besides my mother of course,

But his first deepest relationship and love was with his teacher.

And my father studied with his teacher from 1962 till 1969 when his teacher passed away.

And the Rav would often recount in the pain that he felt when his beloved teacher,

The person he literally loved the most in this world,

Left him.

And he felt completely lost.

He didn't know what future he was going to have for himself.

And that went on for a while.

Certainly it was the initial feeling of darkness and loss.

And then he shared that he felt that his teacher actually became closer to him after leaving the confines of his physical body,

That he was more available to him.

And I'll share with you that often,

You know,

We would study with the Rav with my father often at 2 a.

M.

To 5 a.

M.

And sometimes we would raise questions and we would ask questions.

My father,

The Rav,

Didn't necessarily have answers to it.

He would say,

You know,

He would ask,

He would act in a voice and we would hear,

Ask his teacher the question and he felt his teacher answering the question for him.

So for me,

I think that prepared me for the relationship that I now have for my father,

Because for my father,

His teacher was in some ways even more alive for him,

Having left the physical body than he was while in the physical body.

But of course,

That's,

You know,

A process that takes time.

But I think it's a very hopeful part of our spiritual process.

Hopeful part.

The key is that you have to ask for that connection,

Right?

You have to be able to let go of what you feel is unfair and what should be and instead of thinking about all the memories you should be creating now that you don't have the opportunity to try to find.

.

.

But by the way,

Register.

No,

For sure.

That happens and that's okay too.

For sure.

It happens to me.

But eventually,

And at least for the scale to be,

How can you connect with them?

In what ways can you still bring them into your life?

And ask the question every day,

How can I gain strength from this and create meaning and purpose in this loss?

For sure.

Right?

And when we ask that question every day,

It's not about blaming ourselves or about blaming God or blaming anything.

It's about trying to create connection and derive purpose and meaning,

Even from the most painful things,

Because that is how we do grow.

Yes.

And one of the things,

And this is a larger topic,

Which probably we'll get to in one of the podcasts.

.

.

I just want to say,

I'm sorry,

One more thing.

I say completely,

Your son absolutely does not want you to be suffering and does not want to be the cause of any pain that you're going through.

So again,

Going back to honoring him,

He wants you to be happy.

He wants you to remember him in his healthy state and to connect to that.

Yeah,

I was going to say that one of the ways,

And this is why,

In my opinion,

Spiritual work and study is so important.

This physical world within which we live and the physical body that our soul resides in for however many years it does,

That's not reality.

It's a persistent illusion,

But it's an illusion.

And a big part of the spiritual work is really having the consciousness to go beyond what is this persistent illusion of what we see as life and death,

What we see as physical.

The ultimate state of spiritual being is when the world of the souls is as real,

If not more real to us,

Than the physical world of this body.

And that is a life's journey of spiritual work,

But ultimately that's where we want to and need to get to.

Because once you have that view,

Then so much of the pain that we do feel of this world goes away.

There's a biblical story of Aaron,

The brother of Moses,

Who lost two sons in his lifetime on the same day.

And it says,

Vayidom a'habun,

That rather than fall to darkness and pain,

He was still.

And one of the ways that the Kabbalists explained that he was able to achieve that level of stillness is because he lived a spiritual life.

His soul's reality was the world of souls.

So he saw his children even more real maybe than they were in the physical body.

And that again is not where most of us are at,

Of course,

But I think it's important that we realize that's where we want to get to.

Because the pain of death of the physical body,

That is something that every single person is going to experience for themselves,

For their loved ones at some point.

And unless we do the work to break down the wall of this persistent illusion,

Pain will get greater and greater.

That's why I think for me one of the greatest motivating factors in my spiritual desire and growth is I don't want to feel great pain.

And to the degree that I am bound to believe that the physical reality is reality,

That's going to eventually absolutely cause pain.

But through the spiritual work and study and growth,

I will feel the world of souls,

The real world more true and more powerful than the physical world.

And that for so many reasons,

But certainly for reasons like this,

Will definitely be able to alleviate so much of the pain that we would otherwise be going through.

I think we should do a whole other podcast on the 99% realm versus the 1% realm and soul and body.

Because we can speak about this for days,

I think,

But I hope that this offered some solace.

Yes.

I just want to say one more thing on this.

That is that I've had the opportunity,

I would say,

I have no greater respect and I am in no greater awe than when I meet parents who've lost children,

Who are able to move on.

And sometimes,

And I can share,

And I'm thinking of other students specifically,

I won't mention the name not to embarrass them,

But there's a few students that I know who actually came to the study of spirituality after having lost a child.

And when I meet with them,

They share with me how I've either inspired them or the lessons that I've given that they've loved and so on.

And I have to tell you that I will never feel greater awe nor feel greater respect than from people who have gone through this unimaginable tragedy in life and have been able to find light after that.

And may none of us ever have to experience that,

But to have the respect for those who have and to give whatever support and solace that we can to those who have.

Again,

Like Monica said,

We hope that our words in some way have brought some comfort.

And for all the rest of our listeners that really,

We all grow from this.

We all grow from this.

So thank you for joining us.

We look forward to sharing with you again next week on the Spiritually Hungry podcast.

And again,

Please continue to send in your questions.

The email is monicaandmichaelandmichaelatkabala.

Com.

And we will get to all and as many of the questions as we can.

But please send them in if we don't cover them in the next podcast.

Hopefully the ones that follow after that.

Thank you.

Fly Tail!

Reviews

Grateful for this podcast. There are many gems that are helpful for me. 🙏❤️

Wise and refreshing. Thanks

Thank you 💙🙏💙

Very insightful. Thank you for this podcast. Have a bra day

Amazing timming to have found you!