Connection to Essence | Episode 4 | Self-Hatred

00:00 Speaker 1 Connecting to the Essence, another episode. How are you, Sarah’le?

00:03 Speaker 2 Fine. How are you?

00:04 Speaker 1 Baruch Hashem. It’s fun to get together and talk with you. What do I care if there’s a microphone too?

00:11 Speaker 2 You really do love interviewing, making podcasts, talking in general.

00:14 Speaker 1 I don’t interview.

00:15 Speaker 2 No, I mean, you like the format.

00:17 Speaker 1 Yes, I told you, I’ve already done over a hundred episodes. I really feel at home in the...

00:22 Speaker 2 Overall, in your life, a hundred episodes?

00:23 Speaker 1 Of podcasts I’ve done, yes.

00:25 Speaker 2 Wow, you’re amazing! And you just did a live one at—

00:28 Speaker 1 I did a live one for—

00:29 Speaker 2 At the Shluchos Seminar.

00:30 Speaker 1 Yes, it was wild. I came up with this idea for a playback-style podcast without really knowing what it was going to be.

00:38 Speaker 2 Describe the action.

00:39 Speaker 1 A few minutes before—I'd had this idea that I’d ask a question, and if someone in the audience wanted to talk about it, she’d come up and I’d spend about ten minutes with her, getting the story behind the shlucha. And then, a few minutes beforehand, I said, “Let’s do something else.” I took everyone’s names and put them into a sort of raffle, a wheel of fortune you could see on the screen. Whoever was picked just came up onstage, and I had ten minutes with her. We set a stopwatch—

01:10 Speaker 2 Wow.

01:10 Speaker 1 And it was—

01:11 Speaker 2 Wild.

01:12 Speaker 1 Fascinating. I mean, afterward I thought to myself, “How did I do that?” Because it was—

01:16 Speaker 2 Going in and coming out.

01:17 Speaker 1 Going into a woman’s world and coming back out. I mean, without comparing the two, but when people speak about a yechidus with the Rebbe, it was a bit like that. And Baruch Hashem, I brought my curiosity to it again, and everything else. What did I want to talk to you about? We did our first episodes, and then we published an episode about body image.

01:40 Speaker 2 Wow, what a flood of responses. Honestly, I was shocked. I didn’t expect it.

01:43 Speaker 1 So I had a dilemma. I’ll just say it. After I edited it, I wondered why I was sharing it. I asked myself those questions, and I also asked my husband whether I should share it, and another lovely sister-in-law I wanted to hear it. I asked you to listen too, to make sure it really, really came from a place that could do good. And because I was at a point where I’d been through that experience—even though I’m still living with body image and everything else I go through in life—I said that if I’m in a place where it could help even one woman, I’ll publish it. And ours isn’t the kind of podcast that’s blown up yet, so it’s not like we...

02:37 Speaker 2 It gives us room.

02:38 Speaker 1 I mean, who’s going to make a big deal of it? We can talk about whatever we want. So, yes, I released it with a lot, a lot of prayer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. I really prayed that it would reach the right places, the right people. And then the responses started coming in.

02:54 Speaker 2 Yes, honestly, it really was—

02:56 Speaker 1 What amazed me was that it touched women even though I was talking about body image from the perspective of being fat. The conversation was very much about weight. And thin women sent me responses—women who, if I thought about their body image, I would...

03:13 Speaker 2 What did I say to you about that? There was someone—

03:15 Speaker 1 No, never mind. We don’t need to say it.

03:17 Speaker 2 No, women wrote that they’re underweight. So I told you, I weigh what we didn’t even weigh in third grade. But okay, fine.

03:24 Speaker 1 But we don’t know, and we don’t judge, because we don’t know how it affects each person.

03:30 Speaker 2 Right.

03:30 Speaker 1 So if it brought healing there... And then I said, okay, I’ve opened up and shared and all that. So let’s share a little about...

03:39 Speaker 2 Let’s take it up a notch.

03:40 Speaker 1 No, not to take it up a notch. But I don’t even know if I ever told you this when we spoke privately. This whole thing of seeing but not being seen—it stayed with me afterward. What do I mean, stayed with me? It has stayed with me for years. But back then I was in a place of self-hatred. I really, really hated myself. And I remember one day my oldest son... One day I could also see that he was embarrassed. He told me he was embarrassed by me, or something like that.

04:11 Speaker 2 Wow.

04:11 Speaker 1 Now, I was very glad he was open with me. I mean, I was really, really moved that he was open with me.

04:18 Speaker 2 That really makes you wince.

04:19 Speaker 1 But it hurt. And then I realized it was connected to me too, because he’s very, very... I say that our communication is Bluetooth. Our operating systems are very, very similar. And then one day, I remember, Mushi was seven—this was five years ago. I sat down with her and did this little survey, asking her to rate things from one to ten. Did I tell you this?

04:44 Speaker 2 Go on. I think you did.

04:45 Speaker 1 I did a survey with her about how much she loved different things, from one to ten. “How much do you love home?” “How much do you love school?” Her friends, her teachers, her brothers—all kinds of questions. It was a cute little survey, and everything was a nine or a ten. Then I asked her, “And how much do you love yourself?” She said, “Two hundred.” That went straight to my heart.

05:09 Speaker 2 How beautiful.

05:10 Speaker 1 I mean, I was so moved. Because at that same time, her mother was at minus two hundred. Just think about that gap. I remember I started crying. I was moved and happy. Then I asked the three boys—I have three sons older than her.

05:27 Speaker 2 The Bluetooth one. What did he say?

05:28 Speaker 1 The Bluetooth one said seven. That’s how much he loves himself. Now, this is a talented, good-looking boy. It’s as if Hashem put a—I don’t know—

05:36 Speaker 2 A crown.

05:37 Speaker 1 A crown on him. Everything he touches, he’s good at. And his self-image is a seven. The second boy, who has his father’s operating system, said ten. And the third said nine, because he didn’t want to be conceited. Do you see the...?

05:52 Speaker 2 But Mushi said two hundred.

05:53 Speaker 1 But Mushi said two hundred.

05:54 Speaker 2 I see.

05:55 Speaker 1 Anyway, I remember telling myself then, “Sweetheart, thank Hashem that she hasn’t been hurt by this and that she loves herself. But if you want her to keep loving herself like that, start doing some work on yourself.” They asked me for my number too. Of course I didn’t tell them minus two hundred. No way. I told them I was a five. Why? Because I had her, the four of them, and my husband. So I was a five. And they took it very hard—that it was such a low number.

06:26 Speaker 2 It is low. Why did you choose to say five?

06:29 Speaker 1 Because, like I told you, I had the four of them and their father. They knew...

06:33 Speaker 2 But that doesn’t answer the question of how much you love yourself.

06:36 Speaker 1 Okay, what did you want me to say—minus two hundred?

06:39 Speaker 2 No. I don’t know.

06:41 Speaker 1 Because I was looking for—

06:42 Speaker 2 No, no, of course not.

06:42 Speaker 1 I was looking for something I loved to hold on to. So yes, despite all the self-hatred, when I gave birth—and I had natural births—I did feel a connection there, a sense of “wow.” And in parenting too, I felt connected to that part of myself: that I was a good mother, that I loved my children and did things with them. So I did have a place there for—

07:05 Speaker 2 For love.

07:05 Speaker 1 Heaven forbid, self-love. Heaven forbid—that sounds terribly crude. Then I caught myself and said, “Sweetheart, if you don’t want to stifle...” I mean, I started taking steps, going through a process of connecting with myself and loving myself so I wouldn’t mess up... My goal wasn’t about me; it was about my daughter. You understand?

07:26 Speaker 2 I’m listening to you, and what you’re saying is interesting. Because I don’t think anyone hearing you—and that includes me, and I know you—would sense this enormous gap in you. And I do think that other people can reflect parts of what’s inside us. I mean, I can sense self-love in you, quite simply.

07:46 Speaker 1 Today.

07:47 Speaker 2 Right, but—

07:47 Speaker 1 You didn’t know me five years ago.

07:50 Speaker 2 First of all, Mushi used to come to me. You brought her every time.

07:52 Speaker 1 But no, you didn’t—I was in the negative.

07:55 Speaker 2 But you didn’t seem shut down.

07:55 Speaker 1 I knew how to function. No, so where was it? Where was the—It’s good you’re asking, because there was a very strong separation. There was Chani, who wasn’t allowed to exist or take up space in the world. That Chani was messed up. And then there was Chani with all the talents Hakadosh Boruch Hu had given her.

08:11 Speaker 2 Chani living her purpose, you mean.

08:12 Speaker 1 Chani, who’d received many gifts from Hakadosh Boruch Hu and was using them. So I was doing productions, I was busy creating, I was online, I made programs and even became somewhat well-known. But those were—

08:24 Speaker 2 Two separate parts.

08:26 Speaker 1 But I had separated them so completely: messed-up Chani, whom I kept feeding with hatred and running away from, and Chani with the talents Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave her. After I became independent—and all of this happened in those same years, the whole process—suddenly I felt a connection. It’s the same Chani, with both of those things in her.

08:46 Speaker 2 Wow.

08:47 Speaker 1 And that’s where the connection began, and a whole process of awareness and action began. That’s why I say Mushki is my mentor, because she was really the signpost for the jolt Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave me: Get a grip on yourself now, because if you keep being absorbed in yourself and all your nonsense, this will be passed on.

09:08 Speaker 2 Did you share that with Mushi?

09:08 Speaker 1 And it had already been passed on. Yes, of course. Mushi knows. It had been passed on to my son too. That was another mirror for me: I could see that what I was going through was being passed on to him. So I did work on myself there, went through a process. And the story with the skirt, too. There were a lot of things I started doing for myself. I treat myself through intuitive writing.

09:32 Speaker 2 Wow. Tell us what that means.

09:34 Speaker 1 What does it mean? First of all, I was someone who hadn’t written by hand in years—hadn’t held a pen in years. I always said I couldn’t write by hand, only on a computer, because I’m always on the computer. That whole divide between the virtual and the physical is very, very present for me. If I had to write a sentence for a note to the kids, my hand would hurt. Really, it was at that level. Then I saw some videos—I don’t know, I must have seen something about intuitive writing—and I saw people writing down things they were thankful for, writing and writing and writing. I used to write beautifully and write a lot on the computer, but not by hand. And one time... When did I start writing? After October 7. There’s this wonderful young woman, Mushki Neymar—I don’t know if you know her—who held women’s circles. Before that, I’d gone to one of her circles once. When my intuition calls me toward something, I go.

10:35 Speaker 2 Which, by the way, is amazing too—how willing you are to try everything.

10:39 Speaker 1 What—

10:39 Speaker 2 Just so naturally.

10:40 Speaker 1 Yes. If something interests me, I go. I went to her circle that summer, before all this, and really, really enjoyed it. Then after October 7, once I’d come out of my own slump, I said, I’m going to encourage other people to come out too. So I told her, “Come on, hold a women’s circle.” She said, “No, how could I? I’m in a slump and all that. Maybe in a few months.” Something like that. I said, “No, do it. I’m coming.” I practically put it on her calendar: “You’re doing it next week?” So she held a circle, and I went. She spoke there and gave us an intuitive-writing exercise. I’d seen a few videos shortly before, so I told myself, Come on, give it a try. At worst, you’ll succeed. I sat down and did the writing. Basically, you spend five minutes writing absolutely anything that comes out.

11:27 Speaker 2 You do that with the kids in your classes.

11:29 Speaker 1 I see.

11:30 Speaker 2 With the older girls. It’s one of the most amazing tools. Okay.

11:33 Speaker 1 It’s incredible. So you write for five minutes, then you take one sentence from what came out, without overthinking it, and write for another five minutes. Wow, I enjoyed it. It went okay; my hand didn’t hurt too much, just a little. Then I said, I’m buying a notebook, and I’m going to do this for forty days. I got into it because I’d seen something about forty days. It was amazing. I just sat there, and things started coming out that were genuinely therapeutic, really on the level of therapy. I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to therapy—I’m in favor of going to therapy and seeing professionals. But I felt I was carrying so much, and at that point in my life I couldn’t really afford to go to therapy and fall apart.

12:16 Speaker 2 But I will say that, ultimately, we’re our own best therapists. I don’t say that to discourage anyone from going to therapy, but I do think that when a person has the strength and the awareness, we can be our own best therapists. We can find something therapeutic in anything, actually.

12:32 Speaker 1 It’s incredible. I reached all kinds of places, and all kinds of stories came up, because when you keep writing, your subconscious comes out.

12:42 Speaker 2 It brings things up for you.

12:42 Speaker 1 The subconscious really comes up. A story involving my son, all sorts of incredible things. And lots of gratitude, too. I really gave myself the space to write. After a while, someone said to me, “Do you know that...” Oh, and there was also a lot of dialogue with little Chani, because I think it was about connecting with little Chani. A lot of that came up in the writing. Then someone told me, “Do you know that if you write with your weaker hand...” I’m left-handed; I write with my left hand.

13:12 Speaker 2 Oh, really?

13:13 Speaker 1 Yes. She told me, “If you write with your weaker hand, it’s actually your subconscious writing.”

13:18 Speaker 2 Right.

13:19 Speaker 1 Listen, oh my—

13:21 Speaker 2 The things that come out.

13:22 Speaker 1 Unbelievable. Divine inspiration. I’m telling you, sometimes I read—

13:27 Speaker 2 [unclear]

13:27 Speaker 1 Sometimes I read my notebooks, and I call it divine inspiration. Things come up that feel like divine inspiration. I have no idea how. I move the pen to my weaker hand and start writing, because I ask questions. I really do it as a back-and-forth, and the things that come out are just—

13:47 Speaker 2 Wow, that’s incredible.

13:48 Speaker 1 And through writing, I started retelling stories.

13:50 Speaker 2 But wait, if you were to give the exercise just as it is: you write with your hand—you ask a question with your weaker hand?

13:56 Speaker 1 I write intuitively first: whatever comes up, how I’m feeling, what’s going on with me, all of that. Then I turn to—well, I call her “little Chani.” My subconscious is little Chani. Everyone can call it whatever they want. I ask her, “What’s going on?” And she answers me. So we’re having this written conversation, and I move the pen from hand to hand. Through that, I started retelling stories about my life. In other words—

14:21 Speaker 2 That’s actually the therapy.

14:23 Speaker 1 Even the traumatic story I had with the skirt.

14:27 Speaker 2 Tell us about it.

14:27 Speaker 1 I started retelling stories, and little Chani would say, “You’re lying. That’s not what happened. The real story happened the way...” The way she tells it. Because in the end, stories are how we tell them to ourselves.

14:38 Speaker 2 Of course.

14:39 Speaker 1 Every experience ultimately comes down to our interpretation. I don’t know if I want to open up another subject, but, in short, something painful happened to me. I came back to it and retold it. One time I sat down and rewrote the story about the skirt, and I felt this inner resistance.

15:01 Speaker 2 Wow.

15:01 Speaker 1 Just inner resistance. But I kept going, kept writing that my mother and I had had the most wonderful day. She was so excited about me, bought me lots of clothes, and we had a fun day together. And then I decided I was going to have fun conversations with my children. It was incredible. Then I asked little Chani, “What do you think?” She told me, “Look, at first I wanted to scream at you that you were lying. But in the end I let it go. I saw it was doing you good, so I let it go.”

15:26 Speaker 2 Wow.

15:27 Speaker 1 That kind of conversation. Now I sound like the strangest woman, but it’s healing on such a deep level. I finished writing that evening—I’d written, “My mother was so excited about me.” Now, my mother is a wonderful, amazing woman, but she doesn’t get carried away with excitement. At least, not in my experience. Again, that’s my story. That evening, a woman called me and said, “I met your mother at a wedding yesterday, and you have no idea how excited she is about you.”

15:53 Speaker 2 No way.

15:54 Speaker 1 Now look at that. Just from writing. It’s incredible. It’s such an incredible tool for healing and therapy, and...

16:02 Speaker 2 Did you speak to your mother afterward, or not?

16:04 Speaker 1 No, not yet.

16:05 Speaker 2 So you went through that experience within yourself.

16:06 Speaker 1 No, no, it’s a process I’m going through with myself. I’m going through it in relation to her, because I want to work through my own healing, the whole process, honoring my parents, and all of that. That’s mine. Like at the end of the podcasts. Does she listen to the podcasts? No, I don’t think so. Not really. Um, maybe she has listened? She’ll hear that I love her. I’ll send her this one. Send it to her. Yeah. Look, where I am today... You know, in the processes we go through, things happen in our lives and we get angry. Today I’m so grateful for who I am and what I am, for every stop along the way and everyone who hurt me—whether they meant to or not. I’m completely grateful to everyone who was part of my journey. I send them flowers. Do you know how many flowers I send out in my mind on Fridays? Oh, wow. To so many people. And that’s part of it too. And it feels good. In the end, you realize that every person who “hurt” you, in quotation marks, was a messenger. A messenger. A messenger who helped bring about who I am today. That’s thanks to what happened. Right. In the end, each person brings out our light. Mm-hmm. And the better a place we’re in, the fewer people need to be messengers in that way. But if we’re not grounded, not centered, there will be a lot of messengers along the way. Yes, and ultimately it all comes from within. So, how do you feel about how open I’ve been with you? Good for you. About the podcast therapy I’m going through with you? First of all, I’ve heard a lot of these things before, and I feel they’re so meaningful. I’m so glad other people will hear them too, and they won’t stay just between us. Mm-hmm. Speaking of which. Speaking of which. But I think this is important, and I think people can take

17:41 Speaker 1 so many tools from it. Because ultimately, working on myself is something I can take responsibility for. I can take steps, take responsibility, and decide that I choose to live with more goodness, more joy, and more self-love. It’s not about waiting until I have the money, or someone helps me, or I meet the right therapist. It’s about deciding to take responsibility for my life, to make choices about my life, and to choose happiness. And that’s for everyone. It’s open to everyone, and it’s possible for everyone. There’s no one who doesn’t have the right to be happy in this life. What I will say is, a word of warning: the deeper you go, the more you open up, and the more aware you become, the more you discover other depths that aren’t always pleasant. But that’s... Yesterday I did a writing exercise because I needed to work something out for myself, and what came up was a kind of mirror that was very unpleasant to look into. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu won’t send you something you don’t have the ability to handle. So that’s what I know, and it’s okay. I came here to do the work; it’s all okay. But that’s absolutely... We have traumas, some of which we don’t remember at all because we don’t yet have the ability to process them. When you have the strength, they’ll probably come up. You can handle them, and they’ll probably take you to the next level. And [unclear]. Yes, I hope so, I hope so. If we’ve managed, once again, to help even one woman, wherever she is, to meet herself and help herself, that will be our reward. For Connecting to the Essence. But why say it in that dismissive tone? No, no, no. What do you mean, dismissive? Oh, not the tone. More like... apologetic. Not apologetic, because it really is, um...

19:16 Speaker 1 After the podcast about body image, someone said to me, “But not everyone can talk about this, and you’re in a position...” I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m in a position to have that much influence, or like I have some special... Okay, the two of us have a microphone and we’re talking. Anyone really can do that. But if being a little better known today, because I’m active, because I have the courage to do things and I’m not afraid to put myself out there, means I can have an impact, then maybe everything I’ve done was for this. Mm. You understand? Yes. So that’s it. Okay. Thank you, Chani. Yes. Thank you, Sarah.