Episode 12: Your Shlichus Begins When You Are - You! | With Feigy Burgin, who guides women toward building healthy and liberated relationships

00:00 Speaker 1 What keeps us from discovering our true selves? How can we break free of the barriers and simply blossom and fulfill our potential? A liberating conversation full of hope for all of us with Feigi Borgen, who helps women build healthy, free relationships. How can we make our lives lives of shlichus, full of meaning? I’m Chani Moskowitz, a shlucha in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In this podcast, we’ll meet different women who bring their shlichus into a variety of fields and, through it, help each of us find and refine our own shlichus in the world. Because living the life we were created to live is as good as it gets. Shlichus as a way of life. We’re starting now. Hello, Feigi Borgen.

00:50 Speaker 2 Hi!

00:51 Speaker 1 Should we tell everyone who you are? No, we’ll leave that to you. I have to say that you’re my aunt. I can say that. You practically raised me!

01:00 Speaker 2 My niece.

01:01 Speaker 1 So I’ll also say that you’re from Kiryat Malachi, and...

01:04 Speaker 2 Originally.

01:05 Speaker 1 Yes, originally. Then you moved a little farther away.

01:08 Speaker 2 Right.

01:09 Speaker 1 And... I’ll give you the microphone. Tell us who you are and what you do.

01:14 Speaker 2 Okay! My name is Feigi Borgen, and these days I live in Migdal HaEmek. I’m the mother of eight children, may they be healthy, of all ages. And... the truth is, we’ve moved from Kiryat Malachi to a few places over the years. From Kiryat Malachi to Moscow, for eight years. You visited us there too.

01:33 Speaker 1 Right.

01:34 Speaker 2 And we had the privilege of your visits in Migdal HaEmek too. Until not very long ago, what I did was teach. It was shlichus in Moscow too—shlichus as a teacher—and I taught for many, many years in Israel as well. Today I still teach a little.

01:51 Speaker 1 One of the teachers, I should point out.

01:53 Speaker 2 Thank you. These days I teach a little, at two seminaries, in Kfar Chabad and Tzfas. But the thing that really excites me, that I enjoy, is what makes me finish a phone call thinking, “Wow, what a wonderful thing I’m doing.” And, for that matter, wake up in the morning with that same energy. I help women. I work with women on relationships, and every woman who lives better because of it makes me feel so moved. I say to myself, “Wow, thank You, Hashem, for the privilege of helping women live better.”

02:30 Speaker 1 Well, the obvious question is: How did you get from the teacher’s chair to this, and why?

02:37 Speaker 2 Great question. Let me think how far back it was. When was the first lockdown? Quite a while ago.

02:46 Speaker 1 Two years...

02:47 Speaker 2 More than two years.

02:47 Speaker 1 Almost two and a half already, yes.

02:48 Speaker 2 Right. During that first lockdown, which was also a time that brought our family together and did a lot of good, I felt completely drained. But apparently it was a trigger. For many years, I’d been doing so many things in a certain way that wasn’t right, in an area I’ll explain in a moment. I didn’t know then that I was going about it the wrong way, but for years it left me feeling worn out, exhausted, tired, shut down. I had no strength to get up in the morning. Now, I did get up in the morning. Come on, I’m a teacher. I’m a mother.

03:24 Speaker 1 No, you worked. You projected energy.

03:27 Speaker 2 Exactly what I was about to say—that was my next sentence. I didn’t just get up in the morning; it was all going on inside me. Nobody on the outside knew that inside I felt, “Hashem, nobody in the world sees me.” It was a very, very hard feeling.

03:39 Speaker 1 Yes.

03:39 Speaker 2 It’s like having tears in your eyes all the time. They’re about to spill over, and you swallow them down because you have to act as though everything’s normal. You walk into class and say, “Hello, girls, good morning,” and smile at your children and your husband. But eventually it has an effect. That went on for a while. It was very, very hard for me, and then I came across an ad for a course. I took the course, and suddenly I started getting tools for myself. I started getting tools that completely changed my inner world. Instead of living all the time from my skin outward, focused outward, I began to turn inward. I began to listen to myself. What’s happening inside me? What am I feeling? I’d never given that any room at all. Because what do you mean? You always have to overcome things, and the mind rules the heart, and—

04:30 Speaker 3 Function.

04:31 Speaker 2 And function. You have so many roles, and it’s all so much “doing,” constantly doing. I’d never asked myself: What are you feeling? What do you want? What makes you feel good? Those questions weren’t even in my vocabulary as a mother, a teacher, a wife. To me, they weren’t legitimate questions. The tools I acquired and began to use simply changed that whole inner world for me. And lo and behold, my energy began to return, and I began to live. Little by little, it also began to affect my relationships. If we take marriage, for example, I have a wonderful husband—you know him—and our marriage was considered a good one. But I had no idea how much deeper a relationship could be. You can find such new life in every area. I began to enjoy being a parent. To me, being a mother had meant doing lots and lots of things, loving the children as a task, doing so much for them. There was so much people-pleasing in all my relationships, including as a mother. And I’d still go to sleep every night feeling, “What a terrible mother I am.”

05:38 Speaker 3 How could you not?

05:40 Speaker 2 Yes. I was convinced, by the way, that “mother” was synonymous with guilt. As though when your first baby is born, a sack of guilt is born along with the baby and settles on your heart. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? Why did you say that? What could you have done better? It was so oppressive, such a burden. It shut you down and drained so much of your energy. Then I began to feel more confident as a parent and to clear away this thing called guilt. By the way, as an aside, guilt isn’t a feeling. Guilt is thoughts that diminish us, make us feel small and guilty, and keep situations stuck. Those thoughts keep us stuck in the very situation we supposedly want to get out of. So...

06:21 Speaker 3 And now women are listening to you and saying, “But I live like that too, and I’m surviving.” You sort of get used to it, in a way.

06:29 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s true. I agree with you.

06:30 Speaker 3 That’s life.

06:31 Speaker 2 Exactly. I agree with you, and I’ll tell you more than that: Most women walking around are women who say, “That’s life.” They see things declining; they see a less promising future. They’re even afraid it will happen. But there’s something very much like a galus mindset—excuse me for using that word—in the idea that this is how we’re meant to live. What do I mean? In life, you have to work hard. In life, you have to struggle. In life, you have to compromise. In life, you constantly have to give things up. In life, you have to—

07:01 Speaker 3 The world tells you that too. There’s—

07:02 Speaker 2 You grow up with it. Right, you grow up with it, and... Come on, do you think Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world so that we would give things up and compromise, while our relationships with the people we love just grow more and more distant? That doesn’t make sense.

07:16 Speaker 3 It doesn’t make sense.

07:17 Speaker 2 It doesn’t make sense, and yet that’s what happens to so many, many people. It leaves them in a mediocre situation that keeps getting worse. Women really do reach difficult places. I hear women say, “You have no idea. I just feel awful. Chronic migraines.” Come on, those chronic migraines don’t come from nowhere.

07:40 Speaker 3 Heaven forbid.

07:41 Speaker 2 Not at all. Those chronic migraines have a story to tell. They’re telling you something. Your body is telling you a story. Stop. Listen to yourself for a moment. Hit pause. Something here is telling me that I’m not doing well, and the path I’m on is full of thorns and thistles. I’m hurting myself.

07:58 Speaker 3 So is it, in a way, a natural mechanism that happens? How many people does it happen to? Does it happen to everyone to some extent, or...?

08:05 Speaker 2 You know what? Not absolutely everyone. First of all, there are homes where children are raised in a healthier way, because their parents were raised in a healthier way. You know, it’s a chain that—

08:15 Speaker 3 They grow up with a certain outlook at home.

08:18 Speaker 2 Exactly. But it happens to many, many, many people who are in that place of “That’s life.” Until something catches up with them—something that hurts too much in one particular area—and they finally say to themselves, “That’s it. I’m not willing to live like this.” That’s what happened to me, because I’d been sure I was pretty much on the right track. I didn’t even realize how many areas I was getting wrong, without understanding how.

08:42 Speaker 3 Usually, if nothing happens to shake things up, we don’t stop and start rethinking our whole lives.

08:45 Speaker 2 Right, right, I agree with you. Yes, I agree. The thing is, women don’t realize that when they make mistakes about really, really basic things concerning themselves, they’re actually harming all their relationships. When there are things in my relationship with myself that I don’t give their proper place, when I don’t give myself permission to be who I am, my inner confidence drops. And when my inner confidence drops and I don’t see myself, what are the chances that other people will see me? You know, that reminds me of the weekly parsha from a few weeks ago: “We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes.” When we see ourselves as grasshoppers—and this is especially true of women who see themselves that way—then everyone else will see us that way too.

09:30 Speaker 3 “And so we were in their eyes.”

09:31 Speaker 2 “And so we were in their eyes.” Exactly. That’s the direct continuation.

09:34 Speaker 3 You say “especially true of women.” That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you. Are you talking about women because you work with women, or is this a women’s issue?

09:39 Speaker 2 I’ll tell you. It is a women’s issue, and I work with women to address it, because the woman is also the mainstay of the home, and everything revolves around her. There’s no getting around it. You know it says that in the Geulah, “A woman will encompass a man”? It’s real. When a woman lives with Geulah, the home really does revolve around her. Now let me explain for a moment why this happens more with women. At the creation of the world, Adam was created first, so he was created into a world with no human relationship, okay? There was the inanimate, plant life, animal life, but there was no human being. And the result is that a man is very, very connected to himself, and when he wants something, he knows what he wants. He doesn’t need someone to explain it to him and listen to him: “What do you want? Listen deep inside.” No, he doesn’t need that, because he’s very, very connected. Hungry, he eats; tired, he sleeps; and as the joke goes, sick, he dies. Chas veshalom, of course, but that’s the idea. A woman was created second. She was created into a relationship, and what happens is that she constantly sees everyone else before herself.

10:36 Speaker 3 Wow, that’s incredible.

10:37 Speaker 2 Absolutely incredible. We can come home from an event, still in our sheitels and heels, put the children to bed, forget about ourselves, not eat, not drink, and neglect all sorts of other needs of body and soul. We simply forget ourselves. But there’s also a belief behind it: If I take care of everyone, everyone will be happy, and then I’ll be happy. But it works the other way around. If you truly take care of yourself—not by living a life of escape. I meet many women like that too, who are supposedly fulfilling themselves or doing lots and lots of things because, “I’m taking care of myself; nobody else will.” But it’s coming from a place of escape, not from a genuine place. And that won’t bring about the result we dream of either: close relationships, goodness, joy, calm, peace of mind, and everything else each of us dreams of. But when a woman truly takes care of herself by listening inwardly and putting herself at the top of the list—not out of selfishness, but on the contrary, because she understands that when she’s doing well, everyone does well—suddenly she leaves behind that deeply unpleasant place of irritation and tension at home, frustration and fights with her husband, and arguments with the children. If they’re little, they don’t listen to me. If they’re older, Hashem knows what’s going on there.

11:45 Speaker 3 Then they don’t listen to me either—but it goes much further than that.

11:47 Speaker 2 Yes, and then sometimes you get to the point of saying, “Fine, I choose my battles.” As though we’re at war from the outset, and I’m just choosing which battle to fight and when. It isn’t supposed to be that way. A Jewish home isn’t supposed to be like that.

11:59 Speaker 3 The world really tells you to expect it. There’s the terrible twos, and there’s this, and there’s that. It’s like—

12:04 Speaker 2 Let’s expect one crisis after another; it’s all predictable. It doesn’t need to be that way. It doesn’t have to be. When a two-year-old tests boundaries, that isn’t the terrible twos. The child is simply testing boundaries, and—

12:14 Speaker 3 But it’s easier to label it that way and feel comfortable.

12:16 Speaker 2 Right. By the way, it’s generally very, very comfortable to explain why things happen to me by pointing to everything around me. That’s how things were in the home where I grew up, and this is the husband I married, so what can I do? And I have a child who’s this way or that way, so there’s nothing I can do. I’m a victim of my circumstances. It’s comfortable, but it isn’t enjoyable. Okay, women who live with a victim mentality are saying, in other words: “I agree to live a mediocre life or worse, but it’s more comfortable for me because I don’t have to do anything. Everyone else is to blame, and I can play the victim, like the Poles who sit alone in the cold and dark.”

12:45 Speaker 3 It’s the easiest thing.

12:45 Speaker 2 The easiest thing, but it’s no fun.

12:47 Speaker 3 Right. Wow, this is fascinating! So we have, essentially, our relationship with ourselves.

12:54 Speaker 2 Right.

12:55 Speaker 3 If I’ve understood correctly.

12:56 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

12:57 Speaker 3 And that shapes our personality and how we face the world, and then our relationships with the world are essentially our lives.

13:05 Speaker 2 Okay, I think it’s deeper than that.

13:08 Speaker 3 Let’s define it more accurately.

13:08 Speaker 2 Yes, I’ll define it more accurately, and it’s much deeper. My relationship with myself doesn’t shape me; rather, it listens to the soul with which I was born. Every soul in this world is a soul, “an actual part of G-d above.” By “in this world,” I certainly mean among our people, but a non-Jew also has a soul and a particular role in the world. But let’s talk about us, the Jewish people, and about us as women. Each woman is a unique soul who comes into the world with unique strengths, a particular role, a particular shlichus. No one else has that. What you have, Chani, what I have, what every woman listening to us right now has—no one else has it. Okay, to be able to function at my fullest strength, with the fullest energy, so that this good can come out into the world, I have to listen to myself. I have to have a relationship with myself in which I listen to two central ways my soul expresses itself. How do I know what my soul is feeling? How do I know what my soul is meant to do? By listening to two main things: feelings and desires. Desires also have a flip side, which is boundaries. Boundaries and desires are two sides of the same thing: What do I want? What don’t I want? But those are the two central ways my soul speaks to me. When it tells me what it feels and I ignore it, I push that feeling down. I become more shut down because I didn’t listen to something that spoke within me. And when I have a desire—as a woman, this is even more significant, because we say, “Who made me according to His will.” Some commentators say that “Who made me according to His will” means not only that He made me according to the Divine will, but that He planted His own desires within me.

14:37 Speaker 3 Wow.

14:38 Speaker 2 Incredible. That means any desire within you that makes you happier—not just immediately. Not a square of chocolate that makes you happy now and five minutes later you’re upset that you ate it. By the way, if a square of chocolate makes you happy now and genuinely fills you with energy, have it.

14:53 Speaker 3 I think we really do know how to recognize that. We just don’t believe enough that it’s...

14:59 Speaker 2 That it’s legitimate.

15:00 Speaker 3 Yes.

15:00 Speaker 2 That it’s holy.

15:01 Speaker 3 I mean, what does it even mean to listen to myself now and give those desires space, when I have the Tatty and...

15:07 Speaker 2 I want to tell you something, Chani. You’re saying that we do hear it, but we don’t give it legitimacy. I meet women who tell me, “I have no idea what I want.” In other words, some women have put themselves so low on the list that they have no idea what they want.

15:24 Speaker 3 They don’t have a dream.

15:25 Speaker 2 They don’t have a dream, they don’t have a dream. Not just some distant dream—they don’t have a dream for right now. “What do I want right now?” What do you mean? I want the children to eat, to sleep—that’s it, as though those are the sum of my desires. To bring in an income for the family. It’s not that what you just said is bad, but it isn’t their desire. It’s another box to check on a to-do list.

15:41 Speaker 3 Survival, too.

15:42 Speaker 2 Right, survival. And we don’t want to survive; we want to live.

15:45 Speaker 3 Yes, exactly. Wow, goodness, this is deep, and it’s...

15:51 Speaker 2 It’s deep. Maybe we’ll stop here. Think about what I’ve said. Shall we continue?

15:55 Speaker 3 Clearly not. So this really shapes our whole life, because when we get up in the morning, the way we behave depends entirely on this. I heard something beautiful recently. It says in Pirkei Avos: “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion.” Now, why did they say, “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion”? Why not “One who is happy with what he has”? Why specifically the word “portion”? Everyone has their own portion in the world, their own shlichus.

16:16 Speaker 2 Amazing.

16:16 Speaker 3 And who is truly rich and happy? Someone who has grasped...

16:20 Speaker 2 What their portion is.

16:20 Speaker 3 What I need to do in the world—and is happy with it. Not trying to imitate someone else, not trying, not stuck in a loop around themselves.

16:26 Speaker 2 Right. You know, what you just said is so powerful...

16:29 Speaker 3 To listen to ourselves and find it.

16:31 Speaker 2 Exactly. It’s so powerful, because so many people use this mishnah...

16:34 Speaker 3 That’s from the Rebbe.

16:36 Speaker 2 Well, the approach I offer...

16:38 Speaker 3 Yes.

16:38 Speaker 2 Is an entirely Chassidic, Geulah-oriented approach, you could call it. A personal Geulah that will certainly bring the Geulah for everyone. But this idea of “Who is rich? One who is happy with his portion”—so many people use it to make us feel that what we want isn’t legitimate. As if to say, “Why are you aspiring to anything at all?” Wow, I heard a story recently...

16:58 Speaker 3 Just be happy with what you have, and that’s it.

16:59 Speaker 2 Exactly. I recently heard a story from an amazing woman who shared something a friend had told her. This friend wanted to go to some family event, I think, but she couldn’t find a babysitter for the children and was really disappointed that she couldn’t go. So what does her mother say to her? “You know what the problem is? That you wanted to go in the first place.”

17:18 Speaker 3 Wow.

17:19 Speaker 2 But you understand that this is a whole way of thinking.

17:21 Speaker 3 Yes.

17:22 Speaker 2 It’s a way of thinking. As if wanting something in the first place is what sets you up for disappointment. Hey, if you want something, take a moment to listen to what you want. Give it legitimacy. You know what? Even if you can’t fulfill every wish that would make you happy, give it legitimacy. I want things. I aspire to things.

17:36 Speaker 3 And that’s okay.

17:37 Speaker 2 And that’s okay. It’s more than okay. Hashem put it inside me. These days, when I talk to women about their wants, I always compare it to the pass-the-parcel game. Do you know that game? There’s a surprise inside, and that surprise is, so to speak, my purpose, my shlichus, the big thing I need to do in life. But it’s wrapped in lots and lots of little wants. Each day, as you peel off a layer and look at what you want there, you’ll get to what you truly want to do in the end—the big thing you want to do in life. Because each desire like that, when it’s fulfilled, brings you to a higher level of joy. And when you’re happier—we know the analogy in Tanya of the two wrestlers. The one who was happier and had more energy won, even if he was less strong. So when a woman truly has energy because she listens to her feelings and makes room for them, listens to her wants and gives them legitimacy, and maintains her boundaries, she becomes a happy, energetic woman who can be happy with her portion, because she’s discovering what her portion is. She’s simply reaching its depths. Just as you said.

18:37 Speaker 3 Yes, so we have all sorts of barriers...

18:39 Speaker 2 Right.

18:40 Speaker 3 That stand in our way in life and block us.

18:42 Speaker 2 Right.

18:43 Speaker 3 From fulfilling our potential, our shlichus, and essentially being ourselves.

18:47 Speaker 2 Right, right. The barriers are exactly what I was talking about: not listening to these expressions of the soul. I put together a really lovely model that I now teach women for free, as a gift. I called it the Whole Model—the Whole Model for Being Who You Are. What blocks us from being who we are, what keeps me stuck and stops me from being who I am, is constantly trying to be something else. When I hold back even though things are very, very hard for me; when I dismiss every desire that comes up inside me; when I go through life, as we started talking about earlier, with a victim mentality—“That’s just life.” When I’m flooded with guilt that isn’t really a feeling at all, but thoughts that make me feel small. All these things block me from being who I am. They simply reduce my confidence, my strength, and my abilities to a minimum—sometimes to zero. And what happens to a woman who’s full of these barriers? Picture a spring of living water. It’s as though you throw lots of stones, lots of boulders, lots of planks into that spring. At some point, the spring stops flowing. That’s what happens to our life force when we’re full of barriers. Our energy simply isn’t there. Now, this life force is something we’re born with. Look at a baby. A baby does everything effortlessly, right? Suddenly the baby rolls over, suddenly crawls, suddenly stands up—it just happens. The baby doesn’t—

20:08 Speaker 3 Start thinking, “Will I manage?”

20:10 Speaker 2 Yes, “Will I manage?” Exactly. The baby isn’t straining, either. It just happens. Why? Because that’s how we’re born. We’re born full of life force, and then all sorts of barriers start getting put in our way. When we wanted something and our parents told us, “Enough already. How much can you want? Stop exaggerating. Isn’t what you’re given good enough for you?” Okay, so what I want isn’t legitimate. A little of the air goes out of me. When I felt something and they told me, “Stop crying already. Stop crying. Enough—what a crybaby, you’re so sensitive.” Okay, so my feelings aren’t legitimate. Something inside me began to go out. When they told me, “That’s life,” something else inside me went out. And then, little by little, I ended up with lots of barriers—whether I created them or they formed through life’s experiences. Again, we’re not blaming life; we want to see what we can do about it.

20:53 Speaker 3 What do we do about it?

20:53 Speaker 2 Exactly. And then one morning I suddenly find myself with no energy, tears in my eyes, and no desire to do anything. But I can start removing the barriers without forcing it, without smashing through them. Because when you smash through something by force, you only get hurt. It doesn’t really help to strain to be what you’re not. Because you think who you are isn’t good enough, and you’re not sure of the good within you, so you try so hard and usually just end up disappointed, because it doesn’t work. I can give you a very small example. Say you’re a mother of young children—you’ll probably relate to this example. Everyone has to be where they need to be by eight in the morning. As a teacher, I also had to be in a classroom by eight in the morning. It was crazy. And my prayer all my life was to have a calm home. When I lit Shabbos candles, I would actually cry for a calm home. I wanted it so badly—a home where the mother smiles, without anger, without getting angry and frustrated with the children, with yourself. It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. Every morning I’d get up and promise myself, “This morning will be calm.” Then a child would do something and you’d get annoyed, but you’d hold it in because you think you’re an angry mother. You’re not good enough, so hold it in—maybe then things will be okay. You hold it in, hold it in, hold it in, hold it in. Boom! Along comes the last child and spills chocolate milk on his sister’s Rosh Chodesh blouse. That’s it—all your anger comes out on everyone, and once again you’re so frustrated. Why? Because you tried to break through the barrier by force instead of pausing for a moment at the first flash of anger. Pause there for a moment. What am I feeling here? Respond properly to that feeling, because my feeling is here, and when my soul feels something, it’s telling me a story and asking—

22:33 Speaker 2 “Wait a moment. Stop. There’s a G-dly soul here asking you for help. Stop for a moment and give yourself some love.” Suddenly you become a calmer mother. Women who put these tools into practice tell me, “Wow, Feigy, it’s magic. It doesn’t make sense. What happened here?” But it isn’t magic. Hakadosh Boruch Hu simply sent you an external situation so you would focus for a moment on what you’re feeling there. Give the feeling legitimacy, and it releases on its own. By the way, people talk a lot about doing things to release emotions. You don’t need to do those things. Imagine a pot full of steam. You lift the lid, and the steam simply comes out on its own. As long as the lid stays shut, the pressure inside builds into a volcano. But emotions release—

23:13 Speaker 3 Not at all.

23:13 Speaker 2 You see? The emotion simply releases. So the model I developed for women, to help them truly be who they are and release these barriers, is this model. I called it the Whole Model for Being Who You Are—and for bringing your whole self to every relationship, too. So the shin stands for releasing emotions, the lamed for giving your wants legitimacy, and the mem for maintaining boundaries. These are, essentially, expressions of my soul. To know—

23:40 Speaker 3 In that order, by the way.

23:42 Speaker 2 Um, look—when a desire comes up inside you, let it be a desire. When an emotion comes up, let it be an emotion. I mean, they can come together, or each one can come in its own time. Just listen inwardly, listen to yourself, to your soul, and then the barriers fall away on their own. Suddenly you discover: Wow, I’m calmer, too. Oh, I’m doing better. I have more patience with the kids. You know, something happened that I talk about all the time because it was so powerful for me. I really love to paint. You know me.

24:11 Speaker 3 You’re an artist.

24:12 Speaker 2 An artist. Well, the thing is, I didn’t paint for twenty years.

24:17 Speaker 3 Wow.

24:17 Speaker 2 My last painting was when I was nineteen and a half. After that, I stopped painting. I became a bride, got married, had children, went to work. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to paint. That spark, that fire that was always burning there, the desire to go back to painting, was there the whole time, but on a very, very low flame. And I silenced it. Because, come on, what do you mean, you’re going to sit down and paint now? You’re a mother.

24:40 Speaker 3 In that time I could put pots on the stove.

24:42 Speaker 2 Exactly. In that time you could do so much! What do you mean, spend time on yourself, painting? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to paint or that I thought painting was a bad thing. I just felt the timing was wrong—and no, that wasn’t right. That way of thinking really wasn’t right. I even had this dream that at sixty, when everyone was already married, I’d sit on a mountain and paint. That was the dream.

25:03 Speaker 3 Wow.

25:03 Speaker 2 Then, when I started acquiring—using these amazing tools that literally save lives, I remember it was about two years ago, in the summer of 5780. I went to buy the kids school supplies, walked past some acrylic paints, and said, “Okay, I’m buying them.” So I did. Then I was in a Max Stock store buying a few more things for the kids’ school—I don’t even remember what—and I saw canvases. I said, “Okay, I’ll buy some to have at home.” Once there were canvases, brushes, and paints in the house, I said, “I’m sitting down to paint. I really, really want to do this.” Suddenly that passion came back, not as a low flame but as a huge blaze. Chani, I’ll never forget how my children sat around me and watched me paint. They sat there spellbound. They were spellbound. I painted for several hours, and at the end they asked me, “Mom, when’s the next painting?”

25:57 Speaker 3 They just saw you...

26:00 Speaker 2 Lit up.

26:01 Speaker 3 Yes.

26:01 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

26:02 Speaker 3 Wow.

26:03 Speaker 2 Yes, I really felt like... And now, sometimes I sit and paint for a few hours, and sometimes even for just half an hour. That half hour gives me such a boost of energy. Even if a moment earlier I didn’t have the strength to do anything, it suddenly gives me so much energy, and then all the chores you have to do get done in a flash, happily, with love. And the children suddenly learned to express themselves, too, through the things they’re good at, through ways that work for them.

26:28 Speaker 3 In a way that works for them. Okay, yes.

26:30 Speaker 2 Their—anyway, their talents. To express their talents. It was really amazing.

26:35 Speaker 3 And how many of us push down hobbies and talents we used to have?

26:39 Speaker 2 Totally.

26:40 Speaker 3 “I’m about to give birth,” “I’ve just given birth.”

26:42 Speaker 2 There are always excuses, but usually the excuse is that I don’t give myself permission. And when a woman starts giving herself permission—

26:48 Speaker 3 Without even realizing that’s what’s happening.

26:49 Speaker 2 Right, I—

26:50 Speaker 3 I don’t feel that I’m not giving myself permission. It’s just automatic.

26:53 Speaker 2 Right, right. It’s as though we grew up inside that mold. Exactly. We grew up inside that mold. It’s a way of thinking that made us feel: If you take care of yourself, you’re selfish. If you take care of yourself, you’re not a good person. So automatically, whenever a desire comes up inside you... And don’t forget, we were also created for relationships.

27:09 Speaker 3 Yes.

27:09 Speaker 2 So that comes naturally to us women, but it isn’t a healthy balance. A woman who goes on like that only ends up extinguishing her own life force.

27:17 Speaker 3 A woman who’s grown up like that since childhood, for years and years—say she’s thirty. How long can it take her to get out of it? After all, you grow up with something, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s the way you see things. Actually, maybe the very fact that she’s trying to change it already means there’s some—

27:34 Speaker 2 Right. When a woman reaches the point where she wants to change something in her life—and I can tell you, there’s an enormous range of women. Before I opened my first online group, I’d run an in-person group of women. I mean, I knew everyone sitting in front of me. Two of them told me, “Feigy, the day you open a course, we’re signing up.” They signed up on Zoom, so afterward I did open one on Zoom. I remember that before the first round, a woman came up to me and said, “Feigy, listen, the way you talk about it, it sounds as if anyone who signs up for your course has tons of problems in her life. I don’t feel like signing up. I don’t have tons of problems, for one thing. And second, if I sign up, I’m basically defining myself as someone full of problems.” I’ll tell you something: in our community, there’s this fear of making a change, as though it’ll label you as someone who’s struggling. The range of women who come to me is incredible, really. From women who are already at the edge, dealing with the greatest difficulties—as one woman told me, “Feigy, I’ve been in all the darkest places.” In the first class I explain how our emotional world works and what happens when we don’t give our feelings expression, and I describe all kinds of consequences. She told me, “I’ve been through all of it.”

28:43 Speaker 4 Scary.

28:43 Speaker 2 “I’ve been through all of it”—and she meant all of it: emotional turmoil, outbursts, depression, anxiety, obsessions, physical illnesses. “I’ve been through all of it.” And if you’d like to hear, she also went through an incredible transformation. But the women who come range from those at that edge to women who are having a little trouble with a young child who won’t listen, or who have a particular fear they feel is running their lives, or who lack a bit of confidence to take a leap and do something.

29:17 Speaker 4 I think things can always get better.

29:19 Speaker 2 Right.

29:20 Speaker 4 Even if someone says to herself, “Things are good; I’d like to strengthen that.”

29:23 Speaker 2 Of course. But a woman who signs up for the course—there aren’t many who—

29:28 Speaker 4 Something brought her there.

29:29 Speaker 2 Exactly. There aren’t many who say, “Everything’s fine.”

29:33 Speaker 4 “Let’s devote time to this.”

29:34 Speaker 2 “Let’s devote time to this.” Exactly, exactly. There are some, but they’re not the majority.

29:38 Speaker 4 Yes.

29:38 Speaker 2 Most of the women who come—the main group—are already dealing with a thing or two. Whether it’s frustration with their children or something within themselves, they simply don’t like themselves in one way or another. They may not even know how to put it into words, but they feel uncomfortable with themselves. For example, I didn’t know how to say that I was living to please others. Okay? I didn’t even know to call it that.

29:57 Speaker 4 Some kind of trigger.

29:57 Speaker 2 Exactly. I needed a trigger to show me that what I was doing wasn’t good for me, that it was taking me to unhealthy places. By the way, women who live to please others—and so, so many women do—do it because they think that if they please people, they’ll be loved more. Deep down, people-pleasing comes from a place that’s crying out for love. In the end, we all want to feel loved.

30:19 Speaker 4 It works the other way around.

30:20 Speaker 2 It works the other way around so much that it’s a wonder we don’t see it with our own eyes, yet we keep trying even harder to please. It’s as if we’re trying to break through this barrier of “I feel like I’m not getting love—barely even crumbs of love. I’m not really appreciated. I constantly have to justify myself.” It’s awful. It’s hard, it’s burdensome, it’s exhausting, and women don’t realize what’s going on. They don’t recognize, “Wow, this is how I’m living. This is what I’m doing all the time.” And look at the result. The result is so painful, but you can get out of it. You’re asking how long it takes to make a change?

30:50 Speaker 4 I mean, I’m saying, if someone grew up with a particular way of thinking for years, how? How do you solve a problem that’s been there for thirty years?

30:57 Speaker 2 That’s an excellent question, because there are so many approaches. The market really is flooded with them, and each approach has its own strengths. But the approach I teach gets to the root. It reaches the very deepest place, and it’s always a process. Yet the process moves so quickly because you’re addressing the problem at its root. It’s not another bandage over a bleeding wound, where you simply can’t see the blood. You’re treating the places that hurt most. And the wonderful thing is that it doesn’t take effort. I’ve learned various things here and there, and I always felt excited at first, but then the excitement wore off. Or I’d get excited and then tired, because trying to put so many things into practice at once takes a lot of effort. Then you get tired and let it go, because that’s what we do when we’re exhausted. We let go of things we don’t have the energy to do. With this approach, we work through a very gradual process: one step builds on another, which builds on another, and suddenly you see incredible breakthroughs. The change happens so fast that women write to me during the course and right afterward. One woman told me, “Wow, Feigy, how my life has changed,” after just one session. How did her life change? First of all, in the way she saw things. And, for example, in the very first session we learn a tool that shows us, in a very clear, practical way, how to release an emotion properly without working hard at it. A woman puts it into practice and immediately sees more calm at home. Wow, what just happened here? Of course she’ll keep using it.

32:30 Speaker 5 And how did I not know this until now?

32:32 Speaker 2 “How did I not know this until now?” Wow, you know, that reminds me of something a woman said to me after a session we did on marriage. She said, “If I’d had these tools twenty years ago, my life would have looked different.” And it’s so true.

32:45 Speaker 5 It hurts to hear that.

32:46 Speaker 2 It does hurt to hear. I believe in hashgachah pratis. We need to go through what we’ve gone through, and everything comes to us at exactly the right time. But when it comes, and you use the tools you’re given, you simply begin to live your own personal Geulah. It’s incredible to see.

33:00 Speaker 5 Wow, wow, wow. If you met yourself twenty years ago—if you could go back to the person you were then with this approach—do you think your life really would have looked completely different from that point on, or…?

33:14 Speaker 2 I can tell you about myself: I have a life before and a life after. In so many ways of thinking, in so many respects, in so many areas of life. Today I meet women, and I hear a woman speaking in a certain tone, on a certain intellectual level, with a certain way of looking at things, just as I once did. And I want to tell her, “Come. Come with me.”

33:37 Speaker 5 It doesn’t have to be this way.

33:38 Speaker 2 Yes, it doesn’t have to be this way. Things can be so different, and it’s so painful to go through life like that. I can tell you about myself. Listen, Chani, I was a woman who lived to please others. And when I say that, I mean: I’m not worthy of love as I am. Do everything you can to make everyone happy, and then they’ll love you. Make one little mistake, and you’re not okay. You’re so not okay that you don’t deserve love. Do you know how hard it is to live like that?

34:04 Speaker 5 It’s unbelievable.

34:04 Speaker 2 It really is. It means going to sleep night after night thinking, “I’m not good enough.”

34:09 Speaker 5 What did I do wrong?

34:09 Speaker 2 And waking up in the morning thinking, “What did I do wrong? How could I have done it differently? Please, correct me. Just tell me what’s wrong with me and correct me.” Now, I want to tell you something about that: no one can see it from the outside. I tell women about it today, and they say, “What, you? It didn’t show at all.” They’re right. It didn’t show. It was entirely inside, but it affected me and ate away at me. On the outside, I really did project confidence. Once, in a conversation with someone, I found myself distinguishing between self-confidence and a real, fundamental sense of security. Having the confidence to speak in front of everyone isn’t necessarily real confidence. That’s a very external layer. Good interpersonal skills don’t necessarily mean you know you’re good. It’s that trust in yourself that doesn’t depend on other people’s approval or compliments. You’re no longer thinking, “If they didn’t say anything, I probably didn’t do well.” That can happen with a friend, for example, or with your husband, your mother, or at work: “What did I do wrong? Why aren’t you responding?” You’re constantly checking how you’re not good enough and how you could be better. It takes so much effort and is so exhausting that, sooner or later, you feel shut down and truly have no energy left. You have no energy to do things. But when you stop living to please others and start tending to the needs of your soul, you begin to feel, “Wow, I’m loved. I’m good. What’s inside me is okay, and Hashem created me this way.” And I… That doesn’t mean I don’t want to change. By the way,

35:40 Speaker 2 speaking of wanting to change, when we make good resolutions—what is a good resolution, anyway? I used to be the queen of good resolutions that I never put into practice.

35:52 Speaker 5 That’s hard.

35:52 Speaker 2 Very, very hard. What is a resolution?

35:53 Speaker 5 You specifically want to take on something important.

35:56 Speaker 2 Right.

35:57 Speaker 5 You decide, “This is what I’m going to do.”

35:58 Speaker 2 Right.

35:58 Speaker 5 And it’s probably the thing that’s hardest for you.

35:59 Speaker 2 Exactly. Now, what does it mean when you want something? We said that every desire is Hashem’s desire within you. Right. So, for example, let’s take a simple good resolution: to be a calm mother. You are that calm mother. Hashem planted that desire within you. That means you already have the potential to be a calm mother; it’s who you are. Otherwise, you wouldn’t want to be one. We always think, “What do I want to become? I’m not that. Let me try to become it.” That takes so much effort. But if I realize that I want to be a calm mother, I want to daven—I don’t know, take something from everyday life—I want to be a good wife, I want my home to be tidy, I want to stop procrastinating: that’s who you are. If you want it, it means it’s you, and Hashem has already planted that desire within you because the potential is there.

36:40 Speaker 6 So where does the gap come from?

36:41 Speaker 2 The gap is in… What happened along the way? Where did I become disconnected from myself? Think about it: when we talk about a “fall,” there’s a reason we call it that. You belong in a very high place. If you fell, where you landed isn’t your natural place. A woman who isn’t a calm mother right now—if she deeply aspires to be a calm mother, or really wants to be organized but is currently living in a mess, it’s because she has become disconnected from herself. It’s because she hasn’t listened to her feelings or her desires. It’s because she has put herself at the bottom of the list. It’s because she’s always busy doing things without looking at what’s going on inside her. And that leads her to act angry, as though that’s who she is. But it isn’t. She may live in a mess, yell, be late for work, or not daven the way she would like to. If she aspires and dreams of being somewhere else, that other place is where she truly belongs. She’s already there. That’s already who she is. All that remains is for her to reconnect with what’s inside her—with her desires and feelings—and maintain her boundaries.

37:38 Speaker 6 And see what’s holding her back from it.

37:39 Speaker 2 Exactly. And that releases the blocks. Listening to herself like that simply clears all the blocks away.

37:44 Speaker 6 I heard recently that your aspirations are who you are. You set a destination for yourself—not necessarily consciously. Wherever you aspire to go, that’s where you end up.

37:54 Speaker 2 Right.

37:54 Speaker 6 Some people, for example, aspire to get as much money as possible out of National Insurance, so they’ll always be these unfortunate people. In a sense, you define yourself, and that’s where you’re headed.

38:02 Speaker 2 Exactly, exactly. So every woman’s aspiration already points to where she belongs, to who she truly is. She might aspire to something material or something spiritual, to better communication with others or to something in any relationship. Whatever you aspire to be, you already are. All that remains is to clear away what’s blocking you, not to fight it by force, because that will do the opposite of helping. If you keep telling yourself, “I’m such an angry mother. I’m a mother who yells,” that’s who you’ll be.

38:28 Speaker 6 Yes.

38:29 Speaker 2 Okay.

38:29 Speaker 6 It reinforces that.

38:30 Speaker 2 Exactly, you reinforce it. By the way, some women yell and are completely okay with it. They don’t spend a moment beating themselves up over it. They genuinely have no problem with it. They’re not aspiring to be mothers who never yell. And by the way, their children love them more, too, because they yell and they’re okay with themselves. Exactly, they’re at peace with themselves. So their children really do love them.

38:45 Speaker 6 So the parts of myself I’m not happy with—that feeling is good, because it helps me understand where my true self is.

38:54 Speaker 2 Well, it’s tricky, because...

38:57 Speaker 6 Right, because that doesn’t sound entirely...

38:58 Speaker 2 Right, right. When I tell myself, “I don’t feel good about myself, about who I am,” I diminish myself. Imagine your child struggles with math, and you keep telling him, “You really have to do more math homework. You just can’t manage math. What are we going to do about math?” So what does he come to believe about himself?

39:13 Speaker 6 That he’s hopeless at math.

39:14 Speaker 2 That he’s hopeless at math. What are the chances he’ll become a mathematician? Not that that’s your goal for him, but what are the chances of it happening?

39:19 Speaker 6 Yes.

39:20 Speaker 2 Not high. Okay, when we tell ourselves, “Oh, I’m not good at X, Y, Z”—and there can be so many areas where we say that to ourselves—we’re defining ourselves that way. But if I tell myself, “My dream is to be a calm mother,” I’m not telling myself, “You’re not good at...” You’re not diminishing yourself. It hurts me that right now I’m not there. That’s the tricky part: Am I making room for the feeling, for the pain of what I’m not good at right now—which is an act of self-love—or am I angry at myself and putting myself down for what I’m not good at?

39:54 Speaker 6 So even the way you phrase it...

39:55 Speaker 2 It’s phrasing, yes, but phrasing that affects everything, everything deep inside me. I mean, when I understand... You know what? I like to give this example. Imagine your child runs ahead and you tell him, “Don’t run, don’t run, you might fall,” and boom, he falls. The fall itself hurts. Yes, falling can hurt a lot. What do most mothers do? “I told you, didn’t I? I told you! If only you’d listened to me and hadn’t run.” Now it hurts twice over: the fall, and his mother yelling at him. And what does he come to believe about himself? “I’m wild, I’m naughty, I’m beyond help.” We do this to ourselves all the time. We fall, and instead of understanding that I am not the fall, that I’m something higher and the fall hurts right now, we start beating ourselves up and saying, “I’m not good at...” Do you see the difference?

40:39 Speaker 7 Yes. So it keeps coming up in every area, and—

40:43 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And the amazing thing is that when a woman works on her relationship with herself, she suddenly starts becoming a better woman. Good starts coming out of us. Imagine us as a pit with no foundation, no... I call it a bottomless pit. No matter how much love a woman is given, she can’t really receive it, because it just pours down into the pit. But when she builds her own foundation and starts building confidence in who she is—by listening to this whole model, releasing emotions, and paying attention to her desires and boundaries—that foundation suddenly becomes so strong that she starts to fill up. And when she’s full, goodness simply starts pouring out of her, without keeping score at all. We love giving; we enjoy doing nice things for people. It will happen on its own when a woman is full of goodness.

41:29 Speaker 7 Suddenly we become better daughters-in-law and better mothers.

41:32 Speaker 2 Absolutely, absolutely.

41:34 Speaker 7 Everything... Really, our relationships are our whole lives. I’d never thought about it deeply, but—

41:40 Speaker 2 Right, relationships are the—

41:41 Speaker 7 We’re constantly communicating with people and living with people.

41:44 Speaker 2 Completely, completely. You know what? “Relationships” can sound like, “Let’s work on our relationships.” But without relationships, we... We’re human beings; we can’t do without them. Relationships are where we actually express who we are.

41:58 Speaker 7 Nobody lives alone on a desert island.

42:00 Speaker 2 And anyone who does live alone on a desert island is terribly unhappy and has no way to express who they are. It doesn’t work. That’s not what the world calls for. Hakadosh Boruch Hu didn’t create the world for that. And when our relationships are good, it reverberates from one to another. Okay, take our relationship with our parents, for example. That’s one of the most powerful relationships, by the way, because it’s where we grew up; it’s the first relationship we were born into. So when that relationship is painful, it reverberates through so many other relationships. It shows up in marriage. It shows up in motherhood, at work, and in a lack of confidence to do things. It just reverberates through everything, exactly. On the other hand, when our relationships with ourselves... By the way, relationships with parents can be healed. The healing can even be deeply moving. Um, so when we heal relationships—but we start with ourselves, because to heal a relationship with your parents, you need to feel good about yourself, to feel that it’s legitimate to be who you are, that you’re good as you are. That doesn’t mean everything you do is good. It means that even if you fall, you’re still good, and you embrace the part of yourself that fell. You embrace it with a great deal of love. Your confidence in who you are grows. Then you can feel that you have a place with your parents, too, and suddenly you’re closer. Imagine a point surrounded by lots and lots of circles. Okay, when you’re not close to yourself at that central point, people meet you in those outer circles. But when you’re close to yourself at that point, that’s where they meet you. That’s the closest relationship there can be.

43:38 Speaker 7 So when someone works on herself, on her relationship with herself, then naturally...

43:44 Speaker 2 Right.

43:45 Speaker 7 The outer circles fall into place.

43:47 Speaker 2 They do fall into place. Still, every relationship has its own tools. Marriage, for example, is a relationship you choose and want to last forever. So it’s a particular kind of relationship. Uh, parents and children—that’s a relationship... Exactly, it’s a relationship you didn’t choose. Even though, deep down, we know that our neshamah chose our path in life, from our ordinary perspective we didn’t choose it: we were born into a family, and we don’t genetically engineer the children born to us. So it’s a relationship we didn’t choose, and it lasts forever. A friendship, on the other hand, is a relationship we choose, but it doesn’t necessarily last forever. Each of these circles has its own characteristics. So while we follow similar basic principles in all of them, we also handle the details differently. And that’s really important, because with my husband, since this is for life, I’ll insist on certain things because I want that lifelong closeness. But with a friend who isn’t yet sufficiently connected to herself, if the friendship is hurting me, sometimes it may be worth taking a step back. In other words, it depends on the particular relationship. Right. Each one... Yes, but without that foundation in your relationship with yourself, you can’t reach truly close relationships. From the outside, they can look nice, cool, fun. You might even see couples who look to you like they’re living this amazing life, but you have no idea what’s happening inside. Uh, we’re talking about... about the deeper level now. We’ve really dug into it. Exactly, the deeper level. For a relationship to be genuinely close, accepting and loving—and by the way, there’s no limit to how good it can be; you can always keep growing—you have to have a good relationship with yourself. You have to relate to yourself with love, to look at yourself favorably, to be in a place that says, “My neshamah is here telling a story,”

45:35 Speaker 2 One second, I’m listening to her. That’s the foundation for everything good. It’s interesting whether… not whether—I’m pretty sure you did—but you grew up steeped in Chassidus, as they say. Wow. And you’re talking here about our relationship with ourselves. Tanya is about getting to know ourselves; that’s the first thing that happens there. Right. I’m curious how that really connects. A question—a great question. Say a woman has studied Tanya. Do you find that she has a better understanding of herself, or is it sort of a separate thing? I’ll tell you: I grew up in Chabad, and we studied Tanya. We also learned some very basic concepts, like iskafya, like “the mind rules the heart,” like trust and faith in Hashem. After I learned the basic tools and saw how much good they did me, I decided to go deeper. I went to study at a school for mentors, and there I said to myself, “Wait, wait, wait, one second.” I hadn’t gone to study this for other people, only for myself. But at one point I realized that maybe I would be guiding women. There was a moving moment during a kind of internship, when I guided someone, and afterward she said to me, “You built a home in Israel.” That’s one of the most moving things you can hear from a woman. After that happened, I realized that I did want to guide women. Then I said, “Hold on, Feigy, stop for a moment. You have to check how this fits with the values you grew up with.” Because I felt I was going through an amazing process—a process you could call an inner Geulah, a truly personal Geulah. But I couldn’t teach women something that might, Heaven forbid, contradict the values I grew up with. You wanted to make sure it all lined up. Exactly. So I really went into it in depth. I would sit and study Tanya, and every concept we’d grown up with, I went and researched in depth, and I

47:20 Speaker 2 can give you one example. Okay, actually I’ll give you two examples. One is iskafya. If every desire I listen to is G-dly, how does that fit with, first, negative desires, and second, cravings for worldly things? That came up for me earlier: seeing our desire as Hashem’s desire. But wait—when do we bend our own will? Exactly. First of all, our deepest desire is to be connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Okay? But let’s take this down to a really basic, physical level, as mothers. We’re talking about our everyday lives here. Let’s take chocolate, okay? We said that… I’m not sure everyone will understand who even wants chocolate. I don’t know if there’s anyone here who doesn’t want chocolate. If there is, I can’t relate to you. Yes, exactly, move on. So say a woman wants chocolate, okay? Now, when I said that every desire is G-dly, then every G-dly desire should make me happy and connect me with myself. In other words—and how do I measure happiness? By my energy level. If my energy level goes up, I’m happier. If it goes down, I’m less happy. It’s a very, very simple measure. Right, okay. When my energy level goes up and I’m happier, I’m also a better woman. I’m a better mother. Naturally, I’ll be more connected to my vitality and do all the things I’m good at much better. Okay, now let’s go back to our chocolate. If I eat a piece of chocolate and it makes me happy right now, but I know in advance that five minutes later I’ll feel bad, I’ll beat myself up, I’ll say to myself, “Why? Why did you eat it?” And usually it won’t end with one square; it’ll end with a whole row, if not more. I know my happiness level is going to drop.

48:49 Speaker 2 Boom—that’s the yetzer hara’s suggestion. So here I’ll need iskafya, but iskafya from the perspective of… as a woman. Iskafya becomes very easy for us when I know something won’t make me happy. But on the other hand— You’re taking the concept of desire and saying it isn’t just one thing; you can divide it into an inner desire and an outer desire. No. There’s one desire that connects me with myself, and it finds expression in many, many different desires. So the desire for chocolate that will bring me down afterward isn’t really my desire. It isn’t really my desire. Throw it out. Exactly. It simply isn’t my desire. It’s a desire to escape from something. Actually, that makes sense, because we’re made up of a kind of split personality. We have an animal soul… You know, I want to be precise about that too. See, you’ve brought me to something else connected with Tanya. But just let me finish with the chocolate, and then I’ll get to the G-dly soul and the animal soul. On the other hand, if you eat a square of chocolate and tell yourself, “I really need this chocolate right now,” and you’re not running away from feelings—because if I’m a woman who’s connected with herself and makes room for her feelings, the chocolate isn’t an escape from the frustration I felt today. It really is a boost of energy right now. That chocolate is ishapcha. I don’t need to practice iskafya, because the chocolate really has given me more energy, and thanks to that I’m now a better mother, a better woman, a better person. That’s ishapcha. What is ishapcha? Taking something physical and transforming it into holiness. That’s exactly it. And, by the way, the purpose of this world is for us to use physical things and make them holy. And since you mentioned the G-dly soul and the animal soul, I want to clarify something. This was another thing that was really

50:15 Speaker 2 important for me to understand. There’s me and my G-dly soul. The animal soul is the physical side; it can either elevate or bring down the very same thing. The yetzer hara is a third thing. I am not the yetzer hara. A lot of people confuse the yetzer hara with the animal soul and combine them into one thing, and that isn’t right. Okay, the animal soul is our natural needs. The vital soul, exactly. It’s the soul that gives us life. We couldn’t live without it. A Jew who ignores the needs of their body will very quickly end up in a bad place. And we know that self-denial is absolutely not the path of Chassidus. We also won’t have our full vitality; we’ll very quickly lose the joy in life we’re meant to have. A woman who ignores her physical needs: “Look what a martyr I am—I didn’t eat all day.” You know that one? Yes, okay. “I’m longing to paint, but what can I do?” Great, we enjoy that. Terrible. It’s such fun. I haven’t got to that yet. Of course. It’s very Polish and very enjoyable. “I really want to paint, but what can I do? I can’t.” That’s our vitality; that’s the natural soul. It asks for that because it brings me the happiness that lets me do everything my G-dly soul asks of me. The yetzer hara is a third thing. The yetzer hara is, essentially, those things that go against the Torah. Okay, so I think this distinction is important for a woman to understand: as women, our desire is G-dly—and men don’t have this, by the way. Men didn’t receive that G-dly desire directly within themselves. Right, that’s our advantage as women. Only women are hearing this. Absolutely. That’s our advantage as women. So we really are connected to G-dly desire, and it’s much simpler for us to overcome the yetzer hara’s suggestion. Will this desire make me happy or not?

51:48 Speaker 2 Will it be good for me or not? And not just make me happy now—will it make me happy in the future too? This can show up, for example, in giving. I recently spoke with shluchos, and afterward I got a flood of messages, phone calls and questions from women who are shluchos. It’s especially pronounced in shlichus, because we grew up being taught to give. We grew up being taught to put ourselves aside, to give up what we want for what someone else wants. And yet one day, women suddenly find that they aren’t all that happy. A woman you’ve connected with calls and needs an answer, but you aren’t truly available to her. What do you feel throughout that conversation? You’re angry with her; you’re frustrated. The children who have to wait a moment will suffer for it. Is that giving, in my eyes? No. And I think everyone understands that real giving is done with joy. That’s an example of a true connection, of a desire that makes me happy. Okay. So a desire that makes me happy in the short term and in the long term is completely holy. It really is what enables me to bring my vitality into the world.

52:42 Speaker 8 Maybe it’s this subtle distinction, this confusion between the animal soul and the yetzer hara, that makes us fall into the trap of saying, “No, this really isn’t something I need. It’s coming from the yetzer hara.” We don’t tend to pause and listen and say, “Wait, maybe it is?” After all, what is the yetzer hara in disguise, dressed up in Chassidic clothing, as they say?

52:59 Speaker 2 Right.

52:59 Speaker 8 It comes along and says, like…

53:01 Speaker 2 Right, it gives you ideas dressed up, dressed in holiness.

53:04 Speaker 8 That make it seem like the right thing, and then we get completely confused.

53:06 Speaker 2 Right, it really is confusing. It really is. We also live in a bewildering world, a world that can be so deceptive. By the way, that’s true on both sides—the spiritual side and the material side. There’s so much confusion and so much mixed together in both. The ability to sort it all out comes when you truly listen inward, when you quiet the background noise and the external things, and focus on what’s inside you. Then you can truly bring the good outward.

53:34 Speaker 8 Sounds promising. No, it really is, um...

53:37 Speaker 2 Possible. Promising and possible. Wow, it’s absolutely possible. You have no idea how quickly it can happen. In the course, we call it “slowly, slowly; quickly, quickly.” The first steps are like baby steps—a baby just starting to crawl and walk. But then, suddenly, it happens. One woman once told me, “Feigy, I’ve reached a place where I’m suddenly not willing to settle for anything in my life that isn’t good for me.” Not just materially—in any relationship. She came to learn these things because of a few major issues that were screaming for her attention in her life, and suddenly she noticed where the good was missing. She had reached such a good place in some areas that new things began to bother her. You really can always go up another level. Yes, absolutely. There’s always more to discover from a good place, from a place that is truly what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. He doesn’t want us to stay stuck in one place. We know that a chossid always needs to progress, always needs to keep moving—but in a healthy, positive sense. Not “I have to,” but “This is what I deeply want.” I want to grow, I want to aspire to more, I want to do another good thing, I want to bring my light outward. And to have everything I need to do that, I have to listen to myself. You simply can’t do it without that.

54:50 Speaker 8 Right, but when a woman reaches a place like that, the number of benefits that come out of it in the long run is incredible.

54:55 Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. Someone told me, “I discovered the real mother in me.”

55:00 Speaker 8 Wow.

55:00 Speaker 2 “I discovered the real woman in me.” It’s as though you can build her—

55:05 Speaker 8 That’s the million-dollar line.

55:06 Speaker 2 It really is the million-dollar line. And what’s amazing is that even that has no end. Within that same mother, within that same woman, there are so many more depths waiting to be discovered. After all, our soul is literally a part of G-d above, and G-d is infinite. I can reach so many layers within myself that, at a certain point, it starts to become fascinating. Like, wow, what else haven’t I discovered about myself?

55:25 Speaker 8 So we’re really discovering ourselves, removing the barriers.

55:27 Speaker 2 Exactly.

55:28 Speaker 8 And...

55:28 Speaker 2 Exactly. It’s revelation and Geulah. Revelation and Geulah, completely.

55:32 Speaker 8 That’s incredible. How do you take in all that fulfillment?

55:35 Speaker 2 Um, mostly I get excited—really excited. It’s one of the most exciting things in my life. I loved being a teacher, and I still love being a teacher. By the way, I’m a bit of a teacher in this too. Yes, I teach women, but these are women who chose to come, not a captive audience.

55:50 Speaker 8 You’re [unclear]...

55:52 Speaker 2 No, I was a nice teacher. Come on.

55:54 Speaker 8 A good teacher. But this is different.

55:56 Speaker 2 But it’s definitely much more exciting. These women come because they choose to make a change. They’re basically saying, “I want to live better,” and you can make that accessible to them. That’s why I call myself someone who guides women. I don’t like the term “mentor”—it sounds as though the mentor is somehow above the other person. I accompany you; I give you a hand. Ultimately, with these tools, you can be your own mentor.

56:14 Speaker 8 Wow.

56:15 Speaker 2 Really. It truly gets to the root of things.

56:17 Speaker 8 And when women finish the process... How does it actually work? Zoom, not Zoom, groups, one-on-one?

56:23 Speaker 2 Honestly, all of the above. I have lots of platforms. The main one is my program, called Meshuchreret. Right now it’s a program of meetings on Zoom, and maybe the current format will change one day, um...

56:36 Speaker 8 That makes it very accessible, you know.

56:38 Speaker 2 It makes it very, very accessible. It’s very convenient. True, there’s something good about digital courses, but right now I really enjoy the interaction of teaching women. And between meetings, there’s personal guidance. In other words, every woman in the program gets an individual response to her needs. Everything I teach—all the content and tools in each meeting—we apply to that woman’s own life. Now, some women share, and some share less. As I told you, in our community, signing up for a program that says, “I’m struggling with something,” isn’t such a given, even though it’s becoming more and more common. This idea of “I want to change; I want to live better”—I think it’s a movement of a generation of Geulah that truly wants to live better.

57:21 Speaker 8 Permission to say, “I’m not in a good place, and I have the right to do something about it.”

57:25 Speaker 2 Yes, the right to do something about it. Even reaching that sense of permission is a stage, Chani. Not everyone is there yet. A woman who’s willing to say, “Yes, this isn’t good for me, and I’m not ashamed to say so”—or at least isn’t ashamed to sign up for a course that will help her improve in that area—has already taken an amazing step. But even then, not everyone turns on her camera. Not everyone is comfortable with that, and I completely understand. I know it’s wonderful when cameras are on, and it’s much more enjoyable for me as the person guiding them—

57:52 Speaker 8 Than talking to black squares.

57:53 Speaker 2 Exactly, than talking to black squares. But I can absolutely understand a woman who doesn’t want to show herself, and I respect that. I give each woman her space. Some women never approached me with a question at all, and still wrote to me at the end of the course, “It changed my life, it changed my life.” It’s amazing. That’s one main platform, but here I am doing a podcast with you. I’ve already done a podcast with someone else. I get invited to Zoom meetings for all kinds of audiences—shluchos, for example, and all kinds of other groups. These are meetings that aren’t therapy, a process, ongoing guidance, or anything long-term.

58:29 Speaker 8 Just points from it.

58:30 Speaker 2 Exactly, points from a broader change in perspective, along with a few practical tools for life. For example, I’ve also been invited to a study day for young women in Kfar Chabad in a week and a half. I think it’s a lecture, which is another kind of platform.

58:46 Speaker 8 Once you have life-changing tools, you can do anything with them.

58:50 Speaker 2 Exactly.

58:50 Speaker 8 Because anyone who meets you, even for ten minutes—

58:53 Speaker 2 Something in her will change.

58:54 Speaker 8 Yes.

58:54 Speaker 2 And you know what? I believe in that so strongly. There was a period when I worked in Kfar Chabad, and the trips home were terribly exhausting. You’d leave in the afternoon, sit in traffic for three hours, with the sun in your eyes. It wasn’t easy or pleasant. And because I’d also left so early in the morning, I felt myself falling asleep on the drive. So I thought of an idea that would benefit everyone. I posted in my status groups: “Who wants a drive for life?” That’s what I called it, “a drive for life.” “Who wants a free twenty-minute conversation, as a gift?” Those conversations wake me up. Yes, they wake me up. They give me energy, because every time I share tools and, twenty minutes later, something feels easier for a woman, or she’s solved some small problem in her life—even if it isn’t a whole process—then as far as I’m concerned, I’ve given something of myself. But I’ve received something too, because it made the drive better for me, and I got to use that time to do something good.

59:46 Speaker 8 What a sweet idea!

59:47 Speaker 2 I love it.

59:48 Speaker 8 I guess I wasn’t following your status closely enough, because I missed it.

59:51 Speaker 2 Oh well, we won’t get into that.

59:53 Speaker 8 So wait, let’s share the number for your status, so people can see the content you post too.

59:57 Speaker 2 Gladly.

59:58 Speaker 8 And your drawings.

59:59 Speaker 2 Ah...

1:00:00 Speaker 8 Not just drawings—you add words to them.

1:00:03 Speaker 2 You know how to write, too, but that’s also something that started to come out, because when things are good for you, the good really does spill outward. And when you’re hurting—feeling good doesn’t mean there won’t be moments of pain. When you know how to make room for pain in the right way, and your words can save another woman who’s in a painful place at that moment, then to me, that’s another shlichus.

1:00:26 Speaker 8 Wow. Feigy, a closing thought. Something every woman in the world needs to hear, especially anyone who’s listened to the end.

1:00:35 Speaker 2 Can I give two? Two thoughts?

1:00:37 Speaker 8 Go ahead, two.

1:00:37 Speaker 2 Okay, two. So one saying is mine, and the other is something I heard that’s very, very beautiful. You know what? Let’s start with mine, because I think the second one is more powerful. My saying is: “There’s no ‘I have to’; there’s ‘I want to.’ There’s no ‘I must’; there’s ‘I choose to.’” To me, that’s the essence of no longer being a victim and understanding that in every situation in life, I can choose. There’s a desire behind it. That’s why I said, “There’s no ‘I have to’; there’s ‘I want to.’” You don’t have to fold the laundry, okay? You just want to have folded clothes in your closet. There are also ways to make it fun. Yes, I teach that too, but—

1:01:13 Speaker 8 Folding laundry can be fun?

1:01:14 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, that’s possible too. You could listen to your podcast, for example. So this really changes your whole outlook and makes life more enjoyable. Because when I choose to do something, I enjoy it. Imagine someone coming to you in the morning with a list of tasks: “This is what you have to do today.” How much fun would you have doing that? Probably not much. But when you choose everything on the list, and you choose the order you’ll do it in, and you tell yourself, “I’m choosing, because I choose the life I want for myself. I’m listening to myself and choosing what I want on my schedule today”—to me, that’s life-changing. So that’s one saying. I’ll repeat it. Write it down: “There’s no ‘I have to’; there’s ‘I want to.’ There’s no ‘I must’; there’s ‘I choose to.’”

1:01:53 Speaker 8 So I’m putting myself in a different place within the things I’m doing anyway.

1:01:56 Speaker 2 Right, exactly. And the second saying I heard isn’t mine, but it shook me because of how true it is, and because it’s so moving and life-changing. It goes like this: “Waking up in the middle of life is the resurrection of the dead.” When a woman reaches a point in her life and says, “I want to change. I’m waking up because I want to live my life, not stand on the sidelines,” that’s Geulah. It’s that woman’s personal Geulah. And we know that the resurrection of the dead is one of the signs of the Geulah. So it’s like coming back to life, beginning to live again. I believe that when all Jewish women experience a personal Geulah, and that Geulah affects them, their homes, their families, and their work, they’ll give life everything they’ve got. And then the true and complete Geulah will come very soon.

1:02:51 Speaker 8 Wow! You’re fascinating.

1:02:53 Speaker 2 Thank you. I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for the opportunity. What a joy to share this with other women, so they can start living better. Wake up in the middle of life—it’s the resurrection of the dead.

1:03:02 Speaker 8 Yes, yes. I think every woman listening to you will start tomorrow differently. What you’re doing is truly an incredible shlichus.

1:03:08 Speaker 2 Amen, absolutely.

1:03:09 Speaker 8 Speaking of shlichus as a way of life—wow!

1:03:12 Speaker 2 Absolutely.

1:03:13 Speaker 8 Thank you.

1:03:13 Speaker 2 You have no idea why this moves me so much.

1:03:16 Speaker 8 Of course.

1:03:16 Speaker 2 Thank you, Chani.

1:03:16 Speaker 8 Thank you so much.