120. There Is Power In Silence: 5 Ways To Remain Authentic

If you think about authenticity,

It's about being brave enough to be yourself and genuine enough to live according to your values.

And I think by that definition,

People say,

Well,

Then that gives me the right then to share all of these things that have happened to me.

But then it's not necessarily sharing every intimate detail of your life or your deepest darkest secret to the world.

I think a lot of things have to be considered before going out and speaking in that way.

Welcome to the Spiritually Hungry Podcast.

Today's topic is oversharing.

Oversharing.

You might have titled it something else.

What would you have titled today's podcast?

Well,

I think it's about being thoughtful in what we share,

Right?

And especially as it relates to judging others.

It's been a word.

Judgment.

It's not a secret that people have voracious appetites for reality TV,

Tell-all biographies and autobiographies.

The more salacious,

The better.

Even just those words,

They sound like,

Ooh,

Tell me more.

Tell-all books are a good example of oversharing and are often motivated by a desire to feel vindicated.

I also think in some way it's to take back your own power.

If you tell your story,

Especially if you don't like the way other people are telling a story about you or creating a narrative for you,

This is a way to kind of claim that back,

But there's a way and a time to do it.

It's one way of sharing your truth or at least your side and getting the last word in in a very public forum.

So here are some famous examples.

Melania and Me,

The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady by Stephanie Wolkoff.

I haven't read it.

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy.

Oh,

That's terrible.

It's about her struggles as a former child actor,

Including eating disorders,

Addiction,

And a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother.

Yeah,

It sounds pretty bad.

And latest,

Spare.

I'm assuming she wrote that book after her mom died.

Yeah.

And the latest is Spare by Prince Harry,

Motivated by a desire to tell his side of the story.

In it,

He disclosed details of a physical altercation with his brother and explains how Megan was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by other members of family to deflect attention from their missteps.

And in 1992,

Ronald and Nancy Reagan's daughter,

Patty Davis,

Published her tell-all biography,

The Way I See It,

Where she shared some unflattering portrayals of both her parents.

I find this one very interesting.

Not so much.

I didn't read that book either.

But what she came to understand after she wrote it,

That's kind of what I found to be really inspiring.

So recently,

Patty was interviewed and she expressed regret over that book.

And in her own words,

She said,

My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn't written was very similar to what I understand to be Harry's reasoning.

I wanted to tell the truth.

I wanted to set the record straight.

Naively,

I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read,

My family might also come to understand me better.

So Patty's regret is a common feeling that many people experience after they've overshared.

People frequently come to regret their oversharing.

And I think that it doesn't just have to be in a publishing platform,

Right?

Of course.

It's through social media.

Most of us probably have a friend or a parent who overshares.

And I've also sat next to strangers on a flight where I've discovered more about them than I have even some of my own friends.

Right.

I mean,

Oversharing isn't necessarily a problem.

You could either enjoy that or not enjoy that.

But I think what we're focusing on is when it's negative.

When it's negative.

Yes,

I think in my mind,

Oversharing usually is.

No,

But if you say,

I mean,

We all have these people who like to talk.

You know,

I often have this conversation with our older daughter.

She likes to talk and I like to listen.

Listen,

Of course I looked up what oversharing is defined as in the dictionary.

And here is the definition.

And actually it's a very new word that hit mainstream usage in 2000.

It means the disclosure of an inappropriate amount of detail about one's personal life.

So it's inappropriate for me somehow.

Sure.

I mean,

Again,

But I think,

Again,

But the focus I think of today's podcast is when it's saying something negative about somebody else.

I would even,

Even if you're saying something negative about yourself,

That's a much lesser degree.

We can discuss whether you should or shouldn't.

Well,

I think with oversharing,

I think it's what's behind it.

I don't,

I think when people overshare,

Usually it's not for the right reason.

So again,

In my,

My view,

It's more of a negative.

I think it's often for people who don't feel seen or heard,

Or they feel like it might be a way to create intimacy and it's really not.

Sometimes it's a deep in a relationship artificially,

Right?

Instead of letting it progress.

For instance,

Sometimes I think it's a set the story straight.

Like people are going to say,

I'm speaking my truth.

And finally,

I'm going to speak my truth.

Usually comes right before something that's going to be nasty or negative,

Right?

It's a way for the ego to say,

I'm going to get the last word in.

So I think that usually oversharing,

Not always,

But usually that's how I see it.

So I thought it was,

I was actually reading the New York Times editorial that Patty Davis wrote and I want to be really clear to all of our listeners.

I know myself,

I don't think Monica,

We're taking any position or opinion about the book spare or about Harry or about me.

I think all that,

You know,

I personally have no opinions that I'd like to share about any of that,

Right?

So it's just seeing something said in a very public way that struck our curiosity.

Right.

And most importantly,

What Patty Davis did is I think is a very strong lesson for the moments that we feel we need to or want to judge somebody else or say something very negative about them.

So what really struck me was the beginning of her essay.

In the early stages of my father's Alzheimer's,

Where she's talking about her father,

Ronald Reagan,

The former president,

When he still had lucid moments,

I apologized to him for writing an autobiography many years earlier in which I flung open the gates of our troubled family life.

He was already talking less at that point,

But his eyes told me he understood.

I thought of that moment when I read that Prince Harry in his memoir wrote about his father King Charles,

Getting between his battling sons and saying,

Quote,

Please boys don't make my final years a misery,

End quote.

Time is an unpredictable thing.

What will someone's last memory be?

I had the gift of time with my father,

Which allowed me to apologize,

Even though a disease hovered between us and clouded our communication.

King Charles's words reveal a man who is aware of his own mortality and would like his offspring to be aware of it as well.

I think this is the key point.

Sometimes this gets better with age,

Sometimes it doesn't,

But this need that a person often has which is to say,

I need to tell the world or even just this one person this terrible thing that this other person did to me.

So what I think is to make really clear,

There are times when yes,

If somebody really did you terrible harm and you need to stop him,

There's many times that speaking out is the right thing to do.

And that's probably 10 to 20% of the times.

We're talking about the other 80% of the times when you have an internal need or just desire to speak negatively about other people.

And I think what Patti Davis is saying and sharing,

Which is such an important lesson,

Is that so often we will do that and then look back and regret having done that.

This isn't even before we start speaking about this in a spiritual way,

Hurting another person for a purpose that does not benefit,

That does not benefit,

Is not something you want to do because most likely if you're a thoughtful spiritual person,

There will come a time when you will look back and regret it.

It's interesting that you're speaking because Malala Yousafzai,

She spoke out against the Taliban of course,

That's clear,

But she also had a purpose in doing so to stop certain things,

To give voice to other girls that were just like her,

That didn't have a voice of their own.

It wasn't just for this,

Even if it was in that case,

Right?

But it wasn't just for the sake of saying,

Look,

Look at me,

Look what's happened to me,

This person.

And then what?

Right.

And not giving the other person to speak their truth,

Because speaking truth,

There's always two sides,

Right?

What?

I mean,

I don't know if I use the Taliban as the other side.

But I'm just thinking about those that speak out and speak up.

It could be any,

You know,

But I think it's not just about for the sake of,

I'm going to say this horrible story about.

But again,

But there are times when that's the right thing to do.

I mean,

We can think of it,

You know,

I don't like using names,

But we can think about certain people who were happy that people spoke up and all they did was say this person's a terrible person because he did these things.

And that sometimes is the right thing to do.

Sometimes.

But I think for most of us in life,

When we speak negatively about other people,

When we judge other people,

It is not in such a pure and clear way.

It is something that if we think about it after a few minutes,

After a few days,

After a few years,

We're going to regret it.

The years.

So I'd like to read a little bit more from her piece,

And I do recommend our listeners read it.

It's from the New York Times about a week or two ago.

She says,

Years ago,

Someone asked me what I would say to my younger self if I could.

Without hesitating,

I answered,

That's easy.

I'd have said,

Be quiet.

Not forever,

But until I could stand back and look at things through a wider lens,

Until I understood the word,

That words have consequences and they last a really long time.

Silence gives you room,

It gives you distance,

And it lets you look at your experiences more completely without the temptation to even the score.

Sometime in the years ahead,

Harry may look back as I did and wish he could unspeak what he had said.

I've learned something else about truth.

Not every truth has to be told to the entire world.

People are always going to be curious about famous families,

And often the stories from those families can resonate with others,

Give them insight into their own situations,

Even transcend time since the flame flutters at the edges of eternity.

But not everything needs to be shared.

A truth that silence can teach.

And I think for all of us,

I would ask our listeners right now to take a moment out to think about a moment this week,

Maybe even today,

When you said something or even in your own mind,

You judge somebody else.

And the question that I would ask is,

What positive benefit does that hold?

Maybe Patti Davis has a very strong point,

Which is sometimes you don't have to speak the truth.

Sometimes hurting somebody else with your words is worth waiting for.

I think people get confused sometimes between being authentic,

Right,

Again,

Speaking their truth versus does everything that I feel necessarily need to be said.

If you think about authenticity,

It's about being brave enough to be yourself and genuine enough to live according to your values.

And I think by that definition,

People say,

Well,

Then that gives me the right then to share all of these things that have happened to me.

But then it's not necessarily sharing every intimate detail of your life or your deepest,

Darkest secret to the world.

I think a lot of things have to be considered before going out and speaking in that way.

Right.

And I think authenticity most importantly has to do with yourself.

You know,

One of my father's teacher's greatest teachings,

He spoke about the purpose of spirituality.

And as some of our listeners probably know,

My father really continued on an organization that was created by his teacher and actually two generations back,

Ravash,

Like his teacher's teacher.

And he said,

Why did we create this teaching,

Spiritual teaching organization?

He said,

For only one purpose.

He says,

Because we found,

We saw that people were using what we call religion,

What we call spirituality,

As a way to separate people,

As a way for one person to say,

I'm right,

And therefore this other person,

You,

Must be wrong.

And he said they completely missed the purpose of the original purpose of religion,

Certainly the purpose of spirituality.

And that is only one thing,

Only one thing.

To focus all of our energy and attention inward on what changes,

Transformations that we have to make.

And if you truly understand how much work has to go into creating the elevated state of yourself that you're meant to be,

You don't have any extra time to be looking outside and judging other people or speaking negatively about other people.

And I think,

Again,

Often certainly religion,

But even spirituality can be used as,

And many other things,

Can be used as a way for me to feel better about myself vis-a-vis somebody else.

And that can often lead to judgment and then speaking negatively about them.

When in reality,

I think it's so important,

True spirituality leads to really mainly one thing.

I am constantly looking inside,

Finding ways to improve myself,

To better myself.

And if I have any judgment to go around,

It's only focused inwardly.

I think that the process of,

If you're really being authentic and something has happened to you,

I think going inward and taking that to heart and considering why it could have happened,

What the learning is in it,

What even the gift is in it.

Then when you tell the story after you've gone through that process,

You still might bring up some of the stories and some of the examples,

But the telling of it will be very different because of your understanding of why it happened.

What was the benefit for you?

So it's not so much that you can't speak your truth or tell the things,

The tales,

The stories that have happened to you,

Because if there's been a great learning for you and you've now grown and changed because that's happened,

It doesn't make the other behavior right.

But from that space,

I think sharing it,

It comes off very differently because to your point,

You're not judging the person necessarily.

You're not judging why it happened.

You've now seen it as even a benefit in some way.

And then,

Sure,

Tell the story for the purpose of sharing the bigger picture.

Absolutely.

And the only thing that I would add is that the potential that each one of us has is so great.

Every single one of us,

Myself,

You,

Every one of our listeners.

But that potential will never be achieved.

And ultimately,

The purpose for which every one of our souls came into this world will not be achieved to the degree that we spend time looking outward.

If,

And I think this is maybe one of the reasons why we don't spend enough time looking inwardly and we do have the time to look at other people,

Is because we don't really comprehend or accept how much greatness we have within us.

Many of us might think,

Well,

You know,

I'm doing pretty OK.

I'm close to revealing my potential.

I'm living my life in a pretty good way.

That might be true.

But the distance between who you are and who you are meant to be is so great that it's not possible to have extra minutes,

Hours,

Days to be looking at other people.

I think that's if you if you live your life from that point.

Other people and what they've done wrong.

Is that what you're saying?

Right.

Right.

Because it's not even so much looking inside and saying,

Oh,

I did this or that wrong.

It's just that I have so much to do.

And yes,

That entails change and an inward reflection.

But my marathon is so long.

I can imagine a person I've never run a marathon.

You have somebody running a marathon all he or she does for the most of it is look around at all the runners,

You know how fast they're running,

How slow they're running.

Of course,

They'd get distracted,

Never get to the end.

There's a step before that,

Though.

So a step before a person has to sort out their feelings around what's happened to them before they can stop focusing on that external.

Right.

When we blame,

When we look at others,

We're focused on all the things that we shouldn't be focused on.

It's really because we haven't figured out how to make sense of what's happened to your example of running a marathon.

If you're really you've done the training,

Right,

You've prepared,

You've eaten well,

You've done everything that you need to do,

All the steps they say to take before you actually try to run twenty six point two miles here,

You're not going to run the race.

You'd be like,

Oh,

My God,

That person's faster.

Look at that person.

You're so in your zone.

Right.

But to get to that place,

Some kind of transformation has to go.

I mean,

I know that when I've still been in the thick of something,

Right,

Something that has happened to me,

Somebody that's done something wrong to me and really it was wrong.

Right.

When I had felt the need to speak about it,

I closed my lips even tighter because I knew whatever I said would not be to my benefit and it would not be it would bring me down later.

And only when I didn't feel the need to talk about it,

Could I talk about it from places I went through that transformation.

So I think that it's important to really.

Yes,

Don't compare,

Don't look outward,

But I think that that part of these things have happened,

Whether you find yourself in a in a family that's that's not great or an environment that's not great or whatever it is,

Try to find the silver lining.

Like,

What is it that who have you become or who do you want to become in spite of that or because of that?

True,

True,

But also what also I mean,

And then second to that must be an understanding that I have so much work on myself to do that it would be silly for me to waste any time looking outside of myself.

Right.

And it gets tricky because what do you mean I work on myself?

You're the one that hurt me and I'm the one who has to do my work.

But again,

I do think we have to break it down because we're talking about I mean,

If you read any of the books,

I can't say all of the ones,

But if you read some of them,

So you'll hear a story like that's a horrible thing,

Whether it's all truth or not truth or whatever.

But then the person has to go through when you write from pain and you haven't made sense of the pain,

It comes out as pain.

It comes out as judgment.

That's my experience of that.

Right.

And that's why I don't write about anything.

And I write about a lot of personal things,

But I don't write about anything until I've seen the gift in it and the and the beauty in it.

That's beautiful.

And I'm just saying that because I'm just saying that that is something that I think each person has to decide to do.

And when you do choose that,

Then all of a sudden again,

You will tell your story,

But the story will sound very different.

It will feel very different.

It'll be received in a different way.

Right.

And I would add now,

I think there's a few important spiritual understandings that also will hopefully help repel us from spending time looking outside.

You have to understand that where our thoughts are is where we are.

So imagine a person who is spending the time looking at that person or this other person and judging them and having negative things,

Thinks negative things about them and says negative things about them.

Only one thing happens from that.

You,

That person who is involved in looking at negativity that others are doing,

Again,

When it doesn't have a purpose.

Of course,

There are times when it has a purpose,

But most of us,

I think if we're honest with ourselves,

It doesn't have a positive purpose.

You are putting yourself in a negative state.

You're putting yourself in a negative state.

Who wants to be connected to darkness?

Who wants to be connected to lack?

Who wants to be connected to negativity?

Well,

Nobody does,

Of course.

But you have to understand that when you are actively looking at another person and judging him or her,

Or saying something negative about another person,

You are actively putting yourself in a place of darkness,

In a place of negativity.

So then don't wonder why,

Well,

There's this thing that I need or I want,

I want to achieve that or I want this blessing,

I want this accomplishment.

It's not happening.

Well,

How much time do you spend attaching,

Actively attaching yourself to negativity?

And that simply means how much time do you spend thinking negatively about others,

By the way,

Also speaking negatively,

Thinking negatively about yourself?

But to understand that.

.

.

And even about the negative things that happen to you.

Right,

Right.

By the way,

How many times do you know somebody where,

You know,

It makes sense for them to share it,

But it almost often becomes their entire narrative,

That pain.

And that's all that they can talk about.

Then their whole world revolves around it.

Again,

There are times and places that that is healthy and that is helpful,

But often it becomes a narrative that a person gets stuck in.

And again,

The danger,

And this is what I hope to awaken within our listeners.

For the person.

Exactly.

It's not about right or wrong.

That's not what we're saying at all.

We're not,

We are not judging any situation or any story.

Exactly.

It's just,

How do you want your life to be and how do you want to feel?

What do you want to be attached to?

Right.

Do you want to be attached to negativity and lack and pain?

Or do you want to be attached to light and blessings and goodness?

Well,

You,

You choose,

You choose by being mindful of what you,

Of,

Of,

Of what you're thinking about other people.

Also,

As we said,

Mindful of what you're thinking about yourself,

Mindful of what you're saying about other people to other people,

What you're saying to other people about yourself,

All of that is determinative of,

Of where you're going to be,

What energy,

What type of energy you're going to be attached to.

There's a quote that I love,

And it's not just about this specifically,

But after a certain age,

I think it's 40,

It's in bad taste to blame your parents,

But you can take that to anything,

Right?

It's bad taste to blame yourself,

To blame others.

It doesn't matter what,

But at some point the,

You should outgrow that,

Right?

And the only way to outgrow that is to grow into yourself and who you're meant to become.

Absolutely.

And then related to that,

There's another very important spiritual understanding.

And I hope really to,

You know,

Awaken enough desire within all of us to really fight against that inclination to again,

Either see negativity within others,

See negativity within ourselves,

Is that we know that what is what we call the light of the creator,

That energy that sustains,

That energy that awakens blessings in our lives,

It behaves with us exactly as we behave.

There's a famous teaching that says that the light of the creator is like a shadow.

So a shadow moves exactly as the person moves.

So too,

The light of the creator behaves with the person exactly as he or she behaves,

Which could be a scary or an exciting thought,

Right?

So if you are judging another person,

That means that you are drawing into your life,

The force of judgment for negativity that you've done,

When you're speaking negatively about other people,

You're drawing into your life,

The force of judgment.

So it's not just,

So this is a second level.

It's not just,

As we said before,

That you are attaching yourself to negativity and lack when you are judging other people,

When you're speaking negatively about other people,

But you are actually drawing judgment upon yourself for things that you have done.

And I'll take that one step further.

And I hope this is.

.

.

Yeah,

We need to unpack that a bit because it's a deep idea.

Yeah,

It is.

And very important.

The great Kabbalist,

The Balshonto,

Says the following.

A person is never.

.

.

We know there's a concept of cause and effect,

That if I hurt somebody else somewhere down the line in my life,

Next day,

Next week,

Next year,

Next generation,

Next decade,

Somebody's going to do the same thing to me in similar fashion.

Cause and effect.

Cause and effect.

Every negative action has a negative effect.

But he says the following thing.

There's a caveat to that spiritual truth.

No judgment,

Even the one that you have awakened,

The person has awakened,

Will ever come back to them unless they judge somebody else for the same thing.

Yeah,

Let's say that again.

So let's use an example.

Let's say I,

And again,

You don't use these examples,

I slap somebody on the face.

Right?

What that means,

And it's from a spiritual standpoint,

That at some point in my life,

Somebody's going to have to slap me in the face,

Figuratively,

Physically,

Whatever.

But that judgment,

That effect of my action will not come into my life unless I see somebody else slapping another person afterwards.

And then I say,

That's a terrible person who just did.

That's a terrible thing that that person did.

When I judge somebody else for the action that I have done,

Then the judgment or the effect can become manifest in our lives.

But you're saying if you never,

Let's say you slap somebody,

But the next day you see me slap somebody,

But you don't judge me.

I will never have the effect.

Right on,

We're one in the family.

And so you're saying you won't have any effect from what you did,

Even though it was negative?

Absolutely.

Exactly.

This makes sense.

So how do you pay back for that?

We're talking about.

I know,

But I want to talk about some other things too.

Utopia where,

But I think I don't want to diminish.

We're not going to diminish.

I just want you to answer that though.

So you slap somebody,

You don't take responsibility for that anywhere?

Because if you're able to forgive other people for that same action and not judge it,

Then you will cannot and will not be judged for that.

That's the way the system works.

You are.

So if somebody murders somebody,

I know you don't like when I do that,

But if it's a truth,

It has to be a truth.

How does that,

No,

Explain it to me.

Obviously there are extreme cases such as murder.

That you need to put those in.

That,

That,

That they are so heinous on their own,

That the effect must come into that person's soul and life.

You must say this because we have a responsibility.

As Michael Burrow just said,

I can do whatever I want and not to have any effect if I don't judge,

You see what I'm saying?

I see exactly what you're saying.

So let's unpack that again.

So the slapping bit,

Right?

Not that you've ever slapped anybody because now you're getting a reputation.

Should I slap?

I'm trying to remember,

Have I ever slapped?

I think you should slap you.

I've played slapped our kids.

No.

I'm high off.

Play slapped our kids.

And they've always said we're going to call child services.

Michael,

What are you talking about?

So,

So no effect if you don't judge somebody for doing the same thing.

No,

Which is,

Which is crazy on the one hand,

But it's also makes,

It makes logical sense.

If I am only acted upon as I behave,

That means if I never judge another person for anything,

Then I can never be judged for anything.

That's the way the system works.

It's funny.

Those are the most likable people.

We're the ones who don't judge.

Exactly.

It's my favorite.

You know,

Like we,

Because I was just thinking,

We know a lot of people have done a lot of like,

Nobody we know has murdered.

It's to be really clear.

No,

No.

But we are always like,

And then they're,

They're not that hard on them.

I mean,

You know,

And then they're easy going about other people.

And it is like this,

You have a lightness.

It's not always like,

I like to think of myself as somebody who's really very hard to judge other people.

And I don't think it's because,

But it's not just people who've done really terrible things.

But I think we're both really aware.

I will.

The worst are the hypocrites,

Right?

The ones who've done terrible things.

I didn't have terrible.

No,

I think we're really aware of that reality,

Right?

That anybody can do anything and that there's no point in judging.

And I,

I really used to judge myself so harshly and I learned to not do that anymore.

So now,

Yeah,

It's like nothing really surprises me.

And I think that everything is possible and therefore why,

What's the point of judging?

I mean,

Human beings have two sides.

Right.

And as we said up until now,

It's also dangerous.

It's dangerous for us to judge other people.

It's dangerous to speak negatively about others.

It's funny.

I just remembered a quote I was watching when we flew back from Los Angeles this week,

Watching the Italian job and it's an old movie like 2005 and there's a quote in it where one of the characters says to the other,

I was,

You know,

You never trust anybody.

He's like,

No,

I trust everybody.

I just don't trust the devil inside of them.

Right.

Which is like the point is everybody is capable of anything at any given time.

So the judgment thing,

I mean,

If you're aware of that,

What's the point of judging?

Yeah.

And there's two very important teachings,

Quotes that I,

From 2000 years ago from the great Kabbalist that I try to live my life based on.

One of them is from the great Kabbalist,

Joshua in Parachia,

Joshua,

Who said,

Have you done it?

Kol ha'adam l'kavskut.

Whenever you're seeing,

Looking at somebody else,

Always judge them favorably.

And I think that's a very good rule to live by.

It is.

And it's very hard,

But once you start,

It gets easier,

But it is,

It's not easy at first.

And second is,

Al t'adun et ha'adam at sheh tagiyal limkumo,

At khaveh ha'at sheh tagiyal limkumo,

Which means don't judge another person until you have the same experience they had,

Which I think is one of the biggest fallacies of judgment because what it,

Yeah,

Walking,

Like exactly,

Or often that concept of you can tell you to walk in their shoes,

Which means nobody has had the life experience that I've had.

Nobody.

Some people might be similar.

Some people might be close.

Might have percentages of it.

And this is the way,

This is where my mind always goes.

I see somebody behaving badly.

My first thought is,

Well,

You know,

I don't know where he came from.

Sometimes I do know,

And it makes,

You know,

I don't condone that behavior,

But I can't bring myself to judge.

It just seems so silly for me to say,

Because judgment at its core is a terrible mistake because what it's saying is,

What the individual is saying when he or she is judging somebody else is that they are behaving in a way that I would not behave.

But that is only true if they have lived the exact same life as you have.

If they lived a completely different life,

Well,

Then their behavior is exactly in line with who they are.

And if you had lived their life,

You very likely would be doing exactly the same thing.

A hundred percent.

It's invisible.

Their experience of life is invisible to us,

But we act like we know.

And therefore judgment is ridiculous.

It's really,

Besides,

Again,

We set up until now it's dangerous.

It's also ridiculous,

Which I think brings me to another related,

Very important concept.

You know,

I was sitting with some friends a few weeks ago,

And we were talking about the way I view a spiritual teacher's role.

And for me,

It's a very delicate and important balance between,

I'll use myself as an example,

Yes,

I've studied for 40 years and I have a certain level of wisdom.

I study all the time and I teach all the time and I write books and so on and so forth.

But I know,

And this is true of anybody who's really studied wisdom,

The more wisdom you study,

The less you know you know.

There's a great,

I have one quote,

The great Kabbalist,

The Italian Kabbalist Ram Khalou,

Who says that the ultimate goal of study is to understand that you don't understand anything.

And that's true.

That's clear to me.

The more I study,

The more it becomes clear to me how vast wisdom is,

Understanding is,

And therefore whatever understanding I've come to after 49 years is a tiny fraction of the total reality.

And what that means,

What that necessarily means is that my view is just that.

A fraction,

I hope a fraction of truth,

But a fraction of truth.

It always scares me when you hear people talk that they have the truth.

They know for sure.

And you know,

It's funny because I listened to a lot of podcasts and I always,

I always enjoy very smart people talking about topics that they know a lot about,

But when I start sensing that in their mind,

They know everything that there is to know and their view,

I can't listen.

I can't,

I can't.

I,

Again,

I will listen endlessly to somebody really smart talking about something he or she really knows.

But when you start getting the sense that they know it all,

You know,

They can't know,

They know very little.

I was like the surgeon I went to,

I'm absolutely certain that this,

And I was like,

Uh,

As soon as you said that,

I was like,

Bye,

I couldn't even hear the rest.

If you're so certain about something that there's no way you could have certainty,

If nobody could have certainty about this thing,

You haven't opened my foot up yet,

Like,

No.

Exactly.

And which,

Which again,

Leading back to,

To judging others and speaking negatively about others.

The only way that that's possible,

If you're being honest with yourself,

Is if you're saying I know everything.

I know his or her life.

I know the entire situation.

I know always what's right and wrong.

And this person is behaving wrong.

And I've considered it all.

I've considered all.

You can't possibly have considered all,

You can't possibly know it all.

Because you're going through the lens of your emotion.

And by the way,

Our hearts and our minds often don't even speak to each other.

How can we understand the hearts and minds of others?

So,

And usually,

Right,

We make decisions only on our emotions or only in our minds,

Right?

And if they're not speaking to each other,

You find yourself where,

You know,

10 years later,

You will regret what you said or how you acted or what you did.

Absolutely.

And so therefore,

I would really,

And this is true about all things.

It's an important understanding in life.

The humility of my understanding,

Every single one of us should live our lives with the humility of our understanding.

And therefore,

How can I possibly judge,

Really judge another person?

How can I possibly speak negatively about another person?

I know so little.

I see so little.

Even about myself.

Even about myself.

It's ridiculous.

It's really,

Really being a judgmental person is being a ridiculous,

Living a ridiculous life and related to that.

People who are judgmental don't realize they're being judgmental for the most part.

But again,

I think we're,

We're hopefully,

You know,

Our listeners.

Shining a light on what that.

But also for our listeners,

We all,

You know,

We all,

It's all percentages,

Right?

We all judge to some degree or another,

But,

But I wanted to go back to another point that you touched upon,

Which is the fusing of our emotions and our feelings with reality,

And those are two separate things.

You know,

I was actually reading something today where somebody was writing about the fact that they asked somebody,

How was that movie?

And the person said,

It was a terrible movie.

You can't really say that,

Right?

You can say,

I didn't enjoy the movie.

Your experience of it was terrible.

Exactly.

I didn't enjoy the movie.

I can't say it's a terrible movie because I don't know what everybody,

The other 8 billion people in the world would,

They're right.

There might be one other person for whom he or she watches the movie or another hundred million people who watch the movie and they say,

We love this movie.

It reminds me,

I walked by a restaurant once and the food smelled good.

I was walking with somebody.

I was like,

Oh,

That,

That looks really cute.

And it smells good.

It's like,

Oh,

You're going to hate it.

No,

You're going to hate it.

It's,

It's horrible.

I was like,

Hmm,

Well,

What kind of food do they have?

No,

No,

No.

Don't even worry about what they serve.

They're going to hate it.

And I was like,

Just for that,

I am actually going to go eat at that restaurant.

You did?

Yeah.

Like how was it?

No.

I mean,

How can you answer that without knowing?

I mean,

She's not me.

Exactly.

And that's where,

By the way,

I always have this pet peeve when we go to restaurants and people ask the waiter,

What do you recommend?

And I,

To my mind,

That's very silly question because you don't know what his taste,

His or her taste,

The waiter's taste.

I can't argue here because this is a personal argument.

The question,

When I asked the waiter is from your experience of what people have ordered,

What do you get the most feedback on?

But that's not what often people ask.

Well,

When I ask the question,

That is why,

Because they would hear enough of,

This is our most popular dish.

And I would say,

Why is it?

Oh,

For our garlic lovers.

And they'll be like,

Well,

I don't like garlic.

So then I would know that I am not in that group,

But I think it's getting information.

Yes.

Yes.

But again,

To be very specific,

I was saying when people ask the waiter,

What do you like?

Right?

Not what is popular,

Which is not a bad question because that's an objective answer,

Hopefully.

Or,

You know,

What do you tell them about the taste profiles of different dishes?

But most,

But often people do,

And this is my pet peeve.

Yes,

You back out there.

Exactly.

But anyway,

Be that as it may,

The point is,

And this I think is a very serious point,

Our perspective is just that.

Our feelings are just that.

And we make the big mistake of transposing our emotions,

Our feelings,

Even our experience of something onto the thing itself.

And having the ability to separate my emotions,

My feelings about a situation,

About a person from the objective reality of that thing and that person is a very important step in life in general,

By the way.

Practice.

But also,

Also as it relates to how I view other people.

That I can say,

I had,

By the way,

This happens all the time,

A person tells me about somebody else,

They had a negative experience.

You can tell me,

But they had a negative experience,

That person.

But that doesn't mean that person's a bad person.

It just means that you had a negative experience.

Somebody else might've had a very positive experience.

And by the way,

You know,

It always makes me laugh.

I've had this conversation very recently with two people and I was talking to them about their relationship with their parent,

With their mother in both cases.

And they were saying,

Terrible mother,

Terrible,

Terrible mother.

And he says,

But by the way,

If you asked all my friends,

They would have said she's the best mother ever and she's the best person ever.

So even in telling that story,

You begin to realize it's all the subjective experiences.

Yes,

You can say my experience.

Also based on your past experiences,

Right?

The person that loves the mother,

That the son doesn't love his own mother,

Who knows what his mother was like,

Right?

Maybe that's exactly what he wants.

You don't know why people respond to what they respond to.

Bottom line,

That is when somebody can tell a story where he is even relating that his mother,

In his opinion,

Or he doesn't use those words,

Right?

But his mother was a terrible mother,

But his friends all loved her.

That is a clear indication that is a very subjective experience,

Not reality.

And I think one of the ways to begin judging less and speaking negatively less is by really,

Really working through the separation and the defusing of my emotions,

My experience from what is an objective reality.

Well,

I think I want to leave you with this one last tool and it's been around for a while.

It's known as the Socrates triple filter test.

Socrates thought that a person must ask themselves the following questions before they say anything.

Number one,

Am I sure that what I'm about to say is true?

Two,

Is what I'm going to say a good thing?

Three,

Do I really need to say it?

And is it useful?

I think that's a really good thing to check ourselves with.

Absolutely.

And taking this to the big picture,

Imagine a world where nobody judges another person,

Where nobody speaks negatively about other people.

You will find that most of the pain in this world,

And certainly even the biggest problems in the world,

All stem from the fact that people,

Groups of people,

Judge others,

Speak negatively about others.

And that's in the big picture.

In our daily lives,

Hopefully we've shared some of the tools,

The spiritual understandings,

And why it is actually dangerous to whatever degree that we spend time looking outside of ourselves,

Not focusing internally on our own change.

Judging other people,

Drawing judgment to ourselves,

Speaking negatively about others,

Drawing judgment and lack and darkness to ourselves,

It's just not worth it.

So my hope is that by listening to this podcast,

Our listeners are even more inspired to focus inward,

To diminish the amount of time that they,

And I would do this test,

And I was thinking about this,

At least four steps that I would ask all of our listeners to take.

One,

If you are judging,

At least don't speak about it to others.

Two,

Try to find yourself or push yourself towards judging less.

Relating to that step three,

I would say,

Start finding,

Even if it's difficult,

Some empathy for the people that you had previously or would currently judge.

And fourth,

Can you get to a state where you do not judge,

Or at least towards a state where you are actually not judging?

And you will find,

I promise you,

Forget about what other people experience from you and what they hear from you.

Your life,

Your life will be immeasurably improved.

Also,

I personally,

I think personally for years,

I felt that people misunderstood or took away different things from what my intention was.

And I think that was because I was being judged,

Right?

So that's the other thing.

If you're busy judging something,

Somebody or a situation,

Then not matter what they do,

If it's right or wrong,

You're going to already be judging them,

Right?

Because that's the lens of what you're looking through.

And I couldn't understand where the disconnect was.

And I spent a lot of time thinking about why,

Like I meant this,

Why am I being received differently?

And sure,

There were takeaways for me of what I needed to change and what I needed to improve.

And then Karen,

Your mom said this,

And I thought it was really powerful.

She said,

If you say something to three people and then ask them what they heard you say,

You'll most likely get three different answers,

None of which may be even correct.

The reason for this is that most of us here with our mind and we interpret what we receive through a filter of who we think we heard and what we think we heard.

That part's really powerful.

Today,

Take the time and decide to listen with your heart.

You may even receive the message you were asking for.

And there it was.

There was a misalignment of heart and mind in the way I was communicating.

And that quote is stuck with me.

And I've been slowly peeling away the layers and I'll continue to do that with this knowledge.

But I think it's a great guide for being aware of what we hear and who we think we're hearing it from.

Sometimes we disregard something that's really powerful,

Really powerful much just because of the person who said it and what we think about them,

Especially if it's a negative thought.

Absolutely.

Beautiful.

And I'd like to actually also share a quote from a book that I've been reading.

I'd like to call myself a pathological optimist.

Our thoughts are transferred into our biology,

Which means generosity,

Service,

And altruism make us healthier from the inside out,

All while giving us more joy in life.

I like those two words together.

Pathological optimist.

Yes.

And the idea is that science is now saying what this is all about.

And I think that's a great way to put it.

The idea is that science is now saying what the spiritual teachers have been teaching for thousands of years,

That how we think,

Especially as it relates in regards to this podcast,

Judging others,

All that negativity actually makes its way into my biology.

So forget about not judging others for their sake.

Save yourself.

Exactly.

For your own sake.

Yes.

I'd also like to share quickly,

One of our listeners wrote this on the Apple Podcast Review.

It's titled Enlightening and Captivating.

Every time I listen to an episode,

I learn something new or think of things with a different perspective.

I love this podcast.

It's like reading a great book and coming away with a new worldview.

Oh,

I love that.

Thank you,

Mel.

That's so nice.

Thank you,

Mel.

And this is the perfect opportunity to remind our listeners to send your questions to us at questions,

Comments,

Stories,

Compliments to Monica and Michael at Kabbalah.

Com.

Monica and Michael at Kabbalah.

Com.

We read the emails.

It inspires us and we have the opportunity to share them with our listeners.

I know that it inspires them as well.

So please continue to send questions,

Comments,

Stories,

Compliments to Monica and Michael at Kabbalah.

Com.

Share this podcast with everybody you know from Spotify,

From Apple Podcasts,

Where you can.

And even people you don't know.

That's very good.

I recommend every single one of our listeners go to somebody you don't know and recommend the podcast.

Go to a stranger tomorrow and tell them about our podcast.

That's genius.

Yes,

That is a great idea.

And Apple Podcasts,

Write five-star reviews.

And as always,

I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Stay spiritually hungry.