You're the Real Deal! | Healing through Jewish Wisdom

The conversation

You're in that dark place again, and it feels like a sign that something is wrong with you. Gili, an Emotional Healer, says it's exactly the opposite: the pain is a necessary part of the process, not an obstacle on the way to it. The way she sees it, there's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is a choice, and accepting reality is the way out of it. She also talks about how your self-worth doesn't need any proof from the outside, and how starting to feel the thing you want before it has even happened gives it a better chance of becoming real.

The truth

Pain and darkness aren't just bad luck. They're part of a process that often only makes sense in hindsight, and sometimes not even then, because we tend to push that pain away instead of listening to what it's telling us.

Comfort isn't the goal: the brain looks for comfort, but comfort is death, because the soul came here to move and to change, not to rest.

Gili quotes Tony Robbins: everything in the universe is either growing, evolving or dying, and that is true of a relationship and of a business too.

True generosity comes from a sense of abundance, not a sense of lack. Someone who feels "I am everything" doesn't need to be given anything in order to feel whole.

Happiness is a byproduct of living consciously, not the goal itself.

Wholeness requires opposites: light and dark, joy and sorrow, breaking down and building back up. Gili illustrates this through the day the hostages came home.

Questions and answers

Why should I agree to feel the pain at all, instead of just running away from it?

Gili says that pain isn't just bad luck, it's part of a process the soul is going through. When we run from it and repress it, we miss the chance to understand what it came to tell us. In her words, the lowest point in our lives is also the road to our highest potential, and the soul is looking for movement and change, not comfort.

What does it even mean to "be" something, rather than just to want it?

"Being the thing" means thinking, speaking, feeling and behaving like the thing you want, before it actually exists. The idea is that just as an outcome can produce a feeling, a feeling can produce an outcome. Instead of sitting and waiting for the situation you want to arrive, you create the feeling and the thought right now.

What's the difference between pain and suffering, according to the episode?

Pain is an unavoidable part of life, and everyone experiences it, no matter who they are. Suffering, on the other hand, is a choice. It comes from wanting things to be different and from trying to control what can't be controlled. You can take any pain and use it as leverage, instead of sinking into suffering.

Gili's original episode description

The lowest point in your life is also the road to your highest potential. Your heart breaking isn't just bad luck either.

It's hard for us to appreciate the power of pain and of darkness. We only understand it in hindsight, and not even always then, because most of us rely on the idea that "time heals all wounds," or on out of sight, out of mind.

The human brain looks for comfort. That's how we were trained. But comfort is death. The soul came here to work. It came here to make a change, a transformation.

Happiness isn't the goal, it's a byproduct of living with awareness instead of living on autopilot. Our happiness doesn't come from a moment of pleasure or from an achievement. Real happiness comes from transformation. Pleasure belongs to the ego, transformation belongs to the soul. And the soul wants to be the Creator.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is knowing that life has no meaning of its own. Life is like tofu. Which means that in reality you're the one who decides the meaning, and whatever meaning you give to something, to someone, to a situation, is the meaning it will have. The thing is that 95 percent of the time we're on autopilot, not aware, so we automatically conclude that the automatic reaction is the truth, without understanding that we, through our reaction, are the ones supplying the meaning.

You aren't aware. You don't see that it's a mirror reflecting you back.

All of us go through painful periods in life. It doesn't matter how smart, how beautiful, how rich or how spiritual you are, whether you're a big shot in tech or a big-time narcissist. Pain isn't a choice, it's part of our process here. Suffering, on the other hand, is a choice.

Life gets easier when you understand that you don't have to prove anything to anyone. That whole need for recognition from the outside is bullshit, one of humanity's great confusions. The truth is exactly the opposite.

The moment you're aware of your own worth, a sense of worth that doesn't depend on anything outside you, everything changes. You've become the thing.

Your body language changes, you speak differently, the way you stand, the way you behave. And the results follow. Real power doesn't come from achievements, it comes from recognizing who you really are. You're not fighting to be seen, you're not trying to prove anything, and the irony is that this is exactly when it all starts coming to you.