Episode 23 · August 31, 2023
Change, feeling stuck and procrastinationParenting and family
The Truth Hurts · Episode 23 · audio in Hebrew
You try so hard for your child: private tutors, treatments, endless conversations, and he still feels like a failure. Gili Man Wolner tells how one sentence from her son, when he was 14, turned the whole picture around for her. Her efforts weren't just failing to help him. They were making him feel that he wasn't good enough. The way she sees it, there's a difference between effort (hishtadlut), the actual doing, and faith (emunah), seeing the thing as though it has already happened. And the stronger the faith, she says, the less effort is needed for it to really happen.
She says that what her son said at 14, "look how hard you try and nothing helps," was the moment she understood that her effort itself was what made him feel he wasn't good enough.
On the spot she gave up all the private tutors, the treatments and the medication, and told her son that he could do it on his own and that they'd meet again in 12th grade.
She draws a line between effort and faith. Effort is the actual doing: the evaluations, the treatments, the lessons. Faith is seeing the thing as though it has already happened. The stronger the faith, the less effort is needed.
For almost four years she pictured her son walking up on stage with a full matriculation certificate, even while the reality was phone calls about absences and a warning that he wouldn't be moved up a grade.
She says that six months before the end, after her son had been suspended, a teacher at the school, who knew nothing about any of it, described to her exactly the picture she had been holding in her mind for years.
Her message to parents as the school year opens is that our children are a reflection of us, so the real work is fixing what bothers us in ourselves, not fixing them.
Because boundaries give a child the tools to develop. A child has no way to measure himself unless he knows where the boundary starts and where it ends, and that's what later lets him take responsibility and make decisions as an adult.
Because it makes a child do exactly the opposite of what you want from him. Anything you give attention to, even negative attention, gains momentum and takes on more weight in the way he behaves.
Effort is the actual doing: the evaluations, the treatments, the private lessons. Faith is seeing the thing as though it has already happened and giving thanks for it as something finished. The stronger your faith in it is, the less effort is needed for it to happen.
On the spot she stopped all the private tutors, the treatments and the medication, and told him that he could do it on his own and that she'd meet him again in 12th grade. In her words, that was her move from the track of effort to the track of faith.
He finished with a full matriculation certificate, and Gili says that today he's a combat medic.
September 1 has arrived, and with it the return to routine, so we decided to give this episode to parents and children.
In parenting there's no such thing as equal treatment.
Every child needs something different.
Every child is different from the next.
Don't fit the child to a mold, fit yourselves to the child!!!
And of course there are plenty of tips from Gili on parenting well, in a way that moves both you and your children forward!
Listening to The Truth Hurts feels like sitting in on a healing session.
The truth can hurt. It’s right there in the name. But we’re not here to cause pain. Quite the opposite.
In each episode, two women sit down for an honest conversation: an Emotional Healer and her client.
We talk about healing and consciousness, faith and science, the body and soul, personal growth, energy, and different approaches to healing. Above all, we face the truth no one says out loud: everything around us is upside down.
You don’t need any prior knowledge. You only need the desire to explore a wide range of ideas and discover practical guidance for living.
Gili Man Wolner, Emotional Healer. Helping you heal and grow through Jewish wisdom.
Have a question about an episode? Send a WhatsApp message to +972 50-681-0611 (messages only).
Listen to The Truth Hurts (in Hebrew).
Tal Eckerling, co-host: Website · Facebook · Instagram
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