Who Are You, Really? | Healing through Jewish Wisdom

The conversation

Every time somebody criticizes you and you tell yourself it's for your own good, it's worth stopping for a moment. The way Gili sees it, that assumption is exactly what keeps us stuck. We don't change because we're blamed. We change because someone believes in us and supports us, and that's how we should be treating ourselves too. From there she moves to the question most of us avoid: who would we be without all the scars and the emotional history we've piled up, and why do we spend so much of our time building a character people will love instead of simply being who we are.

The truth

Constructive criticism is a myth. People change when they're believed in and supported, not when they're blamed, and that's how we should be treating ourselves too.

Loss and failure are proof of our ability to feel love and pleasure. If we lost something, that's a sign we had it.

The fear of being authentic comes from ancient feelings of shame and guilt, from the time when being cast out of the tribe threatened our survival.

Anyone who builds a persona in order to be loved will never experience real love, because what people love is the character, not them.

Gili offers one way to find out who we really are: ask how we would feel and act without all the hurt and the emotional history we've piled up.

The right question after something painful happens isn't "Why did this happen?" It's "What did this do to me, and how do I move on from it?"

Questions and answers

How am I supposed to know who I really am if I barely know myself to begin with?

The episode suggests asking ourselves how we would think, feel and act if we had never been hurt, without the scars and without the less pleasant parts of our emotional history. Who we really are is who we are without the pain and the fear left over from past experience, which is to say without the traumas we've collected along the way.

Why am I afraid before I start anything new?

In her words, drawing on Tony Robbins, most of what makes us avoid something new is emotional and psychological, and only a small part of it is the practical business of picking up a skill. In other words, the fear is mostly emotional and not technical.

Why is failing supposed to be a good thing rather than just painful?

In the episode, failure shows us what we're missing, what isn't working well, and what we need to learn or understand in order to move forward. It's worth treating failure as an opportunity and not only as a bad experience, even though it still feels unpleasant.

Gili's original episode description

Many of us are looking for a life full of great victories, but we aren't willing to take even small risks.

Living a life worth living calls for taking risks. That's part of the work here, and we came here to work.

It isn't always easy, because it means acting without certainty, and sometimes we don't have the knowledge we need either, which means a lot of attempts and certainly no shortage of failures.

So yes, failure is frightening. But do you know what's even more frightening? Never trying at all.

Regret will kill you.

We all try to be perfect, to fill our roles successfully: excellent parents, flawless bosses, outstanding employees, model partners. Of course we'll fail in one role, or in several.

Don't blame yourselves for that. Stop tearing yourselves down. Blame doesn't get anyone moving. We move better when we're loved and encouraged. Be compassionate toward yourselves.

Your anxiety will drop dramatically the day you understand that there's nothing out there. There's no audience waiting to applaud you. You don't need anyone's approval, and you don't need to convince or impress anyone. Only yourselves. It's only you.

People waste whole lives trying to be who they aren't, building a character they think others will love more. We're scared to death of showing who we really are.

I understand you. But what chance do you have at real love if all you are is a character? They love the character. Not you. Either way, you've lost.

The Creator gives you what you believe in. It doesn't matter what you want or how much you want it. What matters is what you believe. We receive only what we believe we deserve to receive.

The mission: discover who you are. A hint: the ending is already known.