The Truth Hurts Podcast: Page 9
Everything around you feels blurry, it isn't clear where any of it is going, and it's hard to find something steady to hold on to. Gili explains that in a period like this, faith is one of the strongest healing tools there is, whatever a person's level of religious observance. A scattered soul is the most dangerous opposite of concentration, and the moment doubt gets in is exactly the moment you lose your focus. And sometimes the hardest question is whether you're even allowed to feel joy when there's this much pain all around.
Read the episode notes: Hocus Pocus: Staying Focused and Keeping the Faith | The Truth Hurts, Episode 30
If in the last few months you've been angry at God and quietly asked where He was, and then felt uncomfortable with the question itself, you aren't alone. Gili says that anger and complaints toward the Creator are also a kind of conversation with Him, not a betrayal of Him. She doesn't let herself off either: the baseless hatred and the division that came before the war touched her too. From there she moves to what can still be done, three things together rather than one tool on its own, and toward the end, how to tell when what you're dealing with has already become post-traumatic stress.
Read the episode notes: Those Who Believe Aren't Afraid When It Matters Most | The Truth Hurts, Episode 29
You check the news over and over, as though that will give you control over what's happening, and then you feel worse, not better. There's also the quiet guilt: how are you allowed to laugh, to rest, to open Netflix, when things outside are not okay? The way Gili sees it, the division among us is more dangerous than anything else right now, and unity is the strongest weapon we have against it. And it starts with small things: how many times a day you let yourself check the news, and who you turn to when it's hard.
Read the episode notes: Facing a State of War | The Truth Hurts, Episode 28
You catch yourself comparing, competing, wanting to prove that you're better, and then wondering why it's never enough. The way Gili sees it, that almost always comes out of insecurity, not out of any real inner strength. Sometimes the anger you feel toward someone close to you is hiding a need you never got, and the two of you can swap roles without noticing at all. And when everything feels empty, Gili offers something simple: focus on the smallest good thing there is and say thank you for it.
Read the episode notes: Dress Rehearsal: Putting It All Together | The Truth Hurts, Episode 27
You're carrying anger at someone who hurt you, and it feels as though forgiving them would mean signing off on what they did. Gili says that's exactly the mistake. Forgiveness is an inner process meant to free you from anger, from guilt and from feeling like a victim. It isn't for the other person. The hardest one, she says, is forgiving yourself. And without that, your subconscious will keep wrecking things.
Read the episode notes: What Does It Really Mean to Forgive? | The Truth Hurts, Episode 26
We have space flights and nanotechnology, and depression, anxiety and cancer are still turning into something close to an epidemic, which raises a question that's hard to dodge. The way Gili sees it, being Jewish is a state of consciousness you're born into, not a religion, and it has nothing to do with keeping the commandments. But the real question of Rosh Hashanah is responsibility, not identity. It's the moment you stop running and take full responsibility for what isn't working in your life.
Read the episode notes: A Sweet Start to the New Year | The Truth Hurts, Episode 25
You know exactly what isn't working in your life, and you stay in the same place anyway, another day, another month, another year. The way Gili sees it, being stuck is the gap between where you are and where you want to get to, and even without knowing exactly what you want, that gap on its own is what creates the heavy feeling. In most cases there's a part of us that actually gains something from being stuck, along with a deep fear of change that makes us prefer blaming outside forces to moving ourselves. The simplest question, and for that reason the most embarrassing one: what would you do tomorrow morning if nothing at all were holding you back?
Read the episode notes: Feeling Stuck and Finding a Way Forward | The Truth Hurts, Episode 24
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.
Read the episode notes: Getting Back into a Routine: Every Child Needs Something Different | Episode 23
You get angry, and then you get angry at yourself for being angry. Gili and Tal know that one from the inside. This week they both admit that they have moments they're less than proud of. Gili got to live it herself, right in the middle of putting together a workshop on releasing anger. The real problem is the shame about the anger, not the anger itself, and when you express it the right way it actually brings people closer instead of pushing them away.
Read the episode notes: Anger, Guilt and the Work of Forgiveness | Episode 22
You're waiting for the moment you'll know for certain that this is right, that he's the one, that this decision is safe and there's no way to get it wrong. That moment never comes, and it's not because there's something wrong with you. The way Gili sees it, certainty isn't sitting somewhere waiting for you to find it. It gets created the second you decide, the same way Spider-Man gets his powers only after he already believes in them. The question isn't how to find confidence. It's how to create it.
Read the episode notes: Why Do We Keep Chasing Certainty? | The Truth Hurts, Episode 21