A Breast Cancer Diagnosis May Be The Change You Need with Yaffa Palti

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Welcome to the Keeping Abreast podcast. I am so excited for you to meet my guest for today. I had the privilege of listening to her last week speak to my community. And I know that I speak often about my deep faith and my belief in God and that God has a plan for us, but that we all have to do our part. And we are approaching, as Jews, the time of the year where we're really reflective about what last year has brought and really deeply thinking about what that means for us for next year and how we can continue to elevate and do better. And I thought no better than to speak to that and to speak to change, because so often I don't get to interact with people until they're forced to change because they've gotten a diagnosis, because they've had some kind of catastrophic event that is forcing change. And I brought her here mostly to talk about the dynamics of why it takes all of that and how we can maybe live our lives in a way that doesn't necessitate emergency in order to change certain. So with that, I am delighted to introduce Yaffa Palti. She is a Torah educator, an independent thinker, a soul developer, a happiness cultivator, and she brings that skill set from the various amazing experiences that she's had in her life, starting in Brooklyn, going to Israel, then to Mexico City, then to San Diego, and now residing in Miami and really serving every community that she has been a part of with her very, very special soul. So, Yaffa, welcome.

Thank you so much, Dr. Dennett. It is such a pleasure to be here. It was an honor to meet you and thank you for having me here.

Well, it was just so special and just your. The way that you relate to everyone and your message really resonated with me. And so I wanted you to share that kind of persp with our listeners because again, people often don't come and don't commit to change until they have to change. So can you start to talk about what's going on there for people?

You know, you're so right. I feel like even when a person knows that creating a certain change in their life would make their life so much better, they still hesitate to do it. And I think I shouldn't even say they. I should say we. Yeah, everyone, everyone, all of us in our. In our own way, you know, dealing with our own stuff, you know, we. We just kind of get used to living in a certain level of discomfort, or we get used to living with a certain dysfunction, even in a certain pain and a certain Misery. We just get used to it. As human beings, we prefer known hells to unknown heavens. Yeah. If we know. If I open up door number two, an entire new life could be waiting for me. And everything that I've wanted and desired and prayed for and hoped for could be behind door number two. But that means I have to open up door number two, and I don't even know what I'm going to find. I don't know. It's probably amazing, but I'm scared. We get used to living in our comfort zones. We get used to even if the comfort zone is not so comfortable.

Yeah. I mean, a perfect example is the Passover story is slavery in Egypt, where when we look back, and I think. I think most people do not know this, but the vast majority of. Of people chose to stay.

Yeah.

It was a fraction, right?

Exactly. Yes. It's the Perfect example. Only 20% of the Jews actually left Egypt at the time. And the question is why? I mean, they were finally given an opportunity to be liberated, to be free from their enslavement, from their impression, from their abuse that they took for so many years. And 80% of them said, nah, I'm good. Right?

Yeah. Because the devil you know, right? You'd rather live in that hell.

Yeah. Yeah. And we do that so often. And of course, I say this with utmost sensitivity because I know there are some people living in difficult relationships and abusive relationships, toxic relationships, and they're not getting out. And I understand that there are so many reasons why it would be scary to leave, but that. That is what we're doing when we're in situations in life. You're in a job that really isn't serving you. You're in a relationship that's not serving you. You're. Whatever you're choosing to do in life, you're in a lifestyle that's not serving you right. You know, you're not eating well, you know, you're not sleeping enough, you know you're not getting enough movement in. And we tell ourselves these every day. Right. And every year. Every year at. Okay, for us, it's. It's the Jewish New Year now, But there's also January 1st. We all experience the new Year, no matter what culture we're in. And every year, whatever the new year is, this year is going to be the year, right? This year is going to be the year of me. It's the year that I am going to write my book. It's the year I'm going to start my podcast. It's the year I'M going to start my job, my career, my. The year I'm going to be the best mother, you know, I'm going to take care of my health. And then the year comes, the year goes. And at the end of the year, we say, what happened? This was just another year. It wasn't the year what happened.

And so what is happening there? I mean, why, why when we know that these things aren't serving us? I mean, certainly you, you understand someone not getting out of a difficult relationship, right?

Yes.

And I think most people know that even these emotional stressors have real physical consequences. And in fact, when we look at the breast cancer population, if you look at early breast cancers, 20% of them will have notable trauma in their past. But when you look at the metastatic population, the women that present with advanced disease, 80% of them will have had trauma in their past. And I don't remember who wrote the book, but there's a book, the Body is Keeping Score. And that is really what's happening in that these emotional traumas that we're experiencing, it doesn't have to be physical. Emotional traumas that we are experiencing are manifesting themselves as illness. And yet people stay, they stay in that job that they hate, that they dread, that they have a difficult boss or co worker or something, or just the nature of that job is so taxing on them, or they, they stay in a relationship that's not working for them or, and even like family relationships, I mean, there are some really difficult family relationships that people just stay in and continue to endure.

Yeah, they don't erect the necessary boundaries. They just kind of dance around that dysfunction.

Yeah, yeah, so go on about that more because you spoke a lot on Sunday about dancing around dysfunction. So what does that mean? What's happening there?

What that means is, is that we, we have a certain area of life that is not working the way it's supposed to be working. And we choose to ignore it. We don't want to actually face it. And we come up with different ways to either to excuse it or to deny it. And we live either in a state of excuses or in a state of denial. And we never actually take the steps necessary to create function out of the dysfunction. So we dance around that dysfunction with our excuses. We're like, oh, well, I can do this because. Or I don't have to do it because. And, and we did speak about on Sunday the detriment of excuses that, that it is the number one obstacle to growth because I'm a super creative person. Right. So I come up with the best excuses and every excuse I have, everyone believes them because they're great excuses, they make sense. Yeah, but the only person who does not believe my excuse is me. Because I know that it's just an excuse deep down. But I get a free pass when I have an excuse and I don't have to put in any work when I have an excuse. So that's the side that's looking positive at the moment that we make an excuse. I can get away with it. I can get away with it. That's short term pleasure. It's not long term pleasure. Because I will not have grown from that experience if I am always, always excusing myself for coming late, right? And I could have some great excuses. There's always traffic or there's always something. But I also know that I left my house 15 minutes late. So I'm never going to improve on my, in my temporal dysfunction. If I am always excusing myself, I need to own up and say, this is my problem. I need to learn to leave the house 15 minutes earlier. Once I stop excusing myself, I can make those changes. So we either live in a state of excuse where we're always looking for a way out and a reason why we don't have to take responsibility for this change that is necessary in life, or we live in a state of denial where we just don't want to see that there's even a problem. And again, because we don't want to make those necessary changes. So we will just, we'll close our eyes and ignore it and make believe it doesn't even exist.

So is this all about like fear of change, do you think? Yeah, and just people not wanting to venture into the unknown.

The unknown is a very, very scary place. And as we said before, even if on a subconscious level, you know that that unknown is going to be so much better for you, we're still afraid to take that step. I have people who call me all the time and say, if I don't do I hate my job, I don't get treat, I don't get paid enough, I'm not respected, you know. And I say to them, well, did you consider looking for a new job? And they say, oh no, no, no, I couldn't do that. Who said it's going to be any better?

Right?

Who said I'll get treated better? Well, who said you're not. But we're so afraid to take that step.

Yeah. Now, now some of that is innate. Some of that is built into us because, you know, we are modern beings living on a very old gene code. So from an evolutionary standpoint, if you left the safety of the tribe, if you didn't go along, if you took yourself outside of the safety of the tribe, the most likely scenario was that you would not survive. So there is something about us that goes along and gets along because we don't see being alone and going outside of the tribe as survival. And unfortunately, in modern times, what that has translated to is, well, I don't want to get a divorce, because, you know, that's just not society. It's not acceptable, or I'll be alone, or, you know, I don't want to stop drinking because all of my friends drink wine when we go out to dinner. And how am I going to. How am I going to do that? And oftentimes when you make these changes, these categorical changes, like even taking diet, for instance, if you're gonna. I'm not talking about, like, going on a diet, but if you're going to really change the way that you eat, it is very hard to do that in isolation. It's hard to do that if your family's not gonna do it, too. It's hard to do that if your friends are not gonna do it, too. And sometimes it means getting a different tribe. And that is frightening.

It's extremely frightening. We are hardwired for connection as human beings, and we're hardwired for support and for love. And those are the two main things that we need in life. These innate desires that we have are for love and connection. And if we don't have that, we actually spend our entire lives trying to find it. So if we're going to be finding it in a group of people where we're having a difficult time pursuing our highest calling, then we're going to always remain living our lower selves. So we have to make sure that we surround ourselves. You know, the. The. There's a quote. I don't know if I'm gonna say it right correctly, but the idea of this quote is, tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are. Have you heard that?

Yeah.

Right? Yeah. We are who we hang around with. Right.

And you are only as healthy as the five people closest to you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So the thing is, and we're going to go back to the story of Passover, when we were in Egypt, even the 20% who left. All right. Them leaving took a lot of courage, and that's why it's so important to understand this. The 80% who didn't leave were very afraid to leave because they didn't want to open up door number two. Even though they knew it was probably going to be better. 20% did leave. Does that mean that they were not afraid to leave? Of course they were afraid, but they left anyway. And that's what we call courage. People often think that courage means I am no longer afraid. So we wait to have courage until we're no longer afraid. We're going to wait forever. You're never going to not be afraid. Courage means I'm afraid, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm choosing to do it anyway. I'm going to push through my fears and I'm going to do it anyway. And that's what real courage is. And, you know, even after they left, if you read the story of after they left Egypt and they were in the desert for 40 years, you see them complaining a lot. They're complaining about this, they're complaining about that. It's in our DNA. Just complain, right? You know, we weren't happy here, we weren't happy there. And at one point, if you read the words and the verse over there, it even says that we miss the free fish that we had in Egypt. And you read that and you're like, what? Do you remember what Egypt was? No. You know, Disneyland. Egypt was. They were oppressed, they were abused. It was. It was.

They were demoralized with.

Demoralized. There was nobody giving out free sushi in Egypt.

Yeah.

What?

Right.

What's the free fish? Yeah. So what we understand from that interaction over there, they weren't really saying that they missed the free fish. We know they didn't have any of that. They were saying we missed our freedom in Egypt as opposed to now what's. What freedom in Egypt. Right. The freedom of responsibility. Because now that they were in the desert, they were actually heading to Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, which is a book of laws. It means now the Torah is a book of responsibility. I need to own up for my. To my actions. No excuses. There's a right and there's a wrong. There's moral, there's immoral. Right. So they were very afraid of having a life of responsibility. So what does it mean that they were free in Egypt? Because in Egypt they were victims. They were living in victim mode. So in victim mode, you don't have any responsibilities because everybody's out to get me. Right. It's again, that dance.

Well, and. And it's not your choice.

That's not right.

Your life Is not your choice.

No.

And I. I think that that is still true today where so many people would prefer to be the victim than to take responsibility and make. And have to make the choice, have to make the decision.

That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Nothing has changed since then. We prefer to be victims. And when we have excuses and when we, you know, when we do that dance of dysfunction, we're actually in victim. In victim mode. Right. Because this is not my fault. Right? This is why I do this and this is why I do that. And this is too hard for me. And this is. And again, I'm adding myself into this category. We all do it in our own way, right? Have every excuse possible as to why we can't do it. And it all boils down to me being a victim of this area of life or that area of life, of this personality flawless, of this spouse, of this child, of this life circumstance. And therefore, it's not the right moment for me to do it right now. And what we need to understand is courage means it's never the right moment until you decide it's the right moment that makes it the right moment. When you get up and you do it before you feel ready to do it, you just created the right moment for that thing to happen. And it doesn't mean you're not afraid anymore. Right? It means you're. You're afraid, but you're doing it anyway. You know, I. I've had many instances in my life where I was in situations that were very difficult for me. Very challenging for me. Some of them were physical, some were emotional, some were spiritual, some were intellectual. Right? We get challenged in many, many ways. And I have developed a game for myself that I call Truth or Dare. Now, this is not the same Truth or Dare that you play in seventh grade sleepovers. Okay? That was fun too.

Yeah.

This is. This is a much more learning experience of Truth or Dare. And the game is that I tell myself the truth is I'm scared to do this, but I dare myself to do it anyway. The truth is I'm feeling sad, but I dare myself to be happy anyway. The truth is I'm feeling lonely, but I dare myself to make connections anyway to get out of myself anyway. The truth is life is difficult and things are hard and things are not going the way I want them to go. But I dare myself to get up anyway every day and be my best self and put my best foot forward and try my best to live as fully as I can. That game of Truth or Dare is a game changer and it's a life changer because I'm never going to be ready. We're never going to be ready to do the things we have to do. We're never going to be in the mood to do the things we do. So there's this concept in the world of chemistry that's called activation energy. Activation energy is used when the energy in the chemical world is not flowing on its own and it needs an external stimulation to get it going. So once it is stimulated from an external source, the energy starts flowing on its own, the energy starts moving and then it starts flowing on its own. And us as chemical human beings, we also need to use activation energy. When we know that something is the right thing to do, even if we're afraid to do it, even if we've been dancing around the dysfunction for so long already, we need to stand up and say, but this is the right thing to do. This is going to make me healthier, this is going to make me happier. This is going to make me feel more fulfilled. I know it will. Even though I'm scared to do it, I have to get up and take that first step towards doing it. And that will get the activation flowing. It's unbelievable how that works. How many times do you cook, Dr. J?

I do, I do.

Okay, okay. How many times have you not been in the mood to cook for your family?

So that's unfortunately for me, it's most times.

Okay, I totally understand you. Listen, it is a two day holiday coming up for us right now. Rosh Hashanah. I'm having, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 people eating in my home. Okay. A lot of people. It's starting tomorrow night. I haven't even made my menu yet or started my shopping yet. You know, I've been busy with so many things. Do you think I'm in the mood really of standing in my kitchen and cooking for hours and hours and hours and hours? I'm not. I love hosting, I love my lifestyle, I love this holiday. But I'm not in the mood of doing it. Am I gonna do it anyway? You bet I am. Right? But what happens once when you push yourself to get into the kitchen you want? You're feeding your family, right? That's why you cook. Do you ever stand once you start? Once you start, you get into it and you're like, hey, this is fun, but starting is hard, right? Sometimes you're standing in the kitchen making dinner and you're like, again, they want to eat again. They Just ate yesterday. Like, why does it go? Need to eat again every day? Yeah, right? And it's like, ah, to push yourself into the kitchen. But once you start, you're like, okay, this is cool, this is great. I got it. And then you're proud of yourself. Look at the great meal I made, right? You have to start. That's the key. The key is starting. But you can't start when you're in victim mode. It's not the mindset it has to start. It's a mindset of saying, I got to get up and do it.

I couldn't agree more. What you're talking about is overcoming inertia. And you know, as a scientist, as you're talking about activation, energy, this is what you're talking about. You're talking about overcoming inertia. Because at first, when you have to overcome inertia, it's really, really, really, really hard, right? That first push, getting it going is really hard. And then once you get going and you have some momentum with you, it gets a whole lot easier, right? It changes immediately. And I think Mel Robbins wrote a book, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, where that is her method of getting over the inertia. It's like, don't think about it, because the more you think about it, the more excuses you're gonna come up with, the more victim mode you're gonna go into. Just don't think of a fit. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go.

Wow, I love that.

Over that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

I actually, like, use that with my kids when they were little. Like, please get up for school. It's time to get up for school. Please get up for school. You need to get up for school. And then I read her book and I was like, okay, boys, this is how it's going to go. Five, four, three, two, one. You're up. Or you get water poured on you.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like, those are the choices and.

Absolutely.

And it applies to so many areas of our lives, and there are so many not to say that you have to be perfect. And I know we spoke about perfectionism kind of being another one of those limits that you place around you, another one of those walls that you place around you to isolate you to prevent you from doing some things. Because if it can't be perfect, then you're not even going to start. You're not going to engage, you're not going to, you know, overcome that inertia. So in terms of diet, in terms of friendships, in terms of things that are holding you back that you Know, once you do that thing, it will be so much easier, and it's just so hard to get the courage to do that thing. Because it's scary. It's scary. But overcoming your fear and acting so that you don't end up with a diagnosis, so that you don't end up with something that's catastrophic. And oftentimes what we create in our mind is so much worse than the reality.

Yes.

Don't you feel that?

You know, it's interesting, by profession, I'm actually an addictions professional. That's what I. That's what I studied. That's my skill set. I don't actively work in addictions right now. What I do is actually addiction prevention. I try to help people fill themselves up from within so they don't feel that lack and need to replace that lack with something that can become an addiction. Right.

It has been in my experience, and maybe I'm. Maybe I'm wrong in my approach, but people who get addicted to alcohol, to drugs, to whatever it is that they're addicted to, I have always found that we need to replace that behavior with something that's healthy, with exercise, with spirituality, with. With something that can fill that void. And almost always people who are addicted or have addictive personalities, they are trying to mask the pain.

Oh, yeah.

So they have deep pain somewhere, and they're just doing whatever they can do, whatever is in their reach to try to mask that pain, to suppress that pain. Because when you're in pain all the time, it just feels really bad and you don't see your choices.

Right, Exactly. And, you know, this is. In my experience. How does addiction start? Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, you know what? I'm going to try being a heroin addict. That sounds like that way, right? Yeah. Most addictions. Again, in my experience, addiction begins when you either want to start feeling a certain way or stop feeling a certain way. When you either are living in so much pain that you need to numb it, or noise or chaos inside, you need to numb it, or you're not feeling anything, and you want to start feeling something. And so you reach for something to fill that void. And the reason it works is because in the moment, it does fill the void. In the moment, you feel lighter, you feel happier, you feel more connected, You. You did numb it, or you did make start feeling something. So it works. And then you just want more and more and more of it. And the thing with addiction is, is that we're not only referring to substance addiction. I think almost everyone we know probably has some sort of addiction today because there are so many behavioral addictions. We're all addicted to technology on some level. Right?

We're addicted and technology addiction is a huge thing for our youth.

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. It's a huge problem today.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we can go on and on about that. It's not our topic, but like, it's a problem. And it's a huge problem for adults too. It ruins marriages, relationships. Husbands and wives lie in bed side by side, each on their own device, not talking to each other, but getting their fix. Their social connections in the palm of their hand, which we know are actually counterfeit addiction. Counterfeit connections.

Connections, yeah.

Instead of connecting with one another.

They're not real.

They're not lying in bed and talking and connecting. No, they're on their devices and they each fall asleep. Right. It's. It's interfering with relationships, with. With thinking. We're getting all this information fed to us on a daily basis. Do you know how much information we're learning every day? We can't even comprehend all the things we're learning. Right. But it doesn't give us time to think independently. We've just become. We've fallen into group think in every area. We're not independent thinkers anymore. There's so many problems with it, but there are so many addictions. People are addicted to consumption. How many things do we consume? You. You open up any of these apps. Instagram, Tick Tock. And now there's a Tick Tock shop. All you do is buy, buy, buy. You click, click, click, click, click. Where does all this addiction come from? And people who have, you know, work addiction, whatever you name, all comes from some lack inside. When you're not living in completion, you're living in lack. And you're trying to fill that void so we can make a choice. Am I going to fill that void with something positive, with something healthy, with something that is going to change my life for the better? Or am I going to fill that void with something that's unhealthy, something that's negative, Something that's going to change my life for the worse? That's our job. And the thing about addiction is that we're trying to do something that's going to make us feel more comfortable in our skin. Right. That's where it's coming from. Right. More. I want to be more comfortable within myself. That something's bothering me. I'm not feeling. I'm feeling too much. And there is no growth that happens in the comfort zone. But the part of the problem is that we are so quick to run towards comfort. We don't embrace discomfort, and discomfort is so healthy. I'm just going to tell you a quick little example, if that's okay with you. One of my daughters, this is going back probably about 10, 12 years ago. We used to make a lot of weekend retreats for college students and, you know, connection. And we would teach a lot of Judaism and all different things. So this was during one of those retreats. My daughter at the time must have been about 10 years old. All right. And she has that type of skin. You know, some kids have that skin where when their lips get chapped, they get like a red ring around their lips.

Yes.

So my daughter used to have that when she was younger. Skin was very sensitive, and she had that over this particular weekend retreat. So I was giving a lecture. There must have been about three. I was only speaking to the women at that time. There must have been about 200 women in the room, college students. And we have a really nice lecture. And suddenly my daughter came into the room, and she was, you know, she had that red ring. And I stopped because she's my priority no matter how many people are in the room. Right. My child always comes first. So I stopped and I said, hi, sweetie. What can I do for you? And she said, my lips are really, really hurting me. Now, this was on. I just want to preface this by saying this was on Saturday, which is our Shabbat. And there are certain things that we don't do on Shabbat, Okay? And one of them is we don't put on creams, we don't put on makeup, any of that kind of stuff. So she said, my lips are really hurting me. Can I put on my cream? She had, like, a special cream. And I said, I'm so sorry, sweetie, but we can't put the cream on on Shabbat. I gave her some alternative options. I said, I have some baby oil. It'll soothe it for you. And Shabbat is over in three hours, and then you can put on the cream in three hours. And she said, okay. And she walked out of the room. Now, some of the women in that room were very disturbed. Like, the poor girl, her lips are hurting her. Why can't you make an exception and let her put the cream on? So I explained a little bit about Shabbat, and we could make exceptions, but usually when it's life or death, and this isn't life or death. But I said, even more than that, forget about Shabbat. I said, would it be so bad if she learns at this impressionable young age that it's okay for me to be uncomfortable for the next three hours? What's going to happen if I'm a little uncomfortable? And then in three hours, I'll make myself feel better? And that they understood. And then I changed the whole topic of our class to this topic. The importance of living a little uncomfortably. Right. What do we do? The second you get a headache, you run for the Tylenol.

I know, right? It's so true. We. We really. We won't tolerate any discomfort at all. That is our biggest barrier to growth. I have. I'm in a mentorship group, and we talk all the time about, you know, our success doesn't come from our successes. Our success comes from our failures. From getting it wrong and getting it wrong and getting it wrong and retooling it and refixing it and getting it wrong. And then, you know, finally, like, you're like, oh, my God, it worked. Like, I got it right. But you never get it right out of the gate.

That's right.

And you. You fail more than you succeed, and that's okay because that's where the growth comes.

Yeah, but that's one of the fears that people have when it comes to change. There's the fear of the unknown that we spoke about. There is the fear of failure, which is another huge fear that people have. I don't want to start on this journey because what happens if I fail? So people are so afraid to fail, and part of that reason is because we confuse failing with being a failure, and nobody wants to be a failure. So we don't want to fail without realizing that failing is actually a step towards success. You cannot experience success if you haven't experienced failure. Right. Failure helps direct you to the correct path for your success. So we're so afraid of failing that we don't even want to start. Now, here's the thing. And this goes back to what you were saying in your introduction to this podcast about how God provides for us, but we have to do our part. Right. I personally feel that fear of failure and a few other things, like imposter syndrome. Right. A few of these things, they mask themselves as humility. Right. Doesn't it sound humble to you to not, you know, to be afraid to fail, to be afraid of success as well, by the way, fear of failure, fear of success. It feels humble, right? Oh, you know, I'm afraid I'm just not going to start. I don't have to I don't have to be much, I don't have to be anything.

Imposter syndrome feels people also don't go for things for that same reason and appear to be humble in that I'm. I'm just happy with where I am.

Right, Exactly. I don't need to be more, do more. I'm okay. That is counterfeit humility. It's actually ego based because that means that I am just living for me. I'm the star of the show in this world and in this life, and I'll do what I'm comfortable doing instead of recognizing that God has a plan for us that's so much bigger because he expected us to partner with him in creating this world and to do much bigger and better things in this world. We're living for this world. We're living to do God's work in this world. And there's so much that we can do. We have to tap into the, into the potential that he's given us, tap into the talents he's given us, the strengths he's given us. And if we say, nah, I'm good, have to do more, we're literally like slapping God in the face and saying, I don't need what you gave me. I'm good where I am. Right. So it's not humility, it's ego based. And not only that, but to recognize when, if we're afraid of failure. In essence, what we're saying is I'm doing all this work alone and I don't know how to do it. So I'm going to fail and I'm going to be a failure. Which really isn't the truth because everything we're doing, we are partners with God and God is doing with us. And so we need to tap into that and say, okay, God, this is. I know this is what I should be doing. I don't think I can do it alone. I don't really know how to do it. I don't even know how to start. I need you to help me. Let's do this together. And that's humility.

And again. And that's courage. Right?

That's doing it.

Acting in the face of your fear.

Acting in the face of your fear and knowing that you can do this because you were created with the potential and the, the. And the possibility to be able to do whatever you want to do and whatever you know is the right thing to do.

Yeah. So this is the time of the year for Jews everywhere to be reflective about that and to ask, you know, Many people think that Rosh Hashanah is about celebrating the new year, but that's not really what it's about, is it?

No.

So can you, can you educate people? Because I, I, I think that this is a concept that all of us need to be doing at least every year, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. For sure. Rosh Hashanah literally means. These are Hebrew words. Rosh means the head. Shanah means the year. It's the head of the year. So using the word roche, which means head, okay. A lot of it takes place in our mind. It's about a mindset. And, and that's where all growth happens, and that's where all change happens. Everything begins with our thoughts, right? We create vibrational energy in this world through the things we do, through the things we don't do, just our actual presence, through our words, through our thoughts, right? We're creating that energy now. We give off any kind of energy, any kind of vibe, no matter what we do. But those are vibes that we're not, that are not intentional. Our job is to use our heads. I use our thoughts to create and deliver deliberate vibes. What is the energy I want to put forth into this world, to help create this world and to create my own life? What's the energy I want to put out there? So the first thing we need to understand is what is the actual role of that day of Rosh Hashanah? And that is inviting God into our lives. Literally, what we just said before, it's, you know what, what I like to call it, It's International God Day, right? We have the International Donut Day and International Cat Day. We have Mother's Day. What are those days all about? Those days are all about, right? Mother's Day. It's the focus on mom, or it should be, right? We bring her breakfast in bed. She gets the jewelry or the flowers. She gets the spa. It's all about Mom. And we step aside for that day. That's Rosh Hashanah. In the prayers. On our regular prayers, we speak. We have a lot of requests in the prayers. On a regular day, we ask God for health. We ask God for wisdom. We ask God for resources. Whatever it is that we need on Rosh Hashanah, there are no requests in our prayers because it's not about us. It's a day where we step back and we invite God in and we say, God, please be a part of my life. I want you to be my king. I want you to be my father. I want you to be my king. And I am here to serve you. And it means that I am willing to be humble enough to bow my head down, which is hard, right? It's hard for us to let go of our pride and say, I want to be your servant. It's hard to do that, right? But that's the, this is the day when we step back and we say, I want to serve you on your terms and not on my terms, right? This is the day. This is about you, God. Every day is the day that we focus on what we want. This is what I want, this is what I want to be, this is what I want to get. So I want to feel. Today is about you, God. So that's the main point. And the cool thing about inviting God into your life is that God is a very, very polite guest. He really only comes where he's invited. If you don't invite him into your life, he won't overstep your boundaries. He'll say, okay, you don't want me there, I won't be there. But if you want me in your life, I'm here for you. You just have to invite me in. And the amazing thing is he's the best guest you can ask for because when he does come, when you invite him and he comes, he brings the best gifts.

Oh, it's amazing.

I love that, right? He brings blessings, he brings gifts, he brings health, he brings whatever you need.

Now there is still the concept of, you know, when bad things happen to good people, but I, I want to move more towards what you were talking about, the mindset, the story. Because so often I meet with people that are still in that victim place. This is still what's happening to them. They don't have a choice. And the story that you tell yourself really matters because it's your self fulfilling prophecy. It's the energy you're putting out there, right? And if that's. Even if you are someone who is deeply spiritual, even if you are someone that believes in God and believes you, you are connected to God, if you're, if you're telling yourself the story that I'm not going to have good health, that this is not achievable for me, that this is not attainable for me, then that is going to be your.

Reality a thousand percent. You know, we live in a universe that is based on the coexistence of opposing forces, right? Or opposing values like for example, light and dark, rest and activity, right? Hunger and satisfaction. We live with the experiences of wanting and having at the same time. And you know, on that note, we live also with so many opposing forces within, right? And in the whole world around us, the people that. That we end up marrying, the children that we give birth to, there are so many opposing forces. And the idea, the word universe, did you ever notice that it has the word uni in it? It starts with, there's a unification process that is needed to balance out the universe, to balance out the word, the world. What's the definition of unity? Unity is by essence, the unification of two or more opposing forces. That if you can, if you think about unification through similarity, that isn't unification. It's just an extension of you. But in order to create actual unity, they have to be opposing. So we live with this polarity in life, and it's very normal, and it's a very part of life, a very big part of life. So, you know, so within that polarity that we have two modes that we can choose to live in. The first mode is what I like to call remain and Complain. Remain and complain is. This is where I am staying in this part of my life, that, that I like to call contrast. Right? We can live in contrast or we can live in clarity. Contrast is when your. When your outer reality is not aligned with your inner desire. This is not the life I asked for. This is not the circumstance I asked for. This is not what I want in life. It's what I have. It's not what I want. So there's this conflict that we're living in these two opposing energies. And that's called living in contrast. So living in contrast means I am living in this mode where I remain and complain. This is not what I asked for. I don't like this. I'm a victim of it. Or we have the option to live in what I like to call the presence of possibility, which is when we move from contrast to clarity and say, this is what I have. This is the circumstance in my life that is an external reality for me. It is not aligning with my internal desire. But what is it that I do want? I'm living in what I have. Okay, how do I get out of victim mode? What do I want? This is what I have. This is what I want right now. We all have this. We all have these opposing forces inside of us, and we all have these two paths. The path of remain and complain or the path of the presence of possibility. And you, and only you alone can create your reality based on where you put your focus. Which mode are you choosing to live in? That's it. It has nothing to do with your actual circumstances in life. Circumstances in life aren't. Could be neutral the way we see them. And again, it doesn't. Sometimes it can change the actual circumstance when you change your mindset, but sometimes you won't even change the circumstance, but you'll change your quality of life. Right. You can have a much happier life when the mindset is focused on the positive as opposed to the negative force.

So it's so true. And I. Someone approached me recently and, you know, she said, will you help me? And I don't have any money and I can't eat healthy and I can't do this and I can't do that. And her mind was just. She was full of. I can't. And I said, I actually can't help you because the story that you're telling yourself is that you can't be helped. So until you change that story, until you change that narrative.

Yeah.

And I. I remember speaking to a friend recently, and she said, you know, at this time of the year, this is the time for that clarity.

Yes.

Ask. Ask for what? Know what you want, Right. Know what you're working towards.

Yes.

Because unless you have that vision, unless you know what you want, the journey itself, the path to get there actually doesn't matter because that's going to happen if you decide that you're going to get there.

Yeah. And that.

I know that I'm going to sell a lot of books this year. Right. I don't know how I'm going to sell a lot of books, but I know I'm going to sell a lot of books.

Yes.

Right. Because I've decided that. And that has great clarity to me. And when I decided that, since I decided that I've been approached by publishers, I, you know, like, things are happening because of that, Right?

Yes. That's amazing. And you know what's so fascinating about that? You created that chain of possibility for yourself through your thoughts and through your words. That's how we create things. And we often talk about these vibrations that we create, this positive energy. And what we don't realize is we're also creating vibrations of negative energy. This is what we don't like to admit to, but we find is, why does this keep happening to me? Right. Over and over again. And we know it's true. When you have that day where one thing goes wrong and then everything just seems to go wrong, or that life or, you know, whatever it is. And we don't attribute that to the vibrations that we're creating. We only attribute the positive side. But we have this, this, you know, duality within us there. We have both sides, and we're the ones who choose whether it's going to be positive or negative. And that's what actually keeps happening. We create those cycles. And the way it happens is that when we say, for example, if you say don't. I don't know, let's use the example.

I have a great example of this because it just happened. So my son got headphones for his birthday, very expensive headphones. And the first thing my husband said to him was, don't lose them.

Yes.

Now, what do you think is going to happen to these headphones when you give a gift and say, don't lose it. Right. You are almost guaranteeing that that's going to happen. And I stopped him as it was coming out of his mouth. I was. Will take great care of these headphones. Yes.

That is the mindset. That's the shift. Exactly. That's such a perfect example. You know how often when your child is a small child pouring a glass of milk or a cup of juice, you say, don't spill it. Don't spell what's gonna happen. You're putting the attention on the spill it. You are putting the attention on the lose it. Even though you said the word don't first. So what would be. So your shift was great. What would be a shift? Instead of telling your child, don't spill, you could say, please pour it carefully. Right. You know, it's. It's an unbelievable shift of thought and of speech that could literally reality, you know? Do. Do you have a dog?

I have three of them.

Okay, so you'll. So let's say you tell your dog, we're not going for a walk.

What's your dog all.

He heard what?

He's going to get the leash.

He heard walk. He's ready to get the leash. He's out the door. He heard walk. Yeah, right. He didn't hear the don't we. And our subconscious is like that too. Right. Even use a toddler, you tell a toddler, you know, same thing. We're not going to the park. They're running into their stroller. They're out the door. They heard the word park. Yeah. Toddlers, babies, children, adults, on a subconscious level, we don't hear the word don't. We don't hear the word not. We just put our attention to that. If you Google right now, if you Google no football, what's going to come up?

Football.

Every single team.

Every single one.

Yeah. Everything about football. Right Because Google doesn't acknowledge. No, it just acknowledges football. And that's the way our brains work. You know, if you're driving down the highway and you, you know, you skid and you're heading 70 miles an hour towards this huge chunky tree in front of you, you're staring at the tree, you're saying, don't hit the tree. Don't hit the tree. Don't hit the street, what's going to happen? You're going to hit the tree. If you look past the tree to the side of the tree and you say, go to the side of the tree. Go to the side of the tree. Go to the side of the tree. You're going to go to the side of the tree. Wherever you put your focus and your attention to, that's the reality that you create.

Yeah.

So that's the next part of Rosh Hashanah. You asked me what the energy is. So the part one is that this is a day of God where we humble ourselves in front of Him. Part two is this. It's this day of reflection. It's this day of saying, how can I serve God in the best way that I can? I could only serve him when I am my best self. So here's where I need to be because I have to come before God with confidence. We can't come as victims. We can't come as, as, you know, feeling insecure about ourselves and uncertain about ourselves. We come with confidence and we say, God, look at me. Look at this person I've become. Look at all the things I've done this year. Look at my growth. Look at my, at the person that I've become that I've worked so hard to get to. Look at my courage. Look at the things I've overcome. Look at my game of truth or dare that I've played all year. Right? I need you to give me all these resources again so that I can use them to serve you even better. And I need to give me even more resources so that I can serve you as the best me. And that's how we request for things at this time of year. It's all about reflection. It's, it's, it's this level of confidence that we know our worth, we know who we are when we're afraid of failure. That often also comes from a level of insecurity. We don't have enough faith in ourself and belief in what we're capable of doing. And, and we don't believe enough in our strength that we can get through A failure. That's okay. So I failed. I don't think it. Taking it personally. Becoming a failure is a lack of confidence.

Yes.

That's what we learn from this time of year. You know, it's a mindset shift because we said Rosh Hashanah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a little play on words with Hebrew right now for all of you out there. Okay? Shana, we said means year, but the root of the word shana comes from another word in Hebrew that's shinoi, which means change. This is the time of year where we have. We have to change. We said roche means head. We change our heads. Right. This doesn't mean getting a head transplant. This means we change our mindset. We change what's going on in here. We change our narrative, we change our story. You've had a narrative for all these years. Wonderful. But is that narrative working for you? If it's not, we have to be humble enough to get up and say, this isn't working for me. I need to focus somewhere else now. I need a new mindset. What mindset is going to serve me better? Have I been too negative? Have I been too judgmental? Have I been, you know, too narrow in my vision? What needs to change? What do I need to change that's more positive so that I can bring more abundance into my life, so I can live in completion instead of living in lack. So I could connect to God with confidence, so I'll be able to be humble. You can only be humble when you're confident. Arrogance comes from low self esteem. Humility comes from confidence.

Yes, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I think that nowhere is it more relevant and important than for someone who is going through a health journey, cancer journey, where you have to shift that mindset and you have to shift from a focus on disease because what we think about grows. So if all you're going to focus on is the tumor, then that is all that you're going to get met with. That's your don't. Right. The tumor is your don't. And if you. And if you focus on the tumor, I don't want my tumor to grow. Well, guess what? All you're going to get is tumor growth out of that. And so it's about shifting that mindset to I want health.

Yes.

Right. And I want to do the things that build health. And when you tell yourself that story and believe that you can live in abundant health.

Yes.

That is when things start to change and you overcome your inertia. To get there.

Exactly. It's getting out of contract. Living. Living with that fear of the tumor growing is living in contrast, right? This is the unwanted reality. Right? The unwanted reality, the unwanted fear. Okay? The thing is that the thing you fear most is the thing that you can cause to happen. So you have to get out of contrast mode and into clarity. Clarity is what I do want. So we have to train our minds to start to stop thinking about what we don't want and start thinking about what we do want. And once we get into what I do want, and that, by the way, is how we can get out of that, that pattern of thinking when we find ourselves being. Don't, right? Don't do this, don't do that. Stop for a minute and say, okay, what can I do? What do I want to do? It's just that quick shift, just. And it all, it all happens in the head. That's it. It happens up here. Okay? And even if it's a little hard in the beginning, because thoughts are habits. That's all they are. They're habits. You have developed a pattern of thinking. So your default is to go to that habit. Knowing that thoughts are habits means that we can change our habit. We can change it. How do you change it? Well, there are many different ways to change it. One thing we spoke about actually on Sunday was identity change. And that's why this is so important. It's identity change. If I say, if I have this narrative in my mind that I've had for a while, this narrative of I can't, I can't do this. Right? I am not capable of doing this, then your behaviors align with that identity. All the choices you're going to make are going to be choices that prove to you that you actually can't do it.

Yeah, right. See?

See, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. You're right. You can't do it. But if you change your identity, if you become a person who says, I can do it, I absolutely can. Once you create that changed identity, your behaviors will align with that new identity. And they're going to prove to you once again that you are right, that you can do it. There's. There's a famous quote that I know I've heard for years and I absolutely love it. And I only discovered last month who the author of that quote is. The quote is whether you believe you can or you believe you can't. You're right. It's an amazing quote. It's been one of my favorite for years. And I just discovered last Month that Henry Ford is actually attributed to that quote. But that's what it is. Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't. You're right. You're right. So. So that's, that's what's important to understand. We need that identity. Oh, but after that, after you change your identity, you become an expert at whatever you practice. Right. How does an expert swimmer become that expert swimmer? He practices and practices, or she. Right. 10,000 hours singer, a professional singer. 10,000 hours minimum. Okay. Have you become a professional? You're way more than 10,000 hours of practice. Right. You become an expert at whatever you practice. If you practice anxiety, you will become an expert in anxiety. If you practice thinking negative thoughts, you will become an expert in negative thinking. If you practice positivity, positive thoughts, you will become an expert in positive thinking. Right. So it just takes. The beginning is a little hard to take those first steps to train your mind to get out of this pattern, create a new pattern. But you start with an identity change. You start with saying, you got used to saying, I can't change my lifestyle. I can't, you know, get up every morning extra early and go walking, even though I know it's better for me. I know it's better for my health. I can't do it. I'm not the person who can do it. I can't do it. I tried so many times. And we dance around our dysfunction. We dance in our excuse mode. Right. If you change your identity and say, I am a person who gets up in the morning, gets out of bed, puts on her sneakers and goes for a walk, that's me. I'm that person. You change that identity, and then your behaviors will align behind that new identity.

Just remembering that everything is impossible until someone does it.

Yes.

Right. And that truth, truthfully, positivity is endless. Right.

It's.

It's. It's infinite. Possibility is infinite, and you just need to overcome that inertia and get yourself started on, on the path and just be very clear about where you want to go and you will get there.

Exactly. You know, I always think about the Wright brothers who invented the airplane. Yeah. At the time, you know, they. They were thinking about it, and everyone that they mentioned the idea to said, it can't be done. You can't have something heavier than air fly through the air without realizing that they were watching all the birds who are heavier than air fly through the air. It was right there. Right. And until they said, yes, it can be done. Right. They didn't have any of the support. And then they did it because they were determined to do it. And they said, we're going to do it, and we're not creating airplanes over here. We're not. You know, we don't have to become the Wright brothers. But I do think that it's ironic that their name is. Right. Right. It's a positive name. It's like, I can do this. Yes, I can. It was just. It was in their identity by their name. Right. Okay. So, yeah, I think that's. That's really the message here today, that we can do it. And only because we've developed behaviors and habits and patterns where we didn't do it doesn't mean we can't change those to do it. Yeah.

So, I mean, how you live your life is really ultimately a choice. Right. I talk to my patients all the time, and I want to be clear that cancer is not. It's no one's fault. Right. And this isn't about blame or shame, but what you do with that diagnosis, that is a choice. And you can either choose to embrace it as an opportunity or you can see it in that victim mode that you talked about. Well, and these. And they will lead to very different outcomes.

Absolutely. You know, we are not responsible for the circumstances in our lives, necessarily. Right. But we can take responsibility for the quality of life that we're going to have regardless of those circumstances, because our quality of life has nothing to do with the circumstances. In fact, I just uploaded a video last night to Instagram where I was talking about the book of life, because that's very popular. It's the most. The best selling book this time of year. Everyone wants to be in the book of Life, but people are concerned, will I get written in the Book of Life? What do I do to get rid of the Book of Life? And my message in that video was, you are the author of the book of life. You get to choose whether you're going to be in that book or not. Because we're not talking about a physical life or death. We're talking about what kind of life are you living. Are you living a life of mere existence where you just have a heart that beats? Right. Anyone can have a heart that beats. That's not the point of life. The point of life is to have a heart that sings, to live with purpose, to live with meaning, to enjoy every day, to live with enthusiasm, to live with. With positive energy in life. That's the idea. So when you write that book, you know, when. When you choose to write that book, you know, to put yourself in the book of life. That's what you're saying. I am choosing that this year I am going to live a life that is not just a life of existence, but it's a life of, of, you know, living actually fully. Because there's a difference between being alive and living. Eight billion people are alive.

Sure.

How many of them are living?

Yeah.

Any. Right. Yeah, that's the idea. It's not about being alive. It's about living.

Yeah.

And Right.

That is a choice. That is a choice.

Choice. And here's the thing. Somebody actually DM'd me this morning and said, I love that message. But isn't it a little difficult for people that are struggling with like, serious health issues? Isn't it hard for them to hear that message? And that's when I. I re. Explain. We're not talking about things that are not in our control. We're not talking about challenges that people have and that people struggle with. Those things are inevitable and they're nobody's fault. What we're talking about here is no matter what it is that we're experiencing in life, we might not be able to change those circumstances, but we get to choose our quality of life no matter what it is that we're living in. And we can be in that book of life and we can be living every single day. We wake up again with the choice. Today is going to be the day that I choose to live.

Yeah. And even though today might be my reality with clarity and knowing what you want, if you want to shift it, you can. Because if you say this is my life, then that's all it's ever going to be. Yeah.

That's all it's ever going to be. And you're always going to be in victim mode and you're always going to be again looking for those excuses. And nothing will change if we don't stand up and own up and take responsibility for our part. What's our part? Our part is the future. Our part is how can I take all of those desires that I have and bring them into my reality I'm living. In contrast, I don't like what's happening in my life right now. I don't like this feeling, I don't like this illness, I don't like this whatever, so what do I want? And we can actually create that reality for ourselves. We can bring all of those things that we know are waiting for us, you know, those desires. We can bring them into our now present experience.

Such an awesome time with you. I so appreciate your time. I appreciate your perspective. It's so beautiful. And I love what you share with the world. Your. Your commitment to helping people to overcome addiction, to overcome their limitations that they're putting on themselves, and to help them to achieve happiness and really fill their lives with positivity. Not toxic positivity, not false positivity, but with. With the potential and to really live in alignment with your purpose.

Thousand percent. That's the idea of Truth or Dare. It's that it's not toxic positivity, it's actual positivity. It means. Yeah, my truth is, this is hard. I'm aware of things that are difficult in life. It doesn't mean neglecting, ignoring, denying that things are difficult. I'm aware. But I dare myself to do it anyway, because I can. I can do it anyway.

Amazing. Where can people hear more of you?

So right now, my main platform is Instagram. I am actually building my website now, so I'm hoping that I'll have that. But I do a lot of online courses. If they follow me on Instagram, they'll hear about all the things that I offer. But that's the main place to reach me now.

Wonderful, wonderful. And what's your Instagram handle?

It is my name Yaffa Pelti. Y A F F A P A L T I keep it simple.

Awesome.

Awesome.

This has been an amazing, amazing conversation. Something that is so needed, I think, that people need to know that you have so much more power than you, than you think.

Yes.

Right. And that we actually play a very active role in creating our reality. Of course, everything that we have, everything we. That we are, is from God. But that you can't tap into that unless you participate in that relationship.

Yes, absolutely. A thousand percent. That's what it means to be a partner with God. He does his, we do ours. We're partners. We work together.

Yeah. Amazing. I wish you a very, very happy New Year.

Thank you.

And. And it should. It should be sweet and bring you all the joy and nachos and everything that. That you. That you envision for this year.

Amen. Same for you. And it should be a year for and for all of everybody listening. Right? Blessings for everyone. Whether you keep this as your new year or not, you know, we can always, always accept blessings. And it should be a year for everybody and for you, Dr. Jen, filled with clarity, filled with abundance in every area of life, and filled with love, connection, inner peace, joy. And everything that you ask for should be answered with revealed goodness.

Amen. It's Dr. Jen. Bye for now.

Sam.