A path to true happiness - How to win over sadness and depression and come out a winner. #podcast

Hello, Dr. Yehiel Harari.

Hello, my friend.

Thank you for joining me today in such a short notice. It was such a busy week. I really felt almost an urgency to call you and to talk to you about a very, I think, in-demand subject, something that everybody is struggling with to some level, to some degree. And also this week, Tanya also talks about it a lot. And I think that you are one of the most qualifying individuals in the world, probably, in Jewish psychology that could break down this subject to us and help our audience and provide maybe tools to win over this thing called sadness, depression. Now, you wrote this book, it's called "Lanatziah Kol Rega Mechadash," it's "Winning Every Moment." We have the English web version, I think.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, this is, I think, one of your only books that has been translated to English, right? "Winning Every Moment." And I actually, you gave me some copies, if you remember, before, and I gave it to some of my friends, and the feedback on this book were amazing. It really, really is a book that turns you into a fighter, into a warrior in the war that is happening within each and every one of us every moment. So, so let's just really answer one of the most critical questions about depression and sadness. Where does it come from and how do we win it?

I want, if you will allow me, to start with another question, which I think it's the most important one that will help us overcome it. The first question I think that we have to face is, why do we need to overcome depression, anxiety, sadness? Why? What's the problem with sadness? It's such a natural tendency, such another natural emotion. Because what happens when sadness overcome us it's that you do not discover your inner attributes, you do not discover your powers, you do not fulfill what you have to do in your life in this reality. Because what happens when I'm in modern psychology, they do the separation between moods and sadness. A bit sadness, it's okay, go to drink coffee with your friends, drink beer and everything will disappear. But something clinical, something very, you have to work on it and to go to therapy. But there is no such a separation. We have one soul. You neglect your soul and you do not consume the right nutrition to yourself. You don't feed your soul with the right food that it needs. So you go from sadness to depression. And that is the why. What do I mean? If you do not take care of yourself, if you don't know why you are sad, why you are in moods, you will find yourself. In short term or long term, in some kind of depression. And depression, that means that your emotions got very strong. It gets out of measurement and it now controls you. What happens when you are in depression? You are being controlled by your emotion. What causes this emotion that you thought, I wanted something in reality to happen. I wanted things to go that way and things does not go as I wanted. What is happiness as opposed to? Happiness is the state of mind, is the mindset that everything is correct and is precise for me. And everything that happens, everything in the creation, everything in my inner world, everything that I meet, it's precise to me even though that does not go as I wanted, as I wished from the beginning. So depression in a way, and depression and sadness, and it's like it's a state of mind that I thought to myself. You know, pay attention. Most of the people that are getting into depression, they are very qualified. They are very unique. They have unique set of skills. They thought to themselves that they will succeed in this life, that they will do things, that they will influence. The most important thing that somebody that is depression, that is saying to these therapists, to his rabbi, it doesn't matter whom, he is saying, oh, I want to influence. I want to bring something to the world, but I don't know how. Or I don't know if someone will listen to me. I have no listeners. I want to influence and nobody receives from me. And the main cause for depression is that you want to be an influencer, but there are no receivers. You think it's very subjective thing. No, Jordan Peterson got into depression, kind of depression and anxiety after he was so successful in from 2019. It was so successful and he found himself hospitalized in different hospitals in Europe. Why? Because it's very subjective. I thought, I want to give more. I want somebody to understand me, to understand my message, but I don't know how to convey, how to say my message, how to give it to the world. Nobody, I have no clicks. That's why you started that it's a pandemic. You know, young people, are waiting for someone to give them like on Facebook, that matter on YouTube, and when they do not get those likes, they feel they're worth nothing. I had plans, I worked, and now I'm worth nothing, and now I'm not influencing, and nobody wants to listen to me, and we are being controlled by others. And the result here, just to finish the idea, the result is that you do not fulfill your inner attributes. Something does not go right, okay, I won't deliver the class, okay, I won't do that, okay, your podcast is not successful enough in your subjective eyes, so you said to yourself, okay, I won't upload another episode. Why? Because I'm seeing a bit of sadness, but this is very small sadness. When you go to the extreme, you feel, what if someone, when somebody, you want to understand sadness and depression goes to those that say to themselves, okay, I have nothing to do in this life. I want to live. I want to be influencer. I don't want to be alone. But I feel that nobody is listening to me. Nobody wants to receive from me. And when I say I want to have friends, it means I want to influence others. I want to accept from them that they will accept me, that they will listen to me. And he said to himself, at the extreme, he said to himself, he says to himself, I cannot live this life because I have no purpose, no value, no, I cannot, I cannot, I don't know what is my value. Right.

So, so basically what you're saying in other words is that people who have a tendency for depression are usually people that have tremendous potential to bring something valuable to the world and because they are not bringing that value to the world, they're feeling they're lacking something and that's kind of put them in depression. But it's also also very egocentrical, you know, like in a sense, because when people are falling into that depression, what happened? They are becoming, it's all about them. And not only that it's all about them, it's the easiest route because now you're just saying to yourself, you know what, I don't have to do anything. I'm just going to stay in my room. I'm going to watch Netflix shows and I'm not going to, I don't have to work hard. I don't have to be nice to people. I don't have to, I don't have to think. I don't have to really do anything. And another thing that you said was that sadness, when sadness begins at the lowest level of it, if it's not really addressed right away, it could lead to depression. And depression in its extreme form could actually lead somebody to say, why am I even alive? What is life for? Which is very, very sad. So we understand that there is this force that actually, you know, it's coming from obviously not, you know, the godly part of the human being. It's coming from, you know, the other side of the other part of the human being. And that part is sometimes it could be very sneaky. You know, it could make us think that, yeah, that's the right thing for us to do. We don't have to really do anything. We can just sit in the room and watch TV and not not care and not care about people.

I won't be judgmental, I won't be judgmental because, you know, when you're in depression, you feel that it's so hard to you even to open the window and to let the light get inside your room. It's so dark, everything, you want to close everything.

Exactly, exactly.

Because depression takes you down.

Right, I don't want to be, God forbid, judgmental over somebody with depression because I think everybody is suffering from it to some degree. It's a human thing, you know, it's like something that we have to Fight.

It's a natural emotion. And he said at the beginning, if I can add one remark, he said at the beginning something very powerful. The source to all undesirable negative emotions is the ego. The ego is very Freudian. It's from Freud. In Judaism, it's called the Yeshut, my existence. Everything is connected to my existence, all the negative emotions.

My existence or my sense of self?

It's sense, you're right, it's sense of self.

Sense of self.

In Hebrew, sense of self, that's right, that's the right translation. But in Hebrew, existence, it's like, I feel myself. I feel myself exist. That's the meaning, maybe it was the wrong translation. When you talk to someone with depression, doesn't matter how much he is in depression in, but you talk to him and you see that he cannot get out of himself. You cannot speak with him about anything. Else. He is speaking only about himself, about his troubles, what he is doing. You are trying to tell him, come on, okay, I know you have a problem with that thing, with this issue, you do not have children, you do not have problems with this, you are not married. But see how many kind things, you have so much good things in your life, so much light, so much kindness and try to see it and he cannot see the bright, the good things in his life. Why? Because is being occupied by this undesirable emotion, which is the source of it. It's my self-existence, the feeling that it's all about me. And that's so, just to catch the point, instead of influencing content and to deliver something, I have mission that I have. When you have mission, you cannot allow yourself to be in a mood of sadness. You know, you say to yourself, okay, I want to be sad, things do not go as I wanted, but I don't have time to it now. Now I need all of my spiritual, emotional, I want to be full of motivation, I must be energetic, it's like I cannot allow myself now to be in a sense of—

It's almost like a luxury, you know, in a sense it's a weird luxury, but it's almost like a luxury because you are, saying, you know what, I have all the time in the world, all the resources in the world, I'm just gonna delay, delay, delay, delay, delay my progression or my, you know, my coming out to the world and bringing the value that I'm supposed to bring to the world. Because each and every human being have a specific value, a specific mission, something that only they can bring to the world. And there is actually people waiting to receive that value, and that value could like really make a big difference in their life tremendously. People, I think that they just don't understand how valuable they are themselves and how much they really need to get out there. So now that we really understand what is depression, why are people falling into it, and what does it really do to us, The next thing will probably be, how can we overcome this thing? How can we fight this thing? How can we get out of this?

Let's start with a few ideas, a few very important ideas. First one, the sooner that you will try to struggle with it and overcome it, it will be easier. If you are in the middle of a very hard depression, it's harder. So you have to start You have to prevent to eat, you know, you take all kinds of things that help you prevent diseases. That's, you have to take few things that will help you prevent, you know, things that will put you into depression. It's like change your view on reality, see things differently. So first thing, few ideas that the Alter Ego is trying to point on and they work very strong. First thing, You must have, you must work on your thoughts. What are the thoughts of depression? I cannot do things that not go in the right direction. I don't know what to do. It's like without controlling and navigating the thoughts, you will be controlled by your thoughts, but not by your thoughts, by your undesirable, by your negative emotions that will control your thoughts. So you have to to pay attention to your thoughts. What am I thinking about? Am I thinking about negative things, destructive things, the things that will not go where they want to? Or am I trying to find the positive thing in everything that I'm doing? That's for one thing. Working on thoughts, we'll talk about it in another episode. It's something very important. Without understanding your thoughts and understanding your thoughts as the garment of your inner soul, because everything that you have, all your inner powers are being Illuminate in the thoughts, everything in the thought, the thought is the arena where all the battles. That's it, that's it.

That's the battlefield, this is where the war begins.

A second thing is to know how to be a receiver. A receiver will never get into depression. Why? What does it mean a receiver? A receiver, a real receiver, is someone that is now learning, is open to accept something from others. Other ideas. And now when I'm accepting others, I cannot be in a mood of, I do not influence enough, because now I'm learning, now I'm accepting, now I receive, now I have awe to others, now I have reverence, now I know I need to take one step backward. To be coachable. To be?

Being coachable, in a way.

That's it. That's it. When you are coming to a class, to a party, and you are thinking about, how am I looking? What people think about me? Why do I not get the respect that I deserve? And etc., etc. It will get you into some kind of bad mood because you are in stress waiting for others. Others control you. But if you are getting into a party and now you are seeing others and you want to listen. Oh, Uzi, I want to hear about your life and I want to see new friends and to have new meetings. I'm coming in a different attitude. A different that I'm coming to learn. It helps me to, you know, to put aside all the stress and sadness. That is one thing. And to be a receiver, it's a very important thing. The second thing, or the third thing, is to be an influencer. You know, most of the people who said that they are getting into depression are very, very talented people. Very talented. They have what to give to the world. Everyone has what to give to the world. But when I have this kind of mentality that I am about about thinking what do I need to do and what is the truth. I will not get into depression because I'm thinking, I'm looking for the truth. When I'm looking for influencing, it's something else. I want others to receive from me. So the third thing, which is a very important one, is not to mix between myself and the thing that I want to influence. The thing that I want to influence, it's my message to the world. It's my emissary, it's what I want to bring. And each one of us is bringing something to the world. And when I concentrate about myself and not about bringing what I have to bring, it's always about me. So I can receive, I cannot, I can be in a good place, not good. It's all about me. When it's about me, it's like I'm in a place that I can fall into depression because things will not go as I wanted. But when it's all about I am only a wagon to this mission. I am only bringing for you. So I don't really, it won't be really, it won't make the change. If you say to me, Yechiel, I read your book, it's a wonderful book. Oh, I didn't read your book. Oh, I read your book and it's awful. If you said it's awful, I will try to change it to correct, but it won't kill me because it's not about me. It's about the message that is in the book. If it's all about me, then my ego is in the front. And when my ego is in the front, it's a huge problem because I'm waiting. Now you control me. I'm waiting for you to read my book and to tell me what you think about what I wrote. So in everything that I'm doing, try to think what value do you bring to the world. And value, it's something that you have. It's an imminent thing that you have in you and you're bringing the value, it's never you. Fulfilling my potential is fulfilling the potential and not fulfilling me. It's not about my degrees and the money and what people think about me. And it's not about you even. It's about my inner powers that I have to bring to the world, I have to discover to the world and to give them to light. And when you think like that, we said, that the reason for all the negative emotions, including sadness, is that I am in the center. And I want to eliminate myself because I think things do not go as I want. So the first advice, the most important one, is to get yourself out of the center of the picture. You cannot be in the center. You know, Sivan Rav Meir, just one example, Sivan Rav Meir asked me, Few years ago, she had a bit, you know, it was very hard for her to give a lecture in English. And she said, what is your advice? And I told her, my main advice is that English is only a transpirative. It's only something that you, it's only a language that will help you to bring your ideas to the world. It's not about you and it's not about your language. So think about your message. Not about the way you convey your message. This is not what's important. And not about what people will think about you, that your English is not polished enough, you are not speaking like Rabbi Sachs. Okay, nobody thinks that you are like Rabbi Sachs. The result was that she overcame a bit stress. And now she's lecturing in English all over the United States. And she's like, she improved her language because you cannot improve She's great, she's wonderful, she's doing a wonderful job and she's promoting Jewish ideas all over. But what you have to think about, even though when you are successful, there is more chance that you will fall into depression because now you are successful and you have more what to lose. If I have nothing to lose, I have nothing to lose, okay? I don't care what you think about myself. So Steve Jobs said that. Always think that tomorrow you won't be here anymore. So we can connect to the emotional struggle. Always think that nobody cares really about you. You are not so important. But what you are doing, what you are sitting on, on something very strong. You have those ideas and you must bring them to the world and you don't know who will listen. If you are saying to yourself, I don't know if I'm influencing and I don't know if somebody will believe in me and I don't know. If you don't know, nobody will know. So you have to work on yourself. It's like a mental exercise. It's change your mindset. I'm not important. I'm nothing. But my content is everything. And doesn't matter what you bring to the world. Each one, you said in the beginning, each one of us. As something to bring to the world.

Absolutely. It's just, you know, a lot of people, you know, are probably asking themselves, you know, yeah, you know, I'm special, I have something to bring to the world. But you know what, I just have a job, like I'm a social worker, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, I know, I know, but some people are thinking, oh, you know, it's just a job to pay the bills. Some people saying, you know what, I'm an accountant. Some people saying, So the bottom line, let's help people in maybe very few sentences to kind of pinpoint what and find that special thing that they need to bring to the world. Like, what is it? Is it something that I really, really love to do? It's something that I'm really good at? Is it something that I'm thinking about a lot? You know what it could be, because sometimes if I'm an accountant, you know, yeah, I can, I can do my taxes better and be nicer to my client, but at the end of the day, do I bring them any value that is everlasting besides, you know, the 2021 tax year or the 2022 tax year? You know what I'm saying?

So, you know, bringing value, let's take a few criteria. First one, when you find The elimination of pleasure in what you're doing. The elimination of pleasure, that means that you have a kind of pleasure. Pleasure, it's not like I'm, you know, just smiling all day long, but I say to myself, this is the right place for me. I feel that it's the right place for me. And it's not about the receiver, it's about me. When I have passion to what I'm doing, without passion, that means you're not in the right place. So either you have to work on your passion, either you have to change what you're doing. It's like when you're in a place and you feel, I'm doing I'm doing it only for closing the month and to earn what I need to my salary. So you will feel so, you know, if you are a teacher and you do not really believe that you are doing here something unbelievable, you are changing others' lives and you will never be full of enthusiasm and you will never feel like you are in your place. You have to work on yourself. You have to change the way you think. You see a lot of things.

Exactly.

Without your own pleasure, you will not be able to find your mission and you will not be able to overcome sadness. You can be a teacher, you can be an influencer, but you think to yourself, okay, what am I doing? Nobody is listening. Nobody. It could be 2 million people that are listening to you, but still you think in your subjective point of view that you are not influencing enough. Exactly.

You were talking about Jordan Peterson, which is a great example. He's just a clinical psychologist who just went out to social media and was saying, you know what, I could really influence the masses. And, you know, not every clinical psychologist will think, you know what, I can actually go and bring even more value than just the 2 or 3 or 4 appointments that I have every day. I can go out there and actually affect millions with my ideas with what I'm thinking about. He's a wonderful example of like just an ordinary guy who just took the tools of social media that our generation have and previous generation didn't have and was using them to really spread his word, you know, out there. And even actually when I'm thinking about it, you are a perfect example for that as well because you are a writer, you are a speaker, and you can influence, you know, the people that write your book and the people that come to your lecture. But you said, you know, you said, no, I'm going to go and I'm going to do more and I'm going to influence more. And it shows because now, thank God, Baruch Hashem, your YouTube channel is growing and is doing fantastic. And the feedbacks are phenomenal and the value is incredible. And, you know, me personally, you know, very thankful and grateful for you and your contact. Your content is really inspiring me on a daily basis. And it's really something that everybody could do in their own niche. You know, in the—

I wanted two examples just to what you said right now. It's the first thing in order to be an influencer and to overcome sadness, what we said just to, you know, to make the conclusion is you have to get connected to the thing itself. It could not be that you are checking every moment how many people gave you a like or subscribe to your channel. You can check, but this is not the point. The point is to be connected. To the material itself. And when you are connected to material, it doesn't matter if you have 2 subscribers or 200 or 2,000 or 2 million, because you are doing what you have to do. And I'll give you another example of the Oliari, you know, 16th century. He talked, the Oliari, you know who I'm talking about. And he talked of Tzfat and he talked for 2 years, only for about 10 people, 15 people. Only one wrote his reviews, Rabbi Chaim Vital. And changed the course of Judaism. It's like he broke something to the world unbelievable. And think about it, without mass media, without anything, everyone now, everyone that learns Kabbalistic and Hasidic ideas are talking about the Ani Ha'ori, about the Ari. And it's like when you are connected to the thing itself, that means that you have the illumination of pleasure in it. That means that you want to be an influencer. Doesn't matter if you are on YouTube or not. You will find your ways. And it could be, you know, when he passed away, he passed away at the age of 38. And when he passed away, no, he wasn't so influential. But it took time, about 150 years, that all his writings were published and everyone knew him and he was accepted in all Jewish community all over the world. It's something phenomenal. So what I'm trying to say— It's not important if I have how many subscribers I will have. It's not important if people will, you know, we all want to be very famous. It's not about being famous. It's about being connected to the thing itself and bring the thing that you are connected to the world. So when you are connected and you're bringing it to the world, that's the thing. That's the thing. And then if you will have Usually people that are very creative are not so successful. Why? Because the world, the market is not ready yet for what they are bringing to the world. The first guy that brought to Israel the electric car, he lost all his money and his company. Why? Because the Israeli market wasn't ready yet to electric cars. Now we have Tesla everywhere. When you are creative, you know, think about Tesla himself, Tesla the engineer. Tesla himself was so creative, but I think he died poor, very poor. He did. Why? Why? Because when you are creative, it's the thing itself. If you succeed or not, there are so many other components to success and so many other criteria like money or other things. But the most important thing, when you have the illumination of pleasure and you are ready to invest in what you are doing, when you invest, if you want to be a businessman and you are not ready to take a loan and you are not ready to jump or to get out of yourself and to change what you are in order to fulfill something, that means that you are not in your place. And when you are in your place, you see in others opportunity. Think about a businessman. Every occasion, everything that happens, he does not ask himself, why it happens to me? Why things does not go as I wanted? What he says to himself, that's what happens. Let's see how we can use it in order to succeed some more. So we started with depression and we got into success. You know, it's like, you cannot be in the middle. You have to work on it either way. Maybe one last, One last thing, you know, a lot of people say, okay, I want to succeed, but I have this depression, this anxiety, this sadness, let me just overcome it and I will go back to the road. No, the thing is that when you overcome it, this is the thing, this is the most important target in life. Why? Because you learn about yourself, because you control your emotions, because in Judaism, because you put godliness in the center and not your egocentric tendency. So it's the thing itself, it's not like a disease that you have to overcome in order to get back to real life. This is real life, overcome, winning every moment.

Right. I love what you said. Yeah, and I think this is the bottom line that people need to understand, that this is a war that never ends, and it's a struggle that never ends, and it's an everyday battle, and we have to win that battle every day and every moment. And sometimes we also need to understand, like the Alter Rebbe said in the Tanya, that this could be even the reason why we were created, to win those battles, to get out of these battles and to win those battles. And so all the blessings and all the prosperity and the abundance that could come to us from projecting the ideas that we are here to project will bring to us, we have to earn it. And this is a way for us to earn it, is to overcome this sadness, this depression, that it's right now, like you said, it's a pandemic in the world. So I can't be more grateful for this talk with you. I think we passed the 30-minute mark. So again, Dr. Achille Harari, thank you so much. Maybe you want to show your book again in English for people that—

I'm reading it at the moment. And invite all our listeners to subscribe to your channel, my channel, to learn and listen to other more episodes, more episodes of this amazing podcast.

And, uh, please, uh, if we would love to hear your feedback, uh, so far the feedback has been phenomenal. See you next time, guys.

See you. Thank you.