Breaking the boundaries of your personality.

Hello, good morning, Dr. Yuval Harari.

How are you this morning? Good morning, good morning.

Great, wonderful. Yeah, thank you so much for waking up really early in Israel and standing in front of the camera doing this podcast today. I really wanted to kind of talk to you about your new book, and I'm going to put it so people can see it. It's called Breaking the Boundaries of Personality. And it's a very revolutionary book with a revolutionary idea. It's actually giving us a clue, a glimpse to what we are capable of doing, which means our personality is not written in stone. We can change it. We can break the boundaries of it, and this is what the title of this book is giving us and is telling us pretty much. So I want to ask you, as the writer of this book, what is a personality? How can we really break our personality? How can we break the boundaries, the limitation of who we are? And really enter a realm of better version of us and break the boundaries of ourselves.

You know, boundaries, before we start, boundaries are very important thing. Without boundaries, you cannot develop yourself. Boundaries, there are two sides to the boundaries. There is the side that you develop in and there is the external side that what you are not allowed to do. And when you understand your boundaries, you understand that you have to put boundaries and then a little bit to break them and then to put them again and then to break them and then to put them again. And this is the major question when somebody, you know, when you fight with your wife, you ask her, why are she ask you? Why are you like this? Why you cannot change? And this is, I think, one of the most important question that everyone ask themselves. Why I'm like this? Why I cannot change myself? Why I cannot be someone else? Why I'm struggling so hard with my thoughts? And you know, each one of us is struggling with something else. Before understanding what is the personality, you have to understand what are you struggling with. And there are those who struggle with anxiety and those who struggle with depression and those who struggle with jealousy and those who struggle with— they are so sealed, they cannot feel anything. And through understanding what I'm struggling with, I can understand myself and my personality. And the main, you know, look at the human soul and the human behavior. What is the most important in the human behavior? The most important thing in the human behavior, it is emotion. It's our emotions. The emotions are the main characteristic of the human behavior. They are not The quality of the human being is his mind, is his ability, the ability to understand, to think, to contemplate, to ask why, why am I here, what is my purpose of life. Animal does not ask why. Why is the most important question that we can adopt. Why I'm doing this thing. I'm not doing nothing for nothing. I want to understand what I'm doing this thing. But what is the most, you know, heavy, heavy, characteristic of the personality is the emotions. What are the emotions? We have to understand in order to understand the personality, you have to understand your emotions because, you know, absolutely.

Emotion is the engine pretty much. It's what makes us move. It's what makes us do good or bad. You know, that's what moves us. It's from what I understand from everything that I've been learning. That's right.

With you throughout the years. Think about relationship. Think, you know, a lot of people said, a lot says the problem in relationship is the communication, but it's never the communication. How can you know? Think about a couple that has a beautiful communication. They speak nicely. They do whatever they need. They have their roles. Everything is so good. And they, they, they suit one to another and they don't have any financial problems. But still, they don't have what? They don't have emotions. They don't have love, passion. Nobody wants to live in this kind of relationship. Why? Because it's like, it's a technical relationship. You know, without love, there is nothing that will connect you to your spouse. Or, you know, sometimes will help you get backward without awe or reverence. So, you know, there is nothing that will make this movement of coming closer and getting backward. So emotions are the engines that help us, as you said, to connect ourselves or to disconnect ourselves. That's when the emotions work pretty good. What's the idea, you know? What's the idea of connecting us? It's like the soul, I want to be with myself. I can be with myself. Now my wife, she went to New York for 8 days and I'm with myself and you ask me, before we started this talk, How is it? And there is something very good to be with myself. I don't— I do whatever I like. It's like, it's very nice, but still there is one problem. When I'm with myself, I do not connect with the other, with my wife, with something external to me. And the whole idea of this humanity is to connect us. This is the whole idea of the creation. Think about money. It's the same like money, what money does. It makes you get out of yourself and cooperate and talk with others and you don't have money, that means that you don't present your value to the world. So when you don't have emotions, that means that you are not connected to the world. You do not connect yourself to the world, I mean to your spouse, to your child, to the trees, to your coffee. When I don't have emotions, I am, I don't feel, I'm not connected. Like, my connections to reality start when I start to feel. But here our problem starts. Here our problem starts. Why? Because it stops me when I'm, you know, on the highway.

So the bottom line is this. We got the point. The engine that moves us, everything that we do, We are an emotional being. Our emotions is our engine. But what is our boundaries? And how can we really break those boundaries?

So sometimes that's a very delicate idea that we have to catch. Sometimes, you know, it's a very delicate engine that you have to take care of it. What does it mean? Sometimes our emotions Does not do what they have to do. They do not connect us, they disconnect us. They do the opposite thing. Like when you are angry, what happens when you are angry? You think to yourself, somebody offended me, somebody talked to me like that. I want to eliminate him in a way. I don't want to see him. I don't think about a child that eats his mother. Like he doesn't want his mother to exist anymore. Think about yourself when you are sad or when you get into agony or depression or whatever, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the volume of the sadness, what happens to you then? You want to eliminate whom? Who you want not to be exist anymore? Yourself. Because if you think to yourself, something didn't happen as I wanted. And if it didn't happen as I wanted, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to live this life. I'm not influencing. I'm not doing what I need to do. So undesirable emotions, negative emotions, people does not like to to use this word. Why? Because they do not want to do clarity. If you have negative emotions, you don't usually, you don't want to give them away. Why? Because a bit you fall in love with them. They let you be in the center. They let you be egocentric. Because when I'm in depression, it's only about myself. Talking about myself and thinking about myself. Now, now catch the idea. When my undesirable emotion starts, you know, to illuminate in me, they get out of, you know, in Hebrew, emotions called midot, measurements. And when they illuminate in me in an undesirable way, they get out of measure. That means they control my soul. They do a boundary. A boundary to what? Think about it. When you are angry, what happens to you? What does not work? What does not work when you are angry? When you're angry, you're doing— think about, I don't know if you read in Israel, a few officers in the army started fighting about a silly thing, getting into a base or something like that. What happens to someone who is an eye, a colonel, and is fighting with another like a kid? What happens to him in this moment? What happens to someone when he's, you know, he's being controlled by that person? By what? By what? What is the boundaries? What does not work? Think about it. When I have like craving or desire to something, I am a president. Think about, you know, the examples are in Israel, a president that fell with his desires. And if you would ask him for 5 minutes of doing someone with someone, it's like it doesn't worth it. It's Nobody does that. It's like, "Wow, what are you, crazy? You don't do things like that." And, you know, he got mixed with the undesirable relationship with his secretary, something like that. Think about it. What happened to him? He had boundary. What boundary? His mind didn't work. When you have undesirable emotion, negative emotions, they get out of measurement. They control yourself, your soul. They illuminate in your body in such a way, such a strong way, that other traits in your Soul does not appear, does not show themselves. What does it mean? When I'm angry, my mind, I like, it's very weak. I cannot use my mind. When I am in depression, my mind is very weak. I tell myself, oh, come on, look, look right, look left. Okay, there is something that does not go as good as you wish. You don't have a wife, you don't have children, you are poor, doesn't matter, but there there are a lot of other things that goes very well, a lot of kind in your life. See the sun, see the light, everything is wonderful, except this thing. But you cannot see it. You cannot see it. Why? You know, sometimes very— you lose your mood for very small examples. You know, something you bought, something in AliExpress or in Amazon that didn't fit what you wanted. And now you are in the kind of bad mood.

Why?

Because you see only one thing. So the main boundary in our life, there are few, but the main boundaries in our life are emotions, which is the most important character in our life, the most important trait in our soul. They get out of measurement, they control now my life, and now when they control me, I am being bound to this emotion. Like, they control my life, the emotion, the undesirable emotion, and Think if I have a dream, I have a vision.

Like a slave almost. You become a slave to your emotions. Now you lost your freedom of choice. Now you can't choose anymore. Now you're a slave. Now you have to do whatever the emotion tells you. You're angry, you scream. Now you are in trouble and now you're going to have to pay the consequences of whatever reaction that you had. So this is the boundary, the negative emotion that is taking over us.

This is one boundary, one of the most. I said this is the one boundary that we have, which is the most heavy boundary, you know, it's a hard one to break through because when you break it through, and we need to speak about what does it mean to break it through. But when you break, we need to ask what does it mean to break it through and how can we do that. But when you break it through, only then you are not being controlled by your emotions. You know, in Hebrew, when you say, just one remark, when you say emotions, it includes only also your desires, your craving, your waste of time. There is also a way of the all, all the Aris said that there is also a way of something of your emotions that illuminating in those in those actions that you are being controlled. When you are addicted, you are being controlled. This is the same thing. You are being controlled with what? You are looking for some renewal, some innovation, some pleasure in something that you are doing. You are being controlled with something. And the most important thing, the I way to live life is not to be controlled by external thing or by internal undesirable emotions. It is undesirable because it makes you control. Why? Because you need to be in the image of God. What does it mean to be in the image of God? Not to be controlled. You cannot think about a God that is being controlled by his emotion. A God that is being controlled by his anger. This is not, you know, when somebody is being controlled by his anger, you say this is a guy that it's not a serious guy. It's like you cannot see him in a serious way and you lose. Your all your capabilities. Think about trash talk, trash talk in sport. When, when, why do you use trash talk? To, to, to put something, someone, we talked about it I think a bit, to, to get someone out of his place, to make his emotions control him. That's, that's the whole idea of trash talk. And when you, you are, and when you let others to control you by offend you by trash talk, by, by telling you something then your emotions control you, and then your— everything that you are doing will be less.

Also, we also know it from like martial arts. We know that like in martial arts, if the guy loses it, gets angry, he's also going to lose the fight. And the guy that is calm and is in control is usually going to win the fight, which is— which is— that's what we're matching up.

About it. Oh, sorry, sorry.

No, so, so I mean, that's, that's a, that's an amazing thing. I mean, yeah, we, we all have, you know, uh, cravings. I remember when I was a smoker, you know, sometimes you get the cigarette craving and you could travel in the middle of the night, 1 PM in the cold, just to go get a cigarette. It's actually like you become like a robot being controlled by this desire to take you. So thank God I'm not a smoker anymore. But now I'm trying to get rid of sugar and I still have that feeling that all of a sudden I have to have something sweet. It's just, it doesn't leave. It's something, sometimes I think it's even worse than a cigarette. The cigarette was easier to quit than the sugar. But yeah, I'm fighting it, I'm working on it. But I think that the most important thing is really to be able to, like you said, once the emotion is unmeasurable and it's going out of control, breaking the boundaries is pretty much putting that emotion into a measurement, putting it into under control and not letting that emotion control us and turning us into literally a slave to that emotion.

And it's— Only that, you know.

Yeah, it's easier said than done. Maybe you can like give us a little bit of, you know, maybe a tool or how can we do it? It's very easy to say, okay, I'm going to control my anger, I'm going to control my desires or whatever for sugar or if somebody is a smoker, you know, a lot of people are struggling with those, you know, things that are controlling them. So really, how can we really win this thing? How can we fight this thing? How can we give, our audience, our listeners right now, some tools to win this.

You know, it's just to add before the tools, just to add a few remarks. It's, you know, the Alter Rebbe used the same example that you used about the martial art. He said, when two fights, even if one is stronger and is weak mentally, what does it mean weak mentally? He is falling into sadness or into a bit of depression. Depression makes you weak, so we will lose. Why you will lose? Because happiness means that your emotions are in harmonic way. They illuminate in, you know, we have the body, we have the soul. The soul illuminates, gives life to the body. And if it gives life to the body in harmonic way, that means that you are full of enthusiastic and pleasure and you're doing things with happiness and everything illuminates you and you know what you really want. You want to wake up, you know, it's not like about only about addiction. It's when I'm a bit sad, a bit sad. And you know, modern psychology, modern psychology does the separation between sadness and depression. And there is nothing like this separation. You start with a bit with sadness, a little sad, and then you find yourself in a depression and you have to stop somewhere. Why does that for, you know, very, very clear reasons. If you are sad, go to, go to take, you know, go with friends to drink beer or something, or drink coffee with friends. If you are in depression, go to take a therapy. But you have to understand the soul. You don't find yourself in depression, in heavy depression right away. You neglect your soul and then you put yourself there. So the most important thing I think before, there are many tools, you know, Jewish psychology, that, and we are speaking about when you speak about Jewish psychology, we speak about Hasidism and the Kabbalistic literature, gives so many tools, understandings, and ways to overcome those undesirable emotions. Why? You know, maybe why? Because without that, when you are being controlled, you are not an image of God. And the most important thing that Judaism wants for you to be in the image of God. It's, you know, it's a, That's why you're burnt. And when you are being controlled, you are not that way. And the source, you have to understand the source before you overcome undesirable or negative emotions. You have to understand the source of those emotions. It all comes from one place. You know, it's worth a different, we'll talk about it. We can talk hours on emotions. The most important thing in our life. But what is the source to all negative emotions? People think that traumas, a narcissist mother, a father that was screaming, they are the source. But in Judaism, or in Jewish thought, trauma is not the main thing. The main thing is, is the way, the way you were born. It's like what is implemented into you. It's something that you were born. You can see two brothers that were raised in the same family. One doesn't want at the age of 25 to get out of his room and is in sadness and is in depression and does not believe in himself. And the other one is swallowing the world, doing, running, creating. You know why? It's more about my inner, my my natural inner traits that they have.

DNA, like something like a soul DNA that you are born with.

You catch, you know, there is— you catch the point. That he said that you have to make a tikkun. Tikkun, it's like to repair something, to correction in a way. And you were born, this is the purpose of your creation. The purpose of your creation is not to achieve something. You have to achieve something because the soul needs Still need a goal. Without a goal, there is no way to direct your emotions. But the most important thing are your inner emotions, or to be correct, this emotion that bothers you more than anything else that you are struggling with. Doesn't matter which one. And when— and to overcome it, it's the purpose of your life. When you overcome it, you can achieve so many things. And when you do not overcome it, you are being controlling your life. Doesn't matter if you reach to be a become billionaire or whatever you did, you won't be happy. You know, I heard Tony Robbins said that once, that he interviewed 50 billionaires and he said, I think only 3 or 5 were some kind of happy in their life. And happiness, it's not a goal, but happiness, it's a result of directing your emotions in the right way, of giving attention to your emotions. And right emotions are your engine to anything, everything in life. Okay, so let's Let's get back to your question about tools. First of all, you have to understand, you know, there is nothing like learning about your soul, about your emotions, about your traits, about the 10 spirits in Hebrew, about how this mechanism works. Why? Because what weakens the undesired— I'm doing it fast. It's a huge, you know, thing to contemplate on. It's a huge Torah. It's a huge, like, ideas. Catch those ideas, the principles, and then we can use those principles and implement them in our daily life. One is to learn. Without learning, you won't develop yourself. Why? Learning, I mean, learning about the way you have— you learn about your body. You learn what's good to you and what's not. You know that sugar, that's not good. You learn everything about the body in order to be When to eat. Yeah, people invest so much time in it. You have to feed your soul as well in the right nutrition. Without feeding the soul with the right diet, how should I think? What's the right view on life? How should I see this moment? Etc., etc. And when you learn what happens, we said that the boundary is the emotions that get out of measurement and controls your body. Controls your life, because the illumination of your Soul does not go in harmonic way. So when you learn, you weaken, you weaken in a bit your Emotion, and it's like, you did to me something, I start to learn and think, contemplate, why did it? Maybe you are going through a hard day, maybe you are struggling. In the moment that I try to understand you, and I try to contemplate and to understand the situation, then to get out of the situation and to see what happens and to put it in, you know, to put it in the right context. Sometimes when something happened to you, think that the whole world is collapsing, but it's not. It's like one episode in your life. So when you can see that, and we can see that, what you do, you weaken the undesirable emotion and you put it right away in the right measure, in the right mida, as we said before. And it's, we said that the emotions are the most important character or most important part in human soul. But our mind, it's the most, it's not the most dominant character. It's not the most dominant part, but it's the most important, the most high quality. The mind should direct us. The mind, our brain is the director, is the, you know, is the chief of staff, is the one that should say the emotions go that way, go that way. Wake yourself up and go that way. And that's one thing. So without learning and without— you're going to gym once a day. Once a day you should learn something, 5, 10 minutes about trust, about confidence, about understanding yourself, about how to be a better person, how to develop yourself. That's one thing. Second thing, you have to know to control the art of thoughts. This is, we should invest a different episode to that. What are the thoughts? Why, you know, emotions does not appear like that. They appear in your thoughts. And when you know how it works.

Yes.

Thought is like the arena. It's like the place that the emotions appear. So if you control your thoughts, you control what? Your emotions. And if you let your thoughts run away without controlling them, without navigating them, you will be controlled by your emotions. And this is a very important topic that in Judaism, in Hasidism, in the Torah of Alter Rebbe is investing it very much attention. And the third thing is to find yourself a life mission. To know, you know, I think Viktor Frankl, you heard about him, I suppose, did wonderful ideas, but people did not understand him in the right way. You see people are walking in the world and trying to find their, what is my value, what am I influencing? And the most important thing is to find your mission. Mission is more important word than what is the meaning of my life. Because when I'm asking what is the meaning of my life, I'm still around myself. I'm talking about myself. It's all about me. But when I have a mission, it's about you. What do you need from me? And I have different missions every moment. In the morning, I have a mission with my child, with my children. They need from me something. At night, with my wife. And at work. And I develop, I give meaning, I give value to the world. It's not about me. When you get yourself out of the center, then you will never have undesirable emotions. Why? Because it's about what you are doing and not what you are. What you are is not important. I think that we should develop those 3 steps, 3 roads in order to overcome negative emotion. But when you catch them and you see all those tools that we have in them, only then you can, you know, each tool, each road is, you can implement in a different time in your life. When you have stress, you cannot now contemplate. When you are in anxiety, it's very hard for you to learn. Why? Because now you have to prepare yourself in advance. It's like, you know, it's like— just one last word. It's like, you know, when you want to help someone, it's better to help him when he's still healthy. When he got into the disease, it's harder. The same in mental issues. It's like, when you know to control your thoughts before they became so messy and so heavy and you cannot control them, and so on, it's easier. And that's why we have to, you know, you have, in order to be—

Beginning rather than let it penetrate and like, like, penetrate your being. Okay, so just to summarize a little bit of what we spoke about, you know, in context of the correction, there is the idea that each and every person has their own emotion or their own things that they are struggling with that it's unique to them. Just like we all have a specific mission that it's unique to us that we are created and we are brought into this world to do. There is also a unique correction that we all have which has to do with our emotion. Some people have anger, some people have other emotions. So we need to— part of our work is to find that emotion that is specific to us that we need to work on, and that will help us also understand our mission in life and be and live more purposeful and meaningful life.

We should talk about it in a different podcast. I think it's so important thing to know what is the main issue that you are struggling with.

Okay, so thank you so much for today. It's really a subject I feel like it's too short, the time that we have to speak about it. We can talk about this forever. It's so interesting, so amazing. Again, this is the book. It's Breaking the Boundary of Personality. It's really amazing, mind-blowing book. We are going to do more podcasts about this book and about subject of this book, like for example, types of personalities, how to find, how to know what kind of personality I am. And it's all connected to the 4 elements which are fire, water, earth, air.

Which one is the right match for you? It's a huge question.

Exactly. So there is so much more that we can do. I thank you for listeners for being here today. Thank you, Dr. Ikhil Arabi.

Subscribe to our channel, to your channel and mine.

Exactly. Subscribe to our channel. Subscribe to Dr. Ikhil English channel which is on YouTube, Jewish Psychology PhD, right? Is that the title? Jewish Psychology PhD on YouTube, and also my channel, Uzi Moses PhD on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. And we're looking forward to see you and to talk to you on the next podcast. Thank you for listening.

Thank you very much.