Heart Over Matter ( Featuring guest Dikla Hertzog Twig)

Speaker 1 Hello!

Speaker 2 Welcome back! Episode four, Dekla! Hi! Hi! So excited to be here today. You are my first guest!

Speaker 1 Thank you! Also, I just want to say Dekla is in Israel right now, and I am in California. So we're recording this live, and whether there like there could be a little bit of a delay, and also I tend to get excited sometimes. So if you see us like not interrupting, but speaking over each other, that's just what it is. And again, remember the whole point of this masterful listening podcast is to pay attention to how we communicate and how we listen. So it's like that's always in the background of all of these conversations and experiences. And I want to say one more thing. Right before

Speaker 1 we met, uh Dekla messaged me and said, I'm so sorry, uh, I have a delay, I have to go to my bomb shelter. So if in the middle of this recording, Dekla gets a notification that she needs to go into her bomb shelter, obviously that's what she's gonna do. And I want to acknowledge that because that is not a normal situation that I'd say most people recording podcasts are dealing with. So just before we even dive in, I just want to take a moment and ask you, how are you in this moment? And is there anything you want to just like say before we even get

Speaker 1 started so that you can just be fully here with what you're experiencing right now?

Speaker 2 So thank you so much, and I'm so happy and excited to be here with you. And um, I guess like the words that come into my mind are facing reality. This is how I feel because I was like preparing for our podcast, reviewing, you know, my notes and stuff like that, and all of a sudden, okay, El sirens, I have to leave everything behind and just go to our shelter. And this is some kind of like really understanding and and balancing, you know, hopes and and intentions and reality, which is I think the essence of life in a way.

Speaker 1 Oh gosh, I mean, yeah, balancing in general life and trying to figure out what is even happening here on this planet. I think that's been a question for me my whole life, but especially now, like I've never been personally in a situation where I've had air sirens going off to where I have to go to a bomb shelter, and you also have four children. So I just want to say, like, thank you for being here. Obviously, your safety is always the number one priority. So, whatever happens during this conversation, obviously you're gonna take care of that. But this is so important because I mean, you'll also

Speaker 1 find I'm not someone who struggles with words, but I might struggle with that a little bit today because this is such a um, I mean, the situation in the world is I don't even know what word to give it right now. But what I want to do just for the listeners, so that we can sort of introduce the conversation today and dive in both to like a listening tool, since this is again the world's first listening school that people actually want to go to. And I really think your story and actually our story of how did we meet? How did this even come to be? And

Speaker 1 how I realized, wow, you are the first person I really want to have on this podcast, because my sense is the topic that we're gonna talk about might be challenging for people to listen to in a variety of ways, however, they feel about any of these issues. So I want to first just quickly right away tell the listener that Dekla and I are gonna be talking about all kinds of things that are related to compassion, actually, because that is what brought us together, and compassion around, frankly, tell me if I'm saying this correctly, but if I was to summarize, and I'll give your bio in a

Speaker 1 second so people know who you are. Compassion in the Israeli healthcare system. That seems like if I was to say what your expertise is, that's kind of how I would put it. Is that accurate? That's correct.

Speaker 2 Compassion and cool.

Speaker 1 So okay, so Dekla, also you're a little low in your volume. So I want to mention that to you on your end. Let's just um, and again, I know we're across the world. So if there's anything you could do, maybe no, it's a bit better. Yeah, just uh a little reminder. And again, for the listeners, remember when we listen to people, whether it's in person or virtually, we might not actually always hear them exactly as loud or as clearly as you'd want. So notice what is that like listening? What's it like to actually listen to a person, also maybe who's not very close to you, who

Speaker 1 you can't hear fully well. For me, it's always I will invite them, I let them know, hey, I want to hear you better. So do what you need to do, right? We're gonna be exercising compassion throughout this whole experience. Here's the other thing I want to invite the listeners to do. If you've been to the other episodes, if you've listened, you know that I'm presenting tools about how do we listen, how do we practice. So I've presented the idea that masterful listening is that you are listening fully. So, like right now, I can actually see you. The video is a bit blurry. So, what I'm gonna

Speaker 1 practice, and what I invite you and everyone listening to practice is I'm gonna be really focused on the words that are coming out of your mouth, but also the energy. Like I'm gonna look at you, I'm gonna pay attention to how you're speaking, right? Because often how we're speaking is more uh, it's not just more important than what we're saying, but it tells us a lot more than even sometimes our words can. So that's the first thing. I invite you to listen fully. And this is a topic that is, I don't even know, I'd say controversial, challenging for a lot of people. We're both Jewish, you're

Speaker 1 Israeli, I'm not. I've lived uh in the US my whole life, but there might be people listening from all over the world of all different religions and backgrounds, which is great. And here's the introduction, or here's the invitation, excuse me. I want you to listen with a beginner's mind. What does that mean? If at all possible, we've all heard all kinds of information. And I just want to acknowledge, I've heard all kinds of information my whole life about, for example, Israel. I don't know what's true. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn't like, some of it I agreed with, some of it I

Speaker 1 didn't like. But I want to enter into this conversation, even with you, as if I don't know anything. Like I want to have a beginner's mind. That's the idea, is that I want to listen to you, and I invite you if you're if you're down to do this on your end, and everyone listening, to enter this as if you can table all of your sort of biases, judgments, and just listen to this as if it was the first time you're getting some information from two human beings that are trying to connect over the topic of compassion health care in the Israeli healthcare system. This is not

Speaker 1 like a big political conversation. I don't do that often because honestly, I don't know enough about politics, and I try not to talk about things I don't know a ton about. And I've been educating myself recently because of the war and after what happened on October 7th, and just being a Jewish person has been very confusing. So, beginner's mind is the invitation and compassion. I always say there's a lens that we all wear. I learned this as a photographer. If you're holding a camera and you have a certain lens, you will see something. If you switch that lens, even if the camera is in the exact

Speaker 1 same spot, you switch the lens, you're gonna see something completely different. So that's the other invitation is put on your compassion glasses uh for today, because you and I met in a Stanford Medical School compassion program. We've both been studying. So actually, on that note, I want to know when I say put on compassion glasses, what does that mean to you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I feel like everything that you have said for me is just putting on your compassion lens because I am here as an Israeli and you are here as a Jew, and we met in this once-in-a-lifetime experience at Stanford, right? But rather than that, we are both human beings. And I would like to be here today, not just as the Israeli woman talking about compassion during wartime. I want you to be the clans of Lana and Seth together. I want I would like people also to get to know both you and me more as the human beings, more as a whole person approach. This is actually

Speaker 2 the essence of compassion for me.

Speaker 1 Gosh, I feel like everything you say, I'm always like, I love that because that's the thing, right? We are human beings, and I don't, it makes me a little sad, not a little sad. It makes me very sad and confused how many people just don't remember that. And if we remembered how similar we are, just on a human level, right? Like I study the mind, and I have met humans from all over the world of all different religions and identities. And I always say, hey, if you're cool, I like you. If you're an asshole, I don't like you. I don't even care where you're from and

Speaker 1 what you look like. Like, yeah, I just like certain people who are uh interesting, interested, uh kind, funny, like there's things I like, right? So, okay, so before we dive in, let me share a little bit about who you are, uh, your bio. Because again, we just met a few weeks ago, and I actually would love for you to tell that story on your perspective, and then I'll share mine. But just so that the uh listeners know who this incredible human being is that I'm talking to. And tell me if I'm pronouncing your name correctly, because I want to, and I think I got it. So

Speaker 1 it's Dikla Herzog Twing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, yes, Dikla. Dikla. Okay, see, that's the inclinations on okay, Dikla. If I say it wrong, remind me. I'm gonna try though. Okay, Dikla. Does that thank you? With a name like Svetlana, I'm sensitive because uh a lot of people mispronounce it. So Dikla. Um and Dikla, does your name have a meaning? I'm just curious. Is that does that mean anything?

Speaker 2 Yeah, a palm tree? The tree that you know that um you have like the origin of the dates that we eat.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, I don't honestly. Can you just see? I keep wanting to interrupt. Okay, you're good. Let's come back to the dates. So let me give a little bio. So you're the co-founder of an NGO called Mechva, I think. And Mechva. See, I'm trying to do my Hebrew, but I honestly I haven't spoken it in so long that this is uh this is good. And so you've been promoting compassion and improving patient experience in the Israeli healthcare system and training healthcare leadership, uh, teams for enhanced human and compassion skills to develop methodologies and practical tools to raise awareness and basically to try to impact public policies

Speaker 1 for a more compassionate healthcare system in Israel. And you were elected as the top number one uh human in the uh quote leading Israeli healthcare initiative of the year contest. That's cool. I never heard of that kind of contest in 2022. So cool. So uh I so can you just tell us a little bit, like how long have you been doing this work? What led you to be curious and committed to raising compassion in the Israeli healthcare system? Because I I I I just heard that and thought, whoa, what does that even mean?

Speaker 2 Um I'll start, I think, by really listening to yourself. I think that's the essence of like what led me to have this. I I guess it's been almost 20 years of experience in the field of what I used to call patient experience, and these days I call compassion. And um like most stories, it started with a personal story. Um I um I was uh I guess um 23, 24 years old woman, young woman. Um I I went uh for like I was studying towards my master degree, and all of a sudden my father, who was 50 years old, young man, um was diagnosed with brain tumor,

Speaker 2 and uh and um as a young woman I I guess that most of the time like I've been in this field of compassion and healthcare within the last 20 years, but the basic knowledge and what I know about healthcare comes from being just a caregiver and being you know a daughter of a young man, a young healthy man who all of a sudden his medical condition got worse and he passed away almost 20 years ago. And I guess uh this experience uh has shaped like my life in so many ways, both on a personal level and also on a professional level. And I felt like I

Speaker 2 wanted no one else to experience what we had as a family um having such a journey. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about that uh later. Um but this in a way became my calling, became my mission for life. And um, so I guess it always comes for from some kind of personal experience and some kind of personal pain point, I guess.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you first of all for sharing that, and I'm so sorry that that happened. Uh I often wonder why I ask this of myself, why have all my most important lessons and like my path, why did it have to come from such pain? You know, it it doesn't feel fair, and yet, I mean, even with again what's happening now in the planet, and then also what even led me to finally create this podcast all about listening, it was because I spent four years in such a hell of depression that I realized, oh my God, if I hadn't learned how to listen to myself

Speaker 1 and to the right people, I would probably be dead. And yet now I'm grateful for it. I always say, if I had known the journey that was coming ahead, I would have said, no, looking back, I would do it again. Because the the gifts that I've gotten uh are worth, I'd say the suffering. It doesn't seem fair, but I've realized I'm not sure life is supposed to be fair at this point.

Speaker 2 And that's kind of something I've but both you and me just to know created some kind of better than before out of pain experience, painful experience. And uh yeah, this is uh I I guess uh yeah, for sure. Something super important about listening. When you really listen to yourself, then you find sometimes meaning.

Speaker 1 Say that one more time. You're a little low, so I want to make sure I can hear you and that everyone else can hear you. Would you repeat that last part?

Speaker 2 I'm saying that. Um I feel like both you and me have painful experience in our past, but we were able to listen very deeply to ourselves and create journeys that are meaningful for us.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because it's a choice, right? At the end of the day, I've always been fascinated. How come some people suffer so much and then they thrive, and others suffer and like just they don't, they become cynical, they don't work to change it. And again, I say that not as a judgment, I was really trying to understand how come some people thrive through incredible pain, like the kind I don't understand, and others can't. That's why, for me, that was a curiosity, and I gotta say, what we just learned at Stanford, the compassion piece might be that differentiator. And I want to touch upon something you just said.

Speaker 1 We have a similar experience in the fact that we've experienced pain and suffering, and then we both chose and are choosing, it's not like this is stopping, to make up some meaning that's gonna somehow lead to something positive for us, but then hopefully our community. So that kind of comes to me. The words are like generational trauma. Like we all as human beings have some sort of generational trauma. And for people who are listening who don't know that term, it just means that your parents, your grandparents, your great everyone who came before you, their experience is literally in your DNA and in your body. This isn't

Speaker 1 for some people, this is just sort of physiologically from my experience, and tell me if I you might know better. Like that's in us. So when things happen in the world, like right now, I've never actually felt the fear, like the crippling fear of what it feels like to be Jewish until the last few weeks, and I'm 38 years old, and I heard stories. And I a story is a story until it becomes real. So I want to ask you about that. Like, tell us a little bit about your background, your story. How'd you even end up in Israel? And what do you feel about generational

Speaker 1 trauma being someone who's literally in a place who's having air sirens going off and running into a bomb shelter like daily?

Speaker 2 I guess you are now touching something very, very, very central, you know, in my and in our daily life experience these days, since October 7th. And um we all grew up with this huge trauma of the Holocaust, and the greatest somehow miracle for me to grow you know, I've been living in this country my whole life. And we were um feeling like Israel is the result of the Holocaust and for many reasons this should have been our safe place on the globe and this trauma that led to establishment the establishment of Israel is due to this never again approach, I think. After the Second World War

Speaker 2 War We felt like this situation can never happen again. And

Speaker 2 my father um Was born in Russia, like your parents. My mom was born here in Israel. Um, but her parents immigrated from Iraq. And this uh in a way, also having um immigration background, immigration trauma, being the first generation in a new country, uh having some kind of a new identity, something that I think both of us share. And also I think that um it was very clear for me. I don't know about you, I'm excited, and and I would love to hear more from your end. But for me, it was um being, you know, the first um children generation who are born here in Israel

Speaker 2 and building this country and and building this what used to be until last year, the Startup Nation as a some kind of of even a miracle. And somehow um in the last months or so, months and a half, this generation trauma appeared so significantly in my daily life. Um I guess in every Jew's life in the world because all of a sudden we are here at the most severe situation we ever had since Israel was established and maybe even the most severe situation that we are now facing

Speaker 2 after the Holocaust I guess that's the most severe situation we experience as human beings here and it started for us unexpectedly with no mental preparation all of a sudden having again memories and stories that are not far away old stories that come you know from uh our grandfather uh father grandparents uh generation. These are now our stories. These are close friends, these are colleagues that we know from our work, these are people we know in person, these are some of them, kids and and I guess for me this situation really affects everyone everyone's mental health here and well-being, and

Speaker 2 I think that this trauma is relieving now for us.

Speaker 1 Deep breath. Uh there's so many things that you said that I want to touch upon. And, you know, I call myself a mental wealth advocate. Again, you and I don't even know each other super well, but in the short time, I'm gonna say that really quickly before I want to respond to some of the things you said and then ask some follow-ups. You and I met, I don't even know, maybe a few weeks ago. At this point in time has felt so funny. And I met you. We were in a program that lasted over a year, and there were about 90 people from all over the

Speaker 1 world, and obviously we couldn't meet everyone. And then finally, we had a graduation weekend all online, and Dekla was the last human being to speak in the program. They asked a few people at the end, hey, can you share a little bit about your time? And I swear I was sitting there and I'd spent all weekend crying anyway, just because I feel like I accidentally went to compassion school and then got a PhD in compassion in the most painful way possible. And I used to joke I got a PhD in depression accidentally. And I gotta say, funny enough, you'd think that getting the PhD in compassion

Speaker 1 would feel better than the depression, and it didn't, because that's the other thing. Having compassion for yourself and for others during times of like insane pain, I think it's harder than to be depressed. That makes sense. That's like a normal thing. So, in a way, when I heard you speak, and I also thought how hard it must have been because there were hundreds of people on this call, and I was like, this, I knew I knew nothing about you. I just knew that your project, we all had a project to do, right? I made a project called the compassion pill because my specialty was bringing compassion

Speaker 1 to the mental health system in this country. And then you're presenting yourself as someone who's been trying to build, bring, excuse me, compassion to the Israeli healthcare system. And I thought, holy shit, what was that like for you in the last month? Like I couldn't even imagine, but my soul felt like it came back into my body because I was in so much pain and I was so confused as every Jewish person. And by the way, I don't have a large Jewish community in California. When I grew up, I went to a Jewish day school. Everyone I knew was Jewish because my family immigrated when I

Speaker 1 was six, 1991. We immigrated the day that the Soviet Union collapse began, literally in the history books. I still always have chills. So this isn't even my parents or grandparents. This is me as a little six-year-old girl fleeing Moldova, then USSR the day after not, uh, because we were persecuted as Jews. We weren't religious, we weren't allowed to be. We could have been shot in the middle of the street, my mom said, and no one would care. Which to me, again, I knew it. I didn't understand it. So honestly, I'll admit this now, I feel kind of ashamed. But when I kept hearing all the Holocaust

Speaker 1 stories, there was a part of me that was like, okay, but it's not happening anymore. Exactly. Now I look back and I'm like, oh God, because I didn't feel it in my bones. And when everything started happening recently, and suddenly I'm laying in my bed, shaking, not able to sleep, I thought, oh my God, I live literally where I live in Sausalito, there is zero crime. And I realize how privileged that is, by the way. I just want to acknowledge. And there was no rational reason for me to be shaking out of fear. Like, that doesn't make sense. But because my grandfather was taken in the

Speaker 1 middle of the night by the KGB, literally in the USSR, and I'm Jewish, and my father's from the Ukraine, I want to say that as well. So the last few years I was like, but I didn't feel it. And now I'm like, oh my God, everyone I talk to who's Jewish is saying the same thing. So hearing that you're in Israel, I kind of thought, well, wouldn't that not be surprising or traumatic for you? Don't you get right? And it no, you're saying the same thing. Like saying that's how does that show up for you? Like when you say, because to me, literally, it showed up

Speaker 1 as I couldn't think, I felt scared, and also I'm seeing protests, I'm hearing protests literally in the most liberal place in the world. My friend sent me a sign from San Francisco outside her door that said, Wow, free Palestine, kill the Jews. This was a week ago in San Francisco, and I literally didn't know what to say. This was the first time in my life I haven't had a voice. I I literally am confused also why other people aren't terrified. Because that phrase you said, never again, you said it's a situation that can never happen again. I always thought that was a phrase that meant we'll

Speaker 1 never let it happen again. The way you said it, it sounds like people are like, no, this can't happen again. Because how did this happen the first time? Now I see how. So that's another thing I want to ask you about. Like, do you now see how this can happen again? Because now I'm like, oh, it's because people seem to really hate Jewish people and are anti-Semitic. Also, I didn't realize that. That was terrifying.

Speaker 2 Yes. And you know, um, you spoke about um having a PhD in compassion and in depression as well. And honorary. I want to say honorary. I don't want people like

Speaker 2 we like I have the I have the same feeling because you know, I went to like I joined this Stanford program, yeah, to like my intention was to become like um my NGO to become like a leading NGO that's promoting healthcare, uh, more compassionate healthcare and and systematic change and all like huge dreams of making systematic change here. And all of a sudden, I found myself having really a great lesson of just suffering, not compassion, which is the response for suffering, but having an experience that I never imagined of really understanding in my body, my bone, my soul, what is the meaning of suffering is really

Speaker 2 all about. And I had, you know, I just shared, you know, my father's stories and my family stories, and and I have, you know, I have my lived experience. But this period of time these days is just beyond everything that I never could have imagined. Because for me, living in Israel, you know, I also live in a town that's called Kfal Saba, it's like 30 minutes away from Tel Aviv. This is one of the most like the safest place you can find in Israel. My kids are free to go wherever they want, we are safe to walk in the streets, and and feel really some kind

Speaker 2 of like peaceful and and and happy. Like my kids used to have a very happy childhood uh growing up in Israel, and and yet again this this feeling of just totally the opposite and and understanding that how is that possible that I feel now, I am asking myself, am I now in 2023 or am I in 1938? And I guess that like what both you and me feel these days is that there are like past traumas that are not even sometimes ours, right? That we relive these days. And and it's just like oh I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 No, no, it's the delay. I want to keep listening to you. Please continue.

Speaker 2 I'll just say that I think that

Speaker 2 we all feel some kind of state of trauma. We all are affected, we feel anxiety, fear, and and all sorts of concerns and and also I feel that you know all of a sudden I I am here, we just add a sirens, and I do feel lucky because right, I my thanks god that would none of my family members was killed in this terrorist attack. But I do feel like I am now experiencing major trauma again.

Speaker 1 Gosh, first I'm just I always I keep telling you whenever we talk, I just want to give you a big hug because again, I I can't relate to it. I always say, unless you like in any way, if you are not a person who received a certain amount of discrimination for something, I have a really great friend who he's gay. I always say, I listen to him, but I'm not gay. So I cannot understand what it's like to be him. I want to, I have a genuine curiosity, which I think is the most loving thing we could do is just try to actually be curious. I

Speaker 1 always say the first step to listening is do you actually want to listen to this person? Because if I feel like I'm speaking and someone's like trying to be nice and listen, I don't think that's nice. I think that's bullshit. I want to know that when I'm listening, I actually want to listen. Because if not, that's gonna be harder. And I want to know people actually want to listen to me. And it feels to me also, and tell me if you feel this, because I actually want to dig deeper into like what is causing your suffering. I don't want to make an assumption about that because

Speaker 1 I think also I feel like Jews are not allowed to talk. It's like Israel was attacked. There was actually literally a ceasefire on October 6th, meaning this was a peaceful time. This wasn't an attack that happened during a war. That would also not be okay because attacking civilians on purpose to kill them is never okay. I want to say, anywhere. And suddenly we don't even have a chance to grieve the fact that this was like Israel's 9-11, but worse in terms of percentages of how many humans died. This is simply also, I want to say, facts. And I also want to say that right now, isn't

Speaker 1 even as I'm saying these words, I have this fear of, oh my God, am I allowed to say that? Yeah, it's simply facts. This isn't even feelings about it. That's what's confusing for me is how did any population get brutally attacked? And now people are first of all saying, did that even happen? And I gotta say, I'm a skeptical person, by the way. I often get skeptical, but I have never seen like a tragic massacre and then said, Did that even happen? Let me see some proof. It's like, do you want to see photos of decapitated babies? Because I don't actually. I couldn't look at anything.

Speaker 1 I felt a little bad, but I my I couldn't do it because my mental health was already suffering when I imagined this happening to any human being. My best friend was in Israel at the time, also, I want to say, sending me photos of rockets above his head. He's not even Jewish, he's Buddhist, he saved my life. So that's the other thing. So many other humans in the world are affected. And I'm gonna make an assumption that both you and I, and anyone who knows us, knows how much we care about just the world, right? So I also feel like I have to acknowledge that right

Speaker 1 now we're talking about Israel because you're Israeli, and that's the topic. And I want to understand where your suffering is coming from. Like, what are the different facets of why you're saying this has been so challenging?

Speaker 2 I want to say something that is, I think, is um very critical. I want to say that I feel also a lot of pain because I understand that there is also suffering of civilians in Gaza. And I want to say it out loud because for me, you know, both of us, we were there soon to be ambassador of compassion, both of us. And for me, I I feel like um

Speaker 2 we could have had a different podcast talking about compassion in the Israeli healthcare sector, and we will we will touch that

Speaker 2 but I think that like for me I feel like I want to share with the world my suffering that comes out of fear for my kids Fear that comes from these are not Holocaust stories These are my friends who were there I know them I know them, I met them after October seventh My son's kindergarten friend, a nine-year-old boy from our neighborhood is kidnapped is kidnapped in Gaza. He celebrated his ninth birthday being kidnapped. I heard stories from close friends who were there in their shelter for thirty hours with their kids hiding from those Hamas terrorists and I would say that for me What I feel

Speaker 2 these days is that

Speaker 2 this huge suffering comes from a great fear that it happened, right? It happened again We are living this trauma again something that I never imagined You know I gave birth to four wonderful voice I am afraid and and I guess that first of all by doing some kind of listening is for me just the ability to just share and and and admit that after this huge shock that we all had I I am now admitting that I am in suffer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and like you're you're you deserve like everyone to admit your pain and suffering, like every human being. I always say, I don't know why we're having pain Olympics, like your suffering is real, and your boy's suffering is real, and that friend of your son in kindergarten who I'm assuming might be suffering in Gaza is real, as is the suffering of the other children, Israeli, Palestinian, like everybody's suffering is valid, right? Because we're human, like you keep you're one of the most human people I've seen because when we just met and I messaged you because I saw you and I was like, oh my god, I

Speaker 1 feel like I need to just say thank you to this human being. You uplifted my spirit, honestly, in a way I didn't think I was having a very hard time with holding everything because I wasn't actually feeling super compassionate for some people. I wanted to punch them in the face. I'm gonna be real because there's also so much misinformation about things. And then after educating myself, I gotta say, that's why I say it's not easy to listen to. There might be some people listening right now that don't understand, don't have compassion. I mean, I'm shocked actually that there could be people in the world tearing down

Speaker 1 posters of missing children saying that Israel's committing a genocide, right? When actually, if you look up what even genocide means, just actually factually, that doesn't make sense. But the point is, people feel passion. People think also they're doing something good. What scares me the most is probably a lot of people don't even understand the pain and the havoc that they're causing and how much danger they're actually in. Because I feel like history always shows people first come for the Jews, and then like it's not only Jewish people who suffer, just like in the Holocaust, right? Yes, yes, that was six million Jewish people. A lot of

Speaker 1 other uh humans got destroyed. Because from what I understand about Hamas, and again, I'm not gonna go into that, they want to get rid of like the Western society. That includes the US and a lot of other countries in Europe that don't only have Jewish people, right? So, first of all, it's just the lack of when people are emotional. I always say, don't make any big decisions when you're emotional, because when I do, I always regret them. So going out and screaming a bunch of very hateful things and actually attacking humans, like you're allowed to feel whatever you want, but when you act in a way

Speaker 1 that your beliefs and your feelings are literally killing people, that's not okay. Like for anybody. I just felt like I really wanted to say that because people are allowed to feel and suffer and have pain because that's human. What you do with that is a very different thing. So that's what I started thinking about you. Maybe can we go a little bit into that? So you're trying to bring compassion to the Israeli healthcare system because I'm assuming you felt it was lacking in some way, which I definitely feel like compassion is lacking in our healthcare system, especially mental health in a big way. We're not gonna

Speaker 1 talk about that now. But you're doing this work already, and suddenly October 7th happens, and Israel is basically in a in a war situation. How did that shift this whole experience for you? Because I'm imagining you woke up one day, you're so shocked, no one expected this. Uh how did that shift your work in the compassion space? Because I can't even imagine how it did, and I'm imagining it might have.

Speaker 2 Yes. So, so um

Speaker 2 first I want to say that the first step, um if you remember this compassion circle that we had, the first step um was for offering compassion is really notifying the suffering. And I guess that was the first time. This chat that we're having both of us is just for me, um, my ability to just, you know, admit my suffering and and just be there and and and show that okay, that's the first step. And all of a sudden, October 7th appeared, you know, those uh terrible uh attacks happened, and I found myself with a new NGO because I've been in this field for 20 years, but

Speaker 2 my NGO that I'm the the co-founder of it was established in January officially, like as an official uh legal uh uh like this year, this January? This year, this year I did it for I've been doing it in the last three years, but um I and I had my initiative that used to be a pro bono one that I did uh until last year, and I did it as a voluntary initiative, and then I won this first prize that you mentioned, uh and I was elected as the top number one Israeli healthcare initiative, uh, that I'll I'll just uh talk more in a second, and I

Speaker 2 decided to quit my job in October last year, October 2022, and I left my job. I worked for a high tech company back then, and I decided that I will dedicate my life to um establishing this NGO that's all about promoting my initiative, and I started doing this in eight different hospitals across the country, and I was so happy because my dreams were you know about to become a reality. I was there working very hard on developing um uh tools and and training medical staff and medical leadership and doing all of that and and building uh strategic plans for how am I gonna build Israel to

Speaker 2 become, you know, uh a case study for leading uh compassion in the healthcare sector. And all of a sudden, October 7th happened, and all the hospitals I work with went immediately to emergency mode, and my work in seven out of eight hospitals was stopped immediately. And the work I do, and I do it with elderly people, rehabilitation, geriatric, palliative care, all of them had to move their patients, literally physically move their their patients to more safer places in Israel. And this emergency situation, this emergency mode has affected impacted my NGO just stopped, literally stopped seven out of eight hospitals I used to work with. Hopefully, this

Speaker 2 will in the future um continue. But yes, it's not when you're talking about like what like I I found myself afraid, concerned for my kids, and also on a professional level had some kind of a pose and a scope that I had to understand okay, what is the next step that I'm taking from here. And and I guess that um this is something that I want to say also that sometimes there's a this core suffering, right? But also there are different levels or different phases. And for me, I wasn't there under this, but it it really impacted my life in so many ways.

Speaker 1 Yeah, wow. I call that the different flavors of it, right? Like there's different flavors, just like there's different flavors of the same dish. There's different flavors of suffering, and again, all valid. And I want to say I'm a little bit, I mean, what's it like to be a little funny with tragedy? I feel like Jewish people are actually really great at that because we've had to be, but there's a part of me that's like, wow, what a perfect time. Uh, you started your NGO finally, you go to the Stanford Compassion program, you're working in the health care healthcare space in Israel, and suddenly there's the biggest

Speaker 1 massacre, which I'm not saying there's anything funny about that, but what a way to practice the tool. That's why I joked. I, in a way, felt like I got a PhD in compassion. I actually had a whole other situation happen with a human being who I felt was shockingly abusive to me within this program, which was a whole other thing, like, whoa, well, this is how you get your PhD. You actually had to, I think, practice this, probably in a way that a lot of humans maybe didn't have the opportunity. So, wow, what a great way for you to learn and yet holy shit, like seriously.

Speaker 1 So, what is that? I want to understand when you say you're working within the Israeli healthcare system with these older human beings and that your work was paused for now. Let's say pause, they hope, not stopped, because obviously they had to move people because hospitals are targeted to be bombed, right? That's real, that's happening. I've talked. I have also one of my best friends is a father of three kids, Dan. He's one of the kindest people I've ever met. He told me last week, sorry, I have to go back. I got called into the IDF. Some people might not know everyone in Israel has to serve

Speaker 1 in the army at some point. That's sort of one of the um rules of being a citizen, right? And so he is not serving anymore, but you get called back. Like in the US, we have the reserves, or people can get called back. Again, I don't know a ton about this, but tell me if I'm saying something incorrect. So, what are you actually doing though? Like when you're saying you're bringing compassion, is it you're teaching doctors how to treat patients differently, or are you teaching patients how to be more compassionate to themselves as they're sick, or something else? Those are sort of the ideas that just

Speaker 1 came to me.

Speaker 2 So, um,

Speaker 2 my initiative, the one that I started with, is called I Wanted You to Know. That's um a method of I wanted you to know.

Speaker 1 I want to repeat that.

Speaker 2 Yes, that's the name of it. I wanted you to know, which is a name of the famous Israeli song, okay? And this, yes.

Speaker 1 I want to look it up. I wanted you to know. Okay, I'm writing it.

Speaker 1 It's that's it. That was my interruption. I had to write it down because I want to look it up. But yes, please continue. So so that's your initiative, is I wanted you to know.

Speaker 2 And my initiative, in my initiative, is focused, first of all, off this experience of someone who is coming to the Israeli healthcare um system, which is a public system here in Israel, and people come there. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 Wait, what does that mean? What does public system mean? Anyone can use it?

Speaker 2 Like anyone can use it. It's it's some kind of like more of a um uh like a social welfare policy. Like everyone here has like all the citizens have health insurance, and you can go to wherever hospitals uh uh you want to go to, like their emergency room, and also um as a public system, there is also, of course, uh sometimes lack of resources and and stuff like that. Um and and uh so so my first initiative that is called I Wanted You To Know, is something that I remember from my father, who was a 50 years old man, coming to the this Israeli healthcare system,

Speaker 2 when he used to feel like very healthy and stuff like that, and all of a sudden something changed immediately, like his health condition in like in one day, in one minute, right? He became this, so to say, sick man, right? And this in this very moment of human being that was just diagnosed with some kind of illness, they not only have suffering that is caused because of their diagnosis or because of their treatment, but also there is a huge suffering that comes from the fact that in this very moment you lose your identity, and all of a sudden you're no longer this I don't know, some

Speaker 2 kind of syllable manager, um, physician, uh, teacher, whatever. All of a sudden, you become this sick man with this kind of diagnosis, and you are there and you lose your identity. And I remember my father coming there, and my father used to be um like a C-level manager, and and was like he was he used to be a people person, and I remember him saying, I would like the medical nurses team staff to come and speak, to come and see me like a human being. I wanted them to speak with me and get to know who I am, and this is for me was like I

Speaker 2 guess the most important memory I have from him. And so my initiative is dealing with patient admission to uh to words, to hospital wards, and I train medical leaders and medical staff to have a specific compassionate intake in which they don't only ask the person about their drugs or their bow about their medical record and history. They ask every patient about themselves as human beings.

Speaker 2 And they want to get to know them as human beings, and by that there is also a great impact in terms of clinical outcomes. There's also a great impact for medical staff burnout. There's also a great and we have measured it, there are uh salvage that we took saying that even the medical staff found 76% of them say they found more meaning in their daily work after we uh implemented this initiative. And so by doing that, this is like the very first layer of just having a totally different experience that you are being known, and the care that you receive is personal, and by that, by

Speaker 2 getting to know who you are, this really gives you hope that you will sometime maybe will be able to return and and and to recover to who you could be, you can be in the future.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. I'm sending you another energetic hug. I told you when this is all over, I'm coming to Israel because seriously, what you've said is not only very moving, but I can tell you in my experience as someone who's been in the mental health system in this country, what you're doing is gonna save people's lives. Because truly I have seen that unfortunately, despite the angels in the system, even in my experience, when I went to the doctor, when I was suddenly, by the way, out of nowhere, having what I would call definitely a mental breakdown, which is scary enough in itself, I felt worse because

Speaker 1 how I was treated. I got scared. No one talked to me about the meaning of my life and who I was, even for a few minutes. I always tell people, you don't have to spend 14 days, but just acknowledging a human being who's in suffering. It's scary when you suddenly get sick. Whatever sickness, like mental, physical, emotional, right? So the impact actually on not just, oh, someone will feel better. No, no, it could make them physiologically healthier. Like that, I think most people don't realize. They think it's this woo-woo, it feels good. Yeah, it does feel better to be treated like a human being. Uh duh.

Speaker 1 And it can, my father got diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years ago, and it was very, very, very sad for me, for my mom. It's a scary thing. And I was just telling my parents yesterday because my mom just discovered, funny enough, an Israeli doctor who is doing all this research about how thinking of yourself as sick makes you more sick. Like, and I know this as well. I could probably provide, and I will, I'll link a bunch of books and resources. I've been saying this. When I started to believe that I was really mentally ill and I was, quote, crazy, like that scared the shit

Speaker 1 out of me. I thought I'll never be healthy again, I'll never be smart again. That honestly scared me more than anything else, is that, oh my God, I'm never gonna be the person I identified as being, which is I wanted to make a difference in the world. Suddenly I'm being told, well, you might be bipolar, you might be, and I'm like, whether that's true or not, it scared me. I was almost diagnosed in a day without someone understanding. There's so much other information. So when I hear what you're doing, I'm like, oh my God, I want you to come here and help me do it too.

Speaker 1 Because I think people die and suffer because of this, maybe even more than whatever actual issues they have, which is so sad, right?

Speaker 2 And and I want to say something, I want to say that I said that we stopped working in seven out of eight hospitals, but the one hospital that we keep now and we develop a specific new model for is the Israelis' best mental health hospital. And we are doing that there.

Speaker 2 I'm giving her the prayer sign.

Speaker 1 I'm like, thank God. I want no, I swear, like, I'm not kidding you. Like, thank God, because of all of the suffering now, I can't imagine. I told you when we spoke, I want to help somehow mental health right now. People don't understand what kind of, I mean, honestly, I think the Israeli people will probably be suffering in a mental health space forever. Yes, because not even Israeli people. Like these things affect everybody, also. I want to say, anytime I'm talking about anyone, I actually feel like this goes to humanity. And this is based on 15 years of like clinical research on my end. So I'm

Speaker 1 also speaking right now more as a person who studied psychology and the brain, because I happened to dive headfirst accidentally into getting a PhD in depression. I didn't want to do that. I was studying inspiration and happiness. That was a lot more fun. But the point was, I think now looking back, I was asking why. Why did this happen so that I can help break stigma around this stuff? Exactly. Exactly. People, it can happen to anyone, like truly, and someone needs to just well, a lot of people I think need to just start sharing about how hard it is to just you deal with enough shit

Speaker 1 in your life, you'll have a breakdown. And I'm saying you, as in anyone, not to scare them, to let them know that they're not immune, which is why tools like compassionate intakes help.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like I'm, as you can tell, very passionate about this because I give a shit about people, you know.

Speaker 2 And and and by the way, it's exactly what you are just saying. We are now also going to have an academic research on this intervention because we believe that once you make the patient that come there being seen as a whole human being, it's not their sickness, it's not their illness, it's not death, it's just this person as a human being, as a whole person, and by acknowledging by by receiving this, but by by being known even during their hospitalization, by being known as the human beings they are, that helps recovery, that supports recovery, and we will measure that. And hopefully, I really these are my

Speaker 2 dreams now. You see, this is what I'm saying. Thank you for sharing.

Speaker 1 Yes, I want to do it with you. I swear to God, because the thing is, again, I always say it's both, right? I'm a spiritual person. I believe in spirit and prayer. Actually, my mom used to always say when I was really sick that people are praying for you. Actually, it's been proven that prayer helps in medical care. Like, people can look this up. I always say it's not some woo-woo California bullshit. There's data, there's decades of data, right? But people who hear it are like, oh my God, how can I? I get it. I used to feel that too. But when I did the research

Speaker 1 of like very smart human beings who are doctors and researchers that have done years of data, you know, they say mind over matter. I kind of just realized I wrote this down. That's probably what I'm gonna call this episode. I think it's heart over matter. I swear because our hearts, which are in our bodies and our minds in our bodies, people somehow think that's not one thing, right? Okay, that does matter more. I've seen myself come out of a state that I swear to God seemed impossible because first I believed that maybe it could happen, that maybe I was wrong. Okay. And yesterday I'm looking at

Speaker 1 my dad and he's changed. I can see that his disease has affected him. And the worst part is he doesn't think he's the same person anymore. My dad was the most handy person I'd have ever met. And now his hands, you know, are even shaking a little. And in a way, it's like so sad for me to see. And I started saying, FEMA, you're a freaking badass. You're still in there. I saw him straighten up his body. I swear. I was like, you need to remember that despite anything, and I'm not saying that any disease isn't real and doesn't have legitimate um implications or impacts, but

Speaker 1 I saw, I felt energetically that when I said, hey, remember how you've been strong your whole life? Yeah, you still are. You're just dealing with, yeah, yeah. No, I feel you. Seriously, let's keep doing this data because maybe those human beings that aren't taking it seriously, they can see. I've seen cancer patients that I've met because I was working at a company where I was helping people raise money for surgeries and things and healthcare initiatives. I've always been drawn to this work. Um, I've seen a woman, and again, if I see one example, I'm gonna choose to believe if she could do it, others can do

Speaker 1 it. She got diagnosed with like a stage four cancer. And I know that in a lot of cases, there might not be anything you can do. She talked to me about her attitude, what she did, and she ended up, first of all, living way longer than they'd said she could at that point. I actually haven't seen her in years. I hope she's still alive and well. But the point is, I've now met people who, because of their mental storytelling, which is what I talk about all the time, have really healed. I am an example of that. The only reason I literally, and I'm not gonna be

Speaker 1 dramatic, but this is real, that I didn't kill myself when I was so in pain that I was just tired of living in pain. It sucks to live in pain. I don't judge people who don't feel like they can handle this world. I get it, actually. And the only reason I'm alive is someone said to me, Svet, you're a storyteller. Imagine this is the book. Write her out of it. What would she do? And I was like, she would not do anything. He's like, but if she could do something, this isn't the end of the book. I thought it was the end. How could it end

Speaker 1 this way? He said, What if this is chapter two? If this was just what if? I love that question. What if? Let's just imagine what would she do? And then I really I didn't even know at that point, but I started thinking, well, what if this isn't the end? What would she do? And I gotta say, I spent the last 10 years writing that story, and it was the hardest and the most amazing experience because it wasn't the end. And once you believe that it's not the end, like all these people in Israel, all these people in Palestine, all these people, by the way, in the

Speaker 1 Congo and in Sudan, all the humans that are in all the way suffering, and by the way, those people have it way harder. Because I think, again, systematically, if you're in a place where you don't have clean drinking water or a government that gives a shit about you, probably makes it even harder. But the point is, if you've given up in your mind, it's done. If you even have some part that's like, hmm, you have at least a chance, right? So, God, that question you came up with, I love it so much. Where did that come from? The I wanted you to know, like, where did

Speaker 1 what was the inspiration for that? Because I love that. Um it's a statement more than a question, actually.

Speaker 2 Was this famous song? But for me, I think it's very, very, very important to say that it's not, you know, it's very important in terms of like well-being and stuff like that, but this has also clinical outcome. There it has a clinical impact, and I and for me, like this is what I always preach about that compassion is not just about sometimes. People tend to say compassion, especially like Israel in Hebrew, it has some kind of like different meaning sometimes. Sometimes people look at this as compassion like as giving mercy or something like that. No, for me, this is a response to suffering that creates clinical

Speaker 2 impact. And there is a lot of like uh conversations about the lack of compassion and and the erosion of compassion, and I want to talk about the impact that compassion has. And by doing that, by by looking at the person as a storyteller, and someone who can really, you know, have meaningful and successful and life in the future, this really helps their recovery, their help, their their uh their lives. And and there is like great amount of of academic uh data and research, and this is what I am now like my my initiative is about. It's about to even have some kind of like changing the

Speaker 2 mindset. It's not just compassion in terms of like um mercy, it's compassion as an important component of treatment, and by doing that, by and we do that as a part of clinical routines. This is not something that this is the part of clinical uh patient admission, and it's a part of nurses' uh um uh shift transitions, and this is like those micro moments of compassion have clinical impact, and this is like this is what I'm busy then and so passionate about uh uh leading here.

Speaker 1 Oh my god, I'm obsessed. If you could see me now, I just keep shaking my head because it's true, it's like I always, when I teach my courses, say to like the business, I teach a lot of people in the corporate space, and I teach them similar things about how when you spend time to build relationships and psychological safety on your teams. It sounds so woo-woo. No, no, no, it makes money, actually. It's proven that employees who feel more safe at work, who feel like you care about them and their growth and their success, they do better work. So not only does it just feel better,

Speaker 1 which by the way would be enough, but it actually builds ROI. So this is a clinical thing, but actually, you know, as you're talking, I realized uh that actually should be more obvious. The reason the Stanford C care program was created because a neurosurgeon, Dr. James Doty, shout out, I'm gonna send this to him and thank him. He wrote a book called Into the Magic Shop. That's how I ended up, and it was all about in his experience as a neurosurgeon. He realized that compassion was a massive medicine, right? That's why I invented the compassion pill. That's another episode. But the point is, I love what

Speaker 1 you're saying. Now, after I listened to you, because I didn't know this, I want to somehow work with you to gather the data because honestly, people appreciate data. And I've been doing this research for 15 years. I've done a lot well. The one thing I didn't do as well is capture the data well. And I now am learning, you know what? That's actually really important. Because when you can do that, maybe you can speak to the medical community in their language, right? Because this is not a normal language for the medical system. I don't know many people who go, again, mine is more mentally, uh I

Speaker 1 have the mental health part versus I've seen my mom treated for her heart issues, my dad now for Parkinson's. I've never heard them come back other than just this recent time. So maybe it's shifting, thank goodness. And say, wow, the doctor seemed really curious about me as a storyteller. Tell me a little bit about even your life, right? It's more, okay, we're gonna talk about pain management or medication, which I always say is not bad, but why do we start with that? That is a very important piece as well. It's not this or that, but why not start with just seeing a human being who's clearly

Speaker 1 scared? Who likes to go get news that they're sick?

Speaker 2 And it's very important for me to say that um, like the physicians, the medical staff uh experience is also very important and and and having compassion for them because they suffer huge overload and and and it it's very, very, very, very difficult work environment for them, uh, and they also have huge suffering. But what I would also like always I I want to mention it here, and it for me it's something that I always say is that this is also helping you giving the best treatment. And what I have learned, I think that this is one of the biggest lessons that I had in Stanford is

Speaker 2 that this understanding that it it those are micro moments of compassion, right? It doesn't have to take a lot of time. Medication, medical records, uh pain management. Those are I I understand those are the core uh um uh maybe uh ingredients and maybe but looking having some kind of eye contact and having some time 40 seconds of compassion have huge impact and and yes, data is super important, and then and like we intend to have an academic research in order to show the impact that this intervention uh brings within it.

Speaker 1 You somehow completely brought us to exactly I think the last two things I wanted to say, and to listening. Because first, it is the little things. I always tell people as a coach, it is not the massive things that actually lead to systematic change, even as a person. It's the little 10% shifts, the moments that are literally a moment. One of the listening tools, and again, if you're still listening, listen to this because I teach this, I'm about to do this in 45 minutes when I do a coaching, group coaching call is called acknowledge and validate someone before you try to fix them. This is what

Speaker 1 most people in my coach training had the hardest time on learning because typically, because we care when people come to us with an issue, we want to fix it, we want to help them. We don't take a minute to just acknowledge and validate them. What that means is hey, I see that you're really scared, and I just want you to know that is so normal. I've been there. Just that all right, that was what, 10 seconds? Yes, and people will say, What does that do? And I'm gonna say, Why don't you try it and you tell me what that does? Because I have never met a

Speaker 1 person who, in a moment of pain, didn't appreciate that. But I have met a lot of people that have said, I don't need that, just get to it because they're not in that moment right now. And I'm telling you, I have done over a decade of research on this. This is something I teach based on data, acknowledge and validate someone's experience and their suffering, not just in the hospital system in Israel right now. I would say that would be my advice to anyone listening to this, because everybody I know is suffering somehow, seriously. And before you jump in and ask them a question or try to

Speaker 1 help them, if you take one thing away from today, just acknowledge and validate the human being for 30 seconds, and then maybe ask, hey, what would you how would you like me to listen? It's probably my favorite thing to do, right? You just tied it so perfectly to this because this is what listening is actually all about. What if people listened to the human being, but not just to their words, to their body, to their voice, right? I love it. You just brought it back so beautifully. I had to reflect it because I want to make sure that we both got that because we need reminders

Speaker 1 too, and that everybody else can hear this. It's probably some of the most powerful things I've ever discovered, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to do. Yes. Wow. All right, Dekla. Dekla, Dekla. Did I get it right? Dekla. Yes, Dekla. Tell me. Okay, Dekla. Okay, there's two other questions I have before we wrap up. First, uh, so you're you're the I wanted you to know the song, which I'm gonna look up. Maybe I'll link it. I'll see if I could do that. And then I want to ask you, what do you what do you want the world to know right now? Like if if you get

Speaker 1 this moment, what do you want the world to know?

Speaker 2 I want the world to know two things. One is that I'm very passionate about my initiative in terms of compassion in the Israeli healthcare system, and I will do it, even though we are not in the urgency. I will do it.

Speaker 1 Yes, yeah, you need it now more than ever, right? And I just want to say from a listening, this is the first time this whole conversation you got louder. I see you smiling. So, like, that's so nice to see. Yes, you will do it.

Speaker 2 Okay, love it, and and also I think that this is a universal need, right? We all feel it. You feel it, you felt it in California, you can feel it everywhere, and for me, my dream is to have in the future um do it wherever people are in need of it. Um so this is like one uh important uh message, and the second one is that I want the world to know that I took the learnings from Stanford and I am now having some kind of a pivot and understanding on how I can help alleviate the suffering that I just mentioned here uh in a very

Speaker 2 long way, um because I do believe that compassion brings hope to our lives, and so my goal these days is also about promoting Israel healthcare systems, but also I have some kind of a second capstan project now, which is all about recovery and helping myself, my community, the people around me to hold their suffering, and I'm so grateful for Stanford Act team, for Stanford Act team, they saved my life, and I was so lucky to be there while everything happened, and I feel that now I have like this calling to bring this knowledge out of Stanford, to bring this human knowledge of how to hold suffering

Speaker 2 during such difficult times, and this is like the second dream that now I am like developing these days.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. Okay, yes, yes, yes, yes. And again, I'm gonna bring this back to the listening again as a tool. If you're listening, check this out. I'm gonna reflect back, Dekla, what I heard, and I want you to tell me if I'm accurate. I do this as a coach, first of all, because I want to make sure I actually heard it and I want to repeat it one more time. One, the pivot. I love that you use that word. Funny enough, my last episode or two, was about the pivot. Point is sometimes you have a conversation, sometimes you have a life experience, and it freaking

Speaker 1 changes you in a second. You didn't expect it. What do you do then? You pivot if you have courage because that's what life allows you to do. So it's not easy to pivot, and it's funny. I'm not trying to pitch my other episode, but actually I am. Listen to it. It's hard to pivot and it's important to pivot. Yeah, good, there you go. But seriously, I just want to acknowledge it's not easy to shift gears, but sometimes I didn't, I had to pivot when I suddenly went from being a happiness researcher at the greatest place to work at Google, and then I couldn't get out of

Speaker 1 my bed. Okay, I was forced to pivot. But the point is that is a choice too. If you keep running in the wrong direction, you're just gonna fight with reality. And I find when you fight with reality, you always lose anyway. So you might as well not fight the ocean because then you're gonna die, right? If you ever tried to fight a big wave. If you pivot, might be hard, but you're gonna get somewhere. Um putting it into action, you said compassion is a tool we learned, right? It's not just, oh, I feel compassionate. Yes, and how can I help you? That I loved that distinction.

Speaker 1 I think we learned that on the first retreat. I was like, oh my God, I never thought of compassion as a tool. And uh act, yeah, I'm gonna shout out specifically to my mentor, Monica Hansen, who I'm obsessed with in the best way. I've told her my compassion project was me. It saved my life. It really did. If I didn't have these tools right now, I swear to God, I think I would have ended up in another mental health crisis. And instead, despite the fact that I suffer daily, I give myself that. I'm kind about it, I validate it. It makes sense. Okay. And here we

Speaker 1 are. We're doing something. We're laughing. You're laughing after you got out of a freaking bomb shelter. Honestly, if that's not one of the most powerful things that should inspire people that you're going through literally worrying that you and your kids are about to get rockets falling on your head. I'm saying that casually because somehow you're still here laughing. Like holy shit. And I hope no one's offended by that. And if you are, you can, you know, deal with it. So and you know what? That there's something fierce compassion.

Speaker 2 Yes, yes. Can I just mention, please? You mentioned dear Monica, and I would like also to mention dear Robert and dear Nialama, you saved my life because you like the gift that I received was acknowledging that it's not only the suffering, but there's also kindness and love, and there's also togetherness, and this is wow, they oh, they saved my life.

Speaker 1 I love that, and this is why I love you and other human beings who do this, because here we are, as we're ending. We somehow started on such a heavy note, and yet through the darkness, I've always said, I used to want to chase the light, and I did, and now all I want to do is hold people's hand through the darkness, because when you come through it, I realized I had this vision, I've always had metaphors. What helps me is that every tunnel ends in light, literally. Any tunnel you go through physically, and I don't like them. Honestly, I don't like I don't like confined

Speaker 1 spaces, I don't like the dark, but every tunnel literally, by definition, ends in light. It's the same thing, and that's something I've been so in awe. So, yes, thank you, Robert and Ilama. I don't know you as well, but I appreciate actually thank you to everyone in the program. You know why? Yes, thank you to the people who inspired me, and thank you even more to the people who fucking challenged the shit out of me. Because let's also acknowledge that those are our best teachers, and you know who you are, and thank you because you know what you did. You made me more compassionate. You made

Speaker 1 me realize that I have a choice to want to fight someone and prove to them that they're an ass or that I could have compassion and know, you know what? Everyone's doing their best. And that the hardest people are the best teachers. And every tunnel ends in light if you choose to see that. So here's my last question for you What advice do you have for people right now? Any person, all human beings that are really struggling listening to other people? Like really having a hard time just listening, meaning not even what I did a lot. I jumped in and I wanted to make it about

Speaker 1 me, but I'm but we're doing a podcast. So this is a different situation. But what would you say in after everything that you've been through? How would you tell those people well or not how? Whatever, you got it. Answer the question however it lands for you.

Speaker 2 I would suggest listen to their self to themselves first. Understanding, looking inside to their ear trigger, pain, suffering, understanding the roots of it. And by that, it helps you first if you listen to yourself and then understand the challenges that you have while listening to others.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, that I couldn't have said it better because that's what I always say. You actually can't give something that you don't practice, right? What, and here's a shout out to Gene Lushtok, who I love so much, who was my one of my best friends, Russian immigrant, Buddhist teacher, half Jewish, half Christian, who was sending me rockets from Herzalia, and I thought my friend was gonna die. He saved my life because when I was suffering, he comes up to me and he goes, Svet, if you are walking down the street and you saw a homeless person as I did in San Francisco and they were

Speaker 1 shaking and crying and bleeding, would you kick them? I said, no. He goes, Of course you wouldn't. Why are you doing that to yourself? You're already suffering. And what you're doing by, oh God, now I'm depressed, but now I'm mad at myself that I'm why that shit spiral. He said, if you were holding a little baby and the baby was crying, what would you do? I said, I would try to comfort the baby. He goes, but you are the baby. Literally, that saved my life. Now, when I'm really in pain, or I see someone else, even if they're attacking me, I see a scared little child.

Speaker 1 And that's what helps me remember okay, go in, realize we're all still little kids inside. And even if we've done almost decades of therapy, uh, like you know, me and I think it's great, everyone I think should go in. But the point is, even if you've done a ton of work, you might still get that feeling of trigger, generational trauma, fear, judgment. So before you do anything, I love what you said. Just like go inward for a minute, breathe, right? What's even going on before you like, and I'm talking to myself too. I want to say, you're shaking your head. I feel like you might be

Speaker 1 agreeing that the people who say this, it's not like we do it perfectly. That's why we're saying it. We all need reminders, right? So thank you.

Speaker 2 You just reminded me of those moments that saved my life, and also sometimes we are so busy um helping others, listening to others, and we sometimes don't tend to stop and ask ourselves what do we need.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I'm also like practicing it every day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You helped me. That's what I want to leave people with for now that we're wrapping up. And first of all, thank you so much. I feel more energized. I didn't think I would feel more energized, honestly.

Speaker 2 I came here, and like, yes, and like okay, I came from the shelter, my god, and here I am smiling. And thank you so much for the energy that you thank you then for the listening. Oh my god, for your listening. You see, this is the outcome of listening. People smile.

Speaker 1 Uh, seriously, I feel that in my whole body, and also it made sense to me that you'd come in in that energy. It was like I'm totally fine, and I genuinely feel literally my entire body is lit up. I feel so much happier, meaning I understood, and you reminded me, we're all I think Rumi, who's one of my favorite poems, said, What you seek is seeking you, and we're all just walking each other home. Like, and if you don't know Rumi, he's I think a very, very, very old Persian um wise poet, right? And I love that because you need to some, you might have heard

Speaker 1 something a million times, and then suddenly someone says it in the million first one, boom. It's different. I don't know why that makes sense. I don't care why it makes sense. I have 37 years of data that shows me that it works. So that's why I wanted to do this, talk about listening. I love what you said. So that is how I want to wrap this up. I'm gonna do what I always do. I'm gonna check in on you, the listener. How was that? What was it like to have a beginner's mind? What was it like to listen to? Honestly, we covered all kinds of things,

Speaker 1 but in a weird meta way, it really did come back to listening. I don't script these podcasts. I never have. I always go into them with some idea, but that's what happens when you listen and you're in the moment and you are paying attention. I find those pivots, even in the conversation, somehow lead you to an even more awesome destination where I feel like we're here. So again, I'm so grateful for your time. And now I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna invite everyone to listen to or who's listening to do one thing. One, share this podcast with anyone who you feel is struggling, listening to human beings

Speaker 1 right now that might be saying difficult things, confusing things, maybe they're sick. There's healthcare topics, there's compassion topics. Like there's so many different reasons. And I only invite you to do that if it feels right. Listen to yourself. If it doesn't, don't do it. Also, depending on the platform that you're on, if you're on Apple Podcast, I think you can write a review. Please do that. And by the way, if you loved it, say why. If you didn't, be specific. I love getting critical responses if they're supportive. Meaning, this actually, I invite you, if you for some reason have some negativity, you can keep it to

Speaker 1 yourself. But if you have something you want to call out to either one of us that you think will elevate us and our work in the world, I would love to hear it. Would you, Dekla? I want to make sure. Yes, I would love to. Please do. Please do. Great. Because also, when I'm preaching, listening, I want you to know I don't mind listening to the hard stuff. But as long as it's trying to help make it better, that's it. Because you know what I learned bitching about the healthcare system and doing nothing to change it, unfortunately, doesn't really help anything. So let us know what

Speaker 1 you think on Spotify. I think you can submit comments. Any comment I get, I promise I will respond within a reasonable time frame, meaning a few weeks. Uh, all right, so that's it. Thank you again. Uh gosh, yeah, I'm so moved. Thank you for energizing me uh in a very unexpected way and for teaching me so much about so many things.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for your heart.

Speaker 1 Heart over matter. We got the title. Yes. Okay. Bye bye, love. Bye bye.