TheYeshiva.net - Rabbi YY Jacobson

IFS and the Tanya

What is the 'Yatzer Hara?' How Do We Deal with Our Inner Critic? Is Inner Guilt and Shame Helpful?

1 hr 29 min

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Class Summary:

In light of the current ongoing challenges in Eretz Yisrael and around the world, Fresh Start invites you to a transformative webinar series to provide practical tips and expert guidance for self-regulation during times of crisis. Featuring Dr. Richard Schwartz, Moderated by Rabbi YY Jacobson, Tuesday, November 21, 2023.

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Anonymous -10 months ago
Thanks it's amazing, I am doing ifs for 2 years it's fantastic.

please do more interviews with Dr. Richard Schwartz.
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Sarah -11 months ago
I think it’s important to state what is called health. Dr. Schwartz has been doing IFS for 40 years and he said that before the call he had to deal with parts that were struggling, nervous. It’s not that the parts won’t struggle. Hashem creates us with light and with darkness, with infinity and finitude. We have parts that struggle.

IFS is great for getting clear what our parts are. But unity comes from Torah. The path to unifying the parts in IFS didn’t work for me and I tried for two years, going twice a week. Torah teaches us what oneness is and how to acheive it. Chabad Chassidus in general teaches how to unify parts, what oneness looks like.The goal, as I see it from what I learned from Chabad Chassidus, is wholeness. To be able to include all aspects of Hashem’s manifestation as us at any given moment, in the proper configuration, is health. It’s part of the Jewish mission statement, “Shema Yisroel …. Echad.” Just like we don’t exclude anything in creation from Hashem’s oneness, so too our parts are all within our one self. We unify parts while maintaining the distinctions of the parts. True oneness never obliterates parts – it holds the tension of the paradox of one that is two and two that is one.

I bought for myself a toy bus with little menchies. I attached tiny clothes pins to the menchies so I can connect papers to them. On each menchie I write what part of me it is, what it’s dealing with now, and I place it in the bus. The driver is my core self. If a part has over taken, I initially put it in the driver’s seat just to see where it drives to, but then self correct and put the menchie in a passenger’s seat on the bus. Then I put my core self menchie back into the driver’s seat. All parts have a seat on the bus but they have to be in their correct seats. The idea of ithapcha, pushing away, could mean pushing away from the role of the core self, but not amputating from self. I think this means allowing ourselves to feel what the part is experiencing without allowing it to become the definer of meaning in our lives. Our core self should be acknowledging the legitimacy of its presence as a part of ourselves. This means inclusion with love, not hate. It’s a manifestation of Hashem. It holds the spot for our connection to Hashem on the level of the infinite. It is our deepest part that gives meaning, infinity, to all the other finite parts, including the core self. This is how itkafia takes place. The inclusion of the struggling parts into our oneness turns them into light.

Yes, struggling parts hurt. But that is mitigated when they are included in our oneness. Heidi Priebe, who teaches attachment theory on youtube, gave great advice on how to live with the emotional pain until it is included properly into our system. She said to compare the hunger of a fast to emotional hunger that comes to us when we feel dysregulated and we feel hungry to get regulated. Just like when we are fasting and experience the pain of hunger, yet can continue fasting knowing that we are fine even though we are hungry, so too with emotional pain. We can experience, for example, shame, and realize that we are fine, we are surviving, and can continue living while experiencing shame. It isn’t killing us. It is a feeling. It doesn’t have power and it isn’t dangerous. It’s just there. We can live with it. And, like with fasting, we know that food will be there for us at the end of the fast, so too with emotional hunger, peace, emotional regulation, will be there at the end.

It’s soooo empowering to be able to embrace difficult feelings and not have to run away from them. To live with them means I can still exist while they are there. I can still live my life and not be stopped by internal realities. I can brave social risks that otherwise I would not because I know I’ll survive any emotional reality that may arise. That’s because I can contain all of my experience and not have to run away from anything. Sometimes I like to walk down the street aware of all my parts that are presenting at that moment. I accept all parts and experience myself as huge. There is strength and power in being whole, which by definition means whole with all parts, even the dark parts. If people could see what I am in my totality their mouths would probably drop. But my full identity makes me smile as I see I am a whole world – whole is beautiful.

It’s my core self’s job to maintain the vigil on who I really am in totality so I can walk through life as a whole person. Though my parts don’t know I am one, I must know it. Eventually the painful parts will identify as part of my oneness on their own. They will want it because they will see how wonderful it is to be part of the oneness. They may grow and change, but they will always be a part – a part of the whole. That’s what we are aiming for. Kein yehi ratzon!

S.
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None -11 months ago
Just remember, one small twist of truth by the serpent ruined paradise. What if this, non-torah thought, is skewed even a bit and you followed, as Eve....are you willing to be a serpent lab rat to find out?

The manipulations of the lies of psychology and its ways of hell have mucked up the plans of G-d more than once. This time, they could bring the wrath of G-d that crushes the nations.
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None -11 months ago
We often lose sight in times like these, Ishmael is still the brother of Jacob!

When he cannot act as a brother, he deserves, by law, to die.

May G-d heal the dysfunctional house of Jacob once and for all. Selah.
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  None -11 months ago
  Just a reminder to Ishmael, G-d told Abraham to listen to his wife Sarai for a reason when she told Abraham to put Ishmael out of the home to die in the desert. If Abraham would not gave argued with G-d, Ishmael may not exist today. Something to think about!
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None -11 months ago
Thank G-d for the soldiers who can still cry over having to kill their enemies! May G-d produce more!

When you lose your ability to see another as a gift of G-d for their service to G-d in the world, mourning who and what they could have been and were not, you are nothing more than a serpent!

Oh to G- d that Ishmael can find his place in the mural of G-d, finding the live, peace and commaraderie he so desires. May G-d heal Ishmael body, soul and spirit, and as a family! May G-d be able to use Ishmael one day for His glory and honor.

May G-d lead Ishmael in the paths of righteousness. May G-d heal and bless Ishmael, Israel and the entire world with His love and peace.
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