Episode 46 - How You Respond To Hardship Determines How Much You Suffer

A single shift can change how every hard moment feels: prepare before it arrives and trust while you’re in it. We explore the quiet power of Friday as a threshold into Shabbat, not just as a cultural rhythm but as a blueprint for life. When we treat rest like something sacred, preparation stops being a chore and becomes an act of intention. That same mindset equips us for pressure: letters that drop our hearts, flashing lights in the mirror, or standing before a judge.

We unpack the difference between what happens to us and how we meet it. Suffering often expands in the gap created by panic, confusion, and isolation. So we make a case for knowledge as a form of courage: learn, ask, and surround yourself with wise teachers so you can walk into trials from a position of strength. Then we go deeper into spiritual awareness and the role of trust, exploring how a living relationship with the divine reframes setbacks as purposeful steps toward repair and growth. You don’t have to like the lesson to benefit from it, but you do need a lens that looks for meaning rather than randomness.

Gratitude ties it all together. Thanking before you fully understand interrupts fear, steadies your mind, and opens space for better choices. We share practical ways to build this habit: short daily conversations with your creator, honest reflection, and naming the good you already have. With these tools, calm stops being a rare mood and becomes a trained response. Prepare for what matters, trust the process, and let gratitude lead your next step.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs calm today, and leave a quick review so others can find it too.

Transcript

Why Preparation Transforms The Day

Hardships And Our Response

Entering Trials With Knowledge

Calm Under Pressure

Spiritual Awareness Ends Suffering

Gratitude As The Turning Point

Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Trust Factor Podcast. I'm glad you can make it. We are a day away from the big day. Friday, the best day of the week, the best day of the year. It takes us into Shabbat. What could be better than that, my friends? You know, in Israel, I'm a little bit envious because over there, Friday is our Sunday. On Friday, everybody takes off, or most people take off, especially if you're religious, and that becomes the day of preparation for Shabbat. It's so easy to do over there because everybody's doing it. Here, much more difficult. Friday here is a regular work day. So everybody's just doing what they need to do. If you're lucky enough that you work for yourself or you're able to get off a couple hours early and leave the office and go do some preparation for Shabbat, then great, you're ahead of the game. But in Israel, it's the norm. They go to work on Sunday, but who cares? You've got Friday, which is so much better than a Sunday. And so there's so much preparation that can be done physically and spiritually to be able to prepare. You're coming into the holiest day of the week, a day where it's just you, your creator, your family, your community. There's nothing sweeter. So the more you prepare for it, the better it's going to be. That's the case in life, my friends. You've been around long enough, you know that the more you prepare for something, the better off you are, the more you will enjoy it. It's the fruits of your labor. Shabbat's no different. If you go in unprepared, you're going to be scrambling to find things to do. It's not the worst thing in the world if you've done it many times, to sit with a book and learn and read and rest and pray and do all these wonderful things that can come naturally. But if you want to elevate it, or if you're new to Shabbat and you want to make sure that you put plans in place to be able to make it enjoyable for yourself because you've never done it before, then you need to plan. You need to prepare. They say that he who cooks on Friday will eat on Shabbat. You have to prepare your bed before you sleep in it. If you don't prepare your bed, then it becomes quite uncomfortable when the time comes to sleep in it. No tribulations. It turns out that life's hardships aren't the culprit. They're not what breaks people down. But the way that we accept those hardships, that, my friends, is the problem. It's our response to challenges in the world that make life difficult. In other words, we make life difficult for ourselves. The situation itself doesn't need to be difficult. The tax man is knocking on your door. You get a letter that drops your heart into your stomach. You get pulled over by the police, you're standing in front of a judge in a courtroom. All of those things could be water off of a duck's back. Do you know what it depends on? It depends on you. More specifically, it depends on your level of immuna. The more you enter those situations, knowing who put you there in the first place, who signed off on that letter from the tax man, who signed off on that police officer pulling you over, or the judge calling you up in front of him, who signed off on it? Everything, and I mean everything, as we just read last week or this week, comes from your creator. Your loving father, the one who only wants the best for you. So that means, if you're thinking, that means that the situation that you're in right now is the best thing for you. In your mind, and with your limited eyes and your limited knowledge of what's going on in this world, it might seem terrible. It might seem like the worst thing that could happen to anybody at any given time. And yet, because you've worked on yourself, because you've stepped up your game and your inner relationship with your creator, you're actively learning his Torah. You're actively engaging with rabbis and rabbits and people who are learned, much more learned than you. Because of that, you are feeding off of their knowledge, you are feeding off of their energy, you are learning the direct text that teaches you why you were put in those situations in the first place. So now you come from a position of knowledge, which is naturally a position of strength. When you come into a situation where you know nothing, absolutely nothing, you are at a disadvantage. You're at a disadvantage to everybody who's there and who has more knowledge than you. You now have to sit and learn from whatever ideas are floating, that's how you learn. As opposed to being on the opposite end where you now come with the most amount of knowledge. When you're prepared and you come from a position of knowledge, you are ahead of everybody else at the table. That's it. So when you know that this tribulation comes from your creator and you know how he runs the world and you know that it's for your own good, nothing phases you. Very important this is a very powerful statement right here. Listen to this. An old expression says that the creator decides the amount of suffering, but a person decides how much he'll suffer. It sounds simple, it might sound even like a contradiction, but it's a deep concept. A person with a Muna has something to lean on, and the strength and consolation to endure life's difficulties. He doesn't suffer. Indeed, he grows stronger, just like I said. What's the point here? The creator decides that this is the amount of suffering that you are prescribed. You have an amount to suffer. We all do. Why? Because we've said this many times. We've made mistakes, whether intentional or not. If you want access to the next world, if you want access to a paradise for eternity, then you have to make reparations. You can't come in broken. If it's broken, it doesn't get entry. So first you need to fix it. First you need to cleanse. Then you can come in and enjoy. So how do you cleanse? You go through the tribulations. But just the knowledge that going through the tribulation cleanses you and gives you access to paradise should relieve you of all of the stresses that the tribulations would otherwise bring on. You understand? That's why you'll determine how much you suffer. He determines the amount of suffering, the extent to which you suffer in those sufferings, if that makes any sense, is entirely in your hands. One person can get pulled over by a police officer and lose all composure. Especially today, you see that all the time. Videos online of people who just they lose all their faculties, they lose all their sense of logic and reason when they get pulled over. I don't know if it's stress, nerves, I have no idea, but they lose their minds and it ultimately ends up much worse than it needed to be. And other people are very calm and cool and collected, friendly, polite, respectful. They understand the police officer's there to do their job, and they walk through it unscathed. Why? Because it's their approach, it's their understanding. One person thinks you're not entitled to pull me over. Who do you think you are? Or the opposite, which is now I'm in trouble. Even though I haven't done anything, my license is perfectly up to date, my insurance is up to date, my car's working properly, I'm driving according to the law, there's no reason for me to get any trouble over here. Yet these people can't compose themselves because as soon as they see lights flashing behind them, they automatically think maybe I did something wrong, and they can't come to terms with the fact that they're about to face some form of consequence. Either way, the one who always wins is the one who's calm and composed. How do you become one of those people who are calm and composed when you come from a position of confidence? How do you come with a position of confidence when you come from a position of knowledge? I know who signed off on this police officer. I know who sent him. It's the same loving creator who I speak to every day, who I have a conversation with multiple times a day, whose Torah I learn, who I know, generally speaking, how he runs the world, and I understand the concept of tribulation, and I understand the concept that I need to be able to improve myself, and that this guy is just a tool in the hands of the creator. Water off a duck's back, my friends. Rabbi Nachman of Breslev writes, all types of sorrow and tribulations result from a lack of spiritual awareness. That sums it all up. All that stuff I just told you right now, I spent two solid minutes explaining it to you. He gave it to you in one sentence. You lack spiritual awareness, you suffer in this world. Simple. Therefore, you want to be happy in this world, soak up the spiritual awareness, be aware that there is another plane, a spiritual plane, where we all go and we all come from, and we need to be able to connect to that plane on a daily basis. A person who has spiritual awareness, who knows that everything is the result of divine providence, of God watching over us, feels no suffering. As a result, the only suffering a person has in this world is his or her own lack of amuna. That is the suffering. If you're suffering, it's because you don't have amuna. Work on your relationship with your creator, and nothing will affect you. As long as a person clings to the amuna that everything is for the best and thanks the creator accordingly. Remember, we said just yesterday how important gratitude is. It's the secret sauce. Gratitude changes everything, even for the less desirable things in life, even for the challenges. When you hit a brick wall, when you get the letter, when you get pulled over, when you find yourself in front of a judge, you look up to the heavens before you get up in front of that judge and you say thank you from the bottom of your heart. I know why I'm here. I got the message, I'm going to clean up my act. Everything turns around. He'll be filled with joy, and therefore everything will truly turn around for the very best. The only unbearable suffering that there is in this world, my friends, bottom line, is a lack of amona, a lack of a relationship with your creator. Get busy on it. Start connecting back to your creator. It's the easiest thing you will ever do. All you need to do is today, when you're driving in your car or when you're alone at home, put yourself into a room, close the door, and just use your words. Have a conversation with your creator in your own words. Doesn't have to come from a formal text. Speak to him like you would speak to a loving father and talk to him, pour your heart out, tell him about all the wonderful things in your life. Share the good. Just like a father wants to hear the good things that are happening in his child's life. Share the good. And then when you've done that, thank him because you know that he is the source of all that good. And when you're done, just say, I'd love even more good. If you've got some to give, I'm here to receive. I'd love to be able to get even more of that goodness that you've sent my way. And even the stuff that I don't understand, which by the way, tomorrow, I think I'm gonna read for you. I've got it somewhere over here. There's a letter, it's a thank you note that I think is attributed back to the Brezlev movement. And I think it's safe to say that they've kind of taken ownership of it. It may even be sourced by them. It's a wonderful thank you note that covers off everything in our lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it's really an amazing, amazing letter. I've read it a hundred times. And in my mind, if you could keep it every day and read it before you start, it would make your day exponentially better and it would improve your perspective on life just by reading this thank you note. Tomorrow, if I find it, I'll make best efforts to find it. And tomorrow, as part of the podcast, I'll read it for you. Have an amazing rest of your day, my friends. Tomorrow is Friday. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.