Episode 146 Fix Yourself, Fix the World

🌞 Ever felt like you're on the wrong train in life? Here's the truth: you can always change direction! 

Tag someone who needs to hear this! 

In this episode of the Trust Factor Podcast, I dive deep into the reality of being put in the "doghouse" and how often it stems from a lack of tools to navigate relationships. 

But here's the good news: the wisdom of Torah offers guidance on fixing what’s broken in our lives. 

👉 Imagine knowing that every challenge you face is an opportunity for growth. If you're struggling in a toxic relationship, remember, the first step is recognizing that you have the power to change your situation. 

It’s easy to blame others, but true transformation starts within. Are you ready to take the leap? 

💡 Remember, everything happens for a reason, and recognizing that can lead you on the right path.  

What insights have you gained from your toughest moments? 

Have an amazing week, friends!  

#thetrustfactorpodcast #personalgrowth  #relationshipadvice  #torahwisdom  #lifelessons  #jewishpodcasts 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Donald Trump one day is a lover of Israel, best relationship in the world, stands behind her 110%, and then suddenly he wants to do a deal with Iran, and in his desperation, he's ready to throw his number one partner under the bus and embrace the world's number one sponsor of terrorism. He just said that they are the number one sponsor of terrorism. Why they were irrational, miserable, had good partners, and that you can't speak to them. And today all of a sudden he says, I believe that uh they're rational and that we can speak to them and they're a good folk. What what's going on here? The only answer is it's not as it seems, a world of lies, which political theater to be able to get a deal done with Iran. The Trust Factor is a ticket to a better life. The Trust Factor shows you how to get through the life. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Trust Factory Podcast. Glad you can join. It's gonna be another beautiful week, and we're talking about something not so beautiful, but real, unfortunately. You know, I don't remember probably 20 years at least, since I've heard any conversation about somebody getting put out into the doghouse. A husband, God forbid, getting kicked out of the house. I guess it exists in secular society, but thank God I haven't been involved in secular society in 20 years, and that's why I haven't heard about these things. And other similar types of antics and strategies that are being used by people, they're being forced into these positions in many cases because they don't have the tools. They don't have the basic knowledge required to be able to deal with these things in a civilized manner. And the good news is that if you're following Torah, if you're learning from the document that was designed to tell you how to succeed in life, it also talks about your relationships. Because God created that relationship, he brought you together and he told you the first mitzvah that we ever got in the Torah was pru urvu. You should be fruitful and multiply, which means you need to find a mate and you need to start reproducing. That is our number one mitzvah. It's the first one right out of the gate. So clearly it's important he set you up with it. And if you have to resort to tactics where you're sending that person out of the house because you've been suffering in a toxic relationship, it's not a good place to be, my friends. And the secular world is not going to help you. Their systems were designed by man for man, it doesn't work. The only system that works and that transcends any of our flaws is the system of Torah, is a system that was created by our creator and given to us as a manual in order to succeed. So let's follow it. I'm telling you, I've been there. I've had both experiences where I had both feet in the secular world for 30 plus years of my life, and then both feet in the religious world for 20 years of my life. And I could tell you, having been in both places, it's a no-brainer, guys. If you're not there with me, it's time to start. The clock is ticking. Time waits for nobody, my friends. So get on the right train. The analogy that was given by my rabbi a long time ago was that you find yourself on the train going in the wrong direction. You thought you were going the right way. You got on the train going eastbound for what was supposed to be a multi-day trip. And when you get to the middle of your trip, two, three days in, you suddenly are told that you're on the wrong train. You needed to be going westbound. Now you've been going the wrong way. What do you do? Do you stop at the next closest stomp and get off the train and get on the right one heading in the right direction? Or do you just say, you know what? I'm done. I made a mistake. I'm going to stay on this train. It is what it is. Oh well. Nobody stays on the train. You get off the train, you call into wherever you were supposed to get, and you explain to them that you're running late and that you're going to make the change and head back. You'll get there. It might be late, but it's better than never, right? That's the analogy for life. You find out you've been living for 30, 40 years, a life of secularism, a life that is the blind leading the blind, and you don't understand why things don't work out for you, why the choices that you make don't work out, why your outlook is always corrupted. It's because you are being told what to think and how to behave by people who are self-serving. The Torah is not self-serving. Let's see what God says about the individual that gets put out in the doghouse. Again, I mean, it's such an alien idea to me. But I remember vaguely, 20 plus years ago, hearing about these stories of people being put in the doghouse on the couch. You're not allowed anywhere near the family anymore. God forbid, can't even imagine. So the book says that in order to get back in, and in order to fix what you did wrong, and make no mistake, you did something wrong. It could be that your spouse also did plenty wrong, and other people in the family also did plenty wrong, but we don't look at them. We don't look at them because we can't control them. We can't control what people think and how they behave. The only thing that we can control is how we think and how we behave. So we fix ourselves. You want to fix the world, you start by fixing yourself. That is a steadfast rule. So what does it say? It says you need to go back to what we talked about in the early days of the podcast. There are three levels of Amuna, and you have to remind yourself of those three levels and implement them. What are they? Good time for a refresher. The first level is the knowledge that everything comes from the creator. He has to fully believe that the creator is the one who evicted him from his home. I have a problem with this, and you know my problem, and I've seen this before and I've addressed this before. There's a bit of a conundrum over here. I think that the author would agree with me because it says clearly the first level is the knowledge. Knowledge implies knowing, not believing, not having faith, not guessing or wondering, but knowing. And then he goes right into saying he has to fully believe that the creator is the one who evicted him. No, you have to fully know with absolute certainty that it was the creator who evicted you. This concept of belief implies not knowing. I don't know, therefore I have to rely on a system of beliefs. I have to hypothesize, I have to guess. No, that's not Judaism. Judaism is the exact opposite. In Judaism, we have to know with absolute certainty throughout the Torah, from beginning to end, it says over and over and over again, in relation, in reference to our relationship with our creator, you must know veyadatahayom, vehshivota elva bihai. You should know that your creator exists. You should know that he wants to have a relationship with you. You should know that he created everything. You should know that the Torah is divine. You should know that Moses existed. You should know that he was the author, God spoke and he wrote. You should know that Moses was the one charged with redeeming the nation from Egypt. You should know these things, not believe them. Belief leaves room for another option, an alternative. And there are no alternatives. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then it's time to start learning on a real level. And when I say that you need to know, it implies that you need to learn because there are ways to quantify this for yourself. You don't have to run on faith. Faith in Judaism only comes after you've established that he exists, that he runs the world, that he's involved in your life. After you've seen his hands in your life multiple times over and over again, you've benefited from it. Then you can operate on a system in faith when you have to rely on a situation that puts a lot of pressure on you and tests you in a big way, which happens to all of us multiple times throughout our lives. It's when you hit a wall or when you're in a fog or in a haze and you can't figure stuff out. Again, happens to everybody. You have to have faith. I told you guys about that example that I had where I was scammed and I felt like I was really turned into a robot. I could beat myself up over it for a long time, thinking what a fool I was. But no, it's precisely that situation where I have to remember that God runs the world. And then I can rely on this thing called faith. Why? Because he's established for me over 20 years and in hundreds and thousands of scenarios that he exists, that he loves me, that he wants my very best, that everything that he does is for my best. I look at my life, I look back in retrospect, and I see that I have a wonderful life. I've been given all of the things that I need and most of the things that I want. Who could ask for more? And he continues to shower even when I don't do the things that I'm supposed to do, he still has patience and he still has love for me, and he still gives and he still waits. He's established who he is in my relationship with him. And so when I hit a wall, when things don't go my way, when suddenly I feel like I just got taken advantage of, or something that I interpret to be negative happens to me, I don't get mad. I don't get mad because getting mad would suggest that suddenly he just pulled a 180. He's not Donald Trump, God forbid. He's not a flippant businessman or a politician, God forbid. He doesn't change his mind like the weather changes, like a lot of these politicians do. Donald Trump one day is a lover of Israel, best relationship in the world, stands behind her 110%, sends the military out, sends all types of ammunition, missiles, and all kinds of different bombs and fighter pilots to go fly alongside the IDF. And then suddenly he wants to do a deal with Iran. And in his desperation to do a deal with Iran, he's ready to throw his number one partner under the bus and embrace the world's number one sponsor of terrorism. Last week, he just said that they are the number one sponsor of terrorism. Last week he couldn't stop talking about how they were irrational and that they were miserable and that they're not good partners and that you can't speak to them and yada yada yada. And today all of a sudden he says, I believe that uh they're rational and that we can speak to them and they're good folk. And what's going on here? In my mind, the only answer is it's not as it seems, Olama Sheker, a world of lies, that this is theater, it's political theater to be able to get a deal done with Iran. That's what I want to believe. But the reality is not you nor I will ever know what's really happening behind the scenes. Maybe he's completely flippant. It wouldn't be the first time that Donald Trump changed his tune within 15 minutes, 12 times. That's who he is. We know him for that. So maybe he just did it with Israel. Hard to imagine, but not entirely out of the equation. At the end of the day, though, my friends, we know there's a God that runs the world. So let's continue. Number one, know that God runs the world and he is the one who got you kicked out of that house. There's no place for self-flagellation. It's not poor me. I'm a victim. Why did I get kicked out of the house? How come I'm the one suffering the brunt of all of this stuff? How come nobody else is to blame? How come I'm the only one who's ever to blame? None of that exists here. Why? Because he sent you out. Anger, revenge, depression, and self-pity are all anti-imuna dark side emotions. Every single one of those emotions is you saying with your feelings that God doesn't exist. Or, God forbid he exists, but he hates you and he's masochistic and he wants to hurt you. All of these things fly in the face of what you know to be true. But when you're down and out, you find yourself selling yourself these stories. He shouldn't take out his frustration on his father-in-law, his mother-in-law, or his wife's divorce girlfriend, even though they all encourage his wife to throw him up. Run around finding somebody to blame. We're all guilty of this. We don't want to take blame. We don't want to be the ones responsible. Because that means now that I have to work. I have to change. I have to actually step up and do the heavy lifting. Who wants to do that? We were programmed lazy. So let me blame somebody else. And then we'll give somebody like Dr. Phil another talk show to talk about, even though he has more money than he knows what to do with, because there aren't enough hours in the day to put on shows for all of the dysfunctional families that are in the world. Why? Because the vast majority of humanity doesn't follow these precepts, and so they end up in dysfunction. Let's continue. He shouldn't blame the police who believe her allegations. Even though they might be false, he still shouldn't blame the police. He shouldn't bear malice towards the judge who signed the restraining order and legally threw him out of his own home, playing the victim. That is our natural tendency. This is exactly what the creator wants. That's what you have to think. God wants this, and that's why I'm in this position. Now, what am I going to do to get out? So step number one is recognize it's got nothing to do with your in-laws or with your wife's friends or with things that your wife said. It's got nothing to do with anybody else and everything to do with you. That's why Hashem said, I need to remove you from the situation. That's step one. Acknowledge it comes from your creator. What's the second level of Amuna? The second level is the knowledge that the creator does everything for the very best. Sound familiar? Takes us back to the early days. There is nothing that God would do for us that would harm us. Would you harm your child? Would you go out of your way to make your child suffer miserably in this life for absolutely no reason? Obviously not. If you had to put a stumbling block in your child's way, it's for his own good. If you had to put a gate up on the stairs when your child still cannot navigate stairs, your child looks at you like there's something wrong with you. Why are you leaving me here behind this gate while you climb those stairs? And they give you that face and you fall apart, right? You feel bad. And the child looks at you like you're the worst thing in the world. Why would you do that to me? Take off this gate so that I can climb with you, but you're not going to. Do you know why you're not going to take off that gate? Because if that child starts to walk up those stairs, it's just a matter of time before they fall down and God forbid hurt or kill themselves. We don't want that. So we put that stumbling block in their way to say, no, you can't go there. That's the only time we would put something in the way of our child's success to be able to protect them. They don't know they're being protected. That child hasn't got a clue. They think they can navigate those stairs. And you're not about to let them figure that out. So you stop them against their will. It's the same idea. You recognize that Hashem loves you, and he's like a father, only exponentially, infinitely more than your earthly father. Everything that happens with God is infinite. Everything that happens in this life is limited, limited by time and space, by weights and measures that doesn't exist in an infinite world. And so the Creator has a love for you that is infinite in nature. So remind yourself that he's your father, that he loves you infinitely, and that everything he's doing is for your ultimate best. We're going to flush this one out a little bit again. May not be tomorrow, my friends, but it will be on Tuesday where we flush out this idea and then we talk about the third level of Amuna, which, if you can remember, actually I challenge you. Go back and listen and figure out what that third level of Amuna is, and you'll get a jump on Tuesday's episode. Have an amazing day, my friends, and an amazing week. 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.