The Classically Abby Podcast - Ep. 8 ｜ 7 Things I Wish I Knew SOONER

00:00:00.060 Seven things I wish I knew sooner, what's the story with the fancy stuff in the tabernacle,

00:00:05.980 and how to break up with someone who doesn't want the same things you do.

00:00:10.000 All this and more on today's episode of the Classically Abbey podcast.

00:00:30.000 Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Classically Abbey podcast.

00:00:34.820 I am so glad you are here.

00:00:36.980 I feel like I haven't recorded in a little while, and whenever I take a little break and then come sit down and just chat with you guys,

00:00:43.780 I realize how much I just like talking to you, and how much I just love hearing all of your responses in the comments,

00:00:50.960 and getting to share my life with you all.

00:00:53.680 So, I'm looking forward to today's episode.

00:00:55.980 But before we get into it, I want to ask if you would please share this with anybody you think would enjoy it,

00:01:03.760 your friends, your family, whoever you think would like it.

00:01:07.160 And I would also love if you would subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts,

00:01:11.680 and give this podcast a good review on Apple Podcasts.

00:01:15.100 That would really help me out.

00:01:16.420 So, in today's episode, we're going to be doing our weekly catch-up,

00:01:20.320 as well as the main topic, followed by our faith talk,

00:01:23.880 and stay tuned till the end, where I'll be answering my premium subscriber questions.

00:01:29.240 So, let's just get into our weekly catch-up, shall we?

00:01:31.740 Let's just start right off.

00:01:33.440 Last week, we went to the Renaissance Fair.

00:01:36.480 It was awesome.

00:01:38.180 I want to go back.

00:01:39.100 I don't think we're going to get a chance, because March is insane for us.

00:01:43.160 March is crazy.

00:01:44.820 So, first we have Purim.

00:01:47.820 Then we have, which is a Jewish holiday. 0.62

00:01:49.800 It's a Jewish holiday where we celebrate the Book of Esther, and we all dress up.

00:01:52.880 It's really fun.

00:01:54.160 I'm looking right to my side here.

00:01:56.780 I've got all of these little gift baskets that we're going to be handing out to our friends.

00:02:01.080 That's one of the commandments, the mitzvot that we do on the holiday. 1.00

00:02:04.920 We distribute these different baskets with food to our friends and our community,

00:02:10.320 and it's a lot of fun.

00:02:11.820 So, that is coming up.

00:02:13.880 And then right after that, we have my husband's birthday,

00:02:17.020 followed by my son's birthday,

00:02:18.740 followed by my two members of my family's birthdays,

00:02:22.500 and then we're already into April, and it's Passover.

00:02:25.640 So, it's a very busy time for us.

00:02:28.100 So, I don't think we're going to get a chance to go back to the Renaissance Fair.

00:02:30.280 But we had such a good time.

00:02:32.640 We actually bought costumes.

00:02:34.400 We dressed up.

00:02:35.700 I wore this kind of modern corset thing.

00:02:39.120 When I say modern, I just mean that it's not, like, boned.

00:02:43.200 It's more something that you tie, and it holds you in.

00:02:47.180 So, that was very comfortable.

00:02:49.740 I appreciated that.

00:02:50.720 To be fair, I don't find corsets with boning uncomfortable,

00:02:53.680 but it's nice to have something that's just a little bit more flexible on a very hot day.

00:02:57.100 So, I wore that, and I also got this dress.

00:02:59.060 The whole thing I got off of Amazon.

00:03:00.760 My husband also got his outfit off of Amazon.

00:03:03.520 And we actually decided that since we were buying costumes for the Renaissance Fair,

00:03:08.060 we might as well reuse those costumes for Purim.

00:03:12.620 So, we just kind of went as your average Renaissance people to the fair.

00:03:19.160 But the way we're going to use it for Purim is that I will be dressing up as Maid Marian,

00:03:25.040 my husband will be Robin Hood, and our son will be Little John.

00:03:29.260 So, I think it's going to be really cute.

00:03:31.580 I'm really excited about it.

00:03:33.240 But the Renaissance Fair was super cool because I had never been to one,

00:03:37.260 and I had always thought that maybe they looked a little bit hokey, run down,

00:03:41.620 not really well-maintained.

00:03:43.640 Maybe the buildings are just kind of, not buildings, but the stalls don't look very professional.

00:03:49.600 But they actually really look like you feel transported to another place at another time,

00:03:55.540 and all of the stuff there looks very well put together, looks very era appropriate.

00:04:01.400 It's a lot of fun.

00:04:03.420 And I actually bought a couple things there.

00:04:05.440 I got this really pretty kind of rose ring, which if you're watching this on YouTube,

00:04:09.440 you'll be able to see from a very far distance.

00:04:12.560 And I also got, my husband bought me a locket with a rose on it, which I really love.

00:04:17.800 I want to print a photo of my husband, and I want to print a photo of Mr. Baby,

00:04:22.460 and I want to put that on both sides so that I can carry them close to my heart.

00:04:26.660 So, yes, I would recommend, if you have never been to a Renaissance Fair, check it out.

00:04:32.760 There are a lot of things to do.

00:04:34.300 To be honest, we didn't do very much.

00:04:36.900 We just kind of wanted to wander around, take it all in, take in the sights and sounds and smells,

00:04:42.000 try out different, kind of walk over to different stalls and look and see what they had,

00:04:47.240 because they're selling all of these different wares, which I love a craft fair.

00:04:51.300 And a Renaissance craft fair might be even better.

00:04:54.500 So, if you like that kind of thing, you would really enjoy this.

00:04:57.520 But they also have a bunch of kind of fun activities for kids, little rides and things like that.

00:05:03.880 They have shows.

00:05:05.340 They have walking people who are going to be in character and engage with you.

00:05:10.360 So, it's cool.

00:05:12.000 I really am glad that we went.

00:05:14.220 I hope that maybe next year we can go more often,

00:05:17.380 because I don't think we're going to get to go again this year, unfortunately.

00:05:19.880 But that was really fun.

00:05:21.400 And what was even more fun was that we actually went with a couple of our friends.

00:05:25.060 And if you can get a few people to go together, that just makes it an even better time.

00:05:30.240 And that's kind of part of what I wanted to chat about next,

00:05:34.780 is just how great it is to have good friends.

00:05:38.400 So, this past week was very busy for me because I was needed in a lot of different ways.

00:05:47.320 And you might think, oh, that's exhausting, that's tiring, you're going to be stretched too thin,

00:05:54.480 you're going to be overwhelmed.

00:05:55.540 And there is an element of truth to all of that.

00:05:58.580 You do feel a little bit tired, a little bit stretched thin, a little bit pulled in too many directions.

00:06:03.540 But at the same time, I have never felt more grateful and more just meaning and purpose than when I know that people need me.

00:06:15.420 That's what life is about, right, is that people need you.

00:06:18.920 It shows you why you're here, is when people are reaching out to you because they trust you and they depend on you

00:06:26.420 and they need your support in whatever way that, in whatever form that takes.

00:06:31.380 That can be physical, it can be just running errands for someone, it can be emotional, maybe they want to talk to you.

00:06:36.840 And so, having these friends that we've made here in Florida come with us to the Renaissance Fair was wonderful.

00:06:43.720 And those same friends, I actually planned her surprise birthday party this past week.

00:06:48.660 And we had such a good time.

00:06:50.800 We ended up, it ended up being a huge surprise.

00:06:53.080 She loved it, which made me so happy.

00:06:55.780 I will also say that on my end, I was very proud that I'm the kind of person.

00:07:02.120 So this is kind of funny, but I invited her over to my place before the party just because she knew that we were going to have,

00:07:09.720 we were going to be going out.

00:07:10.880 But she didn't know that a big group of people was going to be going out.

00:07:13.820 She thought it was just going to be like a couple of friends.

00:07:16.560 And so I said to her, why don't you come over a couple of hours before we go out and we'll just get ready together.

00:07:22.800 So that her husband could prepare the house and get it ready and everyone could show up to surprise her.

00:07:28.000 And I had to say to myself, you know, I feel good that I'm the kind of person that it didn't throw her onto it.

00:07:36.640 Like she didn't figure it out because I had said, come over and let's get ready together.

00:07:42.640 It didn't make her question it and maybe figure out that there was a surprise.

00:07:46.200 She just that that's just something I would do enough that she was like, yeah, that sounds fun.

00:07:52.780 Let I would love for you to get ready with me.

00:07:55.260 And what I had offered is I'll do your hair and makeup because I love doing that for people.

00:07:59.220 And so when it wasn't weird, it didn't make her go, oh, maybe they're doing something.

00:08:03.820 They're trying to get me out of the house.

00:08:05.220 It didn't even come across that way, which I thought was a nice thing.

00:08:09.400 And something I want to continue to do is be the kind of person who offers fun activities to my friends.

00:08:17.220 Like, let's get ready together.

00:08:18.420 Let's let me do your hair and makeup. 0.99

00:08:20.320 And they would never suspect that I was trying to throw them off the scent of a surprise party, for example.

00:08:27.040 But it was great.

00:08:28.360 We actually went axe throwing, which if you haven't done axe throwing, it's a lot of fun.

00:08:33.380 And we've done it now twice.

00:08:34.980 This was our second time.

00:08:36.180 By the end of this time, I was getting good.

00:08:38.340 I was really figuring it out, which I was like, yeah, it took, you know, a few tries for me to kind of get the hang of it.

00:08:44.540 And it does take a while, depending on if you some people are very naturally good at it, but some people are not.

00:08:50.160 And if you are the kind of person who needs a few tries to get used to it, it's OK.

00:08:55.420 That's normal because for the first, I don't know, 10, 15 throws, you're going to be not even getting the axe to stick in the wood.

00:09:01.900 It's just going to bounce off because the wrong part of the axe is going to hit it.

00:09:05.060 But once you figure it out, it's really fun and it's really cool.

00:09:09.140 And it's just fun because one of the great things about this party was that we were all just encouraging one another.

00:09:16.540 It was competitive in that fun, silly way, but also we wanted everyone else to do well.

00:09:21.760 We didn't like it when other people weren't doing well.

00:09:24.240 We would go in and help them or teach them or whatever else it was.

00:09:27.840 So it ended up being a great time and I'm so glad that it all worked out.

00:09:32.480 And she was actually surprised, which is great.

00:09:35.600 So the next thing I want to talk about is Costco.

00:09:41.340 Is Costco not the best place?

00:09:43.540 It's so fun.

00:09:44.520 And it's so funny that I feel this way because as a kid, I remember my mom would take me to Costco and I hated it.

00:09:50.300 I hated going with her.

00:09:51.660 It really stressed me out.

00:09:52.700 And it was because there were no windows.

00:09:54.780 It was a giant warehouse.

00:09:55.860 It was ugly.

00:09:57.220 I couldn't understand why she had to go shopping there and why she took me.

00:10:01.640 Like it made me very unhappy.

00:10:03.300 And now as an adult, honestly, it was ever since moving to Nebraska, we had a Costco down the street from us.

00:10:09.760 So we could go there whenever we wanted and we would go on Costco dates.

00:10:13.140 That was like our date night.

00:10:14.920 We would say, you want to go to Costco tonight?

00:10:16.500 And we'd go and we'd kind of do like a treasure hunt, see if we found anything fun or cool or different.

00:10:21.620 That was still useful to us, but wasn't an arm and a leg and was maybe something we never knew we needed.

00:10:27.580 And it was just a fun way to spend an evening.

00:10:31.000 I am a huge proponent of this.

00:10:33.500 Giving yourself a budget saying like, okay, we can spend $50.

00:10:37.520 We can spend $100.

00:10:39.240 And whatever we find within that budget, let's just buy it.

00:10:42.820 Because it's so fun there to just see what they have.

00:10:46.400 And they have so much cool stuff, so much good stuff, so much good food.

00:10:49.980 I love going to Costco.

00:10:52.200 It has become just a little spot that I go to, can get everything I need for my house.

00:10:57.100 And then maybe if I find something else that's useful, I get that too.

00:11:01.400 For example, we recently got these really pretty ceramic bowls that also come with microwave lids.

00:11:07.560 And I just think they're so nice for serving, but they're also great for storage.

00:11:12.060 But they're also great for just eating a bowl of cereal.

00:11:14.720 And I never would have gotten that somewhere else because I wouldn't be looking for it.

00:11:20.200 I wouldn't necessarily think I needed it, but it is pretty and useful.

00:11:23.560 And because I host a lot, it's actually very useful because I can put, you know, Israeli salads in them.

00:11:29.100 We do like a lot of hummus, some, I don't know, tabbouleh, things like that.

00:11:34.780 And they're really good serving dishes.

00:11:36.540 So that was, I just wanted to mention how much I enjoy Costco.

00:11:43.600 Last but not least, I wanted to talk a little bit about something you might not expect from me.

00:11:50.320 So I'm guessing you've figured out by now that I am probably the least hippie-ish person you'll meet.

00:11:56.960 Like, I am not a hippie person.

00:11:58.580 I am much more refined.

00:12:03.060 I like a structured jacket.

00:12:05.900 I like structure to my days.

00:12:09.140 That's not to say I'm not a fan of slow living, but I would not say I'm a, I'm a hippie person.

00:12:14.380 Like, astrology is, for example, astrology is something that I think is kind of entertaining.

00:12:20.340 I take absolutely no stock in it.

00:12:21.900 I think it's fun to talk about like, oh, this sign matches with this sign, but I also don't believe that that matters.

00:12:30.380 But the thing I'm about to talk about might make you think, Abby, that is so hippie-ish.

00:12:35.220 And perhaps it is, but it has worked for me.

00:12:38.400 And I have tried hypnotherapy, hypnosis.

00:12:43.020 So I actually did this a long time ago back in LA.

00:12:46.380 Makes sense, right?

00:12:47.220 An LA thing to go get hypnotherapy. 0.96

00:12:48.920 But I saw someone about situational anxiety and it really, really helped.

00:12:57.840 And so since we moved to Florida, I've been wanting to talk to somebody about my eating habits because I have found that I have certain, not compulsive in like a compulsive way, but let's say compulsive behaviors about wanting to finish what I eat.

00:13:15.420 You know, clean plate club kind of thing or wanting to eat more than I need of desserts or snacks or things that I kind of snacking when I'm not hungry.

00:13:26.620 And I don't like that feeling of eating something and then feeling regret.

00:13:32.060 And I've tried to work through this.

00:13:33.940 I've tried to kind of make myself do better at it.

00:13:38.140 But after reading Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis with my book club, shameless plug, you should join my book club, I realized that it's very hard to get your conscious mind to change an unconscious or subconscious pull or thing that you're doing.

00:13:58.640 So even though I was telling myself, OK, I don't want to do these things, the conscious mind can't really direct your unconscious to do something that it doesn't want to do.

00:14:09.180 That's where hypnosis and hypnotherapy come in.

00:14:11.740 They help kind of bypass the conscious mind and work directly with the unconscious and the subconscious and deal with those those things that are making you do something that maybe you don't want to do anymore.

00:14:26.240 For example, this hypnotherapy works very well for smokers, for people who would very much like to stop a compulsive behavior, but are not able to do it just through sheer will.

00:14:38.700 So I saw a hypnotherapist here and I was like a little skeptical because it's been a long time and it's someone I didn't know.

00:14:45.460 So there's always a risk with that, that maybe you don't like it or you don't take to it.

00:14:49.760 And I think it's working.

00:14:52.260 I did one session and I came home and I was like, OK, well, I don't feel very different.

00:14:57.580 But within a couple of days, I started to see that maybe I wasn't really craving these things that I had wanted in the past.

00:15:05.920 And I was able to have a little bit more self-control in situations where in the past I would not have.

00:15:12.200 And it's making me feel great.

00:15:14.800 So I actually decided to set up another appointment and I know it sounds like a crazy hippie concept, but hypnosis is actually very powerful in many, many circumstances.

00:15:26.360 And hypnotherapy has been very beneficial to me.

00:15:29.480 So I wanted to mention it because I think it could help people and maybe you haven't even heard of it or maybe you've heard of it, but it sounded too crazy.

00:15:39.960 And here's your big sister, Abby, classically Abby, telling you, if you are interested in trying it out, maybe give it a go.

00:15:48.200 And it doesn't have to work for you, but maybe you will.

00:15:50.960 And if it does, I mean, what's better than that?

00:15:55.040 So that is it for today's weekly catch up.

00:15:58.900 So now let's get into the main portion of today's episode.

00:16:02.640 So for the main portion of today's episode, I want to talk about seven things I wish I knew sooner.

00:16:09.920 So the reason I want to talk about this today is I actually did an Instagram reel on this idea.

00:16:16.080 It was something I saw that someone else had posted.

00:16:18.400 And often the way that I create my Instagram reels is I look for trending audio and I will then use that trending audio in my own way.

00:16:26.440 Or I will take a trending theme.

00:16:30.920 I don't know, some some sort of reel that people are doing and I will do my own spin on it.

00:16:35.740 So I had seen seven things I wish I knew sooner.

00:16:38.280 And I thought, you know what?

00:16:39.820 That's a great idea.

00:16:41.060 Let me share some of my thoughts on that.

00:16:43.440 And I just wrote them just kind of like the header.

00:16:47.680 And that's it.

00:16:48.540 And I thought to myself, you know, it would make an interesting podcast episode to actually break down those seven things a little bit more.

00:16:55.320 Because if you're just reading it, you don't necessarily know or understand what I'm talking about or why I said it.

00:17:01.420 And the thing I liked about this particular idea was that a lot of my reels on Instagram are very fiery, are very kind of controversial.

00:17:12.040 And this one really wasn't.

00:17:14.380 It was more things I have learned and that I think have been valuable to me and that maybe could help somebody else out.

00:17:21.600 So I'm excited to share these seven things with you.

00:17:24.440 I think that it's always wonderful to kind of think and learn and just examine your life, just constantly checking in, you know, and understanding what those changes you've made throughout your life have have done for you.

00:17:40.840 So let's get right into it.

00:17:43.180 So number one is the first thing I wish I knew sooner is that God loves me.

00:17:49.680 I don't think I knew this for quite a long time, unfortunately.

00:17:56.920 We don't really use that phraseology in Orthodox Judaism, even though we talk about it, but we don't really use that phraseology.

00:18:04.260 I would say we often talk about how we love God.

00:18:07.520 But the phrase God loves me, I hadn't really heard much until I became friends with a lot more Christians.

00:18:15.060 And Christians use that phrase a lot, that God loves them.

00:18:18.580 And once I sort of started talking to my husband about it, it gave me a whole new look on faith.

00:18:25.720 It gave me a whole new outlook on my relationship to God.

00:18:30.680 And it gave me a whole new relationship to my practice of Orthodox Judaism.

00:18:37.500 Now, why do I say all of that?

00:18:39.280 Well, when you realize that God loves you, it gives you permission to make mistakes.

00:18:45.880 And that was really my big thing.

00:18:49.300 When I went off the derach, which is the Jewish phrase for kind of leaving the practice or becoming less religious,

00:18:57.900 a lot of it had to do with feeling like I had made too many mistakes and I couldn't, you know, in a sense, look God in the face.

00:19:11.520 Like I couldn't look him in the eye when I knew I was doing something wrong or doing something that wasn't in line with my religious values.

00:19:22.680 For example, when I stopped keeping Sabbath, I felt like I couldn't be religious at all because I had turned against God and I had been bad towards God.

00:19:33.080 Or when I was not really being modest or when I started, you know, kissing guys who I wasn't married to.

00:19:42.740 I felt like I couldn't have a relationship with God because I'd let him down.

00:19:49.120 And that was a really big mistake because instead of saying I can make mistakes and God still loves me and therefore I can come back from these mistakes.

00:20:02.360 It was like I had to do all or nothing.

00:20:05.580 And if I didn't do it all, then I was doing nothing.

00:20:09.760 Right.

00:20:10.500 And this feeling of no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to be perfect, which kind of leads into some of the other things I wish I knew sooner.

00:20:19.520 But also that if I chose not to do something, if it wasn't just a mistake, but if I chose not to do something at a certain time, meaning chose not to do a certain law at a certain time in my life, then I was like actively going against my creator.

00:20:36.820 And therefore, God didn't love me anymore.

00:20:39.380 And so I had to realize that, no, God loves me through all of it, through the thick and the thin, through me being the most religious version of myself and the least religious version of myself.

00:20:51.040 It doesn't matter.

00:20:51.920 God still loves me.

00:20:53.260 And that means that I can do better and grow again towards being close to him.

00:21:00.260 It meant that at the times that I became less religious, I could have said, OK, but I want to come back because I want to maintain that.

00:21:06.940 I want to give something to this God that loves me.

00:21:10.260 I want to maintain that relationship to this God that loves me.

00:21:13.680 Even when I'm not as religious, I might decide to come back. 0.75

00:21:17.360 And I knew I would wanted to raise my children Jewish, but I didn't have necessarily that understanding of my own relationship with God at that point.

00:21:26.080 And if I had known that God loves me, it would have given me permission to make mistakes and to step away while also stepping back later and given me a confidence in my relationship with God,

00:21:39.880 which I think eventually and ultimately makes you closer to God in the long run and makes you want to make better choices as regarding your faith, make more intentional choices as regarding your faith.

00:21:56.040 So that would have been a very good thing for me to know sooner in my life is that my relationship with my with my creator, with God, he loves me and he wants what's best for me.

00:22:09.880 And that would have maybe colored my decisions and would have made me not be so hard on myself in the times where I became less religious because I could say, and in the future, I still want to because God loves me, I love him.

00:22:26.880 And that's a huge thing is because God loves me, I love him.

00:22:30.520 If I felt like God was indifferent towards me, then I would feel indifferent towards God.

00:22:34.280 And so if I love God and God loves me, then at some point in my future, I would want to be closer to him so that that relationship could flourish.

00:22:43.860 So that's number one.

00:22:45.940 Number two, seven of the seven things I wish I knew sooner is the perfect is the enemy of the good.

00:22:51.620 So I'm going to quickly read kind of a Wikipedia entry on this idea, which is perfect is the enemy of the good is an aphorism, which means insistence on perfection often prevents implementation of good improvements.

00:23:04.220 The Pareto principle or 80 20 rule explains this numerically.

00:23:08.360 For example, it commonly takes 20 percent of the full time to complete 80 percent of a task, while to complete the last 20 percent of a task takes 80 percent of the effort.

00:23:18.500 So this would have been good for me to know now, to be clear, I've never been a perfectionist, but the idea applying to myself would have been very important because as it as it comes towards my creative output and creative outlets, I've never been a perfectionist.

00:23:38.260 I am very much a proponent of the idea of the perfect is the enemy of the good in those contexts.

00:23:43.680 I like to get things good and as good as they can be.

00:23:46.740 But at a certain point, I know that that last 20 percent of the project is going to take so much more time than anyone would ever notice.

00:23:54.960 And it's not worth it.

00:23:57.100 When it comes to myself, though, I am a perfectionist.

00:24:00.220 And when it comes to how I grow and change and improve, I'm a perfectionist.

00:24:07.380 And so I would look for myself.

00:24:10.720 I would look in myself for perfection.

00:24:14.000 I would encourage myself to be perfect in every way.

00:24:19.180 And it would end up making me go, I can't do it.

00:24:23.700 I can't be perfect.

00:24:25.700 And so I'm going to be worse.

00:24:28.600 I'm not going to be good.

00:24:30.040 I'm going to be worse than good.

00:24:32.240 Like I would I couldn't aim for good.

00:24:34.200 I had to aim for perfect.

00:24:35.300 And in doing that, I ended up following falling short of good even.

00:24:40.340 And it was very harmful to me as a person and to my growth.

00:24:44.740 This happened in my religion.

00:24:47.100 It happened in my I don't know the way I treated people, maybe in my own.

00:24:52.580 Meaning if I wasn't a perfect friend, then I was not even a good friend.

00:25:00.840 Like if I didn't go out of my way for every single person who asked me to help, if I didn't.

00:25:05.500 And, you know, this is funny because earlier in the podcast, I said it's so important to be needed and to go out of your way for your friends.

00:25:12.760 But I also want to caveat that with you also have to watch out for yourself, right?

00:25:17.100 If you are actually spread too thin, if you've been asked by too many people to do too many things and you can't take care of yourself, then you will end up being a worse friend because at some point you're going to burn out and not be able to help anybody.

00:25:29.040 And it's better to help, for example, let's say 80% of your friends and those other 20% at that moment you can't help because you need to reserve that 20% for yourself than it is to try to aim for that 100% where you're helping literally everybody and leaving nothing for yourself and then you end up burned out.

00:25:47.480 So I would often aim for that 100% and then I would get burned out and I would end up at, you know, 70, 60, 50% of helping people or going out of my way for people.

00:25:57.000 And the perfect is the enemy of the good would have been so good for me because I could have said to myself, you know what, Abby, you don't have to go to perfection.

00:26:09.480 You just have to aim for good.

00:26:12.900 And if you aim for good and you get there, then maybe you can aim for excellent.

00:26:16.920 But initially aim for good because if you're constantly pushing for perfection and you fall short all the time, you will feel like a failure.

00:26:29.700 It's why I always say that being classic is a goal.

00:26:32.820 It's an aspiration.

00:26:34.000 It's not realistic to expect to be all the time.

00:26:36.640 If you saw me, I don't know, probably 30% of the time, I'm not in makeup.

00:26:42.480 I'm wearing something schlubby.

00:26:44.040 Like I'm not always classic.

00:26:45.920 No one is.

00:26:46.680 No one can be classic all the time.

00:26:49.100 But we look at that as a goal.

00:26:50.840 We look at that as an aspiration.

00:26:51.940 And then we assume we're going to hit 70%.

00:26:54.540 We're going to hit 80%.

00:26:56.160 And if we ever hit 90%, that's a great day.

00:27:00.260 Wow.

00:27:01.140 We're doing awesome.

00:27:02.240 But we don't always have to assume that we have to hit 100.

00:27:07.200 And if we don't, we failed.

00:27:10.620 So that's number two.

00:27:12.000 The perfect is the enemy of the good.

00:27:15.060 Number three is that it's okay to laugh at yourself.

00:27:19.680 I, when I was younger, I would say I learned that lesson probably as I was graduating high school.

00:27:25.220 I was not very good at laughing at myself.

00:27:27.800 I would say, like, I didn't like when people teased me.

00:27:33.700 And part of that may have been that I was bullied as a kid.

00:27:36.600 So I didn't, I didn't know the difference between kind of laughing at yourself and people laughing at you.

00:27:45.820 So I would often take offense to everything.

00:27:47.900 But as I got older and kind of realized, okay, there are, there is a difference.

00:27:54.060 People can kind of poke fun at you and it's okay.

00:27:57.480 It ended up being such a good thing for my friendships and for me.

00:28:01.660 And also it was a really good learning experience for when those times when people have and do, you know, make fun of me.

00:28:10.360 And I'm like, you know what, that's kind of true.

00:28:15.960 Those times when I can just admit that something someone said is actually true, even if they're coming at it from a point of trying to hurt me, it makes it funny.

00:28:27.120 And that's a great quality is when you as a person can recognize your own faults and flaws and say, oh, somebody poked fun at me, even if they're not doing it in a kind way.

00:28:41.720 They're actually trying to hurt my feelings.

00:28:43.700 But that's, that is kind of funny.

00:28:45.060 And then in the times when people are your friend and are just kind of poking fun at you and it's kind of sweet and fun, then you're doubly as willing to admit, oh, yeah, I do have that fault and that flaw.

00:28:55.320 And there are certain faults and flaws that you can learn when people poke and make fun of you in a cute way, kind of tease you and improve.

00:29:05.340 Right. If somebody is saying, you know, let's say this doesn't usually come up, but let's say that the joke is, oh, you always interrupt and you kind of laugh and you're like, yeah, you know what?

00:29:15.720 I do always interrupt.

00:29:17.260 You can end up actually learning a good lesson from that and say, you know what?

00:29:21.300 I don't necessarily want to be a person who interrupts a lot.

00:29:23.440 So maybe I'm going to try and change that.

00:29:25.660 But in the moment when someone teased me, I can laugh and say, you're right.

00:29:29.060 I do do that.

00:29:30.120 And then when you get home and you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you can say, you know what?

00:29:34.480 And I don't want to be that person anymore.

00:29:37.200 So learning to laugh at yourself, being OK with laughing at yourself, it actually encourages you to become a better person, which I think is great.

00:29:45.800 So that's number three.

00:29:46.840 Number four, bravery doesn't mean the absence of fear.

00:29:54.060 This is a I feel like this is from a book, and I think there's a second half to this to this phrase, but I think that it's just even the first half is helpful, which is the idea that you don't have to not be afraid.

00:30:07.600 I mean, everyone is afraid all the time.

00:30:09.880 Bravery is overcoming fear.

00:30:11.400 It's acting in the face of fear.

00:30:15.080 I have dealt with fear in a lot of different areas of my life.

00:30:19.560 A very easy example is I used to have very bad situational anxiety traveling away from home.

00:30:25.440 I really didn't like it.

00:30:27.000 And so if I was doing an opera festival, for example, and I was gone for, I don't know, four weeks, the first two or three days were painful.

00:30:36.340 They were painful with how much situational anxiety and fear I had.

00:30:40.180 I couldn't eat.

00:30:41.700 I couldn't sleep.

00:30:43.120 It was really awful.

00:30:44.980 And I would remember every time I would do this, I remember thinking to myself, I'm never doing this again.

00:30:50.620 I cannot do this again.

00:30:51.720 I will fall apart.

00:30:54.360 But I did it.

00:30:55.920 And by day four, I came out the other side, and I would have a fantastic experience, and I would come home, and I would do it again.

00:31:05.080 And eventually, after doing that enough times, the situational anxiety went away because I acted in the face of that fear, and I thought the bravery came from me continuing to do something that made me scared or uncomfortable or anxious and constantly being exposed to that.

00:31:26.720 And something I've really learned is I've become the kind of person who, if I feel remotely afraid of something or feel a little bit anxious about something, I specifically go and do that thing.

00:31:41.800 I don't like being controlled by fear.

00:31:44.260 It really makes me, I think, a less effective person, and I'm somebody who's like, if I'm not going to do something, I want it to be my choice.

00:31:53.040 I don't want it to be because I'm being controlled by my emotions.

00:31:56.600 So if I feel afraid about something or anxious about something, I specifically go do that thing so that it's not the emotion that's controlling me.

00:32:08.620 If after the event or the fact, if after the fact, I realize that, oh, you know, I just didn't like doing that, okay, so in the future, I can say, yeah, I don't necessarily want to do that again because I didn't like it.

00:32:21.540 But it's not, I don't want to do that again because I'm too scared.

00:32:26.300 But realizing that it's not that I shouldn't be afraid at all because everybody's afraid and not that I shouldn't be anxious at all because everyone's anxious.

00:32:35.980 It's that you act brave when you do things despite that.

00:32:42.820 Bravery comes out of acting confidently in the face of fear or continuing, not even confidently.

00:32:51.540 Just continuing to do something you're afraid of because you want to show that you can.

00:32:58.180 And if I had known that sooner, that, you know, fear is part of life and anxiety is part of life and it's okay to be afraid.

00:33:07.480 But don't let it control you.

00:33:10.040 It's okay that you'll experience it, but you will come out the other side.

00:33:13.680 I think I would have been a little bit happier, not necessarily that it would have changed my experiences, but I would have been a little happier because I would have been like, you know what, I know this is going to pass.

00:33:25.940 So that is number four.

00:33:28.740 Number five, and this is one of my favorite lessons, is that gratitude solves a lot of problems.

00:33:34.820 And it really does.

00:33:36.760 A perspective shift will change everything.

00:33:39.300 The way you look at your world, the way that you interact with the world, the way you view things just absolutely changes your life.

00:33:47.060 And when I was in high school, I remember I had a teacher who wanted us to write down something we wanted to change about ourselves.

00:33:52.520 And we would write it down every day three times.

00:33:55.400 And we did that for, I don't know, two weeks.

00:33:57.040 And I remember I wrote down, I am grateful.

00:34:00.340 And I did that three times every day for two weeks.

00:34:02.420 And that two-week period, the fact that I'm still talking about it, I feel like, shows you that it changed my life.

00:34:08.060 It truly did.

00:34:09.460 I think that ever since that time, I have looked around me and been so grateful for the people in my life, for what they do for me.

00:34:17.660 I've been grateful for my circumstances.

00:34:19.720 I've been grateful in those times where you would think there was nothing to be grateful for.

00:34:23.920 However, I've often looked around and been grateful just to be alive, to be here, to have God, to have family, to have the money that we have in the home or wherever we were living.

00:34:33.940 It didn't matter.

00:34:34.640 The fact that we had a roof over our heads, that always was so integral to how I came into contact with everything around me.

00:34:47.500 Like, it changed how I felt about being alive.

00:34:53.920 If you operate from a place of gratitude first, I think happiness follows.

00:34:58.660 I truly believe that.

00:34:59.780 I think if you are grateful for what you have, you can't help but be happy.

00:35:04.480 Because if you know that you are lucky to have what you have, then you won't be down.

00:35:12.780 You will always be thinking, how cool is it that I get to do this or be here or be alive?

00:35:18.500 So, if you struggle with gratitude, first of all, try doing an affirmation.

00:35:26.540 Try writing something down like what I wrote down, I am grateful.

00:35:30.660 See if that changes your perspective.

00:35:34.500 But following that, at the end of every day, write down three things you're grateful for.

00:35:38.880 It can be as simple as, I had a Coke Zero today and that made me happy.

00:35:43.840 It can be as complicated as, I am grateful to be living in this place at this time with these people.

00:35:50.780 It can be specific.

00:35:52.640 It can be general.

00:35:53.860 But it will train you to look for the things in your day that you are lucky to have.

00:36:01.200 And I think that it will, you know, initially you're looking back at the end of the day at what your day was.

00:36:11.020 But by the end of that experiment, hopefully as you're moving through your day, you are noticing the things that you're grateful for.

00:36:19.220 And that is the key to happiness, I really think.

00:36:21.760 So, number six, the seven things I wish I knew sooner is the world isn't black and white.

00:36:30.280 And I know that that sounds funny because I know people probably assume I believe the world is black and white because of the way I talk about things and because I'm conservative and because I believe that there is moral good and bad.

00:36:40.260 But I don't believe the world is black and white.

00:36:42.680 I don't believe that there, for example, if there's a person that you are friends with and they do a bad thing.

00:36:52.560 I do not think that makes them, depending on the thing, I do not think that makes them a bad person.

00:36:58.500 But as a younger person, I did not have that clarity.

00:37:02.100 I would often think if somebody did a bad thing, I didn't want to be friends with them anymore and they were not, it was black and white, they were bad.

00:37:10.860 And that is a terrible quality to have and also a very hard quality to have because it meant that I didn't have a lot of friends.

00:37:17.020 And I am very clear on this, right?

00:37:21.020 I know that that was a bad mistake.

00:37:25.060 As I got older, I started to realize you can do certain things that I don't agree with and that doesn't make you a bad person.

00:37:32.220 It doesn't necessarily make you somebody I don't want to be friends with anymore.

00:37:36.320 It just means you and I can disagree on that area.

00:37:41.000 And that's okay.

00:37:42.120 Of course, that's just one example.

00:37:47.100 The world isn't black and white.

00:37:49.660 There's a lot more gray than we think.

00:37:52.300 For example, going back to my faith stuff, it doesn't make me a bad Jew to not practice, you know, at the time that I was not as religious.

00:38:05.660 It didn't make me a bad Jew as long as I wasn't being mean to other people.

00:38:09.720 But my own practice of it, I wasn't a bad Jew or a bad person for not keeping all of the observances that I should have.

00:38:18.240 Especially because I knew there was a standard and I wasn't trying to change that standard.

00:38:22.880 Something I talk about a lot is the idea that there's a standard of Orthodox Judaism that cannot be changed.

00:38:30.660 You should be keeping this.

00:38:32.300 You should be keeping that.

00:38:35.640 And I said at the time, I'm not keeping these things, but this is what you should keep.

00:38:42.680 I'm not trying to change the rules to fit me.

00:38:45.480 I'm just not keeping the rules.

00:38:48.240 And so I had to understand that I wasn't a bad Jew or a bad person for not keeping those rules.

00:38:57.420 I was just in a gray area.

00:39:01.500 I was kind of working through some things.

00:39:05.140 And, I mean, I wasn't as good of a Jew at the time.

00:39:09.020 And that, I think, is a fair thing to say, right, because I wasn't practicing as much as I am now.

00:39:13.740 And I think it's important to try and hold, uphold the standards of a faith.

00:39:17.980 So I wasn't as good of a Jew, but I wasn't a bad Jew. 1.00

00:39:21.480 I'm a better Jew now.

00:39:22.860 So the world isn't black and white.

00:39:27.020 It just isn't.

00:39:28.680 And it's too hard to keep everything black and white.

00:39:34.240 It's too hard.

00:39:35.140 I've had to learn this even more recently.

00:39:38.760 I learned this, that, like, I had this concept in my head for a while.

00:39:44.000 Let's use an example.

00:39:45.360 Let's say drinking.

00:39:48.100 That if I had a drink, I was an alcoholic.

00:39:51.800 That's crazy.

00:39:53.160 Of course that's crazy.

00:39:54.840 People can have a drink, and it makes them a person who had a drink.

00:40:01.660 Okay.

00:40:02.400 I'm not saying I believe this.

00:40:03.740 I'm just using this as an easy kind of descriptor.

00:40:06.320 If you have, you know, 10 drinks every day, yeah, you might have a problem.

00:40:11.580 If you have one drink, you're just a person who had a drink.

00:40:14.720 It's not black and white.

00:40:17.080 There's a lot of gray area.

00:40:18.640 And it makes being a person so much easier when you realize that.

00:40:27.060 The last one here, number seven, is reading, studying, and learning will give you rightfully

00:40:34.080 earned confidence.

00:40:36.200 I love this lesson, and I'm so glad that I learned it.

00:40:39.780 I used to feel worried about the positions I took.

00:40:43.780 I used to feel like somebody might catch me out on the things that I believed.

00:40:49.980 Until I realized that if I just learned about them, taught myself, and actually had a good

00:40:56.840 reason for the things that I believed in, then I would have rightfully earned confidence.

00:41:03.640 And that's how it should be.

00:41:05.300 You shouldn't just have positions that you hold because somebody told you to or because

00:41:09.640 you decided, okay, this is what I think.

00:41:12.160 You should have good reasons.

00:41:13.980 You should read.

00:41:14.720 You should learn.

00:41:15.480 And then you will feel confident in your beliefs because you should feel confident in your beliefs.

00:41:20.760 You've done the research.

00:41:23.060 You don't have to feel nervous that somebody is going to catch you out for not knowing why

00:41:27.100 you stand in a certain place.

00:41:29.700 You will understand where you come from because you have done enough study to actually back it

00:41:37.240 up.

00:41:37.700 You will know why you believe what you believe for the best reasons.

00:41:42.880 So read, study, learn so that you can really have a good reason for believing in traditional

00:41:52.760 values, believing in God, whatever else it is.

00:41:56.620 And you won't feel scared that someone is going to best you in an argument.

00:42:02.300 So that's number seven.

00:42:05.480 And those are the seven things I wish I knew sooner.

00:42:08.360 I hope you guys enjoyed this segment.

00:42:10.540 I'd love to hear your thoughts.

00:42:11.900 And if you have anything you'd like to share about things you wish you knew sooner, you're

00:42:16.700 welcome to leave a comment over on my sub stack.

00:42:19.280 If you become a premium subscriber for my sub stack newsletter, you will get access to the

00:42:23.400 comment section.

00:42:24.000 So feel free to leave a comment there.

00:42:26.960 Or if you're watching on YouTube, you can leave a comment on YouTube.

00:42:30.160 And now let's move in to today's faith talk.

00:42:33.040 So today's Torah portion is Terumah, which means offering.

00:42:37.880 Chabad summarizes the Parsha like this. 0.96

00:42:39.720 The people of Israel are called upon to contribute 13 materials, gold, silver, and copper, blue,

00:42:47.260 purple, and red dyed wool, flax, goat hair, animal skins, wood, olive oil, spices, and

00:42:52.820 gems, out of which God says to Moses, they shall make for me a sanctuary and I shall dwell

00:42:57.960 amidst them.

00:42:58.920 On the summit of Mount Sinai, Moses is given detailed instructions on how to construct this

00:43:03.360 dwelling for God so that it could be readily dismantled, transported, and reassembled as the

00:43:07.900 people journeyed in the desert.

00:43:09.000 This is the tabernacle that I mentioned in the intro.

00:43:12.720 In the sanctuary's inner chamber, behind an artistically woven curtain, was the ark containing

00:43:17.220 the tablets of the testimony engraved with the Ten Commandments.

00:43:20.300 On the ark's cover stood two-winged cherubim, cherubim, in Hebrew it's cherubim, hammered out

00:43:26.580 of pure gold.

00:43:28.040 In the outer chamber stood the seven-branched menorah and the table upon which the showbread was

00:43:32.560 arranged.

00:43:33.680 There's a bunch of different information continuing forward, just about all of the different pieces

00:43:38.500 that were necessary for the tabernacle and how beautifully and ornate, beautifully decorated

00:43:43.680 and ornate they were.

00:43:45.420 And so that's kind of where my question starts, which is, as you read through the Torah portion

00:43:50.880 this week, that's called the Parsha in Hebrew in case I didn't explain that earlier, you'll

00:43:55.260 notice how ornate everything is.

00:43:57.120 Everything is covered in gold or copper or silver.

00:44:01.080 Things have to be done to exact measurements.

00:44:04.000 It's all supposed to be beautiful.

00:44:06.900 So my question is, why?

00:44:10.520 Why is it necessary for God's sanctuary to be physically beautiful?

00:44:16.080 Shouldn't anywhere that God resides be already made beautiful by his presence?

00:44:21.760 God doesn't need to be beautified because he's God, right?

00:44:26.560 Like it's like a perfect vista.

00:44:29.260 It's nature.

00:44:30.240 So it doesn't need anything extra.

00:44:32.120 You don't need to add anything to a beautiful mountainscape or beach because it's beautiful

00:44:37.080 the way it is.

00:44:37.800 So why do we need to have a beautiful place for God to reside?

00:44:41.580 God doesn't need to be in a beautiful place, right?

00:44:45.480 He could be anywhere.

00:44:46.360 So why did God, who was giving us the directions and the instructions on how to create the tabernacle,

00:44:52.520 why did it have to be done in such a beautiful way with all of these incredibly beautiful pieces

00:44:57.100 and incredibly beautiful golds and silvers and fabrics and gems?

00:45:05.400 God put us in the physical world for a reason.

00:45:09.520 There's holiness to using the physical world for God's adornment.

00:45:16.360 Instead of saying, let's ignore the world that God created and put us in.

00:45:22.160 Instead, God tells us, use the gold, use the silver, use the copper, build beautiful things,

00:45:31.900 but use them for good.

00:45:35.080 They are not holy in and of themselves.

00:45:38.460 They are holy when they are used for his glory and for good things.

00:45:44.520 There is holiness in beauty, but only when it's used for doing good or for serving God.

00:45:54.680 You can't have something beautiful devoid of any meaning because then it just becomes random.

00:46:02.420 There's holiness in beauty and we can feel God's presence when we see beauty.

00:46:10.560 So, to help bring the Israelites closer to God in the tabernacle, God made it beautiful.

00:46:18.220 Human nature is to feel awe and wonder in the presence of beauty.

00:46:22.460 And to encourage that step in this direction of worship, God built the tabernacle that way.

00:46:28.400 I know that when I walk into an incredibly beautiful synagogue or a cathedral,

00:46:33.240 there is a moment of pause because it is so wondrous that something so beautiful can exist

00:46:41.020 and that we get to be in its presence.

00:46:42.260 And whenever you feel that sense of awe and wonderment, it does bring you closer to God.

00:46:48.060 There's something in beauty that brings us closer to God.

00:46:51.140 Now, again, when that beauty is completely devoid of any deeper meaning, deeper worship of God,

00:46:58.040 deeper good, then it really, it does feel, it loses its beauty in being only about beauty.

00:47:06.380 But when you walk into a thing that is beautiful, into a place that is beautiful or see something

00:47:12.240 beautiful that is in God's name or has a level of holiness or is doing something good,

00:47:17.640 it, it does make you feel close to God and it is holy.

00:47:25.440 The way I'm talking about beauty is if you see something like a piece of art, for example,

00:47:30.760 that doesn't have any story, but it's just kind of empty, then it's pretty, but it's pretty.

00:47:37.680 And there's a difference between pretty and beautiful because beautiful has a deeper something to it.

00:47:44.900 So what can we take away from this?

00:47:49.000 Engage with beauty.

00:47:51.340 Beautify your home.

00:47:53.520 Beautify your wardrobe.

00:47:55.260 Beautify your food.

00:47:56.940 Beautify yourself.

00:47:57.620 But do so with the best of intentions and realize how lucky we are that we get to enjoy God's world.

00:48:08.340 I think there is holiness in homemaking because you're making your house beautiful in God's name.

00:48:14.720 I think there is holiness in dressing our bodies well because it's respecting the bodies that God gave us

00:48:21.600 by adorning them in beautiful fabrics or beautiful clothing or things that accentuate modestly our figures

00:48:29.600 and saying, thank you, God, for this incredible body you've given me.

00:48:33.520 There's something holy in making good food that is tasty.

00:48:39.560 That's a physical thing and that makes it look good.

00:48:42.840 But it's because we're feeding and nourishing ourselves and our bodies.

00:48:47.520 And for many of us, when we eat that food, we're also blessing God's name in the process,

00:48:53.000 thanking him for the sustenance.

00:48:56.140 There's something beautiful in putting on a little bit of makeup and accentuating the beautiful features,

00:49:01.400 again, that God gave us.

00:49:03.520 There is beauty in enjoying the physical in a holy way.

00:49:08.320 So engage with the physical world and understand its beauty,

00:49:17.560 but do it to honor the world that God gave us

00:49:20.900 and feel awe and wonder in the presence of the beauty God gifted us with,

00:49:27.620 that we get to live in this beautiful world,

00:49:30.840 that we get to see nature and art,

00:49:35.280 and that we were given the gift of a physical world to begin with.

00:49:39.700 We could have all been floating souls.

00:49:41.740 We could have all, it's possible that God could have just never created a world at all

00:49:45.920 and had us all been just spirits or angels,

00:49:49.360 but he wanted us to be here and he gave us that gift.

00:49:53.320 So bringing holiness to beauty is a beautiful way,

00:50:00.140 no pun intended, to enjoy the world that we're in.

00:50:05.700 So that is it for my faith talk.

00:50:07.740 So now let's get into my premium subscriber questions.

00:50:10.800 If you are interested in submitting questions for a future podcast,

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00:50:25.600 So I would love if you would consider heading over to classicallyabby.substack.com.

00:50:30.280 We've got some great questions.

00:50:31.920 This week I actually opened it up to people who are just general subscribers to my Substack newsletter.

00:50:38.460 You can be a free subscriber and you'll get access to some content,

00:50:41.800 or you can become a premium subscriber and get access to all of my content.

00:50:45.180 So I wanted to give people who had never submitted questions for a podcast before

00:50:49.880 the opportunity to do so and see if they wanted to kind of dip their toe in

00:50:52.940 and then maybe decide if they wanted to become premium subscribers.

00:50:55.600 So I got some really interesting questions today.

00:50:57.800 I'm very excited to share them with you.

00:51:00.280 So let's start off with,

00:51:02.020 do you have any tips for managing sleep deprivation with a baby

00:51:04.860 and keeping your mental health in good shape?

00:51:08.320 Uh, I have no tips in the sense that you are going to be sleep deprived.

00:51:13.800 There is nothing you can do about that.

00:51:16.620 Babies do not have the same schedules that we do.

00:51:19.620 And so they are up much more frequently and it is exhausting.

00:51:23.340 The tip that I have is don't blame yourself or get anxious about not sleeping.

00:51:34.020 That was something that I, I really struggled with.

00:51:36.980 It was like, I would lie down and I would be like, oh my God, if I don't fall asleep,

00:51:40.260 I'll, I won't have slept in this many hours and I'll lose my mind if I don't sleep.

00:51:44.180 Obviously, every mother forever has been sleep deprived at the beginning of their baby's lives

00:51:50.140 and they've all survived.

00:51:51.820 So we can do it.

00:51:54.800 We were built for this and it is normal not to sleep.

00:51:58.920 It is just a part of the process.

00:52:00.800 So for me, what really helped was not pressuring myself to fall asleep when I wasn't ready to.

00:52:10.180 People would constantly be like, you have to sleep, you have to sleep, you have to sleep

00:52:13.520 and your body will sleep when it needs to.

00:52:15.840 So I would kind of go and lie down and really worry about not sleeping.

00:52:20.700 And also I was jealous because I remember thinking, oh, I hold my baby when my baby's nursing,

00:52:27.040 but then when I'm not nursing, someone else gets to enjoy him and I just have to go sleep.

00:52:33.000 So I never get to actually spend time with my baby.

00:52:35.160 It was kind of a funny, a funny feeling.

00:52:38.280 What was very helpful to me was, and I highly recommend doing this if you can manage it,

00:52:44.240 is I would take naps with my baby.

00:52:48.540 I would hold him.

00:52:49.760 I was basically co-sleeping.

00:52:51.400 I would hold him while I slept.

00:52:53.740 And if you feel more comfortable, I, at the beginning, felt more comfortable with someone

00:52:57.440 being in the room with me.

00:52:58.400 So God forbid, if something, if I was to roll over or whatever, which, you know, now being

00:53:03.500 a more seasoned mom, I don't really believe that if you're doing safe co-sleeping.

00:53:07.340 But anyways, if you feel more comfortable having someone in the room with you, then do that.

00:53:12.440 But just having my baby next to me really, really helped me sleep.

00:53:18.220 And I'm talking about during the day for naps.

00:53:20.740 I'm not even talking about co-sleeping at night.

00:53:22.340 And so I would, if he took a nap and I had to, I'm supposed to go in the other room and

00:53:28.520 fall asleep on my own in a bed, I like couldn't do that.

00:53:32.240 I could fall asleep if he was in my arms, if he was next to me in my arms.

00:53:35.840 And it really helped take some of the pressure off me needing to sleep because, okay, you're

00:53:44.000 just not going to, and that's okay.

00:53:45.800 You will be fine.

00:53:47.400 You will be, it will, you know, there will be a time in which you will sleep.

00:53:51.580 This is just these first few weeks, few months, it's not going to happen.

00:53:57.300 And that's also okay.

00:53:58.320 And for me, the big thing about sleep deprivation as I got even further in, because my son didn't

00:54:02.620 start sleeping through the night until about 10 months, was coming to terms with that and

00:54:08.340 saying, it's okay if my son doesn't sleep through the night.

00:54:11.480 I would rather be less anxious and stressed about the eat, play, sleep schedule and him

00:54:15.900 needing to fall asleep and sleep 12 hours in the night.

00:54:18.280 Uh, it was more stressful for me to try to do that and then that not work than it was

00:54:24.940 for me to accept.

00:54:25.620 I'm just not going to sleep for a while.

00:54:27.680 Like it's okay.

00:54:29.380 I think once you accept that that's the situation, then the sleep deprivation isn't as overwhelming

00:54:37.540 as a concept.

00:54:38.880 Now as a physical thing, that's hard, but as a concept, it's not so bad.

00:54:43.620 Um, so that's kind of my tips about sleep deprivation.

00:54:46.760 I don't think that there's, there are, I'm sure are ways you can probably ask someone

00:54:51.460 to watch.

00:54:51.740 If you are someone who can sleep when the baby isn't near you, then you can have somebody

00:54:55.040 watch your baby, invite somebody to come over and watch the baby while you do take

00:54:59.160 a nap.

00:54:59.580 Of course, take naps when you can.

00:55:02.780 Um, I think that is important, but at the end of the day, it's a stage and then the stage

00:55:08.620 passes and then you'll be okay.

00:55:10.600 As far as keeping your mental health in good shape, it goes back to, I mean, I basically

00:55:14.900 kind of wrapped it all in one is don't stress yourself out about it.

00:55:17.920 It will pass.

00:55:20.760 This season of life is short and then it will pass and you will be more stressed and have

00:55:28.740 more anxiety trying to fit your baby into a box than you will with just accepting that

00:55:34.780 sleep is complicated.

00:55:36.460 And if it weren't complicated, then there would be one book and everyone would read it and

00:55:40.340 everyone would have success with it.

00:55:41.940 There are 30 billion books about baby sleep and some work and some don't, and some babies

00:55:46.780 it works for and some babies it doesn't. 0.96

00:55:48.520 And that's it.

00:55:49.540 So that is my advice for that.

00:55:53.280 Next question is, how do you tell your significant other that the two of you don't want the same

00:55:57.860 things and that it is best to go our separate ways?

00:56:00.880 How do you make that conversation go about in a gentle and tender tone when doing it in

00:56:04.420 person and having no tears involved?

00:56:06.800 So here's what I'll say about that last part.

00:56:11.020 I don't think that's realistic.

00:56:12.560 There will, depending on how long you've been together, that's going to be tough is not

00:56:17.440 having any tears involved in it.

00:56:18.640 It's an expectation that I don't think will be met.

00:56:21.860 As far as telling your significant other that the two of you don't want the same things and

00:56:27.840 how to be gentle and tender.

00:56:31.800 Yeah, it's, it's hard.

00:56:33.320 I've had that conversation.

00:56:36.800 Um, and it's often, if it comes out of nowhere, it's often not met with the kind of gentle

00:56:45.100 and tender tone you would like to have them use on the other side of the table.

00:56:50.460 Um, but I mean, here's the thing from what you're saying, the two of you don't want the

00:56:56.340 same things.

00:56:56.980 That is the deal breaker.

00:56:59.420 And that's an easier, an easier conversation to have.

00:57:03.780 Then we don't have good chemistry.

00:57:05.780 I had the conversation.

00:57:07.440 We don't have good chemistry, so we shouldn't end up together.

00:57:11.460 Compatibility wise, we're good, but chemistry were not.

00:57:13.920 That's a harder conversation.

00:57:15.340 Cause how do you convince the, some, the person you're talking to that?

00:57:18.960 Oh, the chemistry isn't right.

00:57:20.480 Cause they clearly do think the chemistry is right.

00:57:22.980 And they wouldn't be with you if they didn't think that.

00:57:27.280 So that's a harder conversation saying you have a, an easier option here of kind of laying

00:57:34.240 out your case.

00:57:35.060 And I think you can do it in a gentle and tender way.

00:57:37.720 And I would just say, be prepared that the person you're talking to your partner won't,

00:57:42.720 uh, necessarily agree or won't make it easy, but I mean, if it's factually true that you

00:57:50.920 don't want the same things.

00:57:52.020 So for example, you want kids, he doesn't, you want to get married.

00:57:55.620 He doesn't, you want to become more religious.

00:57:57.900 He doesn't, you can just calmly say that and say, you know, I really, I love you.

00:58:05.500 I care about you.

00:58:06.920 Our relationship has meant a lot to me, but I don't know if you guys started dating.

00:58:12.720 And grew in different directions.

00:58:14.040 I don't know if you got into the relationship and weren't necessarily careful about, you

00:58:20.480 know, finding out about these compatibility issues early on, but you can say, this is the

00:58:26.540 facts.

00:58:27.680 You want certain things out of life and I want certain things out of life.

00:58:31.140 And those two things are not the same.

00:58:32.720 And this relationship will only get harder and more painful if we continue down this path

00:58:39.000 because we will diverge and we already are diverging.

00:58:42.400 But that diverging is going to just widen and widen over time to a point where we're not

00:58:47.680 even on the same map.

00:58:50.040 So it's more important for us to break up now and save ourselves the even more deep heartache

00:58:58.120 of a longer term relationship and a longer commitment than it is for us to stay together

00:59:05.980 and wait it out.

00:59:10.060 So I think that that's kind of the way you would go about it.

00:59:12.620 And just tell this person why, tell that your significant other, why it really doesn't make

00:59:19.740 sense for you to stay together.

00:59:20.940 It sounds that you are ready to go and you've understood that this, this relationship has

00:59:26.920 to end.

00:59:27.400 And the truth is, it's going to be uncomfortable.

00:59:29.380 It's going to be painful no matter what, because it always is.

00:59:32.100 But if you stay true and strong and know why you're doing what you're doing, then at

00:59:40.960 the end of the day, you'll come out okay.

00:59:43.340 And hopefully if you are clear about it, even if immediately after he can't understand it

00:59:49.200 within a few months, he will understand and he will know why this had to happen because

00:59:54.860 you showed him.

00:59:55.660 It wasn't just, we have to break up because we have to, or I'm ghosting you.

01:00:01.820 It's, these are the reasons you can look back at those reasons in six months and know that

01:00:10.400 there was a purpose and a, there was a good, there was an end point that was coming and this

01:00:18.120 was it.

01:00:19.280 So that's what I would say.

01:00:20.680 And just be kind, but be firm.

01:00:23.940 Don't let yourself be taken off course because that can get even more painful after a while

01:00:32.980 for him is if he feels like he's convincing you and you're actually not being convinced

01:00:38.480 or moved, but you feel a little more like unsure of your footing, you staying strong

01:00:45.160 and firm in what needs to happen will give him the closure he needs.

01:00:51.520 So that's what I would say to that.

01:00:56.020 We have a couple more questions.

01:00:57.720 Let's see if we can fit them in.

01:00:58.660 So let's do, do you have any advice on wedding planning?

01:01:01.620 I'm struggling, I'm struggling on how to keep it how we like while still being considerate

01:01:05.140 of our guests.

01:01:07.020 Well, do what you want, I think is most important.

01:01:10.080 Do something you like.

01:01:11.000 If it's something that's really like not fun for other people, then yeah, put the kibosh

01:01:15.920 on that.

01:01:16.380 But for the most part, you can have a themed wedding or do fun things that you both enjoy

01:01:20.680 that other people will also enjoy.

01:01:22.640 As long as it's not something crazy weird, like we're only going to serve a certain kind

01:01:26.660 of food that nobody likes except us.

01:01:29.060 Most people are willing to participate in your day and know that that's fun for you and that'll

01:01:35.400 make it fun for them.

01:01:36.280 And they know it's your wedding day and so they enjoy you.

01:01:38.520 So I would say do what you want, do something you enjoy, stay within a budget.

01:01:45.760 But also one of my most core pieces of wedding planning advice is don't get too in the weeds

01:01:51.940 about it.

01:01:52.680 That was my thing.

01:01:53.520 I planned my whole wedding and I had the best time, but it was because I kind of said to

01:01:59.420 the florist, these are the colors I like and I like this kind of a look.

01:02:03.980 Now, I trust you to come up with something better than what I can come up with.

01:02:07.940 Go.

01:02:08.520 And he did.

01:02:09.440 He did an incredible job.

01:02:10.940 And the same was true with a bunch of different elements.

01:02:13.900 I just was a little bit more flexible than being like, this is my exact vision and everything

01:02:19.960 needs to go to perfectly to plan.

01:02:21.960 Instead, it was like, here's kind of the overall vibe I want.

01:02:25.440 There are a few things that are important to me, but at the end of the day, it's about

01:02:29.360 the people and I want to have twinkly lights like that.

01:02:33.280 That was my thing is I want twinkly lights.

01:02:34.920 So if you can stay relaxed about it while also getting close to what you want, I think that's

01:02:43.420 the goal.

01:02:44.980 Last but not least, advice on managing work gossip.

01:02:48.340 As a nurse, I work with almost all women and I find it hard to avoid getting caught up 1.00

01:02:52.780 in gossip, especially as a younger nurse. 0.54

01:02:55.600 Working day shift, all of the nurses are older than I am. 0.92

01:02:59.100 So yeah, I think gossip is a hard one because people really like to gossip sometimes and

01:03:04.160 it can feel uncomfortable to be the one person who's not.

01:03:06.380 So I think you kind of have, if you don't want to participate, there's two avenues.

01:03:11.340 You can either just step away.

01:03:14.780 And unfortunately, it does kind of limit your friendships a little bit.

01:03:19.340 If there are people who really only like to talk about work gossip, that's one avenue.

01:03:25.640 Number two is change the subject.

01:03:27.700 Change the subject to a movie everybody's seen or a show everybody's watching.

01:03:31.940 You can usually find a show that a lot of your friends are watching.

01:03:35.540 Just stay up to date on things that friends are watching and make maybe you could even

01:03:39.840 make that into a thing where it's like, oh, all of my nurse friends, we're all going to

01:03:44.280 watch, I don't know, Firefly Lane together.

01:03:47.920 I'm just naming a Netflix show.

01:03:50.580 We're all going to watch one show together and every we'll all discuss it.

01:03:54.900 Then maybe we'll do a movie next time and give people a conversation topic to not have

01:04:01.740 it be work gossip.

01:04:03.060 The third thing is making it uncomfortable.

01:04:07.080 And I've done this where people are talking about something, someone, they're gossiping

01:04:12.480 and you're just kind of like, okay, nothing to contribute.

01:04:19.560 Like, or, oh, I didn't really get that vibe.

01:04:22.940 Just making it so that they're clear.

01:04:26.160 This isn't something you want to talk about.

01:04:27.760 And this isn't fair to this.

01:04:28.960 It'll make them feel embarrassed that they brought it up.

01:04:33.040 Yeah, I think those are really the best ways to deal with workplace gossip because workplace

01:04:37.540 gossip can get be a problem.

01:04:39.740 It can be hurtful.

01:04:41.480 And then you've got rumors spreading and it's not good.

01:04:45.600 It's not good.

01:04:46.420 So if you can do one of those three things, I think you'll, you'll at least be either removing

01:04:53.740 yourself or trying to remedy that situation within, within your nurse friends group.

01:04:59.400 So that is today's episode of the Classically Abbey podcast.

01:05:04.260 I hope you guys enjoyed it.

01:05:05.880 Make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe on YouTube.

01:05:10.380 If you'd like to become a premium Substack subscriber, head over to classicallyabbey.substack.com.

01:05:15.100 And I would love if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts and share this podcast with

01:05:18.760 anyone you think would like it.

01:05:20.680 I'm so glad you're here and I look forward to next week's episode.

01:05:24.300 Bye.

01:05:29.400 Bye.

01:05:59.400 Bye.

01:06:29.400 Bye.

01:06:59.400 Bye.

01:07:29.400 Bye.

01:07:59.400 Bye.

01:08:29.400 Bye.

01:08:59.400 Bye.

01:09:00.400 Bye.

The Classically Abby Podcast - March 01, 2023

Ep. 8 ｜ 7 Things I Wish I Knew SOONER

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