We Cannot Heal Alone with Rabbi Sharon Brous | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

Simon Sinek 0:00 We seem to be in a period, in an epidemic of loneliness, depression, anxiety, uh, in some ages, uh, increased levels of suicide, in some demographics increased levels of suicide. All of these are conditions of loneliness, all of the, you know, disconnection, I should say. A, is that true? Is it this an e- epidemic of loneliness and disconnection? And then B, is there an antidote?

Sharon Brous 0:28 Yeah. [clears throat] The answer

Sharon Brous 0:30 to both of those questions is yes, in my opinion. Um, I think one of the, one of the things that we're learning now is that loneliness is not only attacking our spirits but also attacking our bodies. I see it as a rabbi, as a kind of spiritual malady, and I've, I've really witnessed this over the course of the last 20 years of pastoring to a community and just seeing what brings people in the door when they say, you know, "I really need to talk to you," and also what makes people flee from community.

Simon Sinek 1:01 Mm.

Sharon Brous 1:01 We can see the pain that, that this kind of loneliness and disconnection is causing us spiritually.

Sharon Brous 1:07 Um, about 11 years ago, I was introduced to the work of Dr. John Cacioppo, who wrote the book, um, who wrote, really wrote the book on loneliness, and he spoke about the science of loneliness and the way that loneliness also attacks the body, and that, you know, what the surgeon general's been, been talking about for the last couple of years now, that acute loneliness is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day in terms of its impact on your lungs and on your heart-

Simon Sinek 1:34 Mm

Sharon Brous 1:34 ... inflammation, early onset illness, et cetera. And, [clears throat] and I think there's a third component. So there's the spiritual, there's the physical-

Simon Sinek 1:42 Mm-hmm

Sharon Brous 1:42 ... and then there's the broadly social, and this is where I really look to the work of Hannah Arendt, um, who writes that loneliness and social alienation and isolation are preconditions for tyranny in a society, that totalitarianism

Sharon Brous 2:00 cannot root itself in a society if people are not already atomized and isolated from one another. And so we're r- I feel we're really at this crisis point, um, in, in many ways. Um, there was a study that was done right before COVID that showed that 30% of Americans don't know the names of their next-door neighbors.

Simon Sinek 2:24 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 2:24 And that 20% of Americans say that they don't have one single confidant in the world. And so we are-- That was before COVID, and we know that COVID has exacerbated all the worst trends.

Simon Sinek 2:34 Mm-hmm.

Sharon Brous 2:35 And so I think we are really ripe for some, some really nefarious, um, some really nefarious forces really gaining a foothold in the society right now. I mean, sh- A-Arendt writes about conspiracy theories.

Simon Sinek 2:48 Mm.

Sharon Brous 2:48 They cannot take hold in a society where people are not already isolated from one another.

Simon Sinek 2:53 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Sharon Brous 2:54 So, you know, if somebody tells you that Jews control the weather, you might believe that if you don't know a Jew. And then you happen to know a Jew who's your neighbor or your colleague or your friend, and you know that it rained at that Jew's wedding, you think, "Wait a minute, that doesn't check out." But if we don't know each other, if we don't engage each other, then that-

Simon Sinek 3:13 Yeah

Sharon Brous 3:13 ... so this is how the kind of spiritual illness of loneliness becomes a social ill that really-

Simon Sinek 3:19 Yeah

Sharon Brous 3:19 ... I think we have to address with great urgency.

Simon Sinek 3:21 I mean, I mean, it, it, let's, let's, there's a lot to unpack there.

Sharon Brous 3:24 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 3:25 Um, okay.

Simon Sinek 3:26 So let's, let's go backwards. The, the, the broadly social themes as it relates to loneliness, and I'm, and I, and I think that touching on the conspiracy theory is particularly interesting, and I think it has to... It seems to me that it relates to the concept of finding meaning, right? And it, it, when we feel disconnected, uh, you know, when we feel like, um, no one understands us, no one is there for us, we seek out meaning in the world, and then we find community in the other people who have found that same, that same thing. Let me give you a t- a, a real-life example that, that's where I'm, where I'm going. A friend of mine, uh, her sister-in-law has become, uh, v- very, very conspiratorial in her thinking and very, very activist on Facebook, um, to promote some of these, um, conspiracies, and she wasn't like this before. And when, uh, during COVID, in the loneliness of COVID and the disconnection of COVID, she found some of these conspiracy theories on Facebook and started spreading them and making very close friends with people who believed what she believed, and she took sort of a leadership role, you know, uh, in some of this. And she said, these are her words, "I f- my life finally has purpose."

Sharon Brous 4:39 Ugh.

Simon Sinek 4:40 So I think the conspiracy itself of what she found was actually irrelevant.

Sharon Brous 4:44 Right. Yeah. [clears throat] I think the two things that you said are two essential needs for human beings. We need purpose, and we need connection and belonging.

Simon Sinek 4:55 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 4:55 Your friend's sister-in-law found something like that-

Simon Sinek 4:59 Yeah

Sharon Brous 4:59 ... in the conspiratorial community.

Simon Sinek 5:01 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 5:01 She found

Sharon Brous 5:02 belonging.

Simon Sinek 5:03 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 5:03 She found a sense of purpose. But m- but the question is, can we harness that kind of, um, profound human need for both purpose and belonging-

Simon Sinek 5:13 Yeah

Sharon Brous 5:13 ... in the service of building a more just and loving society? Is that, i- is that not possible for us?

Simon Sinek 5:19 I wanna go back to a point you made before, um, where you said you've seen it in your own attendance, which is that, that people are coming to you, to a faith-based organization, because they are lonely or fleeing for the same reason. Can you-

Sharon Brous 5:38 Yeah

Simon Sinek 5:38 ... can you say more about that? That I, I, I find that, I find that's very interesting.

Sharon Brous 5:41 Well, I love that you c- that you t- um, that you caught that. Um, so, uh, I mean, we d- obviously people are, many people are searching for a way to connect, and, um, and so, uh, we, that is, that's sort of the obvious. Like, people walk in the door because they're-

Simon Sinek 5:57 Sure

Sharon Brous 5:57 ... looking for something, and they're trying it. They're trying. Like, can I, can I make myself vulnerable

Sharon Brous 6:03 enough to walk into this space and try to hook into community? But actually, it's counter-instinctual to show up when you're lonely, because what we know about loneliness is it's-- it kind of functions in the opposite way that, that other physical pain functions. And this is, again, I'm talking about like the, this, the work of John Cacioppo and others, that when you, when, you know, the pain of your hand on the stove sends signals to your brain saying, "Get your hand away from the stove. There's danger here."

Simon Sinek 6:32 Right.

Sharon Brous 6:32 But the pain of loneliness, uh... So in other words, the, the physical pain is, uh, is sending a signal to your body, "Get safe. Get the help you need right now." But the physical pain of loneliness and the spiritual pain of loneliness actually cause us to do the opposite of what we need to do in order to make ourselves safe. What we need is connection.

Simon Sinek 6:56 Mm-hmm.

Sharon Brous 6:56 What the pain of loneliness does is it often leads us to retreat from community and retreat from other people. [lip smack] And so my, my whole book is oriented around this, um, this ancient pilgrimage ritual from temple times. So this is 2,000 years old. Um, Jews used to go up to Jerusalem. Um, they would ascend to the city on a hill. They would climb up the steps of the Temple Mount. They would enter through this grand arch entryway, and they would turn to the right, and they would circle en masse, like hundreds of thousands of people at once, around the perimeter of the courtyard of the Temple Mount. Holiest place, holiest city, holiest days. Like, like the Hajj, you know, just this massive movement of people, [lip smack] except for somebody who's brokenhearted. Those people would go up to Jerusalem, and they would climb the steps of the Temple Mount, and they would go through the same entryway, but they would turn to the left when everyone else is turning to the right. And so the whole world would be walking in one direction, and they'd be walking in the other direction.

Sharon Brous 7:59 And this sacred encounter would take place in which the people who were okay that day, the hundreds of thousands of people, would, would, would stop and look at this one brokenhearted person and ask them very simply, "What happened to you? How's your heart? What do you see from your vantage point?" And this person would answer saying, "I'm brokenhearted because I just lost my father," or, "My partner just left, and I feel totally blindsided," or, "I'm so worried about my kid, and I just need to know she's gonna be okay." And the people who are going this way would give them a blessing, something like, you know, "May the one who dwells in this place hold you with love as you navigate this difficult time," or, "As you go through treatment, may you be surrounded by friends and family and people who care about you." And that's the end of the ritual. And the reason that this ritual became my North Star and the sort of guiding principle of my life and the heart of the book, and every chapter kind of addresses a different aspect of this ritual, is because I realized about 10 or 11 years ago that every party to this ancient ritual does not want to be part of this ritual. The person who's brokenhearted, the last thing in the world they want to do is even get out of bed, let alone show up in this place where there are hundreds of thousands of people and they're all walking in one direction, and they are the vulnerable, lonely, alone, broken, bereft, bereaved, ill, going in the other direction. And yet they can't stay home. They have to go, and they can't pretend that they're like everyone else because they're not. And what does it mean to ask someone who's brokenhearted to be honest about their pain in this culture, in this time? And the people who are okay, who are going this way, the last thing they want to do when they're having, like, the spiritual experience of their lives is actually peel away from their friends and their family and say like, "Hey, I'm gonna go check in on this brokenhearted stranger who's coming toward me." And s- and yet that's what they're called to do. And so the k- the kind of key question of our time is precisely at the moment when we are disinclined to see one another in our

Sharon Brous 10:00 humanity, when our greatest instinct on both sides of that circle, in both directions, is to retreat from each other, what would it take for us instead to incline toward each other? To, to see that, that in one another, we can actually reconnect with our own purpose, with our own humanity, that we can, that we can begin to heal that way.

Simon Sinek 10:21 I mean, you and I agree in the sense that true purpose comes from service. You will never understand purpose until you have the opportunity to serve. And I think the most basic kind of service that we're, that you're talking about, which I think is i- i- which is magical because the, the metaphor that you're sharing is-- 'Cause when you're walking with hundreds of thousands of people in the same direction, if y- the people in front of you, you only see the backs of their heads.

Sharon Brous 10:46 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 10:46 The people next to you, you can't see their faces 'cause they're next to you. You can't see anybody behind you.

Sharon Brous 10:52 Right.

Simon Sinek 10:52 The only people you can see are the people walking in the opposite direction.

Sharon Brous 10:55 That's right.

Simon Sinek 10:55 They're the only faces you will see are the people walking in the other direction. And so what you're-- The, the, the grand metaphor is it's about being seen. And so the people who are walking in the other direction, it is lonely, it is humiliating to be in the other direction, but you are the only ones who will be seen by everyone else. And I think what you are talking about is the most basic service that any of us can ever learn is we are amongst the masses. I don't know the people who are well. I see the backs of their heads, and my responsibility is to go to my friends who are not showing up, who don't want out of get, get out of bed, and my responsibility is to call them up, show up at their door, and say, "Are you okay?"

Sharon Brous 11:39 That's it.

Simon Sinek 11:39 Which is another way of saying, "I don't know what's going on, but I want you to know-

Sharon Brous 11:43 Yes

Simon Sinek 11:44 ... I see you."

Sharon Brous 11:45 I see you. Exactly. First of all, I absolutely love that read of this tradition, and I have lived deeply in this text for 20 years, and I have never heard somebody or myself reflect it on in that way. So thank you for that. And I'm gonna just even up the ante on your interpretation because it makes me think of something even more. So let me tell you a story because that's what rabbis do.

Sharon Brous 12:09 Um- One of my beloved, um, educators that works, uh, in our community at IKAR, um, s- her name is Beth, and she was in the pottery studio listening to my audiobook [chuckles] so. And, um, and she started to engage this guy who's, uh, sitting across from her, and like, you know, li-light, light chitchat, and she mentions that her daughter just got married, and then she says, "Do you have any kids?" And he said, "My son is 32, my daughter's 26, and my other daughter was 28." And then he gets up and goes, like, and walks away to the other side of the studio. And she's like, "I do not wanna touch that. Like, that is a world of pain that I don't wanna get near right now." But she's listening to the book, so she's like, "I've gotta figure out how to go over and talk to this guy." And so she walks over and she says to him, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but it sounded from what you said like you lost a child. Do you wanna talk about it?" And his eyes welled up, and they sat down together, and he said that his daughter had died by suicide two years earlier.

Simon Sinek 13:16 Mm-hmm.

Sharon Brous 13:16 And because of the nature of her death, his friends do not know how to engage him at all.

Simon Sinek 13:24 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 13:24 And so he's basically processing the grief alone. And he feels, like, not only the grief, but now the isolation on top of the grief. And Beth asked, "Can I see a picture of her?" And he showed her a picture of the two of them from that, the morning of her death when they went-

Simon Sinek 13:41 Mm

Sharon Brous 13:41 ... on a bike ride together.

Simon Sinek 13:42 Mm.

Sharon Brous 13:42 And she was young and beautiful and full of life, and he said he's been grappling for two years with the question of how someone who was that vital in the morning could, could need to die by the evening. And like, what, what happened there? But he's grappling with that question, like the most excruciating

Sharon Brous 14:01 existential question alone.

Simon Sinek 14:04 Mm.

Sharon Brous 14:04 Until this stranger in the pottery studio essentially says, like, "I see your humanity, and I'm terrified, and I'm not gonna run away from you."

Simon Sinek 14:13 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 14:13 And so I think that this is exactly right. Like, we don't want to encounter each other's pain for all kinds of reasons. It's absolutely terrifying. But it's not only that the only person we see, the only face that we can see is the brokenhearted coming toward us.

Simon Sinek 14:30 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 14:30 It's also that the only person who can see us is the per-

Simon Sinek 14:34 Yes

Sharon Brous 14:34 ... is the brokenhearted coming toward us.

Simon Sinek 14:36 The brokenhearted, yes.

Sharon Brous 14:36 Because Beth said to me afterwards, "I felt so grateful that I could-"

Simon Sinek 14:40 Yes

Sharon Brous 14:40 ... "help this man." And she said, "And I also felt-"

Simon Sinek 14:45 Yes. Yes

Sharon Brous 14:45 ... "I felt good about myself because I felt like I did something that was necessary-"

Simon Sinek 14:50 Yes

Sharon Brous 14:50 ... "and important in the world today."

Simon Sinek 14:52 Yes.

Sharon Brous 14:52 And so we are s- the, we are also seen-

Simon Sinek 14:55 Yes

Sharon Brous 14:55 ... in the work of seeing another, and what a profoundly powerful way to attach to something bigger than ourselves.

Simon Sinek 15:03 With a caveat, right? Which is when you are alone walking in the opposite direction, everyone can see you. You are seen. But you, you are not seen by that person. You are just one of the masses until-

Sharon Brous 15:17 Yes

Simon Sinek 15:17 ... you walk away and say, "I see you. I see that you're in pain." Only then do you earn your own face. Otherwise, you're just part of the masses.

Sharon Brous 15:27 Part of the masses.

Simon Sinek 15:28 You are not seen-

Sharon Brous 15:28 That's the thing

Simon Sinek 15:29 ... until, until you produce, until you have an act of service. And the act of service-

Sharon Brous 15:36 Yes

Simon Sinek 15:36 ... from the masses is the thing that makes you seen.

Sharon Brous 15:39 Oh my God. Simon, I wanna s-

Simon Sinek 15:41 And that is where the mutual love, that's where the mutual connection and mutual purpose happens.

Sharon Brous 15:46 That's the thing that distinguishes you from the masses is the fact that you're the one-

Simon Sinek 15:50 The thing that distinguishes you from the masses is your, your choice to, to step away and say, "I see you."

Sharon Brous 15:58 Okay. First of all, I would like to study tarot with you more often because I feel like this is revelatory for me. But I wanna tell you, we-- So we actually enacted this ritual, this ancient ritual. There were like 700 or 800 people in the room, and we had this incredible conversation. And then I asked if everyone would rise and then would move to the perimeter of the room. And the people who are okay turn to the right and circle, and the people who are grieving, like I am, my father died just before High Holy Days this year, so I'm still in my year of grieving, would join me in walking to the left. And it doesn't matter what kind of grief you're experiencing. It could be the death of a loved one. It could be, it could be an illness. It could be a, a, a breakup or a divorce. Like a- whatever you identify as making you, like, really not okay today. And so we had about 700 people walking this way and about 50 or 60 people walking this way. And I exper-- I've never done it before. I mean, I've been writing about it and thinking about it, and I experienced the masses coming toward me and individuals doing exactly what you're saying. Like, there were people who were new to the community who I'd never met before who literally came over to me and asked me this question, malach, which is the ancient l- you know, the ancient words of like, "Tell me about your pain."

Simon Sinek 17:17 Mm.

Sharon Brous 17:17 And I said, "You know, my f- my father died, and I am worried that I haven't really grieved because I went straight from Shiva, the most intense period of grieving the first week, into High Holy Days, and then it was October 7th." And-

Simon Sinek 17:33 So you went from losing your father into going back to work.

Sharon Brous 17:35 Going back to work and then some, because it was like-

Simon Sinek 17:37 Yeah

Sharon Brous 17:37 ... and then the war, and then the book launch, and then every... So, and then these strangers, like people I did not know, like held me in my grief-

Simon Sinek 17:46 Mm

Sharon Brous 17:47 ... and gave me blessings. And by the way, part of th- like what I love about this is that you go up to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. You save your whole life. You plan, you plot. You know, you get up there not to get a blessing from the high priest, not to get a blessing from the rabbis, to get a blessing from some stranger.

Simon Sinek 18:04 Mm.

Sharon Brous 18:04 Like it's a total democratization of care. It's, there, it isn't like someone with real training. It, it's, it's, you know, is giving you your blessing. It's saying we all have the capacity to hold each other in our times of greatest pain. We just don't know that we do. And I think part of the problem, and this is something else I try to address in the book, is that we have this misperception that when people around us are in pain, we need to fix them. Like we need to make the pain better. We have to bring them out of their pain.

Simon Sinek 18:33 Which, which, which is why the friends of the person who lost his daughter to suicide didn't engage because they-

Sharon Brous 18:38 Yes

Simon Sinek 18:38 ... felt they were ill-equipped-

Sharon Brous 18:39 They couldn't

Simon Sinek 18:40 ... to fix his pain.

Sharon Brous 18:40 That's right. That's right.

Simon Sinek 18:41 And so they chose nothing.

Sharon Brous 18:43 That's right. So if you can't fix it, then you disengage. But actually-

Simon Sinek 18:47 Right

Sharon Brous 18:47 ... as I learned from one of my, my dear friends in the community whose son died in a freak ski accident, a beautiful, amazing 20-year-old kid, he [lip smacks] so my, my- the, the father said to me w- as we were like processing this during his first year of mourning, and he said, "You know, people literally think that their job is to pull me out of the grief. Like, 'Come on-

Simon Sinek 19:10 Yeah

Sharon Brous 19:10 ... we're just gonna go out and get drunk and, you know, hang out and talk about other things.'" And he's like, "I don't wanna talk about other things. I wanna talk about Charlie. I wanna grieve. I wanna weep. I wanna be in, I wanna be in the depths because my son is gone." And so, like why are we so afraid to be in the depths with e- with each other, to navigate the dark night of the soul together? Like, we're not car mechanics. Our job is not to fix it. Our job is to be present to the grief and be present to the pain, and that is a totally different kind of calling. And if we knew that, if the people coming toward me thought that their job was to fix my broken heart, they wouldn't have gone near me. But if they knew that their job was just to see me, just to communicate, "You're not alone tonight," then, then it gives them the courage to actually step into that difficult relationship.

Simon Sinek 20:01 The metaphor which I have used and found very useful both when I'm the one in pain and when, uh, I am near someone in pain, is the idea of sitting in mud. Which is when you are in pain-

Sharon Brous 20:12 Mm

Simon Sinek 20:12 ... it is the equivalent of sitting in mud. It is not fun. It is dirty. I would like to get out, but I don't know how to get out.

Sharon Brous 20:17 Mm.

Simon Sinek 20:18 I-- And w- and you said, which is, "I should get out, but I don't wanna get out of bed. I just, I just wanna sit in the mud and feel sorry for myself," you know? And the instinct of our friends who care about us is to pull us out of the mud.

Sharon Brous 20:29 Yes. Yes.

Simon Sinek 20:30 That's, that's to fix, to pull us out. And they do any amount of, you know, whether it's advice giving or trying to get us to go out to go drinking or whatever, but I don't... I'm not ready to get out of the mud. I just wanna sit in the mud. And, and what good friends do, what service is, service isn't, as you said, pulling me out of the mud. Service is the willing... I'm gonna cry. The s-service is the willingness to get in mud with someone. And, and trust me, when you sit in pain with someone, I don't wanna get in the mud with you. I don't wanna hear about you talking about your, your, your recently dead son. Like, that is no fun for me. Why would I wanna do that?

Sharon Brous 21:05 Mm.

Simon Sinek 21:05 But I choose to do it because I love you.

Sharon Brous 21:08 Right. That's right.

Simon Sinek 21:09 And I will get in mud with you. And the only time we will get out of the mud is when you say, "I think I'm ready to get out now."

Sharon Brous 21:16 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 21:16 And then all of my instincts to fix and pull and push, now, now with permission, I can engage all of those instincts.

Sharon Brous 21:26 Yes. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 21:26 But until that moment, my job is to do nothing but sit in mud with you. That is my job. And, and for people who are afraid that they don't know when or how, it's really, really simple. Ask. Like Beth, she said, "M- can I ask?" And he could say, "I'd rather not."

Sharon Brous 21:44 Right.

Simon Sinek 21:44 And they could sit quietly and make pots together and sit in mud together, you know? Or that's what they did. They sat in mud toget- you know, they sat in mud, but the point is she asked for direction.

Sharon Brous 21:53 That's right.

Simon Sinek 21:53 And I've done that with friends who are in pain. I said, "Do you wanna talk? Do, do you want me to offer advice or do you want me to just sit with you?" And they said, "Can you just sit with me?" I said, "You got it."

Sharon Brous 22:01 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 22:02 Your friends who are in pain know what they need.

Sharon Brous 22:04 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 22:04 You can climb into bed with them and watch a movie all day. You can go be depressed with them, but don't let them be depressed alone.

Sharon Brous 22:12 Yeah. Yeah. That's exa- I think that's exactly right.

Simon Sinek 22:15 And for us to suffer and struggle through the ups and downs of humanity with someone.

Sharon Brous 22:22 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 22:22 Not alone. Not alone is the important thing.

Sharon Brous 22:27 Yeah. In the, I mean, in the Torah, in the Book of Genesis, the first thing that's not good is a person being alone.

Simon Sinek 22:35 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 22:36 I mean, everything's good. At the end of every single day of creation, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's very good. And the first thing that's lo tov, that's not good, is lo tov lihiot ha'adam levado. It's not good for a person to be alone.

Simon Sinek 22:47 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 22:47 There's this incredible story that the rabbis tell in which at the end of that sixth day of creation when human beings were, when Adam and Eve were created, the sun starts to set and starts to get dark. And Adam is really scared because he's never seen darkness before. The first time you see the dark, it's really terrifying. And so he starts to cry, and then it gets darker and darker and darker, and he starts to scream. And he, and he's freaking out, and he thinks, "What did I do? Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I screwed up, and God's gonna return the whole world to, you know, null and void and chaos." And Eve just comes and sits right across from him and holds him and weeps with him throughout the night until the dawn comes. And I think the most important lesson that we learn from that is this question that we have to ask ourselves, which is, who will weep with us through the dark of night?

Simon Sinek 23:40 Mm.

Sharon Brous 23:40 Who's just gonna be there to sit with us and cry with us? And Eve-

Simon Sinek 23:43 Yeah

Sharon Brous 23:43 ... can't say to him, you know, "It's gonna be okay." She doesn't know. She's never seen the darkness either. She's scared also. She can't promise him that it'll be better, but she can just be with him while he's, while he's crying and while he's hurting.

Simon Sinek 23:56 You know, I, I, I had, um... I learned this lesson [chuckles] in an uncomfortable way, which is a friend of mine was going through a hard time, and I was doing absolutely everything wrong.

Sharon Brous 24:06 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 24:06 And by doing everything wrong, it, it turned what should've been a beautiful moment into one of anger, which is we started fighting.

Sharon Brous 24:14 Mm.

Simon Sinek 24:15 Because she didn't appreciate my, uh, attempts to solve her problem. I didn't appreciate her attempts to, um, criticize my attempts 'cause they're well-intentioned. You know, she, she's not looking at my heart, you know?

Sharon Brous 24:29 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 24:29 So I, I took offense, and it just didn't go well.

Sharon Brous 24:33 Mm.

Simon Sinek 24:34 And she had the clarity To say, "There's only one thing you need to do in this moment." She gave me an instruction. She said, "All you need to do is ask me the question, 'What do I need to do to make this better?'"

Sharon Brous 24:47 Mm.

Simon Sinek 24:48 And I said-- And I did, I just stopped. I stopped whatever argument we were having, and I said, "What can I do to make this better?" And she said, "I just need you to ask me if I'm okay."

Sharon Brous 24:59 Mm.

Simon Sinek 24:59 And I said, "Are you okay?" She said, "No, I'm not okay." 'Cause all she asked me to do-

Sharon Brous 25:07 Mm-hmm

Simon Sinek 25:07 ... was walk in the opposite direction, come out of the crowd, and see her. That's all she asked, and I didn't have the wherewithal until I was, until I asked permission. Not asked permission. I didn't even ask permission. I asked instruction.

Sharon Brous 25:18 Mm-hmm. Right.

Simon Sinek 25:20 What-- And it's, I have used that so many times.

Sharon Brous 25:23 Mm.

Simon Sinek 25:23 When someone in business, in personal, "What can I do to make this better?"

Sharon Brous 25:29 Mm. And, and then to be okay with knowing that you may not be able to make it better.

Simon Sinek 25:35 And be, and, and to be okay with the fact that I, I did my part.

Sharon Brous 25:40 Right. Right. And what, and going back to what you were saying earlier, which I fully believe, like, your job is not to heal her.

Simon Sinek 25:47 Correct.

Sharon Brous 25:47 Your job is to help her know that as she navigates the darkness, she's not alone.

Simon Sinek 25:52 A-and you said it, which is when I walk into the temple, I can choose to hide by turning right, or I can choose to be seen by turning left.

Sharon Brous 26:02 Right.

Simon Sinek 26:02 And if I am in pain, I choose to turn left or right, and there's still a choice to be made by the person in pain to turn left.

Sharon Brous 26:11 Mm-hmm.

Simon Sinek 26:11 Even if it's begrudging.

Sharon Brous 26:13 That's right. That's right. And there's so many good reasons why we don't wanna turn left, namely... I mean, the main one is we don't trust that we're gonna be held with love.

Simon Sinek 26:23 Mm-hmm.

Sharon Brous 26:24 What if you walk to the left and nobody meets you? I mean, this is something I hear a lot from, especially lately, from people who say, you know, "People who I have cared for failed to care for me."

Simon Sinek 26:35 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 26:35 "Failed to show up and hold me with love when I was the one in pain." And that's extremely painful to be vulnerable-

Simon Sinek 26:42 Yeah

Sharon Brous 26:42 ... and then not be met with love and care. And just as there are good reasons why people coming from the right don't want to see the person coming from the left.

Simon Sinek 26:51 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 26:51 And I think the, one of the best ones is because your vulnerability makes me feel vulnerable. It scares the crap out of me to think-

Simon Sinek 26:58 Yeah

Sharon Brous 26:58 ... that what happened to you might happen to me.

Simon Sinek 26:59 I will, while, while, while walking to the right, when I see you, I will avert my eyes for the discomfort that it will cause me-

Sharon Brous 27:06 That's right. That's right

Simon Sinek 27:06 ... to look at you.

Sharon Brous 27:09 That's right. And it's-

Simon Sinek 27:09 You are not alone. I am just afraid. [chuckles]

Sharon Brous 27:12 Especially if the loss you've experienced is tragic or traumatic loss.

Simon Sinek 27:16 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 27:16 Because that forces me to reckon with the fact that my kids might not be safe, or that I too might get diagnosed with this illness, or that I too might experience... Like, that like we don't live forever. And in, in a death-denying culture, that is, that's something we wanna avoid at all costs.

Simon Sinek 27:34 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 27:34 I don't wanna confront your loss because it terrifies me. And so that's what I'm saying about we're, it's all, it's counter-instinctual for every party.

Simon Sinek 27:44 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 27:44 And yet it's the only way that we can begin to heal. We have to trust that we're gonna be held with grace and with love, and we have to know that it's our work to hold with grace and with love.

Simon Sinek 27:54 Do you know the irony of that metaphor is that in reality, everyone should have turned left.

Sharon Brous 28:00 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 28:00 But the problem is if everyone turns left, then no one was, will be seen. You know, if we're dealing or coping or it's kinda going fine, or I'm not thinking about it today, I'll turn right, and it's only the people who, who their challenges are greater than mine today-

Sharon Brous 28:14 Yeah

Simon Sinek 28:14 ... ha-have the courage. Because by the way, on day one, I turned right and hid my pain. On day two, I turned right and hid my pain. On day three, I turned right and hid my pain. And because I saw on day one, two, and three people with the courage to turn left-

Sharon Brous 28:31 Mm

Simon Sinek 28:31 ... on day four, their courage inspired me to turn left.

Sharon Brous 28:35 Mm. Okay. Here's my answer to that, Simon. Um, the day that I went into the ER when my dad got really sick, you know, he, he had a terrible infection, and he ended up dying a week later, and we d- you know, we knew things were really, really bad, and I was sitting in the ER with him, and it was terrible. And then I got a text on my little, you know, rabbi thread, and it said that another member of the community's father had a, an infection, the same one as my dad, and was in the ER. And I wrote back saying, "Which ER? 'Cause I'm at Cedars, and maybe I can go visit them if they're, if they're here too." And we ended up tracking, like, as my father went into hospice and then died, this other family was about a week, a week behind me in terms of their father's death. And I felt this incredible connection to this family. Even from the depth of my, depths of my grief, I felt like the bereaved was my sister in grief. And so I felt like I wanna h- I, like I need to also be with her, and we can walk together through this path. And so I think we do have the capacity. Some of us, when we're in the depths of it, we just can't. Like, we need to be fed. We need to be nurtured. I, as I, as I've been thinking, you know, over the last five months, when you are in shiva, when you're in deep, deep grief, the only people who are around you are people who love you and can-

Simon Sinek 29:56 Yeah

Sharon Brous 29:56 ... care for you and can actually keep you alive, because when you lose a loved one, you wanna be with them. But the, but the community comes around and says, "We're gonna keep you in this world." But then shiva ends at some point, and you have to get up, and you have to see that there's a whole world of human pain and human longing and love and loss and yearning, and you reenter the world even though you're still grieving. And so we do have the capacity, maybe not in the immediate n- you know, for most of us, but we do have the capacity to see who else is coming from the left and to hold each other, even if everybody's coming from the left and if nobody's greeting us and holding us from the right.

Simon Sinek 30:34 Do you know what I have learned from this conversation from you?

Sharon Brous 30:36 Tell me.

Simon Sinek 30:37 I've learned the definition of service from you, and it's not what most people think. Service is not learning the skills to come out of the crowd from the right to the person who turned left. Service is teaching others how to turn left.

Sharon Brous 30:57 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 30:59 Because if no one learns how to turn left, then how can we ever help anyone? Like, the skill to come out of the crowd to help the person who turns left is always second-

Sharon Brous 31:12 Mm

Simon Sinek 31:12 ... to the person who learned to turn left first. You have to have someone to go left before I can apply the skills of knowing how to sit in mud with them.

Sharon Brous 31:21 Mm-hmm. That's right.

Simon Sinek 31:24 That, to me, tr- to, to... I think that's what I've learned. True service is not helping those in pain. True service is teaching us how to be open and ask for help when we are in pain.

Sharon Brous 31:36 Yeah.

Simon Sinek 31:37 To be open and t- not ask for help, tell people that we are in pain. In other words, it's wh- where are we teaching our children-

Sharon Brous 31:45 Mm

Simon Sinek 31:45 ... how to turn left?

Sharon Brous 31:47 Hmm.

Simon Sinek 31:48 We teach them everything, but we don't teach them to say, "I am hurting, and I don't know what to do."

Sharon Brous 31:55 No.

Simon Sinek 31:56 "Will you just be there with me?" True service is being open with our struggle.

Sharon Brous 32:04 When we enacted the ritual in February in our community, one of my teachers, a rabbi in the community, came to me afterwards, and he s- he was shaking, and he said, "This ritual has not been enacted in 2,000 years." Like, this is a super obscure ritual. And he said, like, "There are reverberations, like, from the ancients in this room tonight." And he said-

Simon Sinek 32:29 Yeah

Sharon Brous 32:29 ... "And I don't think anyone would've gone to the left if you hadn't said, 'I'm walking to the left, and I wanna invite you to join me if you, like me, have a broken heart right now.'" Like, we need to be told that it's okay to walk to the left.

Simon Sinek 32:44 Shown. Shown.

Sharon Brous 32:46 To not be, to not be okay.

Simon Sinek 32:47 We not be told.

Sharon Brous 32:48 Yes.

Simon Sinek 32:48 Not to be told.

Sharon Brous 32:49 To be shown.

Simon Sinek 32:49 To be shown.

Sharon Brous 32:50 That's right. And so let me just say-

Simon Sinek 32:52 Because every rabbi says, "If you're in pain, turn left."

Sharon Brous 32:54 Right. Right.

Simon Sinek 32:55 But no rabbi says, "Today, I'm going to turn left."

Sharon Brous 32:58 Yeah. Yeah.

Simon Sinek 33:00 To be shown, not told.

Sharon Brous 33:01 So, so, um, you know, the book's called "The Amen Effect"-

Simon Sinek 33:06 Yeah

Sharon Brous 33:06 ... and the reason that I called it that is because, because to stand up in a, a... I mean, we have this ritual in, in Jewish practice of the Mourner's Kaddish, this mourner's prayer, and I realized that what it's actually doing is saying to a mourner, "We're gonna create environments in which it is safe for you to stand up and just say, 'My heart is broken,' and you will be met by a chorus of loved ones and strangers who will respond saying, 'Amen. I see you. And as scared as I am, I'm not running away from you.'" In other words, you... It will become normative in this culture for you to walk to the left, and you will always be met by people coming from the right who will not avert their eyes. And we don't just say amen in that prayer. We say amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. There are five amens in that prayer. We say it again and again and again, "I see you. I see you. I see you. I'm not running away from you." And we do that prayer throughout the entirety of a person's time of grieving to just say to them, like, "Get used to. Build the muscle memory for standing up and not being okay when you're not okay. And to the community, build the muscle memory of showing up relentlessly for somebody who's in pain." It's not just one phone call. It's not one email, "I'm so sorry, you know, to hear of your loss." It's repeated encounters that express that that loving container will be with you as long as you need it to be, that Eve will hold Adam throughout the whole night and weep with him.

Simon Sinek 34:40 Yeah.

Sharon Brous 34:41 Right?

Simon Sinek 34:42 There, there's no other way to end this conversation but with amen.

Sharon Brous 34:45 Mm. Thank you, Simon.

Simon Sinek 34:48 Sharon, thank you so much for joining me.

Sharon Brous 34:50 Beautiful.

Simon Sinek 34:50 I can't, I can't... This is absolutely enlightening. Thank you so much.

Sharon Brous 34:53 Oh, thank you.

Simon Sinek 34:54 [outro music] If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsinek.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.