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The Truth About Addiction
Dr. Samantha Harte is a physical therapist, best selling author, performing artist and sober mom of two. She is here to tell the truth about her life, which requires telling the truth about her addiction: how it presents, how it manifests, and how it shows up again and again in her recovery. This podcast is one giant deep dive into the truth about ALL TYPES OF addiction (and living sober) to dispel the myths, expose the truths, and create a community experience of worthiness, understanding and compassion.
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The Truth About Addiction
Finding Strength in Vulnerability with Shina Rae
Shina Rae Reynolds, a celebrated Israeli actress turned American aesthetician and celebrity makeup artist, joins us for a heart-to-heart conversation about her extraordinary journey from a life marred by trauma to one of triumph and resilience. Shina opens up about the powerful emotional connection she felt during a recent networking event, which led to our serendipitous collaboration aimed at empowering others. Her candid reflections on American superficiality and the inspiring role of vulnerability in personal growth provide a fresh perspective on the importance of sharing our stories to break the chains of isolation and foster a sense of community.
From growing up in a diverse, multilingual household in Israel to navigating her tumultuous childhood filled with addiction, parental absence, and a quest for validation, Shina's story is one of relentless perseverance. Shina recounts her father's imprisonment, her own battles with addiction, and a near-death experience that catalyzed her spiritual awakening. Her transformation, bolstered by education and mentorship, underscores the power of self-realization and the courage required to start over in a new country. We explore themes of trauma, vulnerability, and resilience, emphasizing the importance of maintaining an open heart and a strong presence amidst adversity.
Shina's journey doesn't stop at survival; it extends to redefining her identity and embracing a path of spiritual growth. From overcoming harassment and homelessness to building a successful career and finding faith in unexpected places, her story is a testament to inner strength and emotional freedom. Join us as we discuss the complexities of Israeli and Palestinian identities, the impact of cultural expectations on self-worth, and the universal challenges of navigating trauma and fostering resilience. This episode promises to leave you inspired by Shina's unwavering spirit and the transformative power of turning pain into purpose.
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Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today I'm interviewing a very special guest who is a celebrity in Israel and who is making her mark here in America. We recently met at a speaking event where I shared for 10 minutes and she came up to me after and wanted to connect. And here we are having an incredible interview about the wild story that is her life and what she is doing with what she has lived through. Sheena Rae Reynolds was born in Israel and was an actress for 20 years and was an actress for 20 years. She came to America and studied all the aesthetic facial injections and was a celebrity makeup artist for years. She has overcome multiple traumas and built a big, beautiful life out of tragic situations. Her first book is coming out next month and she is on a mission to be a motivational speaker and help others transform their pain into power. Let's get started. Welcome back everybody to the truth Addiction.
Speaker 1:I have been looking forward to this talk since we met. I have a woman named Sheena here and I'm going to let her tell you her last name because it's so much more interesting when she tells you the story versus me saying it. However, sheena happened to be at a recent networking event that I got asked to speak at, and for reasons that perhaps neither of us can explain, she came up to me because she felt a cord sort of connecting her to me and the weight and depth of my story in the 10 minutes that I had to share. It was connecting her to me such that we've become friends and we have lots of big, grand visions for what we want to do and who we want to help, and I'm so looking forward to this conversation, because you want to talk about a story of tragedy to triumph again and again and again and broadening the spectrum of addiction into something that is way more complicated than substance abuse. Well, this is the conversation for you. So, without any more hesitation, sheena, hi Hi how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm so excited to be here, like you said, like when I heard you speak for the first time I was like, oh my god, it's okay to talk, to talk like that in america, it's okay to be vulnerable, because my perception of american women it's like sorry if I sound offensive, but it's like superficial. They just talk about nails, about this, about that. Nobody really go deep and tell their secret and vulnerabilities. Everything is always an end good, end story. When you even see a movie, you never see America with a bad ending.
Speaker 3:So when I saw first time a doctor, a beautiful woman, talented, like how you seemed right because I didn't know you and then you open and showed your vulnerability to me, it was, oh my god, a breath of fresh air and I did see the light in the end of the tunnel because I'm not going to be just outside israeli talking about my vulnerability. It's also american white doctor speaking about our vulnerability. I know it sounds horrible to say it like that, but this was my perception and I'm here for a long time, so you are a very breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1:Oh, I so appreciate that. I could say a thousand things, but what I want to start with for a moment, because we're going to circle back to to that and and why it's so important to share from a healed place, healed in quotations, right, healing Cause we're not ever done with that.
Speaker 1:You know what is on our hearts and and that I think has so much to do with why you and I want to speak on stages is because we want other people to feel less afraid, less alone. We want to let people know there is yeah, so we're going to get into that, but because I left a cliffhanger about your last name, can you tell people the story of that please?
Speaker 3:Okay. So you know how in Americaica it's always black and white. It's either you palestinian or israeli, jewish or muslim. All this you know how the perception of americans. So in in israel, a lot of us jews and muslims are really blend in. You see muslims with jewish names and jewish with muslims names and you know everything is. You know like that because we are kind of mixed and from my dad's side I'm Arab and Russian, right, and my dad's original name is Jabali, which in Arabic means mountains. And when I was young in Israel as an actress, you could not use this name, not because it's racism, they hate Arabs, it's just the name sounds very heavy. So I got married. Based on my marriage, it was Reynolds, right. So when I started as an actress, jabali was out of the picture Reynolds for Israeli accent, reynolds. They call us like that. It sounds like very German, you know harsh. So they did a huge article on me in the newspaper and she said we cannot use this name, reynolds. And so what?
Speaker 1:do you mean?
Speaker 3:she said no, no, no, we call you Shina Ray.
Speaker 1:Ray Ray, it sounds very American and she said, don't in the Kabbalah Ray is one of the 172 names of God Ray the king, you know.
Speaker 3:So I said you know what, okay, I'm taking this. You know. So it's become Shina Ray. But now, as I start to develop as a motivational speaker and, you know, speaking about Israel, palestine, all these topics, I don't want to have this perception that I had before of like a sexy actress or whatever it is. So I just decided to go back to that name.
Speaker 1:But sometimes, when they ask me, I say Sheena Jibli, jibali, ray Reynolds, you know I love that so much, so can you take me back in time and tell me what your childhood was like? Oh yeah, definitely so.
Speaker 3:I grew up in the Middle East, in Israel, to a blended family. I had a black grandfather from Ethiopia it's actually not really Ethiopia, it's between Yemen and Ethiopia or Sudan. I don't know exactly the originality of it because my grandfather walked from Yemen to Israel by foot. He was an orphan, 15, 14 years old, came by himself. So this is story upon story upon story. And my grandmother she was born to a syrian mother, like arab syrian, and her father was russian, but she never knew him, right, so it's very mixed. From my mother's side, my mom was arab jewish. She came from morocco, she actually born in morocco, and it was very mixed.
Speaker 3:In my home we would speak Arabic. Then I would listen to people speaking Russian, like all. My neighbor was like Russians, right, um, they spoke in my mom's house Arabic, which Moroccan Arabic, french, hebrew. My dad's side, they were speaking Arabic then and I'm very good with languages, so I was like speaking, uh and hearing a lot of languages and I'm so it was. It was easy speaking languages because you could understand more point of views, more perception than when I travel. I kind of make this stronger, like try to practice all the time. So, yeah, but talking to the history. As you said, I grew up in a household when my dad went to jail for murder when I was three years old and my mom from my mom's side. To begin with, they didn't want her to marry my dad because he was a blend of Arab and Jewish and black, and she married him in spite her family wishes, and then my dad got into this problem. Actually, he was not a killer, not a murderer.
Speaker 3:He just got involved in a problem seeing two people fighting and got involved and these guys threatening his life for like a year and actually physically hurt his friends and almost killed him and put a grenade in our house. So eventually it's either my dad's life or or his life. Now, with that being said, as a three-year-old, when you don't know nothing, my life, from the moment I born, was like a drama, seriously drama. My mom had a kid before me. He died after a month. Then she had me.
Speaker 3:When she had me, I was an incubator for three and a half months, born 650 kilogram grams sorry, not kilogram grams. I was like literally like this they told my mom go home, don't get attached because she's gonna die, she's too small, but we have to keep her in the incubator. So she never hugged me, never kissed me, never wanted to be attached because was afraid to lose another baby right. And then, when I was three, my dad left and went to jail. So she was a single mom with two kids trying to make it struggling in the middle east imagine like 70s, 80s. It was really crazy because in my perception I always thought saw a lot of the men's like predators not just men?
Speaker 3:honestly it would be stupid to say them. I think human being in general, because always somebody had something bad to say like a remark. And I saw my mom struggling and working and driving and trying and it was so many haters around her and she was gorgeous. My mom looked like literally like far trying and it was so many haters around her and she was gorgeous. My mom looked like literally like Farrah Foster. She was so beautiful. Everywhere we go we couldn't go to the beach with her, we couldn't go anywhere. Everybody was always looking at her. Remember at the time that it was no plastic surgery or Botox. She was like gorgeous and it was a problem because her husband was in jail and she was. She come from that generation that she has to be very loyal to her husband and you don't divorce your husband with when it's a problem, you support him. You take your kids every other week to visit him in jail and I could tell you hundreds of stories from the prison walls, you know.
Speaker 3:And then I got injured when I was a baby. First, because I got injured three times in my life. First I got injured when I was a baby in my left hand because I was allergic to iodine and they put here iodine sorry, they put here iodine and I was allergic and it's giving me a severe reaction. Then, when I was, I got injured in a terror attack. I broke all my fingers and then I had nails and stuff here. Thank God it was in the same hand, because at least only one part that's how I saw it. And then the third time also it was a bombing. I fell and hit my head and my back. I had a surgery.
Speaker 3:So all this crazy childhood, all the problems you know with my dad being in, jail and my mom is a single mom and me with learning disability, dysmorphia, dyslexia, you know all this hdid, you know, and I refuse to take medication because I really do think that if you really put your mind into it and you make the effort, you know, and try harder, I think you can cope, even though I'm coping with a little bit of the you know. But in the other hand I can do things that other people cannot do. So, even though all this crazy childhood you know it, it does disturb you as a young adult, you know when you grow up. So as a young woman, I was smoking cannabis and drinking a little bit of alcohol. I didn't know I'm allergic by the way I was drinking a little bit of alcohol. I didn't know I'm allergic by the way I was drinking a little bit. But, you know, always kind of on the edge, I knew that it's wrong because my dad was an addict, because my dad never used drugs in his life.
Speaker 3:But when he left the prison and come home because it was a model prison, he studied a lot and he helped a lot of prison in there, a lot of people in the prison, to get out with a better case and he was writing their letters to you know supreme court and everything.
Speaker 3:But when he left the prison he couldn't cope, he didn't know, he didn't know the money, he didn't know nothing. Remember, he went into prison when it was the 70s. Then he left in the 90s. It was completely different world and he started using heroin. And I remember those times like he would sit and do it next to me and we had like deep conversations and you know, as a young woman, when you admire your father, this is the first man in your life and my dad was a very intelligent person. Right, he was always like giving me books when I was a kid to read like so crass, you know, like really complicated, you know, books for a little girl. He talked to me about a lot of psychological stuff but he didn't really have a lot of boundaries because he also speak with me.
Speaker 3:What's going on in jail a lot of the times, you know, and as a young woman, I was always looking for that pattern of my dad and you know I was the opera singer and playing the piano, my, my old, my whole childhood. I had a soprano voice and as soon as my dad started to do more visitations at home and you know they get part-time working outside I start to change. I change the people. Instead of hanging out with musicians, people from the academy, classic academy, I start hanging out with people that more like my dad and you get addicted to that. How do I say exciting feelings, you know.
Speaker 3:And with that being said, you know, in my earlier childhood my dad's brother used to come to our house and he was living in India. Until today, he said, in his 70s, he's still in India and he's a meditation and yoga instructor for like more than 40 years. So since seven years old, he used to sit us down and say you have to relax, you have to study meditation and he teaches. I know all the songs by heart, even today, and it was like in between a lot of worlds. So I had the outside world when I was trying to prove something all the time, that insecure child that had to prove that I'm from a better family or don't talk about my dad. And then it was a different child with a different demeanor that was want to touch the edge and want to try certain things and get into this addiction mentality to be on the edge all the time to do things that it's always close to death, somehow, like I always had this dance between normal and death, normal and death.
Speaker 3:And when I say death, like if I knew it's a very dangerous area, I would go there on purpose. If, if I knew that something like happened, I would I always wanted to be in the fire, you know and I can I take a second here.
Speaker 1:I there's so much that you said and, um, one of the things you said that that's really striking as a mom and I think about my own journey to motherhood and, uh, very different than your mom's, but how different the scenarios were of my my pregnancy with my son, who's my firstborn, versus my daughter, the closeness with my son versus my daughter, I think in part as a result of the pregnancy, postpartum and aftermath experience. And I'm picturing three, five, seven, eight, 12-year-old she.
Speaker 1:Sheena whose mom thought she was going to die and so didn't visit and didn't do all the sort of natural innate things to shower a baby with love and and on top of it it's.
Speaker 3:It's actually continued until today.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, so right, so I'm, and then, and then also, like your dad is gone for a long period of time. And so before before we get to your dad coming back, and now he's in this raging addiction. So so no wonder you know, chaos and dysfunction is normalized, not just, not just to your mind, but to your, to your body, to your nervous system to your automatic paradigm, right?
Speaker 1:I'm just wondering, like in that in in between your, your young girl, who needs a dad, and your dad is not there, although you're visiting him, but when you are, you're hearing things and probably seeing things that you're not supposed to cause. You're so young, so young, so you've got this really difficult fractionalized relationship with dad. What's going on with mom and what are you learning in those formative years about your parents, about safety, about self-worth, about performing and pleasing? What were the things you were like? These are the things I need to do in order to function and be safe in this world, based on what I'm learning from my parents and I'm asking grown Sheena that. But when you look back at the five-year-old, seven-year-old, 12-year-old, before dad comes back, what did that look like? Yeah, I'll explain.
Speaker 3:First of all, remember that my mom came from an Arab mentality very. Arab mentality, Like you had to be virgin. No way a guy is going to touch you, because it's embarrassing. I didn't even think of having sex, even if I thought about it. I felt guilty and ashamed and it was disgusting. How can I even you know, when you feel as a little kid, like horny or any sexual feeling. It was for me.
Speaker 1:It was ashamed to feel like that what would she say to you that you were, that you were internalizing that? Give me even she was a sexy herself.
Speaker 3:She looked good and sexy, but I could see her guilt for feeling like that because her duty was to be only for her men, you understand. And she's like like don't talk like that.
Speaker 3:If I would, put posters of Marilyn Monroe or Madonna, she would freak out. She was like, oh my God, they're prostitutes. What are you doing? You're putting photos of prostitutes at your, your room, you know, like it was a big deal, even though today she's not like that anymore. You know she also had her journey, but as a little kid I would give it to my dad, because my dad always had these little conversations with me and also remember, because he's in prison, he would send me every week at least two letters, beautiful letters, like the paper would be beautiful, with hearts and flowers or whatever, and he writes very articulate, very beautiful. He would say listen, even if you're in a room with 20 men, remember you got something that they want.
Speaker 3:You cannot give it away, you have to think, you have to use your head, like he would always I didn't understand it back then, but he literally guided me how to be a strong woman among many men, or in this savage, chaotic world underneath, if you say. And I was sexually abused not raped, but sexually abused when I was in, I think, eight or seven. We're sitting in the Shabbat dinner table and the babysitter's boyfriend was touching me between my legs.
Speaker 3:Now imagine we're sitting at a table with 20 people for Shabbat dinner. It was an event or something like something, holiday or something and I'm sitting there, you know, like striped with that, like I didn't know what to do, but I remembered what my dad told me. I knew I cannot go to my mom and mention anything like that because it would look like what are you even?
Speaker 3:saying Like you know, you're a little girl I didn't know how to phrase it, I couldn't put my thoughts together, how to even say that but I remember my dad's words and this guy never came near me since that this is was like and I'm happy it happened that early, that scenario, because it really woke me up to the world that I'm not safe and I have to be awake 24-7 because it could be in any given moment that a predator is around. Now you build a personality that you're in a survival mode 24-7. You always have to look back. You question everybody, you lose, especially when you don't have a mother love that caresses you, loves you, kisses you, tells you that you're worthy. My sister was a beautiful, uh girl. I was like, short, I had very thin hair. You know my scars and you know I was like the kid to be ashamed with and I'm not blaming my mom, but I I cope. You know how do I be accepted in school? Because when I go to school, your dad is a murderer, your grandfather is black, you have an arab name, you're. You know it's something on top of something on top of something on top. You know like you can't get away from that, but it opened me as a person, you know, to teach me about compassion.
Speaker 3:I would always advocate for the underdogs in school or I would do secretly things Like I had a girl in school that she had like really hands like this, like she I don't know something from birth and nobody loved her. One day she stood and crying that she, nobody ever gave her something for her birthday. So I went and I said money and bought a gift and secretly give it to her, but she didn't know I did it. So I always try to. You know, my goal was since early ages to make people feel good. But along this way I was hurting myself because I always neglected my own feelings. I always wanted to do everything for other people, help people, give people. You know, like I would go to a Holocaust survivor clean their home, cook the meals, take their groceries. I helped everybody who can imagine.
Speaker 3:I was working and my sister oh, I don't have money, take, I don't have this tape, but I completely neglected myself.
Speaker 1:What's your understanding of why you did that? Like as a grown woman now, when you look back and say, man, I just made so many choices where I took care of everybody else and not myself.
Speaker 3:This is where I took care of everybody else and not myself, because I know exactly where it comes from. Because when you grow up in a state of mind and surrounding that you're not enough right, it comes to every aspect of your life. You're not enough as a wife, you're not enough as a girlfriend, you're not enough as a friend. You're not enough as a human being. You're not enough as a girlfriend. You're not enough as a friend. You're not enough as a human being. You're not enough. You just want to satisfy everybody, because if I do something good to you and you're smiling, then, oh my god, you give me a few minutes of grace and everybody needs someone that reassures them and tell them something good. And when you don't have it in your close surrounding, in your home, you look for that everywhere. I'm just, I think I'm just so lucky. I really see myself as a fortunate, lucky person because I could easily bring being prostitution or like heavy, heavy crystal meth or something like that.
Speaker 3:I mean, I did touch a little bit of drugs when I was a kid but because I saw what it did to my dad and to a lot of other women when it comes to prostitution, I was terrified, like, um, I tried here and there and then I said you know what, it's not for me, I, I can't do it. And don't forget that I had this world, that I was doing classical, singing the opera, and still going to the conservatory and practicing every week.
Speaker 3:So I had something to compare, like I had a comparison from this type of language, to this type of language, with this type of people, to this type of people, and I was always battling between the world of meditation, music, culture to a world of underdog, terrorist mentality, um, chaotic mentality, mentality. They always have something to prove. What car you're driving, who do you know? What is your power? You can beat this guy, you can beat this guy. So I was really growing in in between two worlds.
Speaker 1:You know that so, oh, there's so much. I, if I, if I take everyone listening now to your dad coming back and then the introduction of his addiction being right in front of you and there being absolutely no boundaries which, by the way, I can deeply relate to, because that was.
Speaker 1:It looked different, but very much the same thing that was happening in my house, um yeah, and you said you started to, not surprisingly, cross those lines yourself right and dabble and experiment, and as you're doing that, are you able, and for how long? Are you straddled between these two worlds? On the one hand, this prestigious arts world does that end up leading you into acting? And also the addiction world and the you know, getting to the edge of the cliff and almost jumping off of it. That world. How are you doing both at the same time? How are you managing that and what is the breaking point where you either choose one world or the other? Like, take me through that.
Speaker 3:First, I think honestly, when I think about it, I think I'm very, very, very, and I'm not saying it from narcissism or egoistic. I think I'm a very, very strong person in my mind. You know, I've never met anybody who's strong as me without sounding, you know, horrible, right, sometimes I'd see that I think if somebody went through what I went through, there would be dead long gone. You know, or you know one of, because when you use drug, what's?
Speaker 3:the common denominary to someone who use drugs, alcohol or addiction in general. It's a void that you have to fulfill all the time. It's an emotional void, right, you have to fulfill it and I understood it in a very early age. I saw my dad feeling as a failure as a dad right, because when he left prison my mom became a multimillionaire building this business. Obviously he held behind the scenes because he was funding it and she knew that it's someone there. You know, nobody can take protection because, you know, in a lot of business in Israel people take protection, right, so she had him as a man, but when he left he fell as a failure. Right, he get out. He's got a very strong, opinionated woman on the verge of crazy psychotic narcissism. And I had to navigate between Jekyll and Mr Hyde on a daily basis. It makes you a super expert, you know, navigating between Jackal and Mr Hyde, because you have to really create scenarios, plan scenarios prepare for the outcome of every word that comes out of your mouth.
Speaker 3:Or, god forbid, if you do something that she doesn't like, she explodes right, actually explode right. So it makes me. It makes me an expert with um, with dealing with unstable people, right. And I developed some kind of uh, patient, right, how to be patient, how to wait for a long time. You cannot just come and say what you want, because it's a stronger person that can scrimmage you, heat you, whatever. So I developed crazy resilience and patience. I developed a sense of you don't always get what you want, right I developed a self-talk with myself, which is the most important.
Speaker 3:When you have a conversation with yourself on a daily basis, right, even if it's not healthy at first, but at least you develop a conversation, you question yourself. Right, because my first 15 years of my life, my life goal was to die. I only wanted to die, I didn't want to live. I always plan how I make a suicide and I'm not a suicidal person, like, I'm not crazy. I've never took pills, I've never took any medication, but my goal was to digest.
Speaker 3:I know, I know that from an older perspective not to deal with my mom, not to deal with the chaos around me, not because I wanted to die, because I loved life, I was talented and fun and have a great sense of humor, but I just couldn't deal, sorry, couldn't deal with, couldn't deal with that, you know, couldn't deal with what she did, like, how she treated me in general, and that made me really, really resilient and I decided, when I saw women around me, I was literally thinking about my dad's words. He said you don't want to be that girl that everybody just use and throw like a nylon bag, plastic bag. That's what he told me. He said you want to be strong. You want to be in a room and everybody respect you. My dad always tell me these things and I think he was very smart because he knew he doesn't have the power to. You know, give me any anything outside.
Speaker 3:So these letters and phone calls, little by little you know how people doctor, nate in you and put a little drops of and think his specific indoctrination was amazing, because he gave me a list of books to read, he told me what not to watch, he told me how to talk, he talked to me about my language, how it's important that I speak languages and open and expand my mind because my dad is very open-minded versus my mom. That was very primitive. My dad was in a biracial house.
Speaker 1:He was in this conflict of three things that he was very, very open-minded, smart, you know, and at the same time, your dad did heroin in front of you, so how confusing is that to you that he's given you, I'm talking before, before the heroin, right? So you got. You've got all these amazing when you what you're not getting from your mom, you're getting in spades from your dad. Thank God you had something. And then all of a sudden he gets home.
Speaker 3:In general. Listen, in general. I'm not going to justify it, because a lot of people, you know they take what they can get. This is their family, it is what it is. You love them no matter what. It's not that I don't love my family, right, don't get me wrong, absolutely yeah with that being said, it was not a healthy environment.
Speaker 3:They're not healthy in a sense of normal, routine everyday life. But with that being said, you know it's no win-win situation with specific scenario. You can grow in the most normal and normative family and still turn out crazy. So in my case, I think it made me like really cautious, organized, you know calculate a lot of people that see me and know my background, like they would assume that I would you know be calculate. A lot of people that see me and know my background, like they would assume that I would you know be partying, go do cocaine, do this, do that, and then it's oh my God, you're such a nerd, you know, but at the time you said you started dabbling right.
Speaker 1:So tell me about the time when you were going back and forth between these worlds, and then did you have a rock bottom moment?
Speaker 3:yes, I have a few. I had a few rock bottom moment that I decided like I was smoking cannabis for three years excessively, like literally smoking bongs. I don't know if you know like bongs and chills, you know like indian chills and you know, physically I'm super tiny. One day I think the chill was they did this. It's hash, it's not cannabis in Israel and it's hash that come from Egypt, from Sinai, right. So usually they put the hash in opium and they put it under the ground for a few months, so the opium suck and then when you smoke it it's really, really strong. You know it's like literally. You know it's like literally, you know, exploding your mind.
Speaker 3:So I was smoking this chill in a party, as a, I think I was 17 or something, and I go to the mirror in the bathroom and I see a very old woman. I see myself as an old woman. I had a trip, you know. I see my hair. I'm like, oh my god, I'm looking at a mirror, going back, going like like crazy, you know. And I tell my friend I'm an old woman, look at my face. And she said no, you're not. Oh, I'm like, oh my God, I'm looking at it, going back, going like crazy, you know. And I tell my friend I'm an old woman, look at my face, and she said no, you're not. Oh, I'm like, look at me. I was tripping, you know. And then I had like maybe six months of severe anxiety, feeling really bad, anemia, horrible, and then I was like thinking what am I doing?
Speaker 1:and then I was like thinking what am I doing? Who is these people?
Speaker 3:I'm hanging out. What am I doing with my life? Like alone. Nobody told me this, right, nobody came and said, oh, you shouldn't do it. Or literally I give this scores to myself because I was sitting when they said, hell, no, this is not gonna happen, I'm not gonna be in this place. This is not my future, I don't deserve it. And I realized when you're smoking it could be crystal meth, hash, or you're doing cocaine, whatever it is the majority of the people you see around you. It doesn't matter if they're multi-millionaire, it doesn't if they're celebrities, it doesn't matter if they're beautiful, it doesn't matter if they're connected whatever they are, I don't care what you tell me, right?
Speaker 3:they all have something that is unresolved with themselves and they're not in a paradigm of growth, they're not in a paradigm of finding solutions and expands their mind to explore who they are as a biological computer that, because we have everything inside us. We don't need all this shit, right? You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:We don't need drugs and alcohol and all that. We got everything inside. And if you're in a paradigm of expanding and exploring and understanding, you don't need all this. And if I come to myself, very, very sincerely right, very honest I come to Sheena and I say, hey, sheena, do you need this? Is that making you feel good when you go to sleep at night and your throat is sore and you feel you wake up to work it? Because I was always also working with my mom as a teenager. Like you can go to school, you can go to work like you, always. Like you know, and I'm very skinny.
Speaker 3:I look like a junkie, even if I don't do drugs, if I just smoke and I I question myself every day, until one day I said you know what? I've had it. And then I realized when you're done with substance or whatever it is, also I had the rock bottom, one of them I want to tell you. I I had a clinical death. I was drinking alcohol. I drugged it until I was 23,. You know, with alcohol, a little bit cannabis. I stopped smoking when I was 19,. Yeah, and I was not living in Israel, I was living in England and I came to Israel for a visit the first day and remember my dad is an atheist, he doesn't have a living guy and I was actually in the wedding in the end of the wedding. You know I come from England, I dress nice, a little bit sexy, I think I know it all. Then I had a chip on my shoulder I think, oh, I'm not Israeli, I'm English.
Speaker 3:I'm like like fuck you mentality, you know, and with nothing to to sustain them. Right, and I was taking shots, you know, like little shots of tequila, I think it was, and then I drink like two cups of wine. I start feeling weird. Now. We were leaving the wedding and I was driving with two, uh, cousins and a cousin, the moroccans, jews, so the slang is very moroccan, arabic, israeli, and you know everything is dramatized. So as we sit in the car, I'm in the middle and you know they sit in the front and I'm holding like that with the chairs right and I'm like like I can't breathe, I'm like I can't take it out.
Speaker 1:I can't take it out.
Speaker 3:I can't take it in, I can't breathe, I can't take it out. I can't take it out, I can't take it in, I can't do like you know, like this, and I felt like I'm losing it. And then in my head I started a conversation Like God, what are you doing? You brought me to the Holy Land to kill me. You brought me to the Holy Land so I would promise I'll become an Orthodox Jew and I will never do these things again. You know, I'm not going to be religious unless I know you really exist. This is exactly word to word of the conversation I had in my head. I'm an atheist. I'm not going to believe in you if I don't have proof. Like this is what I said.
Speaker 3:And then, second later, I felt kind of weird float in my body, like like you're shifting to somewhere else. And then I'm touching myself, I'm looking there's nobody, nobody, I had nobody. And then I see myself on the floor on the ambulance. Uh, you know how. You have the ambulance bed, but you have also, like it's not really a bed, it's like something they put on the floor to take you from the floor to the bed, like you know, so I was laying there like this and then I see myself laying there like I'm dying, like I'm dead, you understand.
Speaker 3:And I freaked out. I completely emotional, I freaked out. And then something weird started to happen. I start to relax, I good, I started feeling like emotional orgasm. It sounds crazy, but I started feeling loved.
Speaker 3:No burden, you say like on your heart, no pain. I didn't want nothing, I was not hungry, I was not tired, I was just happy. And then somebody behind me started talking to me and taking me to these rooms made out of clouds. You know it's like a full clinical death, right. And then when I got back to life I said I'm not going to do it anymore, like I'm not going to do anything. They're going to jeopardize with my health, that's it. But the biggest struggle, the other struggle starts. You don't do drugs, you don't do alcohol, you don't do a cigarette, you don't do nothing like that. But you want other things to change that. What are those things? Those things are emotional addictions. You want obsessed love, you want to prove yourself. You take things when you do normal things that other people do, like. If I would watch a movie, I wouldn't watch one. I go to rent a movie.
Speaker 1:I rent 20 movies.
Speaker 3:You understand, I want to save money to go. I don't go just to England, from England I take the train to France. Want to save money to go. I don't go just to england from england, I take the train to france, to this, so that everything I do was, you know, I can start again until I push it to the limit, and then I go back and forth to the meditation. In between meditation I can do the meditation, then I go back to my habits, then I can try meditation. I go back to India, I go to Vipassana. I took Vipassana for two weeks, not to speak. Then I'm like in a rush to do something, you know, like I was can I ask you in this period after the clinical death?
Speaker 1:so this is two pretty serious rock bottom moments, I think the second more serious than the first. And what a wild story. What is now your relationship with a higher power, when you've been brought back to life, so to speak? Is your faith anything other than there is no such thing? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:I'll explain. I was not attached to God, to the universe, to nothing until five years ago, believe it or not. I was always spiritual because, you know, after I had my son and everything, I was very, you know, in tuned with always doing the right thing and car mine this and that. But I didn't really know, you know. And I came to America all by myself with a little kid, gave up on an acting career like you know, being famous, being in my pictures everywhere. All of a sudden I'm not the damaged child. Some people call me Shino Ray. Shino Ray, you know, like, can I have your picture? Can I have this? Can I have that? Some people call me Shino Ray. Shino Ray, you know, like, can I have your picture? Can I have this? Can I have that? And for me it was a burden because inside I didn't feel that, you know, beautiful, famous, whatever I felt ugly and deformed and all this. And then I came to America and all of a sudden I was nothing again, but nothing completely.
Speaker 3:Nobody knew who I am Working my ass off literally. And then online because I always take videos online and talking and everything. I have followers and this and that. A stalker starts stalking me a woman, right, and she gave me the best lessons of my life. Listen to this. She was stalking me and not just talking me. I'm talking slashing my tires, harassing me, taking me to court, blaming me, defamation of character, everywhere you can imagine, like if you talk to people from my community some people say, oh, she's amazing a lover.
Speaker 3:Some people say, yeah, we heard the fbi look for her. She's a criminal, she run from you, she run from there. Nothing attached to the truth. She would go online every single day and write that I'm a musad agent, a muslim. Uh, I run from the fbi. They look for me in miami. They look for me in new york. They look for me literally terrorizing my life. My son got investigated because she said he killed her dogs. My, my son, was 15 at the time. It's going on eight years.
Speaker 3:Right, to make a long story short, remember, I was a child that being bullied. Right, as a kid, I come to america, nobody knows me, I'm trying to live my life, and then I had this psycho on my back saying all these things that not even attached to the truth. Right, and as an Israeli woman is living in an Israeli community, my community didn't believe me because how I look, because they prejudge me oh yeah, she was an actress, she looks sexy, she has big boobs, she's probably this and that, and start blaming me and bullying me even more. Right, I lost my business because she was harassing me online. I become to a point that I live in my car with my son right, living in the car, embarrassed to tell my family because I'm a strong person, right, um, scared for my life. I don't have clients anymore, I don't have a job, I'm sick as hell. I was very sick. I didn't know what's going on, with me Sitting in the hospital. I said I don't want to be Jewish, I don't want to be a part of any religion. I hate God and I'm going to do it on purpose With all the Jews. I'm going to live in a Christian area, eat pork. I don't want nothing to do with Jews. That's what I literally did.
Speaker 3:I went to live in Riverside California. I rented a room from a guy that gave me a really cheap room to live with my son and I take care of his pets and everything I fainted in his house. I had a problem with my heart. I went to a christian hospital on the hill in a, in a. What's the name of this place? Twin pigs somewhere.
Speaker 3:I sit in the hospital bed. You could see the crosses everywhere not one jewish or israeli person, of course and I took the torah, the, the jewish book. You know the, and I open it and I pray. You know loud not really loud, but loud. And then I say to myself in loud god, if you really exist. I know I've never believed in you. I know it sounds crazy, I'm so not a religious advocate, I'm so not into this solicitation of religion, for fully not. But I swear to god that's what happened and I said god, if you really exist, I know I did something wrong because but I promise you it's because I didn't have guidance. That's what I literally said. Please expand me, expand my mind to open to the world and understand what's going on. If you really exist, I want one little sign, just one little sign. Not a minute later, when I speak loud in Hebrew, there is a Jewish doctor who speaks Hebrew and I said oh, what are you doing here, reading the Torah in a Christian hospital.
Speaker 3:He goes like that. I swear to God he said the prayer with me. You know it was. I swear to god. It was weird. Okay, now, all the through these years, that I'm telling you with a stalker living in america, sleeping in my car, cleaning airbnb houses, working my ass off, nobody knows me putting my ego really down, which it was amazing because I learned how to come from a different angle to to the world. Uh, I listened to joe dispanza, dr practor, this and that, all these amazing mentors, and I started meditating on it, right, and I said I'm gonna look at the world like it's my ball of wishes. I could put like a little note and wish for this, wish for this, wish for this. Now, remember, with all that being said, I'm dyslexic, dysmographia. It's hard for me to write, I'm reading very slowly. I'm like a, you know, but I start learning. But listening, listening, listening, listening. I started learning how you buy a house, how you take a loan what is?
Speaker 3:credit. I teach myself all these things that I had no clue how to do before, because I was just also so afraid, remember, because I was nothing. Me little me.
Speaker 3:What do I know? It's not my country, it's America. You know I'm not American. I speak five languages. That did I also teach myself. But you understand.
Speaker 3:Still I didn't think of myself as someone smart or talented. I always thought I'm nothing, you know. And I start and start learning and learning and learning. And I was injecting before you know, in la, when it was still legal to inject as a aesthetic uh, cosmetic aesthetic how do you say nurse and not nurse injector? And I said I want to inject again. I love injecting, I love correcting people, I love fixing scars. I love when a woman tell me oh my god, you make me beautiful, and they cry. I love it. This is like orgasm for me because I feel so deformed when I feel fix someone else. You know it makes me heal from the inside. And I knew I have this extra X factor for the healing and not just the physical, superficial Botox bullshit. You know I knew I could heal them from the inside because who understand that more than me? And I said I'm flying to Turkey, that's it. I'm flying to Turkey 's it, I'm flying to turkey. I flew to turkey. I took so many courses. I flew to texas. I had a year. I fly everywhere russia. This day took this doctor like, took one-on-one courses brazilian doctor, russian doctor, everywhere you can name it. Spend all my money, um, and I become a really good injector. Like a really good injector. I moved to texas. I start working. I got my license, everything. Then my stalker put posts again. She's injecting without the license. She's not a real injector. She's there. She's there like. So it was like a half and half in my community. Some of them liked me. Some of them thought of you know, I'm a fraud and my son? Imagine. Every morning you wake up. Every morning you wake up, you see your picture all over the internet writing shit about you. I collapsed. I said I'm working, I've had a, I'm making a career, I'm with my son. What else can I? I did everything. I can't live anymore this bullying, literally between you and me. I felt like I want to die. It took me right. You know how it is when it's like you have relapse, but the relapse are not physical, they're emotional. Yep, relapse to your childhood, the deformed ugly, the terror attack that I was injured, the bully kid. Your father is a murderer, you're short, you're skinny, you're ugly. You know like all of this together. It came and I felt all of this what I just told you here like suffocating. I can't live anymore. I wanted to die. I literally had a packet of pills in front of me and I said I came all the way to America. I'm a failure. I'm never going to be successful. It's never going to happen. This stalker sitting here terrorizing me, everybody believer in my community, nobody wanted to help me. In the Jewish community, what am I going to do? I tried. I moved to a Christian area. Everywhere I go, she's like what am I going to do, you know? And then I spoke with my friend. She said I don't remember you being. You know, you've been through so much. You're going to give up now and give her that power. Girl, you got to write a book. You got to write a book and you've been already a celebrity once. You know show business very well. You got to talk about it. You got to talk about all that. How many women being bullied online Like you got to talk about it.
Speaker 3:You got to talk about all that. How many women being bullied online like you, terrified for their life because of one person you know. You can't give her that power. And I start manifesting, manifesting, manifesting, boom. After trying for a year, I bought a house. You know, little me, I don't even know how to write English without Siri. When I got the approval to get the first mortgage, I was like sitting like in in the mirror and saying I bought a house, I bought a house, I bought a house like this in america.
Speaker 3:I bought a house in america. You know like, talking like, you're like crazy to myself, like me, little me, for 11, 95 pound sheena, I bought a house in america. It's a big deal, you know. And then the second house, and people look at me, people start changing their demeanor towards me. You know, like, israelis, oh, I didn't know. You smart, oh, you really. Oh, did you buy this house? You know like, and then I realized it's all in our mind, it's the perception of people. You know you can, literally can, do anything, because life is like a box of chocolates. You know, you never know what you're going to get, but you damn sure can plan and create your own future. And I said every day I was talking to Joe Dispanza in the mirror, I had this picture on my mirror that I put from a paper and I said Joe, I want to see you, I want to meet you.
Speaker 3:You're so amazing. Because of you, I have to meet Joe Dispanza. And guess what happened? I went to the airport and I was looking very good that day. I love that handsome guy that I know very well, because I was sleeping with him every night, falling asleep to my subconscious. You know, meditating every morning, meditating every night. Join these friends, I love you. And then he's looking at me. He said oh, you have very beautiful eyes.
Speaker 3:I look at you, have like amazing eyes. I'm like joe, joe, this like I know, oh my god, joe, I love you because of you. And we started talking for like two hours. I missed my flight. He almost missed his flight. He's like take my number, let's talk. You know I was like take my number, let's talk. You know. I'm like, fuck, like things happen every single thing I manifest. I swear to god, I'm not just telling you. And then I met Bruce.
Speaker 3:I went to a red carpet because I also I didn't tell you, but I did makeup to some of the girls from housewife. I used to do like a lot of makeup in america and eyebrows. I had a business for eyebrows makeup school. I had a few businesses regarding the beauty and they used to invite me to a lot of red carpet event. I went to a red carpet.
Speaker 3:I saw bruce cardina and you know, bruce, he's tough. He could be like a nazi sometimes, you know, like a nazi mentality, we call it in israel and I saw and I said I want to be a motivational speaker, you gotta help me. It was like almost two years ago. Who are you? What do you mean? What do you want to be? Who are? You want to be a motivational speaker? He was looking at me like this delusional little Ruth Westheimer Jewish woman, whatever you know like. Because I saw the look in his eyes why I'm saying Ruth Westheimer? Because I swear to god, that was the look at the end of his eyes like this little Jewish lady with a small you know demeanor or whatever, and like what special speaker you know. Like that, and it was, I swear to god, that's how it was. And then I called him, then we minute to speak, whatever, and then I met him again. He said, okay, come to this event, I start meeting more people and more people, and more people. And he said how long you write your book? I'm like six years, what? And you want to? Oh, you are, you're one of these people. They're just writing and they never write their book, they just talk about it like, oh, my god, he's right, I'm just talking about, I'm not writing it. You know, and I swear to god, listen to this.
Speaker 3:Every time he told me about something, he literally questioned me. And you know how people sometimes come to your life to give you a mirror. You want to kill them, you want to choke them, but they give you something additional to what you need that you don't know. You need that right In a way. And he said to me. He said every time I introduce you to someone or I thought you know, he didn't want to admit that he was wrong, right, but he see that I come through. But because you see my personality, I'm just like even we had that problem that I'm like scared. So he see that I come through with what I do, but I have to give it to him. He put me in perspective, he helped me put all of these things together and hopefully next month my book is going to be ready.
Speaker 3:I met a lot of people but, with that being said, regarding spirituality, I think when you're very in tune with your intelligent being right, when you're very, very in tune with that higher power, you can call it God. You can call it your intelligent being right. When you're very, very in tuned with that higher power, you can call it god, you can call it your intelligent being. I think it's all together right. People will come to your life. They can hate you, but they make you resilient. They can criticize you, but they make you work harder, right. They can question you, but you want to prove them wrong. They cannot love you right, but you learn to love yourself. They won't think you're attractive. You make yourself look and feel better. So for me, it's all about learning right and being in a mode of elevating all the time and I'm not just saying it as a nice word, I'm saying it because I do really every day. Even you gave me amazing advices and I took them. I'm not going to talk about it now, but I took them.
Speaker 1:So that's it. So I love those last few things you said. First of all, interesting that there are a few times on the conversation that you apologize, and you didn't want to sound crazy, and I want to. I want to tell you a couple of things. One, stop apologizing, because because what you are talking about when you are saying sorry, if this sounds crazy, is you being in close contact with the intelligent being inside of you.
Speaker 1:Every time you were like, uh-oh, this might sound crazy, it was really just an example of how your highest self was showing up and why it showed up in the moments that it did and pulled you out of that dark space where other people don't have that chance or they never make it. Why that happened I don't know, but that it did happen to you so many times is not a thing to apologize for, it is a thing to celebrate and to let other people know is possible. Because because in my story too, you know it showed up in all the ways it showed up and it shows up constantly. Now that that intuitive voice, that divine intelligence, whatever you want to call it, call it God, call it source energy, blah, blah, blah, that is the most magnificent part of who I am. And if somebody thinks I'm crazy because I'm listening to it and I'm talking to it and I'm honoring what she says, then I feel sad for them, because they're not there yet, and I hope they get there Right.
Speaker 1:So I just want to say that, and the other thing that I keep thinking about is for the level of trauma that you've lived through. You said something earlier, which is that you had to learn from the earliest age, and it sounds like you've you've had to continue to do this, which is, if we talk about the nervous system for a second you know, really be on guard.
Speaker 1:You've had to be on guard all the time, 24, all the time, 24, seven and, and no shortage of that with what's happened to you here with your stalker, okay, like that's, that's still doing it, by the way, okay, so?
Speaker 1:so, on the one hand, yes, I'm hearing how connected you are to your highest self and that you know how to get back to that place when you feel disconnected, and the freedom that that gives you, and then that I believe that that's where the greatest emotional freedom is for all of us in a world that is so out of control and scary sometimes, and, at the same time, this part of you that's learned deeply in your bones and your nervous system to stay on guard at all times, no matter what. So I'm wondering are you able to show up, especially in new places and new spaces, with new people, new environments, with your guard down, with your awareness?
Speaker 1:up with your awareness up, but you're, you know this is something Brene Brown says with a, with a strong back and a soft front, which means you're, you're aware, you're alert, you're taking all of your lived experience into the room with you, but your emotional armor is down, your heart is open. Are you able to do that?
Speaker 3:My heart is always open. By the way, listen, I have mentors, but I'm also mentoring other people. Always all the the time, I'm trying to help people as much as I can. But, with that being said, being israeli losing so many people in october 7th losing people, and the terror attack, that I was losing people my whole life as an israeli person and I'm not trying in some way to put palestin, palestinian losses down, because in both sides of when I'm talking politics right now, in both sides of the equation, if I'm honest, right, people lose people. People have trauma. These two sides of the fence live with so much trauma. Palestinians live with trauma because the Palestinian adults raise their kids, indoctrinating them with you know, all things that they're not supposed to. Same thing in the other side, in the other hand, you understand. So for me, as an Israeli leave my story aside as an Israeli that come from Israel, I could never sleep with not not sleep, actually, with one eyes open one eyes open because, I always have fear for my life.
Speaker 3:People want to kill me because I born in israel. I never chose that right. People will hate me because I'm jewish. You have the jewish burden in your head because as a jewish, you're just like black people. You're gonna always be the slave, even if you're not. That's the feeling you have when you grow up, when you know that your ancestry been like that right. So leave my individuality by myself.
Speaker 3:Just as me, being Israeli, from Israel, I could never sleep or come somewhere and feel a hundred percent. I always feel people would hate me or judge me. Somehow I always have to be apologetic. Somehow I cannot disconnect myself from being israeli. Put on top of that my trauma, my bad childhood, all the things that I went through, I think for the rest of my life, until I die, unfortunately, because when I did took this guard, it didn't work good for me, you understand. Plus, as an israeli, you grew up in a place that it's so highly tense that not just me, a lot of israelis I know grew up even worse than me. They're always in a paradigm of 24 7, being with the finger on the pulse, you know, checking what's going on, but for me I can say not in a bad, actually in a good way.
Speaker 3:For me I don't even want to change that because, when I see all these people who live regularly and put the guards out to me they look weak because this world try to understand what.
Speaker 3:I'm saying for a minute we see the news TikTok, instagram, facebook, red carpet work, family, everyday life, kindergarten, school, whatever. It is Underneath all this normal facade sexual trafficking, kidnap, drugs, prostitution, solicitation, murder trying to kill you for your organs. Underneath the world, it's a huge chaos. If you wake up in the morning and delusion yourself that everybody's normal and it's safe and you should trust people and the world is so amazing. I refuse to live like that because I really know how the world operates. Behind the scenes you could see people with an amazing image beautiful judge, lawyer, whatever you name it with the best job, even doctors that I've seen the best image in the world and underneath they could pervert, murderer, and I'm not just saying go kill people. They could get paid in order to kill people in a in a different way.
Speaker 3:I don't trust anybody. Everybody's always suspicious. I don't trust anybody until they prove themselves to me. And even in myself I have doubts because the scenario always changed. If it would be a fourth world war right now, third, yeah, third world war right now, right, I might need to sell my body to have bread. You understand? God forbid, it's gonna be another holocaust here and they're gonna come and take me as a jew. You never know what's gonna happen, and I always keep that in mind because people want to live like life it's flowers and glitters and everything but we always in this state, people who don't understand that you have to keep this little drawer of thinking like that in the back of your mind.
Speaker 3:They cannot survive life because as a woman, especially as a woman, you, that we only have our time, is a very short thing. As a woman, it's really difficult in this world today of only fans and prostitution and and sorry, can you hear me, sorry I had a fun as a prostitution as as how the world completely changed today for a woman, women today, to be a mother is more embarrassing than to be a transgender. To be a mother today it's more embarrassing than to sorry to have a career. It's better than to be a mother Like. We change our values so much as human beings that you're no longer safe as women with. We so much damage that to ourselves. We so much destroy that to ourselves. They put aside what me as an individual went through all my life just being a normal woman. I cannot be that person who trusts.
Speaker 1:You know what's really fascinating about this part of the conversation, and there's so many important things that you're saying, and and I just want to clarify before I say what I'm going to say, that for me, you know, um, having having your guard down around your heart does not mean turning a blind eye to the chaos and insanity of the real world. So I just I want to be clear about that, because what I mean, so the very reason you were attracted to me when I spoke, was because I was vulnerable, exactly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but right, you're vulnerable. No, no, no, I don't get it wrong, I didn't think you're vulnerable.
Speaker 3:The way you were speaking and I'll phrase it exactly how I felt in this moment when I saw you. I saw me. I knew that you're not blind to people. I knew that you're not blind to the world, but you're smart and strong enough to give a little vulnerability of who you are. You understand you come that far to become a doctor, to be married, to have two kids, to live this amazing life that you created for yourself from the chaos, and you're not afraid to be vulnerable because you know now you're in a position of power You're not that junkie or whatever it is that you thought of yourself. Now you're in a position that you're not scared to be vulnerable because you know you're in a stronger position to show this vulnerability right.
Speaker 3:I mean I don't know if it makes sense, but that's how I saw it.
Speaker 1:yeah, and I think you know, I guess you know this, this this is a good family, from young Samantha till this moment. You know, and I'm talking just mom, dad, sister each one of them, in their own right, had their own chaos and neglect and dysfunction, both when they were little and in adulthood, and they guarded up in very different ways. My dad was a gambler and a food addict and, I think, an untreated drug addict as well. Sister was a drug addict and a sex addict. Mom prescription pill popper. Each one of them found a way to guard up, so to speak. You know, to be like find a way to not feel. My mom, in terms of emotional disposition, just stayed on the defense. Everybody was always out to get her, Everybody was an asshole, Everybody was going to hurt her, Everybody, you know. So each one of them had a presentation. I know that.
Speaker 1:And I watched each of them die.
Speaker 3:Physically die.
Speaker 1:Well, slowly, slowly, slowly, spiritual, spiritually first, okay, but, but in the case of my dad and my sister, physically.
Speaker 1:And my mom has had a severe mental illness and she's been in and out of hospitals and institutions for the last 10 plus years of my life and it's been a nightmare, and I believe so much of it is this deep, untreated trauma.
Speaker 1:And the work of my life, the work of my book, the work of me speaking on stages, is to straddle the tension between being this strong, fierce woman who has survived and come out brilliant on the other side of the mess and to show people that it's possible, but to continue to soften my heart so that I can still trust with discernment, not blindly, you know, so I can have real love and real joy and real connection, because I have not met anybody who gets to the end of their life and doesn't wish that they had more of that, not more money, not, no, none of the shiny things right. So there's this real finesse, when you've been through serious trauma, of absolutely being awake and aware and conscious and using it as a guidepost to not sleepwalk your way through life and pretend things are better when they're not Absolutely, and also to stay vulnerable enough to have real connection, real intimacy have real connection, real intimacy, real friendship, yeah, no, this one I have.
Speaker 1:I have those relationships, yeah, and so I guess let me, let me finish by asking you, like, what's the most important relationship in your life?
Speaker 3:right now, I don't have any it doesn't have to be romantic Much, but Okay, first of all, I have my two best friends since we were like 14. One of them, she, was one of the top models of Vogue and Elle. She did like Calvin Klein, chanel, everything in the 90s. Like if you see her face, you know who she is. She doesn't have a famous name, but if you see her face, we were born the same day. By the way, she also had the same relationship with her mom, from Israel. She lives in New York we go back and forth to each other and my other best friend, miri one of them is Nina Brosh. She's like the biggest top model from the 90s and the other one is Miri. She's like my friend, married to a Dutch person living in Amsterdam for 25 years, very successful. Both of them came from a really bad house and become amazing. So we all admire each other.
Speaker 3:And I don't have such a good relationship with my mom today, not even with my sister. With my sister I tried for 15 years so much, but I come to recognition two months ago that I did it for almost 50 years. It's not gonna, you know, it's not gonna change. It's so much you could do right. And now, the most important relationship in my life it's with myself, because I think if my inner conversation not gonna be to have the best relationship with myself, I could not step when I meet the right man and have a good relationship with him. Because I think today is the first time in my life that you know, I raised my son alone for 21 years and took for myself a lot. I could not bring men home. I could not really participate in long-term relationships. I had to hide because I'm raising a son. I cannot have men coming in and out from my house. I'm strict like that. The first time that I'm super free.
Speaker 3:I can go, I can do what I want, and still I'm hesitating. I don't like random sexual relationship. I like to feel me personally I'm not judging anybody who, but I need to feel safe when I have intercourse relationship. I need to feel safe, I need to feel loved. I need to feel safe, I need to know that this guy wants me. Otherwise it's hard for me to go there. And I learned from our conversation. You understand that I learned to protect myself. I'm not going to give myself to someone and then he disappears or doesn't call me. So it's super important to me to protect myself. Sometimes, of course, like I want, like I'm imagining myself with someone and having fun, I'll say, oh, you know what?
Speaker 3:like I'm imagining myself with someone and having fun and say, oh you know what, this one, no, I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna do it, it doesn't matter what happened, like I'm telling myself the next one, no, no, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 3:Because it's super important to me to control my urge and do things from healthy, correct place than just to drive on this automatic urge that you have to do something because your body desire it. And in meditation meditation, when I meditate I always train myself that my mind control my body and not the opposite. So you could be horny or hungry or tired or whatever it is, but you need to control these urges because you have a brain which is like a computer that, if you don't know really how to change your heart, disk what you do, it's not even important if you're not controlling that body. And it takes us to the addiction part, just like addiction. We can be addicted to food, we can be addicted to sex, we can be addicted to anything. And if I don't control it, if I do control it, then what I'm going to gain in the end? I'm going to gain a real, truthful, meaningful relationship, and that's what I want the end.
Speaker 1:I'm going to gain a real, truthful, meaningful relationship, and that's what I want. I love that.
Speaker 4:That was a great way to end it was so fun to talk to you.
Speaker 1:This is going to be good one. You do have a story to tell you really've lived through. Uh, that would be easy to go. What, wow, no, then what that would be so easy, right, but. But. But what you have done with what you have been through. Yeah is where the magic is.
Speaker 3:I wanted to add something. First of all, I'm excited to your event that you're going to sing and dance, so I'm really excited. I never told you, but I actually I told you. I told you I was to sing the opera.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't think, though I don't think I knew that that was part of your background, because, like, if that's something you would ever do which you don't have to to to speak at the thing I'm doing, doing it's just something that's really important to me in in this last two years of of kind of reckoning with wanting to bring all of who I am into different places. Um, it's a thing that came back into my life two years ago that I wasn't expecting, and so now I'm like you want to hear something funny this year I got so many offers to sing professionally for my.
Speaker 3:I know a lot of producers and I don't know, somehow I got so many offers to sing professionally. I know a lot of producers, I don't know. Somehow I got friends with a lot of high-profile producers like R&B and stuff and they said come to the studio, sing. But I tell you why I'm not singing Because of my dysmorphic condition. My rhythm is not good, so I can sit in the studio for hours. If I don't have it correctly, I cannot be on tune, even though my voice is good, you know. And plus I'm not there.
Speaker 3:I'm not that person who wants to be a singer, you understand, yeah, I mean. I mean I love singing, I love doing, and I'll invite you, of course, in the winter I do your shabbat dinner with singing and guitar and microphone and everything you name it. Every winter we do that, but I'm not there as a singer. But I would love to see you. And that's when you told me you're gonna do the singing thing. I was excited because you kind of like accomplished something that not and I'm saying it not in the way you think that I love seeing you accomplish it, because I know I could never do it. Even if somebody come down and said I put you $200,000 for your own songs, I would not do it, you understand. So, plus, I'm super excited for our events together, that I know you and me together it's fire and wire because we both have like interesting story. Hopefully we can fly to Israel after the war and speak.
Speaker 1:Oh, that'd be so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it would be amazing, amazing. I have a lot of connections there for this yeah, I've never been to israel.
Speaker 1:I would love to go there. We should, yeah, we should.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying. After the war hopefully that soon is gonna end we're gonna go and do like event there. It could be amazing. You're gonna love it and you see that israel it's not what people think in america. It's not what people think in America. It's not a white supremacist. You have everything Like if you go to Jerusalem around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, you hear the mosque, then you hear the Christian praying in Latin and the Jews praying. You hear it all together. It's so amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful yeah I love it. Oh so good to talk to you soon you're gonna come on my podcast.
Speaker 3:We're gonna talk about amazing I'm telling this to your viewers amazing things how to combine the plastic world with the emotional world, how to come to an even place. I talk about my journey with beauty. You can talk about your journey when I say beauty. I'm talking in and out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3:Every time you inject, you want to refer something else inside and outside, the same thing the same time. So I think it's's gonna be an amazing conversation. We're gonna do it soon yeah, I can't wait.
Speaker 1:Me too, I'm excited it was nice talking to you. I know so nice to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Waking up. I hear the desperation call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall. Don't need a crucifix to take me to my knees. I'm whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, Making it worth it. Oh, Sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough is leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey Gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit.
Speaker 5:Making it worth it all, hiding right to make a change, hiding deep bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got less than five.
Speaker 2:I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Just a process, cause it's gonna set me free, breaking the circuit, making it worth it.
Speaker 5:I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got nothing like.
Speaker 2:Gotta, gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta, gotta, gotta break it Come on One, two, three.
Speaker 5:I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got nothing like. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the life.