Rabbi Avremi Zippel on How You Find Purpose in Your Pain EP 175
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Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. All of the derision and self-loathing that we expose ourselves to, we're almost expecting the world to respond with that in kind. Most survivors experience

go through this process where they tell one or two or five people and they experience such empathy and such love and such care, which is really a shock to the system because we've never afforded ourselves that grace. We've never afforded ourselves that acceptance and that love.

Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the

power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 175 of Passion Struck. Recently rated by Feedspot as one of the top 40 most inspirational podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back

weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you would like to share this with a friend or family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that. We now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize by topic to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to

everything we do here on the show. Just go to passion struck.com/starterpacks to get started. And in case you missed my episodes from earlier in the week, they included my interview with Dr. Valerie Young, who's the co founder of the imposter syndrome Institute and the foremost expert

in the world on the topic. I also interviewed Dr. Kara Fitzgerald yesterday and Kara came out with a groundbreaking book called younger you where she gives her secrets for how you can reverse your biological age and lengthen your health span an episode you absolutely don't want to miss. And my solo episode last week in case you missed it was on how do you approach healthfully recovery from abuse or trauma.

which is something that leads us into today's episode. A few weeks ago, I aired an interview with Kara Robinson Chamberlain, who is the survivor of a kidnapping by a serial killer. Following that interview, we received numerous emails and reach outs across both the podcast and our social media channels. That led to the solo episode that I did last week. And also, I received a note from today's guest requesting to share his story on the Passion Struck Podcast.

podcast to bring more awareness to the topic of childhood abuse. I decided to replace my typical Momentum Friday episode with this interview. Now let's talk about today's guest. Rabbi Evremi Zippel is the program director at the Chabad Lupovich of Utah. Evremi and his wife Shana founded Young Jewish Professionals of Utah, which has since grown to become the most

prominent community of its kind in the state. In 2019, Evremi testified publicly about the decade of abuse he suffered at the hands of a family caregiver as part of the criminal proceedings against her. Believed to be the first Orthodox rabbi to speak out on the matter, it has sparked a career in the advocacy space for Evremi, and he's become a sought-after speaker and mentor to communities around the world grappling with this topic

among other health-related issues. And in our interview, we discuss Avrami's childhood and growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family where he was homeschooled, how his caretaker entered his life and ultimately altered it forever. Avrami discusses when he was in his early 20s, watching Law & Order, where he first realized that he was a victim of

of child sexual abuse. We discuss how Avrami burying it for so many years ultimately had devastating effects on his life. We then turned to the healing journey that he has been on, how we reported the incident to the police, the eventual trial and what happened along with that trial, as well as its ultimate verdict. We examine how his life has changed since he became public with this incident and his advice to others on how you overcome abuse and trauma

and do it in a healthy way. I did want the audience to know that there is material in this episode that could be disturbing to some people and their children if they're in the background while they're listening to this. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

I'm so excited to welcome Rabbi Evremi Zeppel to the Passion Strike podcast. Welcome, Evremi. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you so much, John. It's really an honor to be with you, and I'm looking forward to an exciting conversation.

Well, I thought maybe a good place for the audience to get introduced to you, because we are going to be talking somewhat about your childhood, is I read somewhere that when you were growing up, your parents described you as the perfect child, and you even learned English and Hebrew by the time you were four. Can you talk a little bit about the upbringing you have and what it was like being raised in the Orthodox religion?

Well, whilst I appreciate the compliments and the platitudes, I will qualify them for your listeners for a moment. I think the context of the four-year-old comment is that I could read Hebrew and English at four, not speak Hebrew and English at four. That would be quite the accomplishment. But yeah, I don't know that it was that profound. And the perfect child comment, maybe we'll get into in a moment. So I was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I am fortunate enough to raise my own family now.

My parents moved out here in the summer of 1992, weeks before my first birthday, to start a synagogue here in Salt Lake City.

Our family belongs to the Chabad movement, the world's largest Jewish outreach movement. And in 1992, the organization wanted a posting full time in Salt Lake City. And so my parents were the ones who were tasked with bringing Chabad's presence to Utah and opening a synagogue and working with and engaging with the community. And so it wasn't that sort of environment that I was raised, which is definitely unique. I think that being raised as an observant Jew in Salt Lake City

It's kind of a unique experience in any context and specifically growing up in the rabbi's household, being the son of a rabbi. I think that because of the unique circumstances, given the household and the environment that we were being raised in, there were.

experiences, let's say, that your average child has that we didn't have. For starters, we were homeschooled. There was no Jewish day school back in the day in Salt Lake City when we were being raised. Thank God there is now. And so, you know, we were homeschooled. And I know that in 2022, the term homeschool has a number of different interpretations given COVID and Zoom. And I know that we were quite actually literally homeschooled. A classroom, which was an old bedroom in our home, and my mom taught us, and it was me and my siblings, and

that was it. But it was a life of service. It was a life of growing up committed to certain values and ideals and living a lifestyle where those values and ideals really become part and parcel of who you are and what you're about and what you're after. And it was unique. It was unique for sure. That life of commitment to a faith, to a calling, which does put you in a certain sense in the minority here in Salt Lake. Growing up with

neighbors and friends, the kids who I played basketball with who were members of the LDS church was an experience unto itself. I've long said the best neighbors that you could ever ask for. I think every kid goes through their childhood and to them, it seems perfectly natural. And hindsight is 20, 20. And it gives you the ability to look back and be like, gosh, that was really sort of unusual. But in the moment, it felt like it was our childhood. You don't get to pick your childhood and it is what happened and it was what happened. And we were, we were grateful for it.

Yeah, and I understand you grew up with five other siblings. I'm the oldest of six, yes. Yes, I have the same dynamic. I'm the oldest of three. Yeah. Still, you're the one who gets the responsibility and you're kind of the trial and error baby. All of the guts, none of the glory. A wise man once said about being the oldest in the family, yes.

Well, if a listener is not familiar with the Jewish religion and they know what a synagogue is, how is the Chabad different from that? And what's the difference in each of their missions?

It's a fantastic question. So what sets Chabad apart and what really makes Chabad unique within the context of wider American Jewry, Chabad is almost exclusively an outreach-based model. You'll have your synagogue in whatever city or community it is around the country, and they are a religious institution. By and large, they'll have membership. They will encourage people who want to come and worship or serve there or do whatever it is that they do to come by and pay a due every year and

be a part of that environment, be a part of that community. In many instances, synagogues will sit by as churches and mosques and many community organizations do, and we'll wait for folks to come and sign up and become part of their mission. Chabad, one of the reasons that it is so unique is that it is this outreach-based model. So Chabad is going to come to a town and Chabad is going to go out there and say, all right, we know who in this town already belongs to a synagogue and considers themselves to be practicing to a certain extent. Let's

Let's find everybody else. There's got to be dozens and hundreds of thousands of Jews living in any town across the United States, across the world, that is full of Jews that aren't yet attending their local synagogue or perhaps looking for something else, yet found an environment that speaks to them. And we're going to go out there and we're going to find them in the places that you least expect. And so that's what Chabad does in thousands of cities around the country and thousands of cities around the world, is it moves into a town and it helps Jews.

take Jews from all walks of life across the spectrum of religious observance and helps expose them to the beauty and the profound meaning of their heritage and helps them find a way to make that heritage more applicable and more meaningful in their life and brings Jews just a little bit closer to Judaism. I think if you really boil it down to its core, that really is the mission is one step at a time. What we like to refer to as one mitzvah, one good deed, one commandment at a time.

Instead of looking at Judaism as this kind of binary wholesale, either you're observant or you're non-observant, either you're with the program or you're off the wagon, to really look at Judaism as a step-by-step approach and embracing and approaching one more good deed at a time.

Well, thank you for that explanation. I think that will help clarify some things for some of the listeners who might not be aware of the difference. So I appreciate you doing that. Now, I understand growing up in Salt Lake City, eventually, as you got older, a caretaker was introduced into your household. How did that unfold?

So going back to the point that we were homeschooled, my dad obviously is a rabbi, was a rabbi, was out of the house every day doing whatever it is that rabbis do. And as I've come to learn myself, it is a pretty multifaceted job. And there is dozens and dozens of hats that you can wear on a daily basis. He's off wearing those hats. And my mom was our primary teacher within the homeschooling framework. And as a result of that, there were a lot of us at home. We were all at home all day. That was school, that was home, that one building, that one structure,

had a lot of different uses that it was put towards. And so there was a need, as my mom was teaching some of us, for another adult to be around to take care of the others. And in the summer of 1998, my youngest brother, who's number five in the family, so the second youngest kid in the family was on the way. There were going to be five kids and I was turning seven and I was the oldest. We were a bunch pretty close together. So there was a need for outside help. There was a need for someone to come in and just be of service to my mom, help out.

around the household. My parents put out a bunch of feelers in the community and asked for referrals and any ideas that anybody may have had. And that summer they hired someone, came highly recommended from other families in the community, and she became part of the family.

As that dynamic unfolded, your parents treated her kind of like they were an integral part of the family. They had this utmost trust in her. They depended on her. So she was really a motherly fixture for you outside your parents in this house and someone who commanded a lot of authority over you.

Yes. I mean, the short answer to all of your questions is yes. She was someone who was given every level of trust and responsibility and access in a certain sense in the household. When retelling the story and coming upon this part of the story, I always feel it's so vital to not entitle myself to any sort of revisionist history. There were red flags right away. She was super creepy. Like none of that is true. And I'd be lying if I said any of that.

She was embraced warmly by us and she embraced us as her own. And she quite literally became part of the family. She was someone who was in the house Monday through Friday, nine to five, 40 hours a week. She was a very, very integral part of our lives. And we trusted her for that. We loved her for that. And I wouldn't say there was anything glaring that was coming down the pike. When the relationship started,

started to change, was this a gradual change that started to happen and the relationship she was having with you? Or did it kind of happen all of a sudden? So I love the way you put that question, John, I think it provides such valuable perspective for any parent or any adult to really think about this issue.

Today, experts in child psychology, experts in child safety talk a lot about grooming. And I know that sadly, really sadly, we live in a world where that is a word that is so commonly being thrown around right now. And anytime there's a political movement of any nature that you disagree with, one of the terms that we very quickly just banter about is grooming. They're grooming. No, they're grooming. We're grooming. They're grooming. And I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding around grooming. I think that for generations, we were trained to believe that what grooming is,

Grooming is the stranger with the lollipop. So if you send your child to the playground and there's a kind of creepy old guy there with a bunch of lollipops and he's offering candy to kids for free, that is grooming. So we tell our children, do not, under any circumstances, take the candy from the stranger. Do not take the lollipop. That is grooming. I think as we really delve into it, we need to understand that grooming is any sort of behavior that separates and isolates a child from

from their naturally given support structures. So if you have an adult in a child's life who creates

any form of separation between the child and their parents, between the child and their siblings by something as innocuous as telling them a secret. I'm going to tell you about a birthday party that we're planning or something which is going to stay between me and you. And the adult uses that really kind of innocent idea to gauge whether the child will keep that adult secret. That right there is grooming. And so I think that looking back,

As I think about the incidents that really proceeded where a real red line was crossed, there were definitely behaviors of grooming that our caregiver began to employ with me in terms of putting out little secrets out there. Some sort of gray area behaviors that weren't glaringly wrong, but they were kind of wrong. And to see what put

putting a child in those sorts of environments does for the child. Do they go off and tell? Do they have the ability to keep it quiet? Those are grooming tactics. That is how you eventually cut a child off from the support systems. And so absolutely, it was a slow and gradual buildup. Adults don't just show up one morning and decide to harm a kid. It really does happen against the backdrop of multiple incidents that lead up to it.

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Thank you for supporting those who support the show and make it happen for our listeners for free. And all those discount codes can be so difficult to remember. So we put them in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Now back to my interview with Rabbi Evremia Zippel. Yes. Well, growing up in a Catholic household where my grandparents would go to church every single day, I was a Catholic.

We came up acknowledging the priests that were in our community as these utmost figureheads of our society.

in the church, which I'm sure being a rabbi carries much of the same thing in the Jewish religion. As I think back about what's happened with the Catholic Church and how many priests there have been who have abused boys along the way, there definitely is that same sense of grooming where you have this trust figure who everyone in the congregation holds to this incredibly high standard that when these things start happening, you, especially as a child victim, don't

don't really even recognize that they're happening because you might even feel this person is taking special attention to me. They see that I'm different. They see that I'm special, things like that. And so as a youngster, you're probably not even comprehending what's going on. And I'm sure it was the same situation that you were going through.

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, it wasn't necessarily so much the special attention, but for me, I really relate to what you said about having an environment where certain people are beyond reproach. And I think that

A child in that sort of environment is so programmed and is so trained to think that, well, OK, this person is doing something and that behavior seems a little sketchy. But I know that this person cannot be involved in sketchy behavior whatsoever. They are just on a pedestal. So if they can't be involved in sketchy behavior, but unequivocally this behavior is sketchy,

I suppose that the burden lays with me because they're beyond reproach and they can't be caught up in any sort of untoward business. And so the problem must really lie with me. And so once our caregiver began to sexually abuse me, that was really sort of the thought process that went on, just internalizing and swallowing all of that shame and going down that sort of road of, well, OK, there's a problem here.

And this is our caregiver. This is a trusted person in our lives. This is someone who's just given the highest levels of clearance in our household. So they can't be doing something wrong. They don't do wrong things. They're a trusted adult. So if there is something wrong that's going on and it's not on them, then really the only option left is that it's on me. I think it's that environment and that cycle of shame that

takes that child and just throws them back into it headfirst and allows them to be abused again and again and again, because they lack the wherewithal to really understand the roles and the breach of trust that's going on over here and how to deal with all of that very, very, very intense emotion.

Yes, and I think for the listener, it's probably good to explain to them that there are different types of abuse. There's sexual abuse, there's physical abuse, there's emotional abuse, and one of the most common abuses is neglect. I thought it might be good to give the listeners some statistics of how common this is, because as I started to do some research on it, it's quite startling. Statistically, it's estimated that one out of four girls and one out of six boys are

will be molested in their lifetime. And according to the World Health Organization, one in five women and one in 13 men report having been sexually abused as a child ages zero to 17. So this is far more common than

the people who come forward and talk about it make it seem. And so that's one of the reasons I think it's so important to share your story and some of the others that I've shared on this podcast to bring this awareness to people. Throughout our discussion, we're going to talk about how you healed through this, but it took a long time.

You know, it did take a long time. It took a very long time. I'll jump to the end of the story, but I appreciate you bringing up those statistics. And they are as intense as you make them sound. I think once you really kind of get down into those stats, you really begin to allow the magnitude of those numbers to wash over you.

And I think that the way we're going to approach this as a society and the way we're going to deal with this and really begin to understand this, which I think is the only way to make those numbers really start to drastically drop, is to have an understanding about how common it is and what it means to be a survivor and what it means for our children or people we know to be survivors, should we understand that that is inevitably part of their lives. I often think back.

to this fascinating anecdote that happened with my grandmother. And so my dad's mom, blessed memory, came up with, she was from Europe. She lived in Europe until her final days. And when she was growing up 80 years ago in Europe, to be left-handed was a horrible blemish, as it were. If you showed up in school and you had tendencies to use your left hand, they would tie your left hand behind your back to teach you, to train you inevitably to write with your right hand because lefties were considered, I don't know, just a problem. So

My brother was born number three in the family and we found out, it turned out he was a lefty. And so everyone's trying to find out where does he have any sort of left-handed tendencies from? So my mom calls her mother-in-law, my grandma, and says, you know, hey, is anyone in the family left-handed? We found out my son is left-handed. It's so random. And my grandma says, no, no, no one's left-handed. I mean, aside from my son who's left-handed, but no one is left-handed. And my granddaughter is left-handed, but no one is left-handed. And kind of the message that she gives off is, you know, being left-handed, no bueno. No one is left-handed.

My son and my granddaughter are, but we don't talk about that. There's a prosecutor that I know really, really well who tells it in the following words. She says, everyone thinks that lawyers are crooks aside for the one lawyer they know. You know, everyone will kind of get in that position of all lawyers are bad people aside from my cousin. Such a good dude. Helps people and is straightforward and he's honest and he's not like all the other lawyers. And so,

I think that if we as a society think about this issue differently, no one I know has survived sexual abuse. No one I know would put themselves in that sort of situation and would be susceptible to that sort of, are you kidding me? What does that say about the people I know if they've been through child sexual abuse? Aside from this one guy I know who's a darling guy and it wasn't his fault. And we think about it the same way. We place such a stigma around the issue and we pardon people

Those that are closest to us in our own minds, we almost give them a pass. They're not lumped in with everybody else that we wouldn't even want to begin to talk about. I think that's where the change is. Yes, there are people out there that are sexually abused. It doesn't mean anything negative.

about their upbringing, about the choices they've made, about who they want to be as adults. And if we share that paradigm shift with young people, with the children that may be going through this now, we give them the ability to come forward and step forward and embrace who they are in their truest sense. And they don't have to go through years of trauma where they're grappling with and coping with that situation.

secret. If we change the way we all think about it, we're going to make the world so much of a better place for those that so desperately need it. Yes. And I think that's why it's so important to really not do this abuse blaming, which seems to at times go rampant, that people want to blame the victim instead of the abuser.

for the things that happen and i know for people who have been abused it's also an issue because they put self-blame on themselves did you ever feel that as this was transpiring or afterwards

I mean, I carried around blame for almost two decades until I came forward. We know it's been well documented that survivors of child sexual abuse are often referred to as the loneliest people in the world. The amount of pain and blame and guilt that they carry on themselves is almost unspeakable, the amount that they have to cope with. And as a result of that, they find more comfort in silence and in solace because the way that

we have almost trained ourselves to perceive this issue in our own minds is how we expect the world around us to perceive the issue as well. In the event that we are tempted to come forward

all of the derision and self-loathing that we expose ourselves to, we're almost expecting the world to respond with that in kind. And I think for most survivors go through this process where they tell one or two or five people and they experience such empathy and such love and such care, which is really a shock to the system because we've never afforded ourselves that grace. We've never afforded ourselves that acceptance and that love. And when we go through that,

living in a headspace as we do where we expect the whole world to react a certain way and they don't. That's for a lot of us, the beginning of the healing process is starting to imagine and entertain the thought of what the world around us would look like. That's the response that we were going to get. But I think that's what makes these situations really profoundly unique. If you had a friend

who was mugged one night in an alleyway. This morning, someone came over to our synagogue and they run a business down the block. And Friday afternoon in broad daylight, someone came by, took a rock, smashed the window of a car and stole electronics that were in a bag under a seat. They had some sort of tracking device to figure out where there's Apple products. And they stole an iPad from that person's car. No one in the world is going to go to that, to the owner of the car, the owner of the iPad and be like, well, you're an idiot. You should not have

have left that in a bag under the sea like she took every possible precaution you have someone who's a victim of aggravated assault of robbery no one's going to be like well that's what happens when you walk outside when it's dark or light you'll get robbed and yet we live in a world where it's so commonplace for survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault to take so much blame on

on themselves. And it is somewhat of a reflection of the world we live in. And I think that's really where the work needs to get done is to change that paradigm for survivors themselves and for the world around them to allow them to be seen by the world around them, and most importantly, by themselves for the beautiful, wholesome creatures they are.

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Go to ProlonLife.com slash PassionStruck. That's P-R-O-L-O-N Life dot com slash PassionStruck for this special offer. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. See site for details. Yes, well, thank you for that, and I think it's such an important point. Now, this abuse went on for quite a long time, and...

After you turned 13, you moved out of this relationship that you had in the same way it was happening because you were then out of the house. You end up going to Europe. You end up traveling a lot.

But I understand when you were now almost 20, and this started happening when you were eight, you happened to be watching Law & Order, and it was through that experience that you first realized that you had been abused. Can you talk about that and why it happened through that?

It's important, I think, for context to note, I was a pretty worldly kid growing up. We were homeschooled from about 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. A little bit of time on my hands as a kid. I used to read the paper cover to cover every day, sports section, and then local news and international news. And from a young age, I remember being aware of the reality that there was something called sexual abuse. There's a reality in this world that we live in of people who harm children for sexual purposes.

In 2002, just after the Olympics were here, Elizabeth Smart was taken from her bed. A story that many of your listeners may be familiar with. Elizabeth Smart was raised seven minutes from where I was raised. This happened quite literally in our backyard. And this is the story that parents tell you never to believe. It's never going to happen that a bad man is going to come into your house in the middle of the night and take kids out of their bed. That categorically does not happen in the world that we live in. You're being ridiculous. Go back to sleep. And it happened.

In my backyard, when I was a kid, bad man went into someone's house in the middle of the night with a big knife and took someone out of their bed. So I live in a world where the reality of people who cause harm to children was a present one. And yet I never conceived it possible that those same words that those same terms could be used about my life.

for a number of reasons. Number one, I was a guy and the person that was doing this to me was a woman. And in my mind, it was almost guaranteed that any sort of sexual violence was pretty much man to woman, not the other way around. Number two, the

The person who was doing this to me was not a scary homeless man with a knife like Brian David Mitchell was, who took Elizabeth Smart out of her bed. She was our caregiver. She was a nanny. We loved her. We trusted her. So that didn't work. And most importantly, number three, there was no form of coercion in my story. There was never a moment where I yelled or I protested or I called for help. Or to be totally frank with you, John, there was never a moment where I said stop.

or I said no, there was never a moment where I was threatened. And so for me, these are all kind of the bare minimums that you got to check those boxes to qualify for sexual abuse. And in this Law and Order episode, when I was 20, I had broke my leg, I was stuck in bed for three weeks after knee surgery. And so I was binge watching, you got to pass the time somehow, I'd always loved true crime TV or procedural TV. And I'm watching this episode,

about this young man who's got a lot of issues in life. And there's this conversation in which his mom discloses to the police that this young boy had been sexually abused by his nanny growing up. And for me, kind of the switch goes off and you think to yourself, is that even possible? Is it possible? In order at the end of the day, it's fiction, it's TV, this is not real life stories. Is it actually possible that a young boy can be sexually abused

by a caregiver, by a nanny. And like that actually checks the box of sexual abuse. And I had no idea. It planted a seed that day that I was going to let ferment for a while. And it took a number of years until I walked into a therapist's office and blurted out the question and wanted to find out if that was really what had happened to me or not.

Well, I want to get to that in a second. The first question I wanted to ask before that is in case someone's listening here and something like this has unfortunately happened to them and they're trying to bury it, which I think is one of the most common things that people try to do is they're afraid that

to tell people about it, they feel ashamed about it, everything else. Here you are burying it. And at this point, you've been burying it for 12 years. I'm sure the burying processes we're going to talk about extended beyond that. But by the fact that you were burying it and at that point not dealing with it, what were the consequences that it brought upon you?

I like the way you put that. If you try and bury a living item, it'll only fight back stronger. If you spend so much of your day and so much of your time and so much of your energy trying not to think about a traumatic event in your life, odds are it's only going to punch above its weight and it's only going to want to assert its presence in your life even more.

So, not thinking about it and burying it, as you said correctly, it forced me to grapple with it every single day because every single day I was making the choice that I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to let it affect me. And if I would just move on with life, if I would just find ulterior fixes to an interior problem,

I'll just be so much better off for it. The more I went down that road, the worse I felt. And the more I tried to just shovel it under 50 feet of dirt, the more it kept popping its head up and shouting for a place in my life.

And so I think the same applies to any sort of traumatic episode. If there is something bubbling beneath the surface, the way to treat it is not to drown it. It's to pull it out. It's to take it into the light. It's to process it. It's to understand it. It's to figure out how it can be treated and why it needs to be treated and what it should be treated with. But ignoring it and burying it is certainly not the way to go.

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say, why did he wait so long to deal with this or acknowledge it? And as you're well aware, I recently had Kara Robinson Chamberlain on the podcast who was kidnapped by a serial killer when she was 15. But she's now in her mid-30s, and she's finally telling her story and putting it public. In our discussion, I remember she told me that

For the longest time, she wanted to feel like she was so strong, like she could get through this on her own. And that strength turned out to be a huge weakness because what happened around her was everything else started to fall apart. She was having anger issues. She was becoming depressed. She was becoming emotionally numb.

etc. And then I also had a lady named Carrington Smith, who was on the podcast, who was emotionally abused and neglected by her parents for most of her childhood, raped when she was in college. And again, it took her about two decades to kind of process this. And she told me that inside she felt

Like she was a monster and didn't know how to deal with these things because she had blamed herself for everything that had happened. So I think it's important for people to realize trauma is different for every single person and your healing process is different for every person. But to your point, if you don't focus on it, you're never going to heal. And those stuck points will only get worse over time. Do you think that's accurate?

I think that's immensely accurate. As someone who sat on that sort of information for a long time, I understand the desire to do that. I understand the impetus to do that. I understand why people do that. The remarkable thing is we stay silent because we're in pain.

And yet, the notion of speaking aloud about those issues seems somehow more painful, which is pretty remarkable because we're in a lot of pain when we're silent. And on one hand, I can completely understand the impulse and the inclination and the desire to keep it quiet.

And on the other hand, I feel fortunate enough to be on the other side and to realize the value of sharing, the value of opening up to one person at a time. And I'm not speaking about shouting your story from the rooftops at this point, but going to seek professional help. For me personally,

I live in a community where our community's mental health needs are something we're still learning about. And as such, there's a tremendous stigma around the word therapy. No one is really quite sure what therapy is, why therapy is helpful. And a lot of times I find it easiest to refer to it instead of go to therapy. Instead, I frame it as go get some sort of professional help.

If you are in a situation which seems so daunting and so overwhelming, and it is controlling and crippling in many instances, every facet of your life, what you should want to do is go and speak to someone who is outside the situation.

who is a licensed professional and who can look at your situation and say, hey, it seems like these events from way back when are really, really bothering you. And they're really refusing to go away. And as a result of that, as you go through life with life's regular hiccups and life's regular speed bumps that many other people seem to not get as bogged down by, it's really affecting you. And you're really struggling through those moments. Let's unpack together why it's not just that moment for you in that experience,

instant, but it's that moment viewed on the backdrop of a lifetime of your experiences.

And so I think that's what's key is getting that sort of professional help, which allows you to really dig deep and dive down to understand what it is that you have been through. For me, getting that sort of professional help gave me the opportunity to understand what had really happened to me and why that impacts me so profoundly. As I went through that process and as I continue to go through that process, and it's very much a process that's in the present every single day.

I began to find space in my life for all of those things. I began to find that my life would be best lived without burying anything. It's interesting that you bring up Kara. Kara is a friend. As I think about it now, Kara is someone who I view as one of the strongest people that I've ever met, that I've ever known because of her decision to share about what she's been through. And

For so many of us, I think we all go through that same process where we figure the world will feel better about us if we have buried certain parts of us without realizing that coming out and being open and being honest about so many of those realities really are our greatest strengths.

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Yes, I think that is such an important point. And I also wanted the audience to understand that it took you, even once you started to realize this within yourself, quite a long time to talk to anyone else about it. And as I understand it, you had gotten married and your wife and your parents started to see a change inside of you and couldn't understand what was going on. And they were the ones who were encouraging you

to go seek some help. At that point, did any of them know what was the underlying cause for your pain and suffering? Not by a long shot. It's interesting because in that moment, when I went off to get that help, I came from a community. I come from an environment where for the most part, we're pretty convinced that child sexual abuse doesn't happen in our communities. It's interesting. I was telling the story just a few days ago to somebody

my wife was asked, probably at this point several years ago, what it was like for me to disclose to her that I had been through a decade of child sexual abuse. And she shared, and the way she put it was so fascinating, she shared with the person who was asking that I could have told her that in the 22 years before I knew her, I had been an accomplished astronaut and had taken multiple trips to the sun. And in fact, I landed on the sun and I planted an American flag on the sun. That would have been

less ridiculous to her than telling her that the man she was married to had been through a decade of this because we were both operating in this headspace of this just doesn't happen in our communities. It doesn't happen in our environment. We don't want it to be true, so it's not. It's just not true. There was a lot of acclimating to that. There was a lot of having to normalize that and understand that and really make place for that in all of our lives because

Before that conversation, it would have seemed absolutely ludicrous, completely out of the question, just not in the realm of the possibility at all. Well, I want to take that one step further. And I wanted to ask, why is it so uncommon? And you've kind of laid some foundation for this, but for sexual abuse to be not discussed openly in ultra-Orthodox communities, and why is it even more unusual for a rabbi to come forward about this?

That's a great question. I think that there's two prongs to it, and they're both somewhat related. I think that our community, like many, many, many insular communities, suffers from what we call the monster complex. The monster complex basically says that the only person who would do this sort of thing is scum.

is the epitome of evil. Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people that do this sort of thing that are scum and the epitome of evil, but there are a lot of people that do this sort of thing who are confused, who are survivors themselves, who do these sorts of things for many sorts of reasons. And as such, when a child in an insular community goes to leadership within the community and says, look, you know, I was in school and this teacher touched me inappropriately,

What we hear the child say is, look, I was in school and this teacher is a monster. You have a monster on your hands who's teaching second grade. When all the child is saying is the teacher came and he did something inappropriate to me. It happened once. It feels super weird to me. I want to make sure it doesn't happen again. So between what the child is saying and what the leadership in that community is hearing, you have two completely different.

different things. And the leadership goes and says, I'm sorry, it can't be that our second grade teacher is a monster because everyone loves him, but he's a great teacher. And the kids all want to be in his class and he's great. And his wife loves him and everyone loves him. He can't be a monster.

In the meantime, the child's not saying he's a monster. Child is not suggesting that he's some sort of reprehensible human being. Child is saying this is a damaged person who's been through a lot himself, likely, who has made that damage now generational and has passed that along to me and he needs help. We are not saying that he needs to be thrown away for 150 years and throw away the key and send him off to Alcatraz. We're saying he needs help. We're not hearing that.

And so as a result of that, a lot of these issues go undiagnosed in our communities because of our inability to really understand the nuance around these sorts of conversations. To exacerbate that problem, what makes it difficult for a rabbi to speak up about it is in the situations where enough people come forward for our community to take this seriously, we then view all of the survivors who have gone through these sorts of experiences as just

rejects, right? Broken, irreparably harmed, just having been through traumatic experiences, which is true. And as a result of that, they are no good. And no one should ever know that they went through these experiences because then no one will love them and they'll never get married and they'll never lead productive lives. So much pity, so much sadness. They're no good. But the truth is they've gone through traumatic experiences. We can never downplay that. And the fact that they have gone through traumatic experiences

does not, cannot, should not, and will not withhold them in any way, shape, or form from leading the most beautiful, amazing, and productive lives they could have ever imagined. And so it's interesting because when I told my story the first time, the reporter who wrote my story for the Deseret News

use this sort of terminology that I was the first Orthodox rabbi to come forward about being sexually abused as a child. Now, I think she's right. I mean, you know, I don't know. At that moment, I had not, I did not know of anybody else who had come forward publicly.

In the three and a half years that have elapsed since that article was printed, I have come to know hundreds, hundreds of Orthodox rabbis that have been sexually abused as children. Now, at this point, a handful of them have also come forward publicly. Many of them have not. But the idea that someone who's a communal leader

We need to look at them as them having only had a perfect life because they need to lead a perfect life and they need to be blemish free in every form and fashion. That is a myth that we need to bust. No one is perfect. Everyone is dealing with what they've been through. Having been through traumatic experiences as a child does not take away from you, again, in any way, shape or form, the ability to lead the most incredible life that you could have ever imagined.

well in speaking of the jewish community i understand that one of the reasons that you decided to come forward and tell your story was you happened to watch another prominent jewish gymnast testifying about the abuse that she was going through why did that event trigger in you this i guess desire that you needed to bring this out to the open

etc. Well, I like how you referred to Ali Reisman as another Jewish gymnast. I'm not sure if I'm the other one. My gymnastics are not quite what they used to be. For me, I think that example is so profound and it touches quite a bit on what we've been discussing throughout this conversation. I'm a pretty avid sports fan, have been for a very, very long time. I'm a long-suffering Utah Jazz fan. John, I know you're based out of Tampa Bay. You folks are winning another professional championship

every six weeks, whether it's in baseball or in hockey or in football. You guys don't know what it means to struggle. I joke. When I was 21, the Penn State scandal broke. It had been uncovered that for years and years and years, the Penn State football program

had effectively almost been a front for dozens and dozens and dozens of children to be harmed. There was legacy after legacy that was being tarnished by the story and did coach Paterno know or he didn't know and taking down statues and it's a big to do, it's a big story. And for me, what stood out most prominently in that story is the way the survivors in that story are portrayed. You look through every media filing that was happening in that story in real time and to be fair,

A number of those survivors have come forward with their face, with their name, and the most brave people you could imagine. But in the moment, the story is about the bad guys. The story is about Jerry Sandusky, and the story is about Joe Paterno. And the survivors, the people who have been through these sorts of experiences, are almost being left to your imagination as these nameless, faceless creatures who are banished to the shadows. And as a survivor, you read about this, and you live through the story, and you're like, I never want to come forward.

because I never want to be thought of in the same way as these poor young men who are just cowering in darkness. Every day, our world gets a little more connected, but a little further apart. But then there are moments that remind us to be more human. Thank you for calling Amica Insurance. Hey, I was just in an accident. Don't worry, we'll get you taken care of. At Amica, we understand that looking out for each other isn't new or groundbreaking.

It's human. Amica. Empathy is our best policy. Fast forward a number of years and then you have the USA Gymnastics story. And for me, what's so fundamentally different about the USA Gymnastics story, which I think absolutely changed the landscape of how we view this forevermore, is when you think about USA Gymnastics, you think less about

the bad guy, Larry Nassar in this case, and you think about the incredible young women who came forward publicly in the moment and lent their face and their accomplishments and their achievements to the story. Ali Reisman and Jordan Weber, most of the gold medalists that have gone on to incredible glory for our country, Simone Biles, and hundreds of gymnasts that will never know who they are because they didn't make the national team and they didn't win medals.

not that that diminishes in any way from their experiences, but you have people that you can aspire to be like. And you can think to yourself, my gosh, here are people who have reached the pinnacle of life at the ripe old age of 21. They've won Olympic gold for their country. They're barely out of their teenage years and they have their entire lives in front of them. For the rest of their lives, they'll be Olympic champions and that'll be what defines them. And yet,

They see no problem in coming forward and saying, you know what? These are my experiences. I'm not doing this for the publicity. I've got more publicity than I know what to do with. I'm doing this because I embrace the honesty because I'm done living in the shadows, living a secret life, having to carry around my trauma in a backpack that no one should know about. This is me. This is me in the entirety of my experiences, warts and all. And if you don't like it,

You can take a number because the fact that this might make some people uncomfortable is not going to make me hide anymore. And so for me, Ali, reading her impact statement at Nassar sentencing in January of 2018 and the entire saga that that went through played a huge part in my deciding to report to law enforcement and everything that happened as a result of that.

And when you did that, what was the reaction like from your parents and from your wife? Was this something that they initially supported or were they afraid of the potential backlash that it could cause?

I think that my parents and my wife viewed my reporting to law enforcement more or less through the same lens that I did, which was, to be honest, when I called law enforcement, it was, you know, kind of, I checked that box. You know, I talked with my therapist quite a bit about it, and I wanted to report because I felt it was the right thing to do. I'm going to do my part, and I'm going to report, and nothing will happen, and that's fine because I did, I had to do what I had to do to fight for myself, and I

the repercussions of that report really are less important than the decision to go ahead and do it. And so I don't think anybody in my corner, myself included, myself primarily, foresaw anything coming about as a result of that report.

I did it. I felt good about myself. And that's what matters. And then it was taken seriously. And then the investigation ensued and it had a life of its own. Charges were filed and there was an arrest and I went to trial. And I don't think any of us saw that coming. They were super supportive. And I forever indebted to them for that and let the record reflect they were super supportive once it got really serious as well. Because if that's what I needed to do to find justice, then they were going to support that. And I just have to ask, what was it like

to be in that courtroom and to face your abuser, it must have been very difficult for you. Definitely, it's difficult. It's confusing.

It is overwhelming on so many levels. We sadly live in a system in which our criminal justice system has turned very combative in the sense that it feels less of a search for the truth and more like a fight to the death. We will do our best to tear you down and you will do our best to tear them down and whoever gets torn down first loses and

Whoever survives wins, as opposed to just being a search for truth and a search for accountability. I think it's important that your listeners know, like many survivors, I wasn't looking for some sort of punitive punishment. I wasn't looking for pain and suffering and tragedy. I wanted accountability. I gladly signed off on the district attorney offering a plea deal that would require my abuser to plead guilty to harming me.

In the circumstances that that harm came about, I wanted acceptance. I did not need a lengthy jail sentence. I just wanted accountability. And that was something which my abuser was not interested in providing. And as such, I went to trial with all of the various complex emotional realities that are attached to that.

And it is an experience that I wish on nobody. It was re-traumatizing on a number of levels, and it was confusing and overwhelming on so many others. And there was a guilty verdict at the end. She came back guilty as charged on all of the crimes that she was charged with. And what I had to learn along the way is that doesn't necessarily mean that I'll feel that justice was served. Justice is a very, very subjective term. And

as a survivor, you need to train yourself to live in a space where you can define that really for yourself and you can find justice regardless of what happens in the courtroom. And I'm grateful more than anything. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful that when the process wrapped up, regardless of the jury's verdict, I felt like I had found some measure of justice. Yes. And I wanted to ask kind of a continuing question to that. And that is following the trial. It's my understanding at one point,

A few weeks afterwards, you felt like you were having a heart attack and went to the hospital. And I understand it turns out that it was a panic attack. But in some ways, I thought you would have probably experienced that before the trial or while the trial was underway. Do you think this was just kind of the emotions of everything that had gone on were kind of catching up to you and you didn't know how to process it all?

That is a great question. In fact, the cardiologist that treated me that night in the emergency room, as you mentioned, I was at home and I couldn't draw breath and I felt like I was having a heart attack. And I went to an urgent care and they sent me to the ER.

And it was a series of panic attacks. It was a number of them over probably about a two and a half hour span. And when I had finally come back to myself a little bit, the cardiologist walks in. At this point, I had been given a lot of information. I didn't know. I thought I was dying, as many people who suffer panic attacks do. And he came in and he introduces himself. He says, I looked at your file. He says, would it be okay if I asked you a somewhat personal question? So I said, sure.

He says, "Have I seen your picture in the paper over the past couple of weeks? Quite a bit. The trial garnered a significant amount of local media attention." And what I understood him to be asking me was, "So you just kind of got done with this trial experience, didn't you?" And I said, "Yes." And he says, "Well, let me be the first to inform you that you're not having a heart attack and you're not going to die. Certainly not because of that. You're having a series of panic attacks."

That being the case is completely rational and almost expected, given everything that you have been through. And then he says, and in fact, I'm surprised how late you are, how long it's taken you to come into the ER. And I can speculate from today till tomorrow. You know, there is such, and we talked about burying things. There is such a process of walling yourself off from emotion that goes on before you go into the courtroom. When you're a witness at trial, when you're a victim at trial, society expects you to sit there stone-faced.

throughout the duration of the trial. Any weakness, any vulnerability, any emotion that you show on your part is a big no-no.

And so I do think that on a certain level, you really do kind of train yourself to show up to court in the morning, take all of your feelings, take everything that exists inside you, put it in a cage, lock it shut, go in there and just be a statue for eight hours, come back and take everything out. That I didn't have that reaction during trial and it said it happened after the trial. But I think for me, the most meaningful part of that story is that when he told me that I was having panic attacks, I was not very happy.

with his diagnosis. I was 28 years old and I don't want to be the sort of guy that has panic attack. He reminded me in that moment that about 75% of the world's population deal with panic attacks on a somewhat regular basis. This makes me human. This makes me nothing less than human. It doesn't make me weak or damaged or bad or anything of the sort. It makes me human.

And that's part of the beauty of life is embracing our humanity, embracing our flaws, finding beauty in them. And with another example of having to live by that mantra.

Well, I appreciate you sharing that because you lucked into having a good doctor who was compassionate and empathetic at a point that you desperately needed it. And probably to hear that coming from him reassured you that the emotions that you were feeling at that point were natural. And you were just processing probably 20 years of grief at that point of finally getting through this horrific experience.

experience and coming out of it on the other side and not knowing exactly how to feel about it, which just tells you how long trauma can exist. And then also you're part of a trial where your abuser's defense attorney is coming after you trying to paint you as the abuser during this whole ordeal. So that had to be extremely difficult as well. Then after that, you are asked to speak to

I think it was 200 plus attorneys representing the Utah Bar. And I understand as this unfolded, it turned out to be a pretty heated exchange and was viewed as controversial among the defense bar. I was hoping you could touch on that, but why you came out of it all, feeling that conversation filled you with hope.

In general, for me, a tremendous part of my healing journey has been finding a measure of purpose in my pain. As a man of faith,

I try to live my life in a headspace where nothing happens for no reason and everything happens for some sort of reason. And if I have to go through painful experiences and once I've been given the ability to really understand what those experiences are, perhaps I can have the ability to find something good, something productive, something purposeful that comes about as a result of those experiences. I think it's become something which I'm tremendously passionate about.

is really finding the good in every sort of experience, which has led me to coming forward publicly and engaging in an advocacy career. Trial was brutal. That had been expected to a certain point. But beyond it being brutal, it was unfair. It was beyond the pale. It was just, in my opinion, defense counsel's entire approach to the case crossed every imaginable line. Sadly, as I mentioned, we live in an environment and a system where we have a very combative criminal

criminal justice system. And so if a woman alleges that she was sexually assaulted, you can almost guarantee this woman that if this case is going to go to trial, every sexual partner that she had over the past 150 years is going to be mentioned. And the amount of alcohol that she has consumed over the past 150 years is going to be mentioned. And every item of clothing in her closet is going to be picked apart, whether the skirts are too short or not short enough, so on and so forth.

That's the system that we live in. Uniquely, children, when you hurt children, we shouldn't be having that conversation. We live in a system where children are not capable of consent. And if you hurt a child, the defense of, well, the kid made me do it, shouldn't really be accepted in a court of law. Well, exactly what defense counsel in my case tried to do. And I'm grateful for the fact that it was woefully ineffective, but they tried it. They tried it. And I think that

In a large part, that's why I ended up in the emergency room a couple of weeks later with a series of panic attacks. Every bad thought that I had had about myself for 20 years to that point, every measure of pain and blame and guilt that I'm living through is completely manifested and acted out in a courtroom. And you have a defense attorney who is

verbalizing the worst of my thoughts. It's all my fault. It's all she's blameless. It's not her fault. It's all on you. Now, I'm grateful for the fact that I have a strong support system and I was able to come out of that. And I know there's a lot of people who go through the criminal justice system that don't.

And so I was invited to present in front of the Utah State Bar, primarily to defense attorneys, to talk about why there's got to be a better way of doing things than re-traumatizing victims. Having a system where we take crime victims, and if they want to report a crime, we tell them, sure, you can do that. You're welcome to report it, and your case might actually go somewhere. Just know this.

If it does, all of your worst nightmares will be acted out in person to the fullest, guaranteed. Having an environment that almost promises that to victims has got to be the single most backwards way of going about things that we can imagine. And we're guaranteeing that people won't come forward. And I made the case to defense attorneys and I talked about the fact that re-traumatization is real. Putting victims through that on the stand is real. I completely believe that

in our Constitution and in the rights that every American should have to a fair and robust trial and to have the ability to confront their accuser in open court. And I think that there is a polite, respectful, I might even add, noncombative way to go about that.

And there were some defense attorneys that were less than receptive to that idea. There were a lot of defense attorneys that were receptive to that idea. It did get a little bit contentious, as you referenced, but it does still fill me with hope that we can really begin to understand the effects of trauma on those that go through it. We can really begin to understand

that re-dramatization is a real thing, that it has real effects on real people. And we can all work together to construct a system that is respectful and understanding of people and their needs across the spectrum. And it is a goal and a dream and a utopia that I hope for on a regular basis and one that I fight for every single day.

I think it's important here for me to just say that whichever way abuse happens, the bottom line is it is not the victim's fault. Abuse is an intentional choice that the abuser chooses to take against the victim. And I think that's how we need to view it. And oftentimes we want to come at it all different angles. To me, that's the simplest way you've got to look at this.

It should be. I agree with you. And it pains me that we're still trying to figure that out. It really does. And I think that a reality which is manifest on a number of levels, whether it's inside the courtroom or inside the boardroom or inside any other room that exists in our environment, to draw a really pertinent point where about 24 hours removed from court

Deshaun Watson being suspended for six games for, I believe it's at this point, 24 women bringing civil claims of sexual harassment against them. I think that we need to realize the subconscious effect of certain messages that we send or that we receive or that we pick up on and how those messages are understood in the wider world that we live in. And if we want to start prioritizing victims' needs and see the world from their lenses, it's going to require a little bit of wholesale change.

Yes, I would say just a tad. I wanted to ask you just a couple more questions specifically to get some of your advice so that the audience can hear it because I think it's very important. First question is, how can survivors be resilient, successful, and strong following this traumatic situation?

I think the most important thing that a survivor can do is to tap into the fact of how resilient, successful, and strong they already are. For me, so much of my journey has been

having the ability to look at how far I've come to be grateful for that and to want to inspire others to make that same realization and recognition about themselves. Bravery is something which is manifest in a number of different forms. I think that there are a lot of people out there that we look at as being uniquely qualified to be brave when we sometimes don't realize that

what we are doing in the life that we are living, the path that we have decided to go down in somebody else's eyes might be the bravest and strongest choice known to mankind. And so I think that for a survivor to want to go down a path, resiliency, strength, and success, so much of that begins with having the grace and the acceptance to realize how

incredibly strong they are already. I'll get calls from random people who will say, you know, Rabbi, I came across your story on social media. I heard you on a podcast and I want to let you know, you know, and they'll begin to lift off what's happened to them in their lives. And they'll end up and say, but I don't know how you're so brave and I don't know how you're so strong and I don't know how you've done what you've done. And I'll say to them that,

Are you sure we have this right? Because I've listened to everything that you've been through and what you've gone through to get to where you are today. And I think you're incredibly brave and you're incredibly strong. And God knows how you get yourself out of bed every morning. And so I think that it's important that survivors are mindful of that, that the ability that you have to be here today, to want to continue to fight, to be inspired to continue to fight, shows on remarkable resiliency and strength and success and just really need to tap into that.

The other thing I want to ask is what happens to the mind of a person, especially an adolescent like you were when this trauma is occurring and afterwards?

I'm not a scientist, but scientists will tell you. I would encourage many survivors, their loved ones, whoever really wants to get a grip on what it actually means to go through these experiences, to read The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, an incredibly pioneering work in the realm of trauma, who shares the scientific research that's done that for many trauma survivors,

quite literally new pathway to develop in their brain. It has a real tangible physical effect on people and it affects them in every facet of their lives and their ability to do anything and everything throughout their lives. It's important to understand that it's important to understand the weight of what you've been through, because in my opinion,

Really having the ability to move on and move forward can only happen with a proper understanding of what's gotten you until today, what you've been through until this day. And so what happens is your perceptions of so many human realities is warped tremendously, have a really poor self-image. The way you see the world across so many perspectives becomes just really difficult.

irrevocably changed until you can go back and change that properly. And I encourage survivors to really dig down to the bottom of what happened to them. And by understanding what happened to them, can they understand what they need to do moving forward? Yes, because it can also cause psychotic disorders, obviously anxiety, depression, PTSD, eating disorders, all kinds of things. Absolutely.

So the last thing I wanted to ask is if there's someone who's listening to this podcast right now and they're experiencing some form of abuse, what would be your recommendation on some do's and don'ts on how they should approach it? Do not compare your life's journey to a single other living being on the face of the earth.

Healing is not linear. Recovery is not linear. The way somebody else did something works profoundly for them. And that has little to no bearing on you. The way they did it worked for them doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Likely it won't work for you the same way it worked for them.

Do take things at your own pace. Do afford yourself a tremendous amount of love and grace and self-acceptance along that journey. Do keep an open mind. Do be prepared to learn about yourself and learn how to love yourself on a level that has seemed just incredibly unattainable until this moment.

Do not have unrealistic expectations. Do learn how to use the power of language. Stay away from words like never and always and learn to fight one day at a time. Learn to become a little bit better than the day before. Learn to handle setbacks. Do not

ever operate under the premise that you're going to do X or read Y or take Z and be healed forever. Really learn the power of language, learn about the way that your trauma affects you and how you're going to cope with that, how you're going to process that, what the expectations you're going to set up

for yourself are. Learn that recovery is basically a game of slides and ladders. Recovery is going to have two really good days and then three even better days and then two good days and so on and so forth. And that's going to be your life's journey for the rest of it. You're going to step into that and you're going to make it uniquely your own. You're going to heal. You are not going to learn that much that's new about you. You're going to learn about incredible

reserves of strength and fortitude and beauty and the ability to overcome adversity that have been inside you and with you every single day of your life and will continue to do so. And you're going to find that often the most fulfilling path that's before you in life is the path that you never expected.

The way you had seen your life playing out and the way it's actually going to play out might be two very, very different things. And just because it's not exactly what you had in mind from the outset doesn't mean that it doesn't have the ability to be the most rewarding, fulfilling, incredible version of your life that you can imagine. Well, and I know you're an aspiring writer. I saw, I think you have 25,000 words written of your manuscript already. We're at 40. We're getting there, John. There's a finish line in sight.

Well, I wanted to ask, when someone eventually reads that book or they hear your story, what is the biggest takeaway that you want that reader or listener to get about it? I love that question. I think that question really does pertain to everybody, right? Not just survivors of child sexual abuse, not people who are involved in that landscape. I think it applies to everybody. And that is, at times,

The most helpful thing that you can do for yourself is to sit back or stand back and allow something larger than yourself to do what it needs to do for you to lead the best life that you can imagine. And if you're a person of faith, call that God. And if you're not a person of faith,

call that your higher power, call that the universe, call that whatever it is. There is something out there that each and every one of us can accomplish in the most unique and incredible way that is so profoundly and personally ours and nobody else's. And I think each and every one of us is passionate about that. We all want to do our thing in this world. And at times finding that thing

is going to be in the place that you least expect it, in the place where you never thought to look. That doesn't take it away from being the most incredible thing that you can accomplish in this world. And at times you have to allow yourself to live a life that is not remotely what you expected. Allow God to pave that road ahead of you and go on to lead the life that he has for you that will be far beyond any of your imaginations or expectations.

Well, what a beautiful answer. And if the audience members would like to learn more about you, what is a great way for them to do that? I'm pretty approachable on social media. I'm at Utah Rabbi across all major platforms, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, not on TikTok, not really. I feel like that's a rabbit hole that I'm not going to go down at this moment, but reach out online anytime. I love working with survivors in a one-on-one capacity. I love taking questions from people and would love to be in touch.

Evremi, thank you so much for being on the podcast and being not only vulnerable and authentic, but so brave about sharing your experience in the hope that you can help so many other people who are victims of these terrible situations.

Thank you, John. I appreciate that. And thank you for having me. That was an extremely impactful interview with Rabbi Evremi Zippel. And I wanted to thank Evremi for reaching out to us and giving us the honor of sharing his story on the podcast. Links to all things Evremi will be in the show notes on passionstruck.com.

Videos are on YouTube at John R. Miles. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient location at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. I'm at John R. Miles, both on Twitter and Instagram, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. And if you want to know how I book all these amazing guests, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before you need it.

And similar to Evremi, the majority of the guests who've appeared on this show subscribe to it and provide their suggestions for guests and topics. Please join us. You will be in great company. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview I did with Dr. Ayelet Fishback, an award-winning psychologist.

at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the past president of the Society of the Science of Motivation. We discuss her new groundbreaking and best-selling book, Get It Done, Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. One reason it's hard to choose our objectives is that we often plan for our future self and we have this policy where we think that our future self is

is going to be much more of a superhuman than our present self, which means that when we plan for the future, we envision the person that doesn't get tired or hungry or frustrated or bored. And that person, of course, will get up at 6 a.m., walk until midnight, well,

Not really. And so it's often hard to plan because our plans suffer from what we refer to as the empathy gap, this lack of empathy for our future self. The fee for the show is that you share it

with friends and family members when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who's dealing with the consequences of abuse or trauma, definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Live life passion struck.

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