Fally has an incredible story. Like the last episode, there was so much to fit in, we ended up going even longer than I usually do and I promise you it is worth the listen. Every minute is so rich – I was hanging onto her every word.

Fally has already lived through so many things — more than some go through in an entire lifetime. Some of which — like battling cancer — she speaks about in the episode and some of which she is preferring to keep private right now. When you listen to how eloquent she is, how much depth she brings to her journey and challenges, you will be blown away and if you’re like me, only want more from her.

In the episode, we speak about:

-Her battle with cancer as a teenager and what that experience taught her

-Her perspective on closure in life

-What real healing feels like

-How she worked to figure out her career and mission throughout her challenges and how that continues to evolve today

-How her connection with Hashem has deepened through her journey

-The power of breath work and how our breathing mimics the spiritual realm

-Two breathing techniques that can help you find more calm right now

…and SO MUCH MORE.

Get more from Fally on her website ⁠⁠fallyklein.com⁠⁠.

Get her book, Miracle Ride, ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

Matana went through a profound journey through anxiety and depression, which she shares with us in the episode and now she works with others who are going through similar challenges. She meets people where they are, helping them navigate anxiety and depression by implementing practical, personalized tools that support their unique healing journey.

Drawing from her lived experience, faith and years of learning from leading experts, she shares honest conversations that inspire resilience, emotional well-being and hope. Her goal is to show that healing is possible, growth is often found in the smallest steps and no one has to walk the journey alone.

This is the perfect episode to release this week, as we approach Tisha B’Av. Sometimes it’s in the pain that we find the most connection. As they say, when there are cracks, that’s where the light can come in. In Matana’s story, we’re also learning about things that could be going on behind the scenes for anyone. So much of the time, we don’t know what another person is really going through. As we work on our ahavas chinam, or love for another Jew, in an attempt to rebuild the beis Hamikdash, Matana’s story can be a reminder of that. It can be a reminder to give ourselves more compassion if we’re going through something of our own and understanding that if you feel hurt or insulted by someone else, it may not be what you think.

In the episode we speak about:

-The moment that anxiety entered her life in a real, overt way and how that changed the course of her life moving forward

-Her journey to heal — what that looked like, what got in her way and how she overcame immense challenge

-What it looks like to reach out when you need help

-What it’s like going through certain aspects of a religious lifestyle when you have OCD and how she worked through that — specifically when it comes to personal challenges like going to the mikvah

-How she dealt with resentment that came up toward Hashem or her religious lifestyle and how she was able to persevere through that

-How she deals with her challenges as a mother and all that motherhood entails

-What she’s doing now to stay mentally healthy every day

…and so much more!

To get more from Matana, visit ⁠hopetorecharge.com⁠

Follow her on Instagram at ⁠@matanajacobs⁠

Two meditations she listens to:

Morning meditation

⁠https://youtu.be/FmczMP1gQzk?is=VfKZO0zVrPAlEKCr⁠

Gratitude meditation

⁠https://youtu.be/xfD4HaBBc0I?is=tH8VHa9Hzn79hA-Z⁠

This episode is a roundup of five things that I have been doing to feel really good this summer (of course all a work in progress!) I’ve been thinking about this topic for awhile now and am so excited to get this solo episode out there — more of a rare occasion for me!

Really hope you like it and get even one thing out of it.

Here, some the other podcasts I reference in the episode:

–⁠Chai on Life Podcast with Elisheva Liss⁠

–⁠The Liz Moody Podcast episode with Laura Vanderkam⁠

If there is someone you want to see on The Chai on Life Podcast, email me at ⁠alex@chaionlifemag.com⁠ or send me a DM @chaionlifemag. Thanks again, see you next week!

Aliza has more than a decade of experience helping adolescents and adults navigate anxiety, trauma, relationship challenges, and life transitions. She takes a holistic approach, integrating mind, body and soul, and uses evidence-based therapies such as EMDR, CBT, DBT, mindfulness, and more.

Her work combines practical tools with deep emotional insight to help people create meaningful, lasting change that is in alignment with their values.

This conversation is all about a whole lot of that. I’ve been thinking so much about healing lately. In our social media focused world, healing can sometimes be contained to 1 or 2-minute sound bites or six-slide carousel posts when in reality, it’s hard to fit our lives in a box. While there is so much learning, community and validation that can come from social media, a lot can also be lost. Sometimes it feels like if we just did this one thing that this Instagram post is saying, we would be better — if we just read that one book or bought that one product, we would finally feel healed or have the lives we wanted. We need to remember to go outside the screen to have those real conversations and debrief and connect — there is never a substitute for that.

As I spoke to Aliza, I realized that with all the chasing, there also has to be recognition of what is being accomplished every day, there has to be space for emotion — all of them — for the duality of what makes someone human. Becoming healed isn’t a destination that you stay at, but a vibrant journey that continues to bring us to new levels of growth. Aliza is so good about breaking down some of the big concepts we see or hear about and making them understandable and really feel doable.

In the episode, we speak about:

-How healing itself can become an addiction

-What DBT and CBT are — the differences between them and how we can utilize them for growth

-How to live more in alignment with our values

-What to do when uncomfortable emotions arise

-How we can work to reprogram our nervous systems to feel more calm

-How to live life with more intention

-How to break free of comparison culture and a consumer-based society

-How to make friends as an adult and why it feels different than it may have before

-How to work on building self-esteem

-The power of integrating spirituality in your healing journey

…and so much more!

To learn more from Aliza or to work with her, visit ⁠Heartfulmentalhealth.com⁠

Find her on Instagram ⁠@alizathetherapist⁠

Email her at ⁠Aliza@heartfulmentalhealth.com

She has a degree in biochemistry and nutritional sciences and really looks at health from a macro approach to see the full picture of what her clients are dealing with. She helps them identify the root causes of hormonal imbalances and offers natural tools, evidence-based nutrition and sustainable practices to restore that hormonal balance in the body and nurture lasting self-care.

In the episode we speak about:

-What you should talk to your doctor about at your annual visit and what labs to ask for to get a better view of how you’re doing health-wise and hormonally as well as when to get them — she also shares a list that you can bring to your doctor which I’m including in the show notes

-What inflammation actually is and how to understand its presence in your body

-If everyone should be getting their hormones tested

-What it means if it takes longer to get pregnant than you think it “should” — this was a super interesting conversation and honestly quite calming

-The effect our reproductive health has on the rest of our bodies whether or not you are trying to conceive

-The impact stress and anxiety have on the body and how we can begin to manage that

-Nilli’s opinion on the role of a GLP-1 when it comes to weight and health management, plus what you must make sure you are doing if you are on one

-How we can work to create a life of balance in an unbalanced world — and I say work intentionally because it is a process and one that is ever-changing

For Nilli’s complete list of what to test for at your next doctor’s appointment (as referenced in the episode), ⁠click here⁠.

If you want to work with Nilli, you can get in touch with her via ⁠nourisheddaily.com⁠.

If her names sounds familiar to you, that is because her expertise, depth and breadth is vast and she has been sharing her wisdom and advice for years now through books, articles and classes. She is the author of ⁠“Raise Your Kids without Raising Your Voice,”⁠ ⁠“The Fear Fix,” ⁠⁠“Harmony at Home,”⁠ “⁠No More Tics,”⁠ and more books on Jewish family life and emotional wellbeing.

She is a weekly columnist for the Family First section of Mishpacha magazine and in conjunction with ⁠Jewish Workshops⁠, has produced numerous webinar courses on parenting, marriage, anxiety and stress management. She is the head of the ⁠Sarah Chana Radcliffe Parenting Academy⁠ where she trains and certifies parenting coaches internationally. You can get more from her at ⁠Dailyparentingposts.com⁠.

In this episode, we are focusing on getting you not only more sleep, but better quality sleep so you can live on less of it if that’s the stage of life you’re in. In our conversation, we speak about:

-The challenges of simply being a human being in the world

-Remedies for healing and how the brain works when it comes to certain modalities

-Why worrying is actually a choice and not something we have no control over

-How to rewire our brains to accomplish anything personal you are working on

-Why you may be having trouble sleeping and what’s going on below the surface that’s causing it

-How different people truly need different amounts of sleep and the perspective we can gain from that

-So many different remedies to help you sleep better — she really goes through a lot of ideas from the super simple and easy to the ones that require more time and focus (with a seemingly huge payoff)

-How to get ourselves to actually go to sleep earlier and why we have such a hard time doing so

…and so much more!

Here, all of the sleep methods she mentioned in the episode:

⁠Bach Flower Remedies: White Chestnut⁠

⁠Saje aromatherapy ⁠

⁠Sleep Well Restful Sleep Oil Blend⁠

⁠Silva Method ⁠

⁠Holosync⁠

⁠Book: The Joy of Doing Nothing⁠

Elisheva works with individuals and couples to help improve their quality of life and relationships — most commonly treating depression, anxiety, relationship problems and anything dealing with intimacy. She has a collaborative approach, which means she looks at her work as a partnership with each client.

In this episode, we basically have a mini (or honestly, extended) therapy session about a lot of common issues women may be dealing with in the religious community, outside of it and in the unique time we’re living in.

As frum Jewish women, we live a beautiful life with holy values. We plan and often host Shabbat meals every week, opening our homes to those who need it. We bake challah, daven, say Tehillim, try to do chesed when we can, often work outside of the home, raise children, try to be a giving and loving wife, find time to learn and grow as people, find time for our own wellbeing and self-care with exercise, preparing healthy meals, maybe even our own therapy, we prepare simchas for our families, make time for friends to nourish ourselves and focus on what’s going on in their lives, and so much more — the list goes on.

Even just crafting this list — which I’m sure is still missing a lot — shows me just how much we may have on our plates at any given time. So especially when you lean more to the overachieving, perfectionist side of the mental health spectrum, it can often feel like you’re not measuring up. We are taught that Hashem gives us time to partner with Hashem in this world, and the worst feeling is to feel like we’re not utilizing that potential. How do we know when it’s enough? How do we feel okay with just not being able to do it all?

So I brought on Elisheva Liss to help me work through this concept. She is a beautiful, well-spoken therapist who actually has her own book called “Find Your Horizon of Healthy Thinking: Hack Your Thoughts and Improve Your Mood” which really was a perfect match for this topic. In our conversation, we speak about the pressures frum women face today, how to feel more comfortable with where we’re at in this exact moment and how to use our brains to develop a healthier way of thinking and honestly, enjoy the lives that we’re leading.

Here, the books she shares in the episode:

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam

The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose by Matthew Kelly

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life — by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey

Bittersweet by Susan Cain

Follow Elisheva on Instagram here.

Join her weekly newsletter here.

Rachel is a certified mindset, health, and behavior change coach who helps women break free from emotional eating, binge cycles, and the exhausting all-or-nothing mindset. Blending neuroscience, CBT tools, and over 12 years of experience, she guides her clients to build a healthy relationship with food — and with themselves. Her work isn’t about more control. It’s about freedom. It’s about peace. It’s about learning to trust your body again.

This was a topic I was excited to explore more deeply — while it’s focused on creating a healthy lifestyle, there is so much more around that that we delve into when it comes to building the life you want to be living and the habits that support it. We speak about letting go of perfectionism on that journey, how to navigate what a healthy lifestyle actually looks like for you and then the emotions that may come up along the way when getting there.

As women, our relationship with food can be layered and it’s one that comes up multiple times a day. Rachel works with women to get to a much freer place when it comes to choosing what to eat every day and just how to approach this aspect of our lives with a lot more calm.

These days, weight loss drugs are a hot topic as well and it feels that conversations around weight loss really run the gamut — first, we’re focusing more on body acceptance and not wanting to change to focusing on everyone doing weight loss drugs and how we feel about that to maybe feeling shame about wanting to lose weight and speaking openly about that to also wanting to love ourselves the way we are! — there can be feelings across the whole spectrum at different times in our lives and sometimes all at the same time. In this conversation, we speak about a lot of that. How you can feel confident and okay with wanting to lose weight if that’s your goal AND also work on loving yourself as you are.

Rachel has a new group opening up in July so reach out now! You can follow her on Instagram at @coach_rachel_rosenberg or connect via email at rachelr@mindbodyspirit.health.

Let me ask you something: Have you ever done something really hard—so hard you wanted to quit—but you kept going? Maybe it was holding a plank for one more excruciating minute, finishing a project at work, or having a tough conversation you’d been avoiding. How did you feel afterward?

Let me tell you a story about when I first realized just how powerful the mindset you build in the gym can be.

Years ago back in college, I found myself in a CrossFit gym surrounded by weights, sweat, and, quite frankly, a lot of men. I was one of the few women in the class, and I felt like I had something to prove—not to them, but to myself.

The workouts were brutal. I vividly remember one particular day: my arms felt like jelly, and the thought of picking up that barbell one more time seemed impossible. My mind was screaming at me to quit. But I didn’t. I took a deep breath, gripped the barbell, and finished the set.

What happened next was more than just the satisfaction of completing a workout. I felt different. Stronger, yes—but not just in my muscles. Something clicked for me. I realized the discipline, grit, and mental toughness I was building in the gym didn’t just stay there. It followed me to school, work, and even my relationships.

When I had a big project due or needed to have a vulnerable conversation, I remembered that moment in the gym. If I could push through those reps, I could handle this, too.

Here’s the thing: The gym is more than a place to get fit. It’s a life lab—a space where you experiment with resilience, build character, and practice showing up even when it’s hard.

Think about it:

• When you push through a tough workout, you’re learning how to push through tough days.
• When you focus on form and consistency, you’re practicing patience and discipline.
• When you cheer yourself on during those final reps, you’re strengthening your self-talk—an essential tool for navigating life’s challenges.
  
  

Life, much like the gym, isn’t always easy. But here’s the deal: showing up matters. You don’t skip work just because you’re tired—you’ve got bills to pay. So why do we sometimes treat our physical and mental well-being as optional?

What if you approached your workouts like they were a prescription for success in every area of your life? Because, spoiler alert, they are.

One of my clients, Sarah, shared something profound with me recently. She said, “I used to hate running, but now, when I lace up my shoes, I tell myself I’m not just running—I’m proving to myself that I can do hard things.”

So how do you take the mindset you cultivate in the gym and apply it to life? Let’s talk about some real strategies:

1. Visualize Success: Before that tough workout or challenging task, close your eyes and imagine yourself succeeding. When I picked up that barbell in CrossFit, I pictured myself finishing strong. That visualization carried me through the pain.
   
2. Build Your Self-Talk Muscle: During workouts, I tell myself, You are capable. This is what you train for. I believe in you. That same self-talk gets me through stressful moments at work or in relationships. Replace self-doubt with affirmations.
   
3. Remember Your Wins: When life feels overwhelming, think back to a moment you pushed through something tough. Use that memory as proof that you can do it again.

To all the women reading this, I see you. I see you juggling work, family, children, relationships, socializing, and your own goals. It’s not easy. But every time you show up—whether it’s in the gym, the office, or just for yourself—you’re building something extraordinary: resilience, confidence, and strength.

You’re not just lifting weights; you’re lifting yourself. You’re not just running miles; you’re running toward a stronger, more empowered version of you.

The next time you step into the gym, remember that you’re doing more than working out your body—you’re training your mind to handle life’s challenges with grace and grit.

And when you feel like quitting, picture the finish line, tell yourself you’re capable, and remind yourself of this truth: you’ve done hard things before, and you’ll do them again.

So, here’s my challenge for you: Show up for yourself today. Whether it’s a workout, a tough conversation, or just getting through a long day, know that you’ve got what it takes to keep going. And when you do, you’re not just building muscles—you’re building a mindset that can conquer anything.

Now, let’s hear from you: What’s one hard thing you’ve done recently, and how did it make you feel? Share in the comments—I’d love to celebrate your wins with you.