The Embodied Jewish Woman with Rena Reiser

It's been a week.

In this episode, my husband Rabbi Yonasan Reiser and I sit down to talk about something that's been very alive right now: coping mechanisms in a real, honest, this-is-what-our-nervous-systems-actually-do way.

We talk about what coping mechanisms actually are, why we can't just decide to stop doing them, and why the self-deprecation that comes after — the memes, the jokes, the haha-I-ate-everything — is actually just another coping mechanism sitting on top of the first one.

I share what my own coping has looked like during this war. My husband shares his. We get into soldiers and dissociation and bitachon.

And we close with the idea that during times of intense pressure, the small steps we manage to take — the tiny bits of awareness, the moments of trying — carry exponential weight.

Neurologically and spiritually.
The olive doesn't reveal its light until it's pressed.
This one's for anyone who's been a little hard on themselves lately for how they're coping. Which is probably most of us.

Purim is over. Your nervous system might not know that yet.

The body doesn't reset the moment the seuda ends. It takes time to unwind from noise, from running, from giving, from holding everything together — or from not quite managing to. The activation lingers. The tension stays tucked into places you might not even notice until you slow down enough to feel them.

This week's practice is a somatic tracking exercise — moving through the body with curiosity, resting wherever your attention is drawn, noticing what each part is still holding, and letting it know you're there.

There's a line from the practice I want to offer you before you listen:
"You might feel like you're not doing very much. But you're doing so much for your system."

That's the paradox of this kind of work. Presence — just being with what's there — is not passive. It's how stuck energy begins to move.

What is your body most ready to put down after this week?
Listen here.