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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. When

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Speaker 1: we talk about secrets, often we use the word buried.

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Speaker 1: We discover a buried secret. We bury our own secrets

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Speaker 1: in places where we think they'll never rise to the

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Speaker 1: surface again. We go to the grave with our secrets.

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Speaker 1: But what about when a secret actually is buried. Sylvia

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Speaker 1: Borstein was born in Brooklyn, New York, in just so

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Speaker 1: you don't have to do the math that makes her

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Speaker 1: two years old. She's been married for fifty two years

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Speaker 1: to her husband, Seymour. They have four children and seven grandchildren.

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Speaker 1: Sylvia is one of our country's most beloved teachers of

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Speaker 1: mindfulness meditation. Many of you may have heard of her,

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Speaker 1: and if you haven't, trust me, you should download one

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Speaker 1: of her audiobooks. Do that right now, just cause this

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Speaker 1: podcast and download one of her books. You will say

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Speaker 1: inked me later. She's also a very dear friend of mine,

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Speaker 1: which makes me a very lucky person. In truth, Sylvia

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Speaker 1: is the entire reason this podcast exists. As I was

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Speaker 1: grappling with my own humongous family secret, I was on

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Speaker 1: the phone with Sylvia one afternoon. As tends to happen

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Speaker 1: when we share a family secret, it prompts the listener

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Speaker 1: to think of family secrets of her own, and so

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Speaker 1: Sylvia began to tell me the story of a secret

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Speaker 1: that had haunted her for much of her life. As

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Speaker 1: I sat in my little office with the phone glued

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Speaker 1: to my ear, listening to my friend's story, I thought,

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Speaker 1: I wish I was recording this. Hence this podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets. Secrets that are

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Speaker 1: kept from us, secrets we keep from others, and secrets

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Speaker 1: we keep from ourselves. Sylvia was raised in Coney Island,

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Speaker 1: in an enclave of immigrant Jews. In her neighborhood, she

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Speaker 1: was surrounded by relatives my parents met because they lived

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Speaker 1: around the corner from each other. My grandparents were friends

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Speaker 1: of each other, and my mother and father married. They

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Speaker 1: moved in with my father's parents because my father didn't

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Speaker 1: yet have a job, and I was born there a

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Speaker 1: year later. A year after that, my grandfather died and

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Speaker 1: my grandmother, who was my principal caretaker as I was

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Speaker 1: growing up, lived with us for the rest of her life.

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Speaker 1: So I lived in a situation where I was the

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Speaker 1: only child and the only grandchild of the three people

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Speaker 1: who lived in my house with me and much loved

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Speaker 1: by all three of them. Um. We lived within the

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Speaker 1: wider community of a large family of cousins and aunts

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Speaker 1: and uncle's and my mother, who was a wonderful storyteller,

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Speaker 1: told me all the background about all these people, so

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Speaker 1: and I loved them. They were my favorite kind of stories,

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Speaker 1: how uncle Julius came to the United States, and how

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Speaker 1: this one did that and that one did this. So

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Speaker 1: I felt growing up that I knew most of the

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Speaker 1: things about my family. But within all this closeness and happiness,

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Speaker 1: Sylvia's mother was very sick. My mother's health was frail.

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Speaker 1: My mother had rheumatic heart disease, the consequence of having

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Speaker 1: had rheumatic fever as a child, And I was always

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Speaker 1: alarmed because I really didn't understand that the consequences of

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Speaker 1: what that meant for her, and I worried always because

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Speaker 1: she was out of breath, she couldn't walk as fast

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Speaker 1: as other people's mother's, she couldn't swim or play tennis. Um,

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Speaker 1: And I think I know that I was always frightened

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Speaker 1: that she would die. We didn't talk of that sickness

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Speaker 1: in my house because I think in the end, maybe

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Speaker 1: it was a good decision. My mother had this defective

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Speaker 1: mitral valve that limited what she could do, but she

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Speaker 1: was a cheerful person, so she wasn't totally undone by

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Speaker 1: the illness, and she didn't mention it. We just knew

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Speaker 1: about it. But then Sylvia learned that there was a

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Speaker 1: story she didn't know, a painful story that wasn't part

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Speaker 1: of the great and often joyous oral tradition of her family.

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Speaker 1: Somewhere in my adolescence, but I think before I went

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Speaker 1: to college, my mother mentioned in a conversation, maybe it

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Speaker 1: was an overheard conversation, that she had a sister who

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Speaker 1: was younger than she was, but not as younger as

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Speaker 1: my aunt Marian, and that that sister had died. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about what you remember about that conversation, or

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Speaker 1: whether it was something that you overheard. I think one

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Speaker 1: of the really interesting things about those moments where one

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Speaker 1: is discovering something or hearing something that is of incredible

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Speaker 1: importance that maybe coming out in a kind of casual

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Speaker 1: way or overheard or just slipped into conversation, and yet

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Speaker 1: it lodges somewhere in the psyche, and it was some

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Speaker 1: offend manner. I don't remember if she said it to

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Speaker 1: me or to somebody else. There was no photograph as

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Speaker 1: pictures of my mother as a child and our cousins

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Speaker 1: as a as children. I think, now that you're asking

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Speaker 1: me and I'm thinking about it, the best I remember

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Speaker 1: is I thought. I remember thinking maybe I heard wrong.

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Speaker 1: And I've asked myself, since I've known your story, and

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Speaker 1: since I've learned stories of secrets from side of my friends,

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Speaker 1: why is it that I wouldn't say the obvious, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you had another sister. Sylvia had one aunt, her mother's

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Speaker 1: younger sister, Miriam, and her father was an only child.

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Speaker 1: So these adults comprise her entire immediate family. But now

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Speaker 1: it seemed her grandparents had had three daughters, not too

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Speaker 1: but Sylvia talks this information away to the point that

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Speaker 1: she barely remembers it. It's a vestige, a mirage, not

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Speaker 1: something tangible. She doesn't exactly forget all about it. It's

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Speaker 1: more like she puts it off to the side, way

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Speaker 1: off to the side. Sylvia grows up, attends Barnard College

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Speaker 1: at the age of sixteen, miss her future husband, Seymour,

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Speaker 1: a doctor. She's married by the time she's twenty, and

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Speaker 1: eventually she and Seymour settle in northern California. Sylvia has

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Speaker 1: all her children by the time she's twenty five, a

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Speaker 1: span of years during which her mother dies, finally succumbing

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Speaker 1: to her weak her During this time, it's almost like

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Speaker 1: Sylvia is trying to cram it all in, get as

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Speaker 1: much as she possibly can out of this life, since

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Speaker 1: she's grown up with a powerful internalized message that life

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Speaker 1: may be short, perhaps very short, there's always the possibility

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Speaker 1: of loss. What happened is that after she died, years

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Speaker 1: went by, during which time I became closer to her

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Speaker 1: than I had been to her younger sister, Miriam. I

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Speaker 1: think Miriam missed my mother very much, and I did too.

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Speaker 1: And at that time I was married, I had my

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Speaker 1: own family, was living in California, and I developed the

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Speaker 1: habit of calling my aunt every Saturday afternoon and we

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Speaker 1: will talk on the phone about everything. So we were

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Speaker 1: really close. And at one point, oh, I know what happened.

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Speaker 1: My grandfather came to spend time with me and lived

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Speaker 1: with me in California. He was years old and in

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Speaker 1: very good health and um sound memory, and we became

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Speaker 1: very close, sharing old stories and one day just having

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Speaker 1: a walk together. I said, by the way, I once

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Speaker 1: heard that you actually had three daughters and that there

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Speaker 1: was somebody born after Gladys and before Miriam. And I

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Speaker 1: remember him looking at me and squinting over at me,

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Speaker 1: say I could I could almost imitate his tone of voice.

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Speaker 1: He would say, what wasn't matter with you? One word,

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Speaker 1: wasn't matter with you? Why did you hear that story?

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Speaker 1: That's not true, that never happened, that wasn't true. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: why did you get that? So it was the end

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Speaker 1: of that. I let it go. Sometime later, after I

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Speaker 1: developed this relationship with my with my aunt, I'm one

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Speaker 1: of our Saturday phone calls, I said, by the way, Miriam, uh,

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Speaker 1: I heard, and I told the whole story, And I said,

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Speaker 1: I asked Grandpa, who had then by then died, said

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Speaker 1: I asked Grandpa about it, and he said no. She

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Speaker 1: said no, no, no, there was for any other child. No,

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Speaker 1: never any other child. I said, Okay, time went by.

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Speaker 1: How did you feel during the time that was going by?

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Speaker 1: Did you accept that was it? Was it a sense

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Speaker 1: of maybe I was wrong, maybe I misheard. Did you

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Speaker 1: doubt yourself? Well? It was really it was like maybe

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Speaker 1: I had a dream. Maybe I had a dream. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you know that any one of the things about me,

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Speaker 1: because I don't like to be wrong. So if I,

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Speaker 1: if I, if I had developed something which was so

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Speaker 1: to speak, quote unquote stupid, I wouldn't have admitted it

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Speaker 1: to people. I've had this idea, and I'm sure of

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Speaker 1: it from my grandfather had said, it's not true. I've

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Speaker 1: never seen any artifact of that. Time went by. My

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Speaker 1: grandfather had died. I was in New York, and of

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Speaker 1: course my mother had died long before I was in

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Speaker 1: New York, probably somewhere in my late fift these early sixties,

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Speaker 1: and my husband's Seymore was with me. I think I

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Speaker 1: was teaching and I had a day free, and I said,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'd like to go out to the cemetery.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to go to the cemetery where my mother

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Speaker 1: was buried. And so he said okay, and we went out.

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Speaker 1: Then anybody who knows cemeteries in Queens knows that there's endless,

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Speaker 1: endless acreage of cemeteries and Queens. But I had the

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Speaker 1: name of the cemetery, and what was the cemetery called?

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Speaker 1: Do you remember Mount Hebron? Mount Hebron so it was

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Speaker 1: a Jewish cemetery. Was absolutely a Jewish cemetery, which brings

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Speaker 1: me back to buried secrets. I know these cemeteries on

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Speaker 1: the outskirts of New York City. My dad's family plot,

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Speaker 1: the Shapiro family plot, is in one of them. They

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Speaker 1: aren't pastoral final resting places, you know, with pretty benches

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Speaker 1: and shady trees. They tend to be massive, crumbling places

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Speaker 1: to stones crammed up against one another, like crooked teeth

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Speaker 1: in the mouth of the world. And I knew that

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Speaker 1: my mother was buried in a burial area that was

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Speaker 1: bought by the first men's Atonia Society of my grandfather's

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Speaker 1: Austrian town. What people did is they came as immigrants

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Speaker 1: and among other things, they pulled their money and they

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Speaker 1: bought acreage or acreage, they bought a plot in Jewish cemetery,

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Speaker 1: and you paid your cemetery dues to pay for the plot,

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Speaker 1: and then whenever you died twenty or thirty or forty

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Speaker 1: years later, you have placed in that plot. So that

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Speaker 1: so it's like the village from the old country was

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Speaker 1: transported to this cemetery plot where you would all be

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Speaker 1: together again, no kidding, and there's a there's anyway story

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Speaker 1: never want comes to visit a friend of his who

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Speaker 1: is in the hospital, and very we ill apparently in

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Speaker 1: the conversation in Yiddish is about how you're doing and

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Speaker 1: whether or not you might die, and he the visitor

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Speaker 1: tells the patient in the hospital, you know who died

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Speaker 1: last week, so and so and tells him. And this

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Speaker 1: person's response is not I'm sorry that so and so died,

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Speaker 1: but oh dear, if I die now, I'm gonna have

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Speaker 1: to lie next to so and so forever. Uh so

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Speaker 1: all the jokes that they made about that, but that's

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Speaker 1: what you did. My mother is not, so to speak,

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Speaker 1: lying next to my grandparents. She is in the order

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Speaker 1: that she died as part of the village, as part

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Speaker 1: of the village. It's not even my mother is village.

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Speaker 1: It's my father's parents village. An irresistible side note here.

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Speaker 1: My dad died in a car crash when I was

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Speaker 1: twenty three, and my mom died almost two decades later.

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Speaker 1: When my mother was dying, she informed me that she

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Speaker 1: was not going to be buried in my father's family

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Speaker 1: plot in one. Instead, she planned to be buried in

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Speaker 1: southern Jersey. I mean way down the Jersey Turnpike, which,

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Speaker 1: if you don't know it is one of the least

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Speaker 1: fun roads in the country, with her family and away

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Speaker 1: from all of those people who she had fought with

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Speaker 1: her whole married life. I feel sorry for you, she said,

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Speaker 1: though I knew she didn't. You'll have to visit your

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Speaker 1: parents in two different cemeteries. Any who, Charle malecham Irene Shapiro.

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Speaker 1: Generations come and go and not much changes. We're going

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Speaker 1: to take a quick break. We'll be back in a moment.

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Speaker 1: It's a miserable day, cold and wet when Sylvia and

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Speaker 1: Seymour make the swept from Manhattan to the cemetery in Queens.

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Speaker 1: So we win. And we found those two tombstones, and

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Speaker 1: I looked at them, and you know, I put a

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Speaker 1: requisite rock on the top of each one, which signifies

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Speaker 1: all kinds of things, but the people going by it

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Speaker 1: means someone was there and someone visited. And then we

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Speaker 1: walked back to the entrance and there's a little hot

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Speaker 1: or a house or very small office at the bottom

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Speaker 1: of them where you can go in and ask where

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Speaker 1: it is so and so buried, and they give you

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Speaker 1: the plot map. And when we went in there, I said,

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Speaker 1: you know, I said to see more on the way back.

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Speaker 1: You know, this was my father's father's plot. My mother's

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Speaker 1: family also had a plot in this cemetery. Um, and

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Speaker 1: my grandmother's Trasia and must be buried there. Let's find

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Speaker 1: out where. So we go into the cemetery. I'm all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, really, I seem that as I'm telling

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Speaker 1: you the story, I'm a little choking up about it.

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Speaker 1: So we take your breath and out, getting a little

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Speaker 1: bit teary about it. We go into this office and

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Speaker 1: I said, my grandfather's last name, and and then just

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Speaker 1: suddenly I'm kind of a whim. I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm also interested in a child that might be buried

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Speaker 1: in that same community's burial place. And I know that

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Speaker 1: she was a child about five years old, and that

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Speaker 1: she died in about Remember this is the mid nineteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: The small cemetery office is not equipped with WiFi or internet.

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Speaker 1: In fact, they're in the midst of transferring all their

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Speaker 1: files from a rolodex a rolodex to a computer. So

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Speaker 1: finding a child with Sylvia's grandfather's name Fuchs is slow going,

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Speaker 1: if not impossible. He looked and looking through names, says,

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Speaker 1: we have a lot of folks this here. What was

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Speaker 1: her first name? Uh, what was the first name? And

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Speaker 1: of course Sylvia doesn't know the child's first name because

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Speaker 1: the child was a secret. And I said, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but I think maybe it was Sylvia. He looks, he said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is Sylvia. Folks that died in nineteen twenty one.

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Speaker 1: And I said, well, I go back, show me on

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Speaker 1: the map where to look and know what to say. Really,

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Speaker 1: he said, well, you would be able to find it

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Speaker 1: because um children were buried not in a regular plot.

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Speaker 1: They were buried in a corner of plot that their

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Speaker 1: community owned, and they were just buried next to each other.

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Speaker 1: When they have young children, they're buried next to each other.

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Speaker 1: And they didn't have granite headstones. They had limestone headstones.

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Speaker 1: The children. Yeah, they just the oral grouped in the corner.

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Speaker 1: There's a children's area for young children and newborns. And

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Speaker 1: they're just limestone. Marco's mounds name. And it's been so

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Speaker 1: many years in the rains, the limestone washes off. You'll

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Speaker 1: never find it. So we walk out of that place

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Speaker 1: and I say more, says, let's go back. Meantime it's

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Speaker 1: the end of the long day, and it's a long

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Speaker 1: walk up there, and I'm kind of blown away by

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Speaker 1: the whole thing, and it's becoming overcast and it looks

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Speaker 1: like it's going to rain, and I said, well, he says, well,

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Speaker 1: we won't find it. He said, let's go. We're going

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Speaker 1: to take a quick break. Sylvia is overcome with a

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Speaker 1: desire to flee the cemetery. She's suddenly exhausted. It has

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Speaker 1: been a very long day. But Seymour and this totally

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Speaker 1: gets to me. Seymour pushes her. He knows it's probably

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Speaker 1: the only time she'll ever be able to get to

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Speaker 1: the bottom of this question she's always had, so, he insists.

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Speaker 1: So we walk back up, we find that plot. Then

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Speaker 1: we see in the corners there are these like clumps

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Speaker 1: of limestone. Marker's all very washed off, so you really

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Speaker 1: can't read the names. And by this time I'm really

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Speaker 1: feeling undone in the weather, and I just I said,

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Speaker 1: let's go. That can't do this anymore. And sans, I know,

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Speaker 1: keeping looking, with keeping looking, this is making me cry

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Speaker 1: as well. And all of a sudden, he said, here

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Speaker 1: it is. And it isn't limestone. It's a dark gray,

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Speaker 1: beautiful granites down and it says Sylvia folks daughter official folks.

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Speaker 1: It's my grandfather's child. So when we came over from

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Speaker 1: the trip, I called my aunt Miriam. You know, as

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Speaker 1: I'm telling you the story, it's not easy. I have

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Speaker 1: all goose pimples all over me. I called my aunt Miriam,

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Speaker 1: and we talked about one thing or another. And I said, Miriam,

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Speaker 1: I was in New York. Yeah I know, I said, Merriwell,

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Speaker 1: I was in New York. I went to the cemetery

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Speaker 1: and I went to look at graves, my mother's grave,

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Speaker 1: and then I went over to where your mother is

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Speaker 1: buried with Rajah is buried, and I found the gravestone

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Speaker 1: for Sylvia folks. And she didn't say anything, so I said,

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Speaker 1: I was I was really upset, Miriam. I said, it's

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Speaker 1: really upset because I thought I had such a close

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Speaker 1: relationship with with myanpa official. You know, we were so close,

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Speaker 1: and he lied to me. And she said, you know

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Speaker 1: he didn't lie to Merriam. What do you mean you

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Speaker 1: didn't lie? I found with toolstone. She said, you forgot.

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Speaker 1: I said, Marriam, you don't forget it if you have

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Speaker 1: a six year old child that dies. She said, if

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Speaker 1: it's too horrible for you, you forget it. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I thought it'd be easier to tell this story, but

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Speaker 1: it's not. It's a very loving thing that Seymour did.

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Speaker 1: It was it was I think about it now, I

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Speaker 1: think about it in that moment, and I was that

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Speaker 1: really it was he who said no, no, we're here,

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Speaker 1: let's go. No, no, no, not finished looking the look.

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Speaker 1: And after we discovered it, I remember, you know, I

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Speaker 1: was physically upset and crying, I think, but I remember

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Speaker 1: he was saying to me, tell me what's so upsetting,

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Speaker 1: and I said, um, they lied to me, all those people.

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Speaker 1: The end of the phone call with Aunt Miriam is

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Speaker 1: he forgot as this said, Miriam, tell me, did you

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Speaker 1: forget you? Did you remember her at all? Uh? Because

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Speaker 1: Miriam was between two and three when her sister Sylvia died,

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Speaker 1: she said, you know, I only have one memory. I

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Speaker 1: remember I was sitting on the floor in the sun

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Speaker 1: porch of the apartment where I lived with my parents.

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Speaker 1: I was sitting on the floor and watching the light

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Speaker 1: patterns of sunshine on the wooden floor of that sun porch,

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Speaker 1: and my mother was sitting in a rocking chair behind me,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I heard my mother crying,

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Speaker 1: and I became upset because she was crying. And my

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Speaker 1: mother picked me up right away, and she said, mine, dish, fine, dish,

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Speaker 1: mine kin, don't cry my child, And room said, I

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Speaker 1: never saw her cry again, and we don't. Don't tell

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Speaker 1: you that story. I'm thinking how painful it is to

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Speaker 1: not be able to talk about it ever, not be

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Speaker 1: able to cry to your children, or cry to anybody.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure it never goes away if you have a

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Speaker 1: child who's six years old and dies. One thing I

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Speaker 1: find myself wondering. Sylvia is a person who has spent

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Speaker 1: much of her adult life coming to know the inner

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00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 1: workings of her own mind. She's gone on silent meditation

337
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: rich treats for months, months at a time. She's taught

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Speaker 1: mindfulness all over the world. I remember when I was

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00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: first getting to know her work. I read a few

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00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: sentences from one of her books. Allowed to my husband.

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Speaker 1: Why is this so good? I asked him. He answered,

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Speaker 1: because it's the product of an unconfused mind. How was

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00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 1: it that the original conversation or overheard moment way back

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Speaker 1: when with her mother never drifted into Sylvia's unconfused mind

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00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: in all those periods of silence and contemplation. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that's interesting to me is there

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00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 1: was that overheard conversation or she or she straight out

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00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,240
Speaker 1: told you and I don't know, and you put it somewhere.

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Speaker 1: I think this is what we do. Um. I'm understanding

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Speaker 1: that more and more as I'm in my own process

351
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Speaker 1: of discovering what I knew, what I didn't know. You

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00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 1: know about my own family secrets. Um, but where do

353
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: we put you? Know? You you have lived a very

354
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: examined life more than most. You're you're a Buddhist, you're

355
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: a teacher, you're a writer, you're a storyteller, you're a psychologist.

356
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 1: For God to say, and so there was this this

357
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: piece of knowledge that just kind of wedged itself somewhere

358
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: while you were busy becoming a psychologist and getting a

359
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: doctorate and going to school and having four children and

360
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: raising a family and living a life and going on

361
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 1: you know, month long meditation retreats, and it never emerged again.

362
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Speaker 1: I've thought several times, and often I think in my

363
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Speaker 1: life that there's been something very dependable about my psyche,

364
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 1: depending on what situation I would be in, I would

365
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: say about my psyche or about my heart, but where

366
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: my psyche or my heart did not let me know

367
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 1: things at a time that I couldn't have handled them well.

368
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: And later on I thought to myself, that was so

369
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 1: really thoughtful of my mind and my heart to tell me, well,

370
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Speaker 1: you don't have to take care of this now, we'll

371
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: be back when you can handle it. I don't know

372
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Speaker 1: that you ever finished Anny when I told you that

373
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Speaker 1: story before. I was surprised to find that still gives

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00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:34,919
Speaker 1: me goose pet flush and I still feel like crying

375
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: about it. So here's a question for you. In that

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Speaker 1: moment in the in the cemetery office, when you were

377
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: asked the question what was her first name? And out

378
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:54,719
Speaker 1: of your mouth came maybe it was Sylvia. Where did

379
00:25:54,760 --> 00:26:01,280
Speaker 1: that come from? You know, I don't know you were

380
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: named for her. I don't know that's what I figured,

381
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: but you know, um, that's why I offered the name.

382
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: Had you ever had that thought before before that moment

383
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: that it came out of your mouth? I think I

384
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 1: must have known, really on some level, and I think

385
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: I'm on the spot there. I don't remember thinking beforehand

386
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,600
Speaker 1: that she would be Sylvia. But phasebook, what do you

387
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: think her name was? Coming from Jews who named for

388
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 1: people who died. I figured I must be Sylvia and

389
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 1: she must be Sylvia. I mean, this is on the

390
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: one hand, it's a doozy of a secret. It's also

391
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: very far back in the reaches of history in terms

392
00:26:54,600 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: of a life you know, um, and yet there's some

393
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: way in which it seems like it has hovered over

394
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: the course of of your life without knowing it. Um.

395
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: I remember when you first told me the story. What

396
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: I was so struck by was that moment where you said,

397
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: where you just decided today, I'm going to go to

398
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: the cemetery. We're gonna go, We're gonna take buses and trains,

399
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: We're going to get there in the rain. We're gonna

400
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 1: have this kind of day. How did you reconcile? I

401
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: think a lot of people who discover a secret well

402
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: are are at the same time realizing that they were

403
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: lied to. Um. There's a betrayal there in some way

404
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 1: to exactly the word. I just was thinking that in

405
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: the moment of finding out uh Semol was really asking

406
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,479
Speaker 1: me about what particularly was so upsetting to me, and

407
00:27:55,520 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: I said, everybody lied, and I asked and they lied,

408
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: So it was it was stricken from the record. I

409
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: think my sense from Miriam, from friends of mine who

410
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:12,720
Speaker 1: have had similar stories is that they were so unable

411
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: to even they were so frightened of even feeling the

412
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: intensity of their distress. You know what else, I've seen

413
00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: Danny as a meditation guide and confidant for so many

414
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: people people have come on retreat and uh, when I've

415
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: seen them in an individual meetings during a retreat. Retreats

416
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: are always silent, so they don't get to talk to

417
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: each other, and since they're asked not to read or

418
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: to write or two talk during the retreats, they have

419
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: nothing but their own minds to pay attention to. And

420
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: it's universally true that when people uh stop stimuli from

421
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: coming in and spend a lot of the time sitting

422
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: walking back and forth, trying to just be present in

423
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,479
Speaker 1: this moment, that they're herd of mind, of psyche or

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Speaker 1: whatever tells them what they haven't heard before. For me, certainly,

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Speaker 1: it presents a moral inventory. You know, you left this

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Speaker 1: really undone, and you heard so and those feelings and

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00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: you never such a really I'm happy for that, because

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00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: h I feel like after the initial oh dear, my

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00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: mind feels slightly unburdened because I had been keeping the

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00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: secret from myself and I fixed it. My friend Donna Massini,

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00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: a poet, wrote a beautiful poem years ago called I

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00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: Have the Skull that I've Never forgotten. In it, the

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00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: poem is a narrator. A woman has just visited the dentist.

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00:29:55,880 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: She said, cavities filled with novacaine. Obviously I As she

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00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: walks down the street afterwards, she wonders, where does the

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Speaker 1: pain go? She had been numbed, but did that mean

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Speaker 1: she hadn't on some level felt the pain. So that

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Speaker 1: the numbing or the the impossibility or the seeming impossibility

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Speaker 1: of being able to handle something that that painful, doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean that it disappears. You think of something that startles,

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00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: hurts the mind that goes ah, I don't think that.

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Speaker 1: And that's really what I'm teaching people these days. That's

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00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: the all gis of what I'm teaching. It's not to

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00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: be able to so calm your mind that you rise

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Speaker 1: above your stuff, whether you actually see that it's ephemeral

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00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: and it's empty and therefore really isn't significant. It's none

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00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: of those things to be able to recognize this is

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00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: what's happening. This is a feeling that's arising in me.

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00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: This is either it's it's frightening, or it's startling, or

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00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: it's this thing or it's stadding. And I see that

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Speaker 1: that's happening, and I can stay here. I can stay

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00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 1: here and I can know it, and it will pen

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Speaker 1: that I can feel it. I love that you don't

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Speaker 1: have to get out of the way, you can be here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I thought that, as I remember years ago, I was

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00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: saying to a psychotherapy pageant of mine, the same as

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00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: I would say to a meditation student, don't duck, don't duck.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you can do this, don't duck. I'd like

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Speaker 1: to thank my guest, Sylvia Borstein, for sharing her words

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00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: of wisdom with us today. You can find out more

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00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: about Sylvia and her teachings at Sylvia borstein dot com.

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00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: Family Secrets as an i Heeart Media production. Dylan Fagan

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00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: is the supervising producer, Andrew Howard and Tristan McNeil are

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00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: the audio engineers, and Julie doug This is the executive producer.

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Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share.

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00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: You can get in touch with us at listener mail

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00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: at Family Secrets Podcast dot com. You can also find

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00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Danny Ryder, Facebook at Family Secrets Pod,

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00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: and Twitter at fam Secrets Pod That's FAMI Secrets Pod.

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Speaker 1: For more about my book, Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot com.

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Speaker 1: My last question is do you wish that you hadn't known?

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00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: Do you wish that you would never have found out? Oh? No,

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Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to answer it for you. Um oh no, no, no, no.

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Speaker 1: I like knowing. I like knowing