World Dimensions II - משפחה חורגת

Subtitle: Talking to people in the 'world' in which they're located

There's an israeli reality-tv show called משפחה חורגת. They take troubled families/spouses who aren't getting along and try to help them sort things out. The thing I noticed that has been a remarkable insight for me is that when the the shows counselor/social worker, אלון גל, comes to understand an emotional hurdle or problem on the part of one of the family members he chooses to instruct and affect them through physical exercises and assignments, not verbally.

For instance, a couple who's expenses are far beyond their incomes, quickly driving themselves to being broke while the wife spends heavily on pregnancy fetilization treatment... instead of just telling them verbally how their current modus operandi is not viable he gives them an actual physical assignment-- he sends them with a shopping list of basic baby supplies for a month and has them go out to stores and find out first hand how much each item costs and what the total monthly cost for caring for a baby is (which leads the wife to understand that even were she to become pregnant and have a baby she'd then be in no financial position to care of it given her current financial spending habits). Or a couple who's wife puts down her husband and doesn't give him encouragement and warmth,אלון goes with her inside a freezer room and talks to her about it as she can physically "sense" the sensation of how she is freezing her husband all the time.

and what I was thinking to learn from this is that different people have their central 'I', their primary core of self-identity and self-consciousness, in different 'worlds'. Many of us (myself included) are so dead, dulled, and jaded (ונתמטם בם) that even verbal words and instruction don't really, truly penetrate our existential consciousness-- because our existential consciousness is not in the world of words or thought, but in the world of physical action. Hence only physical touchable objects can get through. Reading a book (מחשבה) instructing perfectly on the exact problem that they are going through doesn't help!! "Talking about it" verbally (דיבור) and going over all the ins and out of their faulty logic doesn't help!! all this for the simple reason that they're not really 'there' in that 'world'. They're in the world of pure physical touch (עשיה) and as such only a physical lesson will penetrate them to really internalize the wisdom and thereby change.