The Body Image Revolution
The Body Image Revolution
Self-Accountability & Self-Love With Malka Neustadter
In this episode, life coach Malka Neustadter joins us for a meaningful conversation about the surprising ways we hold more control over our feelings and lives than we often realize—starting with our relationship with ourselves. We explore how self-accountability, when paired with love and compassion, can be a transformative force.
Malka also opens up about her journey as a young mother and wife, sharing the challenges she faced and the pivotal steps she took to reshape her life, leading to the inspiring work she does today.
Follow Malka on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachmalka/
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Hey everyone today. I'm so grateful and excited to have a fellow coach on The Body Image Revolution. I love these conversations because there's always beautiful vulnerability and realness and so many opportunities for thinking about things in ways that you might not have before. Our guest is Malka Neustadter, a life coach for married women who also lives here in Israel. She just has so much wisdom to share, especially about parenting and marriage. She's a mother of six and has been married for almost 30 years. And I really love how she doesn't just present this picture perfect idea of family and marriage. She keeps it very real and even shares how her own struggles in these areas led her to the work that she does today. We also dive into how, when we're struggling, we can. It's easy to blame external factors and we actually have so much more control than we realize, especially over how we feel and how we feel about ourselves. And during this conversation, we realized that's really where our work overlaps. Our relationship with ourselves and how much that plays a role in literally everything and how we show up and how we feel about our lives and our relationships. Of course, we talk about that in way more detail. So definitely stay tuned. If you're working on being more loving to yourself, showing up more fully in your marriage or connecting more deeply with your kids, this conversation is for you and it's packed with insights and Actionable tips to help you continue evolving on your journey. Malka's story is inspiring, and I think it can really restore hope that change is possible, even when you feel stuck. Hope you enjoy. Hello Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Malka.
Malka Neustadter:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Rebecca Sigala:This is gonna be so much fun. We recently ran into each other at a networking event, which I have not gone to in a very long time And it was just so nice to connect with people in person. And we had such a wonderful conversation and realized some of the overlaps that we had in our work. Yeah, It was so, so wonderful to have that conversation. And I'd love for you before we get into everything. I'd love for you to share a little bit about what you do. And then we can talk about some of those overlaps and some of the themes that we see happening for women in the last year or so.
Malka Neustadter:So what I do is I help women who want to improve their family life. And I say family life because it's very often marriage and parenting all like knotted up in each other. They're not completely discreet areas of life because, a woman who is a person who is a wife who is a mom who might also have a career and the things that are bugging me, they're showing up in all those areas together. And so what I do is I help women to identify the inner work that they can do that will then hopefully resolve pretty much all those things together. I mean, you want to work on it one step at a time. But very often it's understanding something about me that will then change the way I relate to myself when I look in the mirror, my husband, my kids, my neighbors, my peers, like it's something about me. Yeah. It's revolutionary work because, generally, when a woman comes with a question, with a problem, with an issue, she's like, I have an issue with them. Whoever them is,
Rebecca Sigala:And specifically, you're working with a lot of people who are coming to you for relationship coaching, right? Like marriage coaching specifically.
Malka Neustadter:Marriage or parenting. And so, you know, nobody comes and says, I'm here to like get in better touch with my inner child. No, I'm here because my kid, my husband, all the kids, whether they're driving me up the wall, I can't take it anymore. and what I do after, of course, letting them get it out, which is really the first very important step that you don't want to skip, is giving a person to just like, vent, just like vomit out all the stuff, like, you've been schlepping this stuff around and it's so heavy and you, you want to give them a chance to put it down, right? And that in and of itself could take some time. And then I imagine a sort of Like that jumbled up jewelry box that you just dump out on the table and you turn on a really strong light and you're like, let's, let's see what's going on here, you know, and you start to like separate them very gently and this chain goes over here and like the earrings got all stuck in the links of the chain. There's, you know, first it's like the dumping, and then it's the sorting.
Rebecca Sigala:That is a great metaphor.
Malka Neustadter:And when it's all sorted out, then you can look at it and go, Oh, I see, this is what I have. Do I want to keep it? How do I want to keep it? How can I store it so that it's better accessible. How can I arrange it so that it works for me? So that every time I want to wear something, right? So every time I want to engage in the relationship, I'm not meeting the mess again. I'm meeting it with a sense of clarity, right? This is me. This is them. This is where we meet. This is what's happening. This is what I can do differently. So after the dumping and the sorting comes, I think, the most surprising aspect for them, which is that I'm not actually going to tell you how to fix them or how to change them or how to make them behave in a way that accommodates you, even though that would be lovely.
Rebecca Sigala:You're giving away all your secrets ahead of time.
Malka Neustadter:That's okay. It's really okay. Actually, it's like a premise of my professional life. Yeah, it's important. Yeah, I don't have secrets. Because I don't think that it is a secret. I think the more we talk about this, the better off we'll all be,
Rebecca Sigala:well, because the thing is, is that people could just Google, like how to respond to your children or like give me tips on how to connect more with my husband, but that's not what it's about. Right.
Malka Neustadter:It's unlikely to really work because you need to take the framework and like the general tips and understand how to apply it to you because the things that bother me about my husband, about my kids. are not the same things that would bother somebody else because they're touching, they're touching something inside me, right? All of us, right? None of us are perfect. And so all of us, whoever we're married to, I'm
just kidding. No, that's always a blow
Malka Neustadter:to people actually to find that out. But whoever it is we're married to, whoever it is, our kids are, it doesn't matter if we have one kid or a thousand kids, it doesn't matter what ages they are. They all do a lot of good things and a lot of annoying things. Yeah, but there's usually only a very small subset of those annoying things that bother me and it's the connection where those things are meeting my inner life My attitudes my ideas my beliefs my wants my everything where they're meeting me That's where the trouble starts, but that's also where the magic is Because if I'm willing to understand where they meet me and to figure out how to change that, because that's a hundred percent mine. I have complete agency, complete authority. Like it's me. It doesn't depend on anybody else. Yeah. I can change so much. And the biggest problem I find is helping women to be willing to say, I want to do something, and I'm doing it for me. And so I'm going to start with me. I don't owe this to anybody else. Nobody is making me do this. This is something I want for me, and so I am going to do something with me so that I can be happier. I'm not going to wait for anybody else.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, it's so interesting how it can become the most empowering thing to realize that we are responsible for ourselves and that, wow, I can change so much just by understanding myself. And then at the same time, it's like the scariest because we just sometimes want an answer. We want things to be fixed. And then, it's easier to kind of blame these external circumstances, like my partner, my kids, finances, my body, all of these things, and it's scary to be like, wait, let me just like, take a breath and understand myself first.
Malka Neustadter:It is very scary. Women, especially. Very often have a deep, often hidden desire that somebody else take care of them, that somebody else fix things for them.
Rebecca Sigala:Wait, let's talk about that. I think that's so, that's so common.
Malka Neustadter:It's very common. I don't even think it's wrong. it's just that if it's what's tripping you up, if it's what's getting in your way, if you're telling yourself a story that, well, but this is His job to fix, he started. He's the one making the mess. He's the one who doesn't get the kids. He's the one who's not listening. Why should I, right?
Rebecca Sigala:Why do women have this need in the first place?
Malka Neustadter:It's a great question, but I'm not sure it's an important question to answer because if it's working for you, right? In other words, if you have this desire and it's working for you, then I'm the last one who wants to take it away from you. If you have it and it's not working for you, then I don't care where you got it from. I just want to help you. Fix it. And so it doesn't interest me so much if it's a patriarchy or if it's your mom, or wherever it is that you picked it up a long way, all that matters is a woman telling me, wherever it is I picked this idea up, it's not serving me. And I'd like a different idea instead, you know? how can I rewrite my script, how can I switch this, you know, like I ordered a salad and it's full of tomatoes and I decided that I don't want to eat tomatoes today, I'd like peppers please, can I send this back, I want something else, and the answer is yes you can. The first thing you need to know, which is probably the hardest question is, what do you want? And it's hard when you answer the question in a way that is not about other people. Not I want him to, not I want them to. What do I want? That's up to me. Right. What am I in control of? How do I want to feel?
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah.
Malka Neustadter:How do I want to feel and what am I willing to do to get there instead of just blaming somebody else? And every woman comes with so many stories, right? It could be like, well, but I already do so much. That's a very common story. Wait, you're going to give me something else to do? I already do everything plus. Things in my marriage in our family are already so unfair. Right? We said we were going to share. We said we were going to be like more egalitarian. Like, where did that go? No, what happened? And so even though it's very important to me to focus on the present and the future and not so much to dig in the past because I just find that to be mostly unhelpful. It is sometimes helpful to try to scroll back in the movie of my life and go, well, was it always like this? If it was always like this, then how come you only want to change it now?
Rebecca Sigala:How did you come to this work? Did you have a personal experience or story that. Totally. We didn't realize how important this was.
Malka Neustadter:This all started, it's totally all started from like me and, and my life. You know, I wanted to be married and have a bunch of kids and a Jewish family and I wanted it to be a happy family. You want to start somewhere? We could start in college. When I was in college. There was a plague of divorce. A lot of people's parents got divorced, many of them very suddenly. I remember sitting around the Jewish Student Union in college and, one of our friends coming in, white as a sheet, looking sick. Like, sit down, what happened? You know, usually it's like, I flunked a test, my girlfriend dumped me. He says, my parents are getting divorced. My parents have been married for 30 years, they don't even fight. Like what? I did not see this coming, you know, and he wasn't the only one. And there were so many and we basically split into two camps. There were the kids who were like, well, this sucks. And I'm never getting married because I'm never doing this to my kids. This is a nightmare. This is terrible. This is horrible. if this is what happens after you get married, I just don't want to go there and, I have not stayed in touch with most of those people, and I hope that they did get married and live happily ever after. I don't know, but I have, I have so much compassion for all the people that we were then and the pain that we were feeling. It was, it was hard. It was really hard. And there was a second group of kids who were like, They did what? We're not going to be like them. We're going to do it better. Like, we're going to figure out what this takes, you know, and I was definitely on the, well, I'm going to hack this, you know, that's not going to happen to me. You know,
Rebecca Sigala:you like saw it as a challenge.
Malka Neustadter:I totally saw it as a challenge. I was also like a somewhat oppositional child. So it was definitely like, Well, fine, you know, if they're like that, I'll be something totally different, you know? Right. Even though in many ways I did aspire to be like my parents in certain things, and I did become like my parents in some ways, there were other ways not. So if there's one thing I want to say, first of all, to anyone who's listening, it's like your relationship with your parents is not just one thing. It can be both. You can want to be like them and not want to be like them at the same time, and that's cool. You do get to choose, and so I was aware even before I was dating and looking for a marriage partner that this was a personal challenge to me. You know, like I was, I wanted to understand everything it took to do this.
Rebecca Sigala:Were your parents divorced?
Malka Neustadter:My parents did get divorced when I was in college. Oh, wow. They were in the cohort, but I was not surprised they hadn't gotten along like since I was young. and so I definitely saw this as like a game that I wanted to win, you know? Maybe that doesn't sound so nice.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, my parents like also got divorced after like 18 years of marriage. I wasn't in college. I was 14. But it is really interesting to have that experience where it's like, yeah, you're not surprised on one hand because they never really got along, but then on the other hand, it is surprising because, like, you stay together for this long and now you're getting divorced.
Malka Neustadter:And even if it's not surprising, it's heartbreaking because no matter how old you are, your parents are always your parents. And you do throughout your life, at least for most people, carry a somewhat childish fantasy about who your parents are and, you know, that Israeli song, like you do kind of think that your parents are like bigger, better, smarter in, in some way, even if you already have an adult perspective on them.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah.
Malka Neustadter:They're not like other adults because they're your parents and it can really hurt when things don't go well for them.
Rebecca Sigala:Right. Kind of like there's a grieving process that comes with that for sure It's not what you expected things to be or like some kind of story or fantasy in your mind is gone,
Malka Neustadter:right? and then I did get married and Thank God. We're still married coming on 30 years, baruch Hashem. Mazal Tov. But you know every so often you'll meet us up and you'll, he thinks, what, we're, we're going to what? Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This was not in the deal or like, I wasn't expecting this or wait, what do I do with that? You know? And so I was, I think as many children of divorce at first I would be really scared. I'd be like, Oh, is this game over? Like that's it? now we're never going to go along again? Like, is he going to divorce me? Am I going to divorce him? did I, did I lose the game? You know, kind of thing. And so I was very, it was very important to me to seek out women who were older, wiser, had been married much longer, who could tell me how one gets through this. You know, I'd be like, I know people do, but I don't know any of them. The people that I, the people who I, grew up with, when these things happened to them, they didn't make it through. Like, how do you go through? What is, what does that feel like? What does that look like? What do you do?
Rebecca Sigala:But also to really go through and not to just shove it down or avoid it. Yeah, yeah.
Malka Neustadter:No, because that doesn't work. Right. Right. Like, what is, it comes out eventually. It always comes out eventually. It's like, what does it mean? What does it feel like? And what do I do? And then when we had our first child, that really, Compounded everything and I feel that this is also a very common story as modern women our self esteem very often is tied up, not just as you know, in our bodies, but also in our accomplishments. You know how much income. Do we bring, or, have we gotten promoted or do we have a prestigious position and all these kinds of things?
Rebecca Sigala:Being married, having kids, like these things that it's not a bad thing to feel pride in those things, but sometimes society makes it that, that defines us as people.
Malka Neustadter:If you don't have it, it doesn't mean you count less in the world.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, exactly.
Malka Neustadter:And when you're home, let's say in Israel on maternity leave, A lot of women face some level of an identity crisis, even if they're going back to a satisfying profession afterwards, after 12 weeks or 14 weeks or whatever it is, because you're home all day with this baby. And especially if it's your first baby, you may not have a lot of confidence in your mothering skills. You may not actually know what to do with a baby. maybe you're 25. And last time you were around, it was a baby when you were babysitting, when you were 13, like you may not, right. You may not come from a big family. You may be an Olah and you don't have your mom, his mom.
Rebecca Sigala:Maybe like a baby yourself, like I was.
Malka Neustadter:I was 21. Right. And so it can be a very, very jarring, I'm not even talking about postpartum depression, which is this whole other thing. Let's say you don't actually have postpartum depression at any level, but you're just in a completely new situation that you are not prepared for. I'm not saying anybody even could prepare you for it if they tried. But it can be a challenge, not just in terms of the practicalities of all the diaper changing and if you're breastfeeding and taking care of yourself and maybe you have stitches and maybe you had a C section. Like it's so many things going on at once that are physical and spiritual and emotional. And in many situations, you may be doing it all on your own, right? Maybe he had to go back to work. Right. And you may not have family or supportive community around you. If you do, that's wonderful. Right. My experience from maternity leave, I can sum up in two words, lonely and hungry.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah.
Malka Neustadter:It was, my first maternity leave was a disaster, a disaster.
Rebecca Sigala:How many kids do you have?
Malka Neustadter:We have six. Baruch Hashem. Wow. And I learned a lot from that experience. I learned a lot. but at the beginning I was. Lost does not begin to describe it. And so when I did finally go back to work, I was very anxious to do it because at work I understood my job. I knew I was good at my job. It was like reassuring to be in a place where I knew what I was doing, where I was, you know, more on top of my game kind of thing. At home, I had to build confidence from nothing, and it really took me quite a lot of time. It was not pretty. But then afterwards, I started seeking out, well, first of all, the oppositional part of me was very helpful, because I was like, I'm not going to let this get me down. You know, I'm not going to fail. I'm going to have another kid. I'm going to try harder. I'm going to, it really did keep me going. And in fact, One traumatic memory that I have is after our third was born, I remember being at the family doctor and saying there's three of them, and one of me, and is it supposed to be this hard? And this is a woman with five kids. And she just kind of looked at me and said, well, if you're not managing, then maybe you shouldn't have any more. Woah. Instead of saying, can you get help? Do you want to tell me what's hard for you? When you say it's hard for you, what do you mean? Is it physically hard? is it financially hard? She didn't even try to understand what was going on. She just kind of said, Well, you're a loser. I mean, that was what I heard, right? That's what you heard. Yeah. And again, I'm lucky that I have that, defiant part of me that said, I'll show you. And I think that was probably around the time that I started seeking out more, Coaching programs and this is quite some time ago. Our oldest is almost 28 already So it's pretty much pre internet Right. It's pre a lot of the places that people go today for parenting support or coaching. At the time there were sets of cassettes that different parenting coaches and teachers, like that moms passed around. I remember listening to some of those and then talking to other friends who had listened to the same cassettes and go like, how do you put this into practice? what do you do? what are you doing with the get to gan in the morning thing? What are you doing with the bedtime bath time thing? how is this helping you? Like, that was the beginning. And then, our fourth, who is now, a chayal, and is, The most wonderful young man. I can't begin to, I adore this. I mean, I love all my kids, but he makes it easy. he is so sweet and he's such a young adult and he's such a mensch. He drove me insane. He was, he was, a holy terror.
Rebecca Sigala:I feel like that's probably giving a lot of moms hope right now.
Malka Neustadter:I hope, I hope so. I really want to tell you who your child is when they're 3 or 5 or 7. Says nothing about who they're going to be when they're 12 or 17 or 25. I really want to say that I, first of all, I have a Jewish belief in Teshuva right. Which means that wherever you are, you can get anywhere. Your growth is unlimited. You can be whoever you want to be. And I don't mean that you can grow rings and be the tooth fairy. Right. But I mean, anything that's depends on your personal growth. If you're struggling with screen time or any kind of addiction or anger or whatever it is, you can grow out of and through and into whatever you want. Your inner strength is unlimited. You might want help from other people, your parents, a rabbi, a coach, a psychologist, whatever. that's why God put billions of people in this world, because we don't have to do everything alone. It's so wonderful to be supported and to be seen and to be helped or coached through things that are difficult for us. But in the end, The one who does the work is, is me, or whoever it is who wants to change. And so, first of all, yes, I totally believe that even teenagers, even like the scariest, most frightening teenagers. I want to tell you one of the things I remember hearing these cassettes over 20 years ago was one teacher saying, There are parents. Who hate their children, and it's not anybody's fault. There's a dynamic going on between the parent and this child that is unhealthy for both of you, and it can get to the point where you wish you didn't have this child anymore. And it is so painful, but if there are parents listening who hear this, I want to tell them that there's nothing wrong with you. And you don't have to waste time feeling guilty about it. Nobody wakes up one day and says, I think I'm gonna hate my kids today. Nobody wakes up and says, I think I'm gonna be a crazy screaming monster at my kids today. Nobody wants to be that parent, okay? there's an energetic ping pong that's going on between you and the kid. and there is a way out, right?
Rebecca Sigala:was the point where you realized that it wasn't about these little tips or what to do at bedtime or whatever, but it was more to do with how you perceive yourself and how you treat yourself and how you think about yourself when
Malka Neustadter:that's a realization, you know, how like. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur come around every year and you're like, but I did this last year. Yeah, but now I need to do it again from a slightly different place. Even though you're going to see a lot of things in common because you're still you and I'm still me, right? But it's not an endless circle. It's a spiral. And each year you're meeting it from a little higher up. So you're like, when is the point? I think I had to meet that point many times. Each time a little bit different, like the time that I heard that cassette, I have a clear memory, not that memories are always accurate, but the way I remember it, I remember the street that I was walking down, I remember which way I was looking, I remember the sunshine on my face, and I remember him talking about these really painful situations where you're so angry at your kid, Where you think that it's just hopeless and I remember thinking if he has never met me and he understands me He's describing exactly everything that's going on in my head and in my feelings right now then he can also help me. That was like the first moment that I remember feeling like, this really sucks, but also apparently there is a way out. And instead of wasting all my time feeling bad, I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn what I can do better. That was the first time. But I met it many other times, right? The next maybe most powerful time was When our fourth kid who was a terror at the time and I actually went to a group workshop for parents for the first time I had already been listening to the cassettes and reading books and working with other moms in an informal way But it was like I need to take the class. I'm going to take the class, right and I went and First of all, there's something wonderful about group programs.
Yeah,
Malka Neustadter:No amount of individual coaching can give you the experience of sitting in a room with 8 or 10 or 12 other women. And hearing each of them share their pain for you to realize that really, really, it's not just me. We're all in this together,
Rebecca Sigala:Right. You can logically understand that and then not feel it. And I have that exact experience with my group coaching program where I just really at this point, this is the fifth time that I'm doing it. And I just deeply feel. That this is the way to work on our body image, like with other women, because yeah, it's one thing to understand. Yeah. Everyone goes through things like this. And it's one thing to really feel it in your bones and to really hear and understand maybe slightly different experiences, but there's always like this commonality that threads us together. And in other people's stories, we feel seen. And we feel understood and then we get to do that for them as well and there's like, I'm not being more incredible than nothing for anything, anything, anything
Malka Neustadter:you think, anything that you are secretly carrying around shame. You are seeing the shame. A group program is the strongest medicine for shame. Ever. Ever. Yeah.
Rebecca Sigala:I feel that so deeply and I think there's so much resistance to it because I get it. I wouldn't also want to do like group therapy or whatever. It's the hardest
Malka Neustadter:thing to get women to join, but the women who do it come out so empowered. And with a much deeper understanding, such an individual program, you can understand it in your head, but deep down, you still don't believe it. Deep down, you still think there's something wrong with you, you're just not doing it right, or you're just not good enough, or whatever it is. it's really hard to go deep enough and strong enough. Compared to what happens in a group program. There's something about the experience of sitting with the other women, and like you said, hearing them, being their witness, like being the container for them to get their pain out, and listening for them, and to them, and then allowing them to do the same thing for you, that's, it's just a whole nother level.
Rebecca Sigala:Absolutely. I've been thinking about this recently, so it's so interesting that that came up.
Malka Neustadter:Yeah, so that was also really great. and then in parallel to this, I also decided that I wanted to study to teach Jewish premarriage classes, because, a lot of times the things that are bothering us, the best way to learn about that is to learn to teach about them. And so I said, like, this will be a great way for me to have. like a framework with which I can explore all my questions about Jewish marriage, femininity, sexuality, parenting, like how do all these things work together? Where is God in the picture? Like my Jewish religious identity is very important to me. And I definitely have this idea that if any aspect of Taharat HaMishpacha or anything else in my family life, even just like waiting until after Kiddush to eat when I'm hungry, you know, whatever it is that's hard to me, my personal idea was like, God is good and the Torah is good. So if parts of it are hard for me, the problem isn't God. The problem is me. And if I learn about it enough, then maybe it won't be hard anymore. That was like the attitude that I went into studying with. So I took one course and then I started teaching and then after a couple of years, I took another course, and then every so often, I would hear that the teachers from the courses I had taken were teaching other things, and I would take another class, as my family got bigger, and I had more kids to take care of, and more things to keep up on, I didn't always have an opportunity to just have conversations with other women, you know, and that's something that I think we all really need, and so taking classes became a way for me to do that, it provided a framework, a container in which I could listen, learn, study, read, ask questions, get answers, lather, rinse, repeat. so I was doing Hadrachat Kalot, mostly teaching women, sometimes couples, mostly non observant women or less observant women, sometimes also converts. I was teaching English, I was teaching Hebrew, and that helped me a lot, to grow into more of the person that I wanted to be, you know, Jewish woman, well informed Jewish woman, explaining things and then sitting with myself afterwards to reflect and say, the thing that I told her, do I really believe that? Am I really living up to that? If I am cool, what's the next level? If I'm not, then why? am I faking it? what's missing there? it was fulfilling and challenging all at the same time. It was really wonderful experience.
Rebecca Sigala:I feel like that is like the life of a coach, if you want it to be obviously, but like, To be always immersed in these growth oriented journeys. Absolutely. Really bring up a lot for ourselves personally. And it's such a beautiful opportunity to be more self aware and also be growing alongside of our clients.
Malka Neustadter:Absolutely. And then eventually I applied to train as a coach, which I did. I studied at Marques Sheffer. the program there is actually before I started coach training, I took a summer workshop there, like a self awareness workshop, and that was tremendously eye opening. and then once I had done that and I realized that I felt comfortable with the framework, I applied to train there as a coach, so first we train to do group workshops for parents, and then, individual workshops for parents, then marriage coaching, and then individual life coaching, so I've done pretty much the whole program by now,
Rebecca Sigala:Something that stuck out to me when we were speaking at the networking event, I remember saying something like, I'm sure body image comes up a lot. And you're like, actually, not really. So I'm curious if, since we spoke, if it's come up more, how you see it in general, why you felt attracted to my work and where those overlaps are.
Malka Neustadter:So it doesn't come up more often, although I am listening for it more. Yeah. And so it could be that it will, and what I found most fascinating and also really reassuring and inspiring, about your work is that it totally matches, my number one, conclusion, which is, my happiness, my joy, my self esteem, my satisfaction, my self worth does not depend on anything, anything. Doesn't depend on my bra size, on my waist, on my weight, on whether I am or I'm not married, whether I do or don't have kids, whether my kids look or behave the way they're supposed to, on my income. Doesn't depend on anything. Okay. If you're alive, you matter. Yeah. even if you're a nice person, I'm so like, not nice person. They don't actually have less self worth. I mean, I think people should be nice, right? But like, like people matter because they're people.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, because they exist.
Malka Neustadter:Because you exist. and without being aware of it, we are spending our lives trying to prove something that you don't need to prove because it's already yours.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah.
Malka Neustadter:And so that's what I found so fascinating about your work is that even if you're coming at, You know, self work from a different angle than mine. The conclusion is the same, right? I call it, I call it glorious okayness, glorious okayness. It's not about being perfect. Nobody is or ever is going to be perfect. Things are never going to be just exactly the way you think they should be. That's not the way the world works, but they can still be wonderful. And I want to say very important before the toxic positivity police come at us. That doesn't mean that. Nothing is wrong or that nothing needs to be fixed or that nothing needs to change and it doesn't mean that you're ignoring or pretending. It doesn't mean any of those things. It means that I am allowed to see the things that are okay and I'm allowed to enjoy them together with everything else in life. And very often the place that we're in is we're only ever seeing what's wrong and we don't give ourselves any permission to enjoy the good stuff because we think we're not allowed to because we have to fix all the other stuff too. Like a woman might come to you and say, well, I'll enjoy my body when I lose weight, when I gain weight, when I overcome an eating disorder, when I don't, whatever it is. You know, what's stopping you from liking yourself right now,
Rebecca Sigala:because it's going to be the same thing, even if and when your body changes
Malka Neustadter:and working towards whatever goals you have from a place of self respect feels very different than working out from a place of, I hate myself, so I better lose that weight or I better whatever, right. And it doesn't mean that people who like themselves. aren't still trying to change things about themselves. They might still be trying to heal their relationship with food or with their parents or with money.
Rebecca Sigala:Really, I mean, I don't know how you feel about this, but like, one of the things that really bothers me is that, like, weight loss gets lumped into the personal development world. Like, if you're on the road to weight loss, then you are on this personal development journey. You're working on yourself, you're becoming a better version of yourself, when really, like, to me, that is diet culture. and it's actually much harder. To learn to love yourself as you are.
Malka Neustadter:It's the complete other way around. The more you love yourself, the less likely you are to treat your body as a trash can. So if for whatever reason you want to lose weight, whether because you think that you'll like the way you look more, because your doctor told you, you should or whatever it is. The more I can accept and respect and like myself where I am now.
Rebecca Sigala:The more you want to take care of your body exactly like what I actually my approach is like not weight loss oriented at all my approach is shifting that focus and that desire from weight loss and actually, like you said like really seeing the value in yourself really seeing the good in yourself and Naturally, you want to start taking care of yourself from that place So you might lose weight you might not but that's not even the point anymore
Malka Neustadter:And if you don't lose weight you're just much more likely to be preparing yourself food that actually nourishes you. Mm hmm. And if you do want to eat whatever your idea of junk is, you're likely to be able to eat just a little bit of it and, you know, and be satisfied
Rebecca Sigala:like when you really tune in and listen to your body.
Malka Neustadter:Right. So I agree it doesn't have to be about like achieving some weight loss goal or some certain shape the goal really is to just live better with myself and when I do that I'm much likely to want to take better care of myself because I'm I very often will tell people like If you were somebody who you actually liked, would you speak to them that way? Yeah, your best friend, your kid,
Rebecca Sigala:your, yeah, exactly. So
Malka Neustadter:let's try that.
Rebecca Sigala:I think it's important to go on that self love journey. Without trying to rely on those external results because there are many people who will be like, well, when you heal, you'll be thin. When you heal, you'll be rich. When you heal, your life will be perfect. And that's not the truth.
Malka Neustadter:And also healing is maybe something that we're never finished doing. it's not a fixed point. It's not something I'm going to achieve and check off and get a trophy. It's not like that.
No, it's like even if you,
Malka Neustadter:come to me, one of the things that I like the most about the way I trained to coach is that I don't have like a framework for zero to three year olds or six to nine year olds or like a separate course for teenagers because I'm working with the mom and her inner life, her inner story or her inner wisdom. It doesn't matter what age your kids are, and it doesn't matter what issues they're bringing to you that you're facing. Wherever it is that it meets you, right? That's the important stuff. That's the important thing, and the more you understand that, it isn't going to matter what age or what stage or what issue. You're going to be prepared. Right? You're going to be able to look at the section and go, Oh, I get it. I hear what's happening. Right? I hear that when they do this, I'm thinking that I'm not a good enough mom, that I'm a lousy person, but I don't know what to do. That I'm this, that I'm that, and the other thing. And then when you can hear that, and when you can work with that in a compassionate, patient way and tell yourself a different story. it flows naturally into a different response to the child or your husband or whoever it is, and the more you practice that day after day, week after week, month after month, It's like a muscle. Right. It's totally like that. And at the beginning it feels unnatural and stiff and artificial, but the more you practice, the more beautifully natural it becomes. And people, we tend to really overestimate. The value of like words, people say, use your words, talk to me about it. You know what? A huge component of human communication, interaction, and relationships is non verbal communication. Yeah. Right? It's body language, it's energy, it's all kinds of things. When you walk into your house, in a second, your brain has given you a lot of information about who's around, what they're doing. Is it a good mood? Is it a stressed mood? Like,
Rebecca Sigala:right.
Malka Neustadter:And we don't give it. And like, fortunately or
Rebecca Sigala:unfortunately, that's what our kids receive from us as well. Like if we are able to be like I actually did go to a parenting coach this year. And, so much of it was about being able to be in my body in the present moment.
Malka Neustadter:It's a lot of it and learning to identify the energy that you're experiencing and the energy that you're sharing and just asking yourself simple questions like, is this where I want to be right now? And it's not about never getting angry or never shouting It's not about never anything, there's room for a wide range of emotions and interactions. It's just more about you showing up for yourself, first of all, as the adult. Right. And then them also benefiting from the fact that, hey, an adult has entered the room.
Rebecca Sigala:and you're really showing them how to choose themselves and to think how to think about themselves which is very much related to like how our relationships with our bodies as well. Like, I see that my parents are Treating themselves a certain way talking to themselves a certain even if it's in our mind for sure It's manifest in so many different areas of our lives,
Malka Neustadter:And you don't even need to be doing it for them. You just need to do it, right? Exactly. They'll either pick up on it or they won't they'll either follow your example or they won't We spend too much of our time trying to like Do it at them, you know,
Rebecca Sigala:yeah, one other thing I wanted to say about toxic positivity, which that does come up a lot because There's this idea of body positivity, which I don't know how much like I mean There's definitely things about body positivity, which I really like and incorporate into my work, but That doesn't encapsulate my work. That's for sure. but I think people have this idea when you talk about either body positivity or even just body image in general, that is all about just being positive and something that I saw recently was, I think, a quote from Adam Grant, and he said something about. Informed positivity, and I really loved it because like you said our brains often go to the negative like that's just how our brains are wired, but if we are actually being self aware and informed of what's really going on and really wanting to see the truth of the situation. More often than not, there is a possibility of positivity. There is a thought that can serve us better so that we get the results that we want in our lives. And it's not untrue. It's true. It's actually more true. and so when we're, just faced with, our brain and the circumstances, and we don't have that self awareness, then I think we're actually lacking the truth that we really want.
Malka Neustadter:Positivity is like a hook that helps me climb up the ladder of life. It's not about denying the work that needs to be done or the things that are wrong or the things that are missing. It's not about that. But it raises my perspective so that I can see a bigger picture. It's like a lighthouse. A lighthouse, right, shines light from really high up so that it can shine far. Yeah. If a kid is doing a whole lot of things wrong, acting out, whatever it is, and I can find a good thing about that kid, I'm not doing it to deny the other things that might need whatever they need. I'm doing it to help me. to see this kid not just as the problem.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah.
Malka Neustadter:Right? But to widen my perspective on who this person is because that's going to help me interact with them in a much healthier way. Instead of them just saying, I got thrown out of school today. I did this wrong. I did that wrong. And you'd be like, just trying to like, whack-a-mole your way through parenting, right? If I can remind myself, as we're going through everything that this kid, also, whatever is nice to his little sister or whatever the things are it's to help me. Right. It shifts
Rebecca Sigala:your perspective. It shifts
Malka Neustadter:my perspective to seeing them not just as like, a checklist of things that are wrong, but like as a whole person who has things that are going great and things that are not. Right. And like you said, it helps you to have hope for the future. The fact that they're working through this stuff now doesn't mean they're always going to be like this. It doesn't mean that. And very often we get like thrown from. You know, my kids didn't get into the right first grade, and so they're not going to get into the right high school, and then they're not going to get into the right, you know, Life is messed up, like, that's it. Their whole life is messed up because of the right first grade. No. First grade is just first grade. There's a lot more opportunities. A lot.
Rebecca Sigala:I mean, and if we're thinking that way. It says so much more about our relationship with ourselves. Because if we're seeing ourselves through the lens of like, Oh, I messed this up. I'm not good at this. I don't like this part of my body. it's so unfair. It's not seeing yourself as your whole. And you're not giving yourself credit where it's actually due and then you're functioning from that place and then you're judging other people more because you judge yourself that way. And so that's really how the relationship with yourself actually transforms the way that you see others.
Malka Neustadter:A hundred percent. And that is where our work connects.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah,
Malka Neustadter:that's exactly it. That's exactly it. It's letting go of the judgment and improving your relationship with yourself and letting that just send positive ripples into every other aspect of your life, which it really will do.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. What advice would you give someone who is kind of in that place of like self judgment and not sure how to approach this whole informed positivity thing?
Malka Neustadter:Three things. Number one, very often it's easiest to attack it from not directly. So two things that I would recommend for people who are struggling with self judgment or that are not Like so close to home. One is mindfulness meditation. It can be just really three minutes a day, one minute a day, something. One minute, yeah. Committing to a mindfulness meditation can really, really, really make a difference. it's very hard for judgy, achievement oriented people to do it. So it feels like you're wasting time, like, what am I doing just sitting here doing nothing? I feel like I can relate
Rebecca Sigala:to that on such a deep level. I feel like based on what you shared today, very achievement oriented, like even hard on yourself.
Malka Neustadter:Absolutely. And mindfulness meditation is still one of the hardest things that I do. Yeah. But I see what a difference it makes if you can actually sit there and just think about your breath. for a minute and realize. So hard, yes. But that, that moment in the world, you matter just as much as in the minutes when you're changing the world and doing all the things. That's what you're there to learn. Right? So that's one way to, that's one
Rebecca Sigala:way to approach it. You don't have to be productive or to be doing things or accomplishing things in order to be worthy. Like you can just be there and be.
Malka Neustadter:Right. And the fact that you are matters. And meeting that every day for a minute is a big challenge and I highly recommend it.
Rebecca Sigala:Okay, meditation number one.
Malka Neustadter:Yeah, exercise.
Rebecca Sigala:Even though, even,
Malka Neustadter:even though achievement oriented people can take it, you know, to like the competitive whatever.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, or anyone can take it to like the place of self hate and punishment.
Malka Neustadter:But, but it does do such good things. For your mind for your biochemistry for everything. Absolutely. Whatever kind of exercise, whatever kind of movement you can do, try to do some every day.
Rebecca Sigala:doing it from a place of like, I love myself and I'm giving myself this gift.
Malka Neustadter:Ideally, but even if you're doing it in like the less compassionate way it might still loosen something up in your mind because we know that exercise does that. Yeah. It does promote a healthier, more positive body chemistry, even if you're not doing it for the best possible reasons. So you know, dance, walk, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be super competitive. It can be if you want to just move. and then lastly, I would say, try to embrace some kind of self awareness, self understanding, self growth, self love program, whether it's with a coach, whether it's, through learning Tanya, whether it's, you know, find something that works for you. I was just talking about Tanya
Rebecca Sigala:today. I really like Tanya a lot.
Malka Neustadter:Yeah. Tanya will do that for a lot of people. if you learn to see yourself as a beloved child of God and to believe that God put you here for a reason and loves you no matter what, and he's like the ultimate coach telling you, you have your job cut out for you today. I know you can do it. Get out there and do it. Yeah.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. It's inspiring.
Malka Neustadter:So whatever form of that exploration looks like for you, whether it's a group coaching program, whether it's private coaching, whether it's Tanya or Pirkei Avot, or training. A little bit of everything. Yeah, whatever it is, but, but find something, you know, and work on it one little step at a time. I think one thing that gets people derailed is the idea that like, I have to do all the things, right? And any coach in any area, if they're a good coach is going to help you to understand that the way to get to all the things is one little step at a time and you have to be specific. And today I'm going to work on this and tomorrow I'm going to work on that. And maybe I'm going to be working on the same thing for six weeks. or your whole life, right? and that's cool because yes, patience. And compassion and deferred gratification and long term efforts, these are not things that our modern culture is great at helping us to do.
Rebecca Sigala:So true.
Malka Neustadter:And they're exactly what we need. And they can be very difficult to do on your own. So whatever kind of support it is you have, whether it's from a journal or a coach or a learning group or a something. You're much more likely to succeed if you don't try to do it yourself, although if you can do it yourself, wonderful. so those would be the three things.
Rebecca Sigala:That's beautiful. What's going on in your business? how can people work with you today?
Malka Neustadter:People can work with me today or a lot of other days by just sending me a message from my website or my Instagram. You do one on one right now? I do one on one. I would ideally love to do groups, although I haven't done a group in a few years. and you know, let's be real. I will say that I'm, I am making excuses exactly that we talked about, like, oh yeah, I'll open a group when it's not COVID, when it's not the war, when it's not this and that. Oh my gosh, yeah. Okay, so just be a little bit of real there, it happens to me too. so I don't have any plans for a group program right now, although, as I said before.
Rebecca Sigala:But it sounds like that would be like the most, I do believe that there are. thing for you.
Malka Neustadter:So fantastic. Yeah. and I also have a link in my bio on Instagram to a collection of other podcast conversations that I've done. So if people just want to hear more from me. You know, other conversations where I've talked about marriage and parenting, about trust and about love and all kinds of things. There's a whole bunch of conversations up there. So you could start by just listening to them and getting some ideas. you can DM me and ask to set up a first session. and I really just love women supporting other women. I do think that family life can be the most wonderful thing. can be a supportive thing. I know there's like a certain other attitude out there today that like families are oppressive and they're bad for women, and if you think that, then I'm not the right person for you. Wonderful. But that doesn't always mean that they're easy and fun, but I just do the things that are
Rebecca Sigala:like worth it. Our greatest teachers.
Malka Neustadter:Right. And I really want to assure anybody who feels like things are going a bit off the rails and wants to get them back on track that I really believe that it's possible. Yeah. And it's not the most difficult thing in the world. I do relatively short term coaching. most problems, at least the ones that I've ever met, don't in my mind require longterm therapy. If you want long term therapy, I'm probably not your person. But I do very goal oriented, very practical things, you know. Three weeks, six weeks, 12 weeks, you should be well on your way. You know, if you want more afterwards, we can talk about it, but right. It's identify. We want to give people
Rebecca Sigala:those like actionable tools to
Malka Neustadter:Identifying the problem where I am what like what hurts where I am right now, where do I want to be? And how do I want to feel? And then how do we create the ladder that will help me to get from where I am to where I want to be? And practice it one step at a time.
Rebecca Sigala:Right, yeah, I think people think it's impossible to change how they feel about something, but it's actually so much within our control. And I hope that's what People are taking away from this conversation that they really do have that power within them to choose their lives and choose the way they feel about themselves.
Malka Neustadter:There's not any such thing as a wrong feeling or a bad feeling, but if your feelings are sitting on you here and like smudging you down all the time, you don't have to take that you can learn how to work with that and free yourself from the things that keep telling you that you're no good. Or that you're bad, or that you're not doing a good job, or that you're not worthy of love, or whatever those things are, you don't And
Rebecca Sigala:so much of the time that's not even ourselves, like that's society, or our parents, or whatever messages that we got. I find that when I start unwinding those things with women, they're like, wait a second, I don't even believe that, I'm just telling myself that, you know? so it is really empowering to realize, yes, you can choose something else, and maybe you never even believed that in the first place.
Malka Neustadter:You can, and even if it came from somewhere else, but you internalized it, and you started to believe it, you don't have to keep believing it. You can actually get it out there, in the room, in the conversation, on a piece of paper, and then look at it and go, I don't think I'll be keeping this one anymore. Yalla bye. Love that so much. And then replace it with something else because, you know, nature does not really like a vacuum. You can't just unload the stuff that you don't want. You're going to want to replace that with the things that you and I both work on, right? Self love, self respect, self trust, appreciation, right? Once you clear out all the junk. You want to let the sunshine in.
Rebecca Sigala:100%. Beautiful. Thank you so much. This has been such a lovely conversation. Thank you. It's hope that it gives women hope because there is hope and there is possibility and yeah, thank you for your wisdom and for your vulnerability. I really appreciate you.
Malka Neustadter:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I enjoyed the conversation so much.
Rebecca Sigala:Pleasure.