I founded Next Self in 2025. For a 2026 index of content: http://nextself.ai/wisdom/2026-index/ Or trauma themed content.
NextSelf helps people understand their inner world so they can stop living from survival patterns, like people pleasing, and start practicing relationship, with themselves, with others, and with The Creator. Through Chassidus and psychology education.
If you have any criticism of content, leave a comment on that post and it will be addressed.
“When one person does relationship work with another human, it’s like bringing an atonement offering on behalf of the Creator for the suffering humanity experienced through Creation” Human relationship work helps turn suffering into revealed goodness. – based on a talk of the Lubavitcher Rebbe about a Midrash.
What you believe effects how your nervous system feels, if you choose to believe in randomness or that the Creator is a bully, that harms your nervous system, choosing to believe in a Creator and trusting He is good, helps your nervous system, 13 principles of faith by the Rambam, when understood through Chabad Chassidus, explain healthy faith.
If you want my psychology book recommendations, they give an idea of what my psychology content is based on, skip below.
I was born in Brooklyn, moved to south Florida at 6 months old, Montreal at around 4.5 🙂
My mother learned about Judaism through Chabad (her paternal grandmother was native canadian) so I studied at the Rabbinical College of Canada (chabad) through 8th grade, I didn’t get accepted to the chabad school suggested to me for 9th grade so went to the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland (Litvak) and was there through 11th grade and then moved to Israel.
Since 2009, I have continued studying Jewish texts through online classes and teachers, including Rabbi Tzvi Freeman on Chabad.org, Aleph Beta, Rabbi YY Jacobson (600+ classes since around 2013), Rabbi Yossi Paltiel (1000+ classes on kabbalah/chassidus since 2013), Rabbi Manis Friedman, Chayenu app and Rabbi Glatstein.
An important post explaining trauma research: Thinking for hours may be rumination and not problem solving and How to practice compassion when feeling guilt.
In 2012, I started building consumer product brands through Amazon. Over time, thank G-d, those businesses reached millions in annual revenue. I have also been studying consumer psychology/marketing since 2009.
In 2016 an individual filed litigation against me for 20m+ in damages in federal court b/c an individual he hated was scraping his website and was using my insurance license to help operate the business that was scraping the plaintiffs website, because of out of control trauma patterns, fawn (people pleasing) and freeze, I was in litigation for 10+ years and went along with a sharing a lawyer with the other defendants and covering all the costs, my lawyer hid evidence that would’ve helped me, like how I wasn’t profiting or had any ownership in the company that was doing the scraping, the judge thought I was profiting from it the entire time and one of the defendants convinced my trial lawyer not to notify me about he court date that i could’ve attended through video and testified, I ended up being responsible for a 500k+ judgement, etc.
from 2015-17 I was living with out of control depression from not making boundaries or practicing enough self compassion, from 2018 to 2023, I was living with severe autoimmune physical disease activity (spondylitis, a type of Rheumatism), it began after I learned an individual I was close with fled to another country to avoid going to jail and I haven’t heard from him since, I was living with out of control anxiety/depression before that incident. During those years, I started noticing clear patterns between emotional stress (like anger, severe depression and anxiety, from dealing with lots of dishonest people, etc), my nervous system, and my physical health, I first started experiencing moderate-severe disease activity around age 6-8 but it was in remission by age 12.
Medications, vitamins, peptides, years of a basic diet of quinoa, carrots, and tahina, Chinese medicine, and exercise were not enough. Severe disease activity causes an intense trauma to a nervous system/body.
In early 2021, I heard Dr. Bessel van der Kolk explain that healing trauma requires becoming an expert with feelings (on a rabbi yy Jacobson q&a with him). That idea changed the direction of my life. I went on to study more than 15 books that year and many classes on psychology and trauma research, and practiced lots of breath work.
By late 2023, Baruch Hashem, I no longer needed a wheelchair. I was able to reduce my autoimmune medication significantly, regain enough muscle to live without chronic pain, and build more self esteem through learning self compassion and practice boundaries in a bunch of business relationships. Living in Thailand was critical because it is peaceful for my body, doing a lot of physical therapy, and using stem cells from fresh placenta also helped.
My nervous system didn’t fully heal. If the temperature goes below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, my muscles tighten, below 60 degrees it can tighten enough to trigger disease activity, as of mid 2026, it’s not as intense as it used to be. Air pressure also effects my nervous system, tropical climates are the least triggering for me, feeling triggered means living with less awareness/curiosity.
My team is available for Amazon ecommerce consulting or to partner in building a brand and also for building and managing marketing teams of 1+ in jerusalem/tel aviv.
In early 2025, a business partner cause millions of dollars in financial harm to me and himself, by harming the business we co-owned, through hi-jacking business accounts to force me to leave the business, b/c he wanted me to change my perspective about him, from letting him know I didn’t trust him, you’ve got to be very careful when making boundaries with people and great to begin is letting someone know you want to have a difficult conversation with them.
Baruch Hashem, because of AI, I can now publish content much faster and explain ideas that were helpful in my healing journey and relationships.
You can follow my latest psychology and spiritual content on Facebook, Instagram, the Next Self Daily Wisdom page, or the NS blog. Let me know if you have any ideas to help develop content.
For a list of short 50+ 1 line ideas: http://nextself.ai/spirituality/wisdom/
You can reach me at ben@nextself.ai.
Psychology Book Recommendations
These are some of the books that helped me understand generational trauma, emotional healing, self compassion, boundaries, and intimacy. There is also YouTube summaries about many of these ideas.
Peaceful Parenting: How To Stop Yelling and Start Connecting: https://www.amazon.com/Peaceful-Parent-Happy-Kids-Connecting/dp/0399160280 – I paid for this book to be translated to Hebrew, let me know if you want a Hebrew copy.
The Body Keeps the Score
The first half explains the research on trauma. The second half explains the research behind practices that help people heal.
amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748/
Breaking Patterns of Depression
Helpful for understanding depressive patterns and how they keep repeating.
amazon.com/Breaking-Patterns-Depression-Michael-Yapko/dp/0385483708
Summary of book: http://nextself.ai/mental-health/breaking-patterns-of-depression/
How survival patterns become apart of the personality through generational trauma and what they look like: https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Surviving-RECOVERING-CHILDHOOD/dp/1492871842/
Self-Care for Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
Helpful for understanding many symptoms of trauma.
amazon.com/Self-Care-Children-Emotionally-Immature-Parents/dp/1684039827
Addictive Thinking
Helpful for understanding how addictive thinking works, trauma patterns can become addictive. amazon.com/Addictive-Thinking-Abraham-Twerski-M-D/dp/1568381387
Love Worth Making
Helpful for understanding how intimacy works.
amazon.com/Love-Worth-Making-Ridiculously-Long-Lasting/dp/1250113105
What My Bones Know
Includes guidance from Dr. Ham and helps explain the struggle with aggression and trauma.
amazon.com/What-My-Bones-Know-Healing/dp/0593238109
Healing the Shame that Binds You
Helpful for understanding toxic shame.
amazon.com/Healing-Shame-Binds-Recovery-Classics/dp/0757303234
Running on Empty No More
Helpful for understanding how to recover from childhood emotional neglect.
amazon.com/Running-Empty-More-Transform-Relationships/dp/1683506731
Silently Seduced
Helpful for understanding what happens when a parent uses a child for emotional support.
amazon.com/Silently-Seduced-Parents-Children-Partners/dp/0757315879/
The Gift of Therapy
Helpful for understanding how vulnerability works.
amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617
Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents
Helpful for boundaries and recovery.
amazon.com/Recovering-Emotionally-Immature-Parents-Boundaries/dp/1684032520
Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual
Helpful as a practical system for self compassion.
amazon.com/Internal-Family-Systems-Skills-Training/dp/1683730879/
Codependent No More
Helpful for building self esteem and recognizing common symptoms of codependency.
amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-Yourself-ebook/dp/B0B18JHYMC
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Helpful for understanding abusive/unhealthy thinking and how it works (i was dealing with multiple people with out of control unhealthy thinking through business).
amazon.com/Should-Stay-Relationship-Can-Should-be/dp/042523889X These two posts are also helpful summaries of that kind of pattern:
An article explaining how to notice the Creator is good: http://nextself.ai/spirituality/infinite-creator-wants-creation/
Thank you for taking the time to read my content, let me know if you have any feedback.