School of Positive Transformation

08/18/2026

We like the idea that our self is stable and consistent, something that feels reliable. In reality, different parts of us emerge depending on who we are with.

One of my therapy clients described this fluctuation: There are people around whom I become funnier. Others make me quieter. Around some people, I find myself apologizing before I have done anything wrong. Around others, I speak with a confidence I didn’t know I have.

For years he believed that his personality belonged entirely to him. Through our work together, he began noticing that different people seemed to summon entirely different versions of him.

Think of the person around whom you feel most like yourself. Now think of someone around whom you become smaller, more careful, or less recognizable. Perhaps one of the most important questions we can ask about a relationship is not simply, ‘Do I love this person?’ It is, ‘Who do I become when I am with them?’

We do not carry one fixed personality unchanged from room to room. Different relationships awaken different memories, expectations, defenses, and possibilities within us.

Others’ expectations can shape our sense of self and our behavior. People who have known us for a long time may unintentionally continue relating to us as our old self. In their presence, we can find ourselves returning to an old role long after we have outgrown it.

This leads to a more challenging insight about relationships: we can love someone deeply and still dislike the person we repeatedly become around them. Evaluating a relationship may require us to look not only at how we feel about the other person, but also at how they shape our own way of being.

In psychology, we call it the Michelangelo phenomenon: close relationships “sculpt” us toward - or away from - our ideal self. People who recognize and support the person you hope to become can make that version of you easier to find and express.

This is not about blaming other people for the versions of ourselves that emerge around them. Relationships are co-created, shaped by both people’s histories, expectations, fears, and patterns. Still, the person we repeatedly become in a relationship is important information.

Every relationship is a room with its own emotional climate. In some rooms we stretch out and breathe deeply; in others we instinctively make ourselves smaller.

We may not choose every relationship in our lives, but we can become more conscious within each one. Sometimes, simply noticing who we become is the first step toward choosing a different way of being.

Which relationships allow more of you to exist?

08/04/2026

Whether you realize it or not, you are performing on a stage. Every decision and choice you make, and every action you take, is performed on life’s stage. The only question is, who sits in the audience? For whom are you performing?

I remember writing a social media post – and as I was going to post it, it suddenly hit me: this post had nothing to do with who I really was. It was not written from my heart, and it was not meaningful to me; instead, I wrote something that did not feel aligned with my values or the topics I’m passionate about, just because I thought it would interest others.

In that moment, I was acting on life’s stage, with the audience being my followers rather than my core values.

This imagined audience becomes harmful when we begin to satisfy others’ perspectives, demands, or expectations, leaving behind our own heart, values, and intuition.

This audience is not real. It is simply embedded in your mind. You are trying to impress your parents, younger self, ex-partner, old classmates, social media, strangers, the child inside who never felt they were enough. You are performing in front of ghosts.

This imagined audience then becomes part of what shapes your choices: should you leave the relationship, start a business, move countries, write the book…

What would happen if there had been a fire alarm at the theatre and the entire audience had been evacuated? You would be performing only for yourself.

Can you imagine how it would feel living without an audience? Nobody to judge, admire, criticize. Would it then change your choices? The answer to this question determines what truly belongs to you. It shows which path or choice is rooted within you.

My favorite psychological framework for the above is self-determination theory. It says that we are all motivated by the need to grow – and this motivation is internal, not external. You experience greater wellbeing when your actions are driven by personal values and intrinsic motivation rather than by approval (“yayyy, they like it”), status (“ahhh, at last, im senior manager”), or some external reward (“I’m going to the gym – mostly so that my ex would regret our breakup”).

Another psychological element that I love, and is highly relevant here, is authenticity. Everything in this newsletter is asking you the simple question: do you live an authentic life? When your actions align with your values, you then live more authentically - and, as a result, you experience greater wellbeing.

Authenticity is all about making decisions that still make sense when nobody is watching.

As time goes by, and I observe my own life, I realize that the greatest luxury in life isn't having everything.

It's having nothing left to prove.

And then the audience recedes into the background, loses its impact, and you are left with yourself, your core, your heart, your personal compass to navigate your life’s choices.

07/16/2026

I frequently hear from clients about their imagined version in which they chose the “right” partner, moved to this beautiful place around the world, and left or joined a certain job. That version of themselves always seems to be happier and more fulfilled than their actual life experience. Does it resonate with you in any way?

What we frequently forget is that this unchosen life has an unfair advantage: the life you rejected remains protected from reality. Because you never lived it, it hasn't disappointed you, hurt you, exposed your limitations, become boring or repetitive, or developed the difficulties that accompany every real life.

This imaginary life is like a honeymoon – full of beautiful promises before we face the real-life challenges of marriage.

This is an important realization because many of us are invested in an imagined, alternative life, rather than the one we have actually chosen.

You can make a decision while remaining internally uncommitted. This division makes it difficult for you to fully invest in the relationship/job/location because part of your energy that could have been devoted to building intimacy, mastery, meaningful relationships, and belonging is actually tied to an escape route.

I am not saying you have to stay where you are. If the relationship, career, place you live, or any other choice does not feel right, you can choose to move in a different direction. All I’m saying is that as long as you choose to stay where you are – you might as well truly and fully invest yourself in that experience.

I remember my transition from academia to entrepreneurship, starting the School of Positive Transformation. While it held some wonderful benefits such as independence (that was the big one for me – calling the shots and creating my own path), increased financial gain, and endless creativity, there were also disadvantages. For example, I pulled away from my circle of colleagues, which was painful. I also missed the wonderful collaborations that led to fascinating insights, books, and research. I then made a conscious choice to accept both the advantages and disadvantages so that I could fully bring myself into my new entrepreneurial adventure, instead of getting lost ruminating about what I had lost or left behind.

We plant ourselves in one garden but keep carrying half the water to gardens that exist only in our imagination. Then we interpret the dryness of our real garden as proof that we planted ourselves in the wrong place. In reality, we are wasting water in imagined gardens, while the one where we are actually planted is dry.

In psychology, we have the concept of “counterfactual thinking”. It refers to the mind’s ability to imagine how the past might have unfolded differently. “If only I had stayed with my ex…”, “if only I had waited at the previous job…”, “if only I had moved to Thailand…” – This kind of thinking pulls us from our actual life experience into a dream world that is often filled with regret and frustration.

Keeping every possibility alive may feel like freedom, but it can prevent us from developing the depth that only limitation and commitment make possible. True freedom sometimes comes from willingly closing a door.

If you don’t offer your full energy, care, intimacy, and heart to the thing you have chosen, how will you ever know whether or not it is right for you?

07/01/2026

The first time it happened, I felt surprised: I was discussing politics with a friend. Well, discussing is a gentle word; there were definitely elements of an argument there. He was trying to persuade me that his perspective was the right one. I was going to reply when I realized something tantalizing: I have zero interest in persuading him.

Like a snake, I was shedding the need to be right. The need to show that I know more, know better, and know how. Something in the internal motivational mechanism that drove that need was crumbling.

In a tug-of-war rope, sometimes the only way to stop losing energy is to stop pulling.

And just to be clear: I still enjoyed having the knowledge, or perspective, and being able to share it with myself and others - what dropped was the need to prove that MY argument is better, the right one.

As a ripple effect, this change spread to other moments in my life: arguments with family and friends, professional discussions and debates, and other situations where people show their knowledge. I didn’t care.

I remember a moment in which I was discussing/arguing with a friend over an educational approach towards our kids - I believe in firm boundaries while he advocated greater freedom for the child and looser boundaries. At some point during our debate, while each of us passionately delivered his arguments, I had a light-bulb moment of realization: I don’t care whether or not he agrees with me. I don’t care whether my approach is showing as the right one. I can let go. I no longer feel the need to win this argument. Wow, it felt incredible.

One of the strangest signs of growth is discovering that some of your old goals no longer feel worth pursuing.

There are a number of psychological elements involved in such a transformation of growth:

The first is the socioemotional selectivity theory (aren’t we great in psychology when it comes to finding big names for our theories :-). Research shows that as you age, you often become less interested in status and more interested in meaningful experiences and relationships. Boom, the motivational drive to be right is dropping naturally, like an overripe fruit from the tree.
The strongest person in the room is often the one who no longer needs to prove it.

Another psychological element is the development of our ego involvement. When we attach our identity to winning arguments (as most of us do from a relatively young age) we eventually crash into a wall of pain when our perspective is not winning or accepted.

There is also a strong element of intrinsic motivation (based on my own internal experience) vs. external motivation (based on others’ reactions). Earlier in life, we are often motivated extrinsically, by recognition, status, or validation. Over time, you discover that internal focus creates deeper satisfaction. This influences the need to prove ourselves to be the winners of an argument or discussion, because that need is extrinsic.

Freedom often begins where the need to impress others ends.

Detaching that element of winning from our identity is an incredibly freeing experience: You claim you know better? No worries, it’s perfectly fine by me. I’m good whether my approach is accepted as the “right” one or not.

Growing older is not only about learning what matters.
It is also about learning what doesn't.

Like a heavy backpack filled with stones, I abandoned this need along the road, moving on lighter, more free, in life’s journey.

Do you find a similar change within you?

06/23/2026

There’s a beautiful spiritual concept that claims you came here to learn certain lessons. Your soul is seeking lessons related to pain, love, loss, relationships, abundance, scarcity – and your life’s experiences are then shaped to allow you to learn the particular lessons most relevant to you.

Psychology offers a similar insight: have you ever wondered why certain challenges seem to stick to you, as if you were a scented flower and they were a bee? Different partner, different city, different career – and yet the same challenge or frustration keeps on appearing again and again. Different props, same play.

Life is not necessarily repeating events. It is often repeating lessons.

There are 2 psychological concepts I really like, that allow for in-depth reflection on your life’s repeating lessons:

1. Attachment Patterns: The child in you, growing up under certain circumstances, learned to attach and connect with others in a certain way. You will then seek, consciously or unconsciously, to replicate those known attachment patterns (whether they are healthy for you or not) simply because that’s what you learned. It requires laser-focused observation over your own behaviors and psyche to crack those patterns and create a shift.

2. Emotional Avoidance: I write a lot about it – because it’s a big piece in solidifying some of our patterns. When you experience a challenge (especially a trauma) and avoid the processing of its emotional backlash, these emotions are stored within you instead of being released. They will then navigate your choices and behaviors from the unconscious, leading to recurring lessons.

If you recognize your own repeating patterns, it is important to see them as a friend instead of a harmful enemy. The recurring challenge is not evidence that you are failing – it is evidence that you are still invited into growth in this area.

And frequently, the repetition evolves with time. You might be struggling with rejection at 25, dancing with the pain of rejection at 35, and at 45, rejection might still hurt. But like a spiral staircase, taking you higher with every step, you grow through this journey of rejection.

You learn more and more about yourself, you get to know your triggers better, you recover faster, and you learn to build less and less of your identity around it.

The lesson returns, but so does a wiser version of yourself.

Keep on doing the work, don’t give up, believe in your ability to create a shift – reading this newsletter, observing your own patterns, it’s all part of your journey of growth.

I believe in you,
Itai

06/09/2026

I started my journey of conscious personal growth at the age of 16. Meditations, psychology, spirituality, yoga – the whole shebang – from a very young age. And while many insights and learning edges changed along the way, one thing remained a constant truth throughout the journey: the importance of moderation.

The older I get, the less impressed I am by intensity.

I'm impressed by people who know how to leave the party before they're exhausted.
Who stop eating before they're full.
Who end the workday before burnout.

Coffee, alcohol, work, technology, food, exercise, ambition, alone time- so many things in life are great in moderation – and unhealthy when out of balance.

Not working might feel empty and meaningless, while working too much can lead to burnout.

No exercise is unhealthy for the body, while addictive over-exercising leads to injury.

Having no ambition would lead to disengagement from life's opportunities, while having too much of it would make you insensitive to yourself and others.

Spending no time with yourself would lead to disconnection from your own heart, hopes, and dreams, while spending too much time by yourself would disconnect you from other people.

My investigations into religious and spiritual approaches led me to realize they all highlight moderation as a crucial factor in leading a good life. Different words, different angles, and yet a similar message:

Aristotle talked about The Golden Mean.
Buddhism tells us of The Middle Way.
In Taoism we find the Balance between opposites.
Stoicism highlighted Temperance as one of the four virtues.

They all urge us to find balance.

Balance is such a beautiful word. In my own life, I find that things go wrong when my way of being is out of balance over the long term:

It might be ok to lose some sleep when I am passionate about a new project – but in the long term, it harms me. Its ok to drink a cup of coffee during the day, but when I have two or three, my body gets agitated. It’s great to work and fulfill my destiny, but too much of it and I burn out like a meteor in the sky. It’s important to meditate, but if I do it too much, I start to disconnect from life, family, work, and other aspects of everyday life.

The question is, how do we implement balance?

Most of us think of balance as standing still in the center – as if it is possible for us to never overeat or overwork or never binge-watch. But that’s not how life works.

Life is movement – we all drift and lose balance sometimes.

So the question is not “can I avoid imbalance?”

The question is "How quickly do I notice, and how gracefully do I return?"

Imagine the circus acrobat walking the tightrope – they are not perfectly centered – instead, they are swaying from left to right, constantly correcting to find balance.

Balance is a series of thousands of corrections:

You lose patience with your children - and then return.
You become obsessed with work - and then return.
You stop meditating for a month - and then return.
You eat half the chocolate cake - and then return.
You spend three hours scrolling your phone - and then return.

This is part of your humanness.

Moderation then becomes your lighthouse, guiding you back home, into balance.

PRACTICE SECTION: The Enough Experiment

For one day, consciously invite moderation into your experiences:

When eating:
Could I stop one bite earlier?

When working:
Could I stop ten minutes earlier?

When scrolling:
Could I close the phone now?

When arguing:
Could I say one sentence less?
A Little Something for the Journey

If you've been feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, disconnected, or simply "not yourself," perhaps your mind and body are not asking for more effort - they are asking for more balance.

That's why I wanted to share a free ebook with you called "You Don't Have to Feel Like This". I hope it offers gentle guidance, practical tools, and a reminder that no matter how far you've drifted, you can always find your way back into balance.

Download the free ebook here:

https://portal.schoolofpositivetransformation.com/feel-like-this

06/02/2026

There is a quiet fear that many people carry.

It sounds like this:

“What if I’m wasting my life?”

Or perhaps:

“What if the people I’m trying to support are stuck, and I don’t know how to guide them forward?”

Whether we are questioning our own direction or witnessing someone else struggle to find theirs, the uncertainty can feel surprisingly heavy.

Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
Just a persistent whisper in the background.

You see other people moving forward.
Building careers.
Finding direction.
Talking about passion.

And you wonder:

Do I have that same clarity?

Or perhaps:

How can I help someone else find theirs?

But feeling lost is not a failure.
It is a stage of growth.

Think about learning to walk.
There is a long period where you stumble, hesitate, and wobble before taking steady steps.
No one calls that failure.
They call it development.

But as adults, we forget this.
We expect purpose to arrive fully formed - clear, confident, and certain.
Instead, it usually shows up quietly, through exploration, mistakes, and uncertainty.

Purpose is rarely discovered in one dramatic moment.
It is built through small experiments.

Trying something new.
Learning what energizes you.
Noticing what drains you.
Paying attention to what keeps pulling your curiosity forward.

That is not wasted time.
That is research. You become a walking and breathing experiment.

And research always looks messy before it becomes meaningful.

You do not find purpose by purely thinking about it.
You need to be moving.
Action is exploration – and it creates clarity.

A Short Practice — The Evidence List (3 Minutes)

Take a piece of paper and draw two columns.

In the first column, write:
"Things I've tried."
In the second column, write:
"What they taught me."

Include successes, failures, hobbies, jobs, relationships, projects, and dreams that didn't work out.

When you're finished, look at the page.
You may discover something surprising:

What feels like a collection of wrong turns is actually a collection of clues.

Your life has been leaving breadcrumbs all along.
Keep Exploring

Sometimes the biggest obstacle to finding direction is not a lack of purpose.

It is self-doubt.

The quiet voice that says:
“What if I choose the wrong path?”
“What if I’m not good enough?”
“What if I fail?”

Whether these thoughts are your own or belong to someone you support, self-doubt has a way of keeping people stuck in place when what they really need is movement.

If you’d like a practical guide to understanding and overcoming self-doubt, you can download our free ebook - "Crush Self-Doubt":

https://portal.schoolofpositivetransformation.com/crush-self-doubt

05/19/2026

There’s a certain kind of Tuesday that deserves an award.
The kind where your kid melts down before school, your bank account suddenly develops a personality disorder, your partner says “we need to talk,” and somewhere in the middle of it all your car makes a sound that should only come from dying farm equipment.

And there it is.
Another. Fu***ng. Growth. Opportunity.
AFGO.
Life hands them out like cheap flyers on a street corner.

Some are tiny:
The friend who disappoints you.
The email that triggers your insecurity.
The moment you realize you’re once again explaining your boundaries to someone who heard them perfectly the first time.

Others arrive like wrecking balls.
Divorce.
Illness.
Burnout.
A panic attack in the supermarket while choosing avocados, because apparently the nervous system has a sense of humor.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about growth opportunities:
You are absolutely allowed to hate them.
You are allowed to roll your eyes at the universe.
You are allowed to say, “No thank you, I’ve grown enough this month.”
You are allowed to feel angry, exhausted, resistant, bitter, dramatic, human.
Growth is not always a glowing spiritual montage with acoustic guitar music in the background.

But the one thing we cannot do with AFGOs is avoid them.
Because avoided pain does not disappear.
It shape-shifts.
It becomes reactivity.
Numbness.
Control.
Anxiety.
The same relationship wearing different clothes.

The annoying truth is that many AFGOs are not punishments.
They are invitations.
Clumsy invitations.
Inconvenient invitations.
Occasionally rage-inducing invitations.
But invitations nonetheless.

An AFGO might be asking you to stop abandoning yourself.
To finally grieve.
To speak honestly.
To rest.
To ask for help.
To stop building a life that looks successful but feels emotionally dehydrated.

Not every painful moment contains wisdom.
But many do.
And sometimes healing arrives disguised as the exact thing you didn’t order.

If life has been handing you AFGOs lately, this free collection of mindfulness worksheets can help you slow down, reflect, regulate, and reconnect with yourself instead of just surviving the noise.

https://portal.schoolofpositivetransformation.com/free-mws

05/14/2026

Many clients tell me the same story.

They are fine all day.
Busy. Functional. Distracted.

And then night comes.

The house gets quiet.
The lights go off.
The phone is finally put down.

And suddenly -
their mind gets loud.

Regret.
Worry.
“What if?”
“Did I mess that up?”
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

It feels like something is wrong. But it’s not.

Nighttime anxiety is not a malfunction.
It is a message.

During the day, your mind is occupied.
At night, your mind finally has space to speak. Share with you what really bothers it.

And what shows up in that silence is usually not random.

It is an unobserved emotion.
Unprocessed stress.
Unspoken fear.

Think of your mind like a child tugging at your sleeve.

If you ignore it all day,
it will not disappear.

It will wait.

And when everything becomes quiet -
it will speak louder.

Not to hurt you.
To protect you.
So you can either create space to listen to it during the day.
Or accept the need to observe during the night.

If nighttime anxiety or racing thoughts show up in your life - or in the lives of the people you support - this free guide offers practical tools to calm the mind and build emotional stability.

https://portal.schoolofpositivetransformation.com/overcome-anxiety

Overcome Anxiety workbook

05/05/2026

A few years ago, one of my friends scared me - not because of what they said, but because of what they could not do.

They could not focus.
They could not make decisions.
They could not even get out of bed some mornings.

Their brain felt foggy.
Their body felt heavy.
Their motivation disappeared.

And the most frightening part?

Nothing dramatic had happened.

No accident.
No tragedy.
No single breaking point.

Just months - sometimes years - of pushing through exhaustion, ignoring stress, and believing that rest could wait.

Until the body finally said:
Enough.

Here is something we rarely admit in our culture:

Deep exhaustion is not a failure of strength.
It is a failure of listening.

Your body is constantly sending signals - tension, fatigue, irritability, headaches, forgetfulness, emotional numbness.

Most of us treat those signals like background noise.

We drink more coffee.
We push harder.
We promise ourselves we will rest later.

But later keeps moving.

And eventually, the system shuts down.

Not to punish you.
To protect you.

Think about your phone battery.

If you ignore the warning signs — 20%, 10%, 5% — the phone does not negotiate.
It turns off.

Your nervous system works the same way.

The goal is not to become tougher.
The goal is to become more responsive.

To notice earlier.
To rest sooner.
To adjust before collapse.

Because prevention is quieter than recovery.

And far less painful.

If you recognize these early signs of exhaustion in yourself - or in the people you support - this free resource offers practical tools to help you restore energy, regulate stress, and rebuild emotional balance:

https://portal.schoolofpositivetransformation.com/feel-like-this

Why do I feel like Journal