My story, in more details :)
Hello Friends!
I am Lior (pronouced: Lee-Or), which in Hebrew means “I have light”.
I’m an explorer, sourdough enthusiast, sarcastic-goose, and avid romantacy reader.
Typology fun:
Sun - Saggitarius, Moon - Cancer, Rising - Virgo
Enneagram: Type 7 + 9
Human Design: Manifestor
Intergenerational & Cultural Inheritence:
I’ve inherited my fair share of cultural and intergenrational trauma. Born and raised (mostly) in Israel, an extremely energetically dense and conflicted place, and being third generation to the holocaust. We are a flavorful mix of Polish, Austrian, Czech, and Morroccan in my family.
My maternal grandma survived and thrived after being liberated from Auschwitz at six years old, but of course that left a mark that was passed down, as did the upbringing of each of my grandparents as diaspora Jews who Immigrated to find a stable home.
Knowing the landscape of our ancestry and the imprint it leaves us with has been one of the most transformational parts of my own healing journey. It’s where we come from, the pain we carry, but also where we draw on immense strengths and gifts. With awareness of what these imprints are, we can make conscious choices on how to alchemize that into healing so that we continue passing down the strengths and allow them to enrich our lives, without the burden of trauma that we no longer want to carry. I am so grateful that my nuclear family has been set on a path of understanding this inheritance and each of us resolving what we can. There has been a lot of healing that I’ve gotten to learn from by witnessing, for example, my mom’s relationship with my grandma as she was nearing the end of her life. The peace and resolution that came from addressing childhood hurts, and the weight lifted off our shoulders by better understanding the pain my mom had carried and how that impacted me and my sisters, was profound.
I get to be part of their lineage.
The lense of cultural and intergenerational inheritence, today, informs how I relate with others in my life. It enriches me with awareness, compassion, and open-mindedness as I connect with others who carry more than just their own stories in their bones.
Upbringing and Family Landscape:
Until I was 8 we lived in Israel, then ages 8-13 grew up in Florida, and then back to Israel until I left for college in Arizona. I had an incredible education experience, went to very alternative schools in Israel that allowed me to express myself and pursue my curiosities, while also challenging me and teaching me to think critically and engage with the world. My family had a lot of love in it.
With that, I also learned early on to be vigilant and calculated with how I navigate the world, and especially, with how I express myself. I learned to hold my tongue, be quiet, watchful, and likable. Because of course if I did something not quite right, it had consequences, which in my home were typically emotional. We grew up in a close-knit yoga group that distanced us from our extended family and, again, taught us that there is a “right” and “wrong” way to be, earning dissappointment, judgement, or ridicule if you didn’t quite hit the mark. A toxic “teacher” figure is something I am still resolving my trauma with.
Within my nuclear family, we had the good, but we also had that unresolved trauma my parents were carrying. Today I very compassionately know they did (as I believe everyone is) the best with what they knew at the time. For me, my dad was an authoritative, passive-aggressive, and intimidating figure. My mom had given up her voice early on and became an aggreeable woman. She lost her fire, and I took after her in many ways, adopting from the same mechanisms to make myself feel secure in the world. My parents divorced when I was 17, which began a much needed shake-up of our stale family dynamics. A few years later we learned there was also sexual assault within our family, something that was the last straw in setting the five of us onto a path of personal healing and rediscovery.
My Journey:
One of the first experiences that led to me truly embodying a new Lior was my time as a commander in the IDF. I had two incredible commanders as mentors and I was challenged to express myself ethically, thoughtfully, but with assertiveness, which was laughable for me at first. Learning what it feels like in my body to say something without needing to explain myself, or subtract from the validity of my statements was liberating and empowering. It is a practice that then bled into my personal life, it empowered me to discuss and work through things with my dad, with my big sister, and with whoever else the need arose to express myself in ways that were previously terrifying. The first few times I tried to state my truths in my personal life it left me physically shakey, lethargic and exhausted, in tears and not wanting to do it again. But with practice, and with the payoffs I saw, my confidence in my ability to communicate well and to stay true to myself and set boundaries grew.
After we learned about the sexual assault, I fell into a confused low place, my first experience with depression. It was the culmination of acknowledging things that had been kept under the carpet for too long. This brought me to seek out therapy for the first time, and asking for a space dedicated solely for me was another taste of reclamation that began to reconnect me with me.
Lastly, I have had the priviledge and joy, to choose to pursue amazing travel experiences in my life so far. Both solo trips and ones with friends, the powerful impact of new landscapes, cultural immersions, and meeting myself in new places has been integral to my journey of learning who I am and who I want to be.
Fast forward to today - my relationship with myself and my loved one has never been more authentic. There are occasional times where old patterns resurface or an old hurt arises and I remember there’s always another layer to peel back. I am so, so grateful for my family. Each one of them, my mom, my dad, and my two sisters are my best friends in different ways.
