I believe God wants you to know ...
... that not everything
has to turn out exactly the way you
planned in order for you
to call it a success.
Sometimes all God wants
you to do is to "get the ball
rolling." Then,
She'll take it from there. So when things
turn out other than the
way you wanted them to, don't
be so quick to say,
"Bummer!"
Many a Bummer is a
Blessing in disguise. Consider the
possibility that life is
magic...and that there's a rabbit
|
|
|
Eating close to the earth, connects us to her as we allow her to nourish our bodies. The food we eat is a multidimensional aspect of our lives. Food
provides us with the energy that enables us to grow and prosper. Yet it can
be, and frequently is, much, much more. Our food can be an experience in and
of itself if we allow it to be. The dishes we remember from childhood offer
unmatched comfort. The act of preparing meals can be an art form of the
highest caliber. And the nourishment we derive from this fare promotes
wellness within us. But many of us, distracted by daily affairs, forget that
the profound pleasures of eating go beyond simple sustenance. We eat foods
that are convenient or we eat unconsciously, snacking on whatever happens to
be on hand. To understand the true value of food and the impact it can have
on our lives, we should acknowledge and honor it by eating close to the
earth. If you have ever shelled and eaten garden-grown peas or bitten into a
sun-warmed apple freshly plucked from its tree, you likely understand that
there is a marked difference between these foods and those that are processed
and stacked on supermarket shelves. Food recently picked contains more of its
original life force and thus has a greater store of energy and nutrients. You
can ensure you are eating close to the earth--and enjoying the many benefits of
doing so -- by shopping at a local farmers market and getting to know the
individuals who grow your food. If you make the experience of shopping in
this way enjoyable, you will be more apt to reject more convenient canned,
packaged, and frozen foods in favor of the real delight you feel while
browsing stalls of fresh foods nourished by the same soil you can find in
your own backyard. You will soon learn what foods are in season in your area
and how to prepare them.
As you savor the vivid flavors of juicy ripe fruits and the hearty crunch of
unprocessed vegetables, you can also take pleasure in the fact that, by
eating close to the earth, you are supporting farmers in your region,
connecting with your local ecosystem, discouraging those who would waste precious
fossil fuels by carting produce cross-country, and helping to preserve
healthy culinary traditions that have existed for centuries. |
Vayechi is an unbelievably exciting and powerful Shabbat, with many lessons, but one thing we have to keep in mind throughout the whole week leading up to this Shabbat is that it says Jacob calls his children and tells them, “Come gather around me and I will tell you what is going to happen at the End of Days, in the time of Mashiach, before the Gemar HaTikun.”
Rashi brings it that Jacob wanted to reveal the End, but the Shechinah left him, and he started talking about other things. However, the Midrash has a more interesting parable about this. It says that Jacob is like the person who is the closest confidant to the king, and as he's about to die, gathers his children together and says, “Let me tell you all the king's secrets,” when suddenly the king comes into the room and looks at him, saying, “You can't do this,” and so he starts talking about other things.
But the kabbalists explain what actually happened here is that Jacob wanted to reveal the End, and he did. However, he knew that he couldn't do it in a way that is obvious, and, as such, while all the blessings that are revealed on this Shabbat have their literal understanding, in the true Light of these words is the revelation of the Gemar HaTikun, the End of the Correction. In the Zohar, Rav Shimon Bar Yochai, when he talks about the curses that appear in the Torah, explains that although on the surface they look like curses, in truth, their real Light and essence are complete blessings. And that is what occurs on the Shabbat of Vayechi.
Therefore, this is the one Shabbat of the year where all the Light of Mashiach and the Gemar HaTikun is revealed, and so, it gives us some appreciation for its importance. Every one of us, if we connect on this Shabbat, can also connect to the Gemar HaTikun to one degree or another. Jacob wanted to reveal the End, but it's concealed; because it could not be revealed, it needed to be a place for doubt to come in. And yet, every person has the opportunity on Shabbat Vayechi to connect to the end of pain, suffering, death, and the totality of Light that Jacob revealed in portion Vayechi.
It's all based on the verse which says that when a person leaves this world, the question he's asked is, “Did you expect the Gemar HaTikun every day?” And only if we begin living in this way, where we’re waiting for the Redemption, meaning every day we are expecting it to come, can we connect to the revelation of Jacob on this Shabbat. On no other Shabbat of the year does anybody reveal all the Light of the Gemar HaTikun… but that's what occurs on this Shabbat.
And the way to access this great revelation is through awakening a constant expectation of the Gemar HaTikun to occur now. It's, again, a powerful and unbelievable Shabbat, and we can all bring into this world, on Shabbat Vayechi, a tremendous revelation of the End of the Correction, of the Gemar HaTikun.
I’ve personally set New Year’s Resolutions each year since I was a 10-year-old.
As a life coach, when December rolls around, many of my clients spend a full one or two sessions with me to discover and develop their goals for the upcoming year.
This year, I decided to use the following framework for not simply defining my goals, but also as a framework for my clients in their resolution defining sessions. We’ve found that the experience has led to resolutions that feel much more well-thought through than in the past and that have workable action plans.
If you have ever worked with me or any other ICF certified coach, you’ll recognize the five mandatory questions that are used to establish the coaching agreement at the beginning of each and every coaching session:
1. What would you like to work on in the session today?
2. What goal, specifically, would you like to have achieved by the end of the session?
3. How will we know we’ve been successful by the end of the session? In other words, what will be our measure of success?
4. Why is achieving this goal important to you?
5. What do you believe you need to address or resolve in order to achieve this goal?
I’ve found that this framework is such a powerful guide to setting and visualizing goals that I suggest using it as you move toward setting resolutions for the new year.
1. What would you like to work on in 2021?
Spend time to seriously contemplate what you would like to work on this year? Here are some categories to look at—having balance is important to emotional well-being. Is there an area of your life that could use more work this year than other areas?
>> Health and Fitness
>> Intellectual Life
>> Emotional Life
>> Your Character
>> Your Spiritual Life
>> Love Relationships
>> Parenting
>> Social Life
>> Financial
>> Career
>> Quality of Life
>> Life Vision
2. Looking at your resolution—narrow it down to what goal, specifically, you would like to have achieved by the end of the year.
Be as specific as possible.
For example, let’s say my resolution is to “let go of the fear of judgment.”
Under that resolution, my specific goal may read, “I will keep a judgment journal, and each time I feel that uncomfortable feeling of being concerned that I’m being judged or that I’m judging someone else, I’ll date it and spend a few minutes writing in my journal, which will provide a time of reflection and will also help me to uncover unhealthy patterns of thought that may exist.”
3. How will we know we’ve been successful by the end of the year?
In other words, what will be our measure of success?
On December 31, 2021, a year from now, what will determine whether or not you’ve met your resolution? Look deeper than the actual resolution—think about how you want to feel when the resolution is complete. What will successfully completing this resolution look like to you? How will completing this resolution change your life?
4. Why is achieving this resolution important to you?
It is really important to know the why. Check in with yourself.
Is this a resolution that you want to achieve for yourself or is it a resolution that some external factor says you need to achieve? The resolution has to be something that you want to achieve for it to be successful. You also need to understand why the resolution is important to you.
I often ask my clients a scaling question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is achieving this resolution to you? If the answer is seven or lower, it is a good indicator that the resolution needs to be, at the very least, redefined until it feels like an eight or higher.
5. What do you believe you need to address or resolve in order to achieve this resolution?
This is a great place to brainstorm some of the possible stumbling blocks. Under each stumbling block, develop a contingency plan, a tool may you use to avoid it, or perhaps, you need to reframe your resolution from the beginning to avoid the stumbling block altogether. Sometimes, the stumbling blocks will spur on additional resolutions that may need to be addressed first.
And the final word of advice is to make sure the journey to complete the resolution is what you hope the resolution will feel like when it is achieved.
You’ll find that, oftentimes, the real benefit to the resolution is not the end, but the journey it takes to get there.
~
AUTHOR: SHARI LEID
IMAGE: COTTONBRO/PEXELS
If I dredge up my earliest memories, I always land somewhere in second grade, where entire school days would come and go without my having the slightest recollection of what was being taught.
Depending on how chaotic things were at home, I would either dip in and out intermittently in the imaginary world that existed only in my head or stay there for substantial portions of the day.
I do not possess an advanced degree in psychology, so I am going completely by conjecture. Still, given the circumstances and the young age of my parents, I believe that this was likely my instinctual attempt at compensating for the emotional needs that were being—perhaps inadvertently—disregarded.
Without assigning blame, I have come to understand that young, working-class parents with multiple children are generally under enough pressure to provide clothing, food, and shelter. Very often, the “softer” needs are overlooked.
Most of these early daydreams included my taking the most beautiful girl in my class by the hand and running out the doors of the Susan E. Wiley Elementary School to go live happily ever after in life—deficient of parents, teachers, school buses, and rules. I would be wearing a leather jacket and jeans, like The Fonz, and everyone in the world loved me.
Today, over 40 years later, with the exception of a few refinements and additions, not much has changed. Most of my romantic relationships have ended shy of a year unless children were involved. Upon taking an honest inventory of each one that failed, the wheels seem to get shaky when the dopamine and excitement wear off.
I try to hold on for dear life most of the time, but inevitably, with the build-up of uncomfortable moments and quiet resentments, I manage to extricate myself and return to the never-ending search for the right woman.
The woman, who I am beginning to fear, does not exist.
I was in my early 20s the first time I was made aware that this was even something that set me apart from the rest of the world. A college girlfriend looked at me with disdain, as it became apparent to her that she wasted months of her life on something that was obviously ending, and said, “Your whole world takes place in your head. Are you even aware of what’s going on out here?”
I didn’t think much of it at the time. But the memory has stuck around long enough for me to take it a little more seriously as I’ve gotten older. It makes its reprise every time I am faced with the conclusion of yet another short-lived romance and subsequent return to the incessant “search.”
In the past couple of years, I have become more thoughtful and mindful of my patterns. I have even tried a few times to put a moratorium on dating and do some much-needed work. As luck would have it, I have been friends for a long time with a doctor in psychology, and I always have the opportunity to call and bounce my theories off her.
When my last two-week disaster concluded, I asked her opinion about the role childhood trauma is playing on my relationship problems, and she had strong feelings about the correlation. To paraphrase, most children daydream a healthy amount, and most maladjusted children daydream even more.
It’s quite possible that it could lead a person, like myself, to create a blueprint for the “perfect” mate. (One who will be impossible to find.) Add to that a poorly developed ability to process difficult emotions, and it could lead to where I have always found myself: back to the drawing board.
On the way to that drawing board, it’s hard not to look at my stable, married friends and not feel a little envy. The older I get, the more I worry about the possibility of reaching my final days without a partner.
Just this morning, I received a phone call from another author at Elephant Journal currently residing in France. I had no plans to share any of this strife with anyone, but as it happens with our friends, a simple, “How have you been doing?” can open us in profound ways.
I know, for myself, these sorts of conversations allow me to hear myself and make important distinctions I wouldn’t otherwise make.
“What if I were to stop dating for a year and divert all the money I might’ve spent on dating apps and restaurants on therapy instead? What if I finally try to get a handle on this sh*t?”
I was looking out the windshield as the winter sun broke through the horizon and began to paint a pastel pink landscape off in the distance.
“Billy,” she said, “I really think you might finally be onto something.”
AUTHOR: BILLY MANAS
IMAGE: SAYDUNG89/PIXABAY
Read 3 comments and reply