May 2nd, 2017
The soul is fire.
The soul always reaches upward. The soul wants to transcend.
Like fire, the soul is passionate. It is the source of our greatest strength.
Yet the fire of the soul, like all fire, can be destructive.
The craving for a spiritual high, for transcendence, is healthy.
But great care must be taken to ensure that theses spiritual experiences don’t burn you up.
The difference between having a beautiful spiritual experience and being consumed by a strange fire is your intention and how you access the experience.
Spiritual experiences must be approached with humility, sensitivity, and total presence or they can be destructive.
A true spiritual high is a state of being; it’s not just an experience.
Drugs (the strange fire) can take you to another dimension, but they cannot open your soul. Like any fire, they can consume you. Drugs yield experiences, meaning something that you feel, but real spiritual transcendence is not an experience.
Real spiritual transcendence doesn’t involve sensation. During real spiritual transcendence, you actually forget that you are experiencing anything at all. You are immersed so fully in the world of spirit that the self who experiences sensation is not even present.
So, no, drugs don’t help a person to live a meaningful life. They can offer otherworldly experiences, but true spirituality is digging your hands in and refining yourself and the world.
Go deeper into this subject: Drugs: Strange Fire | Growing Through Our Pasts | LSD: Part 1 | LSD: Part 2
This is an excerpt from: What Is Spirituality?
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Tags: Spirituality, drugs, transcendence, addiction
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April 29th, 2017
Do you have the courage to be yourself? If not, you are cheating something far greater than just yourself…
Here’s why: Every single person in the world was born for a reason.
Every. Single. One. This includes people who have failed, who have fallen into addiction, who are lost, who have taken the hard way at every fork in the road, who have done bad things, who have muddled through every day bored and listless, who have gotten sick, who have sat and played a lot of video games … you name it. Every single person was created with a specific positive job to do in the world. Obviously, we need to work on repairing our mistakes, but just because you erred doesn’t mean you are an error. No matter what we have done, we retain a pilot flame that is always alive — our unique mission in this world. This is true regardless of nationality, race, and religion. The world won’t be perfect until every person on it makes his or her unique positive contribution.
A note to skeptics…
Skeptics will probably ask us now about the universally extreme example, “Well, how could Hitler have been created for a reason by a Divine Higher Power? Wouldn’t it have been better if he had not been born?” The answer: We don’t know why certain acts of evil befell the world. What we do know is that evil is a choice, and he made a choice to create and perpetuate evil. In other words, he could have chosen otherwise. What if he had put his passion into something productive rather than destructive? The same could be asked about all the mass-murderers in history (people like Stalin, Pol Pot, Paul Kagame, Slobodan Milosevic, and now ISIS). The mystics teach that even the darkest evil has within it a spark of divine goodness (or else it couldn’t exist). Albeit, the spark is completely concealed; like a grain of pure sand in a murky swamp, the good spark is engulfed and controlled by the evil. But it is always there.
If not for yourself, do it for the world.
When you are not yourself, you are robbing the world of what you were meant to contribute to it. This might sound harsh, but who are you to deprive the world of your indispensable actions and energy? Please consider that the things you love, and the things you are passionate about, and your unique personality and circumstances are not accidental — they were given to you in their own specific configuration to put you, and only you, in a position of knowledge and understanding that nobody else has. Not one person can stand exactly in your shoes. “Being yourself” isn’t a coping strategy for eccentrics — it is a Divine command to every individual.
Go deeper into this subject: An Exercise to Find Out Who You Are | You Were Sent to Earth With a Mission | Are You Living Up to Your Potential? | Are You Unique? | Individuality in Judaism
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Tags: your mission, your essence, Divine purpose, purpose in life, Soul Gym: Why Do I Matter?
Posted in Your Mission, Your Purpose, Soul Gym | 2 Comments »
April 27th, 2017
Do you often find yourself saying the wrong thing? Or saying what might be a right thing, but saying it at the wrong time, or with the wrong tone of voice, or in a way that ends up being totally misconstrued? Do you find yourself thinking . . . “Arrghh! Why did I say that?” Or “I didn’t mean it like that!” Or “Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?” Or “Why didn’t I say something!”
Ah, Words. Words are perhaps the most powerful tool in the world. Words are a great equalizer; this potent gadget of the mind is luckily available to virtually every human being with a functioning brain. So it should come as no surprise that our lives largely revolve around how to wield these slippery, mysterious mechanisms we call words most wisely . . . and most effectively.
Speaking empathetically and compassionately goes beyond the rules of etiquette. Here are three things to do next time you want to communicate something important:
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Listen before you speak. Listen to and seek to understand the person on the receiving end of your words: their situation, their wants, their thoughts, and their emotions. Listening to others is a vital component of empathy. Ask yourself, “Am I just waiting to talk, or am I truly listening?” Don’t judge; just listen. People don’t care that you know until they know that you care.
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Be humble. Words are a channel for communicating a truth much bigger than yourself. Don’t let your words become hijacked for your personal gain. Keep them as transparent and ego-free as possible. Simply and clearly state the truth with kindness.
- Be compassionate. Imagine yourself in that person’s Toms, or Nike sneakers, or Jimmy Choo pumps, and speak to them the way you’d want to be spoken to. Follow the Golden Rule, “Don’t do unto others what you would not want done unto you.”
“Words: so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them,” said Nathaniel Hawthorne. If we practice silence, humility, and compassion, our words will surely be potent for good. Remember, though, that you can’t control the reactions of others. It’s possible to say the right thing, but still elicit an angry reaction. But your responsibility is to assure that you have done everything in your power to express yourself clearly and compassionately. Words from the heart enter the heart. Even if the other person cannot absorb your words today, you have planted the seed for them to absorb it tomorrow or the next day.
Go deeper into this subject: The Art of Communication | Why Are You Not Connecting? | Speaker of the House | The Stutterer
This is an excerpt from: MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 45
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What the Bible Teaches Us About the Power of Words
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Tags: communication skills, communication, compassion, empathy
Posted in Soul Gym, Personal Life, Emotions & Psychology | 1 Comment »
April 25th, 2017
Many of us are not compassionate with ourselves because we equate self-compassion with self-pity. Here’s the difference between the two of them. You no longer have to feel like you’re being self-indulgent when you are giving yourself the compassion that you deserve.
What is self-compassion?
Self-compassion (the Kabbalistic attribute of tiferet) is a merger of three emotional attributes: The free outpouring of love, plus self-discipline, plus the element of truth. In other words, appropriate self-compassion is a healthy dose of self-respect and love, combined with a healthy dose of productive self-critique, balanced out by seeing yourself honestly. When things go wrong, here is the emotional response of a person with healthy self-compassion: “I unconditionally respect myself, therefore I am not defined by this disagreeable situation. Nevertheless, I will be accountable and see where I contributed to the problem. I am not going to hate myself or feel bad for myself; instead I see clearly that I am fundamentally good, but that I need to rectify some things. I take action and don’t dwell on my problems. In the midst of all this, I am careful to take care of my spiritual and physical needs.”
What is self-pity?
Self-pity is feeling sorrow for one’s misfortunes and mistakes, and staying in that emotional place of misery for way too long. Self-pity can include either (or both) denial of one’s part in a problem, or (or and) obsessing over one’s shortcomings. Self-pity is narcissistic rather than productive. A good barometer for recognizing self-pity is asking yourself: “Can this feeling help me to transcend my problem, or do I feel stuck? Does it motivate me or does it demoralize me? Can I accept the past, learn from it, and move on? Or am I living in the past while worrying about the future? Do I feel like a victim?” Another sign of self-pity is indulging in one’s physical desires — eating the pint of ice cream in order to temporarily feel bliss — rather than tenderly, lovingly taking care of one’s health.
How to Transform Self-Pity to Self-Compassion
When you feel demoralized by self-pity, take a step back and evaluate what part of the problem is the result of others’ behavior or not in your control, and what part of the problem is your fault. Figure out what part of the problem you cannot change, and what part of the problem you can rectify. Then act. Take care of your spiritual and physical needs in a gentle way while you take action to repair whatever it is that you can change. Remember always that your soul is who you are, not your mistakes or misfortunes, and let the still, small voice of your soul lead the way.
Go deeper into this subject: The Key to Admitting Wrongs | Your Guide to Personal Freedom: Counting the Omer Week Three | Balance | MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 4 | Do You Know How to Empathize?
Tags: Tiferet, compassion, self-respect, self-help
Posted in Soul Gym, Personal Life, Pain & Suffering | 2 Comments »
April 24th, 2017
Do you think you are ugly? Maybe not completely ugly; maybe not a garish monster; but do you think your looks aren’t so great? Would you call yourself “average-looking”? At best, can you say about your looks, “I’m alright.”? If so, why? Where did you get the idea that you are not beautiful?
For many women (and men, too), the default answer is, “the media” or “magazines.” But, is it the truth? Aren’t most people sure that the way movie stars and models look is, if not totally digitally manipulated and air-brushed, the result of both unusual genetics and centuplicate-thousand-dollar expenditures on plastic surgery, stylists, make up artists, hairdressers, clothing, personal trainers, and spa memberships? We’d challenge you to find anyone in the post-modern developed world who believes, in his or her heart-of-hearts, that he or she is supposed to look like a movie star or model in order to meet the layperson’s standard of beauty. (Cynicism is the common-thread of the average first-world person’s belief system right now.)
We think we are unbecoming because, when we were children, people told us we were ugly.`Even if our parents told us we were good-looking, our peers took care of making sure we knew it was a lie created by the self-esteem movement. For most children, our peers are the barometer of truth; it didn’t matter what adults said — our peers were who mattered. Have you ever noticed how an overwhelming number of supermodels and Hollywood actresses tell woeful stories about being teased for their looks — called ugly by their classmates? If the women who supposedly set the standard of beauty could not get out of school without being thoroughly entrenched in the idea that they were ugly, we have proof that the words “ugly” and “pretty” don’t have a direct correlation to the so-called standard of beauty.
Children internalize what they are told. Children’s psyches are like sponges, soaking up every message sent their way, without the filters of discernment that we acquire as adults. What we absorb as children stays inside us, like moisture in a sponge. The antidote to thinking we are ugly is maturity. If we’re immature adults, we probably still think we’re ugly. The most telling sign of maturity is objectivity — the ability to look at oneself honestly. If you think you’re ugly, ask yourself: How objective am I?
There is not a single person on Earth who is “objectively ugly.” Every single person was created in the Divine image. This may not console a pre-teen who has been told that s/he is heinous and undesirable. But, with maturity and spiritual growth, we can come to understand that it is true — that by virtue of your birth, you are indeed a special, unique and beautiful person, glowing with a beauty that is distinctively yours.
Go deeper into this subject: Protect Our Children | My Dear Child | Give Me Your Soul | Are You Emotionally Mature? | Mature Mind vs. Mature Heart | The Value of Beauty | Being Beautiful | The Dancing Maidens of Jerusalem
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Tags: beauty, self-esteem, childhood, bullying, maturity
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April 22nd, 2017
This Soul Workout is dedicated to everyone who was picked last for kickball on the playground.
As childhood traumas go, we who are bad at sports tend to diminish our experiences. With all the cases of hideous abuse by parents and teachers that make it into news reports, and especially because many of us turned into the kind of sensitive people to whom others divulge their bona fide childhood agonies to, we look at our hand-eye coordination deficits, and the exclusion they produced, with skepticism. And we’re right to — sort of. Being picked last on the playground is not painful compared to living in fear in an environment of horror as an innocent child. But, it still effected us; we can’t deny that.
It stinks to be picked last for ball sports in gym class and on the playground. A member of the Meaningful Life Center staff was always picked last. Her hand-eye coordination is so bad that her classmates fought vicious rows about who “had to take her last time” when she was the last kid standing in the lineup for picking teams. In a way, she didn’t blame her classmates for being so mean to her. Kickball was important, and she was well aware that she always kicked the ball not out to the bases but diagonally behind her, and that when playing in the outfield she ran away from the flying ball instead of catching it.
So many of us had experiences like that growing up. We were just ridiculously bad at sports. We made goals on the soccer field, except we were shooting into our own team’s goal while everyone else stood paralyzed on the field, screaming at us to stop. We tried intramural basketball, but most of our shots missed the backboard. We were knocked over in hockey, and checked with lacrosse sticks, and there was no way that we could ever hit a baseball. When we played Wiffle Ball in gym class, we snuck to the back of the line as we approached being up at bat.
Here’s a few things that people who are bad at sports should know: The inability to throw a perfect spiral football hasn’t marred us for life. Yes, we were snubbed and taunted as children, but it didn’t hurt the core of us. We were given opportunities that other people didn’t have, borne from having to invent our own fun at recess and scheming creative ways to sneak under the radar of gym teachers who were determined that “everyone will participate.” We were blessed with other faculties. We learned how much it hurts to be excluded and mocked, and made an effort for the rest of our lives to be inclusive. We’re better people because of it.
As adults, we took up yoga and running and never had to catch a ball again. We realized that we were created in the Divine image, and we cleared the blocks between our souls and bodies. We found other ways, besides sports, to be cool and to enjoy the company of our peers. With no small amount of schadenfreude, we saw our bullies on Facebook as adults — they were still living in our hometowns doing not much more than drinking beer and watching TV. Then we felt bad about judging them, because we know what it’s like to be judged. We gave them the good eye and prayed that their favorite show would come on and that their beer would be cold.
So what if you’re not good at sports. The healthy soul is aligned with purpose. We know that a Divine Higher Power believes in us and made us just the way that S/He wanted to. We found our true selves, and if we haven’t…we still know that we can.
Go deeper into this subject: Are You Damaged Goods? | The Path to Recovery from Childhood Abuse | Olympic Thoughts | How to Stop a Bully
Tags: sports, trauma, childhood, bullying
Posted in Soul Gym, Personal Life, Pain & Suffering | No Comments »
April 21st, 2017
Every stage in life, at one point or another, may be faced with crisis. This is especially true with transitions in life. Take the confusion often experienced by youth as they mature from children into adults. Add into the equation the ongoing challenges surrounding school, graduation, college, career – and at times it can seem like things are on the verge of falling apart. The same is with other changes in our lives: each transition is often accompanied with some form of crisis. Some say that, “Life is one crisis after another.” So the mid-life crisis is just another in a series. But are any of those life stages really moments of crisis?
Harness Discomfort for Self-Growth
When we look closer at these so called “crises,” they actually are not “crises” at all. They are simply the unease that comes when our comfort zones are disrupted as we prepare to grow into a new state. Every transition, every metamorphosis consists of an uncomfortable state — a void — that stands between our previous state of being and our new state of being. If you take a myopic look at the moment of discomfort it can appear like a crisis — an upheaval of the status quo. But when you take a broader look at the bigger picture, it really is a stepping stone to reaching a new stage.
When you see your life as disjointed fragments, then a move from one fragment to the next can be disorienting, posing a crisis. But when you see your life as a journey — the ongoing journey of your soul, which has come into this world to accomplish a mission — then the whole idea of a mid-life crisis is a myth. This is not to say that entering a new stage in life doesn’t come with challenges: feeling confused or bored or anxious. But those challenges are actually opportunities in your ongoing mission: those feelings of confusion, boredom, and anxiety can be transformed into the fuel that energizes the move into the next phase of your life. If you’ve forgotten who you are, then rediscover it.
Take Your Life Experience to a New Dimension
Those with the most experience have the most to give. Mid-life is nothing more than a stage that feels awkward and new; but, when your kids have grown self-reliant and suddenly you have a new life before you, your soul’s mission continues. It never ends. Only now, it takes on a new dimension.
Your Potential Is Limitless
Ultimately, it will be up to you how you live up to your potential. And that’s the best part — you have a choice in the matter: To age or to s-age. You are not a victim of age. With all of your sage life experience, you now have new opportunities to share your knowledge, to teach, to learn more often, to write, to play music, or to set up an easel in the grass at the park and paint. If you’ve been so busy over the years that you’ve forgotten the things you love to do, now is the time to remember those things that made you feel like you were bringing something unique into the world.
Go deeper into this subject: MyLife: Chassidus Applied Episode 72 | The 42 Journeys of Your Life | Growing Old: The Folly and Opportunity of Retirement
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April 19th, 2017
There are two kinds of self-discipline: Imposed self-discipline and loving self-discipline. Imposed self-discipline says, “I will do this no matter what. I don’t care how much I will have to suffer. I deserve to suffer! I am useless if I don’t do this.” Loving self-discipline says, “Healthy love requires measure and tempering. Relax into the task at hand. Be present. Experience it fully. It is not so bad. See? You are doing it and you are OK.”
While imposed self-discipline can “get things done” and can give a person a veneer of efficiency, it can be demoralizing and debilitating, and certainly does not possess the ability to bring out the best in a person. Consider the ways in which you were disciplined as a child: You may have been disciplined with cruelty and mocking by some adults, and with more supportive and encouraging means by other adults. While the former unkind approach to discipline may have intimidated you to act out of fear of being judged or hurt, it didn’t bring out the best in you, and certainly was not motivating and empowering. What it probably elicited in you was fear, shame, resentment, and anger. As children, we don’t get to choose our disciplinarians. But as adults, we can choose how we discipline ourselves.
Here’s how to approach self-discipline with self-love:
- Be present: Before you let your inner taskmaster berate you, take a deep breath. Exhale. Scan your body. Are you tense? Can you let go of the tension in your body?
- Check into your emotions: Are you attempting self-discipline from a place of shame and anger, or from a place of focus and determination? From weakness or from strength?
- Evaluate your motivations: Why do you want to do this task? Can you find a higher purpose in it?
- Act with love: Make an effort to do your work, whatever it is, in a state of relaxation and love, rather than in a state of tension. Find ways to enjoy the activity, even if it is difficult. Keep breathing, keep your mind clear, and persist through the task.
Whether you are embarking on an exercise regimen, attempting work that you have been procrastinating about, or trying to establish a new healthy habit, you’ll get farther and you’ll get better results if you do it with a pleasant and loving attitude. Treat yourself gently and allow your strengths and talents to slowly emerge. Work every day, and work consistently, but work tenderly. You must not diminish or destroy yourself while trying to improve your life — build yourself up while you go out of your comfort zone.
Go deeper into this subject: Your Guide to Personal Freedom: Counting the Omer Week Two | Vice Advice Series Part Seven: Laziness | Shoveling the Snow | Can There Be Growth Without Pain? | How to Change Your Life | Do You Know How to Love and How to Channel?
Tags: self-improvement, Habits, discipline, gevurah, personal refinement
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April 6th, 2017
You probably were told to be nice. Most of us were. We were told to be nice by our parents, teachers, bosses, significant others. Strangers have told us to smile. Women especially get pressured to be nice, but men also learn how to be people-pleasers. Kindness to self and others, cordiality, compassion, refinement — these are emotional attributes worth cultivating. But, they are different from being “nice”.
“Nice” can mean being inoffensive — to anyone. “Nice” can mean people-pleasing and acquiescing. “Nice” can also mean being non-confrontational (even when you should be). The following are criteria (based on the Kabbalistic system of self-refinement detailed in Rabbi Simon Jacobson’s Spiritual Guide to Counting the Omer) that can help you identify if you are being “too nice” in an unhealthy way:
- You give way more kindness and love than you receive.
- You’re nice on other people’s terms, not on your own terms. You heed to unreasonable and unhealthy demands in the name of “being nice.”
- You often feel hurt because you are so nice and people are not nice in return.
- You are super nice, but not when you are tired, hungry, lonely, bored, angry, or sad. If your mood is low, it’s hard for you to be as nice as you think you should be.
- You pride yourself on how nice you are. You’ll do anything to avoid being told that you’re not nice.
- Your niceness is one-sided and very lonely. You rarely feel a sense of togetherness with others even though you are “sweet”.
- You get demeaned or hurt because you are so nice. Being afraid to offend, coupled with the desire to be perceived as nice, has led you into dangerous situations, physically or emotionally.
What can you do if you’re too nice? Certainly being mean is not the answer. Instead, recognizing that being too nice is an opportunity to journey into your psyche and soul. There is a 49-step journey that you can take to probe and evaluate your emotional health. The journey involves short daily meditations and exercises. It will take you to a new level of introspection and behavioral change. Sounds good? Start your journey to true freedom.
Go deeper into this subject: The Spiritual Guide to Counting the Omer: Book, App, Email | Your Guide to Personal Freedom | Can We Change Our Personalities? | 49 Days Between Passover and Shavuot
Tags: Counting the Omer, chesed, kindness, emotions, psychology
Posted in Soul Gym, Months & Holidays, Counting the Omer, Personal Life, Torah, Emotions & Psychology | No Comments »
April 2nd, 2017
You have many tasks and responsibilities on your plate. And you are overwhelmed.
Instead of running toward lifehacks and productivity apps, directly face and diffuse the anxiety and distraction (the opposite of mindfulness) that multitasking challenges you with.
This is how to multitask mindfully:
- Consider why you are multitasking. Must you multitask, or are you reactively multitasking due to anxiety and/or outside pressure? Make a conscious decision to multitask. Multitask with intention and purpose.
- Set clear goals for what you must accomplish by multitasking. What is your ultimate mission for each task? When will you know that a task has been completed? Prioritize which tasks must get done first, and which ones can be done later.
- Recognize that effective multitasking is not doing two things at once. It is focusing on one task at a time. Set your focus on the first task. When outside demands require you to focus on the second task, leave the first task in a place where you can return to it and resume activity. Then shift your focus completely to the second task.
Understanding the nature of focus, and building up your ability to focus, is the key to successful multitasking. Focus of time is closely related to focus of energy. You have to be interested in what you are doing in order to focus on it. One advantage of mindful multitasking is that it allows you to set a short time aside for tasks that you do not enjoy, knowing that you will soon be switching tasks to one that you prefer. If you can focus well on the tasks that you enjoy doing, your focused energy will spill over into the tasks that you do not like doing.
Once you start to multitask without anxiety or reactivity — with intention — practice it. Practice actively rewires your brain’s pathways. Don’t allow setbacks to bring you down. Learn from mistakes, and be compassionate with yourself as you learn to mindfully multitask. It’s a simple practice, but it requires skill. Like any skill — from ice skating to sewing — practice does not make perfect, but it does build muscle memory, consistency, and accuracy.
Go deeper into this subject: How to Focus and Manage Time | How to Stop Procrastinating | Having Intention
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How to be More Productive Step 2: Beriah; Outline
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 @8:30pm
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Tags: Soul Gym: Essential Life Skills
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