journey – Page 5 – New beginnings: A blog about spirituality, chaplaincy and renewal

I’m here – Hineni

“I am here.”

I have always been taken by this simple word/phrase. It is one of deepest and most powerful of all calls to action. Are we willing to truly acknowledge our presence in a crucial moment?

Below you will find an anecdote which I often turn back to about the power of being present.

It is told of one of my teachers, the late Milton H. Erickson, who was perhaps the greatest therapist of our era, that a patient, having heard of his healing prowess, traveled halfway around the world to see him. Entering Milton’s somewhat shabby office, he was shocked as he took in its well-worn furniture, overused chairs, and ramshackle bookshelves – rather humble surroundings for such a great man. Erickson noticed him looking around in disbelieve, fixed his intense gaze upon him, and said, “I know it’s not much, but I’M HERE!”

I’M HERE! We can have no better motto. Each of us is more than enough. Each of us is all we’ve got. Each of us and all of us are blessed. We need to know and be assured that our blessedness is not in the doing; it is in the being. We are blessed through no choice of our own. Our being blessed is God’s irrevocable gift. So when the going gets tough, and assuredly it will, each of us can do no better than to respond, “Hineni, I’m Here,” words that have reverberated down the ages. Each of us is more than enough. Each of us is a blessing.
Jewish Relational Care A-Z: We are Our Brother’s Keeper – P.219

I believe this message is one that resonates for all of us. Can we be comfortable in the uncomfortable situations knowing that our showing up is more than enough? Can we accept that sometimes the best thing to do is sit in silence when another is in pain, not worrying about fixing, but just being available to the person? Can we do this for ourselves as well, being compassionate and non-judgmental when we ourselves are struggling?

Part of what drives me in my work as a chaplain and now a spiritual life coach is this presence, this being. How many of us are just looking for someone who can sit and reflect with us during times of transition, times of difficulty, times of grief. I find it powerful in the moments of sitting with someone, just sitting. Yes, to coach and to chaplain requires more than sitting. Yet it requires the ability to know when sitting and being is the best approach.

I’m Here. If you or someone you know is in journeying along the waves of life, allow me to join you along the road to discovery. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Self-Compassion, not Self-Loathing

As is apparent by now, I am a big fan of Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, o.b.m. I have been reading his works since I was a bar mitzvah, having gotten as a Bar Mitzvah gift his daily reader, Growing Each Day. I often quote snippets from this and a couple of his other daily readers whenever a message speaks to me. Yesterday, I came across this one line which is a good reminder of the dangers of self-loathing and the importance of self-compassion:

“We may not truly realize that our own unbridled anger may be even more destructive to us than hostility to others.”
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, Living Each Day, p. 72

Anger at oneself can be even more harmful than the anger we express towards other people. This is the anger of frustration regarding not being the best or ideal person we wish to be. This is the anger that comes from a place of shame. And this anger can lead us down a dark path. Anger towards someone else, even if expressed, can be less severe because its destructive nature will depend on how the person we are angry with reacts.

To respond to this, we would do best to work on self-compassion. For me, self-compassion begins with a constant work of recognizing and being accepting of the mistakes, the times I fall short. This is an active process of recognizing the emotions that arise in those moments when the self-loathing begins. Self-compassion is not an excuse to not work to improve. Self-compassion is the tool that helps us find the avenues to be comfortable with change and improvement as we open ourselves to learn from our mistakes and to remember we can try again.

My prayer for today is we find the tools to help quell the self-anger that often arises as a means of being open to the new journeys and opportunities always unfolding in front of us.

Looking to invest time and focus on the tools we have to help cultivate self-compassion and combat self-loathing. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

The world is renewed for us

I previously described the Jewish practice that upon awakening, we start our day with words of gratitude for being alive another day, Modeh Ani.

With these words we offer words of recognition for the renewed opportunities we have as we start the day. Each day allows us to press refresh, and as I highlighted in my previous post, if we can overcome the fear of pressing refresh, we can truly take a first step. Today, I want to suggest that are acknowledgment of gratitude each day is part of taking this first step.

I came across a deeper, more mystical approach to this declaration of gratitude. Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, who lived in the 16th and early 17th centuries, suggested that the gratitude we are expressing is more than just about the return of our soul, our life, for another day. It also represents our expressing gratitude for the world being renewed again for another day. In other words, when we go to sleep, from a natural perspective the world continues to exist. Yet, if we take the perspective of ourselves asleep, the world ceases to be. When we wake up, the world comes back into focus, coming back into existence like we do.

I found this deeper level of renewal inspirational. If it is not just us, but the world starting over in our eyes when we start the day, when we wake up from sleep, it means we do not need to live our lives enslaved to what was. Of course, we don’t find ourselves waking up in a different bed, in a different place, but we do have the chance to make the world what we want to each day. By deliberately acknowledging and expressing this gratitude for the opportunity for the new, we always have the chance to take that first step to something new.

May we find each day as an opportunity to reinvest in the opportunities for renewal we have in front of us.

You have the opportunity to start again. If you are struggling to begin the process of starting your next journey in life. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Don’t be afraid to Start Over

Yesterday, I came across this motivational quote on LinkedIn (here). It was a beautiful reminder of the opportunity we have each day to have a “do-over.”

Today, I find myself focused on these words again as I consider the notion of mistakes. We all make them (except for certain people who shall remain unnamed 😉) and if you are like me, you have a multiplicity of negative feelings that can overwhelm you. How many of us relate to this vicious cycle. We mess something up, feel guilty about it and then start to avoid or justify our errors instead of confronting them. Often this avoidance, guilt, etc. comes from feeling shame (for a perspective on the challenges of shame, see here). Deep down, we wish for it to magically disappear, like being able to have a do-over in a video game. And while it can never just disappear, the mistake, the lost opportunity, doesn’t need to remain what defines us.

In order to find this do-over, we need to overcome different fears including:

fear of embarrasment.
fear of being uncomfortable
fear of the unknown
fear of failure in starting over (see here for another post on fear of success)

This is no easy task. Yet, I believe we innately do this all the time. Each day brings a series of unknowns, even in the familiar. We could either shrink away from what the day’s schedule could bring, because plans always change, or we could embrace the myriad possibilities potentially before us. If we embrace the unknown, if we accept that we are imperfect and can practice self-forgiveness, we will then others embrace forgiveness as well, recognizing mistakes happen and we can try again. And if we are ready to start over, we will find new opportunities even in the seemingly monotonous, routine.

As it relates to spiritual practice, for example, how often do we find ourselves recognizing how distracted we become in moments of hoped for focus. As a personal example, which I’m sure I’m not alone in, is how often my mind wanders during prayer. All of a sudden, I find myself saying certain words, wondering how I got to that part of the service. I could just give up and say, oh well, I missed out so why bother refocusing. Or, as I try to do, I restart my efforts to find focus, often with some momentary success. The point is, we have opportunity to shift midstream and continue forward in an improved manner, even if we missed out up until this point.

If you are searching for that new opportunity, new beginning, I hope you find ways to overcome your fears to find the opening to a road ahead full of possibilities.

If you are looking to overcome the fear of setting out on a new journey in life. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

A balanced life perspective

Sometimes we are reminded of a message that is deep and meaningful at the most important of times. Over the past few days, I keep coming across these two phrases, “I am but dust and ashes” and its contrast, “For my sake was the world created.” According to Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, in Growing Each Day, it is said that:

Rabbi Bunim of Psis’cha said that everyone should have two pockets; one to contain, “I am but dust and ashes,” and the other to contain, “The world was created for my sake.” At certain times, we must reach into one pocket; at other times, into the other. The secret of correct living comes from knowing when to reach into which.
p. 62

I realized that this advice/message was crucial to how we all should strive to live. There are times when we feel down, feel lost, feel like we are just going through the motions of life. In those moments we could use the pick me up of recognizing that we each play a role in the role, perhaps even the most fundamental of roles. We should strive in those moments to reflect on how much our actions are of value to existence.

On the other hand, we can all get caught up in taking ourselves too seriously. It is very easy to fall into the trap of seeing ourselves as better than someone else, as the one to judge others, to point a finger and make ourselves out to be the best while others are not. In those moments we are best served remembering that we too are just human, we are imperfect and have our own flaws and challenges that we wouldn’t want others to judge us over.

I believe this is an important lesson when engaging in self-reflection and when working with a coach or a therapist. As we go through self-discovery, we can find ourselves oscillating between our great self and our lowly self, swinging along a pendulum trying to find the balance, static point. It behooves us to take steps to find ways and methods for approaching the highs and lows of life.

May we each find our balance, recognizing our importance and our humility at the same time.

If you are looking to explore and discover new approaches to the difficulties in your life, trying to find the middle path: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Fear of success

How often do we struggle to find success because we are more afraid of success than failure? We spend so much time expressing a fake humility, downplaying our successes because we don’t want to seem arrogant. Ironically, the truly humble are those who know and strive for their successes while also acknowledging the gifts that they have which allowed for this success. In the quote below, we find a similar sentiment about the fear of success.

How do we overcome this fear? Two approaches come to mind.

First – As I have reflected upon in my writings on this page, we work towards breaking down the goals into smaller, manageable steps, working piece by piece to rise to our success. While we might be afraid of success, we are also fearful the process will be too arduous and difficult. If we can eliminate this fear, building to the large goal with countless short term, forward moving, goals, we will stand a better chance of success.

Second – We do not have to go about this task alone. Success in most areas of life doesn’t come by isolating oneself to remove all distractions. Yes, there are times we need to take on a task alone. Yet, more often than not, we forget that others have travelled along similar paths and get help guide us along the journey to our goals, helping us with their strengths to cultivate and support our strengths. If we allow the fear of being imperfect dominate, we will never seek the advice and support needed to achieve our desired goals and dreams.

May this be a week of discovering how you can overcome the fear of success as you embark on the next steps of your journey!

Are you struggling to overcome the fear of success and to embrace Gd’s gifts in your life. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

New Beginnings One Year Anniversary

Whenever we venture into the unknown, we see before us a vast expanse lying ahead, leaving us with fears and doubts as to what we will encounter along the way. For many of us, these fears stop us in our tracks and we never get the opportunity to go forth and explore. In these moments, we find ourselves similar to the biblical Patriarch Abraham when Gd calls him to “Go Forth from your land, from your birthplace and from your father’s home to the land that I will show you (Genesis 12:1).” There is a powerful idea in later Jewish writing that this call was not specific to Abraham but was a call that went out to the world that only Abraham was focused enough to hear. Perhaps this call is always out there, waiting for us when the time is right, when we are in the moment of deciding where to go next. In that moment, if we listen, we will know we aren’t going alone. Rather we must take the initial step and we will be shown what truly lies before us, not what we believe might be out there stopping us from going forward.

This is my story as well. This week marks the one year anniversary of New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC, a moment in my life of going forth to a new adventure, a new path in my life. It has been an amazing year for me on this journey of growing a private spiritual life coaching practice. New Beginnings began as a dream to build a business whose mission was to work with others confronting the spiritual and emotional challenges that arise during transitional periods in life. Through a focus on one’s spiritually and faith and the search for meaning, growth and change along the new paths we face, my goal is to foster and harness the tools we have or will need when embarking on a New Beginning. During this first year, I have worked with individuals and groups exploring areas such as:

engaging one’s spiritual self in one’s life decisions
grief and loss
meaning making
finding joy in the next chapter of life
Rediscovery of “Who am I”

Through a combination of active listening, exploration, reflection and reframing, we work together to uncover layers of self-awareness. Through working together, we will often reveal the skills and tools you already possess to affect true positive change. It is my passion to help guiding others through these times of self-discovery, navigating the waves that we experience during the various transitional moments in life.

To get a more in depth sense of what New Beginnings can do for you, please check out the link to the recent interview I did with Jewish Sacred Aging’s Seekers of Meaning Podcast.

If you or someone you know is:

Feeling lost, without your anchor?
Struggling with the death of a loved one?
Looking for the spiritual spark to reignite your life?
Searching for a sense of meaning, hope or joy?
Trying to grapple with suffering?

Then I invite you to contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com. I look forward to supporting you along your journey and your New Beginning.

Growth comes from Faith

Humility need not cause feelings of worthlessness. Although a zero may be nothing when it stands by itself, adding zeros to another digit can result in a number of astronomical magnitude.

If we stand alone, we are nothing. But when we stand together with G-d and with one another, we constitute a value of infinite proportion…
Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski’s, Living Each Day p. 42

Humility is the recognition that we need not go at it alone. It is recognizing our place in the greater cosmos, reminding ourselves to be mindful of how we are part of a collective humanity and our lot in the world is not just of our making. Humility is recognizing the gifts we have and the need to use those gifts in a way that is beneficial to all those around us.

Faith is not a passive notion of simply saying “I believe…” It is not something we just “have.” Faith is an active recognition that we are not alone. Faith is the recognition we are working in partnership with a being greater than ourselves.

I believe that one of the biggest challenges to growth is how often we believe in the idea that “I must do this alone.” While it is true that it is the “I” that has to take the first step to change, it is just as true that growth and change take a collective effort. It is through recognizing that we do not have to go forth on our own which can be the difference between success and failure.

May each of us find that sense of connectivity and togetherness along the way of our journeys.

Looking to shift to a new road on your journey. Let me help you along that process. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Extending a hand to uplift a person

The stories of Genesis contain hints and allusions to how we should live and treat one another. While some of these lessons are complicated by shifting ethics and morality, many others stand the test of time and are important to review and reflect upon. One such lesson relates to how to support someone who has experienced a loss or a failure within life. While we know the dove eventually finds the olive branch, the process was not a simple one.

After the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, Noah decides to first send out a raven and then a dove to determine if the waters had receded enough to emerge from the ark. In their first flights, neither bird discovered a place to rest, which the Torah makes specifically makes clear in the dove’s first return. Genesis 8:9 states,

וְלֹֽא־מָצְאָה֩ הַיּוֹנָ֨ה מָנ֜וֹחַ לְכַף־רַגְלָ֗הּ וַתָּ֤שב אֵלָיו֙ אֶל־הַתֵּבָ֔ה כִּי־מַ֖יִם עַל־פְּנֵ֣י כל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח יָדוֹ֙ וַיִּקָּחֶ֔הָ וַיָּבֵ֥א אֹתָ֛הּ אֵלָ֖יו אֶל־הַתֵּבָֽה׃

But the dove could not find a resting place for its foot, and returned to him to the ark, for there was water over all the earth. So putting out his hand, he took it into the ark with him.
Genesis 8:9

At first glance, this verse is merely reporting on the fact that the dove returned unsuccessful. However, the verse contains a superfluous comment, that not only did Noah take the dove back into the ark, Noah put out his hand to do so. One of the great biblical commentators of the modern era, R. Naftali Zvi Yehuda of Berlin, the Netziv, wonders as to the importance of telling us both that Noah extended his hand as well as took the dove back into the ark. One phrase should have been enough to convey the point.

In response to this question, Netziv shares a psychological insight, one which I believe we know but often struggle to implement in our lives. He suggests that Noah’s extending his hand was a message of active empathy. The dove failed, not out of any doing of its own, but because the flood waters hadn’t receded yet. Nevertheless, not being able to succeed in the mission, or bring back a “positive report,” which in this case might have been not returning at all because it found a resting place, is also a “failure” of sorts. As such, Noah, not only opens the door for the dove to come back in but actively brings the dove back in, thus showing kindness and empathy to the dove. Noah went the extra step, not just making the space for the dove to re-enter the ark, but also helping to bring the dove in, implicitly saying that I am here to hold you up in this moment of failure.

The question is, can we be like Noah? Can we work to extend the hand out to bring the person with us? Over the past couple of pieces (see here and here), I have focused on the power of not having to go at it alone. This is another aspect of that, but this time focusing on the importance of uplifting the other person by actively supporting them. For example, there is a client I am working with who has a friend who visits regularly to be a companion for him. This friend doesn’t just visit. When he calls to see if he can come over, he will often follow up by asking my client if he wants him to pick up something to eat or drink on the way over.

Part of our journey of spiritual growth is how we interact with others. I would invite you to consider what steps you take to actively help and support others as well how others have helped you in the past in your own times of struggle. Hone those skills! Be like Noah in the moment with the dove.

Don’t go at it alone. If you or someone you know is looking to start along the journey of change and growth: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Seeing a Miracle as a Joint Effort

Faith and belief is a funny thing. On the one hand, we know that no matter what we do, no matter how much effort we might put into something, success and failure are more often than not out of our hands. On the other hand, we know that if we just sit and wait, hoping for a miracle, the likelihood of something happening is severely reduced. This message is apparent in Noah’s building of the ark as described at the beginning of this week’s Torah portion.

The ark Noah was to build was to house he, his 3 sons, his wife and their wives as well as 1 or 7 pairs of all land animals and birds, and supplies to survive the flood. In other words, this would need to be a big boat. Commenting on Genesis 6:19, Nachmanides offered the following idea.

…Noah was thus obligated to bring all of them into the ark in order that they may beget their like. If you would gather a full year’s supply of food for all of them, [you would find] that this ark and ten others like it could not hold it! But this was a miracle of a small space containing a great quantity. And in case you suppose that he should have made it [the ark] very small and rely on this miracle, the answer is that the Holy One, blessed be He, saw fit to make it large so that the people of his generation should see it, wonder at it, converse about it, and speak of the subject of the flood and the gathering of the cattle, beast, and fowl into it so that perhaps they would repent. Furthermore, he made it large in order to reduce the miracle for such is the way with all miracles in the Torah or in the Prophets: whatever is humanly possible is done, with the balance left to Heaven…

והנה יצטרך להביא מכלם שיולידו כמותם וכאשר תאסוף לכלם מאכל אשר יאכל לשנה תמימה לא תכיל אותם התיבה הזאת ולא עשר כיוצא בה אבל הוא נס החזיק מועט את המרובה ואם תאמר יעשנה קטנה ויסמך על הנס הזה ראה השם יתברך לעשותה גדולה כדי שיראו אותה בני דורו ויתמהו בה ויספרו עליה וידברו בענין המבול וכנוס הבהמה והחיה והעוף לתוכה אולי יעשו תשובה ועוד עשו אותה גדולה למעט בנס כי כן הדרך בכל הניסים שבתורה או בנביאים לעשות מה שביד אדם לעשות והשאר יהיה בידי שמים

Before overanalyzing Nachmanides’ words, I believe the simplest way to express his idea is from one of the most iconic movie quotes of all time:

Life is a partnership. Nothing can be done alone. I shared one aspect of this idea of not going at it alone in my piece from last week, Humility is recognizing we don’t have to do it alone. Nachmanides now adds another layer. Faith and trust in something greater than ourselves is not just a waiting game. It requires active participation on our part. Nachmanides uses the example of Noah building a reasonably sized ark, yet clearly not an ark big enough to really house all of what would be needed for survival, as evidence for how a miracle is not a one way street.

One of the greatest miracles we experience is the miracle of growth and change. It is extremely difficult to overcome our habits. It is quite challenging to make a lasting change in life, so much so that more often than not, changes don’t always last. Yet, we are always responsible to keep at it, keep trying, keep taking single steps along the path. True faith comes from a sense that if we take the single step, if we open the door to change, we will see the fruits of our labor. Or, in the words of Midrash Shir HaShirim Rabba 5:2 –

“Open for me” – Rabbi Yasa said: The Holy One blessed be He said to Israel: My children, open for Me one opening of repentance like the eye of the needle, and I will open for you openings that wagons and carriages enter through it.”

Today, may each of us find the sense to take that next step, open the door to new opportunity and may we, in partnership, come to find there is more room to change than meets the eye.