Tag: new beginnings

From Despair to Hope: Seven Weeks until Rosh Hashanah

What can we do to change our mindset from feeling the sense of divine distance to divine nearness? What is the path to be ready to “greet the King in the field” which is a theme of the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah?

Yesterday was the commemoration known as Tisha B’Av (usually falling out on the 9th day of the Hebrew calendar month Av but due to the 9th being Shabbat, the fast day was pushed off until Sunday, the 10th of Av). Tisha B’Av is a day of collective mourning in the Jewish community, focused first and foremost on the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE respectively) and then tying in all other tragedies that we have experienced throughout Jewish History. It is a day we lament and try to grapple with “why” and with “how.” After expressing many prayers and reflections that focus on these pain questions, we begin to search and look for some form of collective hope.

Coming out of Tisha B’Av, while having touched on this sense of hope, there remains the sense of Gd being distant, far away. It is hard to find how the tiny amount of hope will help lead us forward from feeling Gd is hiding to the sense of Gd’s presence we look to feel in seven weeks, when we change our tune and acknowledge Gd as the ruler of all humanity, coronating Gd as we do yearly on Rosh Hashanah.

What can we do to change our mindset from feeling the sense of divine distance to divine nearness? What is the path to be ready to “greet the King in the field” which is a theme of the month of Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah?

It isn’t a coincidence that just like how the time period of Passover to Shavuot seven weeks period which is supposed to be a time of getting ready to receive the Torah anew, this 7 week period between Tisha B’Av and Rosh Hashanah is also a preparation period. The preparation begins by rising up from the depths of pain by taking one single step at a time. By taking the first step, we begin the journey and process.

Breaking it down further, there are two main periods we have in front of us as we get ready for Rosh Hashanah. The first three weeks from today until the beginning of Elul are about opening up our hearts and souls to the notion of reconnecting. We do this through study, through readings that offer comfort (nechama) and that awaken us to the notion we are never abandoned.

We then enter Elul. Starting from the first day of the month, we sound the shofar daily as a wake up call to work on ourselves (teshuva). The work we do is to take steps in our desire for self-improvement and growth, with the specific purpose of preparing for the new beginning Rosh Hashanah sets before us. We cannot just enter this period, waiting for the alarm call. We have the opportunity over the next three weeks to set the alarm so that when it goes off, one’s heart and soul is ready to hear the sounds emanating from the shofar. We shouldn’t just wait for the alarm but need to set it and prepare for it in the first three weeks leading up to Elul.

May these next 7 weeks be a time of growth and introspection and a time of finding hope out of the depths of despair.

Looking for help along your journey from despair to hope? Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Keep writing the story

“I never expected this to be the outcome.”

“Things just didn’t work out the way i imagined.”

Often we have moments in our lives when we feel that the story is “over,” feeling as though we have reached the ending of the book that is our story. In the moment of feeling stagnant, we believe that now life is destined to be a certain way because we have made our choices and are no longer in the driver’s seat of where we would like to head. In these moments of despair, when we feel that the outcome is inevitable, that we go from being in “control” to being the passive passenger along for the ride, resigning ourselves to “fate.” We feel a sense of sadness, loss, anger and frustration at our lot. Perhaps we begin to spiral into despair and depression. These feelings become further roadblocks and barriers on our life’s highway. Perhaps we feel we are on the wrong path.

How do we overcome this sensation, this feeling, this set of traps along the path?

First, I am a strong believer in the importance of naming and sitting with the emotions that rise up. One of the challenges to overcoming sadness, anger and other “negative” emotions is we try to squash them, try to avoid them or compartmentalize them. We thus end up in two fights, the fight against the emotion and the fight with ourselves to avoid feeling bad. Yes, we all want to feel good, happy and positive. Yet, many times, we don’t. It is in those moments when engaging the emotion in a constructive manner is crucial. In those moments of pain, the variety of feelings are there to help foster growth, even if it is painful.

Second, in those moments of despair and feeling like there is no further one can go, we need to reframe the narrative. As the above quote says, “Keep writing, your story is worth it.” If we think of our lives as a big canvas that is telling a story, then the end is not the end until the inevitable end of life. Yes, situations end, changes occur. One chapter ends, not the book. In those moments of feeling “this is not how I expected it to be,” we can take a different tack and sit with the sense of ending as if it is a stop along the path so as to get the next set of directions. It is hard to imagine, but in reality each day, no matter our station in life, is an opportunity to shift our journey, taking different roads along the highway of life. I recall countless interviews with centenarians who have suggested a secret to their longevity was the learning of something new everyday. Underlying that message is the drive to seize an opportunity to write our own story instead of allowing the story to write us.

Keep writing your story. The ending hasn’t been written yet.

Want help crafting the next chapters of your story! Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Don’t Get Stuck

The biggest barrier to change is the line “I’ve always been this way.” By saying that, we are allowing the past to control who we are in the now and who we hope to be in the future. If we can allow the past to be a place we turn to learn lessons of what to do/not to do and for tools we might need to draw on in similar situations going forward, we are taking control of the past instead of allowing the past to take control of us and keep you stagnant.

When reflections of past events come to mind at seemingly random moments, it is an opportunity for reflection. I have shared previously how it is important to not ignore the recollections. Rather, when these memories rise up, it is part of the inner work we are in need of doing to take the nexts steps we are striving to take.

If we can see the past as the lessons to be learned and not as the blueprint for who we are to be today, we can then set ourselves up so that each day is a new opportunity for growth, for blessing, for a new beginning.

Struggling to find your inspiration, your spiritual sustenance? Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Seeing the wonder in each moment

The above picture is from last summer, on a beach in Florida. It was at the beach that I was originally inspired with the motto for New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC, “Helping you on the journey through the waves of life.”

I find myself reflecting on this picture today, thinking about the wonders of the world. Many of us find comfort and spirituality in the workings of nature, truly seeing the beauty and grandeur of the world. By observing the movement of the trees, the waves of the ocean, hearing the sounds of the birds, we can find our connection in the cycle of life.

For me, looking at this picture of the waves, I am reminded about how life is a series of ebbs and flows. Each wave carries sediment, and leaves it at the shore, while also dragging sand back into the ocean. Each step of life is a combination of leaving something behind and also carrying something forward.

Need help on the journey through the waves of life. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Preparing for the unknown

How many of us can relate to this image?

Often we feel like we are traveling on a dark road with no end in sight. We can’t begin to figure out where the destination is. All we see is the uncertainty that lies ahead. How can we overcome the inevitable fear we feel on this long, unknown path? One way is to work to change the image we see before us. Perhaps, this next images changes the mood.

Imagine this brighter image. Yes, it is an open road, but with the sun, we will hopefully have a better sense of where we are able to go.

The first step on the journey to change and find our path is to “turn on the light.” This is not a simple practice. It is one which takes time and effort to find the “switch.” Yet, once we shift our perception, we can then begin to progress to the next destination along the road of life.

Don’t want to walk this path alone. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

The Journey Never Stops

On life’s journey, there are many times we reach an exit, taking us off one road and beginning us on another part of our life’s superhighway. Sometimes, we feel like we have arrived and have no need to go further. While it is important to pause at these junctures, reflect and take stock, these moments cannot be an ending.

Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski (o.b.m.) presented a spiritual reflection on those moments of “arrival” in yesterday’s piece from his work Smiling Each Day:

“You shall seek G-d and you shall follow Him but you must search for Him wholeheartedly” (Deuteronomy 4:29). Even after you have found G-d, you must continue to search for Him wholeheartedly. G-d is infinite, and you should not be so complacent as to think that you have already found Him. Keep searching, because there is so much more (Rabbi of Kotzk)

p. 240

May today and every day be a day in which you continue to search and step forward.

We are here to walk along the path of growth with you. Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

How do you see your inner critic?

The difference between listening to the inner critic vs. seeing the inner critic for what it really is.

I came across an interesting vignette in The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully that really struck home for me (see here for a previous post from The Five Invitations). In this story, Frank Ostaseski illustrates a principle in his discussion regarding how we are all stymied by what he refers to as our inner critic:

Once, when I was teaching about the inner critic, a woman raised her hand and asked to speak. Her frustration was palpable, her face turning red and her whole body trembling. “I can never defeat the inner critic!” she said. “It always gets the best of me. Why am I so weak?”

I pulled a chair right up next to her and stood on top of it so that I was a good four feet taller than she was. Then I pointed my finger down at her and said in a firm, loud tone, “You are bad!”

She burst into laughter. “Oh yeah, look at that!” she said. “That is what the critic is like when it has the best of me. No wonder I feel weak. I couldn’t fight back against that adult voice when I was a small child. It was too big, too powerful.”

Then I asked the woman to stand up on the chair so that she was a head taller than I was. I guided her to breathe deeply, feel her way into her body, center he awareness, and think about her innate goodness. “Now how would you respond to the inner critic when it tells you that you’re bad, you’re week?” I asked.

“Don’t speak to me that way,” she said, her voice strong and confident. “It hurts me when you talk to me like that. And it doesn’t help me do any better.”

p.144-145

This story is all too familiar. We have an idea, a gut reaction. We then start to hear all the reasons not to do something. Yes, it is important for those voices to be heard, to help us reflect on the decisions we are to make. Yet, if we always heed the inner critic, we will never find new opportunities, new growth, new adventures in life.

Similarly, there is a rabbinic vignette that offers a similar imagery, using the term evil inclination instead of inner critic. Both are the wily ones who try through various means to lead us from a path of growth and spirituality. In the Talmudic text below, from Tractate Sukkah 52a, we are shown a scene in which the evil inclination for those who have been able to overcome it, “the righteous,” is imagined as a mountain, symbolizing the hard work of quieting the voice of the critic, while for the “wicked”, the same critic is a like a tiny strand of hair, symbolizing that we really are in control of it if we should so choose:

כִּדְדָרֵשׁ רַבִּי יְהוּדָה: לֶעָתִיד לָבֹא, מְבִיאוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לְיֵצֶר הָרָע, וְשׁוֹחֲטוֹ בִּפְנֵי הַצַּדִּיקִים וּבִפְנֵי הָרְשָׁעִים. צַדִּיקִים נִדְמֶה לָהֶם כְּהַר גָּבוֹהַּ, וּרְשָׁעִים נִדְמֶה לָהֶם כְּחוּט הַשַּׂעֲרָה. הַלָּלוּ בּוֹכִין וְהַלָּלוּ בּוֹכִין. צַדִּיקִים בּוֹכִין וְאוֹמְרִים: הֵיאַךְ יָכוֹלְנוּ לִכְבּוֹשׁ הַר גָּבוֹהַּ כָּזֶה! וּרְשָׁעִים בּוֹכִין וְאוֹמְרִים: הֵיאַךְ לֹא יָכוֹלְנוּ לִכְבּוֹשׁ אֶת חוּט הַשַּׂעֲרָה הַזֶּה! וְאַף הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא תָּמֵהַּ עִמָּהֶם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״כֹּה אָמַר ה׳ צְבָאוֹת כִּי יִפָּלֵא בְּעֵינֵי שְׁאֵרִית הָעָם הַזֶּה בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם גַּם בְּעֵינַי יִפָּלֵא״.

The Gemara answers: This can be understood as Rabbi Yehuda taught: In the future, at the end of days, God will bring the evil inclination and slaughter it in the presence of the righteous and in the presence of the wicked. For the righteous the evil inclination appears to them as a high mountain, and for the wicked it appears to them as a mere strand of hair. These weep and those weep. The righteous weep and say: How were we able to overcome so high a mountain? And the wicked weep and say: How were we unable to overcome this strand of hair? And even the Holy One, Blessed be He, will wonder with them, as it is stated with regard to the eulogy: “So says the Lord of hosts: If it be wondrous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, it should also be wondrous in My eyes” (Zechariah 8:6).

text and translation from Sefaria

Both stories offer perspective on achieving growth and change throughout life. Too often we take small challenges, the molehills, and turn them into mountains, presuming them to be harder to overcome than they really are. And in a way, they are, because we have to work hard to rise above the naysayers, the excuses, etc. At other times, we give up way to easily because we think it is so hard, and yet, if we are really able to stand above the critic or see the inclination as a mere hair to push aside, we could continue to journey forward.

May we all find the ability to recognize what our inner critic says and find ways to take the criticisms we build in a constructive manner so as to be able to overcome the stagnation of allowing the critic to succeed.

Need help exploring how to overcome the inner critic holding you back on your journey, Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Chaplains bring God to People

This is the title page from my friend and colleague and current NAJC President Rabbi Dr. Joseph S. Ozarowski BCC’s important work on Jewish Pastoral Care. The following quote and essay immediately had me thinking about his book.

Monday afternoon, during the joint NJHSA-NAJC conference, PowerNet2022, someone made the following comment:

Rabbis bring people to God.

Chaplains bring God to people.

I shared this quote via social media (h/t from friend and colleague Rabbi Daniel Braune-Friedman BCC who first posted this on Facebook) and find myself reflecting on this powerful statement. I am particularly focused on the second half of this quote as it pertains to the role of chaplain.

For me, when I hear “bring God to people,” it is the image of how the chaplain entering a room is being accompanied by something beyond the self, regardless of whether we say God, divine, spirit, etc. A chaplain is walking along a path with God when entering another individual’s sacred space. If you think about it as defining the goal upon entering the space, the Chaplain enters without “agenda,” rather just bringing the self to the support of the person, not trying to bring the person along a path. As another friend and colleague of mine Rabbi Dr. Shira Stern, BCC (at who’s lecture our quote was originally heard) shares in lectures she gives on disaster and crisis care, spiritual care could be as “simple” as providing the traumatized a water bottle (she tells it better than I could describe).

In crafting and designing my spiritual coaching business paradigm, the same point is a key component to what I provide. My method in how to best foster growth and change begins by being able to enter the space of someone by bringing my human commonality, my self and spirit into the space. By this I mean bringing a sense of being present to the moment, to the conversation. With that as a driver, I am then able to walk alongside the person, assess their goals and needs, and guide that person along a path that I believe they are already walking (even if the person doesn’t really believe they are already on a path to growth). This joining in the journey allows the individual to take further steps along a path. From this place, we then can work towards the more concrete needs of the moment, which can be anything to just continuing to be present to deep theological, spiritual reflection. Each situation is unique and needs one to be able to be broad and open in coming into a space of support and care.

Don’t walk the paths of growth and change alone: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Crowdsourcing question – Do you look back at old journals/diaries?

One of my personal tools for growth and reflection is journaling. The ability to free flow write on paper thoughts, feelings, ideas, worries, etc. has a calming effect (see here for a short piece describing journaling as a coping tool). Journaling allows me to organize my mind when it finds itself moving in many directions at once. It is a place to free-flow ideas or just record something interesting that I came across in my readings and explorations. For those who know me, part of my journaling ritual is that, for the most part, I specifically try to only write using a fountain pen (fountain pen collecting is a bit of a hobby of mine!).

Recently, I have started to reflect on old blog posts and it got me wondering; should I venture back into my old journals and read about the person that was? What is the value of looking back? My internal debate is as such: On the one hand, I believe that as we journey forward we must be willing to shed the parts of ourselves that weigh us down and don’t allow progress. We have to work to declutter. On the other hand, I have also learned the importance of sitting with random past memories that will arise at the strangest times because within those memories we can find nuggets for where we are heading.

And so, I ask all of you: For those who journal, do you ever look back or just leave the thoughts on paper and close the book on the past?

Need spiritual and emotional support navigating the path forward in times of transition: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Harnessing the tools of the past and reflections on Growing Together

Recently I decided to reflect on some of my older blog posts as part of my journey into discovering new beginnings. Part of my process has been discovering things from past experiences as a means of fostering new avenues of growth. Through this deliberate work I have gained insights that are helping to guide me as I continue along my path forward.

I believe the work of reflection, of reviewing the steps that have led us to a particular moment is invaluable to growth. At the same time, I do not believe this reflective work should be a means of relying on past experiences as a security blanket to calm us in those times of not knowing. Rather, it is a strengthening and revealing of tools for us to carry along while we search for new horizons.

Original post here

The beginning of the work, “The Celebration of Life,” by Norman Cousins, provides a stirring definition of how we are able to gain and clarify our understanding of an idea.  Each individual approaches an idea with a different, unique perspective.  I believe hearing and listening to everyone’s individual story and perspective is fundamental to our lives and our growth. As an aside, this would also be the basic premise behind much of analytical philosophy as well, namely the idea that word usage is subjective to the individual using that particular word.  

Cousins writes (p. 1-2):

One grows into one’s philosophy.  Year by year an individual is shaped by the sights, the sounds, the ideas around him.  Consciously or not, he is forever adding to or subtracting from the sum total of his beliefs or attitudes or responses, or whatever it is we mean when we say that a person has a certain outlook on life.  I do not mean to say that clearly defined truths of religions and philosophies are inevitably subject to the interpretation of an individual according to his or her experience.  But I would like to suggest that one of the prime glories of the human mind is that the same idea or occurrence is never absorbed in precisely the same way by any two individuals who may be exposed to it.  Each of us views a sunset, reads a book, or participates in a conversation in a different way from another, and each will take from these experiences a different meaning and memory, which will enrich the common human experience. 

In this first paragraph, Cousins presents a beautiful description that we experience life through our own eyes. Even formal situations, education, religion, sports, are communal moments of a group of individuals experiencing different things in the same place. I think we need constant reminders of this first point.

In this sense, each human being is a process – a filtering process of retention or rejection, absorption or loss.  This process gives each person individuality.  It determines whether a human being justifies the gift of human life, or whether he or she lives and dies without having been affected by the beauty of wonder, and the wonder of beauty, without having had any real awareness of kinship or human fulfillment.

Can any individual recognize and define the essence of his own individuality?  Can a camera photograph itself?  It can in a mirror, but even the mirror sees only the outside of the camera.  A mind that attempts to perceive itself can use the tools of language and logic.  But the material with which it deals is beyond mere words or reason.  The marrow of human thought or personality eludes its own product – human analysis – even with the most advanced scientific instrumentation.

At the same time, as growth and developing the self is a process, we can never even truly see everything about ourselves as well. At best, as Cousins implies, we see ourselves in a mirror, which would imply we experience ourselves less from the inside and more from how we reflect back into our minds eye. Part of how we do this is working with others to help us bring out areas of ourselves we aren’t able to completely see in ourselves. My love of what I do includes exploring with people the deeper person that the person is and can be through fostering this exploration and growth.

So, if we are to pursue our essential philosophical quest in the world – our search for integration – we need to bring together rational philosophy, spiritual belief, scientific knowledge, personal experience, and direct observation into an organic whole. 

In pursuing this integration, we turn to a device worked out more than 2,300 years ago: the Socratic dialogue.  The dialogue as a literary device goes back to Socrates.  Its function is to provide a path for the systematic exploration of ideas.  As used by the Greeks, the dialogue seemed uniquely suited to philosophical thought.  The relationship of human beings not just to each other but to the universe, the ability of people to take command of historical experience, the importance attached to abstract ideas and the need to define values and to put them to work, the reach of human beings when confronted with great challenge, the contemplation of the connection between cause and effect –  all these aspects of the human situation were central to the dialogue. 

To me, these last two paragraphs bring us to the core. To grow as a person, we cannot do it alone. We must work with others to grow, to journey, to keep becoming the person we wish to be. This dialogue for the sake of growth is an underlying perspective on the rabbinic adage from Pirkei Avot (1:7):

יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן פְּרַחְיָה וְנִתַּאי הָאַרְבֵּלִי קִבְּלוּ מֵהֶם. יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן פְּרַחְיָה אוֹמֵר, עֲשֵׂה לְךָ רַב, וּקְנֵה לְךָ חָבֵר, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת:

Joshua ben Perahiah and Nittai the Arbelite received [the oral tradition] from them. Joshua ben Perahiah used to say: appoint for thyself a teacher, and acquire for thyself a companion and judge all men with the scale weighted in his favor.

Through appointing a rabbi/spiritual guide/therapist, connect to a companion/a confidante, one will be able to find growth both intrapersonally and interpersonally. This comes about from the conversations, the listening, reflecting and exploration we do with this person.

May each of us find growth through our individualism as members of a group.

If you are looking to explore and see yourself in a new way, Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.