new beginnings – Page 18 – New beginnings: A blog about spirituality, chaplaincy and renewal

Real Truth

I came across this quote from Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski’s Smiling Each Day which I find particularly poignant for all of us looking for a New Beginning.

“The naked truth” is a familiar expression. In reality, truth is always naked, because if it is dressed up, it is no longer the truth. That is probably why so many people avoid the truth. They are sorely embarrassed by its nudity (Rabbi Eizel of Slonim).
p. 157

If we are truly engaging ourselves in change, we must confront ourselves without any barriers. This is not an easy task. Yet, to truly start fresh, we need to remove the “clothing” of the past and see who we really are before dressing ourselves in our new “outfit” for the next step of the journey.

For more information and to schedule a session, contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or email newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

Calm Water

My fundamental goal in establishing New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting is to help people navigate the waves in life. Our lives are composed of a series of ups and downs, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. While there is much to be gained from life as dynamic like a wave as opposed to static like calm water, most want a life with tiny waves in the midst of calm waters, not giant waves crashing down.

I came across a quote from a short book of reflections called How to Relax by Thich Nhat Hanh that I found particularly poignant to part of the philosophy underlying my spiritual coaching method:

Each of us is like the waves and also like the water. Sometimes we’re excited, noisy and agitated like the waves. Sometimes we’re tranquil like still water. When water is calm, it reflects the blue sky, the clouds, and the trees. Sometimes, whether we’re at home, work, or school, we become tired, agitated, or unhappy and we need to transform into calm water. We already have the calmness in us; we just need to know how to make it manifest.
p. 16

For more information and to schedule a session, contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or email newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

When 80 percent is perfect

When we embark on any new beginning, we often get lost in our ideal selves wanting everything to be perfect. While we must always strive to do the best we can, with hard work, dedication and resolve, it is important to be grateful for the imperfections that will be inevitable. Often, if something isn’t perfect, we immediately give up.

As we are arriving at the end of 2021, heading into another new calendrical year, when so many of us consider what we want to do new or different, let us not lose momentum when things are imperfect. Instead, recognize how far you have come and find the inspiration to keep going through seeing how much you have accomplished so far.

If you are someone in the process of creating your own new beginning, New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC is here to help. For more information, please check out: https://achaplainsnewjourney.wordpress.com/about/

When we resist transition

As we consider what it means to make a transition in life, one of the aspects of this process is to examine in oneself how previous times of change have gone. While no two situations are the same, there are clear commonalities in how operate when we reach a transition point in life. Yet, when we look back in an effort to gain perspective, there are times when we gloss over key elements of how previous situations worked. In William Bridges’ Transitions, he describes this resistance as his third rule of being in transition (see links for rule one and rule two):

Although it is advantageous to understand your own style of endings, some part of you will resist that understanding as though your life depended on it.
p. 15

I often find that one’s desire for a new beginning is so great that they will ignore the searching of self needed to know what worked in the past. People tend to want to assume that the past self cannot help the current self determine what the future self will need for the journey. While it is important not to bring all one’s baggage along on the new journey, all new journeys are informed by the events of the past.

As an exercise, notice the next time you are thinking about a transition what past situations comes to mind. I would offer that you might be surprised to relive stories of younger years that at first glance don’t seem to relate. It might be a relationship gone bad, a choice that you made which you wish you could do over, a conversation you wish you hadn’t had. Whatever the memory, instead of trying to block it out or trying to ignore it, sit with it and investigate what it might be trying to tell you now.

As you work towards your new journey, may the memories of past changes be a helpful guide to your molding your new self.

Am I Living or Existing?

The inspiration for this piece came from a question posed on a WhatsApp group I am part of with friends from my year of study in Israel over 20 years ago.

Genesis 47:8-9 describes a conversation between Pharaoh and Jacob after Jacob and his family arrive in Egypt.

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֖ה אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֑ב כַּמָּ֕ה יְמֵ֖י שְׁנֵ֥י חַיֶּֽיךָ׃
Pharaoh asked Jacob, “How many are the days of the years of your life?”
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֔ה יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י מְגוּרַ֔י שְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת שָׁנָ֑ה מְעַ֣ט וְרָעִ֗ים הָיוּ֙ יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י חַיַּ֔י וְלֹ֣א הִשִּׂ֗יגוּ אֶת־יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵי֙ חַיֵּ֣י אֲבֹתַ֔י בִּימֵ֖י מְגוּרֵיהֶֽם׃
And Jacob answered Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourn [on earth] are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the days of the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojourns.”

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that underlying the question and answer posed in these verses is a lesson about how we view our lives. As he states:

“V. 8 – Still today, royalty, whose time naturally is extremely previous at audiences, as a rule just throw out a few short words or enquiries, the replies to which they are in reality entirely indifferent. But it must be rare indeed for a king to have understood to secure more delicacy in a few interrogative words than Pharaoh did here. And even more seldom has the person addressed expressed more wisdom in a short reply, than Jacob did here. When one counts by years, one does not reckon any more the days. It is only with a few select people that each day is full of importance and is considered by them as having a special meaning. A really true human being does not lives years but days…”

After elaborating on the underlying philosophy behind Pharaoh’s question, Rabbi Hirsch presents his take on Jacob’s response:

” V. 9 – In his reply Jacob differentiates between living and existing. ‘You ask after the days of the years of my life. I have not lived much. I have sojourned on earth during one hundred and thirty years. The days of the years that I can really call my life (on which I really fully carried out all that I should) were in reality only few, and they were just the bitterest and those most full of worry…'”

R. Hirsch is suggesting in his in depth analysis of this dialogue a question for each of us to reflect on. Are we living or merely existing? Do we find each day meaningful in some way or is life merely a series of “groundhog” like days? We desire to make an impact, to live meaningful, fulfilling lives.

In fostering a new beginning, a primary goal is to change the direction of the path we have been cultivating because it seems monotonous. We can do this through a variety of means. We can foster our desire to help others, to reconnect to those we care about, to come back to a latent spirituality and creativity that might have been purposefully left dormant for years.

May each of us experience life as daily living and not merely as existence.

If you or someone you know is trying to foster a renewed sense of living life to the fullest, New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC is here to help. For more information, please check out: https://achaplainsnewjourney.wordpress.com/about/

To begin new, we must end what was

The other day I shared the first rule of transitions as posited by William Bridges in his book Transitions. The rule described how we gravitate back to the familiar in the midst of transition.

Bridges’s second rule about transitions is very simple yet very profound:

Every transition begins with an ending. We have to let go of the old thing before we can pick up the new one – not just outwardly, but inwardly, where we keep our connections to people and places that act as definitions of who we are.
p. 11

A new beginning requires something to come to an end. In order to create this transition, we must be willing to let go of the image of who we think we are. Most often, the barriers to change come from a fear that by changing, we lose our core self. We worry family and friends won’t be accepting and we will lose the social connections that help fulfill our lives. Yet, as is so often the case, our perceptions of what we will lose are merely the internal voices we project on others because we ourselves are not ready yet.

If we can embrace endings as much as we tend to desire to embrace a new beginning, we will truly be on the path of transitioning to a new beginning in whatever we choose to do.

Strength to the Weary

Among the morning blessings is one that blesses Gd for giving strength to the weary.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶֽלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם הַנּוֹתֵן לַיָּעֵף כֹּֽחַ:
Blessed are You, Adonoy our God, King of the Universe, Who gives strength to the weary.

Many of us recite this in the midst of feeling tired, either physically or emotionally, yet within this blessing is a moment of the inspiration to feel energized for the day ahead. I read a short piece that I believe helps frame the deeper sense of this blessing.

Consider: two persons, one young and the other old, walking the same road, or climbing the same mountain, with the goal far out of sight; who will reach it: the young one, starting out with full strength, but with little hope, or the old one, lacking in strength, but full of hope? The youth will soon get out of breath, and, despairing of ever attaining the goal, will give it up in frustration. But the old man will steadily forge ahead constantly renewing his strength by hope and confidence. This is what the prophet tells us: Physical strength will be of no avail, where there is no hope, but “they that hope in Gd will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31).”
And so, when we start a new day, which may be a difficult one, it is good to bear in mind that it is Gd “who gives strength to the weary.” With hope and trust in Gd, no road is too long or too hard, and no obstacles are too difficult.
My Prayer Volume 1 by Rabbi Nissan Mindel pg. 34-35

So often we burn bright and burn out too fast because we get caught up in the moment and lose sight of the goal and the steadiness goal setting can provide us. If we take a moment to trust that the process is going at the pace it needs to and that we are along the right path, we can maintain the strength needed to forge ahead. The strength comes from the hope in the correctness of the path. This doesn’t mean the path is always the right one, but the path, right or wrong, will lead to the next crossroads and to the next new beginning. In one sense, every day is this opportunity. And so we recognize that when we are weary there is a strength we can draw on each day to strive forward.

For more information about New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC, and how we can support you on the journey through the waves of life, please check out: https://achaplainsnewjourney.wordpress.com/about/

New ways and the past

I recently started reading and reflecting on a book called Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges. I plan to share some of my thoughts on this book in a series of posts. For now, I want to begin with one of the first points the author makes in reflecting on transitions.

Rule number one: When you’re in transition, you find yourself coming back in new ways to old activities.
p. 7

As we work to make changes, or we find ourselves in the midst of a change , many of us will fall back on the familiar to help navigate the new road. While change presumes a break from the past, and this break is a necessity to affect true transition and change, it is within the familiar that we find our inner strength and resolve to move forward.

Celebrating hope – chanukkah day 1

Last night we began the eight day celebration of Hanukkah. The traditional story of Hanukkah describes how the Hasmoneans, upon recapturing the Temple Mount from the Seleucid Greeks, where left without the ability to light the menorah in the Temple. Fortunately, after much searching, they came across a single jug of oil, which would have been sufficient to last for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days until they could get more pure olive oil to light the menorah on a daily basis as part of the Temple ritual.

One of the famous questions about this miraculous event is why do we light for eight nights when the miracle was that while they had enough for one night, the oil lasted an additional seven nights? One answer to this question is presented in Growing Each Day by Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski. He states:

…They did light the Menorah anyway, reasoning that it was best to do what was within their ability to do and to postpone worrying about the next day until such worry was appropriate. This decision elicited a Divine response and the Menorah stayed lit for that day and for seven more.
This miracle was thus initiated by the Jews themselves, and the incident was set down as a teaching for all future generations: concentrate your efforts on what you can do and do it! Leave the rest to God.
While even our best and most sincere efforts do not necessarily bring about miracles, the teaching is nevertheless valid. Even the likelihood of failure in the future should not discourage us from any constructive action that we can take now.
pg. 86

Whenever we are faced with “not enough,” many of us will freeze and give up instead of forging ahead and having the confidence that our efforts will be of value. While there are no guarantees, this is an example of better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try at all. As one strives for new beginnings, it is important to always remember the journey begins with one step, one flame, one light.

Happy Hanukkah!

Owning one’s feelings as a means of growth

In today’s piece in Growing Each Day, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski suggests the value in taking ownership of one’s feelings and thoughts. He states:

We tend to disown those thoughts, feelings and actions that we dislike. Something we saw, read, or heard upset us, we like to think, and caused us to think, feel or act in certain way. We forget that we have considerable say in what we choose to see or to hear.
Psychiatry and psychology have contributed to this abdication of responsibility. Their emphasis on the impact of early-life events on our emotions has been taken to mean that these factors determine our psyche, and that we are but helpless victims of the past…
p.74

There is much value in getting a deeper understanding of how our journeys have led us to be the person we have become. Rabbi Twerski is reminding us that while we might have grown and changed, part of growth is being able to own who we have become and and then keep working to better ourselves as a result of knowing who we are.

He goes on to offer the following vignette

A man once complained to his rabbi that alien thoughts were interfering with his prayer and meditation. The rabbi shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know why you refer to them as alien,” he said. “They are your own.”
If we stop disavowing our feelings and actions, we may be able to do something about them.
p. 74

From first hand experience, I can speak to the value of examining how past events in my life which have come back to the forefront of thought can help open up new vistas for new growth opportunities. As we strive for a new beginning in our day to day life, may we find how who we are has helped guide us to this moment and this opportunity for new growth goals and new opportunities.