Tag: self-reflection

True Greatness Is Knowing Where We Are

We all have those days where we feel we will never amount to what we wish we would become. We feel small, distant, lost. We don’t know how to find our way forward along the path to find our “greatness.” Instead, we spend so much energy and time seeing all the ways we haven’t reached our life goals.

One area I want to focus on is spiritual growth. In working on our spiritual goals, our spiritual growth, this inability to focus on where we are versus where we aren’t can make it feel like we aren’t having success. We feel distant from our desires to be more connected to our faith, our religion, our trust in Gd. But are we really so far away? Perhaps we aren’t distant but how we perceive things is what is leading to think we are distant. So much of growing along the path of life comes down to the mindset we bring to the moment. I think this is illustrated in the following teaching:

Someone asked the Rebbe Shlit”a how they should deal with their feelings of lack of success. They hear so much from the Rebbe about the high and lofty spiritual levels one should reach, but they feel so far from reaching any of this! The Rebbe answered that the Zohar HaKadosh says that “he who is small is great,” therefore, by a person simply acknowledging where they are truly holding i.e. that they are “small” and not yet on these high levels they learned about, they are showing that they are truly great.

Sea of Wisdom, Parshas Bo 5784 – R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern

When we embrace the notion that we aren’t there yet, not in a negative way, but in a growth mindset way, we change the paradigm. It is no longer that our distance from our desired goals is a sign of what we are lacking. Rather, our place now is our “greatness” and through this current greatness, we are on the path to higher levels of spiritual growth. 

Today, and everyday, when we take stock of where we are, not where we haven’t gotten to, I hope that we can see we are in the place of today’s greatness, knowing full well we want to journey further to tomorrow’s greatness. May we embrace where we are now and find the inspiration from this spot to move along the road of becoming more and more.

Looking for help in recognizing the greatness that is you? If you or someone you know is looking to forge ahead and set new goals or trying to find a sense of meaning in life, we are here to help foster spiritual and emotional growth and change. Schedule your appointment today here. For more information, please contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Standing in someone else’s shoes

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I was playing around with the Jetpack app (newer app to serve for wordpress.com) and came across prompt questions to write about. Interestingly, this was today’s question. I think this question is a great exercise in self reflection. At first glance, the question presumes we want to be someone we are not and that we have an image of who that person is. The answer we give could be a combination of our current personal struggles, our dreams and our perception of what life is like for the other person. Yet, we also know that this wish is perhaps a bit like how we see the grass is greener on the other side, thinking it better to be anywhere but here.

Nevertheless, let’s play this question out a little bit using a deeper dive. What are we looking for/at when we imagine life as someone else? Is it about looks, riches, the joy we perceive? Is it a momentary isolated picture on Facebook which makes us dream of that life? Do we see an immaculate house while living in clutter? Whatever the picture is of life in another’s shoes, when we have those moments, perhaps it is the opportune moment to take steps that lead us to a New Beginning.

The change we are seeking when dreaming of that other life might not even be about the facts we are imagining. They might be about a desire for someone different than what we are currently doing. Maybe it’s how we schedule the day. Maybe it is re-prioritizing the important and the unimportant. Or maybe it really is a desire to be different and that we should foster bigger change through small, goal oriented steps. Any which way we look at it, trying to imagine being another person can actually be beneficial if it comes from a cautious growth oriented mindset and not from a place of jealousy.

After all that, I am sorry to disappoint everyone but truth is, I don’t really have a desire to be someone else for a day. I am truly blessed to be who I am and have worked to recognize that the desires to be someone else where really all about how to be better in my own life.

Are you imaging your life would be different that it is? Wondering if you really are the person people see you as? Are you working on your spiritual growth? Faith? Feeling lost in the midst of the journey of life? Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com

Self-reflection/looking in the mirror

A couple of my more recent posts have explored the topic of identifying the various components of self identity. In this post, I am…, I included the beginnings of a list of different terms as to who I see myself as and as a paradigm for your personal growth. This practice, of listing the various “I ams” is a crucial component of growth. By looking in the mirror and engaging in the various elements of who we see, we can then explore the deeper characteristics that underlie each of those elements of our self-makeup.

Some of you reading this might question this method. After all, the work of claiming an “I” seemingly flies in the face of many spiritual practices. It is a common misconception that the goal of spiritual practice is an absolute self-nullification, a removal of all “I” elements of life. I would argue that this is a mistaken premise. Self-nullification, losing oneself in greater spiritual growth, is about the work of not allowing any of the identifying elements of the self to become sacred, to become the be all and end all.

Rather, what I am proposing is that the “I am” is a gateway to deep exploration and spiritual work as it relates to growth. This dawned on me in working with a couple of my clients, exploring the underlying meaning of the terms they were using to identify themselves. The exploration was to try to understand what were the drivers behind the particular term that the person used as a definition of self. When we are clear on who we are and what that means to us, we can then travel a road of who we wish to become within or without the term we are exploring.

For example, in my previous post, I identified myself as a “reader.” If I were to break this down further, I might begin by describing what I like to read or the types of books I find myself reading at the moment. I might explore what reading does for me. In fact, here is a rough outline of what saying I am a Reader is to me:

  1. explorer
  2. curious
  3. seeker of knowledge
  4. reading allows me times to escape from the challenges of life
  5. reading is a spiritual practice
  6. growth and change
  7. reading is a gateway to unexplored worlds
  8. reading is helpful in being a writer

I would then take this list and go deeper in this and related topics as it pertains to the goals the person I am working with would like to explore. For example, if I want to explore the notion of reading as a personal spiritual practice in relation to what it means when I define myself as a reader, I would work with the person to deepen their self-notion of what reading as a spiritual practice is. Is it the focus of reading? Is reading really about study and being absorbed in the depths of another’s words? Is it a form of connection to Gd (there is much in religious thought about connecting to the divine through the practice of study, of learning)? The goal of these explorations would be to help foster within the person the richness that comes from insights into the self so as to better foster the growth a person is looking for.

May each of us discover new aspects of ourselves as we consider the “I ams” we bring to the world.

Reflecting on your own path of self-discovery: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

How many drafts does it take

I have been finding a lot of self-reflective material when considering aspects of writing. In writing, like life, it is almost impossible to create the perfect piece in a single sitting. Just like it is important to remember that all goals are made up of a series of single steps, one foot after the other, so too writing is a process of putting one word on paper at a time, in which eventually the string of words becomes a cohesive unit. Along the way, there will be updates to the unit of writing, whether because of a misspelled word, a missing punctuation mark, or information that is lacking because we forget to convey to the reader precisely what we are thinking. Or, perhaps you think it is good, post it on a website, and then get a copy-editor’s eye to read it and circle in yellow the errors in the piece (which luckily is easily fixable in wordpress).

Serious writing is a series of rough drafts, when in a way even the final draft remains an incomplete, imperfect product. Yet, for those of us who persist in writing, the rough draft, the initial go, is often as valuable if not more valuable than the “final product.” The rough draft is the opportunity to try and fail in the craft of formulating an idea. The rough draft is the proof you need to know you have taken the hard first step of engaging in the writing process.

The rough draft is a great metaphor when we consider self-introspection and change. Most of us are searching for do-overs, the opportunity to change what was, whether by scrapping something and moving away from the past or from veering slightly to the right of left to a different turn that we believe will lead us in the direction we really want to go. Like with writing, when we cross out and change words, life gives us countless opportunities to adjust to the moment, to the times by changing, rearranging or erasing elements of our before so as to make the step forward towards a new start.

I came to this thought this afternoon as I was scrolling through a list of some of the blog posts which I have either not completed or have pretty much decided to leave in the draft folder because they don’t resonate for me at this point. Many of the drafts were like the dipping of a toe into a topic and realizing the water was not ready yet or perhaps might never be. The draft folder contains the tried and failed so as to then try again and succeed with any number of other posts.

Every Elul as well as every other demarcation point in one’s year, when we reflect and desire to explore unknown elements of the path going forward, we are reminding ourselves that we remain a “rough” draft in need to further polishing. The polishing can take multiple reads, multiples steps and missteps along the way. We can and do go through many drafts of our lives. The goal is fostering and maintaining the hope that each time we reread and edit, we are succeeding by seeing the incremental and/or monumental improvement over the previous version.

May this be a time of year when we can all look inside and make the necessary edits to improve on the rough drafts we have crafted up until now.

Need help scouring and editing the Rough Drafts of your life: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.

I am…

Last week I wrote a personal reflection I Am A Writer, expressing how I see myself as the writer I am and want to be. It was a post about self-definition and about claiming one’s dreams as one’s current reality.

Today, I want to continue in the same vain, with a discussion of the more general statement “I am…” I was inspired by two things. First, while at a local business networking meeting, BNI, giving my 45 second ask, I realized that I was struggling to specify my ideal client. In the course of this challenge, I came to the recognition that understanding the ideal client would also require me to further understand who I am, who do I bring to a session when I am meeting with someone. Second, I had the fortune of connecting with a fellow rabbi/Spiritual coach to discuss how we serve others and how we can continue to grow our respective clientele. During this meeting, he reminded me about the importance of claiming who I am as part of growth for both myself and my business.

Before I answer this question, I want to explore this phrase “I am…” There is a classic situation in which someone asks us to tell them who you are and the initial answer we often give begins with our profession. And while this is one aspect of “I am…,” it is not the core of who we are. Yet, we are that professional as much as we are a parent, child, spouse, individual, a member of a community, faith tradition, etc. At different times we are one or many of these “I am…” descriptions. Further, the definition of “I am…” will inevitably change depending on our life circumstances.

To answer the question of who “I am…” is a moving target, yet it is a composite of all of the various definitions we experience of ourselves in life as it relates to both ourselves and to others. And finally, I think “I am…” can and should also include some of our in process goals and dreams as it can be a means of claiming elements of ourselves that might be incomplete/works in progress. As such, let me share some of my “I am…” statements and invite you to consider the same exercise for yourselves.

I am…

A husband, father, son, grandson, brother (and brother in law), uncle, nephew, cousin.

A Rabbi, chaplain, spiritual coach, teacher, writer, reader, learner.

A friend, colleague, mentor, disciple, student.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of parts of who I am and helps me recognize how best to work and to serve others. All of these elements both enter a space with me and remain outside the sacred encounter with a client. When we have a deeper sense of self, the good, bad and ugly, we can better sit in the space of the uncomfortable with another.

As such, the answer to my ideal client is… You! You who are searching or engaging the same work of “I am…” You who are trying to foster a New Beginning. You who have experienced loss, death, new challenges and are trying to redefine the “I am…” that is who you are.

Reflecting on your own path of self-discovery: Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.