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.
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/
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.
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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.
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/
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!
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/
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.
For so many of us, each day can feel like a a grind. We go about our routines, become consumed by work and find that time just flies by as if time is controlling us. How can we combat this?
I came across a short piece called Finding Purpose: Resiliency through Spiritual Wellness by attorneys Mary C. Aretha and Lynn B. Sholander. This short article focuses on how lawyers can foster spiritual wellness and meaning in a very competitive, adversarial profession. I recommend that everyone take a look, lawyer or not as the sentiments expressed are crucial to professionals in many fields.
As part of their advice for cultivating spiritual wellness, the authors speak about the value of prioritizing spiritual disciplines:
Prioritize spiritual disciplines.
If you are a person of faith, set aside time — even a few minutes each day — to engage in activities that bring you closer to the focus of your belief. This may include solitary or corporate prayer, reading or memorizing sacred texts, listening to sermons or talks, observing a regular sabbath, or attending gatherings with other believers in person or online. It could also include less traditional practices such as prayer journaling, going on prayer walks, or listening to faith-based music. Even if you don’t practice a particular religion, consider setting aside some time each day to reflect on what brings you joy
By taking the time to refocus on one’s innate beliefs and core values from one’s culture, faith, religion, spirituality, it can open the door to getting back to the self. During these moments, minutes or longer periods of time, like a Sabbath, we can remove ourselves from “professional” self, which is often our primary defining self, and cultivate the human being that we truly are. Do we take the time to remove our title and come back to the self?
Each day affords us a new beginning, a new opportunity, to use time to help foster our well being so that we can bring our best self into all we do and to who we are. May we be blessed to find the means to rejuvenate our resiliency through out spirituality.
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/
How do we approach prayer? This is a daily question that I grapple with. One answer which resonates is from a verse that is recited most days from Psalm 100:
worship the LORD in joy; come into His presence with shouts of gladness.
Psalm 100:2
It is a goal to worship from a place of gladness, joy, happiness. As we know, this is not an easy task. It is quite a challenge to sustain a sense of gladness in prayer, especially given the difficulty most face in of remaining focused in prayer for a significant period of time. As it is something we should strive towards, we remain questioning how to create within ourselves these two states of gladness and joy.
One approach I want to share is based on a reading of this verse from the Zohar (the following is based on Leviticus 3:8B, found in Vol. 7 of the Pritzker Edition pgs. 37-39). The word joy is associated with the heart, with our emotional/mental state, while gladness is associated with our mouth, with the words we speak and chant. When we approach worship, prayer, we are to strive to approach prayer with a unity between what we say and what we think/feel. Joyfulness in prayer is seemingly when we approach prayer as a whole person, not as a house divided.
This is not a simple task as our lives are full of complications that can take us away from our sense of wholeness. How often do we pay lip service by saying or putting on an external persona that looks one way but in our hearts we are feeling the exact opposite? So often we are in conflict with the person we feel we are and the person others perceive us to be. If this is so, how can we approach prayer as a whole?
Perhaps by approaching prayer as a divided self, it is praying as a whole self. By being our conflicted self, we can pray from the place of division by embracing the internal conflict as that which makes us who we are. If we can find the place to not fight who we are but embrace ourselves, we can come to prayer with joy and contentment.
May each day bring a new opportunity to strive to find the joy and beauty of prayer.
When life thrusts uncertainties at us, we often grasp for a sense of being connected to someone or something. We search for ways to recreate the sense of safety and certainty, either consciously or not. This idea of looking for refocusing on how faith and belief might be a place of safety is exemplified in one of the famous biblical stories, Jacob’s dream in which he envisions a “Stairway to Heaven.”
After running away from Isaac and Rebecca’s home as a means of self preservation because his twin brother Esau planned to take revenge over the stolen birthright, the Torah finds Jacob having stopped overnight to sleep. On this night, Jacob dreams of a ladder going from the land to heaven. The Torah states:
And the LORD was standing beside him and He said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring.
Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.
Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Genesis 28:12-16
Jacob dreams/receives a prophetic message that Gd will be with him and protect him throughout his journey until such time as he returns to the land of Canaan. For Jacob, this reassurance is key to his ability to withstand the trials and tribulations he will come to face during his sojourn. Yet, Jacob maintains uncertain, for a few verses later, as Jacob takes leave of this seemingly holy place, the Torah states:
Jacob then made a vow, saying, “If God remains with me, if He protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear,
And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God’s abode; and of all that You give me, I will set aside a tithe for You.”
Genesis 28:20-22
This latter scene suggests that Jacob was not one hundred percent convinced that Gd would fulfill his promise from the dream, so Jacobs offers the vow that he would provide a percentage of his hoped for accumulated wealth to Gd as a tribute for protection. Why would Jacob not believe wholeheartedly in Gd’s promise? I would suggest that Jacob’s uncertainty is not from a lack of faith but rather from an innate sense of abandonment that he feeling on this night. This is depicted in the first image of the dream, in which the “angels of Gd” ascend and then descend from the ladder. If we consider the image we would expect to see, the angels should have descending first and only then ascending. Yet, the verse flips the actions, leading to the following comment from Rashi:
עלים וירדים ASCENDING AND DESCENDING — It states first ascending and afterwards descending! Those angels who accompanied him in the land of Israel were not permitted to leave the Land: they ascended to Heaven and angels which were to minister outside the Land descended to accompany him (Genesis Rabbah 68:12).
As we know, dreams, even in the prophetic sense that is attributed to them throughout the Bible, contain many images that illustrate our unconscious or conscious concerns. For Jacob, the angels were his protectors, his internal sense of not being alone, which his subconscious highlighted in his vision. While Jacob does have a destination, his uncle’s home and a mission to marry his uncle’s daughter, he is presumably filled with feelings of abandonment and uncertainty about the future. As such, he dreams of angels first ascending, for deep down he knows he is never alone. Furthermore, the entire dream focuses on Gd being with him throughout his journey. The angels represent that Jacob can rest assured that he is not being abandoned at any point.
Regarding his vow after the dreams, the vow speaks to Jacob’s conscious sense of uncertainty. A dream is a dream and even one of a “prophetic” nature can leave someone with doubts. Jacob’s vow/covenant to Gd is a way for Jacob to accept that dream and change his mindset. No longer will he allow himself to be worried about the uncertainties that lie ahead. He knows he will be able to handle them because of Gd’s “promise” and his offer as a means of submission to this new perspective.
Jacob’s vision and response is a powerful example of the challenge we all face when starting on a new journey. Deep down we know there is risk any time we venture into something new. Doubts exist. Yet, if we allow the doubts to overtake us, we will never be able to take the first step. When we acknowledge the doubts and take control of them, recognizing the doubts are part of the journey, not the barrier, we will be able to move forward and find our new beginning.
May we find the ability to change our mindset as we work towards achieving our growth potential and our wishes.
Over Shabbat I read the following analogy that I believe speaks to the idea of a New Beginning:
When a person is traveling away from his town, his path becomes darker and darker, because the lights of the town are further and further away. But the closer he gets to ending his journey, the closer he is to finding the next town, he begins to see the lights of the town even before he gets there. The lights of the coming town begin to light up his path, even though he is not yet there yet.
When we head out on a new road, we leave behind what we knew. The knowledge of the past fades like the lights of the town as we keep traveling on the road. The road in front of us is scary as we can’t see what is ahead. Yet, as we move along the path, we are also coming closer to a new destination. As we come closer, the “end,” which is the new start, becomes clearer and clearer.
Each day, as we journey forward, we are confronted with this constant going from known to unknown to known again. If we can be mindful that the journey will lead us to a new knowledge, a new “light” we can travel forward with confidence, facing any obstacles along the way because we know the way will be illuminated for us.
May each of you travel your road to a new beginning with the knowledge that it might look dark along the way but really it is a clear path when you reach the next stop along your journey.
I will bless those who bless you And curse him that curses you; And all the families of the earth Shall bless themselves by you.”
At first glance, it appears that God’s call to Abraham is to leave everything behind and travel forth to start fresh. Yet, in 12:5 we read that Abraham doesn’t travel alone or empty handed:
Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the persons that they had acquired in Haran; and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in the land of Canaan,
Abraham travels on this pilgrimage with family, an entourage from his homeland and his property. This would seem to contradict the nature of what we imagine as Abraham’s sacred pilgrimage. How do we resolve this potential contradiction between the divine request and the actual fulfillment of the request?
When we consider the overall nature of Abraham’s appointed mission, I believe that this is not in fact a contradiction but a key to the Abraham story and a lesson to learn. Abraham’s journey needed to be a new start, yet one which built off of his past. Abraham needed to leave behind the elements of his past that would have hindered him, that would have weighed him down. At the same time, in order to fulfill the promise of God, that he would be the founder of a great nation and a blessing to all those whom he encounters, the promise had to emerge from that which already existed. His was a journey that was more than just a physical pilgrimage. It was a journey of internal growth and change.
Abraham’s journey is a symbol for how we start anew. For most of us, the desire to change often leads down a road where we wish to leave everything behind and start completely fresh. Yet, for most of us, this is not a realistic way to approach change, growth and establishing a new beginning. Growth and change need us to leave the past in the past, move forward from what was, and yet not neglect all that got us to the moment of change. True growth and change emerges from the discovery of our core and enhancing those things we have cultivated throughout our lives. If we allow our past to be there as a guidepost and only a guidepost, not a chain to keep us trapped, we can experience the blessings of the new and better path we find ourselves on.
New beginnings: A blog about spirituality, chaplaincy and renewal 