No More Pink Elephants | Rabbi Shlomo Farhi

I remember once I met this kid, and this kid was such a difficult kid. He argued, he fought, he was disrespectful, and I could not understand where it was all coming from. Until I met his parents. This kid was an angel compared to his parents. Suddenly, everything made sense. He was a child of those that raised him. The Chinuch says on the Mitzvah of... that the thoughts that a person has are the parents and the actions that they do are the children. When a person looks at something and they have מחשבות, they think about what they're seeing, the product is in the actions that a person then does. So when a person wants to make sure that they're being Kadosh, that they're being holy, that they're being pure, you know what you need to make sure? You need to make sure that you're having good parents. But what's a kid supposed to do if his parents are already difficult? Let me share with you the advice that the Chinuch gives when it comes to a child who has difficult parents. He says, If it arrives in a person's heart, he's thinking those bad thoughts. You've already seen something. It's already in your mind. What do you do? He says, He should immediately stop thinking about it. You know how you could change your mind? You wanted a tuna fish sandwich, and then you saw that they had pizza, so you said, I'm not doing the tuna. I'm doing the pizza. The same way you could change your mind, you could change your thoughts. And says the Chinuch, The minute you change your thoughts, that father, that mother, the מחשבה that then has that child that behaves in the way of its parents, the father and the mother are gone and they don't have any children. There are no deeds that come from those thoughts, because those thoughts have been moved away. My friends, I need to share with you this amazing trick. It's called the Trick of the Pink Elephant. Right now, don't think about a pink elephant. How'd you do? First thing you thought of was a pink elephant, right? If something is brought up to us, our mind can't help but imagine it and think about it. The only way you can get that thought out of your mind is by thinking about something else. The same way you could change your mind, you could change your thoughts. So if you've seen something already and it's up in here, all you have to do is force your mind to think of a new thing. And when your mind is engaged in thinking about a new thing, you've automatically stopped thinking about the old thing. The Chinuch says that that is the Teshuva, that is the approach that a person should use when they find themselves in that position. A lot of times a person feels like: I already... Chinuch says: You already nothing. You still have a chance and you still have a choice. Change your mind.