Living With Emunah (Part 223) - Spiritual Dehydration

okay good morning boca tov and welcome back to living with emunah our weekly support group it's really my weekly support group i basically came to the conclusion at the end of the partial class yesterday that i'm saving a lot of money on therapy by having people come in a room and letting me just vent every week on whatever is on my mind and going on in my life and i guess that's entertaining for you so thank you for coming back again i want to thank our generous sponsors of the amuneshire dr xavier bella morgan and memory of every dr brian galbet we continue to miss each and every day in memory of bella's mother dr ellen shanzer who's on your site was recently we're very very grateful to the morgans for their generosity this morning shooter is also sponsored by the silhouette family of lawrence new york you know the schumann says lawrence new york we've got to get to know them in dedication for you strawberry brother of natasha solowitz thank you so much for your generosity and support all of our learning is for a speedy painless and complete before schleimer for esther tahila pasaryatsi pora and karmia ben reza okay i want to start before we get back to simcha the topic that we have been studying just to start for one moment on our bracha campaign we continue to uh have a campaign this is not our campaign it's a halacha we're obligated to say 100 brachas every day 100 bid for connections 100 reminders throughout our day you know they have these apps that remind you to breathe as if we'd forget if you forget to breathe you die so why do you need an app to remind you to breathe because we breathe but we breathe mindlessly we do it mindlessly so of course if you stop breathing you stop living you need to breathe in order to live but we don't want to just breathe mindlessly we want to breathe mindfully we want to be present in our breath the same word for breath is the same word for soul we restore our soul we elevate our soul we enrich our soul when we're present in breath the breath of life is the very way we got life to begin with god breathed life into us so breath is the breath of life and we restore our life we restore our soul when we take that deep breath when we take that deep breath rabbi blumenthal wrote a great article his articles are wonderful every week but if you didn't get a chance read the article he wrote last week in our weekly you can find it on our website his website he spoke about the people the society of those who get it he ran in the high life he ran the miami marathon on behalf of lifeline he spent the shabbos with parents and high lifeline and he talked about those who get it dinner is a beautiful beautiful article but he mentions when he was running in the marathon i was out of breath just reading the article when he ran the marathon it was a very hot day a human day in florida not everybody finished he ran the whole marathon and he talked about towards the end when people were really struggling and suffering he ran by and there was somebody who was just yelling words of encouragement to strangers you got this don't forget to breathe he said his watch goes off every few seconds reminding him to breathe he ignores it but there was a human being who said don't forget to breathe i said ah taka i should remember to breathe you know that will get me through this i should stay present stay present in the breath and the breathing breathing and meditation go together there's a reason they do it centers us it grounds us it restores us it rejuvenates us the breath of life with every breath we praise you hashem with every breath in our lungs with every breath of our soul we are alive we affirm that we are alive we are grateful that we are alive we say thank you that we are alive we feel a sense of responsibility for what we have to do with the fact that we are alive the breath of life i share all of this because i saw a very beautiful insight it's a wonderful safer somebody got me illuminated sound the bashem of prayer rev dove bear pinson the dover pinson he's a chabad author brilliant he writes a very beautiful book it's called the illuminated sound bashem prayer and he says in here he talks about he has a chapter on the posture of prayer how are you supposed to stand your right hand over your left hand over your heart the notion of shuckling are we loud quiet fast slow he goes through different traditions about how to davan and one of the things he talks about is when we make a bracha when you make a bracha he says for the purpose of deepening to vegas the bashem advises us to put ourselves fully into the words of davening into the sound and vibration of each letter if you want to be mindful if you want to be able to actually be present with what we're saying to feel connected not only to what we're saying to whom we are saying it then connecting to the vibration of each sound breathing through what we're saying will help keep us present there are people when they die and they get out of breath why are they out of breath because they're in such bad shape yes because they have too much child at the kiddush absolutely but they're also out of breath because when a person is trying to fly through it trying to discharge it trying to read it and get it done flip the page page page page page done kiss it kiss the sitter i'm done finished now i can go on with my day with me time i just spoke about a moment ago in the 10 minutes of meeting mrs the class immediately preceding this i spoke about that sense of ava if you love god you know if you're in love in your marriage you don't say are we done talking can we be done can i move on are we finished is date night over can i find it yeah check done good date night's finished fine like you're not can i hang up now goodbye yes please so if you're in love you say i don't want it to finish i don't want it to end can we keep this going when can we do it again so the same is true in our relationship and in our conversation our ongoing going conversation with hashem so when you say talus checked fill in check dominant check sit here flip the page and said my shoulder check check check done now me time my coffee my newspaper my girlfriends my phone calls now i can facetime my grandchildren now now's the done with hashem left him insular i left him in the corner of my house where i go diving with them now i'm done thank god i can go on to the part of the day i enjoy for me that's not a relationship that's not a relationship we talked about that our relationship with hashem is similar to our relationship in real life which is i mentioned when young people who are dating ask me how do i know how do i know if it's going well should i continue is it the one so here's the test i always give them here's the test i always give them what happens when the other person's name comes up on the caller id when the other person's name comes up on the caller id if your heart skips a beat they're so excited to answer you can't wait what do they have to say what's going on in their life you want to share and confide what's going on in yours that is a very good sign if when you see their name on the caller id your stomach turns in nuts and you go ah i pressed ignore three times in a row can i do it again how many times in a row can i ignore their call i can't believe i have to talk i hate talking how quickly can i get off the phone then that's a bad sign that's a bad sign for your relationship that's an excellent metric so can you can't wait to dominate you can't wait for dobbing to be over is there a romantic electric relationship with hashem is there time communication are you confiding or a set of obligations check check check we spoke to it speak again i can't wait for it to be over so one of the ways to connect to davening is by being present slowing down slow down to the speed of life slow down slow down don't fly through davening don't fly through mitzvos don't fly through savor the moment be present and how do we save our moments how do we return and calibrate our compass to be present the answer is through breathing through breathing not only through breathing sometimes when i die when i begin my shoulders i try to take a deep breath to be present but i also try to then be aware of and conscious of my shoulders just really something you don't realize like you're tensed up sometimes just like let go just release all your muscles let go take a couple of breaths so i'm about to have a conversation about to be present so all this is by introduction i just want to share this with you they would sit where is this for example before you're about to say the word baruch pause for a moment think about what the word and concept of blessing means then slowly exhale the first word ba b a a a a h allowing the sound to resonate in your body slow i'm embarrassed to even really do it but slow feel the vibrations the sound breathe it'll still take two seconds to say the whole bracha but just say it quickly so again this is our campaign supposed to say 100 buckles a day 100 bids for connection 100 times hashem should see our name come up on his caller id and hashem we know you exist we're checking and no reason at all for no reason at all we're just checking in we just care we're just reaching out 100 rockets a day which revolver said concentrate for 10 to which i say concentrate for one and that is our campaign where's alana are we close on our cups we ordered them we're getting there okay we're getting close we're getting close we got the disposable type we got the tumblr type we're going to remind everyone the first barak of the day the shahakal but now the barak of the word of the bracha the ambiance and the atmosphere and our health and the weather and everything that goes into that cup of coffee but the word baruch hashem all blessing flows from you i'm aware of i'm conscious conscientious of the blessings in my life when we think about the people who are struggling people about the things who have what they have to pray for we can count our blessings a little bit easier a little bit more we can cherish we can appreciate we can give a bigger hug to the people in our lives and feel more grateful for what we have and see what's there not what's missing and realize how blessed we are and all that's in the word baruch just to say to think about that bracha to let go of your shoulders to take that deep breath and to say hashem there is so much bracha in my life that i am grateful for i'm gonna put it all in this cup of coffee on the charcoal nearby just everything i woke up i have my faculties i have my house i can count the members of my of my family of my household i can pay my bills today now it's missing we'll talk about that too god i have some things to talk to you about but let's start out with what's there let's start out with what i can be grateful for and that is the source of simcha that is our topic we're on page speak up what okay i'm not worried about that okay so um my heart skips a beat whenever i'm interrupted and cheers still okay so robichamer victor mayor morgan sternovich mayor has been telling us that the secret to life is being the simcha is being happy it's being joyful we talked about what about when you're sad what about when you're grieving what about when you're struggling you have to find the simcha even in the sadness that even in the grief even in the sadness to find the reason to feel basin which does not mean the external manifestation of smiling and laughing and external joy but it means feeling whole feeling complete realizing that even when we feel incomplete someone in our life who's struggling we are struggling a person is missing a spouse missing a child missing financial resources missing there's something that's missing in life the torah tells us in participating that call yes you're not allowed to aggravate the street bully the widow and the orphan it's repeated all throughout the torah and it's the only one that hashem says the only one that has hashem says if you mistreat them i'm going to exact justice you bully the underprivileged i'm coming after you myself says god not through an agent not through an intermediary and then he says something very harsh and very startling he says if you're unkind to the widow an orphan i will turn your wife into a widow and your children into orphans cinna torah it's an absolute it's in the torah specifically so even ezra says you'll notice that everything else in passion is in the lash of the singular this is in the plural why this connects to what i said at the end of the pressure class yesterday someone sent me an email reminding me of it the ibnezra says why because it's not just the person who bullies the widow an orphan it's everyone else who's silent watches and says and does nothing that's who hashem is going to exact justice to silence is not neutrality silence always benefits the perpetrator never the victim you can't be quiet you have to stand up you have to interfere you have to confront you have to call out to stop the bully and when we don't society is judged by our silence by our silence not only by our speaking out so the beautiful kabbalah of yakuza mecklenburg he says the word al-mana comes from al mana you know if you go to israel you order a piece of pizza how do you say a piece of pizza i want i want a portion of pizza a portion of whatever you're serving means a portion and al mana is somebody al means missing lacking is missing a portion and he says it's not just talking about the widow the widow is missing a husband the widower is missing a wife but it doesn't just mean that individuals anyone who's missing anything in life i don't think it doesn't mean you're missing a bentley or you're missing your tesla you're missing but it means missing that which is the fabric of life missing some of the foundational things of life a person is struggling a person who feels broken a person who feels loss person is missing and almana's missing something we're not allowed to bully we have to be very careful protect hashem himself looks down but even in that state no matter what we're going through no matter what we feel we can be basimka when we attach ourselves to hashem the source of sadness of atsvas is when we feel that we are victims of randomness and chance the force of the source of sadness is when we feel we're going at it alone why why is this happening and it's pointless and useless and futile i'm suffering for no reason but when a person realizes that we have a venus we have a father in heaven like a father loves a child even when the child doesn't understand what's happening but it comes from love from the fire father so we put our confidence in hashem and we say i wish this were different i wish i didn't have to endure it and i'm going to fight any way i can to stop it to change it but hashem i know it comes from you it's not random or chance but it's for a reason there's meaning in this purpose and that's what makes us feel whole not incomplete and that's what makes us feel simha and not sadness and we're able to reach out and find hashem quote senior also famous teaching of the bashem passage says the cashton you can call out to god from there misha means not only when you're in a state of joy and excitement and happiness not only when you won the lottery literally figuratively in life but it means meshum whatever state you're in however you woke up this morning and rolled out of bed whatever you're feeling me from that place will be castrom you can call out reach out and you can find hashem we'll be casting from wherever we are and from whatever state we're in and from whatever we're feeling okay we're on page that the most direct way to sabotage our success to undermine our strategy is understands the best way to get us to fail and to falter it's to make us sad to bring us down to make us depressed to help us feel hopeless and helpless when you're hopeless and helpless when you can't even get out of bed and you can't start your day when you believe that you don't deserve or you're unworthy or you're incapable or that the universe is against you then you'll never get anything done when you wake up with a set of belief or the confidence if you wake up and you know that if i'm here it's for a reason if i woke up this morning hashem renewed my contract for another day i yet have something to contribute to this world i have confidence that as much as i struggle as difficult as it is there's a reason there's a purpose there's meaning i wake up with simcha it's a joy for life and happiness and a satisfaction i look what's there not what's missing and i feel i feel responsible for the talents and skills i have to contribute to make a difference to this world so the yetzer atova has to defeat the eight sahara it's ours that little voice inside our head that says you're unworthy you're incapable no one cares you're invisible you've failed so many times you're just gonna fail again the sahara is the voice that says this relationship or this job effort or that dream you have it's hopeless and it's helpless give it up and move on it's not happening nizar tov comes along and says you got this get up smile put a skip in your step put a smile on your face have a positive bias and a positive energy and have a positive belief think good and it will be good we create the reality in our lives by the energy that we put out around us and we all see this empirically each and every day the people who have a negative affect the people who have negative energy the people who have a negative force field around them it becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy they create negativity in their lives others withdraw from them because who wants to be connected to someone so negative and the people who have a positivity bias the people who everything is amazing and will be amazing and will work out and we've got this and we dream and ambition and aspiration and drive and hope and you can knock me down a million times when i'm going to get up that million and one first that person that positive energy creates a positive reality around ourselves around ourselves sadness is the opening sadness is the stumble that leads to every fall and the biggest thing that brings us down and makes us feel hopeless and helpless is when spiritually we are unfulfilled when spiritually we are underperforming you know we can overperform in life and underperform in life we can over achieve and under achieve and i got to tell you the jewish people in the torah community we are great over achievers in so many other areas of life we want our kids to be the star of their little league team we want our children to strive for ivy league or bust we want them to make a billion dollars and have everything engagements in the world physically materially we preach in our homes and we condition our families and we raise our children and demand of ourselves we over achieve in every area we want to be the best looking the most charismatic and the best speaker and the most popular and have the most things and make the most difference and we overachieve overachieve overachieve and then it comes to our neshama it comes to our soul that's good enough i said enough of daffodil it's good enough i did enough that i gave enough stakka i worked enough on my personality it's good enough it's good enough we underachieve we sell ourselves short why don't we have the same bar why don't we raise it so high like we do in all these other areas of our life why don't we want to look as good spiritually as we look physically why don't we pamper ourselves spiritually as much as we do physically why aren't we concerned with keeping up as much spiritually as we do physically why don't we strive for excellence and overachieving spiritually as much as we do physically because underachieving and underperforming and coming up short and feeling dissatisfied and malnourished and dehydrated spiritually is what leads to that sadness it leads to that sadness you know if you haven't eaten in a long time you know there's a phenomenon called being hangry you know people like that those of us with plenty of reserves we do okay but if you've got no backup then when you get hangry when you haven't eaten you get angry irritable on edge lashing out impatient you get angry if you haven't had anything to eat sometimes you have a big headache you're dizzy you're out of energy you realize your mouth is dry i haven't had a drink no i don't mean alcoholic drink and then i haven't had a drink all down dehydrated i got to drink something so how much we nourish ourselves physically has an enormous impact on how we behave and who we are but the same is true spiritually we can't measure it necessarily the same way but how many of us are walking around spiritually dehydrated spiritually malnourished bare bones again there are those who spiritually have some backup they have a good fat on their spiritual skeleton so if there's a day that goes by that they didn't spiritually eat there's a lot what to rely upon but those who are bare bones a skeleton spiritually that have no backup and no reserves if you skip a day of spiritual nourishment malnourished dehydrated whatever the equivalent of spiritually hangry is and that brings to sadness that's what he's prescribing what richard meyer is diagnosing is that when we're spiritually malnourished then we become helpless and hopeless if we're not working on our ramuna we're not talking to hashem regularly if we don't get excited and our heart doesn't skip a beat when his name comes up on the caller id saying it's time to dive and it's time to make a bracha it's time to learn torah for spiritually malnourished we're not making the time and we're not communicating and we're not confiding and we're not thanking or protesting and asking if we're not if we're not spending times on undershama so then we're going to feel low we're going to feel we're on our own and we're going to feel we've abandoned we're going to feel we don't understand this world and we're going to feel it's cruel we're going to feel it's hopeless and it's helpless and we're going to be sad and that sadness is going to undermine everything you need an attitude of positivity and attitude of gratitude to start the day and in the middle of the day and to end the day and the sky's the limit on what we can accomplish and how rich our relationships can be and the strength we can have to endure whatever comes our way but if we're a skeleton if we're spiritually malnourished if we've never worked on our amuna orbita if we barely know he's there let alone talk to him invest in him spend time with him connect with him have a relationship with him that when push comes to shove in those moments of challenge and struggle we're going to feel where we don't have what it takes we'll be hopeless and helpless in that sadness that sadness just compounds itself the sadness leads to bad choices that sadness leads to weakness that sadness leads to hopelessness and we have no shot left hand column at times the person knows i've stumbled i fall when it comes to a certain thing all according to our level everyone's judged according to their level we're not all on the same level so given our background who we're from where we're from where we started what opportunities we have determines what could be expected of us there are people who are great and could be great and therefore they're measured against greatness and anything less than great is a failure and there are other people who have not yet been great and don't have the same opportunity or exposure to greatness and therefore are measured by different standards this is exactly the methodology of the sahara the methodology of the voice of self-sabotage and this is not just again religiously the it's a hare it's our toe the little angel the devil little figurines on our shoulders whispering in our ears that's a very immature and sophisticated description of this we're talking about the basic human psyche human psychology we're talking about how every one of us is made up and you could read countless books and research by therapists by researchers by psychologists by motivational experts and speakers and count consultants and they all talk about this same phenomenon that the it's our kid why do people underachieve tony robbins has built a gazillion dollar career out of doing this and there are millions of people who listen to him and he's taking all of our torah it's all rooted in the torah everyone's paying all this money to go to his seminars and he's really good at what he does and he's packaging these same ideas and values that that we have that have taught us that go back to adam marisha and his conversation with hashem in the garden of eden that it's all about not having yayosh ain't some yeah there cannot be despair there cannot be hopelessness we can never ever give up ever because despair and hopelessness is the kryptonite it's over it keeps us in bed it keeps us not believing it keeps us under achieving and it keeps us creating these self-fulfilled prophecies of broken relationships and failed dreams and failed efforts know how much time you foreign watching that narashkai you looked at the wrong images you repeated the wrong rashinara you skipped all that dharvaning you continue to raise your voice against your children so in you're not that righteous person who are you fooling going to the ammunition who are you fooling signing up for the talents app group who are you kidding that you claim you're going to take on this new thing are you going to dress that way you're going to be that person who are you fooling yatara says god knows who you really are you know who you really are and you know how many times you've fallen so who are you kidding you know what that does it weakens us it's not only true spiritually religiously it's true physically who are you kidding you're going to live that healthy lifestyle everybody knows what you ate 11 o'clock last night what you snuck when you thought nobody was watching everybody knows how the portion you ate or how frequency you ate or what you ate you skipped that workout or you lied to yourself about the workout or the settings on the machine of that workout we all know who are you fooling who are you kidding who are you kidding because you don't tell your palatine name to anyone else so therefore you think you had a phenomenal work everybody knows you rounded up on your on your um plank so you could pretend you're playing for longer then who are you fooling it's r kicks in and says you didn't do it this many days in a row or you didn't do what you could have done you didn't push yourself as hard as you could so why bother why bother why bother claiming you eat healthy you're a joke i bother saying you exercise you're a clown why bother saying you're a great patient parent you lose your cool you raise your voice why bother why bother it's the work of the eight sahara it's trying to rob your happiness your joy your sense of success your vision your dream your ambition we have a problem on the one hand it's fundamental it's fundamental to serving god it's fundamental to success in life to always be measuring evaluating to have a self-awareness of where we're holding a person needs to have self-awareness we have to measure ourselves peter drucker the great management expert he said what gets measured gets managed it's one of the great management quotes what gets measured gets managed it's true in nonprofit world is true in the for-profit world it's true on our diets and our exercise regimens it's true in every area of life what gets measured gets managed if you don't measure it then you fool yourself you fool others but you can't fool the rea the reality and the data what gets measured gets managed so on the one end you need a husband on the one hand we need a self-awareness on the one hand we have to take inventory the one hand we have to check ourselves so first you can't ever know where you're holding but you also can't make progress you have nothing to measure against so you know what you became determined you read robert blumenthal's great article he said next miami marathon i'm competing i'm going to start running but you don't use any of the amazing apps that are out there to actually track how long a mile took you or how many miles you ran how do you know how well you did how do you know what are the conditions that you do well or need to do differently how do you know if you've made progress how do you know if you don't ever measure you don't know the distance you're in you don't know the time it took you don't know what your heartbeat was you don't know anything so what ignorance is bliss ignorance will make you despondent and depressed so on the one hand you have to measure to get met to manage we have to have inventory of our lives we have to track how many days in a row since i complained how many days in a row since i lost my cool i was part of a group of guys that were working on what's app group keeping track how many days in a row they could go without getting angry it's a hard streak to have hard streak to have how many days in a row you can go without getting angry there was a pastor who made a career i think he ended up leaving his church and writing a book and selling the bracelets but he once gave a sermon which he turned into a career about trying to track how many days in a go row you can go without complaining and he made a bracelet to track it you had to switch it to the other hand every time you complained to start the count again and i forgot what the statistic was but the average person to get to 30 days in a row without complaining took like three quarters of a year it didn't take 30 days it took many more because how hard is it for us so how do you know you know you bluff yourself but if you measure it you'll manage it so on the one hand if you want to have a hive if you want to obligate yourself if you want to have a driver to improve you have to know where you are and where you came from amna mitsubishi but it's very dangerous double-edged sword because you know what you do you say rabbi blumenthal's running like a four minute mile the guy's like a kenyan track star and me i'm still at like a 12 minute walk around the circle huffing and puffing i need a defibrillator to accompany me as a backpack so you start to manage how you're doing you track yourself against yourself or against others and you say hopeless and helpless what's the point why bother so we have this problem says rivets of meyer it's a double-edged sword and the one that you have to know you have to do just you have to take inventory on the other the more inventory you take the more depressed you could be the more sad you could become so the answer is to separate between the past and the present hainu the answer is you have to set aside and designate time to think about what was to learn from what was but don't ever allow what was to seep into what is you have to separate the past from the present when we're in the present that's all there is is the present when they're present that's the only dimension that matters the present how does that poem go the presence is a gift from above future is none of you are poets appreciate it amateur poetry is a mystery today future is a mystery the past is history the present is a gift that's why they call it the present thank you penny a penny for your thoughts buddy wow wow penny for your poem a penny for your poem so the present so you have to separate says richard meyer to be able to learn from the past but not live or get stuck or become debilitated by the past we have to learn to separate the past from the present so the past deserves its time got to think about evaluate investigate consider learn from and then leave it in the past the past only has value in how it informs the present but if you get stuck in the past if you beat yourself up because of the past you're paralyzed and debilitated because of the past if you're overly nostalgic for the past you know rabbi blumenthal told me that at one point in the race he was running alongside like a 90 year old i think he passed him but at one point you know there are octogenarians who run marathons so the octogenarian running the marathon if they're measuring themselves against their time from when they were 19 years old if they have nostalgic for the past they're never going to run in the marathon the present because you can't do it 80 what you did at 19. you can't so the past has has a role but one should neither get stuck there because they are sad about the past nor get stuck there because you're nostalgic for the past and the tragedy in both cases that you are conceding and forfeiting the present because the past the past has a role in informing the present learn from it grow from it gain from it consider it and then get out of it and get into the present that's the only dimension we're in all that matters is right now what decision do i need to make who am i with what an activity am i doing how am i feeling what is my attitude what is my disposition where am i in my present just to add something louder is um i find that a very helpful tactic or using something very therapeutic is thinking about how whatever happened in the past has been passed now at halakkas narrows it's a new week everything's gonna happen in the past now i can start new or at uh you know every morning you wake up you say about donnie even if i did bad things yesterday or it wasn't the best day now i'm waking up it's a new day and i can start again and whenever you have rosh hashanah is the greatest you know example of that every time that you have that opportunity to start something new you could just focus on you know whatever i did the past is goodbye and over now i have a new beginning and that's very helpful that is a fantastic suggestion in other words use the gifts that judaism gives us and that the world gives us to be natural bookmarks that allow us to turn to a new chapter as jews were given that gift of every day is a new day every week becomes a new week every month as a rosh is a new month every year is a new year it's like hashem says i get it we're fallible you're human i designed i created you this way so i'm gonna build into your cycle constant opportunities to draw a line in the card and start again i'm going to constantly build in the opportunity to begin anew to take fresh to not get stuck to not be held back by what was but to determine right now what will be you know you can't change the past as badly as you want to build a time machine you can't change the past you cannot change the past so to get stuck in the past will only cost you the present and your future so learn from the past gain from the past but don't get stuck in the past because then you're giving up the present and the future mistakes of the past or success of the past or history what was in the past it's gone guilt of the past shame of the past there's so many emotions that are in the past regret regret's a huge one there's a wall street journal article about regret i think last week no regrets there's no way to live life which the wall street journal basically was saying from goldberg put this aside for elo and yamuna so we'll get so we'll get back to no regrets there's no way to live life there's so many emotions that are about the past shame guilt regret joy hope success but but we can't go to the past all we have is the present so how do we live our present do we give it up do we lose it do we forfeit it or are we fully invested in it if option a was taken from us in the past do we move to option b for the present not only not always the option that we want can we still have but do we successfully transition i told you last week several times about rabbi machlas and his despite having lost the greatest part of his past rabbits and machlas but you're going to lose the present because you don't have who you had in the past does that make sense we mistakenly think that these things will end with this we mistaken we're already over time we mistakenly think that these things are emotions you know you could sit here or you could listen listen you can say to yourself and i'm guilty or struggle with this too of saying ah these are all words these are all nice ideas but you know how i feel i feel sad or i feel happy or i feel i'm thinking about the past i can't control them i'm driving in the shower i'm falling asleep so at 3am i have to wake my spouse and tell him what i'm worried about from the past the guilt of the shame or the regret or the mistake or the future the anxiety the worry what will be when the spouse and the president just wants to be fast asleep in the present so you'll say these are emotions i can't control them and that's what i want to leave you with if there's no other message it's this these are decisions they're not emotions happiness is a decision it is not an emotion we control our mind now again there are emotions there are feelings there are things we have to work through with therapists and experts and sometimes medications i'm not talking about clinically diagnosed challenges that people have those are real they are important there's no stigma and no shame in addressing them i cannot emphasize that strongly enough i'm not talking about that but the everyday going through life emotional rollercoaster we make decisions when we conclude this second will you turn to the person next to you or when you walk out with someone or the first person you encounter after this class will you have a smile will you make the decision to be happy will you be determined to be joyful will you have a positivity bias no matter what you will face in your day or did you get out of bed and you're letting your emotions control you you've made the decision to be negative for this and a complaint miserable angry unhappy it's a decision not an emotion stop blaming everyone around you take responsibility stop conceding control to the people in your life who you think are the conditions or circumstances that you think automatically make you who you are or react the way you're reacting you're in control you're in charge it's your life it's your body it's your attitude it's your demeanor it's the energy that we put out to the universe so what energy do you want to put out how do you want to be known how do you want to be thought of or put differently what is your brand what is your brand brands have value you see a nike swoosh or you see another logo a brand triggers something so what's your brand when someone says your name do people think positivity high energy joy drive or oh the negative complaining miserable jealous envious ridden with guilt stuck in the past what's your brand what do you want your brand to be how do you want to be thought of and then go and become that person you want to tune in tonight to behind the bema the farmer spoke here ilana twegue was incredible is our guest tonight i'm behind the bema to share his story even more broadly that's at 9 00 p.m until next time we are off next no we're on next wednesday i'm back we're on next wednesday we're off partial class but we're on next wednesday until next time stay happy stay healthy and stay home