Living With Emunah (Part 224) - Smile and the Whole World Smiles With You

good morning boca do welcome back to living with emunah our weekly study our weekly support group our weekly reminder of what we already know our weekly effort to center ourselves and refocus on a truth that we all know that tragically so easily are able to forget and neglect in our lives and not only is there a hashem not only is there a bonus shalom not only is there a god who created the world and created us but he continues to have an intimate relationship nothing that happens in our lives is coincidental random or chance everything is by design and everything is from above i want to thank our generous sponsors of the yamuna series for the year avi bella morgan in memory of everybody dr brian galbet and in memory of bella's mother dr ellen schanzer today's show is also sponsored by joyce and david mueller where's joyce there you are in commemoration of joyce's mother's yard sight frieda siegel from earlier this week robert siegel is a ruben van nietzsche we're pillars of the miami beach jewish community and then the shamans have an aliyah thank you and by nobody belong in memory of her mother and by penny and bob perlman penny thank you so much in memory of penny's uh mother's eurotype helen meltzer and shama chavin lee as well and as well always we are not as always for now please god not for long we continue to dedicate our learning for a fool shleima for esther thi la basariatsi pora and for kameo shai ben reza we've been learning about simha been learning about joy how to have joy at a fine joy misha nicholas how can we find joy in life now it's hard i won't say harder than ever because we just spoke in the sheer before this message about how we're living in the most prosperous generation the prosperous time the people who have the least today would have been considered as having the most just yesterday so i won't say that we're living in the most anxious difficult time to have simcha but we're living in a challenging time to have simcha we're living in a time of great uncertainty you know yesterday we just came back i'm on a high you can't tell because i'm also exhausted but i'm on a high we had a two-day trip to new york which we met with um tremendous rabonum rebellion around the new york area 24 guys or so we got brock as we learned we found inspiration it was incredible really really incredible and i'm very excited looking forward to sharing it so we were meeting the last meeting we had yesterday was with shore allah whose fiery eyes can pierce the back of your skull it's an incredible meeting he's an incredible person and he was talking about he mentioned he mentioned it in passing but i think he gave us all pause if you're a student of history and you don't have to be if you just know the bare minimum of what started world war 1 and what started world war ii how insignificant how unimportant and yet it snowballed and it escalated in a dominoed until world wars that while we're watching and living right now russia and the ukraine we're on the precipice we're on the edge maybe nothing will happen seems that something's already started to happen how much will happen how much will it escalate and who will be drawn in and what will life look like tomorrow you could be filled with tremendous anxiety we met with another of the rottenberg muncie who was the uh the rebber that two hanukkahs ago he was lighting the chanukah candles the terrorists came in with a machete killed someone his own son was injured you may remember that story so he met with him in his home where he has a sign hanging of the bracha to acknowledge malcolm shasta nes a place that a miracle happened because he went through a series of miracles i posted the video of his conversation with us he also spoke about russia and ukraine he said both have a history of killing jews let them kill each other it was an interesting take on the situation there are jews who are there we dove in and pray for their safety we dive in and pray for the order and safety of the world but neither of these are nations that were particularly hospitable or have an illustrious history of the way they treated the jews so you live in the world today and you turn on the news and even if you try to avoid it it finds you and you can live with anxiety last night we came back and our flying someone had the best insight we were scheduled to we had to leave out the two last stops which were dinner we could all live without although some were looking forward to it the most but dinner and the rebels all which we've been to and amritsar will be back at we had to leave them out because the weather was miserable and we got supposed to be on a 9 o'clock flight which became 9 45 which became 10 30 which became 11 something so everyone scrambled to go on different flights some got on an eight to four laravel and eight tenth to west bomb a 945 to fort lauderdale then our a10 to west bomb became 845 to west bomb became 930 to west bomb became 10 o'clock to west pump i'm not sharing with that so you have pity although it wouldn't hurt you but i'm not showing that so you have pity on me i'm sharing that with you because you sit there and you're looking and your app keeps updating and you keep getting the latest time and uh then we finally landed rudy giuliani was in the front row of the plane it took him forever to get his bag off and he might have solved crime in manhattan but he kept me from my bed and you're like mayor come on get your stuff together here it's blocking us from getting off the plane so you live life and every day these are small challenges these are small challenges these are nothing challenges these are they give you a broccoli should be our biggest challenges but you wake up every day you could have anxiety and worry and fear and what will be with my flight and what will happen will be the will there'll be a screw in the back of my tire and what will happen with russia and ukraine and will i have the same head count the end of the day as the beginning of the day so how do you live basement how do you live so he began to develop the notion of living in the day and living in the moment not giving up and not having despair but rather being present and living in the moment and embracing each moment for what it is living it most richly so on the top of the page page one fifty one kimochi kosovo don't worry about yesterday don't think about yesterday don't focus or perseverate don't get paralyzed or debilitated by the thought of yesterday yesterday there were mistakes made yesterday we were in our best selves maybe yesterday we raised our voice to our children even though we promised we wouldn't anymore maybe yesterday we didn't get to the sheer we didn't get through the davening or we didn't say the talent that we promised or thought we would maybe yesterday our relationship was met with some tension with someone that we love maybe yesterday we didn't realize or achieve our goals that was yesterday but if you drag and you schlep and you bring yesterday into today then not only did you lose yesterday but you'll lose today so the secret the answer to our voda the key and the core to serving hashem faithfully and really to serving ourselves faithfully to be our best selves is not to get stuck in and not to become paralyzed by tomorrow that's a hard thing that's a very hard thing but i as a as a rav i meet with and counsel and try to give every single day to people and i cannot tell you how many people have a lot to worry about about tomorrow but they lose today because they spend the whole today worried about tomorrow not just worried about tomorrow what will happen with russian ukraine and the gas prices in america tomorrow there's so much to worry about but they worry about tomorrow i i have this illness i'm recovering i have this what will happen if it comes back what will happen if it gets worse what will happen tomorrow what will happen with my children what will happen with my grandchildren what will happen with the bills what will happen with so in that fear of tomorrow they lose today there's only one dimension we live in there is no time machine to go back to yesterday and tomorrow's not yet here so any energy that we put into those two dimensions is wasted it's squandered it's simply taking away from the happiness and the joy that we could have today we have to draw a line create a cocoon live in a bubble and that bubble is called today it's called hyom it's called right now this is it this is what i have this is who i am this is where i am and this is what i'm about this is my life is right now now i'm not suggesting that we don't have to learn from yesterday if we've made mistakes if we've had successes we engaged experiences and we have to learn from yesterday of course we have to learn from yesterday it's irresponsible we don't blissfully erase yesterday like it didn't happen we have to learn from it and we have to take responsibility and we are accountable for the decisions of yesterday but we can't perseverate on it and of course we have to prepare for tomorrow you have to say financially you have to plan financially you have to plan your health and wellness eating right living right is all about living for tomorrow it's all about what will be and how long it will be of course we have to but the only dimension we live in is today and that's what the pulse is telling us hashem a life of serving hashem is the life of hayom it's the life of right now today and to come in with a sense of newness of renewal of rejuvenation of a fresh opportunity we ended last week you haven't made a point i don't know if everyone heard it the judaism is designed so beautifully that there are so many milestones and benchmarks and invitations to say start again it's a new hour it's a new unit of time it's a new day it's a new week it's a new shabuatov it's a new week it's a new month a rosh chodesh it's a new year a rosh hashanah the entire jewish calendar is filled with invitations and opportunities to say i'm going to draw a line in my calendar that was the me of yesterday that was the me of last week that was the me of last month that was the me of last year but there's a new me every day every hour every minute every moment is an invitation an opportunity to be a new me to be a new man not a fake me not a counterfeit me but a new me his conscience every day every hour every moment and when this happens the most is after we fall after we've fallen when we fall we break into pieces and in the process of putting ourselves back we get to decide what we look like so it's miserable to feel broken it's terrible to be broken to feel broken neglected ignored invisible from people from hashem to be filled with anxiety and worry and fear to be consumed by failure and by struggle it's miserable but it's also an amazing opportunity because when you're broken and you need to be put back together like humpty dumpty was he put back together in the end i don't remember how that ends okay no they couldn't put them back together again it's a bad muscle they couldn't put them back together again why do we tell our children that terrible cancel we got to cancel humpty dumpty wow now that's what you wake up to a bunch of zombies all morning cancel humpty dumpty we got to protest already okay the point is that when a person is broken and you're broke when you fall off the wall when you're broken it's miserable it's difficult it's challenging we don't want it we don't ask for it but it's also an opportunity i've told you several times over the last several weeks there's nothing as whole as a broken heart cuts nothing as whole as a broken heart so when you're broken and you're being put back together you're putting yourself back together you can decide which version you want to be 2.0 3.0 it's the iphone up to 13. what version do you want to be of yourself you're not locked in the version of who you were as a kid a version of who you were as a teenager i was in new york one of the nights we had an outstanding outstanding evening beautiful geshmak fabregan it was really amazing very weber and a choir and frying waxman and singing and dancing and devetora was amazing so i had a friend there from high school i hadn't seen in many many many years he showed me on his phone he knew he was going to see me he had a picture from high school and it was funny we had a teacher we had a science teacher one day we decided we'd all dress up like him we came to school dressed up exactly like him it whatever it was a funny picture but i looked at it in the one end i was humored by it i was entertained by it but i also thought that's not me today that was me then i'm not embarrassed to shame it maybe a little bit but it was me then it was me then who we were then is not who we are now and who we were yesterday doesn't have to be who we are today and who we are today should not be who will become tomorrow every day is a new us is a new us we can redefine ourselves we can set new goals and we can craft a new lifestyle and we can transform our attitude we don't have to be negative and pessimistic and fatalistic and hypercritical and complaining you don't have to be nobody told you you have to wake up that way every day well it's in my dna and it was the minutes and the sodas were my mother my grandmother my great-grandmother my father my grandfather my great-grand could break out you could break the cycle break the cycle of our own lives it doesn't have to be we have constant opportunities um especially nafila after we've fallen down and we've broken and now we get the super glue and we're putting ourselves back together we're coming back from a fall coming back from a failure coming back from a frustration right then is when we can choose how to put ourselves back together are we just going to look like we always did are we going to upgrade you know we upgrade everything around us we upgrade our car we upgrade our phone and we upgrade our wardrobe and we we upgrade everything about us to upgrade our attitude they're people they're 40 to 50 they're 60 years old they're dominating their learning their demeanor is exactly the way it was always no progress no advance we called our trip to new york there's the beer fly in them of action to be a mavakesh hashem a searcher a seeker a yearner a learner somebody who's growing are we stagnant are we stuck have we arrived are we complacent does our life look exactly the way it always did we were always late we're still late we'll always be late everywhere we go we said no i want to be punctual i want to be reliable i want to be dependable a davening we were never into dominating we never connected we never cared now i want to learn i want to practice i want to get into it whatever every area of life every area of life he says in the footnote we say in every morning when the person has many thoughts many ideas hashem and the advice of hashem to get up on i told you this joke i survived it previously so i'll tell it to you again you know what they say the shot robbers marshalls the baby cries in the middle of the night and rabbis marshall is blabish she thinks he should get up and take care of the baby and he thinks she should get up and take care of the baby so what's the right thing atta sachem she should get him yeah he never went over well either a room full of in the woods here that idea in the women's here huh crash and burn so what does rediscover ourselves rebuild ourselves even if you fall again you'll just start again the enzyme ramos so you'll say what kind of life of a lie is this who's the real you if you just keep hitting reboot if you just keep hitting restart if you just keep wiping it clean and starting again so it's a life of ramos who are you fooling who are you tricking us the answer is each time we fall we fall a little bit less and each time we get up we get up a little bit higher um so this process of rats of ashov of running and coming this process of back and forth of falling and getting up each time we fall a little less and each time we get up a little higher and so even though we are you know it's like the stock market it's jagged study the stock market and i can tell you right now i can predict with absolute certainty that the stock market in the future will be like the past it will not be a line and no point will just be a line it's jagged it's ups and downs and ups and downs however we open we pray that while it's ups and downs it trends uh you can have you can have ups and downs but we want the ups and downs to trend up and that is our life our life is filled with ups and downs maybe that sadiq and we met over the last two days maybe the very holy people maybe they're exceptions to the rule although they would be the first to tell you they're human and they're not every one of us has ups and downs every one of us have triumphs and failures every one of us we raise then we feel like we're high and then we fall and we feel like we're low and we have those other moments the question is not if the question is when can we modulate and can we keep you know do we have ups and downs in this range do we have ups and downs in this range what do our ups and our downs look like and are spiritually bipolar and i don't use that word lightly life you know it works in waves we've met with rav reismann or visual reisman among our amazing meetings he spoke all about david and you talk about honesty he sat down and he said let me give you a little advice in diamonding that's worked for me he said my mind is usually wandering by the second barack of schwann yesterday i struggled to focus let me give you some suggestions of what works for me so you know refreshing how amazing it was to hear a reisman saying i struggle to dive and my mind wanders here are a few suggestions here's what i do here's what i try it was amazing so he said about davening oh what do you say you got to come back with me i got to keep you coming back so he said but davening you know davonin comes in waves there are times you're into it you can't wait for the next davening you don't want it to end you're totally engaged in there other times you're just saying the words you're flipping through the pages you're not really there even though your body's there even though your lips are moving life is in waves but can we how much so is it a ramos if i know that my life was not going to be a line this is not who i am forever but i'm going to be up and down in and out and high and low so it's a joke it's an almost so the answer is no as long as we trend the righteous person falls seven times and gets up on the philippines doesn't fall seven times over the same thing that sadik falls seven times and falls a little less than time and gets up a little higher each time it's amazing as joey nukem says in his song to these words it doesn't it says we come it doesn't say shavipova come if you fall seven times get up to be it that you have to fall seven times and get up if you never fell you're not a tad like you're just an angel if you never struggled and you never failed and you never faltered then you're not a sadiq you're not entitled to be called sadiq you didn't earn the title tadak you're just an angel so okay hashem it's nice to have you in the world but i can't relate to you whatsoever you paul sadiq become that saddek to be a call that saudi give the fall seven times and get up back upstairs richard meyer says three times if you want to be a successful ever hashem if you want a successful marriage those looking to get married the bracha of happiness and companionship if you want to have a successful parenting those looking for children should be blessed with healthy children that give them very very very if i wrote a paper and handed it to a teacher it said very very very and then they cross it out two verys and hand it back to me maybe even the third very yeah say it didn't even say anything but very very very why because if you're stuck in the past and you're lost in tomorrow and you're forfeiting the present if you don't believe that you have the ability to change to grow if you think who you are is who you are then you're not really alive you're not really living you have to forget everything that was and to start today anew start today fresh sleep is such a gift you know that when you don't get a lot of it such a gift but among the many gifts it is sleep rejuvenates the body and restores the body and rests the body and we have a tradition that the shaman goes on high returns to hashem but sleep also creates a natural break imagine if we just were alive our whole lives and one everything blended into each other and there was never a break it was never the notion that i woke up that i got up out of bed that i start my day every morning is a new opportunity every morning is amazing good morning is fantastic wake up and roar like a lion donate 15 snoozes don't crawl out of bed but wake up and greet the day roar like a lion today is my day today i'm gonna find my special someone today i'm gonna break through in my job in my career today i'm gonna eat well and exercise and take care of myself today i'm gonna be calm and patient and communicate today i'm going to break free from technology and live with mindfulness today and then the day becomes like other days and you have tomorrow but every day is gabriel kaari it's a new opportunity and as long as it's a little better than yesterday a little better think only of the president and to do it with all of our energy and all of our effort to do it with everything that we have because all we have is today hyom in bikolo sushma today now here the present veins almost mammoth we're not trying to divorce ourselves from the reality that was we're not trying to pretend or relinquish ownership or responsibility for what happened we're simply reflecting the truth and what is the truth the truth is korega or vodafone the truth and the reality are that every moment is its own independent avodah stop what am i meant to do right now okay my flight was delayed or canceled okay this person didn't react to respond the way i wanted them to okay i just had a fight it escalated i created attention i regret i don't like the way this feels okay i just ate a bag of cape cod potato chips at one o'clock in the morning when i came back from the flying i did not by the way i walked right by him finally getting somewhere where'd you put them by the way he's looking for him is looking for them but in every one of those moments all you have is okay good so that happened now what now what what am i meant to do right now now what so there's a hole in the pipe in my wall now what okay frustrating good what do i need to do right now sometimes you have to use the present to repair the past there was a hole in the pipe got to fix it there was a hole in the relationship you have to say you're sorry take responsibility sincere apology not a 2022 apology if you feel bad and it was really someone else's fault and you shouldn't be upset about it then maybe not a fake apology a real apology is i was wrong i take responsibility i'm sorry i feel bad i will work to make sure it doesn't happen again we can't erase the past you have to take responsibility for it but it's only relevant as it informs our present in every moment hashem opens a new window in every moment hashem opens new channels to connect with him and what's the say what's the point of forfeiting of losing this moment okay it was you're right you're eating your wellness your behavior your actions your choices your relationship okay good so it was so now what i'm going to walk around on miserable fabulous negative pessimistic complaining has an unbelievable way of working you know i started to tell you one of the cover on the trip said as we're all scrambling to rebook our flights last night he said wow do you realize what a powerful trip this was really what are you talking about he said this trip was so powerful and poised to change our lives to come back with incredible kabbalah breakthrough change to implement things in our lives at dinner we were meant to go around and every person on it 23 24 people we were meant to each go around and say here's what someone said that touched me here's what i'm going to do differently here's the cabal i take upon myself the satan understood that that's what was about to happen so satan was hard at work to make sure we wouldn't sit together so we're going to convene here you're also allowed to eat dinner and go in a circle in boca it's a lot warmer and nicer to do it here so we're going to fight that sutton we're going to overcome him and his voice but that's the power of the itahara when the atari senses there's about to be breakthrough in the atahara senses it's about to be changed and the atari kicks into overdrive starts cancelling flights starts getting into your head starts knocking you down starts distracting you and making you worry starts to make you forfeit the present to make you stuck in the past or afraid of the future anywhere but the present yatahara knows that when you're not living in the moment and when you're not mindful and present it owns you why do you eat the bag of cape cod potato chips at 1am if any normal person looked you in the eyes and said it's one o'clock in the morning you're about to lie horizontally for a few hours do you really want that bag in your belly if a person do you know what it's going to do to your waistline it's your cholesterol level if you just thought about it for a moment if you were in the present okay you'd have a chip or two maybe or maybe you'd realize that that's impossible so you wouldn't even open the bag and you'd move on i'm giving such a mundane silly example but it's reality in our lives how does the atari win by getting you out of the moment distracting distracting perseverating anxious unfocused mindless because when we're mindful we are our best selves that we make our best choices and we best connect with hashem and others and when we're mindless then we're lost we're so we have to feel and we have to decide these are not emotions we live in a mushy gushy of motion time we blame everything in our feelings our feelings your feelings my feelings feelings feelings are important and they're real they need to be addressed they need to be worked out i'm not dismissing them i'm not some cult cold i have a lot of feelings i have a lot of feelings too and feelings are real but in the end of the day what defines us as human beings are not our feelings but our decisions it's our bahira we have bahira we have choice we dictate we determine who we are we determine what we think about we determine how we behave and we determine our actions and if we start smiling and we're happy we'll feel happy so all that you need is the decision to smile when we smile this is not me go home and google it the research all shows that when you smile you then feel happy don't wait to feel happy and then smile when you smile you'll feel happy so all you need to do is decide that you're going to smile you'll feel stupid you'll feel you look stupid but you don't you don't smile last shabbos we spent in baltimore met a woman we had a meal with she just had a permanent smile plastered on her face and it was all husband i didn't even know them but i asked her husband i said does your wife always smile like that what's that like for you no meaning you want to be down or depressed you want to be negative or complain but there's always that positivity and he said it's fantastic because it doesn't allow you to it lifts you and it energizes you so i don't know i don't know her well am i in trouble right now i don't know what it's like to live with someone who's so happy oh i said no i said i know exactly how you feel i also live with someone who smiles all the time you didn't let me finish you didn't let me finish what's that like for you because i want to tell you what it's like for me oh i should have stayed in new york ouch i was going to end the show two minutes ago mama she was going to spend two minutes ago it's a rough morning but i'm going to start again get to start again i i don't i don't know the woman i don't know whether she grew up that way she you know came out of the womb with a smile on her face or i don't know whether she's worked on herself but i know that every one of us can be that person who smiles every one of us can be that light that walks into a room every one of us can be the ones who put out that energy that transforms everyone around us it's a determination to smile so i'll give you homework for today i'm not sure we're ready to reach her level and i guess we'll find out later today or tomorrow she listens to this year and i say everything i said with the greatest admiration really an envy but here's our homework i don't know that we could smile from when we wake up in the morning till we fall asleep at night it's hard to smile when you land late you're still wearing that mask and you're frustrated and you're tired and you're crawling to your bed it's hard it's hard but here's where the most important time to smile when you walk into your house when your children come home from school when if you're married you see your spouse for the first time at the end of that day to be determined to make the decision that no matter what's happening in my day no matter what i'm about to unload on them no matter how they're behaving and they i mean the children or the spouse i'm gonna smile because that smile will set the anchor that smile will determine the trajectory of how the rest of this afternoon or evening go you know i say this to men too when i meet with men i say to them i don't care what's going on in your life i don't really care what's happening at work when you pull into a driveway when you come into that house leave it at the door come in with a smile come in with a light come in with an energy coming with a positivity it doesn't really matter you may have legitimate reasons to be down and out legitimate reasons to be frustrated and depressed legitimate reasons to be struggling there are many legitimate reasons it doesn't matter leave them at the door decide and be determined to smile because simple is a decision it's not an emotion how can i smile my feelings my boss spoke to me this way and this deal fell through and this was such a frustrating moment and i did three funerals and two shiva houses and met with six couples in crisis and heard about four horrible diagnoses and i should walk in and smile yeah yeah walk in and smile put a smile on your face no matter what you're feeling inside put a smile on your face when you walk in put a smile and when you're greeting whoever walked in have a smile and children when you come home smile and the parents who greet those children should smile and the rebbe and teacher in the classroom every day needs to agree to smile and come back from lunch orisas with a smile you know what the world would look like if we just smiled more my zade my grandfather used to love the song we sang it to him at the end of his life when you're smiling keep on smiling and the whole world smiles with you i only know that song because we used to sing it tim it's a little before my time when you smile keep on smiling the whole world smiles with you we have the ability to change the energy in a room and it won't cost you don't have to bring in a charcuterie board or a sushi chef you could change the energy in the room without a martini mixer you could change the energy in the room without a giveaway you change the energy in the room for free the decision to put on a smile smile and every moment's a new moment by the way so you know what can happen later today i'm not telling you this comes easy to me someone might be smiling because they're laughing at me that i'm saying this because i need to work on this or just because she smiles all the time i don't know which one but but you know what so you failed your kids are going to come home today your spouse is going to come today you're going to come on today 20 minutes later you're going to realize how miserable and negative you were oh i forgot this is a smile i um in the colossal no problem just start smiling now again whoever you live with is going to think you lost your mind a minute ago you were clean complaining and crutching and miserable all of a sudden you've got this smile your teeth are shining so what is with you nothing you know what i decided i want to be positive and smile i want to be happy be happy with me no one's ever going to say to you no no let's be miserable together stop that smile i prefer that we are miserable yeah okay happen sure happy great okay let's try it every moment is a new moment every is a fresh opportunity this is your homework until next time smile smile not smile the whole day smile to begin the day smile when you see those people at the end of your day and next week you'll report whether relationships are different your mental spiritual physical health are different whether the feeling in our homes is different we have that power in our hands tonight nine o'clock we're going behind the bema with my cousin or vidalia beshevkin join us at nine o'clock until next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy you