Re-choose Your Life
April 24th– April 30th , 2005
We are at a cosmic crossroads this week.
It is the week in history when Moses and the Israelites split the Red Sea in their escape from the Egyptians. And as we learn from the great 16th Century Kabbalist, Rav Isaac Luria (The Ari) we too are standing at the edge of our Red Sea.
We must choose the direction we want our life to take.
These next seven days are about rethinking the choices we’ve made and deciding what we want in our lives and what we want out.
We need to look at the things that we value most and decide if these things are truly bringing us the Light we deserve.
A simple way to decide is to:
Make a list of everything that is important to you.
In one column write the things you love about each.
In another column write all the drawbacks.
Go through each item on the list and see what you want to continue with (because you know it brings you Light and happiness regardless of the drawbacks.) And let go of the things that do not reveal any Light - no matter how good the good is.
When you re-choose what you want to keep, do it with excitement as if you are choosing it again for the first time. I learned from an early age from my father that:
“EXCITEMENT - CREATES APPRECIATION - CREATES CONNECTION”
Losing excitement is what messes us up. I see it happen especially with students and their connection to Kabbalah. They come here and are touched by the magic of their Power of Kabbalah teacher or Student Support Instructor. Their passion is enflamed and they begin to make real changes in their life. They start learning the fundamentals of Kabbalah (transformative sharing, restriction, Zohar scanning, 72 Names of God meditation.)
They get excited, miracles soon follow and the world looks new again and anything is possible…
…and then they lose the spark. The daily Zohar scanning becomes once in a while (when they are desperate), the restriction becomes a slogan (I really should ‘restrict’) and the sharing suddenly grows strings.
And it’s not just in Kabbalah we lose our excitement. That’s the point. It’s all the good things in our lives. We work, sweat and pray for something to happen, and once we get it, we lose the excitement, the appreciation and ultimately the connection to that thing. We start obsessing on the negatives, on what we don’t have, and we wind up letting the good go to waste.
That is why the exercise I mentioned above is so crucial. One of my students did it recently and it totally changed his life. The first important thing on his list was his girlfriend. Lately, he had been complaining to me about her and was thinking of leaving her. He couldn’t think of one reason why he should stay. After doing the exercise, he came to me with this big smile on his face, telling me he had totally forgotten all the great things he loved about her. He still sees the drawbacks, but he made the decision that they were nothing compared to the Light she brings to his life.
His re-choosing ignited new excitement and appreciation for his girlfriend. He is in love all over again with the very same person he was getting ready to leave just days ago!
Of course, he could have just as easily decided that the drawbacks outweighed the good. In that case, it would have been wise to break up and move on.
Either way, you need to know that re-choosing is not about dropping everything that is a challenge to you, as we know challenges are what make us grow. It is about actively being in control of your life by eliminating anything that doesn’t reveal Light.
Take the time to do this exercise and you’ll understand what I mean.
All the Best,
Yehuda