By Racheli Reckles
How many of us can say that when we experience pain, we don’t suffer? Many of us know that we have a choice to stay calm during a challenging time or to allow our reactive nature to take over. Even though we know what to do, why is it so hard for us to remain positive when it feels like our world is crashing down all around us?
Although we would like all of our happiness to come from within, generally we experience our feelings as the result of external factors. You hear good news, you’re happy. You hear bad news, you’re sad. How can we extract ourselves from our constant reaction to outside stimuli and access our inner happiness?
(When your kids drive you crazy are you experiencing inner peace? If you are, please tell me your secret!)
Sometimes when I reflect on a day that has passed, I am not surprised to find myself exhausted by the evening. My day seems to me like a rollercoaster full of unexpected twists and loops, and I have to take a deep breath and wind myself down.
Sharing Brings Light Which Brings Inner Peace
Kabbalah, the esoteric and deepest wisdom of the Torah, states that we are “vessels” that were created with the intention of receiving The Creator’s beneficience, or “light.”
Like the cup that was created to contain a certain amount of water, each of us has the unique capacity and capability to contain and reveal a certain amount of light.
The vessel is our soul, who yearns for spiritual nourishment and fulfillment. What is that nourishment? It is the Light of The Creator. How does it manifest in our lives? It manifests through the spiritual actions that we undertake.
The more we invest our time and efforts in helping others and sharing, the more light we add to our lives. Through this light we acquire health, inner peace, sustenance, good relationships, etc.
It is this light that will give us freedom from our inner turmoil, freedom from the tumultuous waves of conflicting emotions, freedom from our “victim” mentality that convinces us that we need to suffer when we experience pain.
Pain can be a positive stimulus to help us move to the next level in our lives. I know that the pain I have experienced in my life has helped me to become a stronger person. Just because we sometimes go through pain it does not mean we must suffer. We don’t have to look at pain as being a bad thing.
Dialogue With God
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev, one of the greatest sages of the nineteenth century, has revealed an amazingly simple way of realizing true freedom. The secret is hitbodedut, or talking to The Creator in a private setting, and in our own words.
Rebbe Nachman points out that God should be likened to a parent who lovingly awaits his child’s voice. Just as any parent longs to have intimate and real conversations with his child, so God wants us to return to Him. This is not about becoming religious; anyone from any ethnic background is encouraged to initiate a daily dialogue with God.
Becoming Free Of Anxiety
Once we begin to solidify our relationship with God, we can quickly see the tremendous blessings that are the fruits of a connection to The Divine. Not only will we experience our own personal salvation from external troubles, be it illness or financial burdens, but Rebbe Nachman promises that we will also free ourselves from the internal fires that burn within.
No more worry about where the next paycheck is coming from. No more stress about which decision to make. No more anger burning up inside when we encounter someone that irritates us.
Everything For Our Best
Talking with one God is one way to free ourselves from limiting emotions and fears. I also want to introduce to you the concept of
Emuna.
Emuna is the belief that everything that happens to us is for our ultimate benefit. If we believe that The Creator is all good, then we must consequently believe that everything The Creator does is also good, even though our senses may try to convince us otherwise.
I recently attended a thought-provoking lecture by Rabbi Avraham Lipszyc, who broached the question, “Does God love me?” His response in a nutshell was, “The question should not be ‘Does God love me?’ Of course God loves you! The fact that one is even asking such a question is the real issue at hand,” said the Rabbi.
Once you begin to strengthen your emuna, you can overcome any obstacle with no suffering from the infamous victim mindset. You will begin to see the mercy in the seemingly “worst” situation and even thank God for the wake-up call.
For me, a wake up call from God is similar to my alarm clock waking me up in the morning. At first, my alarm clock beeps softly, but the longer I take to wake up, the louder it will beep, until the beeping is so unbearable that I have no choice but to get out of bed.
From my own experience, it is my dialogues with God, my belief that everything exists as it is meant to be, and the light that illuminates my soul when I help others, that give me freedom from suffering.
In talking with God I can become free from anxiety, because my faith, my emuna is strenthened. By accepting with happiness all that life brings me I can avoid the rollercoaster of emotions and maintain a state of tranquility in any situation. By putting my focus on helping others, I learn to appreciate my life with all of it’s challenges. It doesn’t matter what troubles surround me or how dark the path might seem at the moment; I know and trust that everything will work out for the best.
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