Your True Value

It has been a really long time since I felt inspired to write anything. Corona has rocked me and my family in many painful ways, and yet, the healing has been deeper than ever. Not because my family spent so much healing and bonding time together. (I’m envious and sometimes pained when I hear of those families that really used the time in that way. I feel like all the shiurim I listened to seemed to know how Hashem intended us to use this quarantine and I often felt like a failure because my family seemingly didn’t pull that off.)

The healing was deeper because this time forced me to get under a deep belief that I had about my own value as a person. I didn’t realize how dependent I was on so many external things that were just taken away. I didn’t realize I was dependent on so many internal beliefs that were smacking me in my face with my family around 24/7.

I became aware of the belief that my value was dependent on being perfect to be lovable, how my kids react to me, being busy or productive, not wanting to do the wrong thing or make mistakes.

I think the thing that drew me to the 3 Principles was the belief in my innate health. It was such a new concept at the time. The ideas that I could be innately healthy, that I am not my thinking, that there is nothing wrong with me even if I have obsessive, compulsive or racy thinking and that somehow I have all the wisdom I need inside of me, I just need to learn to trust myself were transformational.

What I have been seeing this past year is that the content of my belief is not what brings me salvation; rather it’s the belief itself. It’s the power of believing in you. It’s the power of believing that you are good no matter what; that your goodness runs so deep.

It’s the power of believing that anything negative you see in yourself is just an expression of your neshama’s pain due to the fact that it isn’t being fully self-expressed. Negativity, failure, weakness…this is not you. You are greatness.

It’s the power of believing that you have value and self-worth that’s independent of how you are showing up in life, how your kids are doing, how your husband is treating you, how successful or not you are at your job or being a mother.

I always struggled with not taking other people’s behaviors personally. I mean, I know how thought works. I know that no one else has the power to put a feeling inside of me and that how others act is more a reflection of their state of mind than it is of me as a person, but somehow it still hurt. So I always had a taina (a judgment) on myself that I was doing something wrong.

Either my mind wasn’t quiet enough, I wasn’t insightful enough, or I’m not supposed to get hurt or be bothered or I am supposed to be able to feel my feelings (because they are just thought in another form, duh). Yet, I wasn’t able to. I would wait until it passed because the truth is, it always passes. But waiting, holding on for dear life, is not the same as feeling it, embracing it, walking through to the other side.

I didn’t have myself strong enough to be able to be in the discomfort fully. Now I see that there is something to gain from those moments rather than running away from them. I have the capacity to see, face and feel in those moments because I’ve let go of the belief that my value is dependent on so many things that I didn’t even realize I believed it was dependent on.

It has been a rough year emotionally and this is the first time I have felt inspired to share a message in a long time. I pray it’s received in the way it was meant: to be hopeful, to be helpful, to know you should never give up.

You are so good, if only you could see yourself with Divine glasses, you would know how much Hashem loves you and how great you really are. You have value for no other reason than Hashem created you as a shining light. Give yourself permission to shine.

That is the way to go through Elul.