The Dream Can Come True!

G-d has sent us into a world in which most things are out of our control. We can’t control events and we can’t control what people think, do, or say. Most people get very frustrated by this even though it’s obvious part of G-d’s plan. But the one thing that we do have complete control over is what we think and what we believe. We are given the awesome power to choose to find positive empowered meanings in literally every kind of human experience. But if we don’t learn how to search for higher meanings, our instinctive stimulus-response nervous systems will take over and we end up thinking that there isn’t any meaning to life at all, or finding the lowest meaning possible. Then we just do everything we can to avoid pain and chase after any “pleasure” we can find.

Let’s take a very common issue, of couples who have been trying to have children for years, and who haven’t been able to. The first thing we need to do is to look at that couple’s belief system. Is there a part of them that actually believes they can’t have children? Are they listening to the Evil Inclination, which is telling them to give up already, because it’s never going to happen?

Or take someone who’s getting older, and still hasn’t met her soul-mate. She has just hit her 40th birthday, and the Evil Inclination is constantly telling her that it’s all over, and it’s time to pull up the drawbridge and retreat from the world. These beliefs simply aren’t true, and they are extremely limiting, but so many people are stuck with this so-called “realistic” view of their world, and what could really happen in their lives.

Thank G-d, not everyone in the world wants to be a realist! Not long ago in Chut shel Chessed, Rabbi Arush’s yeshiva, one of our married students was celebrating the birth of his first child after 21 years of marriage. The man never gave up; He never told himself that G-d didn’t want him to have children. He had a strong belief that G-d simply didn’t want him to have kids yet. You should have seen him at the brit milah (circumcision) of his first boy. Similarly, I’ve had the privilege of helping people to meet their soul-mate when they were already in their 50s and today, they are very happily married with their own adopted children.

But if we don’t believe it can happen, it won’t. So the first thing we do is to help people look at what they believe as really possible, and then to design a plan to shift those mental blueprints, and open up new possibilities. For example its possible for us to love and give on a much higher level that we ever thought possible; it’s possible to dig deep into yourself and find strength and trust in G-d that you didn’t know you had; it’s possible for you to find higher meanings in even the most painful situations. But it’s not just going to be handed to you on a silver platter. It will only happen with a lot of patience and persistence.  Living the good life requires a ton of dedication, effort, and follow through. It’s going to require learning and applying these principles daily, and having a strong connection with G-d.

Where do you want to start? Do you want to work on creating the marriage of your dreams? Do you want to be a caring, enlightened, “emuna” parent? Do you want to make a billion dollars, so you can build a bunch of new hospitals and yeshivas? If you have a real calling in life, a real vision of what your particular challenge or goal is, then you should know that G-d has already given you the skill sets, talents, and desire to make it happen. You don’t even have to have the whole “grandiose” plan figured out yet. It will be enough to start with a one small piece of it. But do it now. Do it today – the dream can come true!