The Endangered Species

There are well-known ways of uprooting anxiety that professional therapists teach people. One is to learn how to stay calm and relaxed; another method is to explain to the person with anxiety what his anxiety means; and still another way that professional therapists work is to give people encouragement that they can overcome their troubles.   All of these methods have some value but by themselves cannot work because they are all approaches that come from the therapist and not from the person himself.

What is the inner approach to helping people free themselves from worries and anxieties?

In order to answer this question we need to understand what causes a person to worry in the first place. Anxiety is the result of imagining that we are going to lose something that we believe we absolutely must have. This might sound hard to believe but think of it this way. If a dime were lost from your pocket, would you have anxiety about it? Most likely it wouldn’t bother you very much. But if someone were to lose his job, then he might go into a panic – that is unless he has emuna.

If his desire for emuna is stronger than his desire for the job then he will be able to relax and find another job. Once this happens, once the scale tips in favor of emuna over that particular job, then he can pass this test not only by coping with it but by growing from it.

The word for desire in Hebrew is ratzon from the word ratz which means to run. Today we see everybody running to acquire things and buy things. These people believe that a new car every two years will calm their fears and anxieties but it’s actually just the reverse – the new cars are causing the fears and anxieties.

I can remember how anxious I used to be about my car when I lived in New York. It was a leased car so I worried that someone would bump it and dent it and drive off leaving me to pick up the tab with the leasing company. I worried about going over the allotted number of miles per year with the car and having to pay for the extra mileage. Now I drive an 11 year old car, here in Israel, that hasn’t given me any problems in the three years that I’ve owned it. I don’t worry about it getting dented because it already has dents. I don’t worry about it being stolen either because there are so many nicer cars on the road to steal than mine, G-d forbid.

If a person would know that after acquiring the thing that he desires so much, he won’t feel any better or be any happier but rather that he will have more to worry about, then he wouldn’t be investing so much time and energy to run after it or make it the focus of his life.

The best anti-anxiety medication is the joy of believing with emuna that what you have right now is very, very good. That doesn’t mean that you cannot think about having more, but it means that even if more doesn’t come, you are already “wealthy” with what you presently own.

There is a story about a multi-millionaire CE0 of a Blue Chip company who woke up every day feeling sad and unsuccessful because he had not yet reached the level of income that he desired. In contrast there was a simple worker from the same company who woke up every day saying: “Thank you, Hashem for another day. Every day above ground, and not below ground, is a good day indeed!”

But how can a person be happy? He can’t cover his monthly expenses. His son is in the hospital. He may have other big problems?

The answer is that there is a deep type of happiness that very few people know about that is not based on anything that is going on outside the person. This type of happiness of the soul is actually the natural state of a person. If something is natural, from Hashem, there doesn’t need to be a reason for it. It’s just the way G-d made us – to be happy.  So why aren’t people happier? One person will say he lacks a livelihood, someone else will say that he lacks good health, and a third might say that he doesn’t get enough respect. All of them may be right but this is still a very superficial way of thinking. The real reason that people are unhappy is because they want too many things and they aren’t drawing upon the deep pleasure of being in tune with themselves and with Hashem.

There are some new luxury apartment buildings going up in Jerusalem.  Imagine a person is walking down the street and sees an advertisement for a luxurious apartment on the 21^st floor of this building with a breath-taking view of the city. He then notices an expensive sofa in the display window of a furniture store. He immediately imagines himself sitting on the couch with a newspaper, calm and comfortable, in his new apartment on the 21^st floor with his breath-taking view.

What’s his mistake? He already believes that he is lacking this apartment on the 21^st floor and that if he gets it he will be calm and happy. But really his situation is much better than that already. He should stop himself for a moment and think “I don’t want these things because my peace will be robbed from me once I want them.” If he does this he will discover a deep peace in the soul, deeper than the peace of the 21^st floor with the breath-taking view.

Is there any wonder that in today’s world a happy person is becoming a very endangered species?