The Dare of Truth
When you turn your brain off for a few minutes, and start to really try to 'feel' things, all of sudden you start to get tremendous insights into all sorts of things...
When you turn your brain off for a few minutes, and start to really try to 'feel' things, all of sudden you start to get tremendous insights into all sorts of things, especially your relationships to other people.
For example, I used to have a friend who I thought was telling me kind, useful, sympathetic things. I thought that friend was good for me, and that I could trust her 100%. But then, I turned my thinking off, and looked at how I was feeling about her, and the results were absolutely shocking: I felt controlled, manipulated, 'bad', wrong, not good enough and despised. Whoa, Bessy!!! How had I not realized all that stuff before?
Once I isolated the tell-tale sign of 'something' not being quite right in my interactions with other people – usually a very uncomfortable churning feeling in my stomach – I learnt to turn off my brain, (that was busy 
making excuses and seeing what it wanted to see and hearing what it wanted to hear), and to just go with my feelings.
It's much easier said than done, because we live in a generation where people are doing their best to be unfeeling, unemotional robots. You can cry at movies; you can cry when Princess Diana gets killed; you can have an obvious display of emotion when people get blown up running a marathon, or when you favorite team wins (or loses…) But that's it.
If you dare to feel sad that you're having a superficial relationship with all the people you most love in the world – then you're 'over emotional' and something's wrong with you.
If you feel down because you're wrestling with some massive negative character traits that need addressing and improving – then you're borderline psychotic, and please take some drugs.
Feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a new mum? You're crazy! All the 'normal' people cope perfectly well with all this stuff, and you must have some chemical imbalance in your brain, or something, that you're not feeling 100% happy 100% of the time.
Feeling stressed by your 12 hour days and pressured work environment? You're a weak loser! Everyone knows you have to work hard to succeed. If you start to feel that your life shouldn't be focussed exclusively on your work and career, then you are never going to make it in the 'real world'…
Why are so many of us falling for these massive lies? We look around, and we can all see the 'madness' in other people's lives, but when it comes to ourselves we think we're different. But if we plugged into our feelings, I know that nearly all of us would make some fundamental changes in our lives as a result.
But feelings are scary. Feelings are dangerous. Once a person plugs into their feelings, anything could happen. They could start to stand up to all the bullies and control freaks who have been pulling their strings for years. They could decide – for themselves, at the age of 42, with no help from Mom – that really, they don't want to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an accountant after all.
Maybe, they'll start to realize that part of the reason they spend so much time at the office is because at home, they come face to face with the 'real' them, and they really don't like what they see.
Of course, negative emotions like sadness, anger, worry and fear are horrible to experience. They're not fun, they're not pretty – but they are the best motivators for change that any of us have.
The massive bouts of fear I used to have got me to make some radical changes in my life that have improved my real quality of life tremendously. If I hadn't spent weeks paralysed by fear, and praying so hard for G-d to help me understand why He was sending it to me, I never would have dared to do half the things I've done in recent years.
I wouldn't have moved community to a place that's so much healthier and better for me and my family; I never would have had the courage to follow truth and get really 'religious'; I wouldn't have had the strength to stop working, or to face up to what a cack mother I was being to my kids.
Most of all, I never would have had the motivation to switch off my thinking to feel what was really going on in my life, and what needed to change. And that clarity, more than anything, has been the biggest present of all.
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Check out Rivka Levy's new book The Happy Workshop based on the teachings of Rabbi Shalom Arush
10/14/2013
This article really resonated with me. I also experienced exactly what you described in your article's intro. I thought it was a sign of maturity to accept my friend's disguised criticism and "insights." Eventually, I realized that I was feeding her negative inclinations, and that I was actually being the opposite of what I'd intended; I was actually immature and naive to fall into such a dynamic. And it is SO TRUE that Western society today allows you negative emotions in certain circumstances ONLY! One of the many things I appreciate about living among Israelis and Russians is that I don't have any pressure to be "perky" or "everything's fine" all the time. It's much healthier and I actually experience more genuine happiness and contentment than I did living amid American culture. (And, in general, Americans who genuinely like living in Eretz Yisrael tend to be more "real.") Thanks so much for presenting the healing, motivating side of the negative emotions Hashem sends our way — for our own benefit.
10/14/2013
I also experienced exactly what you described in your article's intro. I thought it was a sign of maturity to accept my friend's disguised criticism and "insights." Eventually, I realized that I was feeding her negative inclinations, and that I was actually being the opposite of what I'd intended; I was actually immature and naive to fall into such a dynamic. And it is SO TRUE that Western society today allows you negative emotions in certain circumstances ONLY! One of the many things I appreciate about living among Israelis and Russians is that I don't have any pressure to be "perky" or "everything's fine" all the time. It's much healthier and I actually experience more genuine happiness and contentment than I did living amid American culture. (And, in general, Americans who genuinely like living in Eretz Yisrael tend to be more "real.") Thanks so much for presenting the healing, motivating side of the negative emotions Hashem sends our way — for our own benefit.