We went to work on the "gremlin" and started the process of flipping the script.
“𝙄 𝙢𝙖𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙨𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙪𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚.”
“𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙣𝙤 𝙥𝙪𝙧𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚.”
“𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙢𝙮 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙪𝙧𝙚, 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩. 𝘿𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙣 𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.”
From there, we moved into the core objective of the session.
Read MoreI was eleven years old, and I was thoroughly embarrassed.
A week earlier, one of the counselors had asked me if I would share a Torah thought at an upcoming Shabbos (Sabbath) camp meal in front of hundreds of others.
I was a pretty confident kid, so I agreed.
And then I spent many minutes preparing.
When the time arrived, I stood up on the bench and started speaking.
Towards the end, my mind froze and I couldn't remember the next part.
Somehow, I got through it, but I crumbled inside from embarrassment.
Which resulted in me burying myself underneath the table afterwards in shame.
We all tend to get dragged down and overwhelmed by things that accumulate over time and end up cluttering our minds.
When we identify them - even if we're not prepared to do anything about them right now - we raise our awareness and naturally start to handle, fix, and resolve them.
Start by making a list of what you’re putting up with at work and at home to determine what might be cluttering your mind and slowing you down!
Examples could be: incomplete tasks, frustrations, problems, other people’s or your own behavior, clutter, shoulds, unmet needs, crossed boundaries, unresolved issues or guilt, lack of exercise, eating habits, being indecisive, procrastinating, lack of sleep, etc.
Their presence triggered mixed emotions
Recently, at Sabbath prayer services, a group of young men were in attendance
Turns out that they attended a NYC yeshiva that I had interviewed at when I was in process of leaving Atlanta eight years ago
That job search, like a few others, had come up empty, and again I was feeling low
I grew up in a home that was poor
Not materially poor (we were “middle class,” but on the lower end,) as much as mentally poor
While we never went hungry, we also never had the luxuries many others enjoyed
But that wasn’t what made us “poor”
For three years, I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into being the best head of school I could be.
And then, one day, it all ended.
Eight years and one month ago, I was out of work and needed to start again.
Thousands of miles away from where I grew up and where all of my family and friends lived.
Entering a field that I knew little about and had no reputation to speak of.
Relocating my family to a small, grungy house that had "potential," because that was all that we could afford in our new, more expensive community.
It was a dark time in my life.
But, I had promised myself then that I would never again be beholden to others for my income.
So, I hung a shingle and got to work.
When people transition their attention away from an unfinished task to attend to a distraction, they lose time, and their subsequent task performance suffers. For example, if you interrupt writing an email to reply to a text message, you will need to refocus when you turn your attention back to finishing your email. That little bit of time of adjusting your focus compounds throughout the day. As we fragment our attention, fatigue and stress increases, which negatively affects performance.
So, not surprisingly, the first component of this “do it” step is to remove distractors.
Read MoreThe Jewish holiday of Passover commemorates the redemption of a band of Hebrew slaves from extended, torturous Egyptian bondage. Participants sit around a bedecked table as kings and queens, as they recall their ancestors' transition from servants to freedmen.
The Hebrews at that time experienced a sudden transformation from a state of perceived rejection (Is God ever going to take us out of here? Did He leave us here to rot as slaves forever?) to one of miraculous redemption, complete with supernatural miracles and newfound glory. If we are to take a stab at replicating that ancient experience we may wish to spend some time considering our own transitions from rejection to redemption.
We have all tasted the bitter pill of rejection. There was the time that we were not selected for the school performance or failed to make the basketball team. We know what it's like to be kept out of select social cliques or told "no" by the person with whom we sought a relationship. Not every school that we applied to accepted us; nor did every would-be employer. Perhaps we even had the misfortune of being rejected by an employer, or worse, a spouse or family member.
Read MoreIt happens to all of us, and often at the most inopportune times. We know that we have work to do – a job to complete, a new project to launch, some loose ends to tie up – but we just feel stuck in place. As if everything that we try doesn’t work. We take two steps forward and one or more steps back. Or we start something and simply stop.. Or, worse yet, we don’t even know where to start. Why does this happen? There are many answers.
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