A
key thing that's weighing down a lot of people's inner joy is our
inflated expectations. The less expectations we have, the better it'll
be for us in every area of our life. Who can be happy living in 300 sqm,
when they expected to be living in double that? Who can be happy with a
B+, when they expected a straight A? Who can be happy earning $100k a
year, when they expected to be making a quarter of a million?
So many of us have
ridiculously high expectations dragging us down all over the place, but
when people have high expectations of their kids, to use a common
'relationships' example, then it's torment for everyone involved. If
your kids aren't living up to your expectations, lower them! Our
expectations of our kids are our problem, and we shouldn't be putting
our problems on our children. They are learning how to be human beings,
and while that process is happening, we need to be shielding them and
defending them from our worries, and from other issues like marital peace or money issues.
These are our
problems, not theirs'. And we'll be able to deal with our problems much
better when we're in a proper, joyful, state of mind. Parents are the
leaders of their families. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking
that 'leading' equates to 'forcing', but that's not what leadership is
really about. We're not talking about a tyrant, or a domestic Saddam
Hussein, we're talking about someone who's inspired, and who has a
vision that they really believe in. A genuine leader has values that
they really believe in, and they are living those values. Regardless of
our age or relationship to them, and when we're around people like that,
it's very inspiring.
Now, let's translate that
definition of leadership into good parenting terms. As a parent, it's
our job to inspire our kids, which means accepting a higher standard of
behavior for ourselves. A parent has to accept the responsibility for
the 'family outcomes', and to accept that the outcome is primarily their
responsibility, not their kids'. Kids are just kids.
Let's take the example of
educating our kids about torah and eternal truths. The 'domestic tyrant
route would be to punish them for every minor infraction of Torah law:
they didn't come to synagogue on time? They're in big trouble! They
didn’t want to pray after the meal? They are going to sit at the table
until they buckle down and do it! Continue here...
Also featured this week:
Turning Bitter into Sweet - By Rabbi Shalom Arush
Wings of Eagles - By Rabbi Lazer Brody
Murky Waters - By Howard Morton
A Garden Paradise - By Rabbi Lazer Brody
Nature's Song - By Rivka Levy
Beauty and Inner Peace - Rabbi Shalom Arush
Inverse Desires - By Racheli Reckles
Like a Rolling Stone - Rabbi Lazer Brody
Mouser Money - By Natalie Kovan
A Book about Humans - By Rabbi Berel Wein
Wishing you Blessings Always,
Dr. Zev Ballen
There is no comparable thrill for a parent than the loving smiles of their children. What is so compelling about a beautiful smile and what can it do for you psychologically and spiritually? This is the subject of today's live broadcast. I hope you can join me!
G-d Willing we'll be broadcasting today's lesson live from the Chut Shel Chesed Yeshiva in Jerusalem at 5:00 PM Israel time. The broadcast, as well as my lessons posted are Mac and iPod compatible. If you tune in too early to the live broadcast link, you'll be sent to the main page of the Breslev Israel website, so try to tune in as follows: 10:00 AM in NY; 7:00 AM in LA and the West Coast, 8:00 AM Denver, 10:00 AM Mexico and Central Daylight; 3:00PM in the UK, 5:00 PM Johannesburg and Capetown, 5:00 PM Israel. G-d willing, we'll try and post a link to the lesson for all those who couldn't see it live by 12:01 AM Monday (Israel time).
If you can't see the broadcast, you might need to download a new version of Flash Media player, which you can do here. We hope you enjoy the broadcast.
With blessings,
Dr. Zev Ballen
The Teenage Wall
If 'grown ups' grow by
kicking against obstacles, the same certainly holds true of teenagers.
Adolescents need us, their parents, to be their 'wall', that they can
bounce off - and any type of wall is better than no 'wall' at all. When
the parents give up, and let their kid do whatever they want, because
'he's beyond help', that's when the kid is going to go even crazier. We
parents have to stand firm, and be the wall of defense that surrounds
the child and the home. We have to set appropriate limits for our
children, but we have to enforce them with kindness. We must have rules,
but we need to implement them without anger, viciousness, or taking
revenge on our children.
G-d knows that the nature
of man is to want to avenge even the smallest dints to his pride. That's
why there are all those passages talking about 'an eye for an eye', or,
'a tooth for a tooth'. Taking revenge is human nature. Why? Because G-d
made us that way. Why? Because He wants us to grow and beat out of
ourselves all these animal characteristics, and to make a real decision to have a spiritual life.
As a parent, we will face
countless challenges to our pride and our authority as our children grow
up. We'll have umpteen opportunities, every single day, to choose to
grow, spiritually, or to impose our will on our children with threats,
anger and 'punishments'. Once we start choosing to live a spiritual
life, we won't argue or fight with anyone, any more. Even if we're right
(and as parents, aren't we always 'right'?) - we're still going to back
down, and we're going to send a very clear signal to our children that
we are willing to go the distance for them, to be a good person, and
parent in the G-d-centric way that G-d really wants.
The moment of death
I've
been with a lot of people in the minutes and hours before they were
about to pass away. It's amazing to see the radical personality changes
that can happen with a terminally-ill person who knows they are about to
die.
This insight into our final
moments on earth was one of the biggest gifts of my life, because
people who are about to pass on to the next world don't fake it. All of a
sudden, they have clarity about what's really important in life. And
it's not money; it's not their degrees; it's not the honor that other
people give them. What It boils down to is simply how much love they
received, how much love they gave, and the quality of their
relationships with their friends and relatives.
Please G-d, we'll all be
around until 120 years old, but we don't have to wait until those final
moments to start making a thorough accounting of our own 'relationship
equations', starting with our families. Click here for the conclusion...
Remember, blessed friends,
Live strong, live with emuna!
Dr. Zev Ballen
Here's more great reading:
The Cow Comes, the Cow Goes - By Rabbi Shalom Arush
The Marital Sandtrap - By Rabbi Lazer Brody
A Search for Identity - By Rivka Levy
Blessing the Beautiful - By Rabbi Lazer Brody
The First Haircut - By Tal Rotem
A Walking Billboard - By Racheli Reckles
The Dollar on the Wall - Rabbi David Charlop
How many falls must a baby get back up from as he or she grows into becoming a person. It's so inspiring to watch babies as they don't even worry about their falls but simply get up and keep on trucking.
We all have a gift that is deep within us. It's the self-confidence of having gotten up from thousands of falls! Hashem programmed everyone with a powerful innate drive for mastery. Toddlers are impervious to the bumps and bruises that are part of the exhilaration of learning to stand up and walk. They simply tune out the pain in order to succeed. Hashem led us on and simultaneous put into our parent's minds to lead us only as much as was necessary but to not worry or interfere with us too much.
Rebbe Nachman begins his book Restore My Soul by telling us how vitally important it is to know how to fall and how to get up because it's inevitable that in our effort to climb the ladder of spirituality there will be times that we will fall as well as rise up. We therefore need to become very "expert," says Rebbe Nachman, in: how to find G-d when we're 'going up' (by not becoming arrogant) and how to find G-d when we're 'going down' too.
In either case, we must gird our loins, and strengthen ourselves, as we did so long ago and act with the pure inner-driven faith that enabled us to succeed when we learned to walk by ourselves. Just as the toddler never despairs and gives up so mustn't we. Let's show Hashem that we're willing to search for Him in whatever situation we're in.
One way of becoming an expert in finding Hashem, even in the falls, is to remember and re-visit as much as possible, our earliest successes which have been most deeply engraved into our pure and innocent infant minds. Like ink on clean white paper. Good is to be remembered. We want access to all the good that was done for us and is in us. It's only the bad that should be forgotten. We need to preserve and keep those positive, loving and inspiring elements of our past relationships before us and around us at all times. Once you work to find Hashem (the goodness in yourself and in your personal history, for example the love and encouragement you received from parents, siblings, relatives, teachers, coaches etc., then you must work to strengthen those neural pathways anyway you can, and through an awareness of them keep them alive and active.
G-d Willing we'll be broadcasting today's lesson live from the Chut Shel Chesed Yeshiva in Jerusalem at 5:00 PM Israel time. The broadcast, as well as my lessons posted are Mac and iPod compatible. If you tune in too early to the live broadcast link, you'll be sent to the main page of the Breslev Israel website, so try to tune in as follows: 10:00 AM in NY; 7:00 AM in LA and the West Coast, 8:00 AM Denver, 10:00 AM Mexico and Central Daylight; 3:00PM in the UK, 5:00 PM Johannesburg and Capetown, 5:00 PM Israel. G-d willing, we'll try and post a link to the lesson for all those who couldn't see it live by 12:01 AM Monday (Israel time).
If you can't see the broadcast, you might need to download a new version of Flash Media player, which you can do here. We hope you enjoy the broadcast.
With blessings,
Dr. Zev Ballen
image credit: jfelege
There is no such thing as perfect parenting. What we know about what works best to raise psychologically healthy children comes from studying parents who do a "good enough" job.
There is however, a "Parent" who in fact is perfect.
He is our G-d (and Parent) in Heaven - Hashem.
Here is an example of Hashem's infinitely wise parenting. When a child is born you may notice that they seem somewhat detached and unresponsive for the first week or so before they become more alert and seem to "hatch" into greater social awareness. The reason that babies are initially detached is because G-d provides them with what psychologists call a stimulus barrier to protect them from being overwhelmed by all the new sights, sounds, and feelings that they were not exposed to into the upper realm or in the womb.
G-d in his infinite wisdom created the stimulus barrier as a template for us to eventually develop the capacity to protect ourselves by keeping out of our minds what is not good for us and only letting in good thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, memories, etc. Hashem the Ultimate watch-guard, who protected us when we were so small and helpless, now calls upon us to access the same ability that he put into us so long ago. Now we must serve as our own censor and sentinel deciding from moment to moment what to give our attention to.
With blessing for a great day!
Dr. Zev Ballen
photo by the bop
Research has shown that there's a strong connection between severe childhood trauma and the development of psychosis later on.
Are children who are being raised by parents who live in accordance with emuna principles less likely to become psychotic?
Yes they are.
Even more so, adverse or traumatic events during childhood can predispose children who were raised with emuna to even greater levels of emotional and spiritual development than their peers.
How is this so?
There are many examples from the Torah of children who grew up under circumstances that would be considered traumatic by today's standards and they rose to incredible spiritual heights, for example King David and Rabbi Akiva.
G-d willing, I'll be speaking about this subject in much greater depth tomorrow, in my live broadcast. The simple explanation for now is that Divine Providence looks upon every soul and knows exactly what it needs to be maximally happy and to fulfill it's purpose in the world.
If, G-d forbid, a traumatic event does take place in childhood, it offers the child of parents who have faith the opportunity to turn to Hashem with their pain, and in so doing Hashem will lead them to find their true purpose in this world. Since fulfilling their true purpose is the only way that they can live lives of true happiness, these kids can end up better off than their peers who never find themselves.
Today, the first day of the month of Nissan (the month of miracles) is Rebbe Nachman's birthday and the first day that we can make a blessing on the trees. To learn about the amazing connection between these two events read this!
With blessings,
Dr. Zev Ballen
