Browse NextSelf writing with this tag.
left the Jewish people with generational PTSD. In addition to the trauma every society carries from generations of war, poverty, and survival, which already gives all of humanity a baseline of inherited PTSD. And on...
The Creator wants our relationship with Him to include belief because belief makes a stronger kind of intimacy possible. Deep intimacy requires trust. Trust means remaining connected even when everything is not fully...
The Shema teaches the mind what to notice so the nervous system can begin to feel awe, pleasure, and love. “Listen, Israel: G-d [The Creator] is our Lord, G-d is one.” According to Chassidus, belief in one Creator...
Chassidus explains its purpose. Together, they explain why healing has always been humanity's greatest responsibility. Humanity has needed more than 5,000 years to begin learning how to explain that the Creator needs us.
Humility means seeing yourself and other people honestly, then practicing compassionate boundaries that respect both your needs and theirs. People-pleasing means making another person’s emotional comfort your...
A person notices the wisdom in creation, the way life is continually given, the importance of human choices, and the deeper patterns found in Torah and experience. These patterns help the mind recognize that the...
Often they are choosing the only form of comfort they can still feel. When a person has learned to survive through fear, shame, or emotional numbness, physical comfort may feel much more real than a relationship with...
A person can know, “This is painful,” “This is tragic,” or “This should make me sad,” but the sadness itself is not felt. Instead, they may experience the situation as humorous, even in a dark way, or they may only...
Sometimes it sounds like, “Everyone who challenges me is jealous.” Trauma-adaptive fight mode does not always sound like rage. Sometimes it sounds like certainty.
It is how you relate to yourself when no one else is there. Solitude is being with yourself by choice, not by fear or shame. Loneliness often comes from relating to yourself through fear, shame, or the feeling that you...
Chassidus explains why. The goal of spiritual growth is not only to know the truth. It is to improve your personality so you can reveal more goodness in the world. Why? Because creation means experiencing yourself as...
From the beginning, the Creator gave Adam and Eve instructions for how to live in relationship with Him, with each other, and with the Oneness behind creation. But when a person lacks emotional awareness, instructions...
Often, it is about healing the patterns that stop you from showing up. The adaptive nervous system learns patterns to help you survive difficult experiences, beginning in childhood. Fight says: "I need to protect...
by teaching them to see Chabad through suspicion before they ever learned it from its own sources. That was not Torah greatness. Torah and ahavas Yisrael are united. Rav Shach z"l was a great Rosh Yeshiva and made...
It is the word people use for the Creator of the universe, the One Cause behind all existence. "If everything that exists were dependent on something else for existence, nothing would ever exist." — Maimonides But the...
They become part of the emotional world your nervous system has to live inside. You did not choose every belief or survival pattern you inherited, but you can choose how you work with them now. By nervous system, I...
Table of Contents – Or a much shorter version of the ideas in this post. Table of Contents A strange thing happens when a person starts believing things happen for no reason. The nervous system has a personality...
But Jewish law still allows us to describe Him as King of the universe, because that is the relationship structure a human being can actually practice. A king is not just power. A true king creates belonging. A true...
They had just left slavery. They were still carrying fear, confusion, old survival habits, and generations of trauma. And still, they accepted a relationship with The Creator. That is a serious lesson. You do not need...
They affect how safe you feel. They affect how much you trust people. They affect whether you open up, repair, apologize, forgive, or stay defended. That is not religion. That is psychology. Psychology is a science...
Not because nothing is happening inside you. But because too much has been happening for too long. Emotional numbness is often not emptiness. Sometimes it develops because a person has carried hurt, fear...
Free will does not mean you choose every detail of life. You may think you freely chose the color of your clothing, but from a Chabad Chassidus perspective, that is not free will at all. Personality, mood, taste...
means transforming shame into responsibility and relationship by realizing: "Without belief in a good infinite Creator, shame often becomes too heavy to face. That is how human psychology works. The nervous system...
Miracles are not just events. They are also reflections of what people are able to feel. – Based on a Midrash. A relationship with the Creator begins with awe. Awe is a blend of sadness, fear, and wonder. It is the...
