Sometimes life gets divided to before and after moments. In the period that is after, you feel like nothing will ever be the same again. Shabbat Simchat Torah, Oct. 7, 2023 was a day that split life into before and after. But the war is continuing, the situation is still very hard, maybe coping is even getting harder and harder. I ask myself, how can we help ourselves get through times like these? How do we not break down in times of crisis?
Everything is temporary, this too shall pass, blah blah blah.. What about now? What about till it passes?
There was a Buddhist monk named Thich Naht Hanh. A special man who passed away about two years ago. He explained that there are times we can change reality just based on how we look at it. Change how you frame your experience, and it changes how you feel about the event. But sometimes, it isn’t about reframing. There isn’t a way to make the crisis feel not terrible, the situation is just crappy. It doesn’t matter what angle you look at the situation, it’s just crap. And then, says Thich Naht Hanh, you know you are living in a period that is the fertilizer.
Look at the crap, and accept it as fertilizer. All the pain, the sorrow, the heartbreak, what if we make it fertilizer? Fertilizer that will one day grow beautiful things. Perhaps, we can accept the period for what it is, a time of so much crap, we can fertilize, and use this time for growing good. We wouldn’t choose to go through this, we don’t want it, but nevertheless, we accept it.
We give a place to the pain and sorrow, we embrace the broken heart, and we ask, what can I plant? What can I grow in this? And then, from a place of acceptance that we cannot control everything, but we can use the fertilizer to plant beautiful seeds, we don’t just believe that one day this too shall pass and the sun will come out tomorrow, but we create that reality in which the sun will come out and everything will be okay.
In my fertilizer I choose to grow compassion, to remember that differences of opinion are wonderful, as long as we disagree respectfully. I choose to plant love, acceptance, humility, kindness, love, love, and more love; to myself and others. What do you want to plant? How can you take advantage of the fertilizer?
In prayer for better times ahead, and the ability to continue to grow,
Am Yisrael Chai
