Jewish Federation/ 10 minutes, June 4, 2004

The Enchanted Gateway

The Rebbe Nachman of Breslow often said,  “Always remember-Joy is not merely incidental to your spiritual quest.  It is vital.”

  As the years have gone by and I’ve been in the practice of psychology over 20 years, I have become more and more convinced that he was so right, that joy is not an option.  When we take away joy and we take away a sense of well-being, a sense that we are thriving, we allow ourselves or circumstances seem to push us to be drained and tired, weakened.  We are no longer the whole human being that I believe our tradition encourages and teaches us to be. 

I have developed a positive psychology approach to mental health that works both in the treatment room and out.  Basically, I teach people the techniques they need to start to think in positive ways about themselves and their world.  I teach them how to see what is right about themselves, rather than what is wrong.  I teach them to appreciate their own life story, its ups and downs, and the roller coaster ride that we all go on. I teach them how to value their own potential even if in childhood they were put down or criticized or even later in life, as so many of us are.  I have the belief and I teach the belief that inside of each of us we know when we are on track and we know when we are living a wholesome life that fits with the integrity of our particular spirit.  I call this sense of well-being ”The Enchanted Self” and I teach people how to find their Enchanted Self within themselves. 

Basically, the learning involves listening to yourself, reviewing or your own history, reviewing your own past to see what works for you, what really does gives you pleasure.  What does help you to feel whole?  If you loved to play the piano as a child, then you may not really enjoy watching football games as an adult.  You may much more enjoy listening to classical music.  However, in order to live a full life, you may enjoy football

games because your son loves them or your husband loves them and so there is an accommodation and an interest develops.  I use this example to show that discovering what is going to work for ourselves is so unique to the individual, it involves a review of her history, it involves analyzing the circumstances currently in our lives.  If we have a handicap we may not be able to become a ballerina.  If we have severe arthritis, we may not be able to become a ballerina at forty.  However, the love of dance since I was a little child may easily converted into wonderful yoga, stretches that help my arthritis.  So often, there is a creative turn in the road that the enchanted self person, the person who knows, who has the courage to put together her mind, her heart, her body and her spirit is willing to take that leap and find the new inventive way to bring pleasure and meaning into her life. 

I find that the steps I teach people are rigorous but they are no harder then all the habits we learn that keep us in bad moods and keep us depressed.  For example, if I teach someone how to review at the end of the day everything that has gone right in their day, that is no harder. In fact it becomes easier than listing everything that went wrong.  The reason it becomes easier is that you don’t build up some of the rage and some of the anger that one can build up when we review the problems in our lives so that we are not only encouraged rather than discouraged but the person may end up sleeping better and feeling better so there is much less of an energy drain.