How to become Better, not Bitter: Winning Victories, Respect and Health (inside and out).

B'SD

29 Iyar, 5778

Today's the last day in the Jewish month of Iyar, which stands for "I am GOD Your Healer." Many people pray passionately for themselves, or for someone else to be healed, all month-long. Go ahead, pack in all the power of your prayers today before the unusual opportunity ends (it's not just for the Jewish kids in the class)!

Iyar has been an especially exciting month in Israel, this year. 

We've celebrated Lag B'Omer, the anniversary of introspection about how to treat other people with due respect and much more. 

We've celebrated Jerusalem Day, the re-unification of our holiest city, Jerusalem (enemies of the Jews never seem to tire of trying to wrest us and our land from each other). 

While that day dawned, news of Netta Barzilai's win at the Eurovision contest thrilled people who appreciate diversity, open-heartedness, and music. 

Today, Monday, we're noting the grand debut of the American embassy in our nation's capital, Jerusalem.

Those hard-won accomplishments reflect a great deal of struggle to overcome spiritual dilemmas, lies, violence, heartache and despair.

When you or someone else endures a diagnosis, with all its painful ramifications, you know the thrill of achieving the smallest of victories, and certainly the BIG ones. 

The ability to think and to behave without a bitterness that sabotages your efforts is a blessing borne of the courage to be forging on alone, when nobody understands the pain or emotions within you, nor your focus on achieving difficult goals. 

You choose not to blame people, 

but to develop strengths that

carry you forward.

That's called "becoming better, not bitter."

Sometimes we must simplify the many issues and complications to the barest necessities and simplest presentations. Eventually we can include multi-faceted goals and efforts in our daily lives, but only after that path has been prepared with hard inner and outer work.

Here's an example of paring down the possibilities into manageable pieces of a struggle, dealt with one at a time: a presentation of the "Toy" song without the dramatics we witnessed during the Eurovision contest.

Need help to simplify the complexities of dealing with an illness, so that it won't overwhelm you?

Buy doctor-recommended E-book or print edition EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

It bears praise from different clergy on the cover, too!

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

Fill your heart and soul with healing efforts.

Healing 101, a How-to

B'SD

1 Iyar, 5778

It's been a while since I shared some thoughts, here. That's because my mind was focused on honing the message below. It is dedicated to the individuals who've recently interacted with me while persevering past mental health and medical challenges. Some of the challenges have been quite serious.

Today begins the Jewish month of Iyar - timed with the increasingly obvious evidence of the spring season. Iyar has a mystical name and meaning. The word is not true Hebrew, but Akadian and Babylonian, a hint of the Jewish people's wanderings as we've been repeatedly forced out of the Holy Land granted to us by GOD (read Genesis).

Iyar, in its original form, indicates a blossoming rosette. The Hebrew letters which spell the word are an acronym for "I am GOD your Healer."

I am GOD your healer/אני י-י רופך​

The startling message is echoed not only in the spring season of blossoming life, but also in lines 2 and 5 of Psalms 126, a poetic song penned by King David, who certainly knew a thing or two about weeping with sorrow, fear, uncertainty, and the effort to feel connected with GOD.

Those lines indicate delayed gratification, a pending happiness made possible with present and past efforts.

Psalms Chapter 126 תְּהִלִּים

א  שִׁיר, הַמַּעֲלוֹת: בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה, אֶת-שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן--    הָיִינוּ, כְּחֹלְמִים.	1 A Song of Ascents. {N} When the LORD brought back those that returned to Zion, we were like unto them that dream.
ב  אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק, פִּינוּ--    וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה: אָז, יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם--    הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה, לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם-אֵלֶּה.	2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing; {N} then said they among the nations: 'The LORD hath done great things with these.'
ג  הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה, לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ--    הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים.	3 The LORD hath done great things with us; we are rejoiced.
ד  שׁוּבָה יְהוָה, אֶת-שבותנו (שְׁבִיתֵנוּ)--    כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב.	4 Turn our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the dry land.
ה  הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה--    בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ.	5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
ו  הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ, וּבָכֹה--    נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ-הַזָּרַע: בֹּא-יָבֹא בְרִנָּה--    נֹשֵׂא, אֲלֻמֹּתָיו.	6 Though he goeth on his way weeping that beareth the measure of seed, {N} he shall come home with joy, bearing his sheaves. {P}

My efforts these past weeks have been focused on several people whose mental or physical conditions are seriously deteriorated. Some of the cases left me in tears, the suffering of those individuals has been so deep and astonishing. The level of energy and determination to deal with the issues exhausted them, their loved ones, and me.

Despite feeling drained, I forged on as a survival mechanism, thinking about the health-promoting message to share with you. The message I've chosen to share is this: I ask that you ponder the meaning of those words above, especially those in lines 2 and 5. Despite the wrenching despair that King David had felt, he knew in his gut that the sparkling, spiritually rewarding and emotionally soothing future referenced above and promised by GOD is not in this world, but the one we create with our intentions and efforts. 

Yes, mortal humans feel their frailties, often at inconvenient times (it's challenging to think of any time convenient for a draining sense of stress). It is easy then to understand despair, a test of willpower to sense any sort of a better future. 

Meanwhile, we need to behave in ways that leave us proud of what we've done or thought.

We need to remind ourselves that the future to which we aspire is not merely on this planet, where we make physical efforts, but for eternity, when we'll live satisfying, solely spiritual lives determined by the efforts and intentions we fostered during earthly life.

If you need more material in order to feel uplifted, inspired to face your medically or mentally complicated future, read the inspirational passages in doctor- and clergy-recommended

There's a reason that people, aware of what I have overcome, and that I helped them or someone else to overcome their challenges, ask me how I do it. I teach life lessons that all of us need in that book. 

They make the difference between surviving and thriving, or not.  As the book teaches, "The alternative to the work of coping is worse."







Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. 

Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.

Frame your mouth into a smile that comes from your heart.

Do You know How to Dine on the Safe Side?

B'SD



4 Iyar 5769



I've received messages asking me for further clarification about eating pork. Some of my book and blog readers want to know why I'm so hyped up about pork (well for starters, I'm Jewish!) and if I want the entire world to go vegetarian (no!).

The issue is hygiene: personal and otherwise.

Dirty animals, as I

mentioned the other day,

seem to be part of the problem.

Check out the paragraph below, part of the larger story at

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE53N22820090427

The swine flu is not caught from eating pig meat products, but several countries imposed import bans on pork from the United States. Stocks in companies such as airlines were also hit as investors worried about the impact on travel.


OK, readers. There you have it. Neutral analysis of protective safety measures. We'll know more facts as the future unfolds.

BTW, the Hebrew name of

this month is Iyar,

an acronym for

"Ani HaShem Rofecha,"

I, GOD, am your healer.

Interesting time for a worldwide

pandemic scare, hmmm?

Let's be nicer out there.

Praying for an end to the nightmare,


Yochi