I first discovered the song I Love Myself The Way I Am by Jai Joseph when I was hospitalized with burns to my entire face over five years ago. I listened to it a lot when I was in the hospital; I needed to hear these messages of loving myself as I was, at a time that I didn’t know if I would ever look normal again. (I shared the lyrics of the two stanzas that were especially powerful for me at the end of the post I wrote when I left the hospital.)
However, I didn’t continue to listen to it regularly, and when I recently rediscovered it, it was like finding a familiar wise friend.
The messages in these simple lyrics are so powerful and affirming. In the second stanza he succinctly sums up a concept I speak about a lot with clients and in my workshops.
“I love you the way you are there’s nothing you need to do When I feel the love inside myself it’s easy to love you Behind your fears, your rage and tears I see your shining star And I love you just the way you are.” (Jai Josephs)
In the last five years, I’ve done a lot of inner work focusing on self-love, and have experienced that when we can accept ourselves with all of our imperfections, this naturally filters into our relationships with our children (and everyone else in our lives). In every interaction we are always reflecting to others who we are, and the more forgiving you are to yourself, the more natural it is to be forgiving of your child. Since managing our own emotions are the hardest part of parenting, the more work of this sort a parent does, the easier parenting becomes.
While it’s valuable to do this kind of work, it doesn’t negate the need for something more in the most challenging moments! Often parents ask me how they can possibly be loving to a child who is acting in unloveable ways. How can you get past the frustration of the moment in order to feel your love for him, to communicate from a place of acceptance for who your child is?
The answer is to look beyond the behavior (remember, this is just communication) of the moment and reconnect with your love for him by appreciating the beautiful person he is at his core, to ‘see his shining star‘.
Yes, he has his challenges and unquestionably those are challenging for you to navigate, too. But if you can do this, you will begin to realize that this is the deepest, most powerful and effective thing you can do to positively impact your child’s behavior – even though on the outside it may not look like you’re addressing the behavior at all in the moment.
(It’s hard to shift to this approach because we want to feel like we’re activelydoing something to change the situation. But trying to control or manipulate the child’s behavior is counterproductive.)
We live in a world that is constantly projecting messages that focus on consumerism and competition; this song is a helpful reminder for me of the responses I strive for.
Sometimes it seems there’s no way to get what you want within the parameters you’re working with. And then something like today happens and reminds me that I don’t have to try so hard, I have to allow things to unfold. It’s quite marvelous how what seems impossible can happen with so easily with so little effort.
A few months ago I bought a new car after my previous car being totaled in an accident. So why was I once again looking for a new vehicle?
Here in Israel there’s an interesting phenomenon: families with several children will often choose to buy a smaller vehicle that doesn’t seat all their family members when traveling at one time, rather than getting a minivan. When living in the US, I never heard of anyone making a choice like this, but it’s very, very common in Israel.
The reason this is done here is because the costs of buying and fueling a larger vehicle are significantly higher. Often, families will rent a second car to travel together during vacation but keep their daily mode of transportation a smaller and more affordable car.
We made a similar decision when we bought our first car over a year and a half ago. Though we’re a large family and in the US I drove a full size 12 passenger van, I mostly needed something to get around locally for errands, and for that a small car was fine. We have great bus transportation and sending older kids on buses if we don’t have room for everyone is an option, as strange as that might sound to those who don’t live in Israel!
However, with our decision to move to northern Israel came a realization that we would need a larger vehicle. (We didn’t know we’d be moving to the north when we bought the replacement car or we would have made a different choice.) Public transportation where we’ll be living is weak and having a couple more seats will make a big difference.
I didn’t want to leave the selling and buying of a car for when we’re moving since there will be plenty of other things to do, so I decided to do this now. Almost three weeks ago, I sold our five seater.
Prior to selling and since then, I’ve spent waaaaay too long reading every bit of data I could get on various makes and models. The more I read, the fewer choices I seemed to have. I wanted a number of features and when considering my very conservative budget, even a basic functional car of that size looked completely unrealistic. It as also complicated by the fact that every time I found something suitable, my husband would raise concerns.
I would have been totally discouraged and overwhelmed if I didn’t continually remind myself that somehow we would find something that would work for us no matter how unlikely it seemed. (And I also reminded my husband he could trust me to buy the car as I’ve always done it and it’s always been fine.)
The choices that were the most affordable, spacious and gas efficient were all made by French manufacturers. None of these companies have a reputation for long lasting/hard wearing vehicles, and I was concerned that my lower acquisition costs would be more than offset by ongoing repair costs. When a mechanic for one of these companies dealerships told me to stay away from them, that finalized my decision to look at other options.
I thought and thought and thought some more about what was most important to me, and finally edited my original list to the following priorities:
Japanese manufactured
well-maintained
decent fuel efficiency
non-diesel engine (because I want to convert the engine to run on propane fuel and diesel vehicles can’t be converted)
price below xxx shekels (this is so low that I don’t feel comfortable writing it :))
Last night I decided to look at a car model I hadn’t previously considered due to a concern that the very back two seats wouldn’t be be comfortable for my hulking sons. 🙂 When I checked out the listings online for sale by private owner (I don’t buy from dealers), one stood out to me among a number of listings for the same model, year, mileage and price.
Sometimes I get a feeling about things; from just the wording of the ad I’d be hard pressed to explain why one listing calls to me and similar one doesn’t. I do think there’s an element of logic mixed in with it; it’s not all based on my gut feeling.
This car had slightly higher mileage than most of them, but there was nothing in my price range that wasn’t high mileage. My biggest concerns about buying vehicles that were older and high mileage was that it we might have to replace the engine or transmission in the near future, both very big expenses.
One of the things I debated with myself is if it would be more financially prudent to spend more on a newer car upfront to minimize the possible repair costs. However, we would have to dramatically jump up in price and of course there’s never any guarantee that even a newer car with lower mileage won’t need expensive repairs – in my reading in different forums I read a number of worrying stories like that. So I stayed with my original low price point.
When I called about the car I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the engine had been replaced three months ago – there was no mention of this in the ad.
Both the wife who took my initial phone call and the husband who showed me the car were very honest and forthcoming with information. Before I went to check out the car, I was pretty sure that unless something was really wrong when I saw it that I would be driving it back home with me. 🙂
(When I buy a car, I’m buying in large part based on my feeling about the seller. Buying a used car is unpredictable and I need to trust the person who is selling it and what they are telling me. Yesterday I looked at a car and within one minute of meeting the seller knew I wouldn’t buy the car. Not because of the car, but because of the seller. )
It was only because of a specific question while test driving the car today that I asked that I learned that the transmission was replaced six weeks ago! In two conversations with the sellers, neither of them thought of mentioning that to me, even though that was a very positive factor in favor of the car.
After the sale was completed, I looked at my long list of things I wanted that I had put aside so I could focus on the basics, and I got every single thing. Every single one.
Here’s the longer list:
Seller location – since I was traveling by bus to check out the potential options, I was hoping to find something not too far from home even though I was looking online at cars across the country. These sellers listed their location as the city where the wife works, which would have been very time consuming and difficult for me to access by public transportation. Another reason I shouldn’t have called them. They live just a a 25 minute bus ride from here and that’s where I saw the car.
Roof rack – knowing we’d have a small trunk, I wanted to have a space to load up for trips
Trailer hitch – this seemed an unlikely feature to find in the class of vehicles I was looking at but a previous owner had it installed
Tinted windows – this cuts down on the heat quite a bit in the summer and one of my kids requested it
Driver seating position – I prefer sitting higher up to have a better view, with my legs more vertical than horizontal
Head space – my last car didn’t have much and I missed having that
Feel of driving a car rather than a minivan
Propane system – this was complicated because I didn’t want to spend the money to put in the system on an old engine, and I didn’t want to buy a car already converted since a poorly done conversion can shorten the engine life. In any case, only a very small percentage of cars are converted to run on propane. This car had a propane system installed by a reputable installer, then it was reinstalled on the new engine.
This last point was the one that made the entire buying effort seem impossible. I wanted a newish engine already converted to run on propane by a reputable installer that I recognized (which totals three names in the entire country) at a ridiculously low price, or as a very much less appealing distant second option that I almost don’t want to mention because I really didn’t want to do this, a car so cheap I could afford to replace the engine and put in the propane system (adding lots of aggravation and at least 11,000 shekels to my purchase cost).
Was that situation with the propane alone extremely unlikely? Yes. Combined with all these other things, it was very, very, very unlikely.
And yet, that’s exactly what I got!
How could I have gotten all of this for the very low price I had budgeted?
Here’s an amazing bit of synchronicity regarding the price! (This is when in my house I burst into song, G-d Loves Me!!! Yes, I really do that.No, my children don’t always deeply appreciate my constant singing about everything but that’s the mother they have. :))
After having their vehicle on the market at fair market value for a month and not seeing movement, the sellers decided to get it sold and dramatically cut the price yesterday. It was last night when I decided to consider this model and saw the listing.
They listed it for 100 shekels less than my budgeted amount (remember, with none of the information about the very recent and expensive work they had done – they just wrote ‘excellent condition’).
I heard a statement somewhere (I wish I remember where so I could credit it): “Whatever you are looking for is looking for you.” I felt that so much with this purchase.
No, the car isn’t perfect. I didn’t have that on either of my lists! But it’s a really good fit for me and it’s been really wonderful to see this manifest in this way.
Gosh, it’s been a busy time! The holidays, putting our current home on the market, and … dum, dum, dum, dum….
We have a house under contract!
My husband was surprised that I didn’t write about this already – I’ve been trying to write this post for over two weeks. I have a lot of resistance to sharing about this, but here goes!
Over the last few months I’ve written about being honest with myself about what I want (integrating more nature into my daily life), clarifying what it looked like and moving toward that vision. It culminated with us making an offer on a home that seemed to have been drawn to us magnetically (seriously, no hyperbole intended). Then the house was pulled off the market.
This entire process has been very spiritual and expansive for me, as I’ve consciously had to allow for shifts in my way of being.
It’s been take action and let go, take action and let go, take action and let go. Much more letting go than taking action, actually. That isn’t historically my strong point. No, I tend to hold on with my fingernails dug in, thinking that something should happen the way I want it to happen, just because I want it. (Can anyone relate? :))
So this letting go has been really powerful for me because it’s taken a lot of conscious releasing of my will on a continual basis, and trusting that G-d will take care of things better than I can, so I can let Him do what is best without trying so hard to make it happen.
Alright, let me get to what has happened as a result of all of this letting go because I know that’s what you want to hear. 🙂
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After the house fell through, our motivation and commitment to make the move took a big hit. My husband and I agreed it would be helpful to keep us emotionally connected to the idea of living there if we did something active towards that goal.
When we had an opportunity to be in that general area, I suggested to my husband that we might as well go spend a few more hours there and look at some other properties.
We contacted the agent and made plans to check out a few interesting properties. He set everything up and we agreed to an approximate time to meet. When we checked in with him a half hour before our arrival, he asked us to call him once we were there and ready for him to pick us up.
Since the car accident a few months ago when I was rear ended, I have some symptoms that make traveling taxing for me, so I arranged to stay in a friend’s guest room to rest before looking at properties. That’s where I was when my husband went to call the agent, and as I stood by the window that happened to overlook the house that we had made the offer on, a strong feeling went through me.
“That’s my house.”
Now this wasn’t logical since obviously it wasn’t our house; we had detached ourselves from that as an option and were moving on by looking at other properties. But it wasn’t a matter of logic; it was more like an instinctive knowing flashed through me. Which of course I immediately dismissed, because that’s what I do – I ignore illogical things and give them logical names like wishful thinking. But it wasn’t wishful thinking.
My husband came back in a few minutes later with a strange look on his face, and announced, ‘I just spoke to the agent.’
Well, since he had gone out to call the agent that was no surprise, but the look on his face was. I said, “Okaaaay, but why do you look like that?”
It turns out that just before my husband called, the agent had been on the phone with the seller of the first house.The seller announced he would sell his house to us if we would agree to a higher price to match an offer he got from someone else.
With suppressed excitement, my husband asked, “So what should we tell him??”
Feeling more irritated than excited, I responded with very measured tones, “We’re going to look at the other properties because that’s what we came here for. Very nice that he’s ready to sell all of a sudden but that doesn’t mean that we’re ready or interested; I’m not interested in him yanking our chain and playing games with us.”
We agreed to set aside the first house mentally and to consider it only after looking at the other properties scheduled.
Off we went to look at other homes. There was one that was particularly interesting and financially would have been a really smart move, but there wasn’t enough air and light for my preferences, and no view from the first floor. If I were moving to better my situation financially it would have been perfect but I want to upgrade my quality of life and that house didn’t match in that regard.
When we finally finished looking at all the properties, we sat down to analyze the ins and outs of each one. They were each interesting in very different ways, and clarifying how each one fit into our vision was very important.
Finally, we agreed that even at the higher price point, the first house would still best meet our needs and would be a good value for us.
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Our new home is now under contract, with the closing scheduled for March!
What’s the house like? A reader who got the early scoop in a private conversation asked me for more details, and was hoping I would share pictures. Honestly, the house isn’t too exciting to look at, especially since it’s been split into two apartments and rented out. (Remember I said in a past post that I’m good at seeing behind the mess?)
Me before walking into house for the first time
Here’s the quick story behind the picture above. When my husband wanted to take a picture I thought, ‘This is going to be my house one day and then I’ll appreciate a picture of the first time I was there.’ Yes, that was my thought before I ever walked in!
Here are the basics – it’s a nice sized house that we can easily convert to a single family. We’ll have additional bedrooms for hosting our married couples (we have no guest room right now). It has what in many cities in Israel would be considered a large yard; at 350 meters, it’s massive compared to my current garden of 28 meters! (It’s about 1/12 of an acre, so it’s a very small yard by US terms!) Right now it’s a mass of dirt and weeds. There is a porch upstairs that is smaller than my current porch, but at 40 meters is still a very good size.
(I’m sharing a video we took but it automatically uploaded in a much larger format and I don’t know how to change that. If it’s too frustrating to watch it, the most important part is what you hear (the wind and animal sounds) – or don’t hear (traffic)- in the background. :))
It’s centrally located and a short walk (6 minutes) to the synagogue and supermarket, which is important to us since we have a child who is a reluctant walker and that has been very limiting.
There are renovations we plan to do to make the space work better for us (obviously in addition to general sprucing up and updating). I kept looking at the video we took of the kitchen when we walked through and saying, something doesn’t make sense about this layout – why in the world did they put the kitchen here?!?
I decided we would move the kitchen to a different area and what do you know? When I got a copy of the building plans I saw the kitchen was supposed to be built right where I want to move it! Its seems the contractor decided it would be more cost efficient to dump it into a small awkwardly located area that the front door opens directly onto. (When looking at the picture above, it’s located on the left behind me. We plan to move it to the right, where the four windows are.)
Are you wondering you wondering why I felt pulled to this house in particular?
Location, location, location.
Since it’s the last house on the block, it has lots of open space all around. (Pic taken by agent in the early summer when everything was still green.) You can see the palm grove running along the side of the house.
Looking out the front door we have this beautiful view.
Where is it? This is located in a small district in northern Israel called Yavne’el.
When are we moving? We plan to move when the school year ends; this is somewhat flexible and could be a bit earlier depending on the buyers of our current home.
So it’s really happening! It’s been so amazing to watch this stage of our lives unfold and I’m continue to look forward to how other pieces fall into place!
Yesterday was my birthday, and I feel incredibly grateful to be living a life that is so meaningful and expansive. I sat down to think about the elements that are leading to that outcome, and want to share with you what has been pivotal for me in dramatically increasing my sense of well-being!
It’s not because my life is problem-free; I have annoying things to deal with but I just prefer not to focus on them.
Here’s the question I ask myself: What do I want my life to look and feel like?
Asked another way: if you had all the resources available to live your dream life, what would you do?
These kind of questions are part of the ongoing vision work that I do, and my answers always help me better direct my energies toward what I really want.
When I thought about the components that make me happy, I realized I can integrate them in small ways every day, and that makes a huge difference. I don’t have to wait for the ‘one day when..then’ to happen.
Here are some personal examples of things that are important to me. My schedule means I’m at home with my children most of the time, and I don’t have large blocks of the self-time that I had associated with some of these things:
An unhurried and serene schedule
Time in the outdoors
Time for prayer and meditation
Physical movement
When I thought about having these things, I would think, ‘One day.’ I had an ideal vision of what that would look like and I assumed I’d have to wait until my children were much older.
I imagined long, uninterrupted blocks of time until I realized, if I wait to have huge blocks of time for perfect, I’m never going to have the things that I want! Instead, I’m going to spend way too much time being frustrated and longing for something that I don’t have.
So here’s my solution: do today – in a small way – the things that you care about most.
There are a number of very small choices I’ve made over time; here’s some of what that looks like on a daily basis. See if you can spot the elements that make my day feel amazing!
I wake up between 5 – 6 so that I have quiet time before anyone else is up. Sometimes my kids start waking up by 5:15, but I sometimes have until as late as 6:30 when the house is quiet. (Right now it’s 6:11 and Yirmi is awake and snuggling next to me on the porch swing as I write this.)
During part of that time, I sit outside on my porch and enjoy listening to the birds chirping. I feel the quietness of the early morning. I try to take time for some prayer at this point, and get in what I can. My ideal is about 30 minutes, but sometimes it’s just 5 minutes and that’s fine, too.
I then have plenty of time to get Yirmi and Rafael ready for school without rushing and tension.
Rafael (2 3/4) just started preschool last week (after being home for 3 months – yay for bureaucratic inefficiency!!) , and now part of my new schedule has prompted more opportunities for doing things I love!
After Yirmi goes on his van to school, Rafael and I immediately walk to the bus stop. He qualifies for a school van but I love having this time with him in the morning. Instead of rushing to get him ready for an early morning van and him having several transitions between leaving the house and being in school, we’re able to spend that time together.
I’ve chosen to take him by bus rather than drive so that we have the chance to walk together. In addition to the together time, walking is important to build his stamina as well as for overall general health and well-being. It’s so nice to start the day with something that is high on my list of priorities.
After I drop him off, I walk home. It’s so nice to be outside and moving in the morning!
I’ve begun stopping at a local park that has a large grassy area. My kids at home don’t yet expect me to be back, and thirty minutes sitting or laying on the grass, watching the trees sway in the breeze while listening to a meditation or inspiring talk is incredibly expansive for me.
It looks like me being in a regular park, but it feels like this!
By this time it’s 9:30 and I’m feeling like I have the most amazing life on the planet! Pure bliss.
But it’s just a regular morning doing the same kind of things as all the parents around me.Don’t think my mornings are absent any challenges! The extreme feelings of well-being come from doing the little things that align with what I want my life to look like.
The exciting thing is that anyone can do the same things! You may not be able to go for a week long vacation to Europe or live next to a nature reserve, but you can find small ways to integrate the elements you want most into your life.
Ask yourself what you want your life to look like, make a small shift in your daily schedule or behavior, then keep asking yourself the same question and keep making little, little changes over time. The more I do this, the more awesome life feels! And the best part is, it’s not dependent on anything outside of you to change.
The motivation for me to move somewhere else is in large part about being closer to nature, and therefore the physical location of a home is important to me. Once I realized that even in much less expensive areas that the land costs are beyond my budget, I started to envision a different way to have the visual benefit of lots of land.
I imagined finding the last house on the block with an agricultural field next to it. That way I can have the feeling of lots of land and space without having to buy it all!
I went cruising online, looking at properties for sale in that area (for research purposes only since we aren’t ready to buy something), and one particular home resonated with me. Of course, I didn’t know anything about the location, who the neighbors are, what the condition of the house is – in short, I didn’t know any of the important information that would be critical in making a decision when buying a home.
But nonetheless, it was nice to see that what I was imagining was possible, so I pulled up this picture on my screen to show my husband, saying, “This is it. This is the vision.”
I didn’t mean we should buy this; I just wanted him to share the visual.
It was the last house on the block; on one side it was bordered by a grove of palm trees; the front of the house looked onto an agricultural field. To the left of the home that shares a common wall were more agricultural fields, and opposite the house there was a beautiful view of the mountains.
The listing had almost no pictures of the inside of the home, leading me to think suspiciously about the condition of the home. But no matter, because I wasn’t ready to look at it anyway. I didn’t even make a call to the agent listed to ask the briefest of questions. Even when I later visited the area to look at houses with a different agent, I didn’t call about this house.
Literally less than two minutes into our drive with the agent we met, I recognized the above house as we drove by. I asked him about it; after checking it out, he told us it was an exclusive listing with a different agent so he couldn’t show it to us.
We finished looking at homes and then drove to visit the first family we had scheduled to drop in at.
And where do you suppose they live?
Right behind this house.
It was starting to feel like I was being pulled to this house, despite my resistance to do anything more than look at a picture on the computer screen.
I considered contacting the agent, but procrastinated about it. Because we’re not ready to buy a house. And I don’t want to waste people’s time. But most of all, because I was afraid it would be the right house for us and I couldn’t see how we could buy it.
I procrastinated for two weeks, until a day before visiting the area again I finally asked the agent to see it.
This time our eighteen year old daughter was with us, and she didn’t think much of the house. I completely understand her; many people have a hard time seeing beyond clutter/mess and someone else’s style. But I’m really good at seeing the potential beyond the distractions.
What I saw was a convenient location, good neighbors (we introduced ourselves to the family immediately next door after looking at the house), and a suitably sized house and yard. And of course very important to me – the expanse of land close by.
Oh – at a price we could comfortably afford.
Darn. Darn. Darn.
This strongly matched what I wanted but didn’t match my timeline. And that wasn’t completely exciting – it was honestly kind of stressful.
So now there was a dilemma. Should we wait a few months until our home sold and make an offer if this was still on the market? But it wasn’t likely to still be on the market. From briefly viewing other homes, we realized the combination of features we were looking for wasn’t a common scenario.
What to do? I was so conflicted. This seemed so right for us. But, hello, money?!?
We brainstormed, we talked, we made some calls about alternative financing.
After all of this we told the agent we were interested and needed to have an inspection done. It took two weeks for the inspection to be completed, and we finally put in our purchase offer.
At this point I was sure this would be the home we would buy and the only question is what the final price would be.
So I thought. This brings to mind the saying, ‘Man plans and G-d laughs.’
Two days later, the agent got back to us. We were ready for a counteroffer, but we weren’t ready for what we were told.
The seller changed his mind about selling and was taking his home off the market.
I was completely thrown off. I was deeply disappointed. I couldn’t believe it.
I mean, this house was my vision. It seemed so perfect for us, everything had seemed to flow so smoothly toward that point. I hadn’t even looked for it – it had found me. It really felt like a huge magnet had pulled us to this house because this is the house we were meant to have.
And then, it wasn’t.
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The first act of courage is to have a vision that is bigger that what you currently have.
The next act of courage is to hold on to that vision even when it seems to be crumbling in front of you.
The most natural thing in the world is when you reach out for something and your hand gets sharply slapped down, is to stop reaching. Instead, you make your vision smaller and safer, and you tell yourself all the reasons you didn’t really want what you were reaching for anyway.
This has been my next growth opportunity. To continue to move toward my overall vision, and to release my attachment to the specifics of how the vision comes about. I can’t say how major this is and how challenging this is. I trust that somehow my vision is going to come together, but how, when, where, what – I don’t know any of that.
On an almost daily basis I have been asking G-d to give me clarity about the next right step, and whether it was what I wanted or not, the seller’s response gave me the clarity I asked for.
The answer is either: 1) not this house right now, or 2) there is a better home for us.
This is the thought I’m going with – either this home will come back to us at a more opportune time, or there is a more suitable home for us.
This emotional dance is like walking a tightrope – to believe that you’re going to have something you want in your life but not feel upset when you don’t get it. To trust something will happen and let go of your specific idea of what that will look like (in this case releasing attachment to this specific house). To be connected but not overly invested.
A few years ago I couldn’t even understand this concept in an abstract way. I would ponder this idea, wondering how in the world is that possible?
Either you want something, take actions toward it and you care about the outcome, or you don’t care about the outcome and don’t move toward it. How can you move toward something and release the end result emotionally?
It’s interesting, learning to surf the waves of life.
After my talk with my husband and verbally wrestling repeatedly with my resistance to changing anything about where we currently live, my husband asked if I knew of a place that I would want to live. Did it even exist?
Almost none of the smaller communities that are in more natural settings are religiously aligned with our direction, and shifting my religious affiliation isn’t an option.
I then thought of a community in the north where I spoke several years ago. At that time, I had the passing thought that it seemed like a nice place to live.
I mentioned this area to my husband. We agreed to look into it, then each made calls to people living there to begin getting information.
After a couple of weeks we had gotten as much information from a distance that we were going to get, and what we then needed to do was get a first hand feel for the area.
We decided to make a day trip there, to meet a couple of families. I also wanted to see what kind of housing was available and to verify that a home that I would be comfortable with would be financially feasible for us. (I’m very much not a fan of building castles in the air.)
Since we decided to include our children in our exploratory process, we invited ds10, ds12 and ds13 to accompany us on our trip. We wanted them to see the area itself, and meet some of the people living there.
We drove around with a real estate agent and viewed some homes from the outside, then went to visit two families. We had a pleasant time, and two of our sons later told us that they liked the idea of moving there.
Though my husband found it helpful to see the area and liked the two men he met, it wasn’t enough for him to make a decision one way or another. He wanted to make a visit for a longer time to have a broader sense of what the community is like.
Two weeks later, we spent a Shabbos there. This time we brought dd18, ds7 and ds2 (the four other boys were away at a friend’s bar mitzva). I also reached out to an agent who had an online listing for a home that interested me, and set up a time to view the house.
After this more extended visit, my husband agreed that it looked like a place that our family could be happy.
Wait, let me highlight that because one sentence is too little to express this huge, massive moment of decision for us. It was at this point that we went from having a very theoretical possibility, to making a concrete decision about something we were going to do. We agreed that we wanted to move, and this is the place we wanted to move to.
To recap from my last post: I got deep clarity about my need for nature during my two days away at the Sea of Galilee; then I came home and wanted to share my newly awakened awareness with my husband.
I prefaced my comments by telling him that I wasn’t suggesting in any way that we take action of any sort, but I just wanted to be heard regarding something important to me.
He listened to me attentively as I then shared all that I shared with you in my last post, but in more detail. When I finished, he looked at me and said, “I really hear what you’re saying and that’s a real concern. So what do we do now?”
That was completely not what I was expecting.
Let me explain. Over the last few months, I’ve been uncharacteristically restless and have conceived various ideas with the hope that we find somewhere else in RBS where we could have either: more garden space/more indoor space/quieter neighborhood/somewhere with a view.
Every time I shared one of these ideas with my husband, he would shake his head and say, “We’re not going to move just to have a view of some trees.” Or, “I think we have enough space and we don’t need any more.”
I assumed that hearing yet more about my restlessness wasn’t going to be something he’d be very receptive to, despite his willingness to listen to each of my schemes. And so I was very taken aback by his response.
I rushed to once again reassure him that we didn’t need to do anything. But he was already thinking aloud about what possibilities there were.
My response? Complete stonewalling. Because as far as I was concerned, there were no possibilities that existed for us.
“We can’t move. We can’t leave here. Our kids are happy, it’s convenient for our married kids to visit, we can’t start over again.”
We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.
This is a place that I got mentally stuck for quite some time. I wanted something more but simply couldn’t see how it was possible. It felt selfish of me to move our family for my preferences and I couldn’t get past that.
It wasn’t until I began to consider the potential benefits to our children that I was able to slowly change gears. I started to think, ‘If living somewhere more expansive was good for me, maybe for similar reasons it would also be good for my children.” Hmm.
Hmm.
I slowly released the story I was telling myself about how unhappy everyone would be if we moved and started considering something different:
my married kids (they would visit less often but perhaps they would stay longer if we had a more comfortable space to host them);
my middle kids, ages 20, 18 and 17 (they all have one foot out the door into the adult world so it would affect them less);
my next three boys (they would love the increased outdoor time),
and for my youngest two, I really didn’t have any significant concerns (other than legal ramifications of moving with Rafael to a different district regarding foster care).
Changing my ideas about what I can have, what I am worthy of, believing it’s possible…this was hard.
What was incredibly striking to me after I was able to move into possibility thinking was how much the limitations in my life were created…by me. It was my belief that I couldn’t have more that shut the door on thinking about how to create something better.
This week marks eight years from the time we arrived in Israel!
Living here is something I continue to be very grateful for. Though it has become my normal I don’t take it for granted.
When we were considering making aliyah, my husband and I went through a lot of soul searching, clarifying our highest values and getting ready to act on that decision. We spent a month intensely hashing it out, and five months after making the decision, were on the plane with eight children ages 2 – 18 (one child preceded us).
It was a very intense period. There was so much internal work and external actions that needed to happen for it all to unfold as it did.
At that time I didn’t share much of our initial discussion about the idea of moving to Israel, because I didn’t know if we would actually decide to make the move. Then once we made that decision, I didn’t share much because I didn’t know how it was all going to work out. We experienced soooo much personal growth at that time; I later regretted not sharing any of it here because it was a powerful experience for us as individuals and as a couple.
Right now I’m going through another deep exploration of goals and ideals, and this time I’ve decided to include you in my process while I’m walking through it. Even though I prefer to share afterward when it’s all clean and neat and wrapped with a bow. 🙂
Although I don’t yet know how it will work out – and that makes me feel vulnerable when talking publicly about it – I hope you’ll find value in this.
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About seven weeks ago, I attended a beach festival for women on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
As I sat there by the water, gazing out at the beautiful view, my entire being simultaneously expanded – and contracted.
I was filled with a deep peace and gratitude to be there; I literally felt as if I was filling up my parched soul with the beauty and stillness of nature.
But I was also filled with a deep pain of longing and sadness, craving more of this experience of nature in my day to day life yet knowing that I couldn’t have it. Yes, I go on regular nature hikes with other women, I take my children on outings to national parks, I love gardening and have plants all over my yard and my porch.
And as I sat there, it became so clear to me that…it’s not enough.
It’s not enough.
It’s not enough.
Over those two days away, I had a lot of time to think. I spent much of the time reflecting, gazing at the sea, the sky and the mountains in the distance. I had several great conversations with like-minded women, listening to how others navigated this wantingness and not- havingness.
Over these two days, something became crystal clear to me. Something that I’ve pushed down and pushed away and denied and minimized for years.
I don’t just love being in nature. I NEED to be in nature. And there is a voice crying out inside that I don’t have that in my life to the degree that is optimal for me.
Never have I even considered making this preference for a more pastoral setting to be a primary criteria for any decisions about where to live. In fact, I’ve always made choices to be in larger urban centers, based on the belief this will provide my children with the most opportunities, socially and academically.
This small voice was like an inner child, trying for years to be heard but continually ignored or thrown a small bone – an outing, a new plant, an early morning walk in the park. And finally, with everything in my life thank G-d going smoothly, this little voice seemed to be saying, ‘There are no other big issues to be focused on or distracted by. So NOW can you listen to me?!?’
When I moved to my home four years ago, I was blessed to be living on the outskirts of the neighborhood, with a large open valley opposite my home. I commented a number of times to my family that G-d found us the perfect home because even in a larger bustling community like this, I had the beautiful calming sense of nature being close by.
I loved just standing on my porch, hanging laundry and seeing that view. I didn’t need to physically explore the valley – seeing it was enough.
I was told there were no plans to develop the area opposite our home. However, it wasn’t long after we moved in before down to the right and over to the left, the valley began to be cleared for different building projects.
Then the large earth moving tractors and dump trucks began to make their daily appearances, all day long – right across from me. Then nonstop hammer drilling began, continuing for many hours a day, for months. Noise that left me feeling jangled and out of sync.
And then across from me higher up just a little in the distance, yet another building project began. I felt like everything was closing in on me – from the top and bottom, from right and left, yet I told myself repeatedly, ‘How wonderful, more Jews living in the Holy Land!’ I meant, it, too, and continued to be grateful for the home that I have.
But.
Four years later, the somewhat quiet bypass road on the edge of the community that I live on has been expanded to a four lane boulevard that has constant foot traffic and vehicle traffic. Lots of people wouldn’t mind this, but I am me and I do mind it.
It’s in so many ways a fabulous location, central to buses, synagogues, and a beautiful huge park that people visit from all over (even outside the city) is less than a five minute walk away. I have great neighbors, and our apartment itself has many features that are hard to find all in one package. Not to mention all the work we did to expand the space that makes it a great home for us.
But as I gaze at the landscape that has been so dramatically transformed I often wonder, ‘What am I doing here???’ This busy, energetic bustling pace is great for many but just not in sync with the person I am.
So where does that leave me? This is the question that kept pounding at me for those two days and I felt anguished that I couldn’t think of a solution – I couldn’t pretend anymore that it was fine for me and I couldn’t think of how to change the situation. Such a difficult experience for a person like me, who really believes you can have the life you want if you’re willing to be honest with yourself and take appropriate actions.
Finally, I came to some inner peace as I realized that I don’t have to have an answer. All I have to do is sit with my increased clarity and let myself accept that yes, nature really is very, very important to me. For me, it’s much more than just a nice view to look at.
I gave myself permission to sit with this awareness, and to accept that it doesn’t have to lead to any actions at this time.
Just honoring my own wants and desires and recognizing how deeply important they are to me is a huge step, an act of respect and honoring of myself, and I felt a sense of inner quiet returning by the time I returned home.
I tend to be a person who is quick to act, so it’s also very healthy for me to not take action, not need to do something, and just feel the feelings.
I considered sharing about this inner conflict earlier (I actually wrote this post a month ago), but thought that the lack of being able to resolve this neatly and quickly would be unappealing to my readers. But you know what? This is the reality of life.
Clarity isn’t easy.
It takes courage to feel your feelings, it takes courage to know that you want more than what you have, and it’s uncomfortable to sit with that feeling and do nothing.
Some of my most significant life decisions were preceded the discomfort of not feeling in sync between what I wanted and what I had.
Next up…the discussion with my husband about this newfound awareness when I got back home.
Years ago, I took my children to Northwest Trek wildlife park in Washington state. We loved it so much we went back the very next day.
The second day was drizzly and cold, and as the rain started to fall, the number of visitors grew sparser and sparser. Our kids had coats with hoods and the rain wasn’t too heavy, so we decided to stay in line for the tram that would take us through the areas where the animals were living in the wild.
This ride turned into a rare treat! Thanks to the rain, we saw an abundance of animals that were usually sleeping or resting out of sight. The docent accompanying the few of us on the tram told us it was very unusual to see the number of animals that we saw, and to see them being so active. It was a special opportunity, and we only had it because we were willing to do something different than most of the people around us that day.
We humans have a tendency to scan to see what others are doing, and then we act accordingly. We want to do what others are doing. It gives us security and provides a feeling of comfort.
But so many of the best opportunities aren’t found when you line up in the same place, at the same time, in the same way as everyone else.
A friend of my husband’s who is a business consultant advises entrepeneurs to zag where others are zigging, to look for the opportunities to do something different than what others in the field are doing, because that’s where the opportunities are.
It’s true in every area, definitely on the home front. If you want to live a life like everyone else, do what everyone else does. If you want to live a life of higher satisfaction and alignment with what you care about most, be willing to zag when everyone else is zigging.
In the summer of 2000, we made the choice to homeschool our children. I jumped off the well-trodden path that everyone around me was following, and it was downright terrifying. I was so worried about doing something so different from everyone else. What would people think of me, what would they say about me?
And most of all, how could I be seeing an opportunity that others didn’t see? If they weren’t acting on it, it must be because there were major potholes in my path. After all, if there was something good to be gained, wouldn’t everyone want it?
That fear lasted until I made the jump into the pond of my own making. Once I was out of the rushing mainstream currents, I was able to see how refreshing the water in my pond was. How calm and relaxing it was, how easily connections happened within our family.
As the years passed, I continued to notice how many people were living lives that were very limiting for them (their assessment, not mine), and how poorly served they were by continuing to do the same thing as everyone around them. I came to the deep conviction that in any venture or endeavor, following the crowd is usually not where deep fulfillment lies.
Recently a young family shared their plan to move out of the city they live in despite their comfortable lives. When I asked them why, they said they want a different pace of life, a different kind of life for themselves and their children. They’ve sold all their belongings and are getting ready to explore the possibilities, taking action to move toward what they value most.
Another woman told me they’re moving from Ramat Beit Shemesh (where I live) to a much more affordable area in the south, because currently they are ‘house poor’ and want to restructure financially in a more healthy way. When I told her it was a courageous thing to leave a place she has lived for so many years and start again, she responded that it just made sense. True, I told her, maybe it makes sense but most people would be afraid to take the dramatic step she is taking.
There’s something about living in integrity with yourself that is very powerful. We have only one life to live, and at the end of my life (which I hope will be very, very long!), I want to look back with satisfaction and gratitude for the choices that I’ve made.
It’s painful to be filled with regrets, to wish you had done something different but didn’t act out of fear – of leaving your comfort zone, of doing something different than those around you or even doing something different than yourself in years past.
Over the years, many people have shared with me how their children have struggled in school, but they’re afraid to homeschool because they don’t want to be different or because they’re scared of the unfamiliar.
Totally understandable – but sadly, the child and parents are still left with the struggle.
When we stuck to our budget, living within our means and refusing to use credit cards to artificially extend our spending power, people told us how smart that was. But they couldn’t do that, they said, because their children would feel deprived or they would look poor compared to their peers.
If spending to impress others and going into debt is zigging, I’m happy to have zagged.
My quality of life has been immeasurably higher when I’ve been willing to do what was right for me, no matter what when everyone else was doing. Those choices weren’t made with the intent to be different from others – in fact, being different has been uncomfortable for me – but I was willing to experience that discomfort in order to experience my highest good.
Have you zagged in some area of your life, and if so, how did you benefit? Is there some area that you want to experience something different but don’t know how to go about it? If you’d like support with that, feel free to set up a session with me and I’d be glad to support you!
Three weeks ago, I stopped at a crosswalk for a pedestrian waiting to cross and was rear ended at high force by the car behind me. Fortunately, the pedestrian wasn’t in the middle of the crossing, as my car was knocked forward into the crosswalk.
Also fortunate was that I was the only one in the car at the time. I got whiplash, which passed pretty quickly, and since then have had a nonstop headache, which obviously hasn’t passed at all. I need to make an appointment to deal with that.
As the result of the accident, my car was declared totaled since the insurance company said they would rather give me the value of the vehicle than pay for repairs that would amount to more than half the value of the car. The car still runs and the damage is mostly cosmetic, but it made sense for us to accept their settlement and look at the accident as a way that G-d is upgrading us to something better for us.
Today we bought our new (to us) car – it’s four years newer, 120,000 km fewer, more storage space, more features than our old car. The seller was a pleasure to deal with and it was a good experience all around.
But…right after we bought the new car, I got into it car and I was surprised to feel sadness wash over me. My old car wasn’t perfect; it was almost 14 years old and had high mileage, it had a non-working passenger window and cosmetic imperfections but I was so happy with it. Everything about it felt just right for me.
Sitting in that new car, I didn’t feel happy. I felt like it didn’t fit me. The front seating felt wrong, there was too little headspace… and I just felt sad.
There’s nothing wrong with the new car – truly, it’s a step up in every way and later on I was really able to appreciate how much nicer it is and really enjoy driving it. My sadness in that moment (it actually lasted for a few hours) was because my old car was familiar to me, so it felt perfect for me. It was the newness of the new car that felt uncomfortable, though my mind was trying to make up excuses (seating, head room) to explain that discomfort.
I was thinking about how true this is of life – there can be better and more expansive opportunities available to us, but we so often don’t reach out for them because they are unfamiliar and don’t feel good right away. We think that uncomfortable means bad.
It doesn’t.
Sometimes this desire for the familiar results in staying in emotional patterns that aren’t productive, in relationships that are unhealthy, or even keeping belongings that no longer serve us well.
My daughter-in-law commented yesterday that she thinks it’s unusual to make changes rather than settle for the status quo, and she sees that’s something I consistently do. It’s true that I am willing to do new things and make different decisions regardless of decisions in the past, but it’s not because I like change – I like stability and familiarity as much as the next person, maybe more!
However, I’m willing to allow myself to have a more expansive life and to do that, it means expanding my comfort zone. Sometimes it’s just a matter of giving myself time to process the change, to feel whatever emotions come up and to sit with them, and then I’m ready to move on.
By the way, I planned to buy a car from someone else, who called yesterday to say they changed their mind about selling. He said it was part of the family so long they can’t let it go.
And then when I drove with the seller of the car that I actually bought to take care of the transfer of ownership, she commented that she felt very emotional. She was selling because a family member was giving her a car that was more upgraded than hers. So why was she sad?
