PREPENT5771 Day 10 8.19

High Holy Days Journey with Amichai Lau-Lavie: 40 ways in 40 days to find your focus

20 Minutes Daily.

Love is NOT a battlefield. Sorry Pat Benatar. This is the gist of the comments I got yesterday, in reaction to my usage of ‘battle’ as a metaphor for this internal process of self-perfection. Elisabeth suggested I think of this intentional process as a play, in which each of us is the director and we get to re-cast and re-direct the players on our inner stage. Caryn sent me to Buddhist teachings about surrender, Benjamin quoted Benedictine wisdom and Josh said that repentance is best practiced like courtship – slow and seductive. Whatever works for you, y’all..

I am no fan of militant methods for achievement of anything. But sometimes, methinks, discipline is hard to come by and every means to get there applies. So maybe facing one’s demons and changing oneself for the better is not a war – and it does not have to involve self mutilation. But it’s definitely got to involve a strategic approach, useful tools, an inner army (ok, cast) of helpers and a tangible goal: a satisfying victory. No War Crimes Tribunal to follow but rewards to the triumphant self when the 40 days of focus finding are over. Plan your feast. Meanwhile, how to get there. Here’s an idea.

Someone who is close to me is dealing with depression, finding it hard to get out of the house and take life on. She now works with a life coach, and they made a deal: each day she will work out for 20 minutes – any kind of work out at all – outside the house. When done – she texts him a brief ‘did it’ message. She respects him, and wants to do it. I offered to help by also taking on 20 minutes daily, starting today – and when I’m done – I’ll text her. It’s like a daisy chain of commitment to self-improvement, discipline, and daily change. I’m in to win. The next 30 days, a daily 20 minutes. Maybe more. Want to join and text me with you ‘did it’ daisy chain? Then pay it forwards. Maybe your 20 minutes isn’t about bodywork. Maybe it’s writing a page in your book, going through your address book one letter a day and finding who you need to make amends with, or maybe 20 daily minutes are about some other non violent playful warfare on the field of change?

Gym shorts on, here we go. 30 days to go.

C. - you can do it!

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting,www.higholidays.com.

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PREPENT5771 Day 9 8.18
Journey with Amichai Lau-Lavie: 40 ways in 40 days to find your focus

BATTLE CRY! AND DRUMS.

“The mind performs a penitential act of perceiving its deficiency, but there it stops. It declares war against the enemy, but it does not levy a troop not make an excursion into his country. It languishes in inaction, and, at the end of a year, or of seven years, it is found no better, and therefore far worse than at the beginning – far worse because the demand runs on increasing and the performance does not.”

Emerson, in a gloomy mood, wrote this entry in his journal 150 years ago, communicating with every sage and thinker of every religion before and after, and talking to me today, as if he was sitting at the same desk. We are all busy understanding the art of self-improvement. I wonder what AA would have to say about the above quote. Every day is a new battleground for inner peace.

The war! My mind knows what’s to be done to improve the deficiencies of my behavior, the things I do that make me less than happy - and yet, and yet, the battle isn’t fully waged, the sloth sloths on. Nine days into the Forty that are this year’s personal battleground for personal change – for war against all inner foes that stop each one of us from a higher score on the happiness chart – nine days and what?

Can I report on progress?

Or am I too eager for quick results? Too impatient? The process has just begun; the war begins with drummers drumming a new beat.

I don’t want my mind to stop at perception and complaint. I WANT to change some patterns of behavior. I want to at least be fully aware of what my inner terrorists, invited by me to provide pleasure and distraction, are ultimately doing to my joy, satisfactions, achievement, and personal progress. Awareness of my shortcomings will bring, I trust, to their gentle but firm correction.

Day nine: assess the battleground. Listen to the drumbeat of change, take a few minutes to go back and review the list of 1-2 items that require change in my life. What about this change terrifies me? What about these changes can begin with a single simple step.

M., a friend of mine who found salvation in AA, often speaks about the amazing transformation possible when mind is set to the task and heart joins along. Today’s task: focus on uniting brain and heart, mind and soul, feeling and thinking – what do I want to change. And just listen to the drums of change beating in the background.

Tomorrow is another day. I’ve got an action plan – a recipe for change, courtesy of a famous doctor, dead for millennia, but immortal too. Stay tuned for day 10.

(and talk to me - is this helpful? mental masturbation? too long? happy to make this warfare more useful per feedback.)

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting, www.higholidays.com.

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PREPENT5771 Day 8 8.17
Journey with Amichai Lau-Lavie: 40 ways in 40 days to find your focus

ADVICE FROM LOYOLA.

I meet Z., a third year rabbinical student, for breakfast yesterday, at an East Village café. He is busy reading the journals of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. Why? ‘The man was a genius when it comes to ways of self reflection,’ he says. “He instructed his followers to go into the wilderness for forty day of solitude and meditation. He even wrote the intention for each day – to become more and more like Jesus, closer to God.”

Interesting, I say. This 40-days technology of change seems to be shared by all religions. Who knew? It goes back, I suspect, to the mythic 40. The 40 days Moses spent on Sinai, pleading for Divine mercy, 40 days that Noah spent inside the ark, saved within destruction, the 40 days that Elijah waited in the cave and Jesus walked the wilderness. 40 days is the Biblical time frame for transformation. But is what’s good for the prophets and saints doable for us mere mortals?

Loyola writes: "Act as if everything depended on you; trust as if everything depended on God." OK. Putting aside the trust in God for a moment – can we work with the first part of this teaching? Simple. What can I do today to make my life better, and to make the world better? Just one thing. One post-it on my laptop, reminding me to, lets say, stop checking emails while I write this, be less distracted, more focused. Or just one post it with a SMILE reminder. Look at the positive, breath before you act. How can I make a difference in someone’s life today? Will I go to sleep tonight knowing I’ve taken one tiny step towards improvement? Maybe we need harsher interventions.

In another quote, Loyola promotes self-mutilation: “The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness. So the best way seems to be to scourge oneself with thin cords which hurt superficially, rather than to use some other means which might produce serious internal injury.” Lovely. I think I’ll stick to post it notes. For now. Tomorrow I upgrade the process – starting to go through the address book and deal with the unfinished business of sour friendships and conversations that require resolution. It’s that or thin cords.

Thanks Z.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting, www.higholidays.com.

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR PREPENT5771

Hi,

Seven days ago I started a virtual journey - PREPENT 5771: 40 ways in 40 days to find focus and begin the new year with greater clarity and intention. I will be blogging this journey daily until the morning after Yom Kippur - 9.19.10.

It's been an interesting week so far, mapping the road ahead - zooming in on what is worthy and in need of inner work at this particular time. Thanks to your comments and questions this blog has already become a valuable conversation about the possibilities of personal change.

To join this journey you can now:

1. SIGN UP FOR DAILY EMAIL: You can now receive a daily link to the blog, right in your inbox. JUST CLICK THIS LINK - and join the PREPENT group, used exclusively to send a daily entry.

2. VIEW ONLINE: You can also view the daily blog on Storahtelling's blog, on my personal Facebook page, or on Twitter @amichai.lau.lavie

Thank you for joining this journey,

Shana Tova

Amichai

PREPENT5771 Day 7 8.16
Journey with Amichai Lau-Lavie: 40 ways in 40 days to find your focus
NEED A FIX?

What’s t/here that needs fixing?

There’s this story about some great rabbi, I think it was Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, who was just done with his morning prayers during these days of preparation for the High Holy Days, when he heard a cobbler, walking down the street with his portable shop:” I fix shoes! Who’s got something to fix?”

There and then, the great rabbi sat on the floor and started sobbing: “ I have so much to fix! My entire life needs fixing! “ etc.

Today is the last day of the first week of this 40 days journey to a fabricated deadline that enables each and every one of us to look more closely in the mirror, present, focused, better prepared to take on all that life will offer.

We all have something to fix. And we all procrastinate or deal with things as they are and not as they could better be.

Yes, change is possible, and yes, we want it, and yet, it’s difficult to birth the real changes we need in our lives. But what is the alternative.

Last task for this last day of the first week before we move on to the next round of lists:

Fix one thing today. Even something small, seemingly insignificant. Take something to the tailor, or the cobbler, or the bank. Unfinished business? A phone call that is pending, an email in the draft inbox for over a month, a visit to the doctor, a look into the mirror with an honest 60 seconds interview: what in my life is worthy of fixing and where do I start? Practical, doable goals. Body, mind, soul.

Me: healthy homemade breakfast of cottage cheese and vegetables and water. Cutting coffee out for now. Small, but a beginning.

Anybody has good recommendations for 14 day long cleansing diets that work?

Fix. One day at a time.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting, www.higholidays.com.

PREPENT5771 Day 6 8.15
DOUBTS

Day 6 was full of doubts: What am I doing here? Is this 40 days prepenting journey-blog another blah blah blurb attempting change and falling short or can this be a real possibility to walk the talk, to tangibly improve something, anything, in my good-but-could-be-better life?

How do I get motivated to actualize the changes I want to see in my life and not get stuck in same-old patterns and distractions?

How is this process not a waste of time?

An annoymous reader, with similar concernes, posted a question yesterday, reacting to my suggestion on day 3 of making a list with “ 3 things that I regularly or randomly do and regret? “

- “So I want to make this list, and yet I am filled with the almost futility of it. For years, when I cast my sins upon the waters, the same sins go in with the breadcrumbs: impatience, gossip, flaring. Each year I vow to try to do better, and each year the same sins are cast. How do I focus on changing for real? How do I not just make the list and see the same list before me?”

I share the doubts but am challenged to attempt an answer: Is it ever really the ‘same’ list? Are we ever really the same people, year in and out? The same ‘sins’ may be as persistent and perpetual as the air we breath, but it is not the same air as yesterday’s, and we are never the same, and neither are our actions or intentions: similar, but never the same. Is it possible that with each year’s true intention for change we slowly, slowly, get there? If we zoom in on this year’s list – even if so similar to last year’s– are we just a bit wiser about how to fix?

I want to believe that even though we are so used to speedy ‘before and after’ ad campaigns and TV makeovers we don’t forget about the slow mystery which is personal growth.

And I think ( I hope!) that the trick for tangible personal change is to get a foot in the door of our habitual patterns. To start with just one such pattern - one regular action, a vice or addiction, distraction or passion that feeds us –but ultimately – and only we know this deep inside – robs us of our ultimate happiness - of being healthier, body mind and soul – in the here and now.

I think the secret is in the details. And in ‘Less is More’. Keep short and honest check lists, zoom in and focus on just ONE change-worthy item from the many woes listed. Write down attainable, realistic goals for changed action and reaction. Imagine success.

My list this year, like years before, revolves around my body. “My” relationship to “my body” is one of the factors most responsible for my happiness and lack thereof.

Today, true to my list, I went out shopping for fresh vegetables, organic produce, healthy food to cook at home. I even remembered to take one of those cloth bags from the closet and reduce the use of supermarket bags.

I still have doubts about this process, but tonight I will eat the food I cooked, slowly and with intention. A foot in the door, a taste of better, one bite at a time. More to come.

For the next few days – focus on ONE ITEM from your list of things you want to change. What are three steps you can take to help the change happen?

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Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting, www.higholidays.com.

PREPENT5771 DAY 5 8/14 SABOTAGE YOUR LIFE
by Amichai Lau-Lavie
Saturday August 14, 2010


E This was the first of the last four Sabbaths leading up to the New Year. What I do and don’t each Sabbath determines how and who I am all week long. Perhaps even all year long. Sabbath is like a test for well being, for taking care of self. Do I take time out for being alone? For being with loved ones? Is this period carved out for sacred, special, sensual, soulful something, anything at all?? Or are we still on the wheel, 24/7, consumers of the workaholic nonstop digital divide? Sabbath is an act of sabotage, essential. I think, for survival of the species. I want to make each of these last four Sabbaths of the year a focused-reminder to slow down, to be more and not do more: unplug and unwind. My Sabbaths are not orthodox. Unlike my childhood way of keeping Sabbaths – many laws and prohibitions, mine is more relaxed. I turn on lights, travel, heat or cook food. But my Sabbath, mostly, is tech free. The mac is off as evening falls on Friday, turned on again 24 hours later, or, in this case, to write this blog, 22 hours later, as dusk settles down. Thank you for appreciating my concession to the West Coast. Even on my Iphone, the urge to call or chat, check emails, tweets and such is curbed, not without difficulty. Work related stuff avoided. The world can wait. My friend was telling me how in her Seventh Day Adventist home the music would change on Sabbath – only classical music would be played on Saturdays. And there was the Sabbath Candy Jar - only allowed during that one day… I get flowers. My favorite thing to do for Sabbath is buying flowers on Friday. No matter where I am and whether they end up on my host’s dinner table for that night, or my kitchen table or hotel bedside stand. The Sabbath Queen loves her fresh weekly bouquet. This past Shabbat, back in NYC, a cloud of fragrant orange flowers filled my living room. There was Dinner with friends, good wine and conversation. The day was spent praying and playing with my kids and family and more friends. Simple stuff. As I prepent and take stock of the year that was and the one coming next I want to focus more on sacred time, on Sabbath specials. Make a commitment to the weekly dinners, to planning ahead, to slowing down. I even like the Classical music idea. Not sure about the candy jar.. I am curious – do you, friends-readers, have special Sabbath customs that help you make this weekly island a practical paradise? Please share. (once sun's set..)

PREPENT5771: DAY 4, Friday 8:13 Nothing's Accidental?
by Amichai Lau-Lavie
Friday August 13, 2010

There’s no such thing as an accident, goes the popular expression. But does that include actual accidents? Is a rupture of the regular part of the Plan? (What plan? What’s regular?) This one happened very fast. My first car accident. Late last night, right outside the Denver airport, the car in front of us suddenly slows, and the next thing I know there’s screeching brakes, airbags, a collision. Then the domino effect of these 5 seconds of confusion: police, paramedics, halted traffic, lots of questions, forms to fill, flashlights. Could have been way worse: None seriously hurt, no damages, no ticket and all fully insured. Everybody being helpful and kind. One cop even offered a ride to the airport, another first for me last night – riding in the back of a police car, chatting casually with officer Jack about the merits of late night shifts - “way more action”. Naomi also gets a first – riding in the back of an ambulance to get checked up in a nearby hospital. She’s sore, but there’s no injury. Thank God. And thank God for airbags. And seat belts, kind people, luck. Thank God. Period. Roadside crisis is when these sentiments and expressions are firmly present. The other driver and I part ways with “God bless you” and a hug. Afterwards there’s lots of time for somber reflection. What happened, how, how could it have been avoided, and what does this accident tell me, teach me, how does it wake me up to be more present, 100% focused, all the time. I started this 40 days journey of getting ready for the Day of Judgment, the ritual of ‘what if I were dead tomorrow’, and just as the third day ends there’s this brush, if gentle, with that brutal inevitability, a close call. And if there really are no accidents, then this one, too, is a lesson from beyond, a part of some plan for improvement, for progress? A Wake up call? At the very least: a reminder to take nothing for granted; be more grateful, more careful, more here and now.

And now, back home to NYC.

Shabbat Shalom.

PREPENT5771: Stare At Your List
40 Days to Find Your Focus

by Amichai Lau-Lavie
Thursday, August 12, 2010

“My children, said my Grandfather, you will never see anything worse than yourselves.” Emerson, the so-called ‘prophet of the American religion’ writes this entry in his journal, circa 1850’s. He kept the journal, for over 50 years, and it’s full of brutally honest confessions, ramblings, and detailed plans for self-improvement. The 37 days left until Yom Kippur is a good opportunity to begin or resume daily journal writing as a form of self-reflection. And it’s a good time for the making of lists. I am a fan of lists, and I will commit to making many on this prepenting process, checking off one item at a time. Today’s list: What are 3 things that I regularly or randomly do and regret? The type of actions that makes me angry with myself for doing them? Big or small, legal or not, self-destructive or unhelpful to the better me I want to be – even if they give me pleasure in some way? Admitting theses to myself, painfully, privately is the first big step. Today’s task. Next step? stare at the list, at myself, as Emerson’s grandfather instructed, and sigh. Some call these items sins, or transgressions, or bad habits. This is what I need to change. Why am I doing this? What purpose do these actions serve? What will it take to modify these patterns? Replace them? What can help me change? I may never see anything worse than myself, but I can also see no better.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas as we move forward and, as always, you may find more information about our High Holy Day services by visiting, www.higholidays.com.

PREPENT5751: DAY 2 FAST FORWARD
40 days to find your focus

by Amichai Lau-Lavie
Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fasting’s fascinating. It’s one of my favorite Jewish things to do even though it’s such a universal act, and although there’s something so un-Jewish about voluntary starvation. Religious rituals of self-deprivation, extended simulations of hunger are practiced by most world religions. Muslims begin Ramadan today, fasting daily for a month of repentance. Yom Kippur, 39 days away, also uses fasting as a tool for reflection. Interesting – both Ramadan and The High holidays end with a break-fast feast. Two Semitic siblings similar in so many ways: United we fast. But why actually? Why is fasting so compelling as to a central religious practice for so many people on the planet? What does it actually achieve? This year, inspired by Ramadan I want to think ahead to Yom Kippur, fast forward and prep well – to make more of my fasting, more of my personal process of change, starting now. I don’t intend to start fasting daily – but do I want to be more conscious of what I eat, and how. I will start my first of many prepent lists today, re-examining my diet, my weight, my relationship to what I eat and therefore what I am. The goal: re-balance. Better physical health and metaphysical wellbeing. And also, lose 5 pounds. So much of our personal joy or suffering and sense of self has to do with our bodies and our relationship to food. Today I’m focused on the art of eating, fasting, and taking serious stock of how I feed myself and how I can do so better –with more awareness, loving, taking care of self – and the environment. Are my habits of eating part of the planetary problem – or can I be part of the solution? More vitamins? Less sugar? Organic? Vegetarian? Eco-kosher? Start the process of reflection with what’s on the plate. Emerson, famously too skinny, reflected often on what he ate, played, so to speak, with his foods and moods: “My days” he wrote, “ are made up of the irregular succession of a very few different tones of feeling. These are my feasts and fasts. “ Ramadan Mubarak. Bon Appétit.