The Breath of Acceptance, The Breath of Life
I received the call and I heard from the desperation in her voice that the despite the late hour and my own desire to get to bed I had to let her come. I didn’t need to take her pulse to know that it was racing. I made her lie down, to sit back and let her head fall into the pillows. She spoke quickly and all her worries and fears flooded out like the rushing waters of a broken river dam in a raging storm. Such fears and exhaustion. Such shortness of breath.
I knew that in this state this woman wouldn’t listen to me. She’s wouldn’t be open to receive any support or treatment from me. So, what to do? I firmly grasped her feet and told her to take some steady deep breaths with me. No talking, no thinking, just breathing until the body and then the mind could somewhat calm down.
What was the source of this woman’s anxiety? She’s so capable. She’s so busy. She has a very large family and a full load of responsibilities. She never stops and so this past summer when at week twelve in her pregnancy she started to gush blood and miscarry, she kept going. She just cleaned up, didn’t stop, didn’t pause. Just keep going. Don’t let anyone know. Don’t ask for help. Go to work.
Take care of everyone and everything. Push ahead. Keep going.
From there everything went downhill. Severe anemia, weakness, depression, anxiety. Now she’s been two weeks in bed. She can’t eat. She can’t function. She takes anti-depressants that she feels don’t work. Nothing is working she cries to me. She keeps saying over and over, “I have no strength. This isn’t like me! Why can’t I just be who I was before!”
You see don’t you why I opened my door, why I took the call? Do you also see why I held this woman’s feet? So many thoughts and worries and anxiety. What do we need? Grounding. A rushing of babble, a gushing of thoughts, shortness of breath. What do we need? To breathe! It sounds so simple? It’s not.
This woman is in CBT, therapy. She knows about taking vitamins, eating properly and exercising. She’s on anti-depressants. So tell me, what is going on here? Why is she still in such a state of misery?
Therefore, say to the children of Israel, 'I am the Lord, and I will take you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their labor, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. And I will take you to Me as a people, and I will be a God to you, and you will know that I am the Lord your God, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land, concerning which I raised My hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you as a heritage; I am the Lord.' "Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not hearken to Moses because of [their] shortness of breath and because of [their] hard labor (Shemot 6:6-8)
but they did not hearken to Moses: They did not accept consolation. I.e., they despaired completely of ever being redeemed. -Rashi
because of [their] shortness of breath: Whoever is under stress, his wind and his breath are short, and he cannot take a deep breath. -Rashi
How can anything, even a promise of redemption, help if we don’t allow it to? How can we get help if we are always fighting the idea that we do or should need it? How can we be consoled if we despair?
What is breath? It’s life. It’s being in the moment, whatever the moment is. It’s a state of relaxation that comes with submission of “I’m not in control nor do I have to be.”
Sometimes a person just has to allow themselves to breathe and just be in the nisayone (test-challenge). The woman I described above, she spends so much of her energy fighting that she has no energy left to overcome.
Is it not the one who always goes and goes and goes who has the test that forces them to stop? Are we not tested over and over and over again in the one area where we say, “But here I have no control!” What in the world anyways is the purpose of this test? To get over it and be who I was before? To lose my energy and strength so that I can get it back? G-d forbid! No!
Over and over I hear from women going through difficult times in their lives, “I just want to feel or be like I was before.”
I hope not! The challenge is to enable us to be greater and stronger and wiser than we were before. It gives us the opportunity to say to G-d, “Even here, without strength or energy, even without this person or item or tool, even here I can connect to You and serve You! Even from here I can grow.”
And you can. And you will. Because when you call out to Him, He is with you. But you have to breathe, you have to be open; allow yourself to receive.
***
“I just want to hear,” she tells me, “you know, positive encouragement. I need to hear it all the time. That I will get through this, that it will pass.”
“I’m waiting to hear back from her to tell me what to do. How to get out of this….”
“I feel like I’m doing everything that I can, but nothing is helping or working. You see, I can’t do anything right. What is there left for me to do?”
There’s this outside voice that we all listen to and it’s so influential. We want it to go away, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because we don’t know how not to listen. We hear a voice that tells us that we look haggard or awful and all of a sudden instead of feeling good about all the hard work we do we feel like we can’t go on anymore. We hear the voice that is baffled or resentful or judgmental by what we do instead of encouraging, admiring and cheering us on. A voice that says, “You can’t.” Or a voice that says, “You won’t be able to…” These voices are loud. They might be a person or a society or a mixture of both.
There’s a voice that says, “I need everything to be perfect.” “I need to be perfect, in order to…”
And this voice, it stops you from doing or growing or even living. It freezes you in your place and you feel stuck in mud. You are sinking in quick sand.
What do you do? What if you don’t get any encouragement, or much needed valid praise? What if you see that you have a lack or an imperfection?
Doesn’t everyone? Does it really matter anyways? Should this be the force that is stopping you?
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Come, speak to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and he will let the children of Israel out of his land." But Moses spoke before the Lord, saying, "Behold, the children of Israel did not hearken to me. How then will Pharaoh hearken to me, seeing that I am of closed lips?" (ibid 6:10-12)
"I am the Lord. Speak to Pharaoh everything that I speak to you." But Moses said before the Lord, "Behold, I am of closed lips; so how will Pharaoh hearken to me?" (ibid 6:29-30)
Mosheleh, should this stop you? Mosheleh, Hashem is with you! He’s the One who determines who can and who can’t. Mosheleh, the only thing that is stopping you is YOU! And if you don’t believe you can, you won’t and Hashem will find a different messenger to fulfill, even your role. Because anyways it’s Him who does what we do!
So the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, and He commanded them concerning the children of Israel and concerning Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to let the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt (ibid 6:13)
So the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron: Because Moses had said, “I am of closed lips,” the Holy One, blessed be He, combined Aaron with him to be for him as a “mouth” [i.e., speaker] and an interpreter. - Rashi
Yes, you need encouragement and praise and you need the outside world to build you up. It does help us with our sense of self-esteem and feeling secure. But if you don’t get it or didn’t receive it as a child does that mean the situation is hopeless? Any even if you do receive it, will it ever be enough if you yourself don’t believe it?
Mosheleh, stop being the one to close your own lips! Mosheleh, no matter what, the voice has to come from INSIDE of you!
***
The plagues, the beginning of our Redemption, there’s so much to learn and so much to write about. It’s just been a crazy busy week and I myself need to stop now so that I can breathe for a minute and catch my breath!
This was written with a heart full of love for the memory of my dearest mother in law, Frida Ferdose bat Rivka a’h, a Woman of Valor who can find her? Her price is far above rubies…. whose yertziet is this Shabbes.
My beloved “Suegra” (mother in-law) taught me how to love unconditionally. She always had a smile and a kind word to say. Her heart and home, always welcoming, beautiful and open. She was like the women of Egypt who brought the redemption, a voice of encouragement and praise. She was an elegant, gorgeous and modest woman. So caring, who knew how to make you feel special and loved. I truly miss her.
May we all learn the art of breathing! May we expand, accept, and make ourselves vessels of reception, knowing when to stop and when to keep going. May we build our inner positive voices of compassion and encouragement and may we believe in ourselves! May we encourage and build up those around us!
Shabbat Shalom,
Elana