Climbing Your Way UP
I take my son up the fifty stairs to his preschool. We get to the top. It feels like we climbed a mountain. The next day I take an alternative route. We climb up a bunch of stairs, make a turn, climb some more. We get to the top and it doesn’t feel like it was so hard or insurmountable.
On the way day I count the stairs of the second route. I’m in shock. They’re the same amount! But it felt so much less, so much easier.
It’s an important lesson. In life we stand before mountains that seem too high to climb. Take it one step at a time.
Break up the journey. You’ll still get to the top, but it won’t feel so difficult.
A client comes and she’s three years postpartum. She’s overweight and hormonal. She knows intellectually that she needs to exercise and needs to change her diet. I could give her a list a page long of suggestions and advice.
What do I do? I break it down.
“Can you do ten minutes of a brisk walk for exercise?”
Yes, ten minutes she tells me she can do. But what’s the point to do something that feels like so little? Because ten minutes is doable. You do this eventually you’ll feel motivated to do more. You start with what feels like too much, you’ll drop it all. And ten minutes every day, it adds up. It still gets you to the top.
A woman comes with anxiety, tension and stress. They paralyze her. She wakes up with cold sweats and fears that grip her. I ask her, “Can you do one small act when you feel anxious?”
“Like what?”
“Can you just take one deep breath, or drop your shoulders or loosen your jaw?”
No, she can’t start a bunch of breathing tecniques and rewire her brain with other thoughts in the moment. She can’t relax her whole, entire body, but one small act?
“Yes,” she tells me. This, she can do. With something practical and doable in her tool box she already feels calmer.
The house looks like a disaster. The dishes are piled high. The toys are everywhere and the laundry, I won’t even tell you about the laundry.
She wants to go into her bed and cry, but she has no time to do so! Nor energy for that matter.
“Break it down,” I tell her. “One small step at a time. Forget the toys and just do the dishes for now. Delegate, break it up. ”
God spoke all these words, to respond (Shemot 20:1):
all these words: [This] teaches [us] that the Holy One, blessed be He, said the Ten Commandments in one utterance, something that is impossible for a human being to say [in a similar way]. If so, why does the Torah say again, “I am [the Lord, your God (verse 2)]” and “You shall have no…” (verse 3)? Because He later explained each statement [of the Ten Commandments] individually. — [from Mechilta]-Rashi
Hashem gave us, personally, all ten commandments and He said it in One Divine breath. Then He understood that we couldn’t handle mountains that seem to high to climb and so He broke it down and went slowly. One commandment at a time.
One step at a time.
We still received it all and learned it all through Moshe.
Feels like too much?
Just break it up. One set of stairs at a time. Take a turn, a break. Then climb some more, eventually with G-d’s help you’ll get to the top.
Shabbat Shalom,
With blessings,
Elana