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How to keep my head on straight during this time



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amother
OP


 

Post Thu, Mar 26 2020, 10:21 pm
We are living through very scary times. Though I've been through my own share of scary situations, I can't remember ever feeling like the whole world is falling apart at the seams. (A close second may be 9/11 when we all thought the world was never going to be the same again.)

And I'm noticing that everyone copes in different ways. Some people cope by following the news obsessively, feeling the need to know every detail. Some feel they need to share all the news through social media. Some are in denial about what's going on. Others (and I am jealous of them) have the presence of mind to be saying tehillim at every free moment.

Some (like, my husband) are trying to keep to their schedule as much as possible, while others are spending their time posting silly videos to show how insane they are going from being cooped up. Others are using the time to bash this one or that one for how they are handling themselves during this crisis.

I find all this fascinating, to see how other people are reacting. And to be honest, am personally not too proud of how I'm spending these days... I feel I should be much more focused on my kids, more focused on tefilla and teshuva... and less on the news. But it so hard to do it.

I want to share what I heard from Rabbi Reisman on Torahanytime, which gave me chizuk, and perhaps could give others chizuk as well.

He said that he heard many times from his father-in-law in law that when he went through the war, it was interesting to see how people reacted. It was not as predicted. You had choshuv people, who you would have expected to be a bulwark of strength, instead fall apart completely and wallow in self pity. And you had some people who you did not necessarily think they were choshuv, they were just simple people, yet they acted with tremendous yiras shomayim, showing great strength of character and giving others chizuk. You had people in both groups show reactions that were not necessarily expected of them. His message was that you never really know a person until they are tested. When the tzara comes, that's when the true essence of a person is revealed.

When people are tested with hardships, some people become the type to start taking on kabbalos and bettering themselves, while others stop learning, stop going to minyan...in general regress in their avodas Hashem. In this challenge that we are all going through now, some people are now waking up early to daven at netz and learning more than ever, others are wasting their days sleeping late and following every bit of news.

We don't ask to be tested. But when we are, the challenge is to go through the tzarra in such a way that years later you should be able to look back and feel that this challenge brought out the best in you, that you became a better person for it. And that will help you go through the challenge and keep your focus.

That message really resonated with me. Hope this is meaningful to some of you.
Please share other helpful or inspiring ways that people could keep their focus during these days...
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Frumwithallergies




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 1:10 am
Thank you for your post. So true.
Your post resonates with me.
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FranticFrummie




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 3:04 am
Wonderful post!

I find myself alternating through all the different reactions. Sometimes glued to the news, sometimes davening, and sometimes looking at cute kitten videos. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms.

I try not to judge, unless it is endangering someone else. It's a wonderful time to work on being less self centered, and to regard everyone you deal with as a fellow human being, with equal value and worth.
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amother
Wine


 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 5:45 am
I kinda grimly trudge on.

I just focus on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to keep my imagination in check. Some loved ones are sick, one is very unwell. I am home with eight young, sometimes challenging, always beautiful children. My dh was laid off.
I've taken on one modest kabbalah, that is within reason- as my personal response to this frightening situation.

May Hashem give us the strength to get through this with grace, and grow from this ordeal.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 6:55 am
amother [ Wine ] wrote:
I kinda grimly trudge on.

I just focus on putting one foot in front of the other, trying to keep my imagination in check. Some loved ones are sick, one is very unwell. I am home with eight young, sometimes challenging, always beautiful children. My dh was laid off.
I've taken on one modest kabbalah, that is within reason- as my personal response to this frightening situation.

May Hashem give us the strength to get through this with grace, and grow from this ordeal.


You are heroic. (Along with everyone else.) I heard a shiur that stressed these ideas:
We should work on our composure.
We should bring simcha into the home - music, singing and dancing with the kids.
We have to have perspective - Hashem's in charge and Ein Od Milvado* - which, is very much tied into #1.
And NO BASHING anyone. No saying, this community mishandled it, etc. Lay off the LH, through devices or the old fashioned way, by phone.

*Rabbi Aryeh Nivin has a shiur on this on Torah Anytime. Given yesterday.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 7:54 am
PinkFridge wrote:
You are heroic. (Along with everyone else.) I heard a shiur that stressed these ideas:
We should work on our composure.
We should bring simcha into the home - music, singing and dancing with the kids.
We have to have perspective - Hashem's in charge and Ein Od Milvado* - which, is very much tied into #1.
And NO BASHING anyone. No saying, this community mishandled it, etc. Lay off the LH, through devices or the old fashioned way, by phone.

*Rabbi Aryeh Nivin has a shiur on this on Torah Anytime. Given yesterday.


Thanks ! Will check it out!! I always get a lot of chizzuk from Rabbi Nivin's Torah.
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amother
OP


 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 1:08 pm
I have a thought brewing in my mind that I'd like to share. Maybe you ladies can help me develope it.
We know Chazal say that everything was created for the sake of Klal Yisroel. Even something that is happening in far-off China is happening because if the Jewish people.
This coronavirus that is affecting the whole world is here because of us. On my Hashem knows why, but its clearly because of us.

On another note, we also know that technology and the internet has been a source of great destruction for many jewish families.

I think in these days HAshem has given us the opportunity to redeem these technological innovations, to so to speak "kasher" them and bring them over to the side of good.
Consider:
The amount of Torah classes being learned over Zoom. Maggidei shiur and rebbeim are using it, and even "minyanim" are being formed on it.
Whatsapp: hundreds of people connected to whatsapp are saying sefer tehillim collectively thousands of times for the cholim. (I am on 3 different chats and I see its ongoing, 24 hours a day).
Many mitzvos such as nichum aveilim and bikkur Cholim, kibbud Av V'eim can only be fulfilled now through whatsapp, phone and skype, text or email...

Internet/Utube: Theres an explosion of shiurim on Torah Anytime, Aleph beta, Aish, Ohr Naava etc . Not to mention Echinuch.org. which is a wealth of kodesh material for educators and parent.
There are children's videos teaching good middos, halachos and bitachon, such as what the CCHF puts out, Torah Live and the Rosh chodesh project.
The list is ongoing.

But my thought is that these innovations were created for Klal Yisroel, and this virus has hit the world because of Klal Yisroel.
(This is not to say we are ego-centric; Chazal say this.) They have the power to destroy, and they have the power to bring us closer to Hashem. It took a crisis such as this one to propel us to use these inventions for kedusha, to daven and learn.
And it is so inspiring.

I'm a similar vein I once heard from rabbi Mendel Kessin that the internet was created as a means of communicating to the whole world at the same time. You can have one person sitting in a white house and talking to the whole world at the same time. Maybe this was created so that Moshiach will be able to teach Torah to all of Klal Yisroel simultaneously(!)
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amother
Indigo


 

Post Fri, Mar 27 2020, 3:21 pm
I love this thread. And I know HaShem
Is shepping nachas. Please HaShem! Look at these women who always inspire me and thousands of others. Us women are amazing in trying to keep this all together for our families and still inspiring others. HaShem bring us the geula! May this nightmare end with the geula real soon, like before shabbos still!!! Love u guys! Git shabbos!
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amother
OP


 

Post Sat, Mar 28 2020, 8:24 pm
Thank you for the chizzuk.
Allow me to share another thought that inspired me. I heard this from my brother who said he heard it from Rabbi Wallerstien.
All the rabbonim are coming out and saying we need to do teshuva. Some say we need to work on shmiras halashon, some say tefilla, other say 100 brochos, other stay emuna. (And don't you love it when they always say its because of the womens tznius?)
So which one is it?
He gave a Mashal about a king who was upset with his children and evicted them from the palace. The children felt sorry for angering their father.
The oldest child figured that his father evicted him because he didn't do his homework. So he started doing his homework every day, on the hope that he will be allowed back in. The second son thought it was because he slept late in the morning, so he worked on waking up early. Each child did a cheshbon hanefesh and thought he knew why he was sent out and worked on that.
So too, each person needs to look inside himself and figure out where he is lacking. This virus was not sent to only give us one message. The message needs to be tailored for each person. If each person does teshuva on his own shortcomings, hopefully very soon we will be brought home.
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amother
Crimson


 

Post Sun, Mar 29 2020, 1:53 am
PinkFridge wrote:
You are heroic. (Along with everyone else.) I heard a shiur that stressed these ideas:
We should work on our composure.
We should bring simcha into the home - music, singing and dancing with the kids.
We have to have perspective - Hashem's in charge and Ein Od Milvado* - which, is very much tied into #1.
And NO BASHING anyone. No saying, this community mishandled it, etc. Lay off the LH, through devices or the old fashioned way, by phone.

*Rabbi Aryeh Nivin has a shiur on this on Torah Anytime. Given yesterday.


I can’t find this shiur. Can you link it?
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amother
Lemon


 

Post Sun, Mar 29 2020, 2:34 am
I am ashamed to say that after reading this thread I feel even worse. I am a person who has gone through things in life and after years of struggling, learned how to pull it together and even help other people. But I am having a hard time keeping it together through this, and I don't know why.

To be honest BH I have it pretty well. While I have been in quarantine for several weeks already and now I have the virus, BH I am surrounded by members of my wonderful family. (We decided to quarantine together from the outset.) I don't have small children that need supervision. Yet I am very unsettled, my eating and exercise have fallen to the wayside. I can't sleep, I am obsessed by the news. I am on a horrible schedule, being up all night and sleeping very late. I can't concentrate on anything, I have done very little work professionally.(But it is ok for now) I have a list of projects that I always wanted/need to do but never have the time. Now I have the time and I can't focus. I know part of it is that I have this virus, so I am tired a lot. But even before I got it I was unsettled. Don't even get me started on Pesach. I can't seem to focus on that either. I try to listen to shiurim but get antsy midway. I think this not knowing so many things, including Pesach. (there are some family variables that need to be decided) as well as menus, shopping etc.

I do spend a lot of time though trying to figure out what Hashem's message to me is in regard to this, and I say random T'hillim during the day. I am also running a large household of adult children and their spouses after not doing that for years. But on the whole I feel so untethered and frustrated for wasting so much time.

I am sorry I didn't mean to hijack this thread. Any advice or chizuk would be appreciated.

PS It is not nervousness or anxiousness that is causing this.
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amother
Puce


 

Post Sun, Mar 29 2020, 6:09 am
The way I am coping is maxinimixing on my strengths, not wasting time and energy working on my weaknesses (a little but not excessively), and trying to prioritize.
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amother
OP


 

Post Mon, Mar 30 2020, 3:58 am
amother [ Lemon ] wrote:
I am ashamed to say that after reading this thread I feel even worse. I am a person who has gone through things in life and after years of struggling, learned how to pull it together and even help other people. But I am having a hard time keeping it together through this, and I don't know why.

To be honest BH I have it pretty well. While I have been in quarantine for several weeks already and now I have the virus, BH I am surrounded by members of my wonderful family. (We decided to quarantine together from the outset.) I don't have small children that need supervision. Yet I am very unsettled, my eating and exercise have fallen to the wayside. I can't sleep, I am obsessed by the news. I am on a horrible schedule, being up all night and sleeping very late. I can't concentrate on anything, I have done very little work professionally.(But it is ok for now) I have a list of projects that I always wanted/need to do but never have the time. Now I have the time and I can't focus. I know part of it is that I have this virus, so I am tired a lot. But even before I got it I was unsettled. Don't even get me started on Pesach. I can't seem to focus on that either. I try to listen to shiurim but get antsy midway. I think this not knowing so many things, including Pesach. (there are some family variables that need to be decided) as well as menus, shopping etc.

I do spend a lot of time though trying to figure out what Hashem's message to me is in regard to this, and I say random T'hillim during the day. I am also running a large household of adult children and their spouses after not doing that for years. But on the whole I feel so untethered and frustrated for wasting so much time.

I am sorry I didn't mean to hijack this thread. Any advice or chizuk would be appreciated.

PS It is not nervousness or anxiousness that is causing this.

I'm sorry Amother lemon. I can so relate. Not to the particulars, buy to the feeling untethered and spaced out, and can't focus on the kids or on Pesach. I have both very little kids and older kids, post high school. It's hard to be there for everyone and I often just want to lock myself in my room.
However, I keep reminding myself that every day is another day and another chance. Today I finally managed to get up early, get dressed and say tehillim for a half hour before the kids wake up... I know that every time I keep calm and don't yell at the kids is a victory. Every time I choose to say no to eating junk is a victory. Every time I push myself to make the right choice gives me strength to do it again.
Hope you can focus on the small victories and not put yourself down for perceived failings. The thought of being able to look back in a few years and knowing that this challenge brought out the best in me gives me a big push to try harder right now.
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amother
Lemon


 

Post Mon, Mar 30 2020, 6:23 am
amother [ OP ] wrote:
I'm sorry Amother lemon. I can so relate. Not to the particulars, buy to the feeling untethered and spaced out, and can't focus on the kids or on Pesach. I have both very little kids and older kids, post high school. It's hard to be there for everyone and I often just want to lock myself in my room.
However, I keep reminding myself that every day is another day and another chance. Today I finally managed to get up early, get dressed and say tehillim for a half hour before the kids wake up... I know that every time I keep calm and don't yell at the kids is a victory. Every time I choose to say no to eating junk is a victory. Every time I push myself to make the right choice gives me strength to do it again.
Hope you can focus on the small victories and not put yourself down for perceived failings. The thought of being able to look back in a few years and knowing that this challenge brought out the best in me gives me a big push to try harder right now.


Thank you for your encouragement.
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