Parshas Toldos

When Eisav came in from the field tired and hungry, he agreed to sell the bechorah in exchange for lentil soup. He gave up something eternal and got something fleeting instead.

When we are tired, hungry or stressed, we don't have the clarity to make good decisions. We might say or do things we will later regret. It takes a lot of work to be able to maintain an inner sense of calm but when we can do that, we will be in complete control of ourselves and our reactions. We will be able to respond to people with calm logic instead of reacting with emotional intensity. 

May we be able to pay attention to our inner selves and regulate our emotions in a healthy way so we can deal with all situations calmly and with clarity!

Parshas Noach

After Noach built the taivah, he and his family stayed on the top level, the animals on the middle level and the garbage was kept on the bottom. 

Practically, it made sense to set it up this way but the Torah is teaching us how important it is to be neat and organized. A clean house, where everything is in its place, has a more calm feeling. It is an important element to the shalom bayis of the home. When you structure your week around shabbos and know in advance what time candle lighting is, you can hopefully enter shabbos without stress. If this isn't your strong point, you can get tips and help from others who are more organized. Having things orderly lends to a positive atmosphere whereas messes brings on stresses! 

May we be able to have a calm and stress-free atmosphere in our homes by keeping things orderly and in their place!

My Struggles-A Poem

A friend of mine, Rivka, sent the following poem entitled My Struggles to me and gave me permission to share it with you.

I'm shy
Yet I try
I question why
Then I cry

I'm beated
I get heated
I'm unneeded
I'm defeated

I'm oppressed
I regressed
I'm stressed
I'm depressed

I try once more
Although its a bore
I feel sore
My spirit tore

I pay no heed
I plant the seed
I want to succeed
Hashem is in the lead 

I took a message from it. When things get hard, when you feel overwhelmed, it's okay question. It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel.

Sometimes in life, a person feels beaten and knocked down. It gets tough. They keep trying and it feels too hard. 

The way to win, the way to get past it...is to plant that seed. To try to take little steps.To do what you can...and then leave the rest up to Hashem.

We want to succeed. We want to "make it big" in this life of ours. We need to remember Who is leading our lives and turn to Him when it feels like it's too much. We need to do ours, take the steps we can to make positive changes in our lives...and then step back and remind ourselves that Hashem is running our lives. 

Let's hope we see the fruits of our labor in our personal lives. Let's hope we see Hashem answering our call, hearing our prayers, helping us through once we did ours.

May we all merit to see personal yeshuos in our lives and in the lives of those around us!

Stunned by Science

My friend, Ruchiccio, shared this with me and I'm posting it here with her permission.

Here is an amazing lesson in niflaos haborei that she learned while playing a computer game! (Not that these games are in any way encouraged, you should only play with complete consent and guidance from your local orthodox rabbi - kidding!! but you can take a lesson from everything.)

Lugaru is an action game where you play the role of Turner, a rabbit. A traitor in your camp gets Turner's whole family killed out. To avenge their deaths, he sets out to find those killers and bring them to justice.

I just finished Lugaru, which means that I was finished with all the levels. However, I discovered another treasure trove of CHALLENGE levels! I zipped through levels 1-10 really fast. But level 11 was a killer of a level. I must have tried about 30 times. I never even made it close to the end!

Tonight I decided to try an experiment:
I brought a blood pressure machine (a sphygmomanometer, if you want to get technical) to my computer desk. I attached the cuff to my arm and checked my blood pressure. We'll give this baseline rate a value of "X". I then played 12 minutes of heavy Lugaru in Level 11 and rechecked my blood pressure. It jumped to about 2x for the systolic (the top number) and the diastolic (bottom number) remained the same as before. I was clearly able to see the effects of stress on my heart processes! After 20 more minutes of playing, I checked it a third time and it was back to normal.

It's amazing the way Hashem makes our bodies adapt to stress so easily and proficiently. When you need more energy to fight (even though this was virtual fighting, it still is fighting!), your body accommodates by increasing blood pressure, heart rate, dilating the pupils, releasing more carbon dioxide etc etc. These are just some of the many changes that happen during a stress response - manifestations of the sympathetic nervous system.

What's even MORE amazing is that Hashem fashioned us with a parasympathetic nervous system which brings us back to normal after the stressful incident passes. Imagine what would happen if we never returned to "normal" mode!

Just had to share this bit of Niflaos Haborei and science!

Oh, and I managed to overcome Level 11 - WOOOHOOO!!!!