Waiting for What? I’m just waiting for…the kids to go back to school, summer to end, to start my new job, to start classes, to to to….

I know, we are all “just waiting for” that thing to start and then we are going to start…exercising, eating better, drinking more water, taking time for ourselves, going to that class, learning that….

I know.

You know what – don’t wait. Just start.

It’s not all or nothing. You don’t have an hour now to exercise? Of course not. It’s the summer and no routine is the routine. You can make time for ten minutes though. Ten minutes. Do some jumping jacks, dance, jog in place. It’s hard to make healthy food right now, grab some almonds, eat a piece of fruit, make an omelet with eggs and vegetables. You just ate healthy and it wasn’t too complicated. No time for reading or learning? Small goals, read one page, listen to a class while you cook or clean. Drink a glass of water instead of a sugary drink. You just did something big and it seems small.

Don’t wait for next month, the beginning of the year.

​Don’t wait. Start now. Start small. You can do it.

 I look at my two-year old’s belly. He has a fascination with his belly button, so we see the belly a lot as he lifts up his shirt to play with it. His beautiful round belly. I watch how it goes in and out as he breathes. It’s soft and relaxed.

I look down at my own belly. It certainly isn’t going in and out. It’s certainly not relaxed, but tight and held in. I notice my breathing. It’s so shallow and in my chest. Where does the breath go? Where doesn’t it go?

I place my hands on my body. One on my heart and one on my belly. I close my eyes and allow myself to take a deep breath. The belly fills with air as I inhale. It goes back in as I exhale. With this breath my body relaxes. It’s cleansed. I allow the blood to flow with all the hormones and nutrients in it.

​I return to a natural state of childhood where I can just be present and live in the moment. A moment of harmony and serenity. A moment of acceptance and love. A moment of life. Take a deep belly breath. Try it. See where it takes you. See where you go.

Just a Balloon My two-year-old watched in delight as I blew up balloons for his birthday. The next morning, he saw one of the balloons floating on the floor. He got scared and came running to me, his body trembling. I picked up the balloon.

“Yosef, it’s a balloon.”

He continued to cling to me trembling with fear. I took a new balloon and blew it up for him, showing him that the floating object is no different than the delightful balloon he loved the day before. I picked up the balloon in my hand and held him with the other. I gently acknowledged and then made him confront his fears.

He is no longer afraid of the balloon.

It hit me. What are our fears? What are we really afraid of? Are the fears that we experience of not getting-what-we-want, of being alone, of tests and challenges – are they real? Or are they figments of our imagination, no different than a balloon…

​What happens to my body when I experience fear? Do I tense up? Do I feel my heart pounding? Am I stressed? Would it be better to acknowledge my fear and then, with a lot of faith and courage, confront it and let it go? Let’s try.

I know..I Know... The woman lying on my treatment table, the one with the swollen legs, the complaints of muscle cramps – I massage her legs, trying to get the lymph and blood circulation going. We begin to talk and I explain to her small diet changes that could help clear the lymph system, a few supplements that could help with the muscle cramps. I say only a few, because I have learned from experience that you don’t get anywhere by making drastic changes or by overwhelming someone with hundreds of things to try and do.

She shakes her head affirmatively to all of my suggestions. “I know. I know. I’ve been told that before,” she says about the diet. “I know. I know. I even have those vitamins at home.”

She then continues, “I’m just so busy and so overwhelmed with taking care of….that I don’t have the time to take care of myself…”

Where’s the motivation to do all the things that we know we need to do? How do we convince ourselves of the importance of doing all the things that we know we need to do?

We begin by telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter if you started and stopped. You can start again!

We then move on to asking for understanding: that this is actually what G-d wants from us. He wants us to stop and make time to take care of ourselves so that we can do His Will, so that we can do kindness (chesed), so that we can emulate Him and give and give and give. Since He is the Source of everything, He has what to give. We need to allow ourselves to have, in order to give.

​Our third step is to take one thing and make it a habit. Make it a habit to exercise. Make it a habit to drink a cup of water each hour of the day. Make it a habit to take those supplements or vitamins. Just like how you don’t brush your teeth anymore to prevent cavities. Really, you brush them because it’s your habit to do so! Believe in yourself and with G-d’s help you will be able to turn the knowing into doing.
​ 

On Monday I saw a client who brought her baby along to her appointment with me for a massage. The baby is colicky and cries all the time. The mother can’t sleep, she feels nervous, fears, on edge. She’s not herself. And she brings the baby to the one hour where she is supposed to just rest and relax. She gets undressed and lies under the sheets. She closes her eyes. The baby starts to cry. She reaches out to the baby and rocks the carriage with one hand. She coos to the baby, “Mommy is here. You are such a sweetheart. Mommy is here. Shhhhh. Go to sleep.”


I’m not sure even what to do. Do I start massaging her feet? The baby now screams and she gets up. I look at this woman and I feel sorry for her. I don’t know whether to laugh at this situation of her trying to rock the baby to sleep between being massaged or whether to cry. I feel so sorry for her.


I think of my own situation. I so relate to her.


Moshe said, ‘Six hundred thousand people on foot are the people in whose midst I am, and You say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat I for a full month’(Bamidbar 11:21)?


I see this beautiful woman. This mother of this colicky baby. I see her kiss the baby and hug the baby and I see her lips moving in prayer, “Please Hashem, just let the baby sleep.”


She rocks and suddenly the colicky baby falls asleep.


Then the Lord said to Moses, "Is My power limited? Now you will see if My word comes true for you or not (11:23)!"


I’m so happy for her as the mother comes back to the massage table and sinks into it. I massage. She closes her eyes and relaxes under the touch.


I look at her. I admire her. Why should I feel sorry for a woman who is doing such holy important work? And yet I’m so glad that the baby continues to sleep as I massage her knotted shoulders.


I go throughout my day, the day that doesn’t seem to end until I literally drop into bed with the knowledge that in a few short hours I will be up again.


Up again. This child needs this and this child needs that. “Ribbon Shel Olam, where will we get the money for this? Where will we get the money for that? Where will I find the time to do this and take care of that? I need time and energy and resources.”


A parent, a sibling, a friend, a client-the phone calls, the emails. The needs and the wants. 


“Alone I cannot carry this entire people for it is too hard for me (11:14).”
לֹא אוּכַל אָנֹכִי לְבַדִּי לָשֵׂאת אֶת כָּל הָעָם הַזֶּה כִּי כָבֵד מִמֶּנִּי


I heard the beautiful Rebbetzen Yemima Mizrahi said to take the alone and cannot from the first sentence and turn it into ... אין עוד מלבדו.. There is none beside Him.


Alone I cannot, but You, You can.


Stay focused on the goal. The goal.


The goal of carrying this beautiful role. The role that I find myself in. The role to answer the phone and the emails. To do chesed when I can and even at times when I can’t really I can’t do anything, but with Hashem’s help my can’t and my alone gets expanded.


At times the role is to say no to one person so that I can say yes to another. At times the role is to stop cleaning so that I can go to the park with my children. Stop cooking so that I myself can take a break and have a glass of water, a cup of tea. Say no to that friend who wants to talk when my husband walks in the door.


At times we do have to say, “Hashem I can’t. I’m taking a break. I’m going to sleep. I’m getting a cleaning help. I’m getting a babysitter. Hashem You take care of them!” But also I know that role, it’s only a role that I can do. There was only one Moshe Rabbeinu. When Hashem gave him 70 elders to help him Hashem told Moshe, “I’m taking the power from you and giving it to them.” Meaning, you actually have this power, but you think that you can’t and so therefore you don’t (see the Baal HaTurim on this…)...


אין עוד מלבדו


Alone I cannot, but You, You can.


Stay focused on the goal. The goal.


The goal, is just to do my role. To be happy in my role, to love and embrace it.
 
 


Good shabbes!!


Much love from my home in Yerushalayim,

Elana

For months our refrigerator didn’t close properly. In order to close it you had to lift up the door and then push it in. Why didn’t we get it fixed? We couldn’t spend the money on fixing it, or so our priorities told us. So we lifted and pushed in – everyday for months and months – until…the refrigerator stopped working. It had been left open one too-many times as we couldn’t always be on top of the pushing and lifting.

Mr. Refrigerator Man was called in to fix the damage. In the end, fixing the refrigerator became a top priority (as we had no refrigerator at that point), and we paid for it. And did we pay for it – double of what we would have if we had just fixed it as soon as the door broke, because now it wasn’t just the door, it was also the motor. After paying Mr. RM I thought to myself, “If only we had fixed it when it was a small problem…”

The first time I closed the refrigerator after its fixing I appreciated the ease it took to simply close the door. My hand, hip and thigh thanked me for fixing the refrigerator. “Why again didn’t we get it fixed before?” Sometimes in our bodies (and souls!) a pain cries out to us:

“Pay attention to me! Get help! Heal me!” We ignore the problem thinking that we have no time or money to deal with it. And so the pain gets worse and the crying out gets worse until we are forced to fix/ attend to it. And at that point, the little problem might have grown, G-d forbid, into a much bigger one.

My dear friends, LISTEN to your bodies (and souls)! Ignoring will not make it go away. Pay attention to it and address the little issues before they turn into big ones.

​A client of mine just told me the news – she’s been diagnosed with stage 1 cancer. She’s in shock. No surprise. She’s scared. No surprise. She’s angry. Why? Because she was doing so well. She cried to me, “I’m actually feeling great.” She never ate so healthy before, never exercised and took care of herself so well before, and now this? It doesn’t make sense. It seems so unfair!

“What’s the point? I feel like giving up. Why should I put in any effort to take care of myself if this is what happens?”

This is what I told her: Nothing is in our control, not even our health. But is it all in vain? To feel good? G-d is giving her a tremendous test. On top of the diagnosis, if she was overweight, out of breath, tired, and prediabetic, would it make dealing with the test easier or harder? Harder, of course.

Is all the work she did really in vain?

If someone gave you a beautiful new dress and a child ran up to you and spilled wine on it, is it in your control? If you are given soap and water, can you try to clean it? Even if there’s a wine spill, should you yourself take a pair of scissors and slash the dress?

Does one bad cancel out all the good? Keep doing what you can to feel and be healthy. It’s never in vain.

The holidays are fast approaching. There’s so much to do. I know that you are thinking, “How in the world am I going to get through this?” No matter what stage of life you are living (and I do hope that you are living and not just passing through that stage!) no doubt that there is so much to do and it’s overwhelming.

How can you take care of yourself and do “self-care” when you have so much to do and to take care of?

The first thing to do is to close your eyes for one minute and remind yourself why you are here and why are you so busy. A woman who can stay focus and remember her goals and her mission in life, she already feels calmer and is strengthened by this goal. Remind yourself that this busy time – it’s only once a year. G-d will give you strength. You have to tap into Him though, in order to bring that strength down. Second – anything that brings you closer to your goal, keep doing. Anything that furthers you from your goal, stop. Focus on one thing at a time, one task at a time. Get as much help, any help (that’s real help) that you can. Humble yourself. You don’t have to be perfect, nor should you. Third – take a break. It must be for at least once a day. Even for 10 minutes. Close your eyes. Read. Exercise. Do something for your physical health and something for your mental health to keep you on track and feeling strong.

Women come to me for alternative therapies. Thursday night a new client came. She was a tall attractive woman in her forties who very much wants to have a baby. For some reason we started talking about her siblings and she mentioned that she has a single brother who is in his late thirties. “He’s a great person. I so wish that I could find someone for him.”

A woman popped into my mind. A massage client of mine who has been coming off and on for massages for the past few years. She’s an intelligent, kind woman. She happens to be tall and in her mid-thirties. “Hmm. Maybe I have a match for your brother?”  I looked for her phone number, but it was erased from my phone. I leafed through my agenda books to see if I could find it. It wasn’t there.

“G-d,” I prayed. “Please have Michal call me.”

Two days later after Shabbat my phone rang.

“Elana. It’s Michal.”

“Michal! I’m so happy that you called. I might have someone for you!”

“Elana, do you have any idea where I am?”

“No.”

“I’m in Uman, in the Ukraine. I’m praying [to meet my soulmate] by the graves of the tzadikim (righteous ones). I did something to my back and I said to myself that I must call you and make an appointment with you for tomorrow when I arrive back in Jerusalem…”

“What Divine Providence!”

The next day Michal came. I gave her number to the other lady. Whether or not it turns out to be a match, I don’t know, but what I do know, what I told Michal is this…

“Michal, if I, your massage therapist thinks of you and prays for you-which I do, everyday-then how much more so does G-d, who is your Father, love you!”

To this Michal, who has been dating and searching for her soulmate for the past fifteen years, began to cry. Why? Because Michal told me that she felt all these years that “no” means “I don’t love you.”

****
My toddler, thank G-d, I’m enjoying him so much. You can already see he has a strong personality. He has goals, objects that he wants to obtain and reach for. He takes the chair or the stool here, there, everywhere and he lifts himself up on his tippy toes to grab at whatever item looks appealing to him. I can’t take my eyes off of him for a minute.

On our table I have a jar full of nuts and almonds for the bigger kids to take as a snack when they are hungry. Yosef Shalom climbs up. He wants what they are eating too. I won’t let him have them. “But Mommy,” my five-and-a-half-year-old asks, “Why not? There are so healthy!”
“Yes, they are. But Yosef Shalom is too little and for him, for now, they are dangerous. He could, G-d forbid, choke.”

I’m not giving my son something so healthy. Does this mean I don’t love him?
Of course not because we know that even though they are so healthy, for my little one, right now they are dangerous.  And if a child was allergic to the nuts, then the age or the maturity wouldn’t matter, we still wouldn’t be able to give them to him.

A woman asks me, “Why is G-d withholding children from me? Why wouldn’t He want me to have a child? Doesn’t He love me?”

My thoughts too ran away from me and in this direction, those years my husband and I tried to conceive. I equated no with rejection, with lack of love. I kept asking, “What am I doing wrong? What have I done?” Slowly I understood that the “no” wasn’t a punishment. The no was simply giving me and my husband time to grow.
“Why haven’t I found a husband to share my life with? Doesn’t G-d want me to build a family? It must be that He doesn’t love me!”

I go back to my Yosef Shalom, my adorable toddler who if he could would touch and eat whatever he could get his pudgy hands onto. Do I love him when I tell him no? Absolutely. Does he cry and scream when I say no? Does maybe to him, in his level of understanding does it seem like I’m rejecting him? It could be, but is that the Truth? No.

***
A pregnant client nearing birth comes for a prenatal massage. I tell her as the birth approaches. “Remember, the most important thing in the birth is to know that G-d loves you.”

“How did you know that was exactly what I needed to hear?”

“Because we all need to hear this. We all need to know this.”
​
In each stage in life, with each test of life, I think the most important thing to know is that yes, G-d loves you.