OMER DAY 7: Resources

For our final day of accounting and taking stock of what we have, we turn our thoughts to what is around us that can help move us forward in our journeys.  By now, we are all probably bursting at the seams to start taking some action . . . and if you've already done so, good for you!

We'll get to action together soon enough, but before we do, it is important for us to realize that we do not live in isolation.  We do not have to work alone, nor are we meant to.  We may delude ourselves into thinking that we have been the ones who are solely responsible for all accomplishments and achievements we have ever experienced - but there is always someone or some resource that helps us along the way (or a few someones).

Yesterday, the Boston Marathon was run in a beautiful and stirring way.  Marathon running: the most solo of solo acts.  How many people did it take to make the event happen?  And I'm not just referring to the security personnel.  Droves of volunteers, organizers, city planners, people in the city who willingly give up access to parts of their hometowns, health care providers, good-hearted people cheering on the runners . . . they make the task of running 26.2 miles more elevated and worthwhile than the experience of running one's own marathon route at home.  They help the participants go further than they might have expected of themselves, they make sure the runners have water/safety-from-cars (especially in Boston - if you have ever driven there, you know what I mean!)/a route so that they can accomplish the feat.  Not that I'm trying to take anything away from the inspiring runners - but they all had resources they could turn to in helping them get to their desired outcomes.  

Each one of us is surrounded by potential resources who can help us in whatever improvements we hope to see.  Whether they are people to support us, people to criticize us (lovingly, of course), books to read, classes to take, educational television shows to watch, Torah; there is always help we can find. . . we do not have to go it alone.  The question of utilizing resources becomes sometimes the uncomfortable reality that if we are going to let someone help us, it means we have to admit, there is something in us in need of changing. We often have to allow someone else into our personal process and insecurities, to make ourselves vulnerable.  Doing so can be scary and off-putting.  Yet, it is essential to real change - if we are going to turn weaknesses into strengths, fight fate and determine our destiny, bring our hopes/dreams to reality, well, we may need to bruise our egos a bit.  Don't journey alone - it just isn't nearly as fulfilling.

DAY 7 JOURNAL: List the resources around you that could be helpful to finding change in an area of weakness that you have identified or in a dream/hope you wish to make come true.  For this list, do not only put down the resources you know you might use, go ahead and list the resources that are available to you - this way, if one approach is not working down-the-line, this list will still exist with ideas of places you might turn to kickstart the process.  For example, if your goal is to drop 5 pounds, list Weight Watchers and a personal trainer and a nutritionist, even if you do not have any intention of going one of those routes.  

DAY 7 ACTION: Contact one of these resources (or purchase/borrow/peruse) and see if it will be a good help for your journey.

Ha-Yom Shivah Yamim, she-hem Sh'vua echad la-Omer

Today is the 7th Day, which is one week, of the Omer

MY JOURNAL:

So, I know that I mentioned in this post that we have to bruise the ego a bit and show our incompetence, somewhat publicly.  I am still working up to doing so for myself.  A blog may be too public of an arena for all the work I am doing on myself, and so it might not work for all of my personal journaling.  I'll have to keep a separate log for certain ideas, but here, I'm going to at least list the resources I have that can help me accomplish the dream of being a more consistent blog-writer - throughout the Omer and beyond

• Calendar and Advance Plan
• Other Omer counting books and resources
• Notes from Organizational Development class
• Engineering brain
• Supportive wife who encourages me to do this kind of thing
• Feedback from people who are reading the blog
• A desire to help others
• A desire to continually improve myself 
• So that I can be better at helping others
• So I can live more meaningfully and happily
• Internet
• Mentors
• Multiple technological input devices (already blogged from a mobile device!)
• An acceptance that it will not be perfect
• Typing gloves (I don't have them, but I think I would look really cool in them and they would make me excited during the moments when I love motivation)
• Eating regularly (Took on an extra, unscheduled meeting today when I was supposed to have had lunch.  Hungry blogger = shortcuts and incomplete )
• Humor
• News stories
• Literature -- I HAVE to blog about Brothers Karamazov for one of these posts!
• Rabbis Organizing Rabbis and the I Stand with Ruth Campaign
• Voice-to-word recognition software . . . the novelty (it's still a novelty for me) will make me want to blog.
• Patience

  

DAY 7 FOLLOW-UP: Leadership in love list

So, I made a challenge to jot down a few thoughts on what it means to feel loved, so that we can go forth and try to help others feel the same way.  Here's the part of my list that I'm willing to put on public display in this forum:

HOW DO I FEEL WHEN I AM LOVED:

I feel validated.  I feel supported.  I feel lifted-up.  I feel not-alone.  I feel warm.  I feel unafraid.  I feel important.  I feel that I matter.  I feel entertained.  I feel connection.  I feel motivated to do more and be better.  I feel that it is possible for me to do more and be better.  I feel hope that the world can be improved.  I feel that I have partners in making this world better.  I feel like I can take risks and make mistakes and even fail, but that I will be able to continue to learn and grow, and that is okay.  I feel taller.  I feel that it is okay that the Cubs are the Cubs.  I feel heard.  I feel like giving.  

I know that I appreciate it when others help me to reach these emotions through the gifts of their love.  I hope that I've been to pass some of these rewards forward to those I encountered today, and that I can continue to do so even beyond today's experiment.

Day 7: Leading with Love

Today is Day 7, which is week 1 of the Omer. . . Ha-yom shivah yamim, she-hem sh'vua echad la-omer.

So, one week into the omer experiment, and we're still going strong!  Today is the last day of our week of chesed, loving-kindness.  Before moving onto discipline, gevurah, we have one last chance to focus on bettering our relationships and the giving part of ourselves.  So, let's make it count!

THE OMER INTERSECTION: Chesed + Malchut;  The Leadership of Love.

Malchut is the virtue that deals with leadership and sovereignty.  We do not often think of our loving relationships in terms of leadership.  There will be a chance to see what it means to be a leader who incorporates chesed, loving-kindness, which is an important quality of a good leader.  But today, we look at this intersection from the opposite emphasis: What does it mean to be a leader in a loving-relationship?  Part of this intersection has to do with recognizing how being loved can make us feel.  Our Jewish tradition teaches us to love God, Who is to be loved as a Leader/Sovereign.  In our relationships, when we feel loved, our spirits are lifted up and we are made to feel important and worthy.  And the hope is that such feelings help us to become more compassionate, more caring, more giving.  

At the same time, we should question what it means to be a leader in a loving relationship.  We should be reminded that sometimes, an effective leader needs to step back and not control every aspect of our world - especially when it comes to dealing with other people.  Each one of us has our own personal needs, stories, and expectations; and when we suppress others for our own gain, we are not being leaders in our loving relationships, we are instead using.  Today, we put together the lessons of the week to take a leadership role in loving others. 

THE OMER CHALLENGE: 

So, how do we apply this idea?  Leadership is much easier to talk about in theory than to implement in practice.  It's a tough one, but based on my reflections above, I've come up with a couple of concrete steps to take.  It is easy to take our relationships for granted, to be a passive participant by letting others relate to us.  So, for today, be an active chesed-giver - reach out to three people with whom we have not recently taken an active role in relating.  Set some concrete plans to catch-up with them and re-kindle the relationships.  

And in terms of feeling love, I know this sounds ridiculous.  But let us take out a piece of paper (or a word file on our computers), think of a few of our most dearly-held relationships, and write down a few thoughts on how we feel when we think of the love we receive.  How does it hold us up, and how does it give us strength?  Now, for the next 24 hours, let us try helping others we encounter experience the same emotional bolstering - whether with a spouse, a sibling, or with the check-out person at the grocery store.  Then, take this piece of paper (or file), and save it for day 43, where we might have a little exercise.   

 

THE OMER UPDATE:

Today was our last full day down in Florida with my parents and my sister, brother-in-law, and their 7-month-old.  It is so very easy to let these brief visits fly by and start preparing for "re-entry" into the normal, everyday realities too early.  Having yesterday's challenge of creating a memory made this day extra special for me, because I was attuned to trying to be present in moments and to capture them in my memory. 
Today, we got to spend time at a playground, watching my 17-month-old daughter interact with her 7 month-old cousin and her Bubby.  I took mental images of Bubby pushing each of these little ones in swings or walking with them, and their huge toothless or barely-toothy smiles as they watched her play with them.  I'll remember taking a walk around the block with this motley crew, doing our first "mom-and-dad swing" with our daughter, and the way that she would "run" with her feet in mid-air as we lifted her up.  And I took a mental picture of my parents putting their granddaughter to bed, as I peeked my head in the room when they were reading her a bedtime story.  The three of them cuddling on a bed, and as Bubby whispered one of the lines of the book instead of reading it, my daughter completed the last word on the page with a whisper, matching the tone and mood set forth by her matriarch.  Today was a good reminder to be fully present in the present with whomever we are spending time.