Shlumpy to Gorgeous

"There Is World

By Tzvi Freeman

here are three things to always remember:

The One Above, yourself below, and the world in between.

Abandon any one of those and you will stumble and fall.

Even those who grasp for G–d alone, they do not build, but desolate.

To reach G–d, you must deal with the reality of your world and redeem it.

—from a talk, spring of '91 (Iyar 5751)"

By Tzvi Freeman
From the wisdom of the Lubavitcher Rebbe , of righteous memory; words and condensation by Tzvi Freeman . To order Tzvi's book, "Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, click here. Rabbi Freeman is available for public speaking and workshops. Read more on his bio page.

I've been enjoying working on my world lately. I get so much more of a reward out of the good work I do with my family if I compare it to the work I do with my paying job. And I've been remembering how good I really am at my non-paying job as wife and mother, daughter, sister and friend, though, of course, I can always do better.

Walking with Geoff in the morning is key. Otherwise, we just don't make the time to talk. Maybe one day I'll even get him to walk in the trees with me instead of always being on West Cliff. My new name for him is "savant" because of his incredibly quick mind.

Making more time for my kids and focusing on what needs to be done better in that department really feels good. Especially since I was so absent last year and they had to go through fears of losing me, it's important for me to show them I'm still here. I get up in the morning with them when they have breakfast and I told Geoff this morning that I want to pick up Aimee from school from now on.

There are other more personal things I am doing for each of my family members that has improved our relationships and dissolved some of my own stress too. I just want to protect them, so I can't go into them here. But my usual method of running away from difficulties has transformed into realizing how much I get from going through them and getting to the other side.

My job outside of the home is a great distraction and mostly I feel energized after a day of working, unless I just overbook myself which is easy for me to do. But it gives me a sense of power and self-worth when I know that at every moment with a client, I am just doing my best. That way, I can let go of old thoughts and worries about the problems of others that I can't solve for them. My therapist reminds me that my clients tend to come back, so I must be doing something right!

I've paid off all of the scam this month!! So I'm going to start paying my friend in April to rent the beautiful office she so graciously allowed me to use for free.

I can now see the "reason" for the scam. It's Higher Purpose was to help me commit more to a job that pays me well and that I do well. I've always had so many doubts about it and my ability and fears around whether I really wanted to get into all that again. It's been 10 years of trying to find another way of making an income. I needed that scam to stop me from trying to find an easy way out. And the cancer to make me fear I wouldn't be able to work just when I had started back up again. So the scam also forced me to not run away, but instead, move forward through to the other side of the difficulties.

I also was worried I wouldn't be able to find a way through my latest setback with the Tamoxifen but now I see the light at the end of the tunnel. With the Wellbutrin, I've gone through the uncomfortable parts of starting a new med and it's working better inside of me now. And I'm not afraid to take a tiny amount of Lunesta every night. It's so nice to not have to suffer from insomnia when there's a solution for it that works better than anything else natural that I've ever tried.

This week I've been looking at my insane desire to eat cookies. I really don't want to put sugar into my system because it feeds those bad cells. My question for myself this week has been - what else gives me pleasure? What else could be a treat for me? So I've reintroduced myself to a different, healthier addiction, crime novels. TV is one of my unhealthy addictions and I don't want to spend so much time watching TV so it's been fun to have the energy to get back into reading without falling asleep from it.

But I still watch Law and Order and now love the shows Medium and Cold Case. I allow myself to watch TV in moderation and remember hearing somewhere a long time ago that TV's the modern form of meditation. My favorite new show is one that Aimee turned me on to: "What Not to Wear". I watch it with a smile on my face the entire time. Aimee was imitating my face while watching it and we laughed so hard. I love seeing the transformation from shlumpy to gorgeous!

I think that's the Jewish purpose for life - to turn our world from shlumpy to gorgeous!