On Tuesday night, August 6, Mindy Ginsberg, longtime resident of Kew Gardens Hills, speaker for Project Inspire and many other organizations, and Founder and Director of Zichron Chana Bayla Kids for Chesed, shared an inspiring virtual shiur on behalf of the Young Israel of Holliswood. The title was “The Power to Change Your Reality.”
She began by posing the following question: How many of you always do the right thing? She explained that we don’t always do the right thing because we don’t want to do the right thing enough.
She gave some examples. If someone does something not nice to your child, it’s hard to hold back and not speak lashon ha’ra about them. However, if you were offered five million dollars if you don’t say anything, it wouldn’t be hard to refrain.
Another example involves having someone very needy in your life to whom you try to give a lot of attention. One day, you had a hard day at work, and you come home and just want to unwind and relax and that person calls. You will probably not answer. You’ll think of reasons why you couldn’t answer. However, if a little genie pops up and says if you pick up the phone, then someone you know who needs a r’fuah sh’leimah will be completely cured, you will pick it up right away.
She pointed out that when you saw something you wanted, nothing stood in the way of what you wanted. In these examples, you changed your perspective.
So, how do we change what we want? It involves changing what you see or how you see a situation. She showed a diagram of seeing, leading to feeling, leading to reacting. She taught us that we all come from a different place or perspective. We each have our own preconceived notions and our own personal point of view, and this causes us to view the same thing differently.
She showed a picture that can be viewed as an old lady or a young lady. Some people saw the young lady, and some saw the old lady.
She gave another example of how one child might need you to just acknowledge that he got hurt, while another might need more validation.
Then she shared an example from Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier’s book 10 Really Dumb Mistakes that Very Smart Couples Make. A wife called her husband home because she said it was an emergency. The emergency is two cockroaches on the floor. He doesn’t understand the big deal, while to her they are like two snarling German Shepherd dogs. For her it was an emergency. Mrs. Ginsberg stated, “We don’t all live in the same reality.” Knowing this idea can help determine the quality of all of our relationships.
She shared that perspective is determined by our past experience, our nature, our vantage point (if we see the whole picture or just part of it), time (sometimes we need time to see things a different way). She shared how someone missed the Pam Am flight 103 to Lockerbie, Ireland, that ended up crashing. They were upset about missing the flight, but time taught them a different perspective entirely.
She emphasized that we could choose what we are going to see. With every situation in life, we can paint our own picture.
She shared a humorous, insightful video clip on how to stay miserable. Doing the opposite would, of course, have the opposite effect.
Cling to entitlement. Life owes you.
It’s all personal. Always assume evil intent.
Focus on problems and keep track of them.
Magnify.
No gratitude. No thank-yous.
Discount all the good in life and focus on how life disappoints you.
She shared an example where she was able to paint a picture with a different perspective in a potentially infuriating situation. It was a Friday afternoon, and she ran into the store to pick up some things. She was pressured to finish preparing for Shabbos, and her car was blocked by someone who double-parked. She decided to imagine that it was someone who had an emergency with an elderly relative or a woman with a walker who parked there.
This enabled her to avoid getting angry. So, though initially she felt upset, she was able to paint a different picture. Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, MD, taught that we are not responsible for our primary response. We are responsible for our secondary response.
She shared a mashal of a boy picking up starfish at the beach and throwing them into the water. A man comes over to the boy and tells him that the boy will never be able to save all the starfish on the beach. The boy throws one back into the water and says that he made a difference for that starfish.
She shared the idea of focusing on what we can do today for one particular person.
The next time you hear an inner negative voice, paint a picture in your mind: Visualize a saltshaker. She explained the symbolism of the saltshaker. When we make mistakes, we should look forward not back. Salt inhibits growth. Of course, we should do t’shuvah, but then we need to move forward and not ruminate on our mistakes. Lot’s wife turned back and then turned into a pillar of salt. She got stuck in her path. That destructive voice inside of us focuses on mistakes and causes us to be stuck. Focusing on mistakes impairs our ability to solve problems and erodes our support network. No one wants to keep hearing negativity. Salt reminds us that we don’t want to get stuck.
The next time you feel anxious, paint a picture in your mind of the best possible outcome. “Living life with emunah and hope is a life better lived.” She quoted from T’hilim that when we trust in Hashem, His chesed will surround us because of our emunah.
She shared a picture of a man holding a child’s hand with a long road ahead. Life is full of challenges because these are our opportunities to grow. She said that she chooses to feel that Hashem is holding her hand as she goes through this journey of life.
Take the gifts and the people Hashem has blessed you with in your life and choose to have the perspective of seeing the good. She concluded that we can choose to be our best selves. We can paint a picture of the proper secondary response. This all helps us feel that Hashem is beside us, holding our hand. “We can call out and say I believe. I want to believe, and then I will feel more so that He is holding my hand.”
The community is grateful for this beautiful shiur!
By Susie Garber
