Running on empty
I wake up at the moment feeling like I have 10 mountains to climb before lunch.
And I can’t do it.
Most of the time, my modus operandi in life is to just kind of ‘push through’ and get to the finish line on stuff, on projects – and then have a few days of being ill or exhausted, while I recover.
And then, it starts all over again.
Right now, I feel I have hit the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of my energy reserves, my ‘soul power’.
I feel like I need a month of ‘being on holiday’ – primarily from myself, and all my bad middot.
This is the stage I would usually book a ticket for Uman, but my passport is out of date, and I don’t have the energy even for Uman at the moment.
(Probably, I’m still also scared to return, not because of the war there, but because I think I got a black mark in my passport, somehow, and I have run out of energy to spend hours at the border being yelled at by Ukrainians with guns.)
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Even the ‘fun’ stuff I try to do to take my mind off the matzav is starting to feel too much to deal with, some days.
Me and my husband went to such a nice zimmer last week, when we went to Meron, with it’s own little pool and v close to a private beach.
I spent an hour on the sand doing hitbodedut while I looked at the waves, and then I came home and spent most of the rest of the time reading stuff on the sofa inside, or the deckchair outside.
I have even run out of energy to ‘be on on holiday’.
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I am not a quitter, by definition.
Probably, I’m not going to quit now.
But for sure, the last few days, weeks, months have built into such a crescendo of ‘exhausted’, I don’t know what to do with myself.
There’s so much I want to get done, so much Rav stuff to translate, so many secrets of real Jewish history still to share, so many tikkun haklalis to say, so much teshuva still to make on a million bad middot that keep popping up, so much washing up to do….
And I am hitting the wall.
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Maybe, it’s a good sign.
Maybe, it’s a sign that even lunatics like yours truly are finally just going to have sit back, let go and ‘let God’.
Each person has their own narrow bridge to cross, to get across into ‘geula’, and no-one else can do that work for them.
I’m seeing it even with my kids.
Maybe it’s the intense power of the Counting of the Omer, that’s supercharged this year, but it seems like there is just no running away from our own bad middot at the moment.
God is shoving all our spiritual ‘junk’ in our faces, and He’s not giving anyone any free passes.
I’m having my tests with impatience, anger and despair, and everyone in my family is also having their own tests with their own ‘supercharged bad middot’.
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It’s a time of trouble for Yaakov.
But from this, we will be saved by Hashem.
Even if we’ve run out of energy to ‘do’ everything we really are meant to be doing, and all we can do is sit back, and ask God to please rescue us.
And especially, from ourselves.
seemes to me that if you concentrate on your relations with your husband and children it will greatly enhance your peace of mind and you will be able to function much better. all the best
You’re right.
Isn’t that true for every one of us?
My goodness, I feel like you just described my own experience: I am going through such deep pain with my close family now: this whole morning I was praying to Hashem to please help us in this very difficult and sad situation. I am literally crying when my grandson is in deep emotional pain, sobbing because of some stonehearted and controlling person.
Only Hashem can help, really; what else to do but to pray to Him from the bottom of our hearts when we encounter very hard tests in interpersonal relationships?
But also, Rivka, please, take a break, for your own sake: you need it; treat yourself to some nice experience, music, or whatever it is; feel good. We love you, and thank you for all the great work you are doing.
Yes, Shavuot is getting close; a very intense time for all of us.
Hashem Yerachem!
Shavua Tov.
By the way, after I had davened with such Kavanah for this horrible state of affairs to resolve, the very next day everything was good again.
Amazing how Hashem works things out so easily when we ask Him for help… ..Baruch Hashem is all I can say.
you just hit on the secret of a happy life Daisy….
Kol hakavod.