Uncle Bernie asks how it’s going. It’s his 85th birthday, and I had emailed him to say hello and send good wishes. He’s across the world in Arizona, and I’m here in Israel.
I stared at his question on the screen.
How is it going?
I answered cheerfully that all is well and sent a couple of photos of the family. The six of us at Tishbi Winery for Ariella’s 20th birthday, and one of me and the girls with big smiles and a photobomb from Dovid behind us.
I told him we love Israel.
But none of this actually answered his question.
My friend Carol, who lives in Tanzania, said she is also thrown by that question every time I ask her.
I say, “How are you feeling?” And she doesn’t know how to answer. So she really thinks about it.
If I start to go inside and unravel how I’m actually doing or feeling this morning, where should I start?
Shall I talk about my home, my kids, my partner, my job, my hobbies?
That my 14-year-old daughter has pneumonia and I’ve been up with her during the night much of the week? That I’m grateful I can be there for her as best as I can now, because I wasn’t always the greatest mother?
Should I mention the war? The app that shows me each day where the bombs are because for now, the sirens and threats aren’t quite close enough to directly affect us (although they were at the start of the war when we lived further north in Kiryat Tivon)?
That my 20-year-old daughter is dating a soldier, a commander in the IDF, and she worries about him? He lost his best friend in Gaza, and news of fallen soldiers comes in daily.
Or that my 12-year-old son finally has good friends, even though he doesn’t like school?
Should I mention my decades of inner healing work? And what does that even mean?
That I started therapy at age 17 as a freshman at UF because it was free at the student center? That I went because I felt some inner discomfort, a push and pull that kept me on constant alert for potential threats from the humans around me (though at the time I didn’t realize this and was later diagnosed with C-PTSD)?
And that I continued going to different types of therapists for the next three decades, eventually finding ACA, the spiritual 12-step group program to heal intergenerational trauma and my inner parts?
I’ve learned that everyone is hurting in some way. Every. Single. Person. And that’s okay.
Those feelings are our guideposts, our signals.
We can’t clean something up if we keep kicking it under the sofa so no one sees it.
In elementary school one day at lunch, I didn’t drink my milk, so I brought it home in my backpack because I was afraid of getting in trouble for wasting it. Then I hid it under my bed. Eventually, my mom came in and wondered what the smell was. We cleaned out under the bed and got rid of the culprit.
The point is, the stuff each of us is hiding will eventually start to stink if we don’t deal with it.
No one had a perfect childhood, and we are all born with certain defects of character. The goal is to find our strengths, utilize them as best we can, and clean up other stuff.
How? By really paying attention to how we feel.
Is something or someone bothering me? If so, that’s probably shining light on what I need to fix inside me. It’s the milk that’s hidden and needs to be cleaned out before it starts to smell.
For example, it really bothers me when some people have angry faces and don’t smile, or when they don’t speak cheerfully.
But through my healing, I’m learning that I need to do these things for myself. To smile more, to take myself out to do fun things, to give myself lots of words of affirmation and love.
Some things I told myself this week… Mindy, I know exactly how you feel, and I’m here for you.
Good job cleaning up the kitchen and making your house a home.
Good for you finding a remote job that is flexible–after many humbling interviews and lots of searching, while living in a new country where you don’t speak the language and you’re going through perimenopause.
Oh, now you have your period, it was almost a week late because of your hormone shifts, and you want to spend most of the day in your room?
Of course-I’ll get you the art supplies and yoga mat, lots of water and a smoothie, my love. You can’t focus on work?
We’ll catch up another day; there’s no shame in taking a break. You are loved no matter what!
And I talk to my Higher Power throughout the day, asking for guidance and strength. Because I’m a human down here in a very physical, challenging world. And as humans, we are definitely not meant to try to do this alone.
It’s all some strange experiment, and most of us got sort of lost along the way, forgetting to check in with our Source. As soon as we surrender, life suddenly feels different.
We come down here multiple times in this world to try to get it right, and as long as we are still breathing, there’s still a bit more time to work at it.
I was so used to carrying all this baggage (like all of us who haven’t done the inner work) that it’s taking me time to learn how to live without it.
Yesterday, I went for a walk with my 18-year-old son Alex, and the view was so extraordinary I simply couldn’t move. I didn’t have my phone with me, so I couldn’t take a photo and just looked at it with awe.
Then as we walked further, I saw a girl eating something off a tree and asked her about it. They’re little white Israeli strawberries. The trees line the street, and the fruits are so plentiful that they fall to the ground. So I stood with her and ate some of this sweet treat.
My son and I chatted along the way, and he thanked me for the stuff I taught him, which he said he couldn’t appreciate before.
Then in the evening, I played with my dog Diego. I am learning to love and to play and have fun in my life.
Bad things happen, people do unbelievably bad things, but it’s only because of the absence of love.
The things the enemy did here on Oct. 7 are literally beyond human comprehension. Getting rid of the evil is necessary.
But learning about these bad things and then allowing it to make my life darker only lets the bad win. So when I see or read something sad that happens, I do something good in honor of that person. I cry, and I beg G-d for mercy, and then I do something.
And sometimes the best, most loving thing I can do is rest.
So, that’s how I’m doing. I’m glad you asked. How are you?
Mindy Morasha 