Welcome to Emotional Wellness Daily, a project of SIMHA, the Sephardic Initiative for Mental Health Awareness.
We've been speaking about how one makes an imprint on their brain or heart, so that things should last and make an impression. We're talking about repetition and practice makes perfect. You have to make many, many indentations in order for that new neuro pathway to last.
Rav Yisrael Salanter has an additional hiddush that it's not enough just to repeat something many times. We must repeat it with excitement and emotion.
We’ll use a story to explain. There was a great Rabbi named the Chatam Sofer, who was one of the great giants of his generation. He once met an old classmate of his from elementary school. This classmate was amazed at the depth and breadth of his old classmate’s knowledge. He asked the Chatam Sofer, “What's your secret? How do you do it? How do you remember all that? How does it all stay with you?” The Chatam Sofer answered, “Do you remember when we were kids how the king passed through the town?
He said, “Yes, I remember the stage coach, and I remember the guards and their buttons…” and he described, in detail, an event that had happened 40 years prior.
The Chatam Sofer said, “How do you remember all that? It was 40 years ago.” And the man said, “Well, you know, I was really excited. I was enthused. It was something that really made an impression on me.”
So the Chatam Sofer said, “Every time I learn a piece of Gemara, I have the same excitement.”
That means that in order for something to penetrate and make an impression, there has to be, in the words of Rav Yisrael Salanter, a hitpa’alut/an excitement about it. You see something and it’s wow. You can almost call it a sense of awe and excitement. That excitement, that enthusiasm, makes an impression. And it also causes things, Rav Yisrael Salanter says, to enter into our subconscious. Those excitements and those imprints go deep into oursubconscious and will make everlasting imprints.
This is an important point- we have a lot of information, but information alone doesn't do it. You need that excitement. You need that impression that happens from the emotion.
There's also an added aspect, which we spoke about, which is the experiential aspect. When you experience something, you feel it. There's an experience of holding your control self-control. You experience it. You could talk a lot about it but Rabbi Yonah says, there's nothing sweeter than having self-control.
When you decide to abstain from something, and you actually do it, it’s a great feeling. There are people battling addictions, and they'll say, “I've been sober for 323 days… or 17 years, and 316 days.” There's an excitement over every day and every moment. But that's something that you have to experience. You have to feel it. The more you feel those things, the more of an impression that you get.
If you are working on listening skills, and you actually sit there and listen, although it comes to your mind that you want to say this or that, or you want to respond a certain way, but you don’t- you continue listening and focusing, these experiences make an imprint. So, therefore, and this is our important takeaway, as we quoted from the Mesilat Yesharim, knowledge alone is not going to do it. We know it all. We once gave a class based on a book called Everything I Need to Know, know I Learned in Kindergarten.
We all know you're supposed to share. You're supposed to be kind. You're supposed to say please. We know all those things. So if we know it all, then why aren't we changing? The answer is, because in order to change the way you act and react, it's not enough to just know it. It has to make an imprint on your brain and imprint on your subconscious.
So our two key takeaways are,
1-to experience what you understand.
2-to have an excitement about it, an emotional feel towards it. That will help the change come about.
Have a wonderful day.