Welcome to the SIMHA Emotional Wellness Minute. Yesterday we spoke about the challenge of Pizur HaNefesh, which we'll call being scatterbrained, or all over the place. It's a negative force in human psyche and in the world at large. So what do we do? The Elder of Kelm in his Kinkas Kabalot, (page 20) says to practice the following:
1-Put your thoughts constantly on the area that you are involved in, and do not think about anything else.
Don't sit here and think about your trip to Florida.
This is an important point. Our generation is tremendously challenged by lack of focus. Bring focused means, if I'm talking to you, I'm talking to you, and I'm not looking at my phone, I'm not doing other things, I'm talking to you.
As I said, this a huge problem in our world today, and I'm talking to myself. If I'm on a zoom meeting on my computer, you can’t see if I am also preparing sheets for a class, or numbering them. You don't see if I'm just a little bored and I decide to take a peek at the menu of a restaurant that I'm going order from for lunch, or any of the other things that I can busy myself with.
Think about the concept of Windows. When Windows first came out, there was a psychologist that wondered how in the world it was going work. How could anybody create a product that would allow you to flit from window to window? What could be the advantage of that? Now we know very well. We love flipping from window to window.
Somebody told me recently that certain movie apps know that if, after 4 minutes and 20 seconds, there isn’t something exciting or thrilling, you're going to go somewhere else. I was on a plane recently and saw two people on their phones, just going from social media account to social media account, scrolling up, scrolling down, never focusing on what they're doing. It's literally a Yetzer Hara movement to turn the entire society into a culture of never staying in the moment and always moving on to something else.
The term ‘staying in the moment,’ is a mindfulness term, but I always get excited when I see that this existed way before anybody went to Tibet and came back with any of the new mindfulness techniques. The Elder of Kelm lived in Europe, far from mindfulness, and he knew how detrimental being scatterbrained is, so he gave us advice- to take something to focus on.
The first example he gives is prayer. We all know how challenging it is to have kavana for the first beracha, which is essential for our prayer to be accepted. So why don't we work on that? We could kill two birds with one stone, as they say. We can a)pray better, and b)work on our focusing.
So let’s focus on the saying the first Beracha properly. You're only supposed to be thinking about the words that you're saying. You’re not even supposed to think about a Mitzvah that you have to do. Totally focus on what you're saying and what you're doing.
Another piece of advice he gives (in the same sefer on page 14) is to think before you speak. Before you say something, think about what you're going to say. That also helps you be less scatterbrained. You're focused. ‘I'm thinking, I'm pausing. What am I going to say?’ He says that's a great training method.
Again, we can try this with one small thing, which is a beracha, that we definitely say more than once a day, “Shehakol Niheye Bidvarot.”
Are we thinking before the words come out of our mouths? That's what it means to be focused.
Think, before making this beracha-
“I'm attuned to what I'm about to do. I'm attuned to what I'm about to say, I’m attuned to the words that are coming out of my mouth. I'm talking to God now, I'm saying:
Baruch Atah/ You
Hashem- Hashem, the One that's pumping energy into me right now, That is, was and will be,
Elokenu, the One who is the Judge and power behind everything and watches over and supervises me.
Melech HaOlam/King of the universe,
Shehakol/Everything
Nihiyah Bidvaro/Came about through His words
And this glass of water, or cup of coffee that I’m about to drink, He willed it to be and willed it to be a drink that's going to quench my thirst. I'm focused on what I'm saying.”
That grounds you, that anchors you. And that's the goal here. The terms grounded or anchored are , again, mindfulness terms, but that's really what the Elder of Kelm was talking about- to be here and now, like an anchor that prevents the ship from flying all over the place.
So we have two pieces of religious advice to help ground us:
A- focus on the words of prayer in the first blessing of the Amidah.
B- be cognizant of the words that are coming out of our mouths, when we say Shehakol Nihiyah Bidvaro.
Try it.
Have a wonderful day.