Lou and I are currently reading a book called Reboot.
It’s about leadership “and the art of growing up,” and if you’re interested in getting the book, it’s by Jerry Colonna, and I give it a thumbs up. But today, I am feeling wonkier than usual and my mind was getting the best of me. So I dove into the book to partially distract myself, but also to help me find some insights to ease my worried mind.
I won’t bore you with everything I gained from my time reading this book, but I will jump right in and tell you it was a Hasidic tale that totally shifted me. Let me just write it out verbatim from the book:
“A disciple asks the rabbi: ‘Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts?’ Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?’ The Rabbi answers: ‘It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our heats. So, we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.’”
As soon as I read that little wisdom story, I was flooded with understanding and a certain kind of gratitude I’ve never acknowledged before. I’ve learned in my life to be thankful in all things, and for the most part, I’ve always felt like that makes sense to me. Even at my lowest, I can easily find so many things to be thankful for in my life. Here are just a few surface things that I dwell on with gratitude to get my mind right:
A partially full jug of Tide Original…
A soft bed with clean sheets.
Indoor plumbing and hot water.
Clean hands and feet…
And, a healthy husband.
But reading this Hasidic tale shifted me right when I really needed to shift the most. It showed me that the words of Truth I place upon my heart when I pursue God’s wisdom have only ever had the chance to become a part of me because I’ve been so supremely lucky to have had my heart truly broken. Circumstances that I have created, as well as ones that are way beyond my control, have put the squeeze on my heart, and under that kind of pressure, I’ve felt the actual breaking inside of me. And, I’ve felt the actual shards of sadness and defeat breaking away and scattering into a pile that I don’t know what to do with…
I feel as if I’ve been nursing a very specific broken heart for the past two years, but there have been other profoundly painful heartbreaks in my life in the past decade or so as well. Reliving many of those terrible times in my life when I posted The Imposition Tour made me realize how much I have healed, yet they also reminded me of how broken I’ve been when everything felt like I was definitely about to fall to pieces.
But how blessed am I right now to know that any effort I’ve ever made in my life to place God’s Truth and Love on top of my heart has found a way to slip inside of me because things beyond my control have crashed into me! And what I know now is that all of that Truth is in me, along with the lessons and the hope that God’s Truth always brings… And that leaves me quite full even when my default settings for scarcity and fear seem to trick me into believing I’m empty and undeserving of more.
Today, I totally caught myself fixating on the fractures in my life, and I’ve grown so frustrated by how long it’s been since I’ve felt whole and sorted enough to find my way forward. But right now, at this moment, as I sit here pecking out these thoughts…
