When the roots are firmly planted, even a temporary blow to our ego can be survived
IN our last installment we explored five fears that might hold people back from living life to the fullest. Today we’ll continue with the next five fears identified by Amy Morin, LCSW.
This is the ubiquitous, pending fear of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Whether it is based on misinformation about ayin hara or the cyclical reality of life — that good times are sometimes eventually followed by hard times — we often internalize a sense of pending doom that significantly mars our ability to enjoy the present.
Hashem created us with built-in mechanisms for protecting ourselves from getting hurt, which are critical to our physical and emotional survival. But often when we’ve been traumatized, we sense danger and hurt even when they may not exist. Learning to differentiate between real and perceived danger allows us to take calculated risks.
It is amazing how much power we ascribe to others’ ability to judge us. While it’s true that people who judge can cause us harm through their subsequent actions, it’s also true that no one can actually touch our inner, innate worth. The sense of shame we feel when we’re judged can be excruciating, but when we recognize that we’re outsourcing our worth, we can reclaim it by realigning ourselves with the knowledge that we’re a cheilek Eloka mi’maal. And no one can touch that.
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