‘De-Stressing’ at Chabad
BY R.M. GROSSBLATT / AJT //
If you’re finding life a bit stressful these days, Rabbi Laibl Wolf has some good news.
“You have the power to redirect your consciousness,” he said, and change your everyday reality.
Rabbi Wolf, a well-known Australian psychologist and mystic, was the guest speaker recently at the Intown Jewish Academy’s 7th Annual Celebration of Jewish Life and Learning.
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His talk, “The Seven Habits of De-Stressed People,” was aimed directly at people living lives today at warp speed and focused on how best to eliminate worry and anxiety from our lives through “mindful living and reprogramming the Brain.”
First, however, Rabbi Ari Sollish, director of the Intown Jewish Academy, welcomed everyone to the Kaufman Youth Center off Monroe Drive. Then, Rabbi Eliyahu Shusterman, founder and director of Chabad Intown, detailed upcoming events and classes that will spread across a wide range of topics and interests, from Judaism and medical dilemmas to the joys of Jewish cooking.
Once Rabbi Wolf was introduced, stress – and how to conquer it – took center stage.
He first discussed the uniqueness of all people and the problems that arise when stress gets in the way of using our special gifts.
Defining stress as “your interpretation of reality,” Rabbi Wolf said it’s each of us, individually, that “choose to be stressed.”
He added the issue can be pushed aside with mindfulness and chochma, Hebrew for wisdom. All it takes, he said, is for the individual to “be creative in changing the way you think.”
Rabbi Wolf emphasized that anger is never good.
“Every act of venting anger is a dress rehearsal for the next occasion,” he said.
He added that no one improves when someone gets angry. The only way a person improves, he said, is by observing role models.
So when others are yelling and screaming, he suggested that we be, “mindful in the moment,” and understand that angry people must be in pain. Then we should ask ourselves, “What can I do to help?”
If we’re really interested in changing our lives, Rabbi Wolf offers several “De-Stressors” that might prove helpful, that include creating inner balance, engaging assertive humility and self-worth and diagramming a new “storyboard” in our minds.
On this last point, he suggested developing a repertoire of two or three happy thoughts to displace the negative ones that play out in our minds.
Want to know more?
For additional information about Intown Chabad and upcoming programs, visit www.chabadintown.org or call (404) 898-0434.
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