Dr. Terry Segal’s Rosh Hashanah Message for 2022

Another challenging year has passed. We’ve come through it, touched in varying degrees, by joy and grief. The Jewish New Year provides opportunity for deep reflection, release, renewal, and reconnection.

If there’s anything these past few years have taught us, it’s discernment. Issues of health and safety require us to assess each moment as if our lives depend on it. Because they do.

This summer we removed carpeting and installed the healthier choice of hardwoods. It required us to handle every item stored for the past 25 years and make decisions about it, including our children’s “treasures” and the inherited items from my mother, father, and grandparents.

I’m a sentimental fool and saved every paper with artistic brushstrokes made by our three children. Determined to only put back things that spark joy or serve a purpose, I called a family meeting and, with permission, downsized to one bin for my parents/grandparents’ keepsakes and one per child. I kept all of their precious notes to me, some art, and cards with the handwriting of departed loved ones.

Prom corsages, more brown than pink, were discarded and I released the rest, having laughed and cried, while cherishing the memories. I never imagined my perceptions would change. That was the unpolished gem in this scrutiny that extends beyond bins, to all choices regarding who I’ve become. It also fits who I’m becoming.

None of us is who we were last year. Life can be simpler if we stop comparing it to how it used to be. The more we can be present, and mindfully release anything that weighs us down, the lighter we’ll feel.

May we walk gently into this New Year with more space inside and around us, that allows us to see G-d’s light on our path forward.

Dr. Terry Segal is a licensed psychotherapist, Ph.D. in Energy Medicine, author, and mixed-media artist.