Hey, everyone, let’s talk about healthy positivity. The two terms in the title of this post are different ways of being optimistic/positive. Radical optimism is the belief that life is good and that we have the right to trust in positive outcomes, despite the difficulties and challenges we face and the misgivings we feel. Toxic positivity is the refusal …
Hi, everyone. I am taking a course on Mindful Self-Compassion and it is so good! We are learning different tools and exercises to use when facing challenges or feeling distressed. One of the tools we practiced was soothing touch. Applying soothing touch to your body stimulates the release of oxytocin and other opiates that reduce stress hormones and help you …
The #1 concern shared by my readers (and by me) is the question: how do I know my husband is really out there? How do I know I’ll find him? And what if I don’t? You have probably discussed this with people over the years and been reminded that the bas kol proclaimed “bas ploni l’ploni” 40 days before …
I was going to write about the third top struggle you shared in the survey, the fear of not finding the right person, but that post will wait a bit. I want to share another one first, inspired by Cinderella’s glass slipper in Monday’s post. Many of us grew up with fairytales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, in one …
The second of the top three challenges you shared in the survey was not having dates. We haven’t talked enough about that here, so let’s get into it. When I was in my low 20’s, I had a conversation with one of my uncles about shidduchim. I was very down and said that no one was interested in me. …
One of the top three dating struggles you shared in the survey was the fear that there is something wrong with you or that you are doing something wrong in shidduchim. Let’s try to put that fear to rest. Several years ago I listened to a shiur by Mrs. Dina Schoonmaker on emunah in shidduchim (it was live …
Hi, everyone. I hope you all had a good Y”T. It’s been awhile since I added to our mindful dating series but it’s one of my favorite things on this blog so here’s another installment! Let’s say you’re on a date, maybe it’s the first or third or fifth, and you’re hit with a wave of anxiety. You get …
Tonight as I was braiding my challah my roommate asked, “So how many weeks have you been doing this?” I checked the calendar and realized that this is the fortieth week of my challah project. The FORTIETH week! I have been making challah for almost an entire year! As we know, forty is a spiritually significant number in Judaism. …
As Ingrid Fettell Lee says, focusing on small moments of joy unlocks deeper happiness. Looking for joy changes your orientation to the world; no matter how difficult things get, it’s possible to find little joys everywhere. Here is a list of 50 joyful things:
Hey, all, I just wanted to take a look at some common shidduch clichés and reexamine them. What I find the most irritating about the items on this list is that they all make such sweeping generalities and then leave it up to you to know how, or even whether, to apply them to your situation. Which isn’t really fair, …
