It's all in Your Mind!


Shalom Jewish moms! It was a wonderful Pesach, but for the whole vacation I was itching to tell you all about the incredible book I read while my kids did arts and crafts at the Bible Lands Museum and more arts and crafts in Hebron, and yet more arts and crafts at Ain Yael. My matzah-munching companion was called It’s all in Your Mind: The Jewish Path to Unlocking your Potential by Rabbanit Sara Yosef (the daughter-in-law of Harav Ovadia Yosef Shlit”a).

Rabbanit Yosef is a woman on a mission. And her mission is: THINK GOOD AND IT WILL BE GOOD!

In her bestselling book, popular workshops, and the feature article last month about her in Mishpacha magazine, she explains that if you wake up sneering at the world, chances are life will sneer right back. If you wake up knowing in your gut that it’s going to be a crummy day, then that very day your kids will miss the school bus. You’ll fight with your husband over who forgot to pay the telephone bill. Your mother will make you cry bitter tears with a by-the-way comment about the 40 pounds you put on during your last pregnancy, and still haven’t managed to lose (and your “baby” is turning 4 this month.)

Alternatively, if you wake up and force yourself to THINK POSITIVE, then there’s a pretty good chance that your hardships will miraculously disappear. If you wake up, and despite your fighting children with their mismatched socks and the minus in your bank account and the overdue project for your boss, you insist nevertheless on taking a few minutes to imagine what a smooth and joyful day you are about to have, then life will smile right back at you.

Here’s three incredible real-life examples of positive-thinking in action from It’s All in Your Mind:

Mrs. R. Yudeikin relates:
“I purchased a suit at a store quite a distance from my home. When I returned home and reexamined the suit, I realized the skirt was a size too large for me. I sighed when I realized that returning the skirt would necessitate traveling on two buses to get to the store and three buses to return home again. Because of the cashier’s mistake, I would make this exhausting trip just to exchange a skirt. As annoyed as I was, somehow over the next few minutes I managed to calm down and decided to call the store.

Before making the call, I told myself aloud, “With G-d’s help, this will all work out for the best.” To my utter amazement, when I spoke to the store owner he told me that in fact he lived near me, and on his way home he would be more than happy to make a detour to my house to exchange the skirt, My positive words were fulfilled in full.”

Mrs. G. Gutwein describes:
“My five-year-old daughter suffered from chronic bed-wetting. I tried all sorts of treatments but nothing helped. Every night when I went to sleep, the thoughts that accompanied me at bedtime were, “Here comes another unpleasant morning with wet sheets.” My daughter was depressed and we were at our wits’ end.

While participating in a positive-thinking workshop, I came to realize the extent to which negative words and thoughts can prevent a thorny situation from improving. From that moment, whenever negative thoughts about my daughter’s situation entered my mind I immediately seized control of myself and, with G-d’s help, managed to repeat to myself that my daughter would wake up dry in the morning. Well, the astounding actually happened: within three days, my daughter was totally cured of her bed-wetting problems.”

Mrs. R. Ben-Amram relates:
“My son had been causing me a great deal of grief. He was a yeshivah student who had gradually slacked off and finally left his studies. His spiritual state deteriorated, and he began associating with friends who were totally lacking in discipline. He started coming home very late at night and would sleep until the afternoon. When he finally woke up, he would putter about doing nothing until nighttime, when he would again go out to have a good time with his friends. During the day, I was tense and overwrought because he was sleeping all day and he did not go to pray. He just wasted most of his time. My worrying caused me enormous pressure, and I could not imagine a way out.

I decided that what was disturbing me most was my son’s returning home late at night. So I began imagining him walking into the house every night at twelve midnight, going to sleep and waking up at a reasonable hour in the morning. For an entire week, I imagined this every spare moment I had and before going to sleep. The following night, the front door opened and in stepped my son at twelve o’clock. Slowly, his situation improved and he began returning home every night at a sensible hour. I am convinced that this is a result of my positive thoughts about him.

I then added another goal: I wanted my son to get up in the morning and go to pray in shul. As before, I conjured up an image in my mind, during every spare moment, of how he was waking up in the morning and going to shul. Gradually, this too started happening. I kept on setting small goals that I wanted fulfilled, which led to amazing successes for my son. Afterward, I imagined him finding a suitable job, and that is what happened. After a while, thank G-d, my son ended up returning to study in yeshiva!”

Pretty amazing, right? Since reading It’s all in Your Mind, I’ve also been working on thinking more positively, and have found the results quite astounding. Jewish mom, try it out today!

To learn more about Rabbanit Yosef, or to order her book and positive thinking CDs, visit her website www.JPThink.com

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com user Dang Thanh Nam

2 comments

  1. where can I get a copy of this book? it seems that they are out of print, and I am unsure of paying for a book that is not yet printed.

  2. This concept of “think good and it will be good” has long ago been one of the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s mottos: “tracht gut vet zain gut” the Rebbe instructed in many many situation including helth-life-threatening ones.
    [Chassidus explains that] Our thoughts create energies that surround us and affect us and those around us, cosequently the way we think affects the reality…

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