The Power of Positive Thinking

MyLife Essay Contest 2015

This essay will address the very prevalent issue of anxiety. It will introduce techniques based on study and contemplation to help overcome this issue. These principles are developed in many places in Chassidus, but I will focus on the Sicha Parshos Shemos Chelek lamaed Vov and Tanya Igeress Hakodesh yud aleph.

Almost 1 in five people feel anxious all or a lot of the time according to a study conducted in the United Kingdom in 2014. The study also showed that 20% of those people do nothing to cope with it, less than 10% go to a doctor for help, ¼ of those surveyed deal with anxiety through comfort eating and 1/3 of the students who participated in the survey said they deal with anxiety by “hiding from the world.”

Anxiety can interfere with a person’s concentration, social life and even their relationships. While people have spent fortunes on getting help for this issue, many are unaware of the valuable insights that Chassidus offers on this subject. I have firsthand experience with anxiety.

On the night that my mother gave birth to my youngest sister, after we visited her, our family packed into our car and headed back home in high spirits. Johannesburg’s high crime rate is already a cause for anxiety. As we got home I did what I had been doing for years, I looked over my shoulder to make sure that we had no unwanted company at our gate, only this time there was. I alerted my father. He ran to close the gate and call the police. The would be robber fled and we were all shaken.

I couldn’t sleep that night. That incident brought back a flood of memories from when my family was held up at gunpoint in our home when I was a toddler. The trauma from that incident stayed with me for many years. For a long time I lived with fear even though I knew that it wasn’t healthy.

The 1st mental switch for me was when I heard the well-known story of a chosid of the Tzemach Tzedek whose son was seriously ill. He was advised to travel to his Rebbe to get a brocha. As you can imagine his fear was indescribable and with no one else to turn to he made the difficult trek to his Rebbe. When he arrived he requested a blessing for the full recovery of his son. The Tzemach Tzedek told him five words ‘Tracht gut vet zein gut’ – ‘Think good and it will be good.’ The chosid took this to heart and worked on himself very hard the whole journey home to really internalize what the Rebbe had told him. When he got back to his hometown he was in utmost shock to see his previously frail and debilitated son completely healed and back to his normal self.

Recently our class at school learnt the sicha from the Rebbe which develops the theme of that story. It starts off with the pivotal moment In Moshe’s life where he was exposed for the 1st time to his nations suffering. Very disturbingly he saw one of his Jewish brethren being beaten by a cruel Egyptian. He immediately said ה׳s 72 letter name which killed the Egyptian. Shortly afterwards he saw 2 Jews fighting, as he walked past the one Jew called out angrily “are you going to kill us like you killed the Egyptian?” Moshe was shocked and it says וירא משה״” and Moshe was scared. And straight afterwards it says that Moshe had to run away from Egypt for his life. In the sicha the Rebbe points out that the fact that moshes life was threatened was in fact a result of him expressing fear.

This illustrates how our thoughts and certainly our speech, really affect the outcome of the situation. That fact that Moshe had negative thoughts,” וירא מש”, and spoke negatively,”ויאמר”, caused there to be negative situation where his life was in danger.

We see from the torah that we each have two separate responsibilities A. To have Emunah – to believe that Hashem can do good and B. To have Bitochon – to trust absolutely that Hashem will do good. This isn’t just a formula to think about but to work on and to live. As we so often hear, Hashem deals with us Midash keneged Midah. Measure for measure. When we work on ourselves to the point where we are at total ease. And know that Hashem will do good then he rewards with a positive outcome.

Now if we are honest with ourselves this is all much easier said than done. How do we apply this practically to our lives?

We see that the goal of Chassidus is to make Hashem more real to us. Chassidus takes those things which are beyond both finite and infinite, beyond human reach, and makes them accessible to us. The more real Hashem is to us, the easier it becomes for us to have Bitachon, absolute trust.

Another piece of this Bitochon puzzle is to live with the concept of Hashgacha pratis – believing that Hashem controls everything from the greatest issue to the smallest seemingly insignificant event. We need to look through our lives and acknowledge all the times when Hashem arranged everything to fall into place for our benefit. When we appreciate how Hashem has looked after us in the past, it makes it much more possible to trust that he will do the same going forward.

In Tanya Igeres Hakodesh yud aleph it discusses how Hashem recreates the world from scratch at every moment. To really get that idea is the key piece of the puzzle to help us truly trust in Hashem because A. if Hashem recreates the world at every moment,  and  Hashem is the source of all good, then at every moment he pumps fresh goodness into the world. And B. Hashem can create a new reality every moment, and that new reality can be way better than anyone would’ve predicted. We can then trust that Hashem will make everything turn out to be good. That is not easy to do, so to reward our efforts in building that trust in Hashem which is difficult to do Hashem actually makes things turn out good.

Considering how great an issue anxiety is in our society, we would all do well to regularly explore and apply the insights, techniques and meditations that Chassidus provides us with. Considering that Chabad was born in Czarist and communist Russia and yet produced the most optimistic, positive group of people, surely Chassidus works to overcome the anxiety of the 21^st century.