Category: Articles and Tools

From a Jewish perspective, happiness refers to a very specific emotional state.  What many people fail to understand is that happiness is only one of many pleasures that one can experience, such as joy, growth, power, creativity, doing the right thing, perseverance, discipline, change, learning, giving, love, and closeness to …

Do you have ownership of your life? Having ownership of your life means your decisions, actions, values, beliefs, and commitments belong to you because you have consciously chosen them. Ownership means you do what you do or believe what you believe because you want to, not because you feel coerced …

When you start thinking that he/she may be the one, make sure you ask these ten questions before you tie the knot. #1: Do We Care about Each Other as Good Friends Do? When you’re getting serious about someone, don’t ask: “Are we in love?” The question to first ask …

What is a human being?  Depending on your philosophic lenses, there may be several answers.  Judaism defines a human being as a being created in the image of G-d—a physical body with an eternal, non-physical soul.  The medieval commentator, Rashi explains that “created in G-d’s image” means that the human …

Judaism encourages us to strive for greatness. What’s more, one of the greatest needs of a human being is to be great.  This is because we are created in the image of G-d and every human being is instilled with a thirst to be G-d-like.  We see this everywhere we …

Previously, I discussed the importance of listening to ones feelings. Feelings educate us.They are information that we must access and process if we want to maximize ourself-development. They are the pathways to self-discovery. I also pointed out that troubling feelings such as sadness, loneliness, shame, anger, etc, contain the greatest …

In the movie, Inside/Out, Riley’s parents demonstrate the damaging impact of being emotionally unattuned when they fail to listen to their daughter’s anger and sadness. While at the end of the movie, they model the healing impact of being emotionally attuned when they embrace Riley’s sadness upon her return home …

Songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote, “Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” There is no perfection in life. Each of us is given a different hand to play and our job is to do the best we can with what we’ve been given …

There are five relational movements towards becoming intimate with the Eternal. KNOWING It is impossible to have a relationship with an imaginary person.  Likewise, it is impossible to have a relationship with the “idea of G-d.”  One can only have a relationship with a real person who is fully present.  …

Perhaps the most fundamental psychological task of a human being is to differentiate from his or her family and become a unique individual. For all eternity, there will never be another you. Imitation is death, uniqueness is life. To differentiate we must do one thing: listen to our own voice. …