With Spring and warmer weather just around the corner and thousands more people vaccinated against Covid each day, there’s a sense of freedom in the air. Freedom to see friends and family. Freedom to go to restaurants. Freedom to make travel plans. It’s a cautious freedom, but progress nonetheless.
In the Jewish calendar, a lunisolar calendar unlike the Gregorian solar calendar we are accustomed to, each month has a particular energy associated with it. The new month of Nisan began Sunday, March 14 and with it brought the energy of Freedom. It’s only fitting, then, that the holiday of Passover occurs in Nisan, where we retell the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery. It is the holiday of freedom. But this story is not just about the freedom of people who lived in a different time and place thousands of years ago. It is as relevant to us today, Jew or not, as it was back then.
We may not be physically imprisoned, but so many of us live in our own mental prisons that we ourselves create. We hold ourselves back from reaching our full potential and stunt our own growth.
How do we create our own mental prisons?
- We focus on the past. We look to our past to give us evidence of what we are or aren’t capable of. “I can’t do that. I don’t know how. I’ve never done that before!” we tell ourselves. But we didn’t know how to walk or swim before either … until we did. Focusing on the past not only holds us back from learning and creating new things, but can also lead to depression as we focus on what we can’t change.
- We worry about the future. We imagine all the possible things that could go wrong which only creates and heightens anxiety. We create so many stories in our head about what could happen, that the fear can be paralyzing and we miss what’s in front of us.
- We judge ourselves harshly. We beat ourselves up for all the big and little things. We’re too this or too that. We should have said this or not said that. Then we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. We’re pretty talented like that. Believe me. I’ve been there.
- We practice self-absorption and self-indulgence. When we spend so much time focusing on our needs and our emotions, we become blind to those around us. We distance ourselves from others and create barriers to connection and growth.
- We lack faith. Without faith, we think we have more power than we do. When things don’t go as planned, we suffer. When you have faith, you recognize that you can’t control everything. You can let all your fears and worries go and know it’s going to be ok.
All of these habits keep us stuck. We create our own personal prison. These act like thought-errors that are equivalent to stepping in mental quicksand. You may not be wearing striped pajamas or have bars around you, but have no doubt, you’re in jail.
If we want to break free from our own prison, we can look no further than matzah. Matzah is the food most commonly associated with Passover. I used to think of matzah as a bland, tasteless cracker that I had to eat for eight days each year instead of my much preferred bread. They are both made with the same ingredients, flour and water. But in the Jews’ haste to leave Egypt, there was no time for the dough to rise. Hence, we are left with the flat cracker. But matzah is so much more than that. One of the key differences between bread and matzah is that bread is “puffed up”. It has ego or an inflated sense of self-worth, pride and arrogance, the opposite of humble matzah. The antidote to ego is humility. Humility is one of the keys to freedom. For eight days we ingest the physical representation of humility, reminding us how to spiritually access our freedom. Matzah is also the bread of faith, as the prisoners had to trust in the Almighty to leave their comfort zones not knowing what lay ahead.
So next time you find yourself in your own personal prison, you can try to focus on the present, judge yourself kindly, practice humility and have faith and maybe have a bite of matzah while you’re at it. That stuff can last for years.
What are some ways you keep yourself stuck and in mental jail?
