Daily Letter 7: Out of sync

Out of sync

If you’re like me, a big emotional problem you’re facing involves interactions with others who are in a totally different emotional place from you. You may find yourself coming up for air, finding it hard to breathe, having just watched a heartrending clip of slaughter or suffering. Then you meet up with a friend who’s having a great day, who’s tipsy with excitement. Or you meet somebody who is also immersed emotionally in an aspect of the war with Hamas, but focused entirely on a different aspect of how it’s playing out. Or perhaps find yourself in earshot of some commentator trivializing something you believe to be gravely serious.

Today’s message seeks to address this addling, often arresting phenomenon. Two comments feel relevant:

1) Try not to interpret their mood and mindset as an attack on yours, and
2) Try to share your feelings so they can appreciate where you are emotionally. In other words, try, excruciating as it may be, to respect where they are, while inviting them to respect where you are.

Human beings aren’t built to manage such emotional collisions. Curating feelings isn’t good for us. The best we can hope for is coexisting with feelings that are out of sync with ours.

To be clear, all of this applies with family and friends, in your community and with your coworkers. It’s something else entirely when you collide with those who are not meeting you in good faith.

Here’s one example of a mother’s perspective. It is well-worth watching.

Getting busy with things to do, action-ables, is a top priority this week. Here are a few:

Let’s keep mourners and terrified family members of those who are captive to Hamas foremost in our hearts, in the strongholds of our minds, and on the receiving end of our supportive actions.

Am Yisrael Chai,
Rabbi William Hamilton