Five Minutes a Day

Mild Montana winters, family photos, and a dose of inspiration.

Hi there! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty full. Let me tell you about it, as I’m sure you just can’t wait to hear :).

One and a half years ago, I celebrated my fortieth birthday, and my husband planned a great birthday bash. As a party favor, we gave out the book Letters for Life by Levi Shmotkin. It’s a fantastic book in which the author compiled the Rebbe’s letters addressing mental and emotional wellness. You can purchase it here: https://a.co/d/fTF7Wfl.

This past Shabbos, we were privileged to have Levi come speak to our community, and it was so great. He spoke beautifully, and I want to share one takeaway that really impacted me. You’ll have to hear him live for the rest :).

We all know the concept that when you’re in a dark place, it can often be helpful to focus on others, give back to our community, or look for places where we can contribute. In his talk, Levi shared a unique way of implementing this worldview, and I hope to make it part of my daily life.

He encouraged us to spend five short minutes each day utterly and completely thinking about someone else: their life, some challenges they might be experiencing, and where we might be able to show up for them.

Such a simple concept, yet so impactful. Yes, I’m on shlichus. Yes, I live a life of service. Yes, I spend a lot of time thinking about others. But not in this way, not completely separate from my “job.”

Taking five precious minutes to completely put our own lives and obstacles aside and give someone else our full attention is so powerful. I’m committed to adding this to my day. It can be five minutes focused on our kids, our parents, our spouse, our friends, strangers who are struggling, truly anybody.

I do believe we can all become a little less self-absorbed, a little less focused on our own “issues,” and even a little less obsessed with our own character development. I think this is a great way to do it. So I’m giving it a try, and I’ll let you know how it goes :).

Moving on from Shabbos to Sunday. Chaya is home for her school’s midwinter break, so it was a perfect time to take our family photos. To be honest, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do it this year. My kids are getting older, and let’s be real, taking photos with a bunch of teenagers is not my idea of a good time, lol.

But in his infinite wisdom, Chaim Shaul really encouraged and advocated for it to happen. So even though I woke up this morning with lots of attitude and was being obnoxious about it, I eventually got over it. We had a good time, and it went quite smoothly.

The one bummer was that Shoshana had a pretty severe allergic reaction, which prevented her from joining. It was very disappointing, and we had to get over that too, but we’ll find a creative way to fix it.

I know I’ve said it before, but I struggle with the stage I’m in. No little kids. Family photos, what’s the point? But I’m glad I was reminded that this stage is great too, and I never want to take for granted what’s right in front of me.

Something else that’s absolutely crazy: while all of you on the East Coast are freezing and dealing with an extreme winter, we’re having the mildest winter I’ve experienced in the nineteen years I’ve been here. Of course, the year we plan for a winter photo shoot, fully expecting February to be deep in winter, we find ourselves with very little snow and a very non-winter situation (at least compared to what we’re used to). So we went searching for snow, and if you go high enough up the mountain, you find it.

In honor of Chaya being home, we ended the day with a delicious sushi dinner (our version of going out to eat) and a movie night. I usually save those for trips, but we’ve got to live a little, and I was feeling spontaneous and in the mood to be a fun mom :).

Lots of ups and downs this weekend, and you know what? I’m here for it. You can’t have the ups without a little bit of the downs.

Love,

Chavie

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