Yesod

This week of the Omer focuses on yesod.  Yesod is considered the foundation that links all the previous sefirot to the final one, malchut (to be discussed next week!).  It's the channel for the life force that has traveled through each of the sefirot, picking up all the accumulated divine attributes along the way.  If malchut is the ultimate recipient, then yesod is what connects malchut to the awesomeness of the gift.

The way in which yesod acts as the "connector" reminds me a lot of my own process of transitioning from contemplating recovery, to truly living recovery.  I spent years in the contemplation phase, picking up nuggets of inspiration wherever I could find them.  My nutritionists taught me how to nourish my body; my therapists showed me how to manage my emotions and connect with my desires.  Other patients shared with me their own experiences and offered me advice based on their own journeys.  After years of accumulating all this wisdom, I was primed for recovery and yet not actually living it.  I knew exactly what I needed to do.  And yet, there was a disconnect--I couldn't quite bring myself to connect my intellectual understanding of recovery with the behavioral change necessary to achieve it.

This is where yesod comes in.  For me, yesod has been what has made recovery a reality.  It is how I combined all the individual ingredients (the "tool box," for all you CBT folks) into a solid foundation for the structure of a recovered life.  Yesod is what bridged the gap between my intention and my actual behavior.  All of the skills I learned over a decade of eating disorder treatment were in place, but the skills alone could not make recovery happen.  I needed a connector to help me put the knowledge into practice, to help me move from just imagining recovery to actually living it.

If you are in a position of knowing you have the tools for recovery, yet feeling unable to make behavior changes, you are probably familiar with the feelings of frustration that come along with that cognitive dissonance.  This is the time to uncover your power of yesod, to find the motivation to put recovery knowledge into action in order to create the life you want.  We all deserve to have our dreams of recovery match the realities of our lives.  This requires us to construct our foundations, one element at a time.  This week, I encourage you to think about what steps you can take to turn your positive thoughts into recovery-oriented behavior.  How can you use yesod to help you build the life you desire?