"Lapses and Crises"

I know I've mentioned the importance of self-compassion many times, and I do genuinely believe in it...but I'll be honest and say that sometimes it's really hard for me.  As a teacher, I'll gladly work with a student all year on one particular skill, but when it comes to myself, I expect proficiency right out of the gate.  Lately, this has been a problem for me regarding religious observance--although I've been steadily increasing my religiosity over the past two years, I'm still far from where I'd like to be in terms of "religious fluency."  To be fair, I was raised in a secular environment and still operate in one on a daily basis. There are times when my interactions and relationships with the many non-observant (or non-Jewish) people in my life lead me to make compromises and adjustments to my practice that I wish I didn't have to make--but I do make them, because I'm not yet always confident or assertive enough to say, "This is what I need," or "That won't work for me."  When I consciously do something that I know is in violation of Jewish law, the self-judgment voice  starts yelling, "You know better than that.  You're supposed to be taking this seriously.  How can you say you are religious and then go and do that?  You're a fraud.  You will never get better than this." 

As this latest round of Jewish holidays neared its end, I struggled with this critical voice because I felt I hadn't observed the last couple of festival days as thoughtfully as I would have liked.  Never mind that I did observe them more carefully than I had the year before...it wasn't perfect, and I knew I could have done better.  I should have done better.  In the middle of this overwhelmingly negative self-assessment, it dawned on me that this entire routine seemed awfully familiar--this was the same way I had talked to myself in the beginning of my recovery, every time I would give in to the urge to use an eating disorder behavior.  Once I knew how I should be acting, there was no excuse for mistakes.  I judged any slips into the eating disorder as signs that I wasn't taking recovery seriously, that I was insincere, that I was weak, and that I would never get any better than I was in that moment of lapse.

When I noticed that I was having these thoughts about myself as a religious person, I did what I often do in times of self-doubt:  get advice from someone who knows more than I do.  In this case, the person I consulted was Adin Steinsaltz, Jewish scholar extraordinaire and my newest intellectual hero.  I'd been reading his book, Teshuvah, and in light of my current mood I decided to reread the chapter called, "Lapses and Crises."  In this chapter, Steinsaltz emphasizes that stumbling is part of the process of advancement--not a negation of it.  The people who aim the farthest are going to have more opportunities to trip along the way, and the struggle involved in moving from stage to stage is inherent to growth.

This does not mean, however, that we shouldn't take slips seriously...but, neither should we use them as an excuse to abandon the process entirely.  Steinsaltz cautions, "The seriousness of individual lapses should not be minimized, but neither should even the worst of them be allowed to lead to despair and total abdication."  In other words, acknowledge errors and take steps to correct them, but then move on--no mistake is worth resigning oneself to failure.

Steinsaltz understands that once we decide to change ourselves for the better in a specific way, we want our progress to be smooth and linear--and immediate.  But, he teaches, this usually isn't how it works.  He explains, "A person who confronts the necessity of making a change in his life or of pressing on with renewed determination must also reckon with internal resistance, partly conscious and immediate, partly unconscious and revealed only with the passage of time.  He cannot simply 'turn over a new leaf' and start afresh; even after he sets out on his new path he will be hounded by those parts of him that remain unreconciled to his decision.  The very struggle to ascend gives one the feeling of being at the bottom of the ladder; but this is only a trick of the senses and the imagination, for the ascent is, in fact, well underway."

Although he is writing specifically about the process of becoming religious, his words also resonate with me in terms of recovery.  Both processes entail major life shifts in both behavioral and emotional realms, and we need to be patient with ourselves and understand that we will stumble along the way.  When we do experience a setback, we should interpret it not as evidence of failure, but as a testament to our desire to strive higher...after all, if we were content to remain static, failure wouldn't be an issue.  A healthy dose of frustration may propel us forward, but we must stop short of getting so discouraged that we quit altogether.  Remember what Steinsaltz says:  if you're stumbling, it's because you're already moving along the path.  May we each keep this wisdom inside our own hearts as we aim to progress forward from wherever we are!