This year…let love in
We all know the feeling. It could be just before the High Holidays, before the secular New Year, or any time really. We make a firm resolution to change something in our lives. And then a few weeks later we’re back eating that extra slice of cake, yelling at our teenage children for not cleaning their room, and doing all the things we’d promised to stop. Nissim suggests a different way. This year, he says, we should concentrate on increasing the amount of love in our lives. Once we let love in, good things will follow.
Nissim Amon is an ordained Soto Zen Master. He left Israel after serving in the Lebanon war in 1982 and spent a decade studying and teaching Buddhism and mediation in the east. He was a wandering monk before returning to Israel to develop and teach his Trilotherapy method which seeks to heal emotional wounds by achieving inner balance.
“There is suffering in every place, in every person,” says Nissim. “The modern businessman or woman is probably the most stressed creature who ever walked the planet. Love is the remedy. I would recommend that we add love to everything we do. It’s the recipe for good living.”
Nissim believes that love gets people ready to make the practical changes that are real and urgent to them. If you love yourself, then you’ll be able to eat more healthily. Bring that love into the workplace and you’ll be in a better place to stop the stress. Keep the focus on love and watch your day-to-day interactions with your children become richer.
But how do we bring more love into our frenetic lives? Nissim suggests placing reminders of love around us. A seashell on a shelf. A flower in a glass of water. A note on a refrigerator. “These small things are footprints, proof that angels do exist. Love is like a sport. The more you practice, the more you have to give.”
What about New Year’s resolutions? Are they useful? Nissim thinks they can be. The New Year of the calendar, like Rosh Hashana, is a chance “to do a heshbon nefesh, an accounting of the soul. To stop and reflect, to take a moment away from being an ant rushing here and there in a line, so that we can see ourselves in a new way. My tip for a great New Year’s resolution is to decorate our lives with many small gestures of love. Let them remind us that life is not about the goal but about the journey.”
Wishing you all a happy New Year, full of love and beauty.
