Thursday, November 19, 2009

Dedication To Seekers of Truth & My Suffering

The biggest problem i've had in the past, is that my suffering and anguish have started to rule my daily interactions.  The rabbi doctor Lynn Kesselman has created a system he calls the five gates to help figure out where some of these cycles started in our past, how to accept them, and how to move forward.  My cycles I've uncoverd stem from much of the interaction I had as a young boy.  My parents were the typical distant parents.  I don't think they were ever truly loving to each other.  Maybe their love died some time before I became aware.  They took care of me, fed me, clothed me, made sure I went to school, that sort of care.  But they were never quite encouraging of me.  Dad always made sure that I did well in school, or else I'd feel the consequences on my behind.  So I had a certain amount of respect, by way of fear.  I guess that is the way people felt authority was doled out in those days.  It seems that times now have changed... we can barely handle the crime in this country, I think that also is a problem of parenting... anyway, my parents really kept me motivated through negative reinforcement.  I've now realized that I'm really just mimicking what the same behavior that my parents taught me.  This was a big realization because I've integrated this painful way of reinforcing the people I love in my life, and I really didn't notice it.  Even though it's so very prevalent in my every day sort of interactions.  Whether its with my coworkers, my wife, my children.  It scares me to think that I'm teaching my child the same thing that my father taught me.
  This has been a real big awakening for me.  I know now that I've seen my past cycle come up and hit me in the face, that I want to change who I am in the present.  I think I'm coming to acceptance of my past interactions.  I think I'm even coming to acceptance of my parents and family's past.  Really I can't blame myself or even my parents.  WHy should I blame anyone.  Not that I'm not taking responisbilities for my actions, but jsut like some one who is sick, they can't be blamed for feeling badly.  It's really a symptom of some bad expereicnes and defenses against suffering.
  So back to Dr. Lynn Kesselman.  His Five Gates Program is all about looking back, looking inward, to find these exact sorts of moments in time in our past that have caused us so much suffering.  Only by seeing, uncovering, and realizing what has happened to us in the past, can we really start to have these epiphanies.  I've started to sense a change in the way I see my interactions now, in the past, and use those realizations to help allow me to take control of my future interactions.

So here is some of what Dr. Lynn Kesselman has to say about Suffering:

Suffering is not only pain; it is the hopeless feeling that
our pains have no solution. It makes us feel alone because
we are convinced no one really knows or cares about how
we feel.
If you think no one cares about how you feel, you may
be right, even though people may also tell you they care
about you and want to help you. Too often they don’t know
that how you feel is your real problem. The main thing that
matters is how you feel about yourself. As your love for
being who you are increases, you will feel less alone. In
wellness, our worries about ourselves diminish and we are
able to positively experience our connections with everything
and everyone. As you feel more connected to life your
feelings of being alone will quickly leave you.
Do you believe recovery or getting well is accomplished
by stopping “using” or not doing things others, or even you
don’t want you to do? It’s not. Instead, it’s learning how to
be happy, which means training ourselves to banish
needless fears. When you are happy, you can most easily
achieve the changes in yourself, which will change your
world. Working the Five Gates Program here will positively
change your reality.
A lot of the problems we see in our selves are caused by
“using.” Using is not only our misadventures with drugs or
other negative habits, it’s a much larger idea about how we
run away from life into habitual patterns which we use to
keep ourselves from seeing life on terms we find uncomfortable.
Using is a method by which we misdirect our
minds and senses to help us cope with our self‐doubts and
fears. Drugs, gambling, obsessive thoughts and compulsive,
escapist actions are just a small part of that list.
Recovery is equivalent to feeling great and no longer
feeling the need to escape reality at all. It’s not about your
willpower or fighting your destructive thoughts and
actions, it’s about losing your interest in thinking about,
believing in, and doing those destructive things to which
you are addicted. When you’re well, life becomes easier,
and not so much of a battle. If you can start caring more
about yourself, and caring less about how others feel about
you, you’ll be well on the road to recovery immediately.
The only other things you’ll need are a belief that you can
give yourself a happier, and a more secure life. You will
need some special thinking tools for navigating life as a
more powerful person, and practice. That’s what you will
find here.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

More From Lynn Kesselman's Five Gates

I write again about my journey through life and how I've been finding help in my struggles and strife.  I've had a difficult journey so far and have found some help that is useful and effective.  Not just some twelve step or wacky psycho babble.  This is real world advice that can be followed and taken in real world steps.  The Rabbi Doctor Lynn Kesselman has a program, he calls it the five gates, by which I've started down the path of understanding my past fears and traumas.  Lynn Kesselman went through a similar journey and has documented the process by which he helped himself out of a dark place.  I'm already starting to understand my past and relive the painful cycle of reliving the past.  Rather than staying in the trauma of my past injuries and expecting things to always be the same, i'm starting to realize that the past is just that.  That I can move forward without the burdens of the past coming up in my every day life.  I also know that I cannot change the past but I must accept it for what it is, what lessons it has taught me, and realize that I can step forward into the future, a future of bright and hopeful opportunities.  I've started to gain faith in myself, faith in the world, and faith that things will be better as I move forward.  Here is what Lynn Kesselman says about Faith, Religions, and God.


For some, religions provide many of the same spiritual
benefits as does the Five Gates Training Program. In a
sense, each religion is a program of recovery. The Program
does not conflict with any constructive and positive views
of any major religion of which I am aware. There are,
however, important differences.
All religions tell us that we need faith to give us the
needed strength to function well in life. When they give
hope to a spiritually bankrupt person, they will take away
that person’s anxieties and depression. But when a religion
is based on blind faith and an assurance that this person
will have a good life once they give their faith to believe in
that religion, it is necessary that the believer continue to
experience a good life or that person will lose his faith and
once again fall prey to the ravages of anxiety, fear and
despair. This is an impossibly difficult test for any religion
rooted in superstition, since life itself as it reveals our successful
and unsuccessful beliefs will always be the litmus
test of our spiritual condition. Their positive principles and
reality rules must prove worthy of a person’s faith as life
itself reveals their truth. If the belief structure fails, that
“believer” will be more confused and despondent than
ever.
Most modern and ancient spiritual teachings tell us
many of the same things: to focus in the present, reject our
judgments and resentments in favor of self‐management
and acceptance, live on the positive side of life’s choices, be
generous, loving, constructive and your life will reflect
back the light you bring to it. All the great spiritual
teachings of this world throughout every epoch have universally
informed humans on the virtues of processing life
focused on the present, with a loving embrace towards all
creation.
The problem is that none of these fine teachings tells us
how we can quickly, without relying upon superstition,
change from being the fear‐ridden, judgmental person we
are to being the more open, loving person whose spiritual
fullness has opened up his or her talents and pleasures
beyond anything possible for most of us today. All spiritual
programs, except those that believe your virtue and salvation
are delivered by an outside magical power, say that
if you keep studying, praying and doing positive deeds,
you will eventually be transformed by this process into a
more effective, happier you.
The method of the Five Gates Training Program can
help you do much of this job more quickly because it
focuses us on the basic ways by which we process reality
itself. The Church of Religious Science, Hindu Ashrams,
Judaism (including the teachings of Jesus), Alcoholics
Anonymous and many others to some extent hold similar
truths to healing the spirit.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Five Gates from the Rabbi Doctor Lynn Kesselman

I recently read a book by Dr. Rabbi Lynn Kesselman. The book was Recover with me. Lynn Kesselman talks about his past and his troubles in dealing with addiction and anxiety and depression. The book was really helpful and Lynn Kesselman gave some great advice and a real strategy which is already helping to get my own life back in order. I've personally dealt with alcoholism for a long time now. Maybe I'm not a belligerent drunk that beats his wife and dog, but I still get a bit raucous at times. I've been known to throw the TV through the front window because dinner isn't ready on time. Or to sob like a little baby till my tears run out. I've felt like I've been on an emotional roller-coaster since drinking has taken over my life. Slowly but surely I've lost my self down the neck of a bottle.

Don't just take my word, here is what Roy Evans had to say about the Rabbi Doctor Lynn Kesselman's Book"


I have served as President and Executive Director for
Bridge Back Correctional Re‐Entry Facility (prison) for the
past 35 years where I have attended to the needs of
countless recovering people. I have come to see recovery
from addictions as only one dimension of a far greater
need. The greater need touches all of us; we need a firm
connection with a sense of faith that we can have a good life
free from anxiety, depression, addictions and all of the
emotional and mental disorders which typically plague
almost every inmate at Bridge Back.
The early vision for Bridge Back was that we would
help our inmates recover from substance addictions, but
early on we learned that all who suffer from this affliction
also suffer from anxieties, depression, and other emotional
and mental disorders. They are connected in ways brilliantly
and thoroughly explained in Five Gates — The
Science of Healing the Spirit. We’ve all dreamed that one day
there would be a magic pill that would banish these
problems, but until now it seemed as though such a universal
answer would be many years in coming.
Five Gates — The Science of Healing the Spirit is not a pill
but it is the first program I have seen which holds the
promise of arresting and reversing the epidemic which
keeps mine and all other prisons full and the courts overwhelmed
with an endless supply of new disturbed and
addicted offenders. Five Gates starts by helping us see how
we have become who we are and continues to describe not
only how we would ideally be, but also gives us a method
by which we can improve ourselves quickly.
At first it seemed wrong to believe that one program
could solve all of these problems at the same time and
quickly. We have fellowships for alcoholism, narcotic
addictions, cocaine addictions, rage disorder, eating disxii
orders, sexual compulsions, emotional unrest, and
countless others. We have medical specialists for every one
of these, yet so few people really get well. I believe that
Lynn Kesselman has hit on the method for tying all of these
together into a single perspective and treatment method for
reversing their underlying cause, the dysfunctional fears
which drive people into these states of disrepair. The Five
Gates Program attacks these problems at their root which
we all knew was




I urge anyone having similar issues with anxiety induced depression and addiction to search out the Rabbi Doctor Lynn Kesselman and get help to quickly and effectively change their patterns for the better. Make today a new day and yesterday just fade into the past.