Dr. Emuna: Get Rid of Denial and Regret

We all face difficult situations in our lives and the reality is, too often we just “stick our head in the sand” so to speak and become stuck in denial. The popular phrase is “ignorance is bliss.” No, it isn’t bliss at all! Ignorance is suffering! The proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand, gets killed… Most of the time, eventually, reality bites hard – and then we are filled with regrets… There is a good reason why the very first teaching in The Garden of Emuna is the need to search for the truth, and be prepared to change our lives even 1,000 times in order to live in accordance with it.

I find that denial is especially dangerous, since we don’t always realize that we are doing it. Many times in the last few months, I have found myself suddenly realizing that a major part of the solution to a major problem I couldn’t seem to solve, lay in the fact that I was simply denying all or part of the real problem in an effort to save myself from the consequences of the reality, which my psyche just did not feel prepared to face. 

Denial serves an important purpose, in that it does indeed protect us from that which the mind deems too difficult to handle. The problem is, that all too often it also handicaps us from fixing those exact situations. In denying the truth, we also deny reality and life itself – which leads us towards the opposite. 

Let’s take an example, which happened to someone I know:  

The husband was a difficult person to deal with. Externally, he seemed like a nice guy, but in the house, he was not so great to his wife, to put it mildly. She turned a blind eye to the time he bashed in the bathroom door etc... She couldn’t handle the thought of divorce. All the time that she denied the reality, she couldn’t fix it. Over time, the situation deteriorated further until she was practically pushed out against her will. It was excruciatingly hard to divorce him, and at first, she didn’t know from where she would find the strength. But she did find the strength because now she had no choice. 

It didn’t take long in the divorce proceedings to realize that all the time that she was on the fence, she was not only losing more and more of herself, but also her money – since now, 50% of every monthly salary that was and will be is his until the final divorce decree is settled. She regretted all those months of dragging on a situation that shouldn’t have been lived with in the first place. If only she had faced the bitter reality sooner, she would have saved herself an incredible amount of money, and even more importantly, gained her precious life back all that much sooner… besides the time ticking on her biological clock. None of that could be regained… 

The quintessential problem is: The situation is too horrific to bear, but in order to fix the situation, you have to face it! How do you get out of the conundrum?  

I discovered an amazing answer these past few months, as I have cleared more than one proverbial skeleton from the closet that I didn’t want to admit was there: emuna and gratitude. Specifically, the emuna that even your mistakes are from Hashem, and to say thank you for those mistakes, and all of their ramifications. 

Now you have the strength to admit the truth – because Hashem did this – not me!  

Now, I have the strength to face that situation head on, because no longer does the blame lie in me, or in him, or her, or the boss, or the economy, or whatever. No longer do I need to deny the situation in order to protect myself, my ego, and the fairy tale that I created for myself – because reality is just too scary to bear. 

The blame lies in Hashem! So now that we’re pointing the finger at God, we also recognize that everything that comes from Him is for our ultimate best. And especially since we don’t understand at the moment how that could possibly be, we just need to strengthen our emuna, and believe it anyway.  

And suddenly, we are free!!! Marrying that guy – my friend was supposed to do that. Nothing could have saved her from it, because she had some rectification with him. Hashem is to blame! And now that she had to divorce him, that was also from Hashem. All the suffering she had to go through is also from Hashem, and all the things that he threatened her with that didn’t come to be – that was also Hashem! She doesn’t have to be filled with regret, because she didn’t lose any time. That terrible situation brought her to learn emuna, because she had to learn it in order to stay strong and not break. In the end, she gained a much stronger connection to Hashem. Therefore, not one moment was wasted! No regrets! No trauma to carry forward into the rest of her now greatly refreshed life! 

Now, emuna takes us from releasing blame and shame, to the next step – the ability to face the situation with Hashem. Not for nothing does Rabbi Arush call emuna “the power to cope.” Now, dealing with the situation exactly as it is, however scary – I am not alone! Hashem is here, helping me. Hashem is cheering me on to make those important changes in my life. Hashem is supporting me as I face my emotions and deal with reality. Hashem is going to take care of all the next steps, too. I CAN handle it, because I am not handling it alone – I am handling it cradled in the loving hands of God, who can fix the situation better than I could ever dream of! 

And finally, emuna enables us to let go of all the regret. Whatever water is under the bridge, Hashem put it there. My job now is to do my best to learn from it, which most importantly, means accepting it with emuna.  

Now I can say “thank you” for all that water under the bridge and whatever my life is now, because if Hashem created this situation, then He did it for a good reason. I don’t have to protect my psyche, because the mistakes weren’t mine – Hashem made it happen, with His personal Divine providence.  

All that is left is to beg for the emuna to face all of the reality of my life – because every detail of my life is really good! I have nothing to be afraid of! I want to live reality, without any denial whatsoever, because this reality was created by God, special for me, for my ultimate best! I have all the strength to change for the better, because I have the ultimate Strong Man at my side – God Himself! And I have all the hope in the world, because now I have Hashem in my world! 

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Rachel Avrahami grew up in Los Angeles, CA, USA in a far-off valley where she was one of only a handful of Jews in a public high school of thousands. She found Hashem in the urban jungle of university. Rachel was privileged to read one of the first copies of The Garden of Emuna in English, and the rest, as they say, is history. She made Aliyah and immediately began working at Breslev Israel.  

 
Rachel is now the Editor of Breslev Israel’s English website. She welcomes questions, comments, articles, and personal stories to her email: rachel.avrahami@breslev.co.il.