- Iron Swords - I was exposed to horror videos, I became an anxious parent - how do we calm down?

00:00 Hello, everyone. We’ve seen disturbing videos, horrific videos—things the human mind can hardly bear. They come back to us from time to time, sometimes just before we go to sleep. Suddenly something reminds us of them, and we feel stressed and anxious. That stress and anxiety don’t stop with us; they directly affect our children too. When parents are under stress, their patience wears very thin, and the smallest thing a child does can make them lose patience immediately. Things that wouldn’t have made us lose our temper under normal circumstances certainly can now. Unfortunately, this challenging period keeps bringing more videos, more stories, more things that surface from time to time. They can deepen our stress and anxiety and their effect on our children. Because whatever we’re feeling, we transmit it, and children have the keenest, most accurate senses—the best antennas for picking up on how we feel. It stresses them out too. It makes them anxious too. And it makes us lose patience, which immediately affects how we treat them. So what can we do? What’s the answer? I’ve seen these videos; I’ve been exposed to them. They’re already in my head. What do I do with that? How can I overcome it? How can I cope? How can I keep it from controlling me and get back to being a happier, calmer, less stressed person? What can I do? In today’s class, with Hashem’s help, we’ll talk about the world of thought. We’ll talk about the power of thoughts, see how much power a thought has to take us in one direction or another, and how much control we can have over our thoughts if we make a bit of an effort. So let’s begin. I’m sure you’ve all seen

02:08 that video of the woman from Kibbutz Be’eri. Terrorists had barricaded themselves inside her home while she was shut in her safe room. Boruch Hashem, she had some kind of lock that couldn’t be opened from the outside, and no matter how hard they tried to break in, they couldn’t. She describes how, while the terrorists were in her home, she held a Chitas in her hand—a book containing the entire Chumash, Tehillim, Tanya, a siddur, and Hayom Yom. She held it close to her heart and said, “Hakadosh Boruch Hu, You are with me. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, you are with me. You are protecting me,” along with other words like that. That’s what she was saying and thinking throughout. It gave her the strength to hold on in a situation that was utterly unreal, unthinkable, completely abnormal. In such an extreme situation, the words she said and the thoughts she thought enabled her to remain calm and in control of herself. And Boruch Hashem, she survived that terrible ordeal. A person’s thoughts have tremendous power to affect them one way or another. But the problem, the difficulty, is that sometimes we feel we have no control over them. I’ve seen terrible things, and they keep coming into my mind. What can I do? How can I stop that from happening? This is something Chassidus discusses at great length. Tanya talks about the power of thought. What’s distinctive about thought, unlike speech or action, is that I can stop speaking. I can decide to stop talking. I can decide to stop doing something. But thought wanders constantly. It keeps running from one thing to another. There isn’t a moment when we stop thinking. Even

04:09 when a person is asleep, the mind keeps thinking. So when it comes to a Jew’s service of Hashem, we’re expected to occupy ourselves only with holy, pure, spiritual things all the time, not to think about things that aren’t good. Not saying forbidden things—for example, not speaking lashon hara—that I can decide to do. I decide simply not to say it. That’s my decision. Not committing a transgression? I can decide not to do it. But how can I be expected, spiritually, not to think thoughts that aren’t good or appropriate, when thought is running all the time? Chassidus explains that a Jew has the power to control his thoughts. Even when an inappropriate thought suddenly comes to me, I can decide to replace it with another thought. A thought comes to me now and takes hold of my mind, and I realize it’s a thought I don’t want to think because it isn’t appropriate. So right away, I start thinking about something else. I might say words of Torah aloud, for example—words of Mishnah, words of Tehillim, words from Tanya. That can help redirect my mind from the inappropriate thought to good thoughts. In essence, a person—a Jew—is expected to control himself: his speech, his actions, and also, especially, his thoughts. When a person controls his thoughts, he’s a person with strength and self-command, a person with brakes. Nobody else is in charge of me; I’m in charge of myself. There was once a chossid walking outside the Rebbe’s beis midrash. As he walked down the street, he was constantly murmuring words of Torah. Maybe it was Mishnayos, maybe it

06:06 was from Tanya. He murmured various words of Torah as he walked. Just then, as he passed along the street, the Lubavitcher Rebbe came out of his room in 770. The Rebbe saw the chossid, whose name was Rabbi Saadia Liberow [?], walking and murmuring to himself. So the Rebbe said to the people beside him, “That is how a chossid walks.” Why? When a person walks down the street, what does he think about? Whatever the street offers him to think about. He sees a clothing store, and he thinks about clothes; shoes, and he thinks about shoes; an advertisement, and he thinks about whatever it’s advertising. But we don’t want the street feeding our thoughts. We’re supposed to be in control of ourselves. So how does a chossid walk down the street? He walks while reciting words of Torah, and naturally, that’s what he thinks about too. He won’t be thinking about everything the street offers him to think about. Instead, he decides what to think about. He’s in charge of himself. We’re expected to control our thoughts, to be in charge of what we think and how we conduct ourselves. Such a person is a strong person, someone who doesn’t let his inner feelings and desires constantly burst out and take charge of him. I’m in charge of myself—and that means my thoughts, my speech, and my actions. There’s another amazing story about a chossid of the Alter Rebbe named Reb Moshe Meisels. He was a very serious chossid, but he was also an educated man who knew languages and spoke French well. During the war between France and Russia, between Napoleon and the Russian Nikolai, the Alter Rebbe, who wanted Russia to win, sent Reb Moshe to spy among the French on behalf of

08:05 the Russians. With his abilities, his manners, and his eloquent way of speaking, he was a very special person. He knew how to win everyone over, and he managed to work his way inside. He even reached the places where they planned their next moves. He would see what the French were planning and pass that information on to the Russians. One day Napoleon came to visit. He saw someone he did not quite recognize and suspected that he might be a spy—and he really was a spy. Napoleon walked up to him and, in an instant, placed his hand over the chossid’s heart. “You’re a spy,” he said. He expected the man’s heart to start pounding, which would tell him that he was indeed a spy and was afraid. Why else would he be so nervous? But Reb Moshe Meisels’s heartbeat stayed just as steady and calm as before. When he returned safely, he said to the Alter Rebbe, “Thank you for teaching us to control ourselves, so that things don’t suddenly happen inside us just because something leaps up within.” The Alter Rebbe trained his chassidim to let the mind rule the heart, so that a person would be in control of himself. That is the tremendous power of self-control. When a person can control his thoughts, he decides what to think; he directs himself. It is an extraordinarily powerful ability. Thought is so powerful that there is a story about the Frierdiker Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak, who was once sitting at a farbrengen with his chassidim. During the farbrengen, he spoke to them about the need to think good thoughts. If I think positively about something or someone, it helps. It brings good into the world; it helps the friend I am thinking about. And then one of the chassidim at that farbrengen asked the Rebbe, “What do you mean? How does my thinking help another person?” The Rebbe looked at him and said, “Think carefully about where you were last year.” And then he understood. What did he understand? The Rebbe was telling him: You ask how thought helps? Last year, that chossid had been in a Russian prison, with almost no chance of getting out. Suddenly, he was saved. The Rebbe was saying to him, “Why do you think you were saved? Because we thought well of you, because I thought well of you. That is why you are here now—and you ask how thinking about another person helps? You yourself are an example of how thought helps.” So that is the tremendous power of thought. A thought can do good for a friend. Thought can lead a person to good places. Thought can also bring a person into painful feelings. That, then, is our work: to control our thoughts. But what does that mean in practice, right now? Suppose I saw horrifying videos, difficult things I may not have intended to see. They suddenly appeared, because unfortunately the social networks and everything else are full of them. So how can we take control? The way is simply to make a firm, resolute, courageous decision. First, not to watch. But even with what I have already seen, I decide that if it comes into my head, I will immediately start thinking about something else. I can even plan in advance what I will think about. I will persist in thinking about something else, and little by little, that other thought will keep the troubling thought from taking hold of me, making me anxious, and sinking deep inside me. That is how we can overcome those thoughts. Little by little, it

10:00 does take work and effort, but this way I will not let the difficult, discouraging thoughts that do so much harm run me, run my life, run my home and my daily routine, and affect my children too. I will simply decide that there are things I will not think about. This is true in our service of Hashem, in the spiritual work each of us does, and it is just as true in the context of what is happening now. I need to make a decision: I am not going to think about it. When the thought comes, I immediately think about something else. I will think about something from Torah that I learned. I will think about that vacation I took with my family and how good it was. I will simply redirect my thoughts elsewhere, and that will give me the strength to overcome it. Little by little, that will lower our level of stress and anxiety. It will come down gradually. And when we are calmer, our children will have a calmer father, a calmer mother. There will be more happiness and more peace of mind. How important that always is, and especially at this time. So let us sum up. Our task is not to let thoughts that make us feel bad, that cause us distress, stress, and anxiety, enter into us. This is true at every stage of life, and it is true in our service of Hashem. Controlling our thoughts is, in fact, a significant part of serving Hashem. And in the context of right now, it means controlling our anxieties, the difficulties, and the confusion that keep arising. That is the approach: decide what I will think about and what I will not think about. When we are more at ease, calmer, and less stressed, the children will feel it, the whole home will feel it, and with Hashem’s help, things will be much

11:55 better for everyone. May it be His will—and let us pray—that from now on there will be no more reason for bad things to happen, and therefore no reason for troubling thoughts to arise within us. From now on, with Hashem’s help, may the Jewish people have only good, only blessing, only success, and only good news. And with Hashem’s help, may all the bad and painful things that have happened until now never happen again. May we merit the Geulah and the coming of Moshiach, and forget all these troubles of exile, which no Jewish man or woman deserves. May there be good news. If you feel that this class and its message speak to you and give you some direction for dealing with everything happening now, share it. Share it with a friend. Let them know this idea too; it can help a great deal. I can say that it helps me personally. Sometimes I suddenly remember something difficult that I heard, or something like that, and I try to switch to another thought. It helps very much. So share it with someone else. Give them this advice too. And may we merit, with Hashem’s help, the complete Geulah, blessing, abundant blessing, and great success. May we hear only good news. All the best. Goodbye.

13:48 Better. And may it be Hashem’s will—and let us pray—that from now on there will be no reason for bad things to happen to us, and therefore no reason for bad thoughts to arise within us. Because from now on, with Hashem’s help, the Jewish people will have only good, only blessing, only success, only good news. And all the bad and unpleasant things that have happened until now will, with Hashem’s help, happen no more. May we finally merit the Geulah and the coming of Moshiach, and forget all these troubles of exile, which no Jewish man or woman deserves. May we hear good news. If you feel that this lesson—its message—speaks to you and gives you some direction for dealing with everything that’s happening now, share it. Share it with a friend. Let them know about this idea, which can help so very much. I can tell you that it helps me personally. Sometimes I suddenly remember something difficult I heard, or something like that, and I try to replace it with another thought. It helps very, very much. So share it with someone else. Give them this advice too. And may we merit, with Hashem’s help, the complete Geulah, and blessing—abundant blessing and abundant success. May we hear only good news. All the best. Goodbye.