Money can't buy me love

But it very well can buy some other pretty important things.

Money allows you to start a family

Money can make hard times more bearable

Money helps you maintain a healthy fun lifestyle

Money pays for relaxing treatments
(I managed to smear that one up :o)

Money allows you to go on vacations

Money allows you to pamper your loved ones

Money allows you to age with dignity and pleasure

Have a nice week, everybody!

It Gets Better

I have a confession: I am straight. Utterly and completely straight.

And yet, when I came about the It Gets Better project, I teared up while watching some of the wonderful videos on their website. 

The goal of this project is to show gay, lesbian and transgendered youth, especially suicidal ones, that a good future does wait for them - one filled with love, success, friends, fun, joy and all other things grown ups know there is to life, which is sometimes invisible to young people.

But I also relate to the message - I was bullied for many years as a child. I was too different, too sensitive, too desperate for love, too loud, too silly, too smart and on top of all - too fat. One of the great wonders of my life (to me) is how I managed to grow up to be a loving compassionate woman and not a bitter, spiteful, miserable person. Somehow, I always find the power to continue - despite adversities and no matter how lonely I feel.

So I relate to the wonderful message of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and would like to add to it - No matter how "strange" you are, persevere, educate yourself about being fabulous and reach out to people you can relate to and don't lose hope, because no matter what injures your soul - It does get better.

My puppet Erez and his partner Motti.

I am indeed a proud mother!

2:31

Life update

I wanted to thank all of you for the comfort and support you sent me after my previous life update.

The good news we received this Monday is that the appeal my mom's oncologist filed was accepted and Mamisha will be getting Tarceva for two more months, and then they will take another PET/CT and decide what's next. In the meanwhile she is not feeling very well and is weak, but the news cheered her up and soon it will be her birthday (next week actually) so we are hoping for a few quiet days. Or as quiet as they can be.

As for me, I have been practicing Tonglen or compassion awakening meditation for the past couple of weeks. I read about it in Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (an absolute must read for every person in face of their own or a beloved's death) and although I doubt I am practicing it correctly or that it actually helps anyone other than myself, I find it comforting and relaxing and I even started finding the strength in myself to include other people in it, other than Mamisha and myself. I found it so hard, throughout my life, to embody compassion towards myself and others, and still am, but strangely I am able to take on my mother's suffering onto myself without fear, using it as an instrument to (in the words of Wiki) reduce my selfish attachment.

Please keep Mamisha and our family in your prayers. We have tough times ahead of us, but for now, we feel relieved.

New Year Resolutions

Last night, the first night of the new year תש"ע I was sitting in my bed preparing a list of resolutions to make my life more abundant. I split them into categories, and would like to share one of these with you - the spiritual growth category.

• I will train my happiness muscle in order to be happier
  
  Happiness is not material, or measurable. If you base your happiness on achieving goals, being loved, getting this or another job title or career move and so on - you will always look on to that next check mark and or wonder "is that it?" once you arrive where you set to go.
  
  I believe happiness can be achieved in tiny measures and constantly throughout our lives. Happiness is in those small real moments - when you see a perfect sky while driving to work, when a chubby pink baby kisses you, when you see a dance or hear music that makes you cry with joy, when you see a silly looking dog wearing a sweater running with its tongue handing out, when you enter a warm bed on a cold night and wiggle your toes happily under the covers - all those tiny moments that make you thankful for being alive sum up in being a happy person. And noticing these moments and cherishing them, creating an ever growing "database of happy moments", is a skill that must be mastered if you want to be happy. And this I intend to work on this year.
  
  
• I will practice accepting the world does not revolve around me in order to suffer less
  
  Deepak Chopra recently twitted
  

  If you really want to suffer,try personalizing everything that happens

  and I am the grand master of that. I come to understand that the greatest source of suffering is this. I used to think disappointing myself by not achieving goals I set for myself is the primary source for suffering, that and losing certain status symbols that make me lose face or ruin my public image. If you take out achieving goals as the main and long lasting source of happiness, then you are left with understanding it cannot be your source of pain.
  
  
• I will practice seeing myself as innocent instead of guilty
  
  I am constantly burdened with guilt about mostly everything that happens. Since the previous resolution relives my assumption that as the center of the universe, I must be the cause to everything that happens around me, I better practice accepting that in order to have an easier life.