Have you ever found yourself playing a game on your phone, like Candy Crush or Sudoku, for countless hours over a few days? If so, you would notice when you close your eyes or even go out to the street how your brain starts seeing everything through that lens and point of view. People start becoming candies, and when there are two people in a line you are automatically pulling a third person from the side in with your mind to form a set of three. The equations your mind starts producing are similar to the wavelength you have programmed it with the interest you have shown it.

There are some things that are mindful at first, for example playing an instrument, but after a while as the brain is accustomed to it and already learned the ins and outs, when the brain goes into processing mode it will produce interesting connections and tunes on its own. This becomes the wavelength of the mind and it will automatically run with this programming in the background. All it needs is for it to become somewhat mindless in order for it to take off on its own.

We go into processing mode as we stop using the mind, is it when we go to sleep or get into a routine of something repetitive. We already know what to do and how to do it, so now it takes the liberty to wander off. But there is another kind of processing which is even while we are busy with something new. For example, we may be picking up a new class, or choosing a new line of work, the brain will align our previous knowledge with the new ones and try to merge them both. Since the previous knowledge is well understood it will try to find ways to see the new knowledge in the same light.

Think about it this way. We have two roads somewhat parallel to the other, one is of the one we have already walked on for a while, and the other one is brand new. We will keep on comparing this to that until we find the connection. Take a trouble maker in the classroom who is faced with a substitute teacher one day. He does not understand a thing that is being taught in class, not today and not while the regular teacher is present, but what he does have in common in both is the road he walks on, his trouble. All he needs is for the sub to slip up and make a mistake and viola, he has what to do. He will pipe up and say something silly and laugh out loud. All he needed was for his previous path to converge with the new one he just started walking on, and once he found an in he became activated.

This is essentially how puns work. We say, “I came here today,” and while we say that we grab our “hair.” This is essentially two paths joining as one. The Torah works in such a fashion, it is called a “G’zeirah Shavah,” as we compare one to another as they match with similar qualities. We can hear someone speak, and as they say a line that matches a quote we heard elsewhere we jump up.

But on a subconscious level we also find this to be true with feelings. When one feeling comes up it will associate with other memories that share the same feeling. The reason being because we are simultaneously walking two or more paths, and although we do not see them in reality, they are working behind the scenes and jump up as they find similarities to the current and present situation in reality.

Most feelings we deal with have an established reaction attached to them. So when it comes to addictions, we have to notice which feelings we are dealing with as the reaction asks to be administered. We have to ask ourselves what happened in the present reality that awakened this parallel pathway in our mind?

I was recently in Israel for a visit and as I passed through different streets, memories upon memories awakened. I had stories to tell about almost every street corner. “Here is where we took a cab…” “Here is where my friend lost his temper because he lost some Shekels…” “I was once kicked out of Yeshiva and took the bus to the south.” Those roads, although many years later in reality, awakened their parallels that occurred here many years prior. “Ba’yamim Ha’heim, Ba’zman Ha’zeh!”

We see what we have programmed within, all we need to do is awaken them. Many of our thoughts are woken up subconsciously, sometimes from a loud honk of a car, sometimes from a smell or a song, and sometimes from seeing a person or someone who looks like someone. Our emotions can go berserk and wild without us being the wiser and we simply write the day off as a failure. Although we have the ability to stop and realize what currently happened in reality, and what memories were awakened because of it, simply by catching the feeling we are dealing with and by seeing the reaction we are about to do, or just did.

The processing power of our mind is amazing, but we have to be careful with it since its conclusions reach our hearts in mere seconds and we have to be quick enough to catch them before we end up doing regrettable things. We want to get away from addiction and negativity, but the world is unpredictable and as long as we live among the people we will face the things that will test us.

The Yidden just wanted to see Moshe and be connected to Hashem. Their yearning for this connection and the love they so deeply craved was seemingly out of reach and the old memories of an old flame awoke in their hearts. The feeling of being open and bare with something bigger than themselves rose to the forefront and the reaction that was embedded within them took over. The reality they faced was compared to a parallel road they once walked on, the path of idolatry and lust. They were immediately transfixed upon the idea in their heart and had no power to overcome it.

This is the power of idolatry. It is an unquenchable thirst that once felt is unshakeable. Similar to the road we walk on with our mindless games and doomscrolling, we get sucked into seeing the world just from that perspective until we can shake awake and see the reality for what it truly is. The emptiness of the mind gains power over our vision as we see only through the preprogrammed lens, and it takes years upon years, boundaries upon boundaries, and spiritual, emotional, and physical determination and discipline to fully conquer a new mindset.

Forty years through the desert was just enough time to cleanse the hearts of the people of the programming instilled by the parents. It was then that they learned that the world is one big Mashal, a storyline parallel to another. And that just like the mind has its path to walk on and stick to the reality in front of it, so too is it with a nation that is to be the example to the world of how Hashem operates through nature. And that this process itself is how Hashem sees the world and how the higher worlds function. Because once we create parallel lines in the higher realms our reality in the current and present awakens emotions that will bring about reactions that will bring us to a world of peace and oneness with Hashem!

LemmerHypnotherapy.com

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)