Rabbi Steve Leder: Finding Resilience in Grief – Part 1

How can we live a life of both humility and resilience, whether in good times or bad? How do we respond in joy and crisis? Today we welcome Rabbi Steve Leder who talks about the recent devastating fires in Los Angeles and how to cultivate tools to use when tragedy strikes. He talks about tending to our inner lives and how important it is to be of service to others. We receive comfort, even in the midst of our suffering, when we reach out to help others. We may all experience stress and trauma at various times in our lives. Success can ruin people the same way disaster can. Rabbi Leder reminds us to always live in the present and know, “This too shall pass,” whether it’s in good times or bad. We can move forward, and he teaches us to not regret the past. We cannot change it. When we worry about the future, we are not changing it, and that can cause anxiety. Catastrophic thinking does us no good. We do not know what is going to happen. It causes us to feel constant stress. If we can be more in the moment, even for smaller periods of time, it can help us feel much more resilient. It makes a huge difference to be mindful. This also requires a level of faith and spirituality. Rabbi Leder explains about the meaning of prayer. Most people ask for something when they pray. Yet, it is not always about appealing to God. He explains that this is about trying to change ourselves from within. It’s not looking outside to a deity; it’s about looking inside and realizing we do know how to navigate our circumstances. If you’ve overcome obstacles in the past, you can overcome them again. How do you do this? How do you find a way? We have the answers within. Rabbi Leder suggests, “When you must, you can.” We go through various emotions – faith, anger, grief, and ultimately resilience. Don’t let the fire go out in you. Don’t let your spark fade. When we stay in the present, we can move forward.   Rabbi Leder is the author of several books including “More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us,” “The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift,” and his most recent “For You When I Am Gone.” He is the Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a prestigious synagogue in Los Angeles with three campuses and 3,000 families. Info: www.steveleder.com