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"Choose life" Weekend of renewal at WH synagogue

WEST HARTFORD – What creates a resilient and vibrant life? For licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Maria Sirois, it was the terminally ill children she met at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and their families, who answered the question.

Dr. Maria Sirois

Sirois has dedicated her professional life to the lessons they taught her, the wisdom that there is no time but now to live life with an open heart. “These children were tremendous teachers in what to hold onto, and what to let go of,” she says.
Sirois will facilitate three programs exploring resilience and personal well-being, at The Emanuel Synagogue in West Hartford over the weekend of May 6-8. All are open to the community.
Sirois considers the synagogue’s Rabbi David Small as her “personal rabbi,” having converted to Judaism in 2002 under his guidance at Congregation Knesset Israel in Pittsfield, Mass. She has led several workshops at the temple over the past few years, and Small invited her back as part of The Emanuel’s year-long program emphasizing wellness. “The idea for Maria’s visits originates from Rabbi Small and his personal, passionate interest in exploring personal resilience and renewal – physical and spiritual well-being, and their inter-connectedness,” says adult-education chair Tom Fromson. “The emphasis is on developing an appreciation for what Judaism offers for these most intimate aspects of our lives.”
The weekend opens with a Friday-evening lecture, “L’Chaim: A Resilient and Vibrant Life,” exploring the choices we make for mental and emotional wellbeing, and what we can learn about vibrancy and resiliency from Torah and Jewish history and tradition.
A Saturday-afternoon women’s program, “The Miriam Impulse: What She Knew about a Happy, Thriving Life,” looks at Miriam and other women in the Torah. “Miriam understood something about where to put her focus, and where not to,” Sirois says. “Running along the bank of the Nile, watching her baby brother as he floated along in his basket, before he was discovered by his foster mother, there was something about her absolutely clear knowing that he had to be watched and that she was the girl to do it and report back to Yocheved. This is very true in the world of resiliency: being resilient and moving into a thriving life requires connection: we hold onto faith and hope when we are not alone. There are other moments like this in the Torah. When Hagar is exiled to the desert with her son Ishmael, and he lies dying, she remembers that it’s connections that move us forward, even in the darkest of moments, and she calls out to God. Even if you can find within yourself a question or idea that redeems a survival experience, when we actually have at least one person or being we feel is connected to us in that idea or understanding, we find the courage to move forward.”
The Sunday-morning program is dedicated to teens, “What It Really Means to Soar, Even When You Have Boring Homework and Your Siblings Really, Really Bug You.”
“Teens already know intuitively about the secrets to living a great life,” Sirois says. “We’re hoping to stimulate a discussion to bring that understanding into the open. Teens are often trapped in the conflict of ‘How do I be who I am authentically and still fit in?’ Every teen community has a different way of answering that. The pressures in West Hartford are around achievement, college, and professional paths; how many extra-curricular activities to engage in; how to fit in when your family has more materially than others or less materially than others. There are things we know from contemporary culture, the poets out there who got through these pressures and created unique lives. I’ll weave in Jewish stories and quotes, so that the teens understand that they’ve never been alone in this journey and that there are particular light-posts along the way.”
The message Sirois would like to send the teens home with is this: “No one is asking them to be the ‘perfect’ living example or incarnation of Moses or Leah or Rebecca or Golda Meir, or any of the great Jewish or Israeli figures,” she says. “But at the heart and soul of all the greatest wisdom is to be who they are and bring that back to the world.”
Sirois bases her teachings and professional approach in the relatively new field of Positive Psychology, the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.
“What we understand in Positive Psychology is that those of us who come to honor who we are and work on strengthening our strengths, give back the most,” she says. “Tikkun olam actually becomes amplified in this way. Those of us who have an understanding of self-care that is energizing, volunteer more, write more checks, inspire others, mentor more, get on planes and fly to Japan and dish out food after the earthquake. There have been numerous studies on this connection. We actually bring more to the world, literally and energetically; we’re kinder, we smile more, we hold doors more. I want to remind adults that their job is not to work themselves into the next cardiac arrest, but to find a way to hold themselves as precious beings and in so doing, they will bring more to the world. Moses is the perfect example: he stuttered, he was shy, he was sometimes explosively angry – in short, he was a human being, and still worthy of love. Nobody in the Torah gets painted as perfect. So if we could just say to ourselves, ‘I am so beautiful exactly as I am, with all these warts,’ we could move forward from there.”
For more information call (860) 236-1275 / www.emanuelsynagogue.org

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