Feeling stuck in worry/anxiety/guilt/shame/self-doubt mode?
What if your emotional challenges aren’t in the way but are the way? The struggle is the point. Facing challenges isn’t a detour - it’s exactly where you grow your soul muscles. Every challenge is actually an invitation to live bigger, bolder, stronger...
In Worrier to Warrior, we’ll uncover timeless Jewish tools that help you build your emotional toolbox, live with confidence, and own your inner power.
The Details
When
4 Tuesday Evenings @ 7:00pm
Session 1: August 19
Session 2: August 26
Session 3: September 2
Session 4: September 9
Where
The Shul Downtown
225 S. Wilmington St
Raleigh
Price
$40 per person including textbook
FREE for Chai Club members using code GELTSAVER
Course Overview
Week 1
THE DREADED IMPOSTER SYNDROME
Seemingly, one’s successes should be a source of positive emotions. Yet for many, success produces the opposite emotional effect. Approximately seventy percent of individuals report experiencing intense anxiety as a result of their accomplishments. This is often due to feeling that they “faked” their way to success and are not as capable as others think they are, or they feel they are otherwise unworthy of the positive recognition they’ve received.
In today’s culture, where individuality is placed at a premium, oftentimes the biggest source of negative emotions, and the greatest obstacle to attaining positive ones, is the feeling of being inauthentic. “The impostor syndrome,” a well-documented manifestation of success, is the feeling of truly not deserving praise as a consequence of having faked one’s way to a position of status. This sense of vulnerable inauthenticity, which is estimated to affect seventy percent of the population, often engenders intense cycles of anxiety, self-image issues, and even depression.
This week’s lesson addresses “impostor syndrome” by drawing from the work of psychotherapists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who pioneered therapeutic treatment of this syndrome. Through this exploration, students gain valuable insight into what it means to be truly authentic, how to healthily take credit for accomplishments, and also how to develop practical confidence-building techniques. This lesson also considers the psychology principles communicated in the book of Chasidic teachings, Tanya, and how these principles can further illuminate our struggles with (in)authenticity and help us cultivate a more positive attitude toward our successes.
Week 2
SHAME, FRUSTRATION & FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY
While the previous week’s lesson concerns how to best foster positive emotions in the wake of success, this week’s lesson focuses on how even our shortcomings can engender positive emotions if we approach them in the right way. To do so, this lesson draws on Helen B. Lewis’s influential distinction between shame and guilt and more recent work by June Price Tangeny that has followed.
These studies jointly reveal a critical difference between guilt and shame. While shame involves an overall devaluation of oneself and feelings of helplessness—attitudes that tend to reinforce detrimental habits and foster increasingly negative emotions—guilt focuses on the negativity of one’s actions (not oneself) and portrays oneself as a capable agent. In light of this, participants discover how adopting a guilt-based perspective on shortcomings, rather than a shame-based one, creates a more positive attitude toward shortcomings and a more proactive approach to rectifying mistakes. Perspectives from Jewish philosophy are also brought in to demonstrate how the struggle for self-betterment can itself be a source of pride and other positive emotions, despite our shortfalls along the journey.
Week 3
UNHEALTHY GUILT
The previous week’s lesson focuses on the utility of guilt to foster positive emotions, but as this week’s lesson explains, not all guilt is good guilt. In explaining why this is so, this lesson further elucidates the fundamental distinction between positive and negative emotions, citing literature from a variety of sources regarding the affective, behavioral, and cognitive differences distinguishing them. In particular focus are the works of Barbara Fredrickson and Joseph Forgas who explain the distinct ways in which positive and negative emotions affect our cognitive processes.
With these differences in mind, this lesson shows how guilt can result in either positive or negative emotions, depending on how it is used. By exploring Tanya’s guidance on the proper role of guilt in repentance, we discover how guilt can be used to foster positive emotions, while avoiding the negative emotions that may otherwise arise. The result is a more informed and capable approach to handling guilt, using it as a tool to enhance one’s psychological well-being while avoiding its potential pitfalls.
Week 4
PAIN, ANGUISH & ANXIETY
Another common hindrance to positive emotions is the inevitability of suffering in our lives. It is estimated that approximately fifty percent of individuals have experienced a traumatic event at some point in their lives, yet individuals’ responses to such occurrences vary markedly. For some, the result is a vicious cycle of debilitating negative emotions, whereas others are less affected from the outset and quickly recuperate. The difference between these two types of responses is “resilience”: the ability to adapt in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, and other significant sources of stress.
Reviewing the works of George Bonanno,and of Steven Southwick and Dennis Charny, this lesson explores the nature of resilience and how we can cultivate resilience in ourselves. The two main approaches studied are the non-passive acceptance of adversity and finding meaning in adverse events. In both cases, lessons from the Talmud and Tanya are brought to bear on both situations.