Omer Day 1: Just enough

(graphic: https://www.pinterest.com/serenityinhim/new-love3/)

"With the mitzvah of counting the 49 days, known as Sefirat Ha'Omer, the Torah invites us on a journey into the human psyche, into the soul. There are seven basic emotions that make up the spectrum of human experience. At the root of all forms of enslavement, is a distortion of these emotions. Each of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot is dedicated to examining and refining one of them.

The seven emotional attributes are:
1. Chesed - Loving-kindness
2. Gevurah - Justice and discipline
3. Tiferet - Harmony/compassion
4. Netzach - Endurance
5. Hod - Humility
6. Yesod - Bonding
7. Malchut - Sovereignty, leadership"
Daily Omer Meditation

Over the next 49 days, I'm going to post a meditation from some source or another (perhaps myself) with my reactions/responses. Please feel free to share (with attribution, please), comment, and otherwise join me on the 49-day spiritual journey to Shavuot.

Day 1: The Loving-kindness found within loving-kindness - Just Enough

I have enough,
I am enough, 
I do enough ...

I was brought up to believe that over-indulgence was a sign of love. Were emotional or physical hurts worth 1 cookie or 2? If tuna was on sale, and 6 cans was good, was buying 12 was even better. One could never have enough food when company was coming over. 

Especially as I prepared for our Pesach seder, I found myself back in that love = more mentality. And I remembered - actually, my husband repeatedly reminded me - of all the wasted Pesach foods that I had overbought "just in case" and had been discarded because really, who wanted matzah after Pesach ended? 

The reality was that all that food and stuff not only didn't bring me a sense of love, it actually made me shudder and shake my head as my soul was filled with remorse from all the money I had wasted. 

So this year, I did my best to love and honor both my soul and my body with loving-kindess by asking:  

Did I really need 2 bags of Pesadik chocolate chips? Was I really going to make the farfel kugel (and feel guiltily stuffed after I pretty much ate the whole thing myself)? And how many boxes of soup nuts did I honestly need? 

The answers: no, no, none.

And so on this 2nd day of Pesach, as we count Day 1 of the Omer, my meditation for appreciating the love within loving-kindness remains this:

 I have enough,
I am enough, 
I do enough ...