Ruminations on Israel: What Changed?

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

A good friend asked me when I returned, 'What changed because you went to Israel?'  She went on to say that she had always been told that going to Israel was life-changing...and she wanted to know what, in my life, had changed.

What a challenging question!  Because it's really easy now to almost forget it happened.  Back home, back in the routine, with a few extra Facebook friends and some cool pictures  to prove that I ventured out of the comfort zone.  But, to all appearances, life goes on as it was.

And yet...

On our last Dive session, before our last meal together on the beach in Tel Aviv, Rita asked us all to think about what we would be leaving in Israel.  What would we not take back with us?  I had a long ponder on that.  What had I learned...about me?

I learned I could join.  I've written at odd times about my inherent social awkwardness; there are some old childhood emotional wounds that I can relate that probably are the root of that, and a  number of more recent wounds that reinforced it...the feeling that I'm not really accepted, that I'm an annoyance, that I don't have anything to offer.  But every time I took a breath and took the risk to join a group...I found that they actually didn't seem to be too offended by me wanting to hang out with them.  In fact, I was...welcomed.  Joining the group was accounted to me as grace and ease and even kindness.  I was flabbergasted and at one point even suppressed a hoot because...wow, the opinion expressed was something I had NEVER heard anyone say about me before.  Gracious?  Easy to be with?  KIND???? Are you really talking about ME???  I immediately thought of some events in the past year that certainly would have brought people to dispute that opinion.  Or...that I would expect to dispute that opinion.  But maybe it was my perception that was off.

And as I thought about that, I suddenly wondered...could I leave that social awkwardness thing in Israel?That thing that EXPECTS to be misunderstood and rejected?    It seems like every time I have tried to move beyond it...when I have decided it was time to be bold and move with conviction and confidence I have slammed into a brick wall and had to eat humble pie for behaving in a way that others perceived as inconsiderate, trouble-making, insensitive and/or presumptuous. Will that happen again if I try to move beyond the basic distrust of myself and the protective hedge of the hang-back and be-quiet, stand-on-the-perimeter-and-smile, shut-up-and-be-accommodating, socially awkward me? If I do try to shed that skin...again...will I be grabbed and stuffed back into it...again? 

God, I prayed, CAN I leave that here?  Is that even possible?


To my surprise, I felt suddenly very sure that it could happen.  It was possible.  And I saw a glimmer, like, through a door that was cracked just a bit open, of something bright and hopeful.  A breath of fresh clean air blowing from a new place.   I felt, for just a moment, of what it would feel like to live beyond that.

For the second time in 24 hours, my perception of myself shifted slightly.  I didn't have what I would call a breakthrough; it wasn't earth-shaking.  But there was a shifting.  It may be a while before the actual change manifests enough to really make a difference in things.  But I can believe now that such a change is coming.