The printed booklet (old version) is still available from my website, as is the pdf version.

Here’s some information on Navigating the Narrow Bridge:

6.3 million American have some specific fear. If you feel imprisoned by fear, this book offers tools for breaking out of jail and moving freely, confidently and joyously through life and towards your goals. Discover 7 steps drawn from metaphysical and spiritual principles and the teachings of Rebbe Nachman to help you move from where you are to where you want to be despite your fear. Learn to live with faith, courage and the joy that comes from see the miracle of life itself.

No matter how much or how little fear you feel – or for what reason, that fear stops you from living your life fully and creating the life you desire. Fear prevents you from achieving your highest potential and immobilizes you on the path to your dreams.

Do you want to learn to move through your fear so you can achieve your highest potential and achieve your dreams? To find out how, click here.

According to Rebbe Nachman, who lived from 1772-1840, we need to know one thing: “A person walks in life on a narrow bridge. The most important thing is not to make ourselves afraid.”

The goal of this short book is to help you move freely, confidently and joyously through life and towards your fullest potential. To accomplish this, you’ll learn how to:
• live in the moment
• turn fear of death into awe for life
• find and communicate with God
• use thoughts creatively
• cultivate an attitude of gratitude
• use meditation and visualization to feel safe
• and make affirmations of action

To help you navigate across the narrow bridges in your life, you’ll learn how to take 7 steps to a fear-free life:
Step #1: Traversing the Spectrum of Emotion
Step #2: Utilizing the Power of Thought
Step #3: Reaching Out for God’s Hand
Step #4: Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude
Step #5: Using Meditation as a Link to Life
Step #6: Connecting with Commandments
Step #7: Making Affirmations of Action

Navigating the Narrow Bridge draws on Jewish wisdom—in particular the teachings of Rebbe Nachman, metaphysical and quantum physics principles, spiritual wisdom, and human potential techniques. Thus, it is pertinent to anyone from any religious or spiritual background or tradition. Indeed, it’s appropriate for anyone who simply wants to walk courageously through life.

It’s possible to feel safe in this moment, balanced and poised for your next step, and to move forward courageously with a lust for life and an unstoppable desire to fulfill your potential no matter what you find along your path.

To find out how, click here.

I’ve tried prayer. I talked to God. I cried to God. I pleaded with God.

I tried counseling. And I got really honest with myself and with others, baring my deepest feelings.

Today in the car I decided to follow Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s advice and sing. I sang along with the songs my son played on my Ipod.

I still felt stuck.

Tomorrow I will get off my butt and start moving my body. I will exercise. No more staying at my desk all day long. I need to get the energy moving.

I also will start doing my own Kabbalistic conscious creation visualization and exercise on a daily basis again.This will help me focus on what I want in my life rather than on what I don’t want–on being unstuck rather than stuck.

Additionally I will implement affirmations into my daily practice–a.m. and p.m. These will help convince me on a conscious and unconscious level of who I truly am and can be.

And I will start using gratitude exercises in the morning and evening, reminding myself of the things for which I am thankful.

And I’ll get one thing knocked off my to-do list each day that gets me closer to my Big Goals.

The point is to change my energy as well as my thoughts and to feel like I am getting unstuck, almost like I’m pushing a car out of a muddy rut.

That’s the problem with getting stuck: All you see is the mud. All you hear is the spinning tires. And all you feel is exhaustion from trying to get unstuck.

You have to do something different. Wait for the mud to dry. Turn the tires. Reverse. Get out of the car and walk…or run.

What do you do when you get stuck? What gets you stuck?

As my heart broke and I tried to hold back my own tears, I offered her as many words of wisdom as I could find. I shared with her every technique I’d ever learned that would help her find happiness in her situation.

Each time when I hung up the phone, I cried. I cried for her–a mother whose heart and soul yearned to make things better for her daughter, who felt her pain and wanted to make heal it. And I cried for myself.

Her unhappiness made me acutely aware of my own.  On so many levels I knew I was not happy.

I needed to take my own advice.

Yet, my advice had not worked for my daughter–at least not well enough. Some of the tricks and tools had helped, but it took talking to her old therapist by phone for her to hear words that made sense to her.

I had to decide what would work for me. Just like my daughter, sometimes we can’t leave our situation to make ourselves happy. In fact, sometimes our baggage comes along with us. As I’ve heard it said, “Everywhere I go, there I am.” We can’t get away from ourselves.

We have to find a way to make ourselves feel happy. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov would advise us to fake it ’till we make it. To smile, sing, dance, act silly. He knew this would help long before psychiatrists realized that a simple smile could actually make us feel better–truly changing the chemical workings in our bodies so we would, indeed, feel happier.

Last night I sat around a campfire with a bunch of writers creating silly stories. Each person had to add one line. I couldn’t even say my line I was laughing so hard. It felt good. I felt happy.

We tend to focus on our unhappiness. That just makes us more unhappy. Instead, focus on what makes you happy.

What do you do to make yourself feel happy? What CAN you do to make yourself feel happy? What can you focus on that will make you happy?

My daughter realized that in the moment of feeling bad she could stop and remember a moment when she felt really good–good about herself and independent of anyone else. That made her feel better…happier…if not totally happy. But it’s a step in the right direction.

What step can you take today to make yourself feel happier? Take that step today.Focus on something that makes you happy.

On Shavuot, we remember and celebrate the giving of the Torah at Sinai. However, the Torah is not just the scrolls that contain the stories of our ancestors or, as some people believe, the word of God. The Torah contains wisdom imparted to us in the form of those stories and in the words of God. At Sinai, Jews also received the Oral Torah.

More than that, we each have a Torah of our own. We have our own wisdom, much of which comes from our own lives and the stories we tell about them. It comes from the lessons we have learned as we have lived and how we then share that wisdom.

Everyone has a Torah–unique and individual as well as part of The Torah. It all blends together.

Today, on Shavuot, whether you are Jewish or not, consider your Torah. (After all the Torah is the Old Testament or Bible; Christians read this as well. Muslims are descendants of Abraham. We are all one.) Are you open to receiving the Torah–your Torah–today? Are you willing to share it with others?

Know that the more you give your Torah (wisdom) to others, the more you will receive it (wisdom).

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov said we all must be teachers. As we teach, we open ourselves to learn more. In fact, we elevate ourselves to the next level so we can learn more, and by so doing we leave a spot open for someone else to move up and into.

Elevate yourself, and elevate someone else by giving your Torah.

Receive your Torah today on Shavuot. Ask God to Give it to you. Be open to receiving it. Then give your Torah to others. Share your wisdom: through teaching, writing, speaking.

Chag sameach (Happy holiday)!

The earthquake in Haiti brought up some fear, too. So do the little tremblors we have here all the time.

But I don’t allow myself to dwell on fear. Not ever. No how.

Fear clouds our ability to think straight. It doesn’t let us respond rationally. Instead we just react out of fear. Yes…there’s a difference between reacting and responding. We respond after thinking something through. We react when emotions or instinct tell us what to do, and sometimes this reaction isn’t rational.

So, today, I’m not focusing a lot on fear. I’m focusing on other things. I want to think straight.

(Plus, those of you know me know that I believe our thoughts have a creative ability. Therefore, I don’t want to dwell on my fears lest I create them.)

I’ve written a lot about Rebbe Nachman’s teaching about fear. Today I wrote about them again in my Examiner column. You might enjoy reading my thoughts. I didn’t want to repeat them all here, although that column inspired this blog post.

Leaving the latter part of this teaching for another time, I’ll focus on the first phrase: “Make for yourself a teacher.” Why should we make for ourselves a teacher? What does this mean? I think it means to find someone who can teach us, enlighten us, inspire us.

Without a teacher, we don’t learn. If we don’t learn, we don’t grow. Teachers inspire us. They help us become our best selves. They mirror to us our potential. In fact, they show us what we can – or do – know.

Do you have a teacher? For a long time now, I haven’t had one. This fact comes not for lack of available teachers. I have chosen for a variety of reasons (Yes, I’ve made excuses and had circumstance that kept me away from teachers…) not to go to classes or ask for lessons. I’ve even chosen not to make time to read books, listen to books on tape or CD, or find other ways to learn from teachers. On Monday, I will travel all the way to Albany, CA, to learn from a new teacher. I’m very excited. I may have acquired for myself a teacher.

Now, there are some teachers closer to home. I hope to also acquire them…or to place myself in their company when they are teaching on a regular basis. However, I have carved out a special time with this particular teacher, to whom I feel particularly drawn. I hope to feel enriched, inspired and to to grow through the experience.

As for the other part of the Pirkei Avot lesson, I have recently acquired a friend and committed to time with a few old friends. I am trying to develop new friendships. Friends can be teachers as well. They also help us grow. They inspire us. They serves as great mirrors of ourselves.

That’s why we judge everyone favorably. Each person we meet has something to teach us. They are all teachers. When we judge, we don’t allow ourselves to learn, to grow, to become our best selves.

And once we have learned a new lesson, as Rebbe Nachman teaches, we must offer that lesson to someone else. We must become the teacher.

Today I was reading a blog about this week’s parshah and came upon a teaching from Rav Kook, the former chief rabbi of Israel. He said the moment you were born is the exact moment that God decided the world could no longer function without you.

So, your moment of conception had to be predestined and, even though pregnancy takes nine months (usually), the decision about when exactly you should enter this world-that instant between being in the womb and out of the womb, was a decision made by God.

God determined, “The world needs you NOW.” And, boom! You were born.

This strikes me as an awesome concept. It’s as if God acts as the midwife, reaching in and pulling the baby out. (I visualize this as the Shechinah doing so lovingly rather than Adonai doing so forcefully.)

This same blog, brought in a teaching from my all-time-favorite teacher, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. The author wrote: “This has to be put into the lens of an obvious-yet-overlooked teaching of Rebbe Nachman. This moment right now? No moment like this ever has been. And now that it is gone, there will be a never moment like it. The power encapsulated in every single ‘now’ is irreplaceable. I NEED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE!”

Think about it. God brought you into the world at that particular time, because the world needed you more in that moment than at any other. Of course, your soul was housed in a tiny body. If the world needed you, you couldn’t do much about it. Now, however, you are in a large body that can act and speak and pursue your soul’s purpose.

Now, in this moment, which Rebbe Nachman says is like no other, how will you make the most of it? How will you do what it takes to serve God and the world? If the world needed you then, how much more so does it need you now? And what are you going to do about that? How will you take advantage of this moment, let alone this life?

More simply put, knowing that God pulls you out of the womb at the exact moment when the world needs your soul to come into physical form, how will you spend the moments of your life?

Pretty awesome thing to consider, no?

He also taught that our thoughts have a creative energy, something I’ve learned outside of Judaism as well. Our feelings belie our thoughts. So, if we are feeling depressed, we are thinking depressing thoughts — and creating events and issues in our lives that cause us to feel more depressed.

I saw this so clearly in my life this week. For some reason, I can’t even remember why, I became angry and depressed. Maybe it was simply that I got behind in my work. Then everything began to spiral downward. On Tuesday night as we slept, a large tree fell from our property onto the road below our house taking the power and phone lines with it. This resulted in us having no power for 26 hours. Of course, this also meant that I could only work at home for about two and a half hours the following day — the time my laptop battery functions. After that, I had to go into town to find somewhere to “plug in” and find Internet access as well. However, the whole inconvenience wasted an enormous amount of time. (I still have no phone service as I write.)

With no power, I handled a few other issues — the lack of phone service being one of them — all of which turned out to be very frustrating and difficult. This plummeted my mood farther downward

When the power finally came back on the next day, I discovered I had overwritten a document I had worked on, which caused me to have to redo about three and a half hours of work. This, of course, set me farther behind in my work…and caused me to feel more depressed.

In the meantime, my husband’s company, which is being sold, sped up the time line for the sale. This means he’ll be out of work sooner rather than later. Also, my client became unhappy with our “process.” I have clients lining up, which should be a good thing (and I am grateful for the work), but I just can’t fit them all in and the stress began giving me daily migraines.

As the week progressed, I also felt totally frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t find time to get to the chiropractor or to the salon for a haircut. Not to mention that there wasn’t one week on the calendar for me to schedule the surgery I need on my knee, which has to get done before my husband is out of work.  And all of this just made me more angry and depressed.

The more depressed and angry I got, the more bad things happened. I created them with my negative thoughts and energy. I knew it. I know it well. Yet, changing those thoughts and energy were–and are–not so easy. Indeed, as Rebbe Nachman probably knew, it’s a difficult downward flow out of which to pull. But pull myself out, I must.  His advice: Use ever ploy you can think of to bring yourself joy.

So, today I will do that. I will now work for three hours straight so I feel I have accomplished something. Then, I will exercise. Then I will see if I can’t get to the chiropractor or get my hair cut. I will do something to make myself feel better.

And I will be conscious of my mood. Sometimes we just want to stay stuck in our bad mood, and all that does is give us more reasons to be in a bad mood. I saw that this week! How I’ve seen it work in my life before. Rebbe Nachman advised that we should act happy even if we are not. Fake it until you make it, in other words. “Avoid depression at all costs!” he says.

And so, today, I will fight that downward flow of depression…and I’ll not give up hope for a better day.  I’ll remember the rebbe’s words:”Never despair! Never. It’s forbidden to give up hope.”

There’s so much to hope for…I know that. Sometimes I just forget.

According to Rebbe Nachman we all posses an inner light that represents that which we know. There also exists an outer light, which represents the knowledge we don’t yet possess.

In order to obtain the outer light, to let it in, we have to give over our truth, our wisdom. We have to, in a sense, empty out some of our inner light and make room for the outer light to come in. We do this by teaching others what we know. We do this by sharing our wisdom.

When we do this, when we allow that light to come in, we move from the level where we are now – developmentally or intellectually or emotionally —  to the next level.  Every person lives on a unique level. In fact, says Rebbe Nachman, no two people are on the exact same level at the same time when it comes to knowledge and wisdom and human development. Yet, as you move to the next level, you make room for someone else to move up to your level.

So, by offering a teaching, by sharing your wisdom, you not only give knowledge to someone but you allow someone to move to your level as you take in light and move to another level as well. Thus, by teaching, you are both giving and receiving at the same time.

We all have to give over our knowledge, so we can be filled with new light and move up, learn more, reach a higher place in terms of our human potential. By so doing, we allowing someone else to move up and grow in their knowledge and their human potential as well. We have to be a teacher and a student, a rebbe and a chassid.

How will you accomplish that today? What will you teach? What wisdom will you share?

Worry places us in the future, only it does so in a negative manner. It places our thoughts, our focus, on possible negative outcomes…things we are afraid might happen. As a believer in creative thought, or deliberate creation (also called the Law of Attraction), I know that what we think about is what we get. Even Rebbe Nachman, a great Jewish teacher who lived from 1772-1810, told us to “be careful” about where we place our thoughts for we will surely end up in the same place as we place our thoughts. So, whatever we are worried about, we create. If we don’t want to be in that negative future, to experience that negative outcome, we need to stop focusing upon it; we need to stop worrying about it.

I know that’s hard to do when you know you soon will lose your job or you have a large debt to pay off or you don’t know how you will pay your bills. The worry won’t help solve those problems, though. Positive thinking will. Not only will it help you manifest positive results, it will put you in the frame of mind to actually find solutions to your problems. Negative thinking has a way of spiraling your emotions downward, making it hard for you to think clearly and act in a manner that helps you create positive change in your life. Positive thinking, on the other hand, generates energy and makes you want to find a way out of your current situation.

I’m not saying this because I have nothing to worry about. Actually, I have plenty of reason to worry. My husband is about to lose his job. I twisted my knee and it occasionally goes out on me as if I’ve done some major damage. I’m not sure how to choose the right agent to help me sell my books. My marriage isn’t all that solid. I have too much work to do in the allotted time. I need to take my own advice!

Stop worrying. Stop projecting negative futures – and creating them – and instead focus upon and project positive futures – and create them. Stop wasting energy on worry and put it to good use manifesting what you want rather than what you don’t want.