One of the books I've read recently about life transformation lists the following ten major life domains:
- Spiritual: Your connection to God
- Intellectual: Your engagement with significant ideas
- Emotional: Your psychological health
- Physical: Your bodily health
- Marital: Your spouse or significant other
- Parental: Your children if you have any
- Social: Your friends and associates
- Vocational: Your profession
- Avocational: Your hobbies and pastime
- Financial: Your personal or family finances
I've been witnessing my own fundamental life transformation in two of these domains. It all started when a severe "divine storm" struck me out of the blue several months ago in one of these two areas. It wasn't until I received this wake-up call that I fully woke up and took the significant first step of repentance of what I was told the main cause of this storm - my addiction to alcohol and anger outbursts under the influence of alcohol. Before this I tried many times in various ways to stop drinking in vain, but this time I successfully quit immediately and since then I haven't touched alcohol and have been breaking every day my personal record of remaining sober. Unfortunately, this repentance of mine couldn't subdue the storm.
My second (vain) act of repentance was my first serious attempt to alleviate my alleged obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), which, I was told, became the main cause of the storm, through my own self-work and psychotherapy by a new, Hebrew-speaking, psychotherapist as well as through life coaching by myself and a professional Jewish life coach. Thanks to all these efforts my alleged OCPD has subsided significantly, and my new psychotherapist even told me yesterday that in his opinion I don't suffer from OCPD in the first place. Unfortunately, this repentance of mine couldn't subdue the storm, either.
Though I fully understand now that I repented of two of my failures that weren't the true cause of this divine storm, this double repentance has awakened me spiritually and lead me to an unexpected new adventure of my awakened soul. As part of this spiritual awakening I started participating in a weekly lecture by a certain rabbi famous for his Torah knowledge, both theoretical and practical, in this life domain in which something which is holy to me and I've committed myself to is being threatened. The weekly lecture I attended, to which I also brought a new hasidic friend of mine also suffering from a serious problem in the same life domain, though less seriously than I, has awakened me completely to the full realization of the true cause of the storm.
Now I'm fully aware of the fatal mistakes I've made in this life domain. But I don't know how I can repent as these mistakes are, according to this rabbi, unpardonable in the first place, and my repentance from these mistakes doesn't seem to interest or affect the "intermediary" of this devastating divine storm. In short, I'm afraid I woke up too late. So what is left to me is never to forget the important lesson this divine storm has taught me and apply it next time I should have a chance to venture again in this important life domain.