Hashiva Hakaratit (Awareness Thinking or as many call it "The Yemima Method”) is a Jewish psychological spiritual system that helps to enhance our happiness, well-being, and balance. This system gives us tools to uncover our warm heart, and clear thinking without fighting ourselves. We learn how to connect to our true self-our inner goodness.
WHAT IS THE YEMIMA METHOD?
You are good, you always were good, and you always will be good.
Of course, we all want to learn, expand, and grow. But the truth of the goodness within us is not debatable, and you do not need to prove it or to justify it.
If I am so good, why don’t I feel good, and why does it feel that my behaviors do not reflect this?
Throughout our lives, this good is hidden from us and not easily accessible. What is usually more accessible to us is our defense mechanisms, blockages, negative emotions, and misunderstandings about our true nature. We acquire those in childhood. In Yemima terminology, what covers our goodness is called Omess. The translation for Omess is burden. These mechanisms, emotions, misunderstandings do not help us to grow and develop but rather are outdated survival mechanisms that burden our wonderful system.
Hashiva Hakaratit is about building understandings and tools that enable us:
to see our goodness
to separate our true good nature from the Omess,
to accept our omess with great warmth and love
to be close to ourselves.
What? Just separation, warmth, and acceptance? Don’t I need to try harder to get rid of my bad habits, to try to think positive thoughts, and to improve myself?
We do not change ourselves; we give our system the right conditions so it can grow. The wrong conditions for growth are self-criticism, self-conflict, and self-rejection. The right conditions for growth and development are love, acceptance, and patience. We give these to ourselves, and the Omess gets cleared from our system.
Hashiva Hakartit- Awareness Thinking- is being aware of the good that is within us and around us, to connect to that good, to build from that good, and to remember that good even when our omess is clouding our vision.
WHO WAS YEMIMA AVITAL?
A descendent of a Kabbalist family, Yemima Avital (1929-1999), was born in Casablanca Morocco. When she was 20, she made Aliyah to Israel. Yemima developed a unique method that integrated psychology, in which she was trained, and Jewish spirituality and thought, including Kabbalah. In 1987 she opened the Ma’ayan Institute, where she taught her students this method.
