What is the Yetzer Hara?
I always had the hardest time believing that we had some evil spirit that can possess us and incline us to do things that were improper…
I believed that blaming our wrongdoings on Yatzer Hara was an excuse for our “bad” actions…
So I began to search for the deeper meaning of what Yetzer Hara really meant…
And this is what I found!
WE ARE OUR OWN YETZER HARA!
Sometimes we can be the biggest self- critics and use negative self- talk when referring to ourselves…
By constantly focusing on our shortcomings … a person can either be inclined to “do better” or it can actually have the opposite effect and totally DEMOTIVATE them.
When we believe that we were supposed to perform a task on a certain level and and we fall short of it… this creates a phenomenon called… COGNITIVE DISSONANCE! This feeling of not reaching our highest potential gives us a grave amount of GUILT.
This falling short of your full potential and or realizing a missed opportunity is actually one of the definitions of an עברה / Avara! If we actually take out the root word of Avara, we get Avar… ע.ב.ר…. Which means passed …. An Avara is just a missed opportunity that passed…
Instead on being upset at ourselves for our so-called “short-comings”… we should implement this mindset of… “I did my best at that time… and with HaShems help, next time I can do even better and reach my full potential !”