GITTY STOLIK
AUTHOR, EDUCATOR, PROMOTER OF OPTIMISM AND JOYFUL LIVING
After 20 years dedicated to the two beloved arenas of raising a family and teaching junior high and high school Judaic studies, Gitty Stolik’s career took an unexpected curve when, at the age of forty, she enrolled in a course to enhance her writing skills. This led to her receiving a B.A. in Psychology, summa cum laude, and an M.S. in Education. After graduating, she trained to become a Feuerstein Method clinician, turning her focus toward helping challenged children realize their potential, through teaching, consulting, and a unique play therapy model.
Mrs. Stolik then published two books on laughter, humor, and joy – the best-selling It’s Okay to Laugh Seriously and New Joy: Response to a Changing World, based on the teachings of Kabbalah and teeming with life experience. After publishing the books, Mrs. Stolik began to engage with the ever-growing Joy community that her readership created, and which led her to launch of her current platform, the Joy Movement, which promotes optimism and Joyful living.
Today, Mrs. Stolik shares her ‘simple formula’ for genuine joy through her popular five-week “Joy Workout” courses, joy coaching, and inspirational speaking. As her books continue to gain popularity and are translated into other languages, she continues to strive towards another degree, an M.S. – Mastery of Simchah (joy).
If you want to live joyfully, Gitty suggests that you learn to uncover the redemptive spark in every challenge. Our practice of Joy today invites the Perfect Joy of Redemption. Let’s rise above the fray of the daily calamities to see the grandeur of what we can create.
Gitty Stolik is a mother and grandmother living in Brooklyn, New York.
Her books are available on Amazon.com. For more information visit okaytolaughseriously.com
Where Is God?
GITTY STOLIK
Sandra is visiting a campus religious organization,(1) and asks “I challenge you to prove that God exists!”
The religious leader asks for clarification. “Sandra, are you asking as a skeptic or a truth-seeker?”
Sandra is probably not challenging God’s existence (Is there a God?). More likely she longs to feel God’s existence in real-time. She is on a quest to discover.
Doubt is debilitating. Let’s reframe her question to find a more constructive way of going about our ‘God search.’ Talking about God is exciting, energizing. Stirring. God is elusive but God beckons. God is concealed and at the same time, God invites us to transcend our mundane existences.
Most people don’t question God’s existence, only God’s involvement. But if someone questions God’s very existence, we can prove it through the New York Times. “You know how yesterday’s New York Times got printed, don’t you? There was a terrible accident. A bus collided with a New York Times supply truck. The ink jars smashed and ran all over the paper rolls, and presto, the newspaper was printed and ready to deliver.”(2)
“Funny joke. Newspapers do not randomly generate,” Sandra laughs.
“Correct. And our intricate world did not randomly self-arrange. There is a Hand running every aspect of Creation.”
“Busted! Okay, granted, there is a God in the world. But I want to feel God in my world. God seems remote. I don’t feel God in me.
Okay, let’s bring God in. Let’s make God’s presence personal.
“Where is God?” someone once asked a great sage.(3) “Wherever you let Him in” he responded.
So, how, my friends, do we let God in?
I let God in by reflecting God’s joy. Many think of God as the God of vengeance. No wonder people have a hard time believing in God; I wouldn’t want to hang out with that kind of God either. God acts angry, but God is not angry. God is the Source, the Epitome of Goodness. God and good – same word, with a typo.
And God is the source of Joy. God is the sole owner, CEO, and distributor of Joy – Joy, not Happiness. Big difference! Happiness is externally-based, from things you get. It is transient. Joy is internally-generated, loves to give, and is enduring.(4) Happiness is self- centered, Joy transcends our own needs – you find ego in Happiness; you find God in Joy. Joy is everlasting. It’s boundless.
Only something everlasting and boundless can generate something everlasting and boundless.
Kabbalah expounds on Joy’s powers. When we espouse Joy, we are Godly. We are passing on God’s Divine spark, God’s light. We even become God’s creation-partners. God made Man. We make Man joyous!
“And you know what? Joy is so blissfully Divine, it beams... broadcasts... bellows God’s existence!”
Looking for God? Search no longer. God is right here, waiting for you to allow God in. And then you can take on the world together.
Footnotes:
1. Chabad (See chabad.org)
2. As heard on Rabbi YB Gordon’s Tanya classes, in the name of his father. Tanya classes available on Chabad.org.
3. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk - A Chassidic Rabbi and leader in Kotzk, Poland, 1857-1859.
4. When we act in accordance with the Divine will.