Jennifer Mann, LCSW

12/21/2025

The Act of Making Meaning

Have you noticed humanity slowly slipping away? Chat GPT and Gemini have replaced us on social media. People (if not already AI) are using AI to write their content; posting it on a screen and reading off a teleprompter; they then have an AI voice superimposed over their own and edit their videos to perfection. A face can be distorted to perfection, a body and we can now plaster our face onto a fake body and put it in a fake environment to live out a fantasy we have and have people actually believing this fantasy is true and liking us for it. And none of it is real. It’s all an illusion. Sometimes I find it cute, and sometimes my neshama feels allergic and I find it hurts my soul.

I am not immune to the temptations of AI. I was going to use it to help me make this post. And then I had a moment, sitting here on my beautiful and meaningful sofa, in the beautiful and meaningful home, looking at the messy remnants of my beautiful and meaningful family Chanukah party last night (I do plan on cleaning up… soon. Maybe a part of me isn’t ready to emotionally wipe away the energy.)

I notice that the happiest or even unhappiest people are making meaning. Trying to find the lesson. Trying to grow from it. Moving forward. Struggling with feeling stuck. They are all trying to make meaning. I have a lot of respect for that. I notice that everyone assigns a different meaning, though there are some universal, human themes. And while we may disagree about meaning, it seems it is the act of making meaning that may be most important. Let’s try this out… I have a hard time with my own typo’s. When I send a text, I automatically scan for mistakes and then need to hit edit and correct myself. This is wrapped up in my own ego and need for people to perceive me in a certain way. Deeper than that, it has to do with my own inner shame I carry. It’s really hard for me when I fail at something. I feel so much shame! So trying becomes hard. Taking risks is hard. Subjecting myself to the embarrassment of failure is hard. And yet, I can share this. I know it’s human. (I am leaving a typo here to push myself out of my comfort zon.) Was that my way of controlling the way you see me? Maybe!

The act of making meaning is part of what we do as humans. We’re always busy assigning meaning. I imagine it has something to do with survival. Without it things can feel pretty hopeless and we can lose our drive and our will to go on. So it’s very important to find meaning. Sometimes the circumstances in which meaning grows absolutely stink! (Truly truly stink!) And yet, the only choice we have sometimes is the meaning we assign to it. (I am talking about those immovable, fundamentally unchangeable situations we did not ask for.) sometimes we can change things. And we aren’t. And we’re assigning old or unhelpful meaning. And we can take a look at why that may be and assign a new meaning, but only if we really want to.

Jen
And I see that “s” sitting there and it’s driving me nuts!

12/19/2025

Where Do I Put It?

Sometimes something is so heavy, so painful…
And we want the whole thing, but the part(s) feels like too much to bare. Maybe it compromises our values, our safety (the part, that is), our ability to connect and be intimate.

And so, we ask ourselves, “Where do I put it?”

Do I put it in the recesses of my mind? Buried away…
Like a jack-in-the-box, it pops out and scares us; sometimes taking our breath away.

Do I put it front and center? Like the star of the show… spotlight and all. Then I can’t see anything else.

Do I juggle it? Flying in the air, scared to drop it, going back and forth between the burial and the stage.

Where exactly do I put it?

What if….
What if….
What if I put it down?

What if I stop taking responsibility for it, or trying to figure out the answer. What if I try to simply notice it? (Whatever it is.) Notice. What if I notice how I feel? What if I notice what that part does to my body? The way it lands? I may begin to notice some space between myself and the part or the thing I’ve been burying, spotlighting or juggling.

I can’t hold what isn’t mine to hold.
I can’t fix it.
I can’t control it.
I can’t make it better.
I can put it down.
I can feel myself.

💖 Jennifer Mann LCSW

12/18/2025

There’s Been a Mistake
By Jennifer Mann

When life goes wrong, I freeze. I don’t understand. I fight it with denial, suppression and my personal favorite; trying to make it go my way by insisting external factors are well within my control. (Ha!) When life goes wrong I cry. It feels unfair. It feels like there’s been some terrible mistake. I throw myself not a pity party because I have too much Aquarius dignity for that… I do not take out my violin. The thought of anyone having “pity” for me makes me want to crawl out of my skin. When I was in seminary billions of years ago, I needed a fridge for my dorm room. My friend and I put the refrigerator on my back and we climbed two flights of stairs; sooner than ask for help.

When life goes wrong, we meet people we never would have met. When life goes wrong, we have experiences we never would have had. When life goes wrong, I believe it can never be right again… until… until… life introduces me to myself.

When life was right, I can also remember the cost and the price I paid (sometimes… sometimes it’s a bit foggy and I can’t remember.)

When life goes wrong we are thrown into new challenges. Things we never dreamt we’d face. Things we feel completely unprepared for and do not want to do! We cry. We are also hopeful. We also start to breathe… eventually.

When life goes wrong, we develop empathy and an understanding of people that we never could have possibly had when life was right; before the “mistake.” Not because we weren’t kind before things went awry, but because we simply didn’t know. When life goes wrong, we have a moment (many many moments) of realization and awareness and appreciation of others and their realities.

When life goes wrong and there has been a terrible mistake; and we live in that “mistake” over time, we start to contemplate our old life as we slowly settle into the new one; maybe there was no mistake. Maybe there are no mistakes. Maybe there is the reality we lived in and believed that was all there could ever be so it seemed there was a mistake.

When life goes wrong, we are called to surrender. We are called to accept. We are called to humility and modesty. We are called to compassion and kindness. We are called to mercy, as we fall to our knees. When there has been a mistake, we are called to TRUTH. Emes! When there has been a mistake, we are called to the thirteen attributes of Gd, as we are created in His image. This is why I feel that people who have lived through, or are living through the “mistake,” have the highest potential to feel close to Gd. When there has been a terrible mistake, You get to feel Him and how He feels about you.

With all that being said, when there has been a terrible mistake, most days are a struggle. Or an offshoot of a struggle. We can’t usually get away from when things were right for too long. When things were right has a way of sending reminders.

When things have gone wrong, most days can also be joyful. Things go wrong. It is not a moral failure. It is not a reflection of some ugly image of yourself. Life is so much bigger than my genes, my upbringing, my input. Much of life is out of my hands. What is in my hands is focusing on the me I was introduced to and am still and always will be becoming. When life went wrong, over time, I learned that there are no absolutes, that holding two truths is the truth most of the time (except when there is abuse), that everyone and their mother has an opinion, I met a lot of “experts” and people who think they are somehow above it all. I have also met kindness and wisdom. And most of all, after life went wrong, I met myself. I am getting to know her. I am getting to know how people perceive her. I am getting to know her feelings and how she thinks and how she loves and how she cries and how she carries responsibility on her own. She breaks down and she is scared and she is joyful and she is a big kid.

When things went wrong, there was no mistake. When things went wrong, that chapter had simply come to a close. The characters in the story all moved on to their next chapters. Some together; some separately. Nothing had gone wrong. There was no mistake. The author started a new chapter. I was very comfortable and very uncomfortable in the last chapter. I am very comfortable and very uncomfortable in this new chapter (I think I’ve lived many new chapters as I write this…) The comforts and the discomforts are completely different than in the last. What I know now, as uncomfortable as it feels and with everything it brings up is that there wasn’t a mistake.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Mann LCSW

12/18/2025

I recently read Divorced by Dr. Shalom Augenbaum. If I was forced to choose just one word to describe how it made me feel, that word would be “free.” Free from what society thinks of me. Free from what anyone thinks of me. And to be honest, free from the shackles of my own personal judgments, my own inner critic and emotional residue I’ve carried with me all these years later.

I think Dr. Augenbaum is remarkably brave for sharing his story with the world and with the Orthodox community. His vulnerability reminds me that it is OK to be vulnerable with the public, appropriately. Beyond OK, it is helpful and healing. To know that you are not alone. To know that “it” can happen to anyone, and not a moral failure. To know there is hope and life and growth, and that you have nothing to be ashamed of.

There is still so much stigma in certain communities around certain things. Divorce being one of them. Families who refuse to accept other family members because they aren’t religious. I believe in the good in most people and that this is a perversion of what Hashem wants. I believe that excluding someone, making someone feel othered or less than because they are not as observant, shaming and humiliating them is sinas chinam and Hashem cries.

I do believe in hope. I do believe in change. I do believe in emes/truth. I do believe in love. I also believe in protecting your own sanity, dignity and mental health. Sometimes we outgrow relationships. Sometimes other people outgrow us because we’ve outgrown someone else. Sometimes we outgrow intolerance.

To anyone who has ever felt a moment’s shame or pain due to being divorced, I really encourage you to read this book. It may give you an entirely new perspective.

If you have a friend or family member who is or has gotten divorced, I think you should read this too. It will give you such a deep understanding of what your loved one is going through.

Thank you to my friend for telling me about this. It really touched me.

Jen

12/17/2025

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSOHlEfkpZl/?igsh=YW00cWZlZWxjczZ3

12/16/2025

12/14/2025

✨🕊️🌿 We are so excited to welcome Chava Rabinowitz to the Inner Calm team! 🌿🕊️✨

Imagine your daughter learning how to truly relax 🤍
How to exhale the noise, the pressure, and the overwhelm 🌬️✨
And begin to hear her own true voice again 🌿💫

Through a gentle breathwork journey, calm becomes familiar 🤍🌿
Safety settles into the body 🕊️
And peace becomes something she carries with her ✨🌬️
It’s pure peace 🤍✨

✨🕊️ Calm belongs to her 🕊️✨

Chava Rabinowitz is a Relationship Coach and certified Somatic Breathwork Practitioner with additional training in Jungian coaching, hypnosis, and NLP 🧠✨
She has dedicated her career to helping people regulate their nervous systems, release stress, and cultivate the skills needed to connect open-heartedly and vulnerably 🤍🌬️

She specializes in guiding individuals toward clarity and emotional spaciousness by teaching them how to use their own breath as a tool for emotional regulation and inner safety 🌿✨
Her calming presence and intuitive approach allow those she works with to feel supported, seen, and empowered — ultimately helping them live more authentically and confidently 🤍🕊️

At Inner Calm, breathwork is age-based and developmentally informed 🌱
🌸 Younger children experience playful, rhythmic, body-based breathing 🦋
🌿 Tweens and teens learn intentional breath tools for stress, anxiety, and emotional intensity 🌬️✨

✨🕊️ Calm belongs to her 🕊️✨



https://www.instagram.com/p/DSPmNiagAU9/?igsh=MTRiYWdzZm1sYmd4bA==

12/12/2025

12/09/2025

When you realize you have no control over whatever you’re working so hard to make better, smaller, more manageable, less visible…. You are faced with two things: the reality of the situation, and the real you. The beautiful, the difficult. Something I try to practice for the things I ruminate about and ultimately cannot control (though my ruminations are trying) is the following:
“You are safe.”
“You can put this away, in a beautiful strong box. It’s not going anywhere. You are safe now.”

Jen

12/07/2025