Monica Berg's Blog, page 3

Beha’alotcha: Living in a State of Prophecy

Monica inspires us to talk to the Light of the Creator whenever we need guidance and shares how we can connect with the state of prophecy within us.

Recorded live at the International Energy Tour 2025 in Jerusalem, Israel.

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WFLA BLOOM

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Don’t Let the Small Things Win

Have you ever found yourself deeply frustrated… over something deeply insignificant?

A missed text. A wet towel on the bed. Someone cutting you off in traffic. The dishwasher left open. A passive-aggressive comment. Your favorite almond milk is out of stock—again.

We brush these things off as no big deal. I’m just annoyed. I’ll get over it. But then something else happens. And then something else. And before long, you’re no longer getting over it—you’re living in it. Without even realizing it, you’re walking through your life wearing a filter of frustration. And here’s the real danger: it starts to feel normal.

I call this spiritual sediment—the buildup of small, unresolved irritations that settle into the foundation of our consciousness. One grain of sand doesn’t weigh much. But a thousand? You’re carrying a desert inside your chest.

These micro-upsets may not seem worthy of spiritual intervention. But together, they dull your joy, block your creativity, and close your heart.

Eventually, you wake up and realize…
You’re more upset than you are grateful.
You’re more reactive than you are present.
You’re more focused on what’s wrong than what’s possible.

Several years ago, I had a moment I’ll never forget—because it was so ridiculous. I had just finished a beautiful day, nothing special occurred, but still, I felt completely aligned with my purpose. I was light, open, joyful. I walked into the kitchen to make a smoothie, and the blender didn’t work. I fussed with it for far too long, googling what could be wrong and how to fix it. This is a nice blender, why isn’t it working?? As I stood there stewing over a blender (a blender!), I had the clarity to laugh at myself. Monica, you are seriously about to ruin your day over a blender?

It sounds silly. But how often do we do this?

We let one careless moment steal an entire morning.
We let traffic rob us of peace.
We let other people’s unconsciousness activate our reactivity.

And the cost isn’t just a bad mood. Every moment, you are either reinforcing your small self—or your expanded self. When we fixate on the minor injustices of the day, we teach our brain to scan for more of them. This is backed by science. When we’re frustrated, annoyed, or angry, our brain switches over to the fight-or-flight response—this means the rational part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, has taken a backseat. We start to expect irritation. And soon, even joy feels suspicious. Like, don’t get too happy, the other shoe’s going to drop. But when we zoom out—when we decide to live for something bigger—we shift. Instead of feeding our upset by asking: “Why is this happening to me?” We ask: “What kind of person do I want to be in the face of this?”

That question changes everything, whether it’s a small irritation or a major moment of conflict.

Letting go isn’t passive. It’s not stuffing it down or pretending it doesn’t matter. Letting go is an active choice to release your grip on the small so you can hold space for the big. It means: Choosing gratitude over grievance. But I don’t mean pretending you’re grateful when you’re not. I mean taking an action that can bring you back to a sense of gratitude, even if it takes a moment for the irritation to dissipate.

Maybe your kids left wet towels on the bathroom floor again. You feel that familiar feeling of “How many times do I have to say it?” rise up, and instead, you stop. Literally stop your body. Stand still and take three slow breaths. Now ask, “Who do I want to be in the face of these towels?” The question might even bring a smile to your face. The towels are still annoying, but now you’re smiling, and maybe you’ve shifted your perspective over to how much you love your kids.

Your energy is precious. Stop spending it on stories that shrink you. Whenever I feel myself slipping into the trap of irritation, I pause and ask myself what I’m grateful for that I’m not paying attention to. The list is always long. My children. My health. A recent insight. A deep conversation. The fact that I even get to have a blender, a kitchen, and healthy food to begin with. Gratitude is the reset button. It doesn’t make the small things disappear—it just reminds you that they are surface and fleeting.

If today feels frustrating, if you’re carrying a thousand tiny irritations like grains of sand, pause. Don’t let the small things win. You are a vast, expansive, infinitely creative soul. Your purpose is not to fixate on dirty dishes and delayed texts. Your purpose is to grow, to transform, to illuminate. Let the blender be broken. And let you be you: awake, aware, and aligned with the glorious bigger picture.

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Great Day Washington

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Shavuot: The Night We Become New

Shavuot is, without question, one of the most powerful windows in time. But its power is not automatic. It’s not like jumping into a magical pool that effortlessly washes away every challenge or difficulty. It’s something far deeper, far more intimate, and frankly, much more profound. To access it, we have to show up and not just physically, not just mentally, but soulfully.

Most years, we come into this holiday thinking about what we want to shed or change. We pray for the Creator to remove our fear, our doubt, our anxiety, our confusion. We’re exhausted—physically, emotionally—and then we push ourselves to stay up all night to receive the Light. Our eyes are heavy, we’re yawning. Maybe we nudge the person next to us to stay awake. We pray harder. We wait for that surge of divine clarity. But the Light available at Shavuot is not accessed through greater effort or through asking in the right way. It comes from surrender.

I’m reminded of the most powerful Shavuot I have ever had. It was twenty-two years ago, and believe me, at the outset, it wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t peaceful. I arrived at that Shavuot exhausted, disoriented, heartbroken, and almost desperate.

My son Josh had been born just two months prior, and I was gripped by a level of fear and anxiety I had never known. Every part of me felt unstable. I literally hadn’t slept in 48 hours due to a crippling anxiety attack. Even getting on a plane to be with my community felt impossible—my nervous system was in full revolt. I was in a tailspin of doubt. I prayed so intensely and felt so upset by my state. How could I, after all my years of studying Kabbalah, be so afraid? How could I be so consumed by uncertainty?

I remember looking at myself as if from the outside, barely recognizing who I had become but knowing that this was not who I wanted to be. It was not who I am. But I didn’t yet have the conscious ability to climb out. That night, I kept whispering to the Creator: Please, shine Your Light on me. Show me who to be.

Finally, at 4 a.m., completely depleted, I curled up into a sleeping bag beside my son David on the synagogue floor and fell asleep. It was the first time I had slept in 72 hours. About two hours later, I awoke to a warm sensation across my face.

It was the first rays of sunlight pouring through the synagogue windows. The room was quiet, bathed in gold. I watched the sun continue to slowly rise, and at the same time, I could feel the Light rising within me. I can’t explain it in words that fully do it justice. It wasn’t peace—it was presence. It was as if my soul had been reset. I wasn’t who I was before I fell asleep. I was someone new. The fear hadn’t disappeared, but it no longer ruled me. It no longer defined me.

This is what Shavuot is all about.

It isn’t about asking the Creator to remove the pieces we don’t like, or to replace broken parts, or to patch up our wounds. Not trying to “soup up” our spiritual vehicle so we can run longer, faster, cleaner. This night isn’t about an upgrade—it’s arriving at a different state of being.

It’s about becoming so aligned with the Light that the fear no longer sticks. That the doubt no longer finds a place to land. That you don’t need to fight to be better, because you’ve simply become someone new. We often think that transformation means cleaning up what’s wrong and polishing what’s right. But real spiritual change doesn’t just make you “better,” it makes you different. It turns the soil of your being. It alters the way you see, the way you feel, and most importantly, the way you respond.

When you approach Shavuot with this consciousness—not begging for clarity, but welcoming a completely new perspective—something miraculous happens. The exhaustion lifts. The old fears lose their grip, and when you wake up, you don’t just feel different. You are different.

That’s the invitation of this night. To come with a deep intention to be transformed. To stop pleading for the Creator to remove our discomfort and instead say, help me see it differently. Help me see myself differently.

Tonight is also not about resisting sleep—it’s about preparing for awakening. And not just the kind that happens with the sunrise. I’m talking about a soul-awakening. A Consciousness-awakening. The kind that changes how you show up in your life long after the holiday has ended. Don’t just ask to feel less pain or fear. Ask to be someone who no longer identifies with that fear. Someone who lives from Light. Someone who doesn’t need to be “fixed,” because they’ve been remade.

As we approach Shavuot, begin now to understand that there is a version of you waiting on the other side. Not better, but truer.

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Gemini: It Isn’t So Black and White

In my home, the month of Gemini is always a celebration. Michael and our two daughters are all Geminis—brilliant, quick-witted, endlessly curious. Conversations around the dinner table often feel like spirited debates with philosophers rather than casual family chats. That is the energy of Gemini! It is lively, inquisitive, and dynamic, and while Gemini loves fun and values movement, beneath the surface this energy invites us to engage with something much deeper—the sacred duality within each of us.

As we approach Shavuot—a day the kabbalists teach is a Rosh Hashanah for the soul—we are offered a moment to reset our spiritual direction and begin anew. Think of a farmer who has harvested the entirety of his crops. He says, “All done!… Until spring.” Now he must start the process of planting, tending, and harvesting all over again. Similarly, on the Shabbat before Shavuot, the kabbalists would say, “I’m out of wisdom. I’m out of teachings. I’m ready to begin again.”

We come to this moment with empty hands, ready to receive new wisdom, new inspiration, new Light—not clinging to what was, but open to what can be. The emptiness is necessary—it creates space for revelation and one of the more powerful revelations is also a trap that we often fall into: defining ourselves by the last thing we did.

If we stumble or fall short, we convince ourselves, “This is who I am. I am a failure. This is my truth.”

On the flip side, if we succeed, if we do something good, we now say, “This is who I am. I am a ‘good’ person. This is my truth.”

Both are illusions.

Kabbalistically, we understand that within each of us exists both Light and Dark. Every moment is a coexistence of opposites. The real spiritual work is not to erase the darkness but to recognize it, engage with it, and—most importantly—elevate it. We can’t do that if we refuse to look at our darkness, and we can’t do it if our darkness is all we choose to see.

The month of Gemini can assist us in building a new spiritual vessel. We can’t build anything meaningful if we refuse to acknowledge the raw materials—our struggles, our imperfections, our humanity—and the energy of this month gives us the ability to do so without judgment. We are not meant to be static beings of pure Light because life itself is dynamic. We are in a constant process of refining, transforming, and expanding. The moments of challenge are not detours from our purpose—they are the very forge in which we shape our growth. Marcus Aurelius said, “The obstacle in the way is the way.” This is what it means when we say the process is the purpose. Our souls don’t desire the destination, they desire the transformation inherent in the journey to the destination.

One of the most liberating truths in Kabbalah is this: there is abundant Light for every single one of us.

Each of us has something unique to reveal in this world. But that revelation isn’t born from us getting it “right” every single time. It’s born from the willingness to confront our shadow and transform it. Gemini, with its duality, teaches us that our Light is never diminished by our Dark. In fact, it’s the contrast that gives it meaning. Just as nightfall makes the stars visible, our challenges allow our inner Light to shine more clearly.

As we step into this new lunar cycle, ask yourself:

Where have I been defining myself by the last thing I did?

Can I release that definition and begin again?

Am I willing to empty myself of judgment to create space for something new?

The opportunity of this month is flexibility and movement. The gift of seeing something from all sides and an ability to hold two opposing ideas at once. Gemini also offers us a natural curiosity that can assist us in examining anything, including ourselves, in a lighthearted way. Its duality, reminds us that we are never just one thing.

You are not the last mistake you made.
You are not the last success you achieved.
You are a dynamic, evolving soul with endless capacity for transformation.

There is Light within you. There is Darkness, too.

And both have a role to play in the unique spark of Light that you alone are meant to reveal.

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Lag B’Omer: You are a Co-Creator

Lag B’Omer marks the 33rd day of the Omer and commemorates the anniversary of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai’s departure from this world. In Kabbalah, this is not just a date on the calendar—it’s a window of powerful spiritual opportunity. The kabbalists teach that when a righteous soul leaves the world, the full spectrum of Light they revealed in their lifetime becomes available for us to connect with.

Think about that for a moment: all the wisdom, the transformation, the energy they cultivated—it doesn’t disappear. It becomes accessible. Usable.

Lag B’Omer isn’t just a commemoration. It’s an active window of time.

This window comes to us in the middle of the Omer—a time that’s often spiritually intense and personally confronting. And it arrives like a breath, a break, an infusion of possibility. It reminds us that even in the midst of inner work and refinement, there is Light. It’s also a reminder that the Light isn’t something we receive passively; it is something we consciously choose to express. To move from darkness to Light, we have to make a profound choice to create positivity and to see possibility. So often throughout our lives, we fall into the trap of thinking that blessings are things we either get or don’t get, and when we don’t get them, suddenly we start to think:

Things just don’t work out for me
I should give up.
It’s all just too hard/I don’t have time/What will they think…

Choosing Light over darkness means releasing this negativity and remembering that the Creator is always available, the Light is always available, but we are the ones who must make the connection. The kabbalists tell us that Lag B’Omer is one of the most important days in the year to awaken blessings, so the question becomes: How do we participate in the process?

Here are three ways that you can begin to co-create with the Light during Lag B’Omer—and every day:

Ask for a Sign

When we ask for a sign, we’re saying: I’m open, I’m listening. I’m willing. Show me what I can’t yet see. Signs are the Light’s way of guiding us through intuition, synchronicity, and even disruption. Ask for a sign related to something you desire or are uncertain about. Be open to the answer—it could come as a song on the radio, a suggestion from a friend, or an idea that you’ve never had before. It may not be what you expect, but it will be what you need.

Build Your Vessel

Blessings need a space to land. Think of them like water—if you’re trying to fill a cracked cup or a cup that’s already full, you can’t hold anything new. Creating a vessel means doing the spiritual and practical work to make room for what you say you want. If the thing I’m praying for arrived today, would I be ready to receive it? What needs to shift—in my habits, schedule, mindset, or environment—to be ready?

Focus on What You Want to Experience, Not on What You Want to Have

Desire is most powerful when it’s rooted in emotion, not material outcome. If you want a relationship, is it really about the person, or is it about feeling loved, seen, and supported? Ask yourself what emotion you’re truly chasing. Security? Freedom? Joy? Purpose? Then, start creating that experience now. When you generate the feeling, the form it takes will align.

Ask yourself today: What do I really desire from life?

There is no more powerful time to take a moment and think about it. We all have desires, we have dreams and goals, and there are things we want to do. We have all kinds of to-do lists, from the daily to the professional to the existential. We spend our days at our jobs, we have responsibilities and hobbies, we create things, we love people, and the way we spend each minute is the way we ultimately spend our lives. Our purpose is to transform, and when we use our true desires as a means to fulfill that purpose, we are on our way to living our most fulfilled, expressed lives.

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What If You Were Immortal?

Imagine for a moment that you were immortal. You woke up one morning and were promised that you would never perish. Your life would continue infinitely, through good health and bad, prosperous times and times of hardship. You would continue to meet challenges and would continue to have times of celebration. The seasons would come and go, and the Earth would continue to morph and shift, but you? You remain eternal.

What would change?

How would you think about things differently?

Or even—how would you be different?

It’s a question that might sound like the beginning of a science fiction movie, but I want you to sit with it seriously. Because how we perceive time—and our place in it—shapes everything. If you knew you had forever, would failure seem as frightening? Would the opinions of others weigh so heavily? Would you chase your purpose with more clarity, less fear?

Michael and I recently reflected on this very idea. I asked him: Would anything be different if you knew you couldn’t die? (And spoiler alert: his answer was different than most people’s.)

Because here’s the truth: If you knew you were immortal, you would probably stop playing small. You might finally understand that with enough time, anything is possible. That the limits you place on yourself are mostly illusions. That you’re not running out of time—you are time. Without you, time doesn’t exist. You’re here experiencing it, utilizing it, and building upon it.

Which brings me to the real twist: we are already immortal.

Okay, maybe not in the way our ego imagines it—not in body, not in name—but in essence.

I suspect your brain might be rebelling: Immortality? That goes against every scientific law we know. But the seen world is only a sliver of reality. Kabbalists teach that it makes up only 1% of our experience of reality. One single percent! The other 99% is found in the unseen—everything that falls outside of our five physical senses. Even science knows this. The more we discover, the more we realize how little we’ve scratched the surface. Here are a few examples:

DNA: The Blueprint… But for What Exactly?

When scientists discovered the double helix structure of DNA, it seemed like the ultimate answer to the mystery of life. But we now know that only about 1.5% of our DNA codes for proteins. The rest? Once dismissed as “junk,” it’s now being explored for regulatory, structural, or even unknown functions.
What does the rest of our DNA actually do?
Can it hold untapped potential—emotional, energetic, or even spiritual?

Dark Matter & Dark Energy: The Invisible Majority

Visible matter (everything we can see and touch) makes up only about 5% of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy—unseen, undetectable, and only inferred by their effects on gravity and expansion.
What are they?
Why can’t we detect them directly?
Are we missing whole dimensions of existence?

Consciousness: Where Does It Come From?

Despite advances in neuroscience, we still don’t know what consciousness is. We can measure brain activity, but not the subjective experience of being alive, aware, or in awe.
Is consciousness produced by the brain or does it exist outside of it?

While the physical aspect of our lives and our immortality is an ever-evolving dance between fact and mystery, our energetic immortality tells a much different story…

Our true legacy—our spiritual legacy—exists in our words, our actions, our impact. From a spiritual perspective, immortality isn’t about physically living forever. It’s about living in such a way that our impact and influence endures.

Think of it this way. Have you ever heard the name Plato? Quoted Shakespeare? Stood in front of a Van Gogh or read a book by Jane Austen? Have you laughed at George Carlin? Listened to a song by John Lennon? Have you danced to Whitney Houston or studied for an exam to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5? These souls are long gone from the physical realm, but their essence lives on in their creations.

If you live in a home that’s over 50 years old—I and a majority of my fellow New Yorkers certainly do—you are existing in a physical space built and designed by people who are likely no longer around. For example, my home was built in 1920. The people who laid the foundation are long gone. But their work remains. I walk through doors they built. I speak in rooms they designed. My family and I are connected to them every day.

When you take a moment to really reflect on it, your life has been shaped by so many people that you have never met and maybe by people who had passed away long before you ever took your first breath. And yet you “exist” alongside them as though they’re still right here.

We are all made of each other. Our lives are not isolated events, but continuations of stories written long before we arrived. And we, too, are writing stories that others will pick up and carry forward.

Author Donna Goddard said it beautifully:
“We are an accumulation of many people, even more so when unaware of it. Once aware, we can choose what to carry and what to relegate to history.”

And that’s what this reflection is really about.

Immortality isn’t about escaping death. It’s about living consciously. Recognizing that your words, your choices, and your energy matter. You’re leaving traces of yourself everywhere you go. In your children. In your work. In how you treat the barista. In how you respond to challenges.

So today, I invite you to ask yourself:

If I lived like I was immortal… what would I do differently today?

And then—don’t wait. Begin.

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Tazria-Metzora: Not Biting the Bait of Negative Speech

Monica inspires us to talk to the Light of the Creator whenever we need guidance and shares how we can connect with the state of prophecy within us.

Recorded live at the International Energy Tour 2025 in Jerusalem, Israel.

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The Currency of Time

Imagine I gave you a bank account that deposited $86,400 into it every single day—with one catch: at the end of the day, whatever you didn’t spend would vanish. How would you spend it?

You’d take a vacation! You’d pay off that debt! You’d go back to school! You’d quit your job and write your memoir! You’d be able to give—to your family, your friends, your community—in all the ways you’ve always wanted! Not to mention the self-care, delicious meals, a nice car, a home renovation…

When we think of having a guaranteed stream of money, instantly our thoughts go to how we would enact all of our desires and dreams, as though money is the only deterrent to us living our most fulfilled, value-driven experience. But what if I told you that you are given a precious, finite resource every single day? This resource is worth so much, it’s priceless but we rarely spend any of it consciously and almost blame it for not being able to do the things we truly want.

This resource is time.

We’re given 86,400 seconds every day. And yet unlike money, which we can earn back, save, or borrow, time is one currency we can never replenish. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

We say things like “I don’t have time” or “I lost track of time,” but rarely do we stop and ask ourselves: What am I spending my time on? Who am I spending it with? And why?

It’s easy to get caught in the blur of routine and obligation. But when we forget the value of time, we begin to spend it on things that drain us rather than fill us. We give our time away to fear, to resentment, to scrolling, to comparison. We use it to prove our worth instead of expanding our purpose.

But when we truly understand that time is limited—and sacred—we begin to treat it with reverence. We get choosier. Braver. More present. We stop wasting it on the things that don’t matter and start investing it in the things that do. The Stoics may not have had day jobs, emails, or mortgages but they understood this. Seneca said, “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”

The kabbalists understood this, too. The Zohar teaches that each of us is born with a certain number of days. No more. No less. What we do with those days is up to us. When we stop and really take into account the preciousness of our days and the allotted time within them, one question comes into stark focus:

How do I want to spend this one, unrepeatable day?

Here are three simple ways to make the most of the time you have:

Live Intentionally, Not Reactively

Start each day by setting an intention. When we set an intention for how we want to experience our day, we are less likely to blindly respond to whatever life throws our way. Ask yourself: What kind of energy do I want to bring to today? If we choose to spend our day in joy or in calm, we will more likely respond from those states of being.

Protect Your Yes

Every “yes” is a “no” to something else. Be mindful of where and why you say yes. Is it coming from alignment or obligation? Are you giving your time out of guilt or love? Protect your “yes” like it’s your most prized possession—because it is.

Be Where Your Feet Are

Presence is the ultimate time hack, it can turn 20 minutes into an entire afternoon. If you’re with your children, be with them. If you’re working, give it your full attention. When we are fully present, time expands. We’re not chasing the next moment—we’re inhabiting this one.

Time is the container for your life. It can be stretched and it can be shrunk, but it can’t be repeated or returned. It has provided for you every beautiful experience you have ever had, and even now, it holds you and your entire life. Spend it in a way that makes you feel alive. In a way that will have you feeling perfectly expressed and proud of how you exhausted it.

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