Jews of this modernity are continuously seeking a relevant Judaism –- Judaism on one foot, which can help us in our daily lives and help us contribute meaning to our Jewish community and secular culture that surrounds us in our everyday lives. We as Jews, can still go to work, go to school, have time for our families, and time outside of shul for daily living, while studying MUSSAR and DBT individually and privately. Mussarniks.com makes this all possible!

21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is targeting every Jew from every movement of Judaism. Whether you are a Frum Ultra-Orthodox Jew, Off-the-Derech former Frum Jew, Reform Jew, Reconstructionist Jew, Secular-Humanist Jew, Renewal Jew, and every Jew in-between, are welcome here.

Although the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is for all movements of Judaism. The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is a Halacha observant site and process, out of respect to all Hassadim.

It is up to the Jewish Mussarnik/individual as to what you will be observing or not, inside, or outside of your own home, shul, and personal observant practices.

Users of the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com will hold harmless, Founder, Anshel S. Bomberger, or any/all agents involved thereof .

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com will not dictate or be responsible for any or amount of observances or non-observances that occur due to someone’s use of the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com. Jewish identity and personal practices are private and very personal. The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com respect that for every Jew, regardless of how one identifies as a Jew.

Whether you practice Ultra-Orthodoxy and incorporate Mussar into your daily observant Jewish life already, or you identify as a Secular-Humanist (non-observant) Jew that desires to rediscover the values that we associate with our Jewish heritage, apply them, and continue to pass them to the next generation, the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is for you!

Often, however, many non-observant, or non-traditional Jewish women lack the traditional Yeshiva education, and have neither the Hebrew knowledge, nor the Jewish orientation to be able to distill those values from a traditional Jewish practice into their daily lives.

21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com does not require any Jew to know Hebrew or Yiddish. 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is offered in English only and offers both the English and Transliterated  into English Hebrew on our site.

While Jews from all Judaism movements want to know what is loving kindness (Chesed) and how to infuse our lives with Chesed, we are often unaware of how to make that a reality in this day and age of modernity. Mussar and DBT isn’t taught in most secular schools and isn’t taught at home in most Jewish non-observant households. Some Hassidic households have not studied Mussar and are new to this as well.

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is a FREE  online service and process with the intent of being available for your individual private use. You can take us on the fly. The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com has set up this online service to be mobile friendly. You can visit us on your Windows OS PC, Mac iOS PC, iPad, iPhone, or Android OS Mobile Device.

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com goal is for you to take the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com with you everywhere you go. That way, when you have some time and are just sitting somewhere wondering what you can do, you can take our your phone, phablet, tablet, or PC and visit the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com little bits at a time.

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com is user friendly whether you are online or offline wherever you are at or situated.

Disclaimer: All information on this site are offered for information purposes only. The information is not specific legal, medical, or mental health advice for any individual. The content of this web site should not substitute legal, medical, or mental health advice from a licensed professional, expressed or implied.

The inner life that we experience, and the roots of thought that reach down into the darkness of the subconscious, are features of the life of the soul. The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program and Mussarniks.com are designed to help you organize and form your thoughts around a healthier way of living and achieving a better way of life.

Have you ever thought of introducing a good habit into your life, but never got around to doing it? Perhaps you tried it for 1-2 days, but then lacked the discipline to continue afterward. Perhaps you are overwhelmed by the effort required to institute it into your life and never got around to doing it. Perhaps your attempts keep getting thwarted by other activities.

In comes the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program. It is a self-initiated program where you stick to a Mussar and DBT practices for 21-days – every day continuously. While it can be used to cultivate good habits, you can also use it to try out new things which you may not necessarily pick on, just to see how they are like.

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program is not just limited to developing good habits – it can also be used to break off bad habits. Do you have any bad habits? You can take on the task of breaking these bad habits with the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program as well.

This is one of my favorite self improvement tools because it is simply so effective. When you think about it, the success of many of your goals and the quality of your life are actually built on certain fundamental habits. When you get those habits in place, your output also increases dramatically as a natural corollary to that.

The 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program is inspired by Steve Pavlina’s 30-Day  program and it’s a modified version of it, as well as Marsha Lineham’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Yisrael Salanter’s Mussar.

I studied and practiced DBT at the Denver VA Medical Center’s Mental Health Clinic  in Denver, Colorado as an outpatient for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I have used DBT since 2009. It is effective and works. I also have attended a weekly midday Mussar group at Congregation Beth Evergreen in Evergreen, Colorado, facilitated by Rabbi Benjamine (Jamie) Arnold, since 2007. Mussar along with DBT keep me on track for how to live a better life.

Why 21-days? There are two reasons for that:

1. 21 days is what it takes to fully break/form a new habit. There has been research which shows that it takes 21 days to fully cultivate a new habit because 21 days is the time required for new neuropathways to be fully formed in your brain.

1. A 21-day program is more efficient than a 30-day one. It appeals a lot to me as one of my key values is efficiency. I rather finish something in the shortest possible time (provided there is no compromise on quality of output, where there isn’t any in this case), get the relevant findings, draw the necessary conclusions and move on from there to try other habits.

Benefits of this 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program?

There are several very attractive benefits of this 21-day Mussar-DBT Program:

1. Highly manageable.

Many people procrastinate on getting certain things done, even though these may be good habits which will bring significant benefits into their lives. The procrastination is typically because they get overwhelmed by the thought of having to do this for the rest of their lives. With the 21-day trial, the task becomes much more manageable and feasible. 21 days is but a short period of time – it’s merely 3 weeks. No more excuses like ‘it’s impossible for me to do this’ or ‘it’s too difficult to maintain this.’  It’s easy to channel your efforts into getting something done for just 21 days as opposed to infinity. Before you know it, the 3 weeks will already be over, and it’s all behind you.

2. No commitment required.

Since it’s a 21-day Mussar-DBT Program, there is no commitment required beyond the 21 days. After the trial, you evaluate whether your life has been better off with or without that habit. Based on that, you then make the decision on whether to continue the habit or not. If it’s the former, you can easily do so, since you have already stuck with it for 21-days without fail. If it’s the latter, you are free to revert to what you were doing before. There are absolutely no strings attached.

The highly manageable and non-committal nature of the 21-day Mussar-DBT Program, gives rise to other benefits.

3. Highly effective in getting good habits in place.

Many people often have a laundry of good habits they want to cultivate on their to-do list, such as exercising, going to work on time, cutting down on unhealthy food. While they make a mental note to get them in place, they never get around to doing that because of different reasons.

4. Great way to try new things.

Lastly, it’s a great experimental ground to try out new things. Things that you thought of doing but never did them because you don’t know what to expect or if you would like the changes. Things that you never thought of doing but thought they might be worth a try. You can easily embark yourself on new, even radical, activities with this day trial. Since you are not committed to sticking to the activity beyond 21 days, you can easily chuck them aside afterward if you don’t like them. It’s as simple as that.

The most important thing is that you try the activity for yourself before you conclude it’s not for you.  Many people often declare ‘This is totally not for me’ before they even try something. The 21-day Mussarnik Program has allowed me to try out interesting things and pick up extremely good habits along the way. The whole point is to experience it for yourself, because you never know how it is like until you try it.

There are really upsides and no downsides to it – you get to train your self-discipline, you try out something new, and you have real evidence to support your decision not to do something. If you don’t like it, there’s no need to continue it beyond the 21 days. It can quickly get really fun and addictive because there is a whole buffet of things which you can try just for the experience.

Terms of the 21-day Mussar-DBT Program:

There is only two simple terms of this 21-day Mussar-DBT Program. You must journal your experinces in accordance with the Mussar-DBT skills every day, without fail, for 21-days.

If you do happen to slip in one of the days before the trial is up, you need to redo it all over, starting from day one. No exceptions allowed. Breaking it for 1-day will affect your experience of the activity and that subsequently clouds your findings and conclusions. As mentioned, it takes 21-days for our brains to fully develop a new habit. If you want to do this, do it well and do it right!

Success is measured by your ability to stick with the activity for 21 consecutive days, which means you would have developed it into a habit by then. Your conclusions on whether you want to continue the habit depends on whether you think whether you are better off with or without this habit.

Success Strategies

I have found the following are great ways to ensure the success of the 21-day Mussar-DBT Program.

1. Do proper research.

Spend some time learning about Mussar and DBT online. Find out from Mussar and DBT web sites what Mussar and DBT really is.  Learn about some of the common barriers people face when trying to do it, and what makes Mussar successful. Craft your own personal and individual strategy and have an action plan (journaling, diary cards, etc). Having your very own personal and individualized proper plan ups your success rate significantly.

2. Try out the activity for a couple of days before beginning.

This lets you get a hang of what it is like and lets you prepare for what’s up ahead for the 21 days.

3. Spend a day or two to mentally prepare yourself before the 21-days starts to run.

Mentally prepare yourself for the upcoming 21 days ahead – This sets you in the right mood for success. During this time, you can either (1) start picking up the activity in a smaller magnitude, as a way of creating a momentum or (2) do the complete opposite of what you need to do, ad nauseam, as a way of creating a propelling force.

4. Track your progress for the 21 days.

Track your individual progress by using the worksheets that are provided at this site. You can print them out on paper and have a tangible piece of paper to work with, or feel free to copy and paste them into your own computer or mobile electronic device. That way you can have them with you at all times.

5. One day at a time.

When doing the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program, make sure you are not so heavily tied up that it prevents you from committing to the  21-Day Mussar-DBT Program. I often tell others it’s best to focus on one goal at a time in order to reap the most benefits. When you have the foundations for the first goal in place, you can then move on to the next one. When you have integrated the second goal, then you work on the third goal. And the fourth goal, etc. Work only on multiple new goals simultaneously if you have the capacity to handle them. It is pointless to try all your goals at once if you have not developed the capacity to handle them – everything will crumble. Slow progress is better than no progress.

6. What to Expect in the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program.

Week 1 Induction.

Week 1 is when you are moving fast speed ahead. The best way to have a fast and easy start in week one is via generating momentum in the first few days before the trial (see above, Tip #3 for success).

Week 2 Resistance.

In week 2, you generally face the biggest challenge of the trial (this is also dependent on the magnitude of your activity). You will start experiencing resistances of different sorts that attempt to pull you back to your previous lifestyle. If you have prepared your action plan well, you would be able to overcome these resistances with minimal effort.

Week 3 Integration.

This is the stage of the flow, when the activity starts becoming commonplace in your life. Even though it’s just been 2 weeks since embarking on this habit, the time from before the trial probably seems pretty distant to you by now. If you had previously procrastinated on this for a while, you will probably be wondering why it even took you so long to get this going, because everything seems so easy and natural. By now, you should be clearly noticing benefits from sticking to this habit, if there are benefits and if you haven’t already noticed them.  If you have gotten this far, Mazel Tov! You are already on your way to full integration with this habit.

Before you know it,  the 21-Day Mussar-DBT Program will be over and you would have a new experience to take away from it!  By then, you can always be free to continue the activity then or discontinue it and move on to developing other habits!

ANSHEL S. BOMBERGER