Jessie Asya Kanzer - Dont Just Sit There, DO NOTHING: Healing, Chilling, and Living with the Tao Te Ching

Don't Just Sit There, DO NOTHING covers the spectrum of human emotionJessie writes so honestly about experiences that all of us can relate to. Plus, she delves into the ancient wisdom of the Tao Te Ching that shows us how to let go of resentments, of the past, of the what-ifs and the should'ves. She takes us through her painful, hilarious, miraculous journey, shining light on our own. She shares the epiphanies that have changed her life and that can change ours, too. She pieces together fun and humor (celebrity run-ins, Hollywood sets) with darker subjects (her immigration, eating disorder, date rape) much like life itself does. Get ready for a ride!

Karen Salmansohn, multibestselling author
and award-winning designer

Jessie Kanzer's refreshing voice carries a clarity and candidness that pulls you inthat makes room for the unseen magic in life as it unfolds.

Erin Khar, managing editor at Ravishly

Jessie Kanzer's book, as well as her personal story, are inspiring, insightful and beautifully written. For anyone looking to connect more to their higher self, I highly recommend reading this!

Serena Dyer Pisoni, author of The Knowing and
Don't Die with Your Music Still in You

Jessie Kanzer shares funny, frank, and engaging stories of her exile from the Soviet Union, finding spirituality, serenity, and love as an American wife and mom.

Susan Shapiro, bestselling author of Unhooked and
The Forgiveness Tour

Copyright 2022

by Jessie Asya Kanzer

Foreword copyright 2022 Laura Day

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.

Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Cover and text design by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Typeset in Adobe Text Pro

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

Distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

www.redwheelweiser.com

ISBN: 978-1-64297-035-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Printed in the United States of America

IBI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter

For Gigi, Charlie, and Adam (and our cat RegisCharlie made me
add him even though I told her he'll never be able to read)...
and for Mama, Papa, Sasha, and Babushka.

That is the bread of the Jessie Asya sandwich.

I do not write forewords. I am pathologically exacting, and I seldom agree with enough of the bookor enough of its authorto feel comfortable setting my recommendation in indelible ink.

But when Jessie asked me to write this foreword, I was overcome by an intuitive feeling. A yes escaped my lips before I had time to think about it. I had not read a single line, yet I somehow knew that I would be struck by her book's honesty, clarity, and usefulness.

I was.

Jessie herself will not know, until she reads this foreword, that I remember her from long ago.

She would pop up at unexpected times in my groups and presentations, or by email. These were unremarkable sightings. Many of my students make sure I'm aware when they're around. Jessie was not one of them.

The Circle, my community, provides many open spaces for newcomers, especially for the young. It welcomes and embraces them. But Jessie was not immediately embraced. She was not outwardly needy. The tidy way she hid her pain, expressing it in well-crafted sentences instead of colorful drama, was not directly inviting. Quietly, though, she held her place, offered what she had to give, and learned from every turned back until she had accumulated a gift so great that the others had no choice but to turn around and see her.

This book is that gift. This honest, magnificent journey of courage and insight. The unveiling of light in a way that illuminates the light in each of us.

Jessie's message is simple. Good is searching for you. Let it in. Good is in you. Let it out.

Don't Just Sit There. Do Nothing.

Sometimes striving, doing, becomes a lack-of-faith vote against your own potential and against us, the ones who share this journey with you.

Jessie's writing style carries the reader effortlessly to a new way of being. Her prose eases and delights. Some woman ran a red light and smashed her wheels straight into the middle of my ennui, she remarks of a traumatic accident that changed her life.

Children love heroes because they offer the hope of salvation and affirm our worthiness to be saved. In the end, our heroes are rarely the adrenaline-fueled people who jump into rushing waters to save our puppy, but rather the people who offer a moment of kindness, a leg up, or an example of resilience. The tenacity, day by day, to address quotidian challenges that seem to take us nowhere and give us nothing requires a truly intrepid soul. Courage is the ability to hope when we have been defiled and to move forward when there is no dream in sight. Courage is the determination to give what you have, even if it is found wanting, and to continue to improve it and offer it until it becomes the seed of someone else's hope.

I think you will find a hero in this book. And that hero is you.

LAURA DAY

August 1, 2021

Sitting here. Doing nothing. Joining you in same.

O ne of the many idiosyncrasies of my life is that I was born without religion. I mean, I'm Jewish ethnically and traditionallyand I definitely feel my ancestral Jewishness. But in the Soviet Union, where I come from, that meant little else than a kick-in-the-butt of anti-Semitism. The fact is, I hail from a weird experiment of a society where religion was not allowed. Obviously the not allowed part is not ideal. But because God was never discussed (Lenin was) nothing was ever attributed to a power greater than myself. By the time I left that land to come to America, no amount of Hebrew School or Christmas carols, for that matter, could make me believe in a bearded man in the sky. In this way I was lucky. I was a blank slate.

Still, as I faced challenges, I wanted explanations. Like many of us, I longed for absolutes. In my search, I fell flat on my face more times than I care to recallexcept, I recall them all in this book. It was at my lowest point, face down on the bathroom tiles, that I discovered the ancient teachings of the Tao Te Chingenigmatic verses that gently shifted me in the right direction, which sometimes was no direction at all. Today, they continue to show me the value of not knowing, of simply existing and trusting. They encourage us all to go with the flow of life itself, so that we can move beyond the expectations and limitations we've grown so accustomed to. It's not that we stop working, it's that the work gets easier. Life gets easier.

Here, I've chosen some of my favorite verses of the Tao Te Ching, The Book of the Way, to help anchor us in the magic of this Tao, this Way, as it pertains to modern existence. I looked through dozens of translations of this second most translated text in the world (after the Bible) and decided to present its teachings through the lens of one girl's experience. The girl is me, the stories are mine, but the struggle is universal.