Edith Eger

I'm going to explain.

There's a book called The Choice written by Dr. Edith Eger.

Dr. Edith Eger, she's currently 97 years old.

She lives in La Jolla, California, San Diego.

She's a therapist.

Another psychologist and messian masterful is, of course, the late Dr. Edith Eger, who passed away well in her 90s, I think 96, 97 even, but as a Holocaust survivor and author of The Choice.

It's not about being on Oprah or like, you know, the big shows, but it's more that a person that has such a profound message for this world, that this person also takes time to speak to me.

That's just tremendous.

But you are wondering, is there a good side of this proverb for survivors? I actually think, yes, there is.

When we think about the work of existential writers, especially people like Viktor Frankl or Rollo May or people like Edith Eger, they are saying in the most eloquent way that suffering can be mined for meaning and purpose, that we can be present with our suffering and learn from it, not hang out in it or want more of it or seek it out, but rather to attempt to embark on a journey of post-traumatic meaning, purpose, and growth.

so many survivors of narcissistic abuse are worried that after they get the divorce or they leave the narcissistic relationship or set the boundaries with family members friends partners whatever that they will forever be harmed mired in grief unable to trust and permanently cynical What I am actually observing in myriad survivors over time is that most people actually get to that place of growth, to a place of less fear, of finding meaning and purpose in what happened to them, of finding joys in small moments and not having those joys stolen by someone else's bitterness and not in not finding joys and justifying another person's bad behavior but in the beauty around them but all of that means making a shift It doesn't mean getting out of the relationship necessarily.

I know some of you can't.

It's all these things that fall into place when you focus on the main picture and have that kind of congruence in the direction that you're headed.

I love that you mentioned Viktor Frankl because you and Josh Goldberg shared that commonality of Man's Search for Meaning and The Choice by Edith Eger.

Both have been books that have really transformed your path and your journey.

What about those have stood out to you and really struck you?

Yeah, I love something that I can't remember.

I think she's a psychologist, but Edith Eger in her book, The Gift, said, And she was someone that was in the concentration camps as a young girl, and most of her family was killed there.

But she says that a lot of people, when they're struggling with something, something's happened to them, you know, or whatnot, some adversity.

She says they can sometimes get stuck in that victimhood mentality of why me, why me, why me? But the problem with that is, is then we're not rising above, right? We're not stepping into what we could be doing, even through the hard thing, even in your circumstance or in your place, you know, where you could not leave jail, but there were still things you were able to do if you were willing.

And also give yourself, obviously, by the time I've gotten to this age, it was very satisfying to write about grief and to write about love and to write about things that I've experienced across my life.

But I just saw a documentary called The Choice, which is about Edith Eger, who was a Holocaust survivor.

She's a ballerina in Budapest when she was sent to Auschwitz, and she had to dance for Joseph Mengele.

And she says, she just recently passed away at like age 100, but she says, I love this line, walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but don't set up camp there.

But you are wondering, is there a good side of this proverb for survivors? I actually think, yes, there is.

When we think about the work of existential writers, especially people like Viktor Frankl or Rollo May or people like Edith Eger, they are saying in the most eloquent way that suffering can be mined for meaning and purpose, that we can be present with our suffering and learn from it, not hang out in it or want more of it or seek it out, but rather to attempt to embark on a journey of post-traumatic meaning, purpose, and growth.

so many survivors of narcissistic abuse are worried that after they get the divorce or they leave the narcissistic relationship or set the boundaries with family members friends partners whatever that they will forever be harmed mired in grief unable to trust and permanently cynical What I am actually observing in myriad survivors over time is that most people actually get to that place of growth, to a place of less fear, of finding meaning and purpose in what happened to them, of finding joys in small moments and not having those joys stolen by someone else's bitterness and not in not finding joys and justifying another person's bad behavior but in the beauty around them but all of that means making a shift It doesn't mean getting out of the relationship necessarily.

I know some of you can't.

And I want to offer there is no final arrival.

It is, as Dr. Edith Eger also taught

me,

a lifelong process of rediscovering ourselves, of learning more about ourselves, of getting back to our essence, our ageless essence.

That's where transformation happens.

That's where we start evolving and not just revolving.

Again, another beautiful term from Dr. Edith Eger.

So that is where we are.