“Isn’t it amazing when the worst reveals the best in us?” Edith Eva Eger began one of her speeches.
She was 16 years old when she got to Auschwitz, and miraculously managed to survive. Torture, hunger, and the threat of death did not break her. Edith found a way to return to life, and then she dedicated her help to others, becoming a psychologist. Her findings — as a survivor and as a doctor — turn the soul and worldview overturned.
The story of Edith will not help to heal you (or anyone else). But it can support our Choice to destroy the limitations in our minds and take them apart by stone. You cannot change what happened – You cannot change what you have done. But you can choose how you live now. You can choose to be free!
You Can
I can not imagine a more meaningful message to our time. The book of Eger is a triumph, and everyone should read it for both inner freedom and the future of humankind.
-New York Times Book Review
In the book – the whole life of Edith Eger is shown before losses and after. An unfulfilled dream of becoming a ballerina, first love, hunger and Auschwitz, the release and birth of a child, many years of healing from a nightmare, friendship with Frankl, and the search for a calling – to heal others.
How great hopelessness is at the beginning, so great is the light at the end of this book.
Dr. Eger writes: “I often hear from my patients: “Now it’s challenging for me, but how can I complain? This is not Auschwitz. “But the hierarchy of suffering does not exist. There is nothing that makes my pain stronger or weaker than yours. Downplaying our pain, we do not give it a proper rating. We do not see any options. We continue to judge ourselves.”
I do not want you to hear my story and say: “My suffering is not so significant.” I want you to say: “If she could, I can too.”
Dance In Hell
It is a beautiful memoir on freedom by a Holocaust survivor turned clinical psychologist, reminiscent of the great works of Anne Frank and Viktor Frankl. Reading it gave me goosebumps.
-Adam Grant, New York Times Bestselling author GIVE AND TAKE and ORIGINALS and OPTION B.”
“You will draw all the emotions and forces in your life from the inside,” my choreographer told me. I did not understand what this means, and I did not understand before Auschwitz.” Here, Dr. Mengele, a sophisticated killer and art lover, combes the barracks in the evenings, looking for talented prisoners. 16-year-old Edith is forced to dance for him.
“During the dance, wisdom is revealed to me that I will never forget. She will save my life more than once. I saw that Dr. Mengele, a seasoned killer who only destroyed my mother this morning, was more miserable than me. He will have to live with what he has done. Finishing my dance, I pray, but not for myself. I pray for him. I pray that, for his good, he would not need to kill me … “
We can choose what the bad teaches us. To become embittered – or hold on to something childish in us, lively and challenging, for that part of us that is innocent.
Freedom
The story of Dr. Eger has changed me forever …
-Oprah Winfrey
When we are stuck in the past, endlessly repeating: “And why only did I go there and not here …”, “I married one and not another …” – we live in a prison that we build ourselves. When we are looking to the future, repeating: “I will not be happy until I finish university or buy a house” – we live in the same prison.
The only way to realize your freedom of Choice is to live in the present.
The ordinary course of days is also life. Why do we love extremes so much: either do we spend unthinkable efforts to feel alive or completely protect ourselves from any life sensations? Even the dullest moments of life make it possible to experience hope, spiritual uplift, happiness.
What Else Is In The Book?
It is difficult to talk about this book in such a way as to convey all the pain and depth. The story of Edith Eger is shocking, devastating – to then fill again. With light, gratitude, and the desire to feel like every day, every minute.
This story will forever remain in your heart.
This book is a message about hope and human capabilities. If your personal life is crumbling, if you are tired of work or if you are driven into a barbed wire of self-restraint, thanks to this book, you will begin to make the right Choice—the Choice to be happy and free regardless of circumstances.
Dr. Eger’s inspiring patient experiences and her own astounding story will teach each of us how to cure our lives.
Here’s what awaits you under the cover:
- “Your mother burns over there.” How to survive the worst losses
- Self-acceptance formula: I can do what I do and how I do
- Love in the face of war
- “Surviving the Survivor”: letters from Victor Frankl
- Patient stories Edith Eger
- The paradox of freedom: where to find hope and purpose
… 346 pages with a history of Choice that can lead a person from trauma to victory, from darkness to light, from imprisonment to liberation.
The Choice is one of the most influential books we have ever published. Of those that remind, why do we publish books and read them? Mostly to hear and tell such stories. This book is a story of the power of the human spirit. In a sense, everyone is a hostage to their consciousness. But we always have a choice.
Based on the materials of the book “The Choice.”
You can also read:
A Brief Discussion of Aristotelian Conception of Friendship
The Human Mind Works based on Basic Concepts, so What?
On the Mencian Conception of Innate Goodness, and Its Survivability