Choice

The Power of Choice

I just finished reading one of the best books I have read in a long time, maybe ever:  The Choice, Embrace the Possible, by Dr. Edith Eva Eger.  This is her memoir, beginning with her young life, her journey of surviving Auschwitz and gaining her freedom to live her life to the fullest.  She is still alive, at 92.

This book is very difficult to read, especially in the early chapters, as she shares her experience in the concentration camp.  Yet there is something important about reading this, facing the truth of what really happened.   This book is also a heart-stirring story about victory and embracing the possible.

I want to shout from rooftops to everyone:  Read this book!

Reflecting on my life

As I have just had another birthday, and I am in my 60’s, I have been reflecting on my life and how I got to now, at 64.  Where am I, now?  I work with so many young people in their 20’s.  I look back on where I was in my 20’s…and 30’s and 40’s, and even 50’s.   There are many things I lament and regret.   My inner critic, the voice of my mother in so many ways, reminds me at inopportune moments about all the stupid things I did, the mistakes I have made. I still cower with shame at times when I am reminded of these things.  

Yet this book is reminding me that I have a choice in how I am going to orient around the events of my life, how I lived from them and how I have chosen to evolve.   I may have been victimized but I don’t have to live from victimhood.   I can choose to evolve rather than revolve around the past.

The choices we have

There are so many brilliant passages in this book, reminding me of the choices we have, even when it seems we have none.   We can choose how we orient around suffering.  

We can also find gratitude for those moments where someone or something comes along and, in her case, pulls her from a pile of corpses.  These, for me, are moments of Divine intervention.  In my case, I think of the teachers and therapists I have had.   I think of the moment of finding my first Hakomi therapist over 35 years ago.  That moment changed my life.  I think of my suicidal depression in my early 20’s as a gift that began my path to healing and becoming.  I think of the moment when I was introduced to my current teaching, Yogarupa Rod Stryker.  I think of moving to New England and completely falling apart, only to stumble into a group that changed the course of my life to becoming a therapist and my current spiritual path.  

Processing grief and trauma

Dr Eger also reminds me that what we feel, we can heal.   Grief, like forgiveness, is a process.  We don’t just snap our fingers and “let go.”   In my world, we have to allow the process, which often involves allowing ourselves to experience our anger, which is often a protective cover for hurt and sadness.  Sometimes we have to wail and scream, to allow our bodies to express what they were unable to express.   

I remember potent moments of wailing and screaming in my own healing, especially when I was going through my metamorphosis while living in New England.   Working with a yoga therapist, as I opened my body in the practices, tears and wails came pouring out.   I’ve seen this with so many of my clients, as well.  

Healing from trauma is not an easy process and I don’t mean to make light of it.  I know there were many people frustrated with me during the years when I couldn’t see the way out of my own pain.   Something shifted, somewhere along the way, when I realized I had a choice.  At first these were small moments of choice, but that’s where it started:  small moments focused on what was in front of me, in the present moment.   For me, I feel connected with nature, so I began to focus on the beauty of the natural world.   I started a daily gratitude practice.  I did this at the end of the day, so that I could ease into sleep with a sense of abundance.   I started with being grateful that I had a roof over my head and enough to eat.   

Where in your life have you had moments of choice?

Choice to blame, to stay stuck in victimhood, or to evolve?   We can’t change our past but we can change how we orient around it.  Dr. Eger reminds me that we may have been victimized but we don’t have to remain victims.   

We have a choice.  We can embrace the possible.  

If you’re struggling with healing from trauma, contact me to see how trauma therapy can help.