Committed to Healing | HEALING SUMMIT 2015 | Berlin Germany March 3, 2015
“Creating a paradigm shift through a holistic lifestyle”…was last year’s theme
This year our theme is “Committed to Healing” Today is a call to action!
As part of our Commitment to Healing we would like to highlight a few of the speakers from the recent Healing Summit 2015. This one day conference considered how to encourage people to live life in all its full richness, caring for others to nurture greater well being and empowerment for all.
A native of Hungary, Edith Eva Eger was just a young teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz, the heinous death camp. Her parents lost their lives there. Toward the end of the war Edith and other prisoners had been moved to Austria. On May 4, 1945 a young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a number of dead bodies. He quickly summoned medical help and brought her back from the brink of death.
After the war Edith moved to Czechoslovakia where she met the man she would marry. In 1949 they moved to the United States. In 1969 she received her degree in Psychology from the University of Texas, El Paso. She then pursued her doctoral internship at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Dr. Eger is a prolific author and a member of several professional associations. She has a clinical practice in La Jolla, California and holds a faculty appointment at the University of California, San Diego. She has appeared on numerous television programs including Oprah Winfrey and was the primary subject of a holocaust documentary that appeared on Dutch National Television. She is frequently invited to make speaking engagements throughout the United States, Mexico, and abroad.
I do have a story but I am not my story. I may not have overcome it but I came to terms with it. The ultimate freedom is to rediscover the you …you were meant to be. It is wonderful to be a WHOLE person – the more you depend on needing others to heal… the more you are a victim.
The biggest impact on me was my mom hugging me, the last time I saw her. She said to me: “we don’t know where we are going…. but I want you to remember, no one can change what is in your own mind”. What I discovered is that my mom was right. What I want you to imagine now, is what it would be like if everything was taken away from you – imagine you go home and everything was gone. We don’t appreciate what we have until we lose it.
While in Auschwitz, her sister asks her how she looked after they had shaved their heads – “as Hungarians we are very vain ”. Instead of telling her she looked like a naked dog I told her she had beautiful eyes and I had never saw them before because of her hair. In life you can pay attention to what you lost, or pay attention to what you have now.
Auschwitz was a place like anything in life – an opportunity for an opportunity – the things I discovered:
-
- If you concentrate on the me me me you didn’t make it – all we had were each other
- Discovered how to talk to myself through meditation – engage in inner dialogue
- What kept me going was my curiosity – I asked myself questions like does anyone know I am here?
- Difference between stress and distress – does gas or water come out of the shower?
- If I was asked about my one strength, I would say it was to let go of what I was not in control of
- Healing is very different between curing….Healing is an inside job
- There are no crisis in life there are only transitions
- The more choices we have the less we feel like we are a victims
Nothing is more important than enjoying life –
I don’t know what I would have been without Auschwitz and I have for 60 years studied human behavior; emotional IQ is important – parents need to develop this themselves need to be comfortable with discomfort and teach it to their children
Dr Egar speaks about Disassociation. It is how both Victor Frankel and I survived – he would say “I closed my eyes and I am lecturing to my students or listening to an opera”. I would image I was dancing at the Hungarian Ballet.
“You keep secret what you are ashamed of”
“I didn’t need a Nazi I had one in me”
“Shame is awful – addiction is about shame”
Be powerful – don’t react – to be able to regain your power. What I realize as a clinician – what is really important is to regain power – when someone starts to dump on – say to yourself “the more they talk; the more relaxed I become” Do not allow other people to get to you – have a screen
“People are disturbed, not by things (that happen to them), but by the principles and opinions which they form concerning (those) things.” –The Greek philosopher Epictetus
Everyone should answer these 2 questions:
- When did your childhood end?
We grieve over not what happened, but what didn’t happen. In her session she goes back to the place in the past where there was suffering. What is true you?
Would you like to be married to you?
What are you willing to let go of and willing to hold on to? Ask yourself : What do I want? Am I willing to give up what others think? What am I going to do about it? When? How are you going to be a good parent to you?
Healing is not about fixing what is broken but about manifesting what we really are; our greatest self. Letting go of everything that is preventing us from doing that – that is the moment we can embrace our freedom . We do have the power to choose in each and every moment.