Learning from Life’s Unpredictability
Lessons from 2 Holocaust survivors and how to follow their lead
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor’s book A Man’s Search for Meaning destroyed me, in a good way. Exchanging my tight grip on hurt, control, and demanding life be my way for an open-handed stance has been a slow road I am still traveling.
Another Holocaust survivor story that will pull you in and rip open your heart is The Choice: Embrace the Possible by Edith Eva Eger.
Both of these beautiful souls share the same message: hope.
“You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.” — Edith Eva Eger
Once you have lived a reasonable amount of life, you begin to realize control is an illusion.
As an in-process recovering perfectionist, control was the underbelly of how I traversed life for my first 30 or so years, until…the unpredicted.
Something hit my life that I couldn’t control in any way, shape, or form. Regardless, I kept trying. If I’m honest, I was struggling to get my way.
The aftermath of the stress from attempting to control the uncontrollable left me physically, emotionally, and spiritually wrecked.
Some might consider that a failure, however, now I see it as my hard-won pivot-point of transformation, or a “gift” as Edith calls it. And in Viktor’s wise-words, I was challenged to change myself.
Even with tragedy, unthinkable acts, trauma, we as humans are built to rise.
I eventually realized I had to turn toward my pain. I had to lean into accepting the very thing I feared the most.
“Our painful experiences aren’t a liability, they are a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” — Edith
This is resilience.
Where To Start?
The answer is simple, yet, the journey can be a touch nuanced and complex.
We must lean into the present with radical acceptance.
Life is a beautiful mystery of contradictions. While we experience so much pain, sorrow, and loss, there is even more beauty, grace, and joy.
And here is the key lesson from Viktor and Edith:
In this right here and right now present moment, you get to choose which you lean into.
Like I said, simple, but not easy.
We can’t numb or avoid our feelings, our circumstances, the hard bits of life. But we can learn to hold space for the “bothness” (thank you Susan David for that word-not-word.)
The key is not getting stuck.
Allowing the flow of life to happen, to ride the waves of “bothness” well is what brings freedom to our hearts, minds, and bodies.
Also Read: Your Past Shapes Your Present
This is where the support of a counselor, spiritual director, or coach can help accelerate the process of making sense of it all for you. But the below practice is a potent place to begin.
Embodying the Okay-ness of Unpredictability
1 Center and settle yourself with a few full and smooth breaths, finding any movements that your body naturally wants to do — wrist circles or perhaps some twists with your spine.
Coming home to your body helps you feel what’s happening inside to more clearly discern how to move forward and through the emotions life stirs up.
2 Ask yourself, what is the “thing underneath the thing”? What limiting belief stirs fear in the unpredictability of life for you: “I don’t trust I am strong enough,” or “I don’t feel equipped to manage more heartache.”
What does it feel like in your body? Perhaps a drop in your pit of your stomach or a pounding in your heart. Notice and then shake that off.
3 Now, turn your mind to what is true. The facts are, you are here, you are alive, and you have made it this far. And as Edith so beautifully stated, our hard and messy circumstances are “an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.”
This is you, growing stronger, cultivating another layer of resilience as you become who you were meant to be. Even envision yourself living into this resilience.
As you consider these facts, what is happening in your body now? Maybe a brightness in your heart or a sigh of relief that softens your shoulders.
Hold on to and savor those feelings and positive bodily sensations as intensely as you can for as little as 15 seconds (more is better) to deepen the neural groves of this goodness into your whole mind-body system. — Rick Hanson Hardwiring Happiness
This simple embodied practice is the catalyst for real, heart-level change, return to it any time you need a reminder of your resiliency to adapt and be more open to life’s unpredictability.
Feel free to share your discoveries in the comments, I am listening!
