The Journey of Grieving, Feeling and Healing | Dr. Edith Eva Eger | TEDxSanDiego

You know, sometimes I wonder why I survived and maybe I am here today to be a very good role model for you, not to revive in life but to evolve. You can't be sorry for what you don't feel, so I would really like to ask you. maybe listen to the process i have experienced since auschwitz. I'd like to go back to 1943, when I was 15 years old and learning how to hopefully make the Olympic team. I'm taking ballet lessons there. and I'm getting ready for my boyfriend to take a photo of me while I'm doing a split and while I'm doing a split my world is just beautiful I'm totally in love but I had no idea that I'll never go back to that place so I was very happy with my boyfriend we planned our time together at school and how we would get married and then have a life together, we had our own book club and suddenly there was a knock on my door inviting me.

Me and many many others to undertake that terrible and terrible

journey

from Kasha Hungary to Auschwitz. They totally pushed us. My mother hugged me and said, "We don't know where we're going. We don't know what's going to happen. Just remember." No one can take away what you put in your mind, that is a sign that our white-marked fry work makes you free. My father thinks it won't be bad because we'll just go to work and then go home. It doesn't happen at all, I got in line with my sister and at the end of the line there was a guy pointing left and right, he asked me, pointing at my mother, is this your sister or is this your mother?

I couldn't. did she ever forgive me for telling her that she was my mother, she pointed to the left, I followed my mother, she came towards me and said: you will see your mother very soon, she is just going to take a shower and she quickly threw me to the other side when I stood in line to get the tattoo, I didn't get it, I didn't get it, they told me they didn't want to get the tattoo because I'm going to the gas chamber, they could put me in a gas chamber at any time. minute and beat me and torture me and never murder my spirit.

I will talk to you about the

journey

of grief and

healing

. Víctor Franco and I talked about how we are not a psychiatrist but a stuffy person and I like that. I'm here to expand your comfort zone so you can go through the

feeling

of grief and heal the way we cry, we scream and when you're in a car it's really helpful, no one can hear you, you scream, you cry. and then you laugh like a hyena and you get all those

feeling

s out but I'm telling you that you cry you cry and then you can't cry anymore you'll see don't allow yourself anything other than to be a survivor so that you feel the feelings and then you feel more and sometimes it comes in the moment more inopportune if you don't want someone to see you cry maybe you want to wear dark glasses you can see them but they don't see you don't let that stop you From your daily functioning, it's not like you're

grieving

24/7 the week, but I think it's good to set aside a little time every day when you're

grieving

, when you're screaming, and then you'll feel better because what gets into your body doesn't.

What stays there doesn't make you sick and I like to tell you that there is no grief without feeling. I hope you can't try to understand what is happening. That's all in your head. Trying to figure things out. It is better to really go to the heart and give yourself permission to feel the feelings because then you will begin the

healing

there is no forgiveness letting go without anger I remember when I was angry out of anger to recognize that my boyfriend was gone I have not had my parents with me anymore, so drive on, don't try to cover things up, we don't cover chocolate with Hungarian paprika, let's see how you can find a part of yourself that will keep you consistent with what you think, your feelings and your behavior are in your charge. but just remember that grieving and healing will go through a period where you are absolutely angry, absolutely furious and it's not fair and that's okay as long as you don't get stuck in that because that's the victim mentality, so what me, why me, instead of what now.

So my healing took many years, that's why I feel so lucky to let you know that I never give up to find hope in hopelessness and I look for a gift in everything, in the darkest of places, you can go through a dark tunnel and you. you are going to look for the light, you are not just trying to cry and cry, but to allow yourself, give yourself permission to feel that feeling of loss, so unexpected, totally unforeseen, it is okay to be angry, it is okay to legitimize this, legitimize that anger, but be careful. How long are you going to hold on to that?

You have to go through the wrath, go through the valley of the shadow of death, just don't camp there and set a trap for us or the pandemic is something that is still going on, we are not. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I can tell you as a survivor that surviving can make you stronger, maybe today we don't know what's going to happen next and that's really very difficult to get some scare that no one can ever reach you and take away from you. quiet, so I started telling you about the teenager at the pool in that city who was wearing a beautiful white striped swimsuit and I knew the boys were looking at me.

No, I won't be that girl anymore. that girl will never be the same again, she will be better, she will be stronger, so find that girl in you too and tell that boy too that you want to become a healthy adult that you can think in a way that you don't just take care of yourself. me, do everything in your power to come together and hopefully empower each other without differences so that you can be one of a kind, there will never be another you, so the question now is, as I leave you how. Are you going to see life as if in everything that is happening there is a gift in it, it is not what happens but what you do with it?

I want you to know that there is a lot of untapped potential in the shadow you walk through. that shadow and you will never be the same again you will be better because suffering gives you strength and then you become a survivor and never a victim. I wish you a wonderful journey in life than when you are on your deathbed. you are going to be very satisfied to truly live to the fullest that you have joy passion love and purpose and life someone asks in the face of adversity what is your best advice what mantra could help anchor someone when a problem feels insurmountable What would be something good that you could tell yourself?

I like to talk about the goal because if someone has a goal, they have a mistake that follows when I came to the United States from Germany, there was a big storm in the English Channel and I was able to. I see they took us somewhere, but the boss knew we had to go to New York, so sometimes we have to take a different path, as long as you know what you're focusing on and that will get you really closer to your goal. this is another interesting search, i mean the questions are amazing, there are so many, this one says you know, it's interesting to hear about allowing yourself to get angry.

My question is: is this a necessary step? Can you heal without anger? I think you can't forgive without it. Anger, as long as you don't get stuck in it, anger is not a bad word, it's just what you do with it and how long you keep it, because as long as I'm angry with you, you don't suffer, I see. I'm selfish, I want to have joy and passion and I'd like to be angry right now by hating Nazis. I would still be a prisoner. Why give Hitler a posthumous victory? No, no way, this person is asking how Americans can be inspired to empower each other with our differences instead of letting our differences divide us like is happening today well, you know, I was in Hungary with fucks in the years 80, we bring together the East Germans with the best Germans, I think it is very good for us to meet each other, it is very difficult. degrading a person until they become an object that you know and breaking bread with which we can know each other in the beginning, when you were talking about evolving and pivoting, one of the things you talked about was expanding our comfort zones, we all are. be stretched in our comfort zones today and because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow and that's why I'm doing everything I can to guide people to really practice every day what they should be today if I die, I will be so happy in my deathbed without asking what the world has given me or how much I suffered but how I could become 92 years old.

Hey, yes, younger, now I am full of joy, I am full of passion and full of curiosity. Funny, that will actually make your life a lot better. I think it's a beautiful way to close us. Dr. Anxious, thank you very much.