Dr. Edith Eva Eger - From Pain to Power: An Auschwitz Survivor's Powerful Transformation — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00would love to start Edie by just
2. 0:03having the audience hear from your voice
3. 0:07just the Reader's Digest version of your
4. 0:09experience that led you to the work that
5. 0:12you do today just a quick um so take us
6. 0:15back to the experience
7. 0:17and then we'll we'll talk about this
8. 0:18wonderful book and all the lessons that
9. 0:20you've learned
10. 0:22you look at life as one day
11. 0:26that morning sunshine may not come back
12. 0:30but at my age
13. 0:33people ask me how do you want to be
14. 0:36remembered
15. 0:38um
16. 0:39so I'm at the evening part of life now
17. 0:42and
18. 0:44I like to be remembered as someone
19. 0:48who's been through hell
20. 0:51and was able to use that experience
21. 0:55to make the suffering
22. 0:58and
23. 0:59being stronger as a result
24. 1:03so suffering to me
25. 1:07brought me where I am now I'm Dr editiva
26. 1:12eager I went back to school and I was
27. 1:16about 40 something when I supervisor
28. 1:19asked me
29. 1:21um
30. 1:22how will I get my doctorate and I told
31. 1:26him by the time I got my doctorate I'll
32. 1:29be 50.
33. 1:30and he said you'll be anyway and so
34. 1:35today I like to tell people go back to
35. 1:38school and more doors are gonna open up
36. 1:42for you and you will become my colleague
37. 1:45so I am very happy to be interviewed by
38. 1:49you and I hope I'm not smart I hope to
39. 1:54be wise
40. 1:55well you are more than wise and thank
41. 1:58you for sharing your story in the choice
42. 2:00which is another best-selling book that
43. 2:02you wrote
44. 2:03um it's the Memoir it goes into detail
45. 2:05of what you experienced
46. 2:07um and really I love that you just told
47. 2:09that story about I'll be 50 anyway
48. 2:11you'll be 50 anyway because it's true so
49. 2:13many people get stuck and Paralyzed by
50. 2:16the fear of you know or or the regret
51. 2:19and holding on to the past and you're
52. 2:22such a beautiful example of continuing
53. 2:23to move forward
54. 2:25um and tapping into those gifts and
55. 2:27using crisis and you know suffering and
56. 2:32Trauma
57. 2:33um to wake you up to your your potential
58. 2:37yes it's you know not what happens it's
59. 2:40what we do with it and I think suffering
60. 2:43makes you stronger and I like to let
61. 2:48people know that there are many
62. 2:51situations that you're totally
63. 2:53unprepared for and you are told one
64. 2:57thing and then you found another
65. 3:00and so you know it's very hard to
66. 3:04remember that maybe your father told you
67. 3:07is gonna take you to the movies next
68. 3:10Wednesday
69. 3:11and you are getting ready and you want
70. 3:14to go to that movie with father and then
71. 3:18fathers you understand don't you father
72. 3:23is busy that day and and so
73. 3:27you may be disappointed
74. 3:30but you never get discouraged you know
75. 3:33some people ask for things and
76. 3:37you give it to them and then you want
77. 3:41something and they're not there
78. 3:44um it's okay to
79. 3:47live your life
80. 3:49when you are looking at it from the
81. 3:54inside out rather than waiting for
82. 3:57someone to
83. 3:58make you happy and so on
84. 4:01so I think really good for you to be
85. 4:07appreciated for what you do I think
86. 4:11you're saving lives and I congratulate
87. 4:14you for that oh my gosh thank you
88. 4:17I mean I look at your story and anytime
89. 4:20I'm having a pity party in life there's
90. 4:23just nothing compares to the horrors and
91. 4:26the hell that you lived through she can
92. 4:28do it I can do it yeah exactly if Dr if
93. 4:33Edie can do it
94. 4:34you know you've given us the Shining
95. 4:36Light of example if you couldn't
96. 4:37overcome and learn to forgive and just
97. 4:40survive what you went through
98. 4:43um you know we can survive anything I
99. 4:45believe that and on the other hand I
100. 4:50like to mention that my friend
101. 4:54um it's in my books told me that we're
102. 4:57gonna be liberated by Christmas and
103. 5:00Christmas came and went and
104. 5:03she died the next day yeah you have to
105. 5:06be more flexible than rigid
106. 5:11exactly in your book The Gift 12 lessons
107. 5:14to save your life you talk about the
108. 5:16prison
109. 5:17um of victimhood the prison of avoidance
110. 5:19the prism of rigidity which is what
111. 5:22you're referring to now and your mind
112. 5:25yeah and and with your friend and this
113. 5:28is such a you know we talk about this
114. 5:30all the time in the healing World a
115. 5:32doctor's language is so powerful so you
116. 5:35know at our mutual friend Deepak Chopra
117. 5:37says get the diagnosis get the best
118. 5:39medical advice that you can get find out
119. 5:41what's going on but don't buy into
120. 5:43someone's prognosis and and let them
121. 5:46take rob you of your hope and just like
122. 5:48in the book and you just mentioned your
123. 5:50friend she held on Hope until Christmas
124. 5:52and then when that that expectation that
125. 5:55Liberation didn't come she died along
126. 5:57with her hope so hope is so important to
127. 6:00this journey of overcoming
128. 6:03better to be flexible than being rigid
129. 6:08um we were on a podcast together and she
130. 6:11talked about whether or not he said well
131. 6:14you must have really fought to get
132. 6:16through Auschwitz to be a fighter and uh
133. 6:19what we realized is that Edie wasn't
134. 6:22fighting her way through Auschwitz she
135. 6:24was dancing
136. 6:25and it's the dancing that saved her the
137. 6:29fighters didn't live that there were
138. 6:30those that could flow
139. 6:32those that could be flexible and dance
140. 6:34and move
141. 6:35that was the best survival Instinct and
142. 6:38right and that's amazing and her mom
143. 6:40your mother told you no one can take
144. 6:42away from you what you've put in your
145. 6:44mind so dancing you went inside your
146. 6:47head and you you know you went to this
147. 6:49other beautiful place and moved your
148. 6:51body and stayed flexible
149. 6:53um you know and I think later you even
150. 6:54said that a a person came up to you
151. 6:58after one of your talks and said why
152. 6:59didn't you Rebel why didn't you fight
153. 7:01but if you had you wouldn't be here
154. 7:04today to share your story so that
155. 7:05flexibility that that power of the mind
156. 7:08and and flexibility you know was
157. 7:10life-saving
158. 7:13the fact is that life
159. 7:16is more appreciated
160. 7:18and you don't even know until you lose a
161. 7:24part of it when you are locked in a
162. 7:27prison that's when you really begin to
163. 7:30wonder
164. 7:31what kind of a life well hopefully is
165. 7:36waiting for you and even use the time to
166. 7:41write a book
167. 7:42mm-hmm that's what people told me write
168. 7:46a book write the book so that's how the
169. 7:49choice came about yes beautiful and
170. 7:53um you you talk about
171. 7:57um
172. 7:58you can't you can't he this was I mean
173. 8:01there's so many poignant parts of your
174. 8:03book and you have This brilliant ability
175. 8:05to have these like one-liners so we'll
176. 8:07we'll hit on some of those
177. 8:09um but
178. 8:11like for instance the opposite of
179. 8:13depression is expression you know you
180. 8:16talk about key the the Prison of Secrets
181. 8:19and until you
182. 8:20realized all of the feelings you weren't
183. 8:23allowing yourself to be to feel because
184. 8:25the trauma was so horrific and you were
185. 8:28just sitting on all these feelings and
186. 8:29didn't want to you know dump them on
187. 8:31your children or you know you just
188. 8:33didn't think that you could survive
189. 8:35experiencing all those feelings again
190. 8:36which is what we do so at what point
191. 8:39what what made you wake up to the fact
192. 8:42that oh my gosh I need these I need I
193. 8:44need to feel I need to feel to process
194. 8:47to heal from the trauma so that I can
195. 8:49move forward
196. 8:51I think the word permission might be
197. 8:54good for people to give themselves
198. 8:57permission to be human
199. 9:00because if you're a perfectionist you're
200. 9:03going to procrastinate
201. 9:05you're gonna think about it tomorrow and
202. 9:09then tomorrow doesn't come and so I
203. 9:12think it's important to think about your
204. 9:15thinking and what you focus on what you
205. 9:19focus on hopefully hoping to be in
206. 9:22alignment to get you closer to a goal
207. 9:27have have an arrow it's a good word have
208. 9:30an arrow that you follow
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225. 10:07[Music]
226. 10:20thank you
227. 10:22foreign