Holocaust Survivor Shares INSPIRING STORY On How To FIND MEANING IN LIFE | Edith Eger & Lewis Howes

I don't have time to hate, because if I would hate, I would still be a hostage and a prisoner of the past. I don't live in Auschwitz. I don't live in the past.

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness. Really? Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howis.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm very honored for our guest today, Dr. Edith Eger, who is an Auschwitz survivor and practicing clinical psychologist, author of the Choice and. And a new incredible book called the 12 Lessons to Save youe Life. And I'm so grateful that you are here. So thank you for joining me.

I thank you so much to be your grandma today.

Exactly.

But also helping people to give birth to their true self because, you know, it's so much easier just to be yourself rather than acting. And that's what happens with age.

Yeah.

Offstage the same as on stage. That I hope to give you the true self and the experiences I had in life that made me the survivor and not the victim of anything or anyone anymore.

Yeah, you are. You're one of the few thriving survivors of the Holocaust. And you talk about in your book the Gift, that the actual experience for you was a gift. How can you view such a traumatic experience for you, with a lot of pain and loss as a. Any sort of a gift at all? How is that even possible?

Experience like Auschwitz was viewed very differently by the many people. Some people entered Auschwitz and were so angry that they started to hit the guards and they were shot right in front of me. And then there were others who ran into the barbed wires and they were electrocuted. So, you know the stress studies. But Hans Selye tells us that anything stressful that comes to us, you have two automatic responses. You either fight or flee. But none of those worked in Auschwitz. So I call Auschwitz a classroom and a discovery. Discover my inner resources, how I was able to turn the experience to discover how I looked at the guards, that they were more in prison than I was, that they were brainwashed. And if you like to read the book by Max Weber, it's called Capitalism and the Protestant Ethics, referring to the Jewish people as a pariah. And if you read Plato, he's gonna tell you that the power of suggestion means that you think of a lie, it has to be a big one. And then you repeat it, repeat it until people believe it. And I think this is very important for people to question authority and not just to fight or flee, but learn how to flow in a situation and discover the inner resources that Is the gift to turn hatred into pity. To be able to look at the guards and knowing that I could actually pray for them and I had my freedom within me, that they could throw me in a gas chamber any minute. I had no control over death. They would torture me and beat me, but they could never, ever murder my spirit. That's what I bring you today, that spiritual, wonderful, loving, forgiving person that is not having time to be against, but to be for something, for life and for uniting, for empowering each other with our differences. That you can be you. You can like your own music and I can like my music that you call supermarket music. Like I like the big band because I was Liberated by the 71st infantry and I learned in 1945 how to dance the boogie woogie.

All right, we'll have to dance when I meet you in person.

So you can have your music and I can have my music. And we can agree to disagree and we can just empower each other with our differences at all times.

I have so many things I want to ask you about how you were able to have compassion and understanding and pity on the guards when you're in a moment of stress and chaos and fear for your life every day. And I would love to ask some of these practical questions later in this interview, but I'm curious if you could educate my audience and listeners about a little bit about your story of how you even got into the camps and the whole process of your life before the to when you got there, what that was like.

Well, I was born into a Jewish family and my parents had two beautiful girls, Magda, who is still alive, and Clara, who was a brilliant violinist. And my parents wanted a son and I came along, so I was really a runt. And my sister sang songs about me because I was cross eyed, that I'm ugly and puny. And my mother one day told me very seriously, I'm glad that you have brains because you have no looks. And I think it's very important for people today to really see what messages they carry with them in their own head so they can really recognize that you can rewrite your script. I'm not here to be angry at my mom, but I became a very erudite teenager. I read the Interpretation of Dreams by Freud. I had my book club and I had my boyfriend and we worked together and we had our plans. How we going to work as a team and are we going to get married? And. And that was of course, all interrupted. I think it's important to say that unfortunately we still have genocide as we speak, but never in a history of mankind. Such a scientific and systematic annihilation of people existed by 15 highly educated people called the Final Solution. When they celebrated in the evening that they are now able to find a way to put 30,000 juice in the oven in one day. And I'm part of that Final Solution of Eichmann. You see, we have a Nazi in every one of us. Find the Hitler in you and find the Mother Teresa and the kindness and the goodness. It's all there, I think God, you know, we are planted here in this earth and the way we water our plant, the way we are able to. That's why I tell young people don't spoke pot. Because it's going to unfortunately interrupt the natural growth of your brain. Don't mess with your brain. Because the best movie you can see is the Karate Kid. That the best power is brain power.

Wax off, wax on.

Isn't it wonderful? Oh, the way he doesn't want to do and go. And that's what you learn in Auschwitz, that somehow you create your inner world. Because during the day I didn't know what will happen next. That's why we are so unhappy now, because we don't know what's going to happen next. When I stood four o' clock in the morning, we didn't know how the day is going to be. We didn't know when we take a shower whether gas is going to come out or water is going to come out. So that is really that uncertainty that we are experiencing now. Because when you're angry, you give your power away.

Wow.

There are lots of emotions under the anger. There is a lot of pain under the anger. And what we do with anger, we either vent it or suppress it. I like to dissolve it. See, once you're angry, you also are experiencing anxiety and most of all, a lot of fear. Anger is not a primary emotion. When I'm angry at you, you don't suffer. I do. I'm very selective. Who's going to get my anger?

I'm hearing you say we need to express our emotions. But what if anger is an emotion that we want to express? We can't suppress it. So how do we express an emotion?

Everything is energy. Anger is energy. Motion. Yeah. Energy is something that you have to look at that you look at your expectation and then you look at reality. You see there is a maybe have to look at again whether your expectations are realistic or unrealistic. And love is not. What you feel is. Is what you do that you commit yourself to someone else. I had my sister in Auschwitz. All we had was each other there. So we had to move beyond the me, me, me and commit ourselves to each other and form a family of inmates. If you were just for the me, me, me, you didn't make it in your book.

You have a great message that your mom share with you before. Right.

When you were kidding me on the car?

Yeah. What did she share with you?

When we were put on a Caddle car, my boyfriend said to me, I will never forget your eyes and your hands. So in Auschwitz, I would say to myself, if I survive today, and then tomorrow, I'm gonna be free. And I would ask everybody to tell me about my hands, about my eyes. And my mom told me in the Keller car she heard me and she said, we don't know where we're going. We don't know what's waiting for us. Just remember, no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind. And that's exactly what happened. Everything was taken away from me, and I still had my mind and my sister.

Was your boyfriend taken away at that point with you as well, or did he?

My boyfriend was taken away in another wagon and he was shot a day before liberation. So when I came home, the first thing I did look for him, and I was told by someone who saw him being shot a day before liberation.

Oh, man.

Isn't it?

That's heartbreaking.

It was. And when I was liberated and I was in a hospital and I was put in a cast, I could hardly breathe. But when I got up in the morning, I didn't say what, I said, what for. I had nothing to get up for. And this is that existential vacuum that also Viktor Frankl mentions when you have no meaning in your life. I had no purpose in my life. My parents were not coming home. Reality hit me, and I was very suicidal after I was liberated. And I know when God told me, if you're going to die, you're not going to be able to experience the life that is ahead of you. And so you got to be for something. And that's when I began to really commit myself, to be forward life and for survival and for becoming a doctor now and being a member of the healing arts profession.

Yeah. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to try to put yourself back together and find meaning and find purpose, especially at 17 years old. I think you were at that time. 17, 18, 17.

When I was liberated, when I entered Auschwitz. Yes.

How do you start to approach Finding meaning, finding purpose, when all purpose has been lost, almost all families been lost and taken from you.

Yeah, it's not about lost and found. It's really discovery, discovery. Discovering something that no one can take away from you, and that is a discovery. And I hope that people are listening and they can also find a time out to discover that even though many, many things didn't happen that way, and they could have killed themselves because it's easier to die than to live. And yet you didn't. So I hope you can congratulate yourself, because we go through the valley of the shadow of death, but we don't camp there. We don't set up household there. I'm not a victim. I was victimized. It's not my identity. It's what was done to me. A big difference, because when a woman comes to me, I. Who was sexually abused, I also became a diplomat in sexology many, many years ago. But if they tell me. I don't know what to tell you, Edie, because I was sexually abused. But you were in Auschwitz. And my answer is, you were more in prison than I was. Because I knew the enemy.

What was the enemy?

If you were touched inappropriately by a father or an uncle or somebody in the family, and you keep that secret. The opposite of depression is expression. So what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill. What stays in there does. That's why when people tell me, many years, write a book, write a book. And I would say, I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say. So I encourage people, you have a lot to say, Write a book. You're gonna feel much better. Because my book is now at the table of my great grandsons, and I have seven of those. Wow. Isn't that wonderful?

Inspiring. Yeah, it's amazing.

Never give up. Never, ever give up.

I love that you're an inspiration. And you. You know, I. I experienced sexual abuse when I was 5 years old by a man that I didn't know was the son of a babysitter that I went to. And it took me 25 years until I started to express. And for 25 years, I suppressed depressed the emotions of that trauma and that story in my mind. And I was so ashamed that if anyone knew this about me, no one would love me or accept me as a human being. It was a story I continue to tell myself.

I love you for sharing that, because shame is awful. Yeah. Everything has to do with addiction. Has to go back to shame and really look at that shame so that you end up unfortunately Even blaming you for something you never did. And unfortunately, I see that many perpetrators were also abused themselves. So we got to really look at everything from generation to generation to. To the mother son relationship. See, I hold you beautifully as a mother, but your father has a different relationship with you. Because when you're a little boy, you look at your father and you make a decision that you want to be just like him or you want to be everything he is not. So when you grow up, you may become this wonderful person in your profession, and you give up the need for your father's approval. But when you say, I'm never gonna be like my father, then you want to prove something. And if you want to prove something, you're still a prisoner.

Oh, man, that rings true to me. Because for most of my life, I was trying to prove people wrong. I was trying to prove the kids who picked on me wrong, the person who sexually abused me. And it was never fulfilling. I would prove them wrong by achieving or accomplishing, and then I would feel unfulfilled and angrier after the fact.

You win the battle and you lose the war.

That's how I felt for so many years, until seven years ago. I started to express and open up and start the healing journey.

Thank you.

It's like everything. Everything started to shift where I was. Like, I no longer want to prove people wrong, but I want to lift others up and help others heal. And I'm curious. It took me 25 years from my traumatic experience until I was able to face it and address it internally and start talking about it openly to heal. How long did it take for you to start facing the trauma that was inside of you from this experience? And what was that process like when you started?

One thing I say that I never forget what happened. It's my cherished wound. But I don't overcome it. I come to terms with it. There is a difference. So when you say I overcame, I'm going to tell you that you just don't allow it to control your life anymore. So you have your cherished wound and I have mine in our hearts. But don't try to overcome. Just make a decision that you're not going to give another inch. And what you do give up is revenge. Because forgiveness is not you forgiving him for what he did to you. You're forgiving yourself. And you give yourself a gift not to carry that anymore. That perpetrator, that you let him go. Letting go is really the definition of love in my vocabulary. The definition of love to me is the ability to let go, to release. But don't run from it. Don't fight it. Face it. And when the feelings come up, invite it in. It's okay to. There is no forgiveness without rage. You got to. You got to feel that rage. Don't be afraid to rage. Don't have a drink to calm down. No, Scream it out. The opposite of depression is expression. And you're not revolving, you're evolving. You know, just like a butterfly. We go through the metamorphosis and then we shed the crystal so we can fly freely. Like a butterfly. I love butterflies. I am full of butterflies all over my house.

I love that. How long did it take for you to start to truly face it and embrace that trauma? Was it quickly after? Was it years or decades?

Not until I worked with two paraplegics, both Vietnam veterans. And one of them was in a feudal position seeking revenge and angry and cursing country and God. And the other one said to me, you know, Doc, I am sitting in a wheelchair and I'm so grateful that my God gave me a second chance in life. I can see my children's eyes much closer, and the flowers I can reach much easier. And I am wearing a white coat and it says, Dr. Eager, Department of Psychiatry. And I feel like a biggest imposter because I kept my secret for at least 20 years. Never told anyone I was in Auschwitz. Really?

You didn't tell anyone?

No, because I wanted to be you. I wanted to be a Yankee Doodle. Then I wanted to speak English without an accent. I spent three years at the university trying to get rid of my accent. Look how far I have gotten. And then I decided to go back to Auschwitz because I realized I could not get them further than I have gone myself.

What year did you go back to Auschwitz?

Sometimes in the 70s.

So 30 years after you were there? Yes, roughly 25.

30 years. You know, I graduated with honors cum laude and I never showed up for my graduation because I didn't forgive myself that I survived.

Wow.

See, I didn't need a Hitler. I had one in me.

You didn't go to graduation because you didn't. You didn't feel like you deserved it.

Or survivors guilt that I survived and they didn't.

And why should you be celebrating?

Exactly. Exactly. So I think that we are our own biggest enemy. And the biggest concentration camp is in our own mind. And the key is in your pocket.

You know, it's interesting, Edie. My brother went to prison when I was eight years old. For four and a half years, he sold drugs to an undercover cop and went to prison back in the 1990s when the war on drugs was a big thing. And growing up in a small town in Ohio, I didn't know anyone else who had went to prison as an 8 year old. And so it was a traumatic experience for myself, our entire family that this happened to one of our family members. And I remember going to the prison almost every weekend to visit him. There was visiting hours and we could go and see.

Good for you.

Since then.

So I've been see you the healer. You show up.

I try to do my best.

You show up.

Yeah. I have been to a prison here in near Los Angeles a few times as well to work with inmates to help them take off, take off the masks that hold them back, the emotional masks.

You changed their lives.

I do. I'm doing my part the best. And I, when I was there, I realized that some of these men who are have a life sentence in prison, who are not going to get out, have found, have found peace and healing within. And they are in a prison for life. But they have found a way to create peace in their mind and not be in a prison. And yet there are some of us in the outside world who have certain freedoms physically, but mentally we're in a concentration camp or a prison like you mentioned. Why do you think we put ourselves in a mental prison?

I think some of us do not think that we deserve so when it's good, it's bad. They don't even know how to really enjoy something. They. I call these people yes, but. Yes, but, yes, but. And I say give me the but. I give you an and yes, and you know, I clean up people's English. That yes, and furthermore, you know, and it's not why me but what now I can only touch you now.

What advice would you give to someone who is experiencing some type of traumatic event? No matter. And not to compare trauma. But when someone goes through a breakup or a loss of expectations, which might be traumatic, or a near death or a death in the family or any type of event, abuse, emotionally, sexually, physically. What advice would you have for them from the moment they have that trauma on what they should be doing next, what steps?

I think the work that I do has to do with three things. Grieving, feeling, healing. You cannot heal what you don't feel. Don't medicate grief ever. It's not clinical depression. You know, when I teach at a medical school, that's the first thing I say, please don't medicate grief. It's a natural reaction To a loss.

Yeah, Grieving, feeling, healing and healing and healing.

And it's a lifelong process. And grieving has to do with acknowledging that you expected one thing and you got another and you were told one thing and then it didn't happen. Yeah, and it didn't happen.

How do we learn to grieve better so that we don't shame ourselves for grieving or shame ourselves for not being more positive when something traumatic happens? What's the. What's a good process that we.

Oh, just cry. Crying is healing. Because what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill. What stays in there does. So what we do with anger, we either vent it, suppress it. I like you to dissolve it. Anger is not a dirty word. It's okay. It's okay. It's how long you're gonna hold on to it. But don't deny it. Don't run from it.

How do we express anger in a relationship from a lost expectation in a healthier way where it's more dissolved? As opposed to, you did this and you did this and you were wrong. And because some people might interpret that and say, well, I'm just expressing my anger like Dr. Edie told me to. But how do we communicate anger where we don't suppress it, but we get it out in a loving, healthier way?

When in English language, someone says, you, you're gonna be dumped on, just remember, you're gonna be dumbed on. Now you think of me, I'm on your shoulder, and say to yourself, the longer they talk, the more relaxed I become. You take the negative stimuli immediately turned it into positive. I am practicing my low frustration tolerance level.

Okay, how do.

I'm not a shrink. I'm a stretch. You know, you stretch your comfort zone. That's what I learned in Auschwitz, to stretch the comfort zone. Only children blame while you blame, you're still a child.

Wow.

I don't care how old you are, you can be 20, 40, or 80. You did this to me. You made me angry. Try to make me angry and I'm going to tell you, I'm very selective. Who's going to ever get my anger?

Do you feel anger today? And how do you personally express it? If someone says they're going to do something, but they let you down. If you don't see something in the world that's happening, that's unjust, you know, how do you express this where it's not that thing having power over you, but you expressing your feelings, what you.

Can really do with another person? You let Them know what their behavior, what effect their behavior has on you and how you feel and what would you like. Instead you go to solution, not defensiveness. Then you learn to negotiate and compromise. If you're not willing to negotiate and compromise, don't get married.

That's good advice.

Yeah. Because there is no such thing as truth. There is my truth and your truth.

And all relationship is going to have compromise and negotiation.

I think that we can really have a relationship that is based on commonalities. Look at Romeo and Juliet. We marry people we don't know. Most marriages are based on faulty expectations. There is a gap between expectation and reality. And then you have to look at expectation whether you are realistic or unrealistic. You cannot give me what you don't have. See, sometimes we women think that he's going to be giving me everything and anything at any time. And there is no such one person. We limit it. I can give you in my limited capacity. And that's why it's good to ask for what you want and let the other person know what's in it for them. And you make a deal. If you do this, I'll give you that if you wash the dishes, we'll have more time together. You know, make it so that the other person really would like to give of themselves rather than waiting for someone else to make you happy. Nobody will make you happy. You make yourself happy. Because self love is self care is not narcissistic. Narcissistic people don't like themselves. Do you love yourself? I want you to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, louis, I love you. I honor you. There'll never be another you. That's exciting to me. Very exciting. That you're one of a kind diamond in a rough. Yes.

Yeah.

You have a lot to look forward to. Yeah. You were victimized. Remember? It's not who you are. And I'm so sorry. And yet I'm so grateful that I'm talking to a brilliant interviewer who is sharing himself with me. That's really a gift to me.

I appreciate that.

I'm going to really cherish this interview because you are your you. You put yourself into it and that's what it's all about.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And I want to follow up to the conversation we were having about happiness just now. When we expect someone else to bring us happiness in a relationship, what does that do to us? And how do we learn to love ourselves and find happiness whether the other person brings us joy or not? In your Opinion beautiful.

Dependency breeds depression. If I wait for you to make me happy, I'm never gonna be happy. And what is happy? Who is happy now with all this turmoil and when children are being taken away from the parents, when we have all this millions of people who are unfortunately falling into that terrible COVID 19. You know, I mean, what is. You know, it's such a general word. I don't really know how I want to use that word. Am I happy? Well, I'm cheerful. I do the best I can, but I don't know this word. Happy is me. Very general.

You mentioned about Auschwitz as the best classroom for you.

For me, yes.

As the best classroom, my best education.

Don't know. There is an EQ and an iq. Thank God I have both because I did graduate with cum laude. But the work I do has to do from one survivor to another. And together we're going to be stronger. So I hold your precious hand and we're going to revisit the places where you've been and you're going to tell it to me as if it would happen now. See, when I would work with you, I would ask you to be 5 years old. So you can really feel that feeling that you're powerless. And you don't even think that there is something wrong with it either. Because anybody who touches you and it feels good, you know, we'll build that way. But it's very important not to suppress and keep that secret. Secrets are really unfortunately running in families. That's not good at all. I hope this is a time out when people can share and get it out. What comes out to your body will never make you hear. What stays in there does. Yeah, maybe you can run groups for men. Yeah, maybe you can do that. And you can meet and, and recognize just how much you have in common. The man's brain is very different from our, you know, the hemisphere, the left and right hemisphere is different in a male than a female. That's why men want to understand everything. I want to feel something and I come to the feelings, how do you. I don't ask, how can I help you ever. I say, how can I be useful to you? Because I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it with you.

So should I stop asking how can I support you and say, how can I be useful?

How can I be useful to you? And how can I help you? It's like Humpty Dumpty. I'm gonna put you back together again. There is no such thing. I'm not humpty. Dump. And I cannot do anything with you unless you're willing, that's a very good word, willing. To be willing to revisit the places where you've been. But I'm there with you now. You're not there. You're here with me. You're safe with me. I provide the atmosphere. I had a 14 year old young boy who was a member of David Koresh in Texas. So he came to me and said, I'm a boot boy, you know, I know nothing about boots. But I looked at his boots and I acknowledged it. And then he got up and he put his elbow on my desk and said, hey Doc, it's time for America to be white again. I'm gonna kill all the Jews using the N word. All the muskins and all the chinkos. See if I would have reacted, I would have dragged that boy into the corner, I would have stepped on him and tell him how dare you talk to me like that. Because I saw my mother going to the gas chamber. But you know, I spoke to God in Auschwitz. My spirit, my Tinkerbell, my spirit, spirit. Because people don't come to me, they're sent to me. And the most obnoxious person is your best teacher. So I asked God, what is the meaning of this? And God told me, find the bigot in you. And I said it's impossible. I came to America penniless. I worked in a factory in 1949 they gave me seven cents a dozen to cut off boxer shirts. I became the breadwinner because my husband ended up in a hospital. But when I went to the bathroom, one of them sat colored. And I didn't realize that in America we have prejudice. Prejudice means to prejudge. And so I tell God it's impossible. You see, I'm not a prejudice because I came to America and I joined the NAACP and I marched with Martin Luther King. It didn't do any good to me. God said, find the bigot in you. And not until I created the environment for that 14 year old young boy who lost all his freedom to this David Koresh joining the white supremacy neo Nazi group. And I said, tell me more. And he never knew because I created the loving environment of the mother he never had. And so this is it, you know, creating the environment for anyone that you are with that they can truly trust you and put even their lives in your hand. But it was very difficult in Auschwitz to put your life into the Nazis hand. So you know, you have to be selective and think you can now create the young people in America to be. For something, to be. For uniting, to be good role models. And I think you're a wonderful role model. Thank you. So I hope that this is your calling. This is not my job. Because if you have a job, you want to make the most amount of money with the least amount of work. Right? But your calling. I never look at the clock. I don't do this 45 minute hour. I don't really do that. And I don't see one person after another. I give as much time, time, time. That's what love is. T, I, M, E. It's a four letter, wonderful word. But you need time with you see what your head is telling you. Your body talks to you all the time and the body never lies. Yeah. I guarantee you.

What was your body telling you in Auschwitz? Did you feel like you had any hope at all? Was all hope gone?

Turn hatred into pity.

How did you have that wisdom at 16?

I think. I think I had a loving God called Tinkerbell, the free spirit that. That I still had a choice.

Do you think that's what kept you alive during that time? Was having.

That kept me totally alive? Because they took my blood a lot. And I asked one time, why are you taking my blood? And he spoke to me in German that I'm taking your blood to aid the German soldiers so we can win the war and take over the world. Watch that. Especially America. I didn't yank my arm away, of course. I wouldn't be here telling you. But I said to myself, you stupid idiot, I was coming. Balesina, with my blood, you're never gonna win the war. So I had my humor within me. Not sarcasm or cynicism, but kind of philosophical humor that I still had my spirit telling myself that I know better. My blood is not gonna ever help you to win the world. So you see again, the choice. The choice.

What are some of the greatest lessons you learned during that year? Some of the mental practices you discovered yourself or maybe that you witnessed from a friend or someone who was in there with you?

With me was a lovely girl from Yugoslavia. And we were both very proud nationalist. I was a very proud Hungarian and she was a very proud member of Yugoslavia. And she told me that we're going to be liberated by Christmas. And Christmas came and we were not liberated. She died the next day. Don't set yourself up to something that has to happen. Have as many choices as possible. That taught me tremendous amount. How not to think black and white. All or nothing. Look at all the options. The More choices you have, the less you feel like a victim.

Mm.

It's a very good question. You ask very good questions.

Thank you. Thank you.

You're a great interviewer.

Thank you. How do you create multiple choices when all of your choices are taken away?

In theory, in Europe, we used to ask, is it good for the Jews? You know? But you can ask yourself, is this the best I can do? And chances are that's not the only thing that you can do that there are other choices that you're willing to maybe settle for something different. Hopefully that you are realistic, but not idealistic.

Realistic, not idealistic.

Idealistic. Because when the idealists don't find what they're looking for, they become sarcastic. Cynical. Hungarians are very sarcastic. Very cynical.

In your book. The book is amazing, and I want everyone to get it. But you talk about 12 imprisoning beliefs.

Yes.

And I don't want to go into all 12, but can you share one or two that really stand out for you? And then I want to talk about a couple of tools that you use that I like.

Are you evolving or revolving? My daughter calls it edism. And I had someone who went to a marathon, and somehow in the middle, she stopped and she thought, she's not gonna be able to make it. But then she ran to my office and said, Dr. Eger, I did it. I did it. I said what you told me to say. Yes, I am. Yes, I can. Yes, I will. So you're going to find that somewhere. The other thing I told you that there is no forgiveness without rage. You got to go through that rage and see whether you are ready to forgive. Because it's not up to me to forgive you. It's up to me to be actually able to be for myself and for myself needs to be free. That I give myself a gift. See, I don't have any godly power to forgive you or anyone else, but I do what's humanly possible and then hand it over. So that. That would be a good one. Forgiveness would be very, very important. The other is to. How do you find hope in hopelessness? I think that's very important. Very, very, very important.

Very challenging.

And seeing. You know, don't cover garlic with chocolate. Don't put paprika on whipped cream. You know, it's. It just see. See how you can find balance between working, loving, and playing.

You have a tool or an exercise where you create a chart. I love your exercise on forgiveness where you ask the person to write two letters to someone who hurts you. Can you share what those Two letters are.

Yeah, well, the first letter is all the rage that you have. Get it out.

Get it out.

Yes. Yeah, you can. Because you're not gonna just get it out, scream it out, you sob and use whatever you can do. How could you do this to me? And just get it all out, okay? And because once it's out, you're gonna feel better. That's why the opposite of depression is expression. You're going to feel better. So you get the vomit out and then you write a love letter. Then you like what you are for rather than what you're against. And so that's why two letter is better than one letter. But the one letter is very essential to get rid of the poison that is in your mind.

So write an anger letter of the things that they did to hurt you or upset you or let you down. Let it. Get it all out. And then write a love letter where you're finding things to appreciate about what you're learning from that experience.

And it's okay to be disappointed as long as you don't allow it to lead it to discouragement. And it's okay to be angry as long as it doesn't lead to resentment.

What happens when we hold on to resentment?

It's eating us up. It's not a sign of self love, it's self hate. Wow.

Self love does not include resentment.

No.

Wow, that's a powerful distinction.

It's okay to be angry, but how long you gonna hold on? It's up to you. Because you're hurting you. You have to be a good mommy to you. And good mommies don't criticize. Good mommies don't say yes, but you're very handsome. But you're fat. But you're pimply. No. Yes, but yes. And you're one of a kind, beautiful, God's child. And you were planted here as a seed. If I don't water my flowers in my backyard in this heat, it's gonna die. What do you use for water? Did you have a good breakfast? Did you have your protein shake? Or did you have a doughnut with a Coke?

I've got a few final questions for you. I'm really inspired by this conversation and I hope we can do this in person in the future. What was it like for you when you finally learned to forgive the Nazis and the people that killed your parents and your friends and your community? What was that like for you? The feeling of forgiveness.

I have a feeling that the forgiveness with me at 16 started in Auschwitz. Just remember when we were Evacuated and go from one place to another. And I was used carrying ammunition on the top of a train for the Nazis, so they wouldn't bomb, but they bombed anyway. So we went from one place to another. And we ended up in April, somewhere near Austria. And we were put in a German village. And we were told that if we dare to leave the premises, we were put into a kind of a community hall upstairs. If you dare to leave the premises, you're going to be shot right away. But my sister told me, if you don't get some food, I'm going to die. See, she was more hungry than I was. I was skinnier. But I was a gymnast, so I didn't care about that. I went outside and I saw some carrots in the next garden. I had no respect for other people's property. I was still a gymnast. And I jumped and I stole the carrots. Can you picture me do that? And I'm climbing the wall, and I meet the guard with a gun.

Wow. What happened?

I never held a gun in my life. And I heard the clicking three times. And I began to pray. Not for me. And somehow there was an eye contact. And he turned his gun around and pushed me inside. But I had the carrots. I give the carrots to Magda. The following morning, he comes and says, who dared to break the rules? And I'm thinking, who knows? He may kill all of us. I better go. And I'm crawling to him. I can't even walk. I'm crawling. And I said, it was me. German people are starving. He gives me a little loaf of bread. I wish I could find that man. He said, you must have been hungry to do what you did. There were good people. I met the diamond in that garbage place. Isn't that amazing?

It's unbelievable.

I'm telling you that if I could meet that man today. I mean, I cannot tell you. I don't know how old he was, and I don't know if he's still alive. But please, if ever anybody can hear that story. I want to see that man.

What would you say to him?

He would have killed me because he was told to kill. I would tell him that I want to thank him for my life. Because we never knew when any minute. We were told every day in Auschwitz that the only way we'll get out of here is a corpse. So when people tell you anything, all you have to do is put an eye in front of it. You this, you that. Just put an eye that. They talking about themselves.

What was the greatest lesson The Nazis.

Taught you how to not allow anybody to poison my me. How not to allow anybody to brainwash and how to question authority and never adhere blindly to authority? Yes, taught me. Everything I practice today has to do to be for life and for freedom. Freedom is my word. Freedom from the concentration camp that is in your own mind.

And what does freedom mean to you?

Freedom means to be my true self. To be God's precious, loving seed that was planted here for me to give to the world. What can happen when good people do bad things?

I want to make sure everyone gets your book.

Thank you.

They can get the book called the Gift. 12 Lessons to Save youe Life. I've got two quick questions, if that's okay for you.

Sure.

And before I ask the questions, I just want to acknowledge you, Edie, for being an incredible gift to myself to and to the world. The work you continue to do to serve to inspire the world and to really showcase your story and your teaching and your lessons and your wisdom.

Well, I like to say that I march with Martin Luther King. And I, too, have a dream that we can unite, that we can empower each other with our differences. I don't give up on that. So I'm hoping that your interview with me will be with someone who is an ambassador for peace and goodwill.

Yeah, of course. I'm all for it.

I don't have time to hate, because if I would hate, I would still be a hostage or a prisoner of the past. I don't live in Auschwitz. I don't live in the past. I like to maybe emphasize that one person can make a difference. Like Gandhi. He took the whole British Empire down to their knees without any bloodshed.

I'm on the same mission with you. We'll work together.

I hope that you let them know that you have someone here who has been through it and able to somehow turn tragedy into victory. Of how we can look at anything in life, not a problem, but a challenge, not a crisis, but a transition.

I'm all for it. That's what I'm. That's what I'm here to do. This question I ask everyone is at the end called the Three Truths. And I would like you to imagine that you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish and you continue to live a very long, healthy life, accomplishing more, writing more books, helping people. But I'd like you to imagine that on your last day, everything you've ever created has to go with you to the next place. So all of your work, your books, your interviews, they go with you to the next place. And you get to leave behind, though, three lessons that you know to be true about your entire life. The lessons that you would leave behind if this is all we would have to remember you by. What would you say are those three key lessons that you'd want to leave behind?

Love, joy and passion for life and purpose.

I love that. And what would you say? This is my final question. What would you say is your definition of greatness?

Just to be your one of a kind, unique, authentic person that will never ever was in a million years before or after you? That's really something to wow about.

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Edith, I really appreciate your time.

And I appreciate you very much.

Enjoy. Your book's amazing. My producer, Ben.

Keep on, keep on, keep on.

Yeah, of course. And hopefully we can meet in person soon and do another one in the.

Future so there never be another you. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Much love to you.

Appreciate it. If you want to learn more about how to master your mind, check out this next video right here. So when people begin to disengage and get beyond themselves, you are at your absolute best. When you get beyond yourself and getting the person to that point, how does someone get to that point?

Yeah.

So we teach them that formula. We teach them.