Gift : 12 Lessons to Save Your Life

by Edith Eger

  Hope is an investment in curiosity. Find a comfortable seat or lie down and close your eyes. Relax your body. Take a few centering breaths. Imagine yourself walking along a path or a road. You’re on your way to meet your future self. Where are you walking? Along a bright city street? In a forest? Along a country lane? Notice your surroundings in vivid sensory detail—pay attention to sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and physical sensations. Now you’re arriving at your future self’s doorstep. Where does your future self live? In a skyscraper? Log cabin? House with a wide front porch? The door opens. Your future self greets you. What does your future self look like? What is he or she wearing? Embrace or shake hands. Then ask, “What is it you want me to know?”

  Chapter 12 THERE’S NO FORGIVENESS WITHOUT RAGE

  The Prison of Not Forgiving

  People often ask how I can ever forgive the Nazis. I don’t have the godly power to anoint anyone with forgiveness, to spiritually cleanse others for their wrongs.

  But I have the power to free myself.

  So do you.

  Forgiveness isn’t something we do for the person who’s hurt us. It’s something we do for ourselves, so we’re no longer victims or prisoners of the past, so we can stop carrying a burden that harbors nothing but pain.

  Another misconception about forgiveness is that the way to make peace with someone who has harmed us is to say, “I’m done with her.”

  It doesn’t work that way. It’s not about cutting someone out. It’s about letting go.

  As long as you say you can’t forgive someone, you’re spending energy being against rather than being for yourself and the life you deserve. To forgive isn’t to give someone permission to keep hurting you. It’s not okay that you were harmed. But it’s already done. No one but you can heal the wound.

  This kind of release doesn’t come easily. It’s not an overnight process. And lots of things get in the way. A desire for justice, or revenge, an apology, even just acknowledgment.

  For years I maintained the fantasy of tracking down Josef Mengele in Paraguay, where he fled after the war. I’d pose as a sympathizer, a journalist, to gain access, and then I’d walk into his house and look him in the face and say, “I’m the girl who danced for you in Auschwitz. You murdered my mother.” I wanted to see the look on his face, the truth land in his eyes, no place to run. I wanted him to stand before his wrongs, defenseless. I wanted to feel strong and triumphant because he was weak. I wasn’t after revenge, not exactly. Somehow I sensed that making someone else hurt wasn’t going to take away my pain. But for a long time, this fantasy gave me such satisfaction. Except that it didn’t take away my rage and grief—it just deferred them.

  It’s easier to release the past when others see your truth, tell the truth. When there’s a collective process—restorative justice, war crimes tribunals, truth and reconciliation committees—through which perpetrators are accountable for the harm they inflicted and the court of the world holds the truth to the light.

  But your life doesn’t depend on what you get or don’t get from someone else. Your life is your own.

  What I say next might surprise you.

  There’s no forgiveness without rage.

  For many years I had tremendous problems with anger. I wouldn’t acknowledge it. It terrified me. I thought that I’d get lost in it. That once it started, it was never going to end. That it would totally consume me. But as I’ve said before, the opposite of depression is expression. What comes out of our body doesn’t make us ill. What stays in there does. Forgiveness is release, and I couldn’t let go until I gave myself permission to feel and express my rage. I finally asked my therapist to sit on me, to hold me down so I had a force to push against, so I could release a primal scream.

  Silent rage is self-destructive. If you’re not actively, consciously, intentionally releasing it, you’re holding on to it. And that’s not going to do you any good.

  Neither is venting anger. That’s when you blow your top. It might feel cathartic in the moment, but others foot the bill. And it can become addictive. You’re not really releasing anything. You’re just perpetuating a cycle—a harmful one.

  The best thing to do with anger is to learn to channel it, and then dissolve it.

  It might sound simple enough. But if you’ve been taught to be a “good girl” or a “good boy,” taught that anger is unacceptable or frightening, if you’ve been hurt by someone else’s rage, it isn’t easy to let yourself feel—much less express—your anger.

  When Lena’s husband suddenly told her with no explanation, no discussion, that he wanted a divorce, she was shocked by loss. A year later, she’s coping admirably, staying on top of work, supporting and loving her three kids, even beginning to date again, sporting a chic haircut and bold earrings. Yet she feels stuck on the inside, unable to move past the feeling that she’s been cheated by life.

  “I lost something I didn’t want to lose,” she said. “I wasn’t given a choice.” She went through feelings of deep sadness, grief, and guilt. She summoned strength and energy she didn’t know she had to support her children, proceed with the pragmatic matters of the divorce. But through it all, she couldn’t feel any anger. She’d witnessed a favorite aunt go through a similarly rattling divorce many years earlier, had watched her aunt recede from the world, holding her breath for decades, waiting for her ex-husband to realize he’d made a mistake and beg to come back. She’d died of cancer, still waiting for her husband to return. Haunted by her aunt’s sorrow, Lena took herself for a walk in the woods one day, wanting to release the rage she knew must be lurking within, even if she couldn’t feel it. She followed a trail deep into the forest, and stood among the trees, all alone, prepared to let herself scream as loudly as she could. But the scream wouldn’t come. She was blocked. The more she tried to embrace her anger, the more numb she felt.

  “How can I feel and express my anger?” she asked me. “I’m so scared of feeling it. I don’t want to feel it.”

  “First, legitimize it,” I told her.

  You have a right to feel rage. It’s a human emotion. You are human.

  When we can’t release anger, we’re either denying that we were victimized, or denying that we’re human. (That’s how a perfectionist suffers. Silently!) Either way, we’re denying reality. Making ourselves numb, pretending to be fine.

  This doesn’t set you free.

  Scream and pound your fists into a pillow. Go to a beach or mountaintop alone and yell into the wind. Grab a giant stick, smash and beat the ground. We sing alone in the car. Why not scream alone? Roll up all the windows, take a giant breath, and when you exhale, give it voice, let it crescendo into the world’s longest and loudest scream. When a patient comes to see me, looking rigid or masked, I say, “I feel like screaming today. Shall we scream?” And we do it together. If you’re afraid to scream alone, find a friend or therapist to scream with you. It’s such a release! And it’s so profound, even exhilarating, to hear your own unadulterated voice, charged with feeling, expressing its most difficult truth. To hear yourself unmasked. To stand up, claim your space, say, “I was victimized, but I’m not a victim. I am me.”

  Anger is a secondary emotion, a defense, armor we put up around the primary feeling underneath. We burn through anger so we can get to what’s underneath: fear or grief.

  Only then can we begin the hardest work of all.

  Forgiving ourselves.

  One Friday afternoon in August, shortly after I’d started drafting chapters for this book, I came home to find a man at my front door. He was dressed in khakis and a polo shirt, an official-looking ID badge clipped to his chest.

  “I’m here from the water company,” he said. “I have to check your water for contamination.”

  I let him inside, brought him to the kitchen. He turned the water on, checked the faucets in the bathrooms, and then told me, “I need to call in my supervisor, we could have a problem with metals.” He used his cell phone to bring in a colleague for support. />
  A man wearing the same outfit and badge arrived, they tried all the faucets again, and then told me I’d need to remove anything on my body that was metal. Watches, belts, jewelry. I took off my necklace and bracelet. The rings were more difficult. Because of my arthritis, my rings have been modified with little pins so I can unclasp them, otherwise I’d never be able to slide them over my swollen joints. But arthritis also makes it difficult to pull the pins. I asked the men to help me.

  They tested the faucets again and performed some kind of treatment on the water. Go to the bathroom sink, they told me, and run the water until it turns blue. I walked down the hall, turned the water on, watched it flow, waited and waited. Then I knew. I hurried back to the kitchen, but they were already gone—along with my necklace and bracelet and rings.

  The police said I’d been the latest target of a well-known elder abuse scheme. I felt so foolish and gullible to have been taken in by the ruse. I cringed every time I thought of how stupid and trusting I’d been. I let them in, I let them walk through my house, I handed them my jewelry. I might as well have written them a check!

  The police—and my children—see it differently. Thank goodness you obeyed, they say. They took things, but they didn’t hurt me. If I’d tried to resist, they could have tied me up, or worse. Doing everything they asked without a fuss might have saved my life.

  This perspective is helpful. But it doesn’t take the feelings away.

  The loss of things I’ve valued and held dear—especially the bracelet, the one Béla gave me to celebrate Marianne’s birth, that I’d smuggled out of Czechoslovakia by hiding it in her diaper. It’s just an object, yet it stands for something more, for life, motherhood, freedom—all things worth celebrating and fighting for. My arm feels naked without it.

  Then there was fear. For days I had an obsessive feeling that they were going to come back and kill me so I wouldn’t talk.

  Then there was the desire to chew out the criminals, to punish them, diminish them. “Is this how your mother raised you to be?” I imagined yelling. “Aren’t you ashamed?”

  And then there was my shame. I opened the door. I answered their questions. I followed their commands, held out my hand so they could unclasp my ring. I hated the version of me that I saw. Vulnerable. Frail. Gullible.

  But the only one putting those labels on me was me.

  What I’m saying is that life keeps giving me opportunities to choose freedom—to love myself as I am: human, imperfect, and whole. So I forgave myself, releasing them so I can release me.

  I have life to live and work to do and love to share. I don’t have time to hold on to the fear or anger or shame anymore, to give anything else to two people who already stole something from me. I won’t give them another inch. I won’t hand my power away.

  During my recent visit to Europe, Audrey and I went to Amsterdam, where I spoke at the Anne Frank House, and then was honored in the most spectacular way. Igone de Jongh, the prima ballerina of the Dutch National Ballet, choreographed and performed a piece inspired by my first night in Auschwitz when I danced for Mengele.

  The performance was on May 4, 2019, the seventy-fourth anniversary of my liberation at Gunskirchen, and a day of national remembrance in the Netherlands. The whole country observes two minutes of silence in honor of those who died in the camps and those who survived. When Audrey and I arrived at the theater, we were welcomed like celebrities, applauded, given flowers. People wept and embraced us. The king and queen were late to the performance, and we were offered their seats.

  The performance itself was one of the most exquisite and cherished experiences of my life. I was completely overwhelmed by the strength, grace, and passion of Igone de Jongh, by the depiction of beauty and transcendence—in hell. Even more overwhelming was the portrayal of Mengele. He was a hungry ghost, sad and empty, approaching and approaching me, his prisoner, but never fulfilled, trapped by his need for power and control.

  The performers took their bows and the audience rose in thunderous applause. Just as the clapping was beginning to die down, Igone de Jongh, her arms full of flowers, came down from the stage and walked directly to where Audrey and I were sitting. A spotlight beamed down on us. The ballerina embraced me, tears in her eyes, and then gave me her biggest bouquet. The theater exploded in emotion. I couldn’t see to walk when we left our seats, my eyes still too full of tears.

  It took me so many years to work through my anger and grief, to release Mengele and Hitler, to forgive myself for having survived. But in the theater with my daughter, watching one of the darkest moments of my past brought to life on the stage, I knew again what I realized that night in the barracks—that while Mengele had all the power, while day after day he chose with his grotesquely wagging finger who would live and who would die, he was more a prisoner than I was.

  I was innocent.

  And free.

  KEYS TO FREE YOURSELF FROM NOT FORGIVING

  Am I ready to forgive? Think of a person who has wronged or harmed you. Do any of these statements ring true? What she did was unforgivable. He hasn’t earned my forgiveness. I’m ready to give her the gift of my forgiveness. If I forgive, I’ll let him off the hook. If I forgive, I’ll give him permission to keep hurting me. I’ll forgive once there’s justice, or an apology or acknowledgment. If you relate to one or more of these statements, you are likely spending energy being against someone, rather than for yourself and the life you deserve. Forgiveness isn’t something you give someone else. It’s how you release yourself.

  Acknowledge and release rage. Make a rage date with yourself. If the idea of being angry is too terrifying to face alone, ask a trusted friend or therapist to help you. Legitimize your anger, then choose a way to channel and then dissolve it. Scream and yell. Hit a punching bag. Bang the ground with a stick. Break plates on the patio. Get the rage moving, let it out so it doesn’t fester and contaminate you. Don’t stop until there’s nothing left. In a day or a week, do it again.

  Forgive yourself. If I’m having trouble releasing someone who has hurt me, it may be that I’m holding on to guilt or shame or judgment toward myself. We’re born innocent. Imagine you’re holding a precious baby in your arms. Feel the warmth and trust of this tiny being. Gaze into the curious, wide-open eyes, at the little hands that reach as though to take in every detail of the whole, unfathomable, bountiful world. This baby is you. Say, “I’m here. I live for you.”

  Conclusion THE GIFT

  We can’t take away suffering, we can’t change what happened—but we can choose to find the gift in our lives. We can even learn to cherish the wound.

  There’s a Hungarian adage that says you find the darkest shadow beneath the candle. Our darkest and brightest places—our shadows and our flames—are intertwined. My most terrifying night, the first one in Auschwitz, taught me a vital lesson that has enhanced and empowered my life ever since. The very worst circumstances gave me the opportunity to discover the inner resources that helped me again and again to survive. My years of introspection, of being alone and working hard as a ballet student and gymnast, helped me survive hell; and hell taught me to keep dancing for my life.

  Life—even with its inevitable trauma, pain, grief, misery, and death—is a gift. A gift we sabotage when we imprison ourselves in our fears of punishment, failure, and abandonment; in our need for approval; in shame and blame; in superiority and inferiority; in our need for power and control. To celebrate the gift of life is to find the gift in everything that happens, even the parts that are difficult, that we’re not sure we can survive. To celebrate life, period. To live with joy, love, and passion.

  Sometimes we think that if we move on from loss or trauma, if we have fun and enjoy ourselves, if we continue to grow and evolve, that we’re somehow dishonoring the dead, or dishonoring the past. But it’s okay to laugh! It’s okay to have joy! Even in Auschwitz we were celebrating in our minds all the time, cooking feasts, arguing over how much caraway you put in the best rye bread, how muc
h paprika in Hungarian chicken paprikash. We even held a boob contest one night! (Guess who won?)

  I can’t say that everything happens for a reason, that there’s a purpose in injustice or suffering. But I can say that pain, hardship, and suffering are the gift that helps us grow and learn and become who we are meant to be.

  During the final days of the war, we were starving to death and cannibalism broke out in the camp. I was immobile on the muddy ground, hallucinating with hunger, praying for a way to keep living without succumbing to eating human flesh. And a voice said, “There’s grass to eat.” Even at death’s door, I had a choice. I could choose which blade of grass to eat.

  I used to ask, “Why me?” But now I ask, “Why not me?” Perhaps I survived so I can choose what to do with what happened, and how to be here now. So I can show others how to choose life, so my parents and all the innocents didn’t die in vain. So I can turn all the lessons I learned in hell into a gift I offer you now: the opportunity to decide what kind of life you want to have, to discover the untapped potential lying in the shadows, to reveal and reclaim who you really are.

  Honey, may you also choose to give up the prison and do the work to be free. To find in your suffering your own life lessons. To choose which legacy the world inherits. To hand down the pain—or to pass on the gift.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  People don’t come to me, I always say. They’re sent to me.

  I’ve been blessed by the contributions of countless wonderful people who’ve been sent to me. It’s impossible to name every person who has moved, inspired, and taken care of me, thus contributing directly or indirectly to the creation of this book. To all of you who have touched my life, had faith in me, guided me not to give up—I celebrate your one-of-a-kind gifts and cherish your presence in my life. Thank you for replenishing my basket, helping me face the unknown, cope with the unanticipated and unexpected, and take responsibility for my life and my freedom.