12 Lessons and quotes from ‘The Gift’ that can resonate with anyone
No matter what we go through, whether it’s surviving the holocaust or a lesser type of hell, our suffering comes not from the outside but from the prison we construct in our minds. I know it seems like a huge burden to carry and feel: We are responsible for the repercussions of our limiting thoughts and beliefs.
How do we free ourselves from this? The path to freedom is choice. Something not all of us were at liberty to practice. I know personally, it may have seemed like I had options. However, what I chose was always implied based on social conditioning.
But if I look at my life today, I wouldn’t be here if I did it any other way. My previous thought process was that I lost because of my choices, and others won because I did what they expected. My current thought process is I didn’t win because of my choices, but I also didn’t lose because I fulfilled what others expected me to do.
For me, I finally realized that I get to choose my life and my beliefs. They were a gift I thought I never had or was given freely.
Mental Prisons
Chances are you’ll keep making the same decisions and choices, having the same thoughts, and wonder why your life isn’t changing. A clue that you are still in a mental prison, and nothing will change until you’re ready to make that happen.
We live by others’ expectations, but we also expect them to take the blame when things don’t work out or when we’re unhappy. Yes, they may have a role to play, but ultimately we are in charge of our life. And no one can take that away from you.
Acknowledging that you are in a mental prison helps you find ways to break free. The trajectory of your life will change from passenger to driver, and life won’t pass you by since you’ll be a part of it. Here are 12 lessons and quotes from the now 97-year-old Author Edith Eger of The Gift to help you take action.
Lesson 1: ‘What Now?’ Not ‘Why Me?’
‘Why me?’ keeps us trapped in an endless loop of helplessness. We have the strength, but by playing victim, we give that strength to others instead of harnessing it for ourselves. Asking ‘what now?’ allows us to acknowledge what is happening, however dire it may seem, and look for solutions instead of dwelling on the problems.
Taking responsibility regardless of your or others’ wrongdoing moves us forward and out of victimhood.
“We can be wounded and accountable. Responsible and innocent.”
Lesson 2: Avoidance Is Denying Reality
We avoid it because:
- It’s uncomfortable
- We think we shouldn’t feel that way
- We are afraid it will hurt others
- They reveal the choices we made
Moving from avoidance to reality is allowing feelings to come, sitting and getting comfortable with them, and then releasing them.
“What comes out of you doesn’t make you sick; what stays in there does.”
Lesson 3: Self-Neglect Puts Your Life into Someone Else’s Hands
You are the only person you have for a lifetime. With freedom, you can finally reconnect with your true self, parts of you that you gave up or weren’t allowed to be. When you stop abandoning yourself, you become more you.
“Generosity isn’t generous if we chronically give it at the expense of ourselves.”
“It’s good to be self-ish: to practice self-love and self-care.”
Lesson 4: Secrets Catch up with You
Be honest with yourself. Tell the truth about how you really feel, or else you’ll keep living a double life. Concealing, hiding your past or feelings, and downplaying your emotions are all the motives that keep you in a mental prison.
“If you sit with one butt on two chairs, you become half-assed.” — Hungarian expression.
Lesson 5: Guilt Keeps You Stuck
Guilt is self-blame. However, remorse is a more appropriate feeling for a mistake or decision we’ve made. What’s in the past is history. Nothing can be done about it now except to live in the present.
“Guilt and shame can be extremely debilitating. But they’re not real assessments of who we are.”
Choose how you talk to yourself. Kind and loving self-talk will reinforce what you think and how you act.
Lesson 6: Unresolved Grief Leads to Overwhelming Rage
We feel grief more for what didn’t happen than what happened. Working through grief is relinquishing the responsibility for things that weren’t up to you. It’s doing away with regrets and thinking about what you can do with the time you have now.
“Grief can be an invitation to revisit our priorities and decide again — to reconnect to our joy and purpose, recommit to being the best we can be right now, to embrace that life is pointing us in a new direction.”
Lesson 7: Rigidity to Flexibility
Conflict is something I was taught to avoid, and that’s what I did for almost all of my life. Thus I learned nothing about how to manage it. But guess what? Conflict isn’t bad. It’s human.
One of the tools to manage conflict is to stop denying someone else’s truth. That means you don’t have to agree with others, but you also don’t have to give up your truth. There is no right or wrong. There’s what’s right for me and what’s right for you.
“When we’re aggressive, we decide for others. When we’re passive, we let others decide for us. When we’re passive-aggressive, we prevent others from deciding for themselves. When you’re assertive, you speak in statements.”
To maintain freedom with less rigidity, you don’t need to ask anyone for permission to live your life. Hold your truth and relinquish power or control over others.
Lesson 8: Resentment Is Unfinished Business
Why do we get angry with life? Why do we have resentment? It happens when we expect life to be a certain way when our reality doesn’t match that. So we continue to live by covering our wounds with band-aids instead of healing from the inside out.
Thus far, I can say I’ve had a wonderful life. But at age 40, when I took a closer look at my life and dissected it, I knew my expectations for what I wanted, and my reality was completely different. People call it a mid-life crisis; I call it an awakening.
For most of your adult life, you are doing — studying, working, and raising a family. Then comes a time when you want to be. Be yourself. So, I turned to self-help books, and tons of them because I didn’t know how to be.
The journey includes letting go of resentment. Otherwise, it keeps you in the past. Being resentment-free is making peace with it and starting fresh with who you are.
“Resentment is your own unfinished emotional business and unresolved grief.”
Lesson 9: Fear and Love Don’t Coexist
So many of us avoid the F word. Fear leaves us questioning ‘what if” at the start and then scolds us with “I told you so” at the end. Fear is learned and ingrained in us by watching others. Your fears could actually be someone else’s. Let it go.
Once you take that initial risk to change, to grow, you can only evolve from there. Self-love and forgiveness allow us to move beyond fear and resistance. Because on the other side is curiosity and infinite possibilities.
“We have a choice how much of our lives we give over to fear.”
Lesson 10: Judgement to Compassion
Edith Eger survived the Nazis, but she believes we each have a Nazi within. The part of us that judges and denies us permission to be free. We judge others. And we judge ourselves. We stop judging when we quit questioning why people do what they do and concentrate on what we can do for ourselves.
The Author says next time you feel judgment for someone surface, tell yourself:
“Human, no more, no less. Human, like me.” And ask: “What are you here to teach me?”
Lesson 11: Hope Is a Confrontation with Darkness
One thing to remember in times of hopelessness: “No one can take away what you’ve put in your mind.” At the lowest point in my life, I thought: I’m broken. But now I know nothing is permanent. If it is temporary, it can be survived.
We all have the choice between hope and giving up. Just know that if you decide to give up, you’ll never get to see what happens next. It might not all be good, but you get to choose hope every time.
“Hope doesn’t obscure or whitewash reality. Hope tells us that life is full of darkness and suffering — and yet if we survive today, tomorrow we’ll be free.”
Lesson 12: Not Forgiving Hurts Us More
There is no forgiveness without rage. You can’t let go of rage if you don’t feel it or express it. It’s a human emotion. And when you deny it, you deny being human. Forgiving is not for others; it’s for yourself, for releasing the past from your present; so you don’t carry it into your future.
“Your life doesn’t depend on what you get or don’t get from someone else. Your life is your own.”
Last Words
“Freedom means choosing, every moment, whether we reach for our inner Nazi or our inner Gandhi. For the love, we were born with or the hate we learned. To choose which legacy the world inherits. To hand down the pain — or pass on the gift.”