Are You Lucky
Are you Lucky?
I used to think I wasn’t really.
I rarely win anything in raffles, except sometimes that thing that nobody wants but is too nice to throw away. I look at my life and compare myself to others and judge myself: ‘less than’, ‘not good enough’, ‘could do better, needs to try harder.’
But then I read a book called ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Victor Frankl. For such a small book (probably one of the shortest I’ve ever read) it holds an incredible amount of treasure. It was written on Frankl’s release from a German prison camp at the end of World War II.
The book is his observations about what happens to the souls and spirits of people when they go through such inhumane experiences. He draws to our attention that being ‘lucky’ enough to physically survive and heal from such an experience, may not be felt as good luck if the spirit and soul have not also survived and been able to heal.
I was struck that after the trauma that he went through he could still look at our society now with empathy. We have so many freedoms and so much available to us, yet anxiety, depression and lack of purpose are common. He says that suffering is like a gas that spreads and fills whatever container it is in to the brim. It is specific to each person and each person’s emotional pain should never be trivialised but always respected.
Luck it seems, comes back to your perspective and gratitude turns out to be the key to having a happy, meaningful life. Without gratitude we lose our hope and our inner freedom. He shares the experience of an amazing sunset reflected in mud puddles, and moments of breathtaking scenic beauty seen through slits of a train carriage taking prisoners through the alps from one prison camp to another. One of my favorite quotes from Victor Frankl is:
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
It is in this space that we can make a choice for gratitude instead of anger, fear or worry. But for many of us it feels like access to that space is lost. We are programmed for survival, not growth and freedom. The programs are in the epigenetics of our DNA, handed down from generations of survivors. Or they are learnt on our earliest encounters with life, while still preverbal, unable to logically and intelligently think a situation through. Access to this space is one of the major work grounds for kinesiology. Through gentle and persistent work, we can find the original survival responses, clear old patterns and replenish the power to choose.
If you have the sort of luck that needs changing, you can call me now to book an appointment or take advantage of my book online service.
