I have often asked myself: what is the difference between someone who takes life on and someone who accepts their fate?
My wonderful Grandmother was a survivor of Auschwitz ( German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp 1940–1945, her story is told in her book,
From Thessaloniki to Auschwitz and Back ). Her whole family managed to survive. She was on the first train out of Thessaloniki Greece and could speak both German and Greek. The family ended up being translators for the Germans and through a combination of a lot of luck and strength of mind, she and her immediate family (father, mother and brother) all survived. Unfortunately not all of her extended family and friends had the same fate. She only passed away last December and managed to lead the most fantastic life; full of love and laughter. Undoubtedly Auschwitz left her with her demons, haunting her throughout her life, but nevertheless she was the most positive person I have ever met. She had an amazing strength inside of her, understanding anyone’s problems and helping them to find their own inner strength to succeed, whilst still having the courage to challenge situations that she felt weren’t right. She also had an amazing ability to forgive, even hosting the German ambassador for dinner in her later years. What was always clear to me though, was that she survived and succeeded because of how mentally strong she was.
And in life today there are countless examples of mental strength. Lord Alan Sugar for one; starting life in a council house and without a lot prospects, he is now a household name, having become a multi-millionaire along the way and at the age of 64, shows no signs of stopping. I look at the amazing troops to come out of war having suffered life-changing injuries both physically and psychologically, now taking on incredible challenges like Walking with the Wounded and I find myself asking again “what makes them stronger, more focused than others?"
We all know the people who seem to always find misery, they seem to never be happy despite the amazing house, car, husband, job, children etc. What makes them so different? Could it all be perspective?
How is it that some people give up and accept that they will never walk again whilst others fight until they can walk, defying the laws of medicine? Like Sergeant Steve Young from the programme,
Walking with the Wounded on BBC , he was told he would never walk again after having suffered a broken back whilst serving in Afghanistan. He defied the medics and four months after his injury was walking again. Sergeant Young then undertook the challenge of a lifetime; along with his teammates they became the first team of unsupported war-wounded amputees to reach the Geographical North Pole, in only 13 days they managed to combat the most torturous conditions.
I watched the 1st episode of the programme in awe and felt humbled to see these men taking on a challenge that most able-bodied people would find near impossible. Although they all had times where they battled with their inner-demons, having to come to terms with their injuries and adapting to their new life, they all managed to remain upbeat and focused, remaining a team, helping each other along the way.
I have been very blessed with my life, I have had my fair share of challenges which I hope has made me a better therapist but I have always found the inner strength to overcome what life has challenged me with.
The more I work with people and the more I learn, the more amazed I am by the power of the mind. We live in a world of technology, a world where we are becoming less and less aware of the little things in life, of our body’s natural rhythm. We take for granted so much of what we have, only stopping to look at something when we no longer have it. We strive for goals, reach them and then strive for the next one. Rarely stopping to enjoy the wonderful life we have created.
When I look at people like my Grandmother, Lord Sugar and the soldiers, the only answer I can come up with is that they have mastered the biggest tool we all have available to us. They have managed to work with their minds in a positive way. If we understand what drives us, if we work with our minds and bodies rather than against them, we can achieve amazing things, things we never thought possible. The mind is the most powerful tool you can ever have, more powerful than any computer. It has the ability to make you believe you can achieve anything.
Look how powerful it can be if we start on a negative spiral for example. We can imagine things so vividly even though the chance of them happening are less than 00.1%, but we still feel the physical and physiological responses as if it had already happened. Or there are the psycho-somatic cases when you tell your brain you are ill and it starts to give you the symptoms as if you really were.
Of course although our bodies are amazing machines, there are times when you must accept that your amazing machine is not going to recover to the extent that you want it to. You may never be the person you were before, but a fantastic thing to learn is that if you work positively with your own mind, you can see that the person you are now is as brilliant and in some ways better than the person you were before. If we all worked in a positive way the world would be an even more inspiring place - all that aggression that people have could be funneled properly to achieve something good.
I am not meaning to sound too idealistic; we all have our down days, but the trick is to make those fewer and more far between.
Hypnotherapy,
CBT & NLP are amazing tools in helping you understand what drives you, helping you to become a more positive person. So many of my clients turn their lives around even though nothing has physically changed; they still have the same car, job, house etc, but simply their perspective has changed. Rather than allowing themselves to focus on the few tiny things in life that aren’t quite right they start to focus on all the things that are right, giving them the strength to challenge themselves and take on tasks they never thought possible.
