The Daily Stoic - Holocaust Survivor Dr. Edith Eger on Forgiving Over And Over Again

Episode Date: November 26, 2022

Ryan talks to mother-daughter duo Drs. Edith Enger and Marianne Engle about their work in clinical psychology, the power of spreading kindness in a world that often seems very cruel, letting go of the past through forgiveness, and more.A native of Hungary, Dr. Edith Eva Eger was just a teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz. Her parents were sent to the gas chambers, but Edith’s bravery kept her and her sister alive. Toward the end of the war Edith and other prisoners had been moved to Austria. On May 4, 1945 a young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a number of dead bodies. He quickly summoned medical help and brought her back from the brink of death. Dr. Eger is a practicing psychologist and a specialist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. She is the author of the bestselling memoir The Choice: Embrace the Possible and The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life. Edith’s daughter, Dr. Marianne Engle, is a clinical psychologist, sports psychologist, and author of a sports psychology program for youth athletes and coaches. Her clients have included professional athletes and teams from the NBA, PGA, and the America’s Cup sailing race in addition to elite athletes in ice skating, baseball, tennis, soccer, water polo, squash, dressage, volleyball, etc. She is currently on the faculty of the NYU Langone Medical School. She has held faculty appointments at Harvard, MIT, and UCSD in addition to being a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Sport and Society. She is a board member of the NYU Sport and Society program. Marianne also has a long history as a food writer and cook.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have. Here on the weekend when you have a

little bit more space when things have slowed down be sure to take some time to think to go for a walk to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown the host of Wendery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan.

Welcome to another weekend episode of The Daily's Dope Focus. I was talking to a friend of mine who happens to be in her 90s. She'll come up a little bit in today's episode. And we were talking about the Holocaust with this terrible rise of anti-semitism, some of these athletes and celebrities who have used their platforms, not just not for good, but to propagate terrible, slanderous, heinous things. And it was, I was trying, what I was trying to ask, and I ended up asking my guest about this today as well. I was asking about how, for like the first 15 or so years of this woman's life, almost two decades,

since the Holocaust hadn't happened, she lived in a world where people were not fully aware of just how bad people could be to each other. And I was just curious about what that is like. And that's one of the reasons I really, really like talking to people who have been alive so much longer than I have. I've talked about my late friend Richard Overton, talked about George Ravling. There's another person I met in New York many years ago who I see whenever I can, his name is Frederick Block. He's a federal court judge.

People who've been around for a long time have just by nature of walking around in the planet the four certain things, after certain things, just have a sense of the world. They have an inherent wisdom that we cannot have, but we can get from them. And that's why I wanted to have today's guest, not just on the podcast, but back on the podcast. My guest today is Dr. Eath Eager.

Dr. Eager grew up in Nazi occupied Europe, and she and her family were sent to Auschwitz. She and her sister survived. Her parents did not. She was discovered literally in a pile of dead bodies, a soldier rescued her after seeing her hand move. She weighed less than 70 pounds. She had a broken back typhoid fever, pneumonia, and everything else you can imagine.

And after the war, she moved to the United States, fleeing communism with her husband, and then eventually got a degree in psychology. She met Dr. Victor Frankel, who she studied under, and she began treating people with PTSD, which inspired her to continue working on healing herself. Dr. Eager's daughter, Mary Ann Ingle, is a licensed clinical psychologist and sports psychologist. Her husband is a Nobel Prize winner. This is, you know, as close to the American dream as you can imagine.

I have raved about Dr. Eager's book, The Gift 14 Lessons to Save Your Life, and the choice embraced the possible, both of which we sell at the Painted Port shall I'll link to those. And then she has a free online course called Forgiveness, the gift I give myself, which I will link to, you can go to www.DrEathEager.com to check that out, I'll link to all of it. But I will say one quick note on this

episode. First off, it's a little difficult to have two people on the show at the same time. on this episode. First off, it's a little difficult to have two people on the show at the same time. It is difficult to do internet conferencing period because sometimes there's lags and glitches. If you ever try and talk to someone on Zoom and you're not sure if they can hear you, they're not sure if you can hear them. So is that. And then one of these guesses in her mid-90s, and they're on opposite coast, not in the same room together. I will say just bear with me. They're part of this that might feel a little scattered from place to place. And, you know, not your typical Daily Stood podcast, but like right out of the gate, Dr. Eager gave me something that I've been thinking about ever since. She is a wonderful woman, a true national treasure. Someone we can learn so much from.

I'm writing about her in the Justice Book. And I really appreciated the opportunity to talk to her, not just once, but a second time. I will encourage everyone to listen to the last episode again as well. But here is my conversation with Dr. Edith Eager and her daughter, Dr. Marion Ingoel, about so many wonderful things and so many terrible things at the same time. But it was just a conversation I felt very honored to have

and very excited to bring to you. Did you guys ever think you would work together? That's so beautiful. Well, you know, I was a psychologist long before she was. She was going to college when I was finishing graduate school. And then she became a teacher. Wow. And then she decided that actually teaching high school kids was not her destiny. And so a professor told her to get a PhD.

And she said, if I do that, I'll be in my 50s. And he said, you'll be in your 50s anyway. And so then she became a psychologist and kept specializing in one thing and another. So we do share patients sometimes and stuff and it's fun one thing and another. And so we do share patients sometimes as tough and as fun. That's beautiful. Mom, you look great. Perfect.

Yes, you do look amazing. Dr. Eager, I had a strangely personal question on my end that I thought you might be able to help me with. So I recently got reconnected with someone who had been sort of a motherly, grand motherly figure in my life when I was much younger. And I don't know why we fell out of touch, but we hadn't talked for 15 or almost 20 years, I guess. And she's 93, and we got reconnected recently. And I have these two kind of overwhelming emotions. One, I feel a lot of guilt

that we fell out of touch. And then I feel this sort of overwhelming feeling of urgency and happiness having been reconnected. But then I can't shake the guilt that I feel that shake the guilt that I feel that I fell out of touch with this person when time is so limited, especially with someone who is in their 90s. I give you a sentence, one sentence. If I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently. And that's the end of that guilt. Guilt isn't a past and there's one thing you cannot change is the past. That's very beautiful. And I guess the only thing we have to, we can choose how we do things differently in the future.

We can choose what we do with the present but we can't choose to do what happened in the past differently. Yeah, sometimes you tell people, oh, I wish you would have been here a week ago. I wish you would have been here a month ago. That's it would have been okay, but you know, my daughter is coming for Thanksgiving and I wish she would be here now, but I just have to learn how to wait. And I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and waiting until she's going to make a mess out of my kitchen. Exactly.

Well, that's very beautiful and actually quite freeing. So thank you and it's funny I was talking to her and her name is Dolores And I was talking to her as I was preparing to talk to you and and this this question struck me that there are very few people alive today. You're obviously one of them who Because I was I was reading about the the the woman who was a friend of Anne Franks as a girl who just recently passed. And I was thinking how few people are alive today who were alive before we knew that humanity

was capable of the terrible things that you experienced in your life. Obviously, humanity has always been capable and done terrible things, but it struck me as a consciousness that is worth maybe exploring or wondering. I'm curious what you think about that idea. Well, all you have to do is give someone a name and then they stop being humans like I was called a pariah and cancer to society and that's what happens. You don't kill people, you kill gooks and whatever they call the Jewish people, kikes. And I think it's important before you say anything. Ask yourself, I do that, especially when I visit my children,

having dinner, and I want to interrupt. I ask myself, is it important? Is it necessary? But most of all, is it kind? And if it's not kind, I just don't say it. Maybe Mary and notices when I take my hand and I put it here. That means I tell myself, shut up. Mother enjoyed the the dinner be a good compassion at listener yes because that's what I do all day long I listen. So do you do you think then I was thinking about it? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. The characters are in the elevator. One of them is totally disheveled. The other is put all the well together, three-piece suit, and you name it. So the disheveled one sets them there.

If you know, as I look at you, the way you are put all together, I wonder how you do it by listening to people, or they log. And the guy says, who listens? I'd never saw his patients, you know, he put them on a couch and he said behind them. He called the people a solid lot. So, as we think about coming out of this pandemic to go to what we're talking about a second

ago, as we come out of this pandemic, there's obviously different kinds of viruses, right? There's the virus that people spread. You know, a literal virus, but it also strikes me that there are idea viruses. And you talked about kindness, kindness is a virus, but so is the lack of kindness. And as we look at the horrible things that people are due to each other, I am struck by how infectious it can be. Especially when a country is experiencing a lack of food and the basic necessities, people come up with escape goods. Yes, there was a socialist who wrote about it,

capitalism and the Protestant ethics. You can pick it up. Yeah, and Dr. Inglie, you were saying that your mother never talked about her experiences until you were 12 that you even learned what she had been through. Why do you think that was? Since I've moved to New York, I've met a lot of people who, not a lot, but some whose parents were Holocaust survivors. And their description of their childhoods where they sat at dinner

and the parents talked about the way life used to be before. And I remembered and how depressed they were for their parents. It just, there was so much emotion around dinner time. And I remember my father saying to me, you know, you can always tell who's been suffering because the first thing they want to tell you is who they were before. And I was so grateful that he had said that because that was not the conversation. We talked about the things families talk about.

And the only time that I ever heard much about it, I mean, I knew that my parents had died because I had no grandparents. And I also knew whenever we watched the Olympics that we would watch it and my mother would watch and she would say, oh, I used to do that. Oh, you know, that looks hard. It's really not hard. Oh, look at that. And it was, I remember thinking to myself, really, you can do that. And I'm, you can't see, but I'm five foot nine. And when I was in college and I had to take some athletic stuff, and I played on the tennis team, and I'm an athlete, but I'm not. Anyway, I had to take an extra course. So I thought, okay, I'm going

to take something that I'll probably be good at because my mother was so good at it. So I took gymnastics. I cannot tell you how horrible I was at gymnastics. I mean, I was like the worst of the worst. And I kept thinking to myself, wait, how can this be easy? This is not easy. So when we were growing up, well, as I've grown up,

I've been very appreciative that I didn't have to go through my early life the way a lot of these people I've met described their lives. And my parents were just, they wanted, they were so grateful to be in America. I mean, the communists had tried to kill my father. You know, it was not a good scene, but they also had to leave all their money behind, so they had to come and make it here. And that's what they were focused on. We're going to make it.

It's going to be okay. I didn't know we were poor. We were poor, turns out. I had no idea. My mother found a cousin of somebody's cousin, I don't know, who owned a clothing store. And whenever the last bit of sales were available, I guess she bought me these beautiful clothes. And let me tell you, the defense mechanisms,

if you also deny, I certainly have practiced that. denial and minimization, that I just didn't want to get into anything. But survivors ran two ways. They either didn't want to say anything, or they talked about it all the time. And I was a new age, I had this and that and carried with you because I know my mother told me after two beautiful girls, I wanted a son but she said to me, I'm glad you have brains because you have no looks. And that is the way I pictured myself. I am a good student.

I have my own book club, but I don't think that you're pretty ever. That's not what you want to hear from your mom, I imagine. Yeah, my mom was amazingly ahead of her time. I know we're at together going with the wind and she was talking to me about terror, and I thought to myself someday, I'm gonna go see Tera, and I did. I did, I did, I did, I did, I good, and I see the Southern America that is just quite amazing.

I was actually in Birmingham, amazing. I was actually in Birmingham about nine girls were shot and killed. So I so unfortunately a lot of a lot of things in America when people were killing especially Indians. Yeah, it strikes me as sort of a through line of the 20th century that human beings do bad things to each other on all continents for which there is life. I know some. Are you first born child? I am the oldest, yes.

If you marry a first born, you're going to have two bosses. But I don't see that in my daughter's case, they both have first born children. That's the best marriage, the best conversation at least. I never put each other down. Yes, brought you this and yes, but I never hear that they are extremely brilliant how to empower each other with their differences. Dr. Engel, were you going to say something? You know, I just want to say that my son-in-law is a Nobel Prize in Economics.

He actually helped get me settled. So he met Rob, Ryan met Rob for a second. The thing I was going to say is that I think that it's, I think, relationships between mothers and daughters are always complicated and also joyful. And I think that my mother really worked hard at making me feel like I could do whatever I wanted to do. I just had to do them. And she was not the kind of mother who checked my homework. She was busy. We had our own career. I had sister and a brother. My father was

making his way with his company. She wasn't that kind of mother, but I also knew that if there was something I thought was important to do, do it. And that kind of message and watching her do what she needed to do step by step, I think has been so critical for me and my life. And I think that all mothers, I'm a mother, grandmother, I think it's so important for children to feel that we take seriously what they think is important. And then we can talk about maybe what they do with that or whatever, but taking children seriously is something that not every family does. And yet, maybe by avoiding some of the other things,

they took some of my things more seriously. You mentioned earlier. You know, go ahead, Dr. Euglin. I don't know if you want to know, because the wife makes the husband feel that he makes all the decisions and guess who does make the decision. So when Mary and brought home Rob, my husband asked me quietly, is she still a virgin? And I said, yes, well, I've been only living together, I don't know

a couple of years, but I said, yes. And then he asked me, is he ever going to make a living? Yes, he's going to make a living, all right? So these are the father questions that I tell him what he really wanted to hear. All right. All right. You were telling me, Dr. Angler earlier that you were a psychologist before your mother, that your mother had gotten the advice that,

you're gonna be 50 anyway, so you might as well go back to school and when you're 50, or get your job when you're 50. I'm curious how that example of watching your mother persevere not just to the things that happened before you were born, but then also make her way as an immigrant to a new country know, to the things that happened before you were born, but then also make her way as, you know, an immigrant to a new country in a profession.

I imagine at that time almost entirely dominated by men. How did you, what have you learned from watching how your mother tackles the things that life deals, deals her. You know, you can probably tell, but my mother's pretty adorable. And so when she puts her mind to something and she works hard at it, and she wants it badly, you want it for her too. Because you love her and you want to see her do and succeed and be, you know, that's the beauty of parenting if you can do it in a way that you can keep the kids

adoring you, because usually little kids adore their parents. It just sort of gets worse as time goes on. And, but she's always been very good It just sort of gets worse as time goes on. But she's always been very good at just kind of keeping us on her side. And so, you know, for her to go to graduate school long after, I mean, I went to graduate school when I was 20. I finished college, I skipped a grade in school, I did college quickly. I married Rob when I was 21, which horrified my parents, frankly, but I wanted him.

And that's what I did. And here she is in her 40s, thinking about, well, should I go to graduate school? And she just really finished college and doing school teaching. It just seemed like such a wonderful trip for her to take to me and she worked really hard. The problem with my mother and you don't see it when you look at her is she is the world's hardest worker. So if an assignment says that you have to read this thing and write that thing, she will read that

this thing plus the three things that the author decided was important first. And then she writes a paper and then she's worried the paper is not good enough. So we all have to read her papers and chat about it and then she re-writes the paper. And then she turns it in and low and be a hold, she gets amazing grades and does really, really well. Nobody works that hard, but she does. And so she knows pretty much everything there is to know about a lot of different things, which, you know, makes you admire somebody for that.

I think respect is so important that you look at your parents as a child, and you say that someday I want to be like him. Or you want to say, when I grow up I'll never be like him. I want to be everything he's not. That may shift sometimes more than the other one. Because you want to prove something, and if you want to prove anything, you're still a prisoner. You've got to make peace with your parents, and divorce with parents,

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Hey, prime members, you can listen to episodes Add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today. That strikes me as the theme in the course that you guys did together, the idea of forgiveness. I know I've struggled with this. It can be hard to forgive your parents, not just for stuff that they may have done, but for who they were or weren't, depending on what you wanted or who you are, I think that the struggle to forgive and move on and adjust the relationship to one of equals

or one of mutual understanding. That's a very difficult transition for people to make. It is. It's, you know, when I spoke to Mary, when I spoke to Mary, one thing she told me that I tell everybody, she told me, I don't have any God'slupar to forgive anybody. The only thing I can do is give myself a gift that I let go of part of me who is judgmental.

I think the beauty in that course that my mother and Jordan have put together is that there are so many psychology lessons to learn from it. And you don't even have to go to a therapist, you know, you just really listen and do the exercises that they put together. And and this thing about forgiveness, you know, it's so hard for it's so hard in general to let it go. And yet, if you don't let it go, you're carrying it around and it affects everything. And Jordan gave me today some of the videos that some of the people in the course have sent to him. He asked for people to give feedback. And I sat there eating my lunch crying because the things that people were saying

about how does it help them with their children, with their husbands, with their wives, with accepting themselves. And these are really healthy looking people that are doing this. So, you know, and it was making such a difference. And it actually made me cry. And Rob saw me crying as I'm eating my lunch. And he says, let me hear that. And this big athletic, smart man, tear start coming down his face.

I mean, that's the effect that this kind of stuff can have on people. It's so real. I'm very proud of them. Well, you call forgiveness a gift that you give yourself, right? Well, it is forgiving yourself, like for you, with that woman,

that you didn't take the time to stay close to her because you had a life to live. And frankly, you were probably doing the more appropriate thing. But it's amazing how many messages we give ourselves about things that we feel regretful of or sad about or wish we had done differently on and on and on. And one of the things we talk about is you give yourself permission, or tell my patients this, okay, you get seven minutes a day to say all the negative things about yourself that you want to say. And if you don't have seven minutes, you get seven minutes a day to say all the negative things about yourself that you

want to say. And if you don't have seven minutes, you can have three. And then it's over. If any thought comes to you during the day, you say, no, no, this is not my moment to do that. I have to wait for my right time. And once people start to let that go, they get a lot more done, and they begin to grow inside themselves in a way that they hadn't allowed themselves to do before.

So Ryan, what are you thinking? I'm watching your review. Mary Ann is one of the more... Dr. Eager, go ahead. I just wanna say that when my daughter was two years old, when we came to America, she went to a bigger center and the lady Mrs. Bowler told me when a child is crying and homesick, then they sent my daughter Maryanne to come that child down. So she was already practicing at the age of two. So there you go,

there you go. People come to me and tell me, oh, I saw your day that you do that thirty years ago. And I never forget that I became a different parent than I was before. I don't punish anymore. There are no punishment, there are consequences. And so she tells me that her children changed, her parents changed, and also her marriage most of all changed. Dr. Inga, what were you saying?

I was looking at you. Well, I was looking at you. If you're done it, change, you don't grow. I was looking at you reacting, and I was wondering who you were thinking. As my mother says, you look like a very interesting person. Oh, I don't know. I find this.

Well, that's very kind. I find this all to, that's very kind. I find this all to be very, very interesting. I'll transition a little bit. I'd be curious, Dr. Eager, you said earlier that I was an old soul. I've never been totally sure what that has meant, but I have found that I have had a number of friendships with people who are much, much older than I am.

And I always find being in the presence of someone who has spent a lot of time on this earth, that there's kind of an energy or a wisdom that comes from that, that I am always interested in sort of downloading and incorporating into my life. So maybe that's where it comes from. I think it also comes from the fact that you, I mean, I think when we say children seem like old souls, it means that they are thoughtful and they don't just jump in on things and they think a lot about consequences of things

and how things work. And they're more interested in a bigger picture. Because, you know, if you really want to make it simple, people either have something, what they don't want, or they have something, what they want to get rid of. I mean, you can really make it simple. You either have something what you don't want, or you want something what you don't have.

I love that. I was thinking about forgiveness too. I read an interesting article the other day. I'd be curious for both of your texts on this. But I read an interesting article the other day that was suggesting that as we come out of the pandemic, we need to, we need some form of pandemic amnesty. She was saying that we all got the whole thing so wrong.

Some people took it too seriously. Some people didn't take it seriously enough. But the result is, you know, there's a lot of tension, a lot of hatred, a lot of resentment, a lot of division. And then ultimately people have to come together and move past what has happened, because it's in the past. And when I first read that, my initial reaction was

one of objection, because I felt like it's a false equivalency, right? Some people took it seriously. Other people didn't take it seriously at all. There was real consequences for one of those attitudes and not so much for the other. But that's, then I thought about it more and it struck me that that really is what forgiveness is about. It's supposed to be, it's supposed to be hard. If it's easy to forgive someone, you're probably not actually talking about a matter that requires much in the way of forgiveness.

You're probably not actually talking about a matter that requires much in the way of forgiveness. I think that for forgiveness, I consider a gift that you give to yourself, that you let go of the part in you that is judgmental. And what you don't like in another person, you want to look at that in you. You want to find the bigger in you. And then you're going to really look at that person as a human being. And as human beings, make mistakes. But that doesn't make me a bad person. But I have what I think can change. And I think it's very important what you're doing

because you're going back to the originals. Right? That's what the government said. And our next time in life is not worth living. And you examine that life as to not why me, but what now? You can't change the past. So I have a different. How have you dealt with forgiveness, though? Yeah, you didn't emerge what you forgiveness though, yeah. You didn't emerge what you, I'll make sure to follow up there. But Dr. Eager, what was done to you was done by bad people, and it was a bad thing. How did you not carry with you anger and resentment, and how can you find it within you to forgive what I think some people would call utterly unforgivable?

There is no forgiveness without rage. You gotta go through the rage, you gotta take your fist and you want to really possibly put your father in a chair and tie him up and do a little gushed out well and beat him up for not really giving you that bicycle menu really when it is so badly and just really give him a number that you can release in you that feeling that if your father would have known better, he would have done better. And Dr. Engel, you said you disagreed a little bit?

Oh, back to the pandemic. You know, I think so my husband and I travel a lot. I mean a lot. And we both give talks and it's a very lucky part of our lives and we enjoy it. But it also means that especially in this COVID period, we didn't travel at all and now we just start traveling again. And different countries, different people have handled the COVID thing issue, time, very

differently. And the thing that I find a very hard and it happens, happened yesterday is the people who refuse to get vaccinated, the people who refuse to do the things that would keep them healthy and help keep other people who live around them healthy. And we know a lot highly educated people. We also know people who are not as highly educated, who often seem to be more logical about things, not always, but it's not over. So I really want any of your listeners who are listening to understand

that it's not over that COVID is still with us. There are new kinds of COVID that are easy to get, easier to get and you can still transfer it to your children and to other people around you And we can't pretend that something isn't there when it's really there. And so I'm at the moment have this issue and I'm trying to be more forgiving and understanding, but I still think people are really stupid who aren't taking good care of themselves

and they're threatening other people. And so I guess I have to work on this forgiveness thing, but that's where I am with COVID right now. So I don't think it's over. It's more over than it was when we were all saying at home, we're not going anywhere. But it's not over over. And the more we pretend, I think, that it's gone,

the more damage we're going to be putting ourselves into and our families and the people we love. So that's not what you were asking, but it is. No, I totally agree. No, no, it's totally, I totally agree, and's where I am and that's why this idea of forgiving, moving on, accepting that people were an heir, that people had different views on things, it struck me as so difficult, it viscerally difficult, right? Because I still feel inside of it. But it also struck me as some truth to the idea that you can't continue to relitigate something that's already happened and you can't hold on to anger

or rage, like your mother was saying, that perhaps the part of it is that we have to move through that rage. And I definitely feel like I have it. When you look at something that cost a million lives in America alone, so many of those being totally preventable, it's hard not to feel anger. Right, right.

Let me tell you, let me do an example. Please. After, after, after, let's say I give a talk and I come to you and I tell you I hope we can become friends. You liked my talk and you look at me and say, thank you, but I'm really not interested. So look what happens. The best folder that worked in the English language is to risk.

I was risking, I asked you what I wanted and I didn't get it. It's all about expectation. So rejection is an English word that people make up to express their feeling when you don't get what you want. So give up the drama. No one can reject me but me. can reject me but me. You don't have that power. You have as much power over me as much as I let you have it. The Nazis called me a faraya. I was told every day. I'm never going to get out of here alive. And obviously there is a little book called The Four Agreements by you have that book. And one of them says, don't take it personally. Don't take it personally. I think that's at the root of a lot of what upsets me is, yeah, you take it personally.

It feels like a rejection of you. It feels like a rejection of our shared humanity. It feels, it feels personally hurtful, but you're right, the Stoics would say, the event is objective. It's our view, the story we tell ourselves about that thing that's actually what's at the root of our suffering or our anger. You know, I was lecturing in Germany and Berlin and some of the streets are named after Jews. I thought to myself, that's very interesting. It was Einstein and you know, people who really made history. Yeah. And so, you want to really maybe think about not to make things better or worse, is just that, look at it, that if it would be you, maybe you have done things differently because I know a German woman died and they asked

her why did she risk her life to save Jewish lives and she said my father told me that was the right thing to do. So don't call 12 years of Hitler right that all Germans are not cis. Don't generalize. Sure. One of the things that people, I think, that is enough seeing everyone away. One of the things my mother often gets asked is,

how did you forgive Hitler? And she always says, I'll let you do this to mom, but I don't forgive. It's not about that. It's about being able to move forward with my life. You can't forgive those kind of acts. It's exactly what you said. There's no forgiving that.

But if you stay and live with it your entire life, then who won? Not you. There's a line from Marcus Aurelis in Meditation, she says, the best revenge is to not be like that. And I think about that, not just to not do what a terrible person has done, but also not to let that terrible person make you

into something that is closer to them. Yes. So Dr. Eager, I'll just ask you that question then, because I'd be curious to hear it in your words. How do you forgive Hitler or the prison guards or the prison guards, or the people who knew what was happening within those walls, but just went about their life as if it was of no concern to them?

You know, there are many defense mechanisms, and one of them is denial, and the other one would be delusion, or but one of the things that, and the other one would be delusion, but one of the things that we sometimes do be minimized, you know, it wasn't such a bad thing, you know, so on. I think a feeling is a feeling, and it comes from the heart, rather than coming from the mind that you try to

man want to figure things out, you know, that they go to the head and women seem to go in a heart. And I think I have a very special place in my heart when I was able to change hatred to pity. I felt sorry for the gods, that they were wearing a uniform and that he didn't mean because they were listening to someone who told them that Jews are cancer to society. I think we need to question authority rather than blindly adhere to authority because that's what I was taught.

You know when the war started and I started high school, we were taught, we were taught to not to question authority but blindly adhere to authority. not the question of authority, but blindly attire to authority. And I think you are an ambassador for peace and goodwill. So part of the way that you forgive the unforgivable is realizing, well, you mentioned Socrates earlier, his point was that nobody does wrong on purpose, that they have been misled or that they are weak will, or weak minded, that they have been captured or misdirected. So for part of it for you is finding something to pity in the bigot or the criminal or the

abuser, is that the idea? I read it blouse that has hearts on it. Hearts. I don't know if you can see it. Yes, it's, I had a white supremacist boy coming to me and he got up and he said, hey, dark, one thing I'm going to do, I'm going to kill all the Jews. Now I'm going to give you the difference between reacting or responding. If I would have reacted, I would have dragged him to the corner. I probably would have stopped on him and tell him, hey, I saw my mother going to the gas chamber.

But I was not taught to do that. I was taught to create an environment that my patients can feel any feelings without the fear of being judged. So I said, tell me more. And I said back, you never found out who I was or nothing ever warned about that. But of course, you belong to a guy called David Korash. If she wanna do somebody's in Texas, he was heading the white supremacist group.

So it's about finding, when you say find the bigoted in you, it's finding some shared humanity. Is it finding what evil is in them in yourself, or is it finding what good is in yourself in them, or is it both? It's up to me what I choose. I don't have to like everything, but I don't have to love everyone. to like everything, but I don't have to love everyone, but I can really choose some of the things that I can see, some hope, and hope, those.

I look for the school room and I learned how not to judge other people and how to change hatred to pity. It also strikes me, you know, reading the choice that there's the beautiful moment in your story where you share the bread that you were given. And some time later you're saved by the people that you shared that gift with. And so there's this idea that we give what we want to get, right? That you put love and kindness and selflessness out into the world

and sometime later, although you didn't expect anything in return, that's precisely what you did get in return, even in such a dark and terrible place. You're talking about yourself. You are the ambassador for peace. And please continue because there never ever be anyone has committed to the environment because there will never ever be anyone as committed to the development of mankind. And I am on your side.

You can call me anytime, day or night. And I will let you know that you have choices because the more choices you have, the less you ever gonna feel like a victim. I refuse to be a victim. I was victimized. It's not who I am. It's not my identity.

It's what was done to me. It's a big difference. And you chose, the Stokes would say, we don't control what's happened, but we control what we do next, or we control how we respond to what happens. And that strikes me also as the story of your life. You didn't control where you went,

you didn't control how long you were there, you didn't control the horrible things that happened while you were there. But you did write the rest of that story, and you wrote a pretty wonderful one. It's incredible for me to be talking to three generations of your family here in one sitting. That's the rest of the story, right?

Many people have told me for many years, write a book, write a book. And I would say, I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say. And then one morning, Philips in Bardo calls me from Stanford. From Stanford. Stanford. Stanford.

Stanford. From me? Stanford. From Stanford. And this is what it said, you know, ED, the people who survived and are famous are all men. We need a female voice. So the choice is the female voice of Victor Franco. But I'm not Victor Franco because he was 30 some years old

and in Auschwitz, he was a medical doctor and I 30 some years old and in Auschwitz, he was a medical doctor and I was 16 years old in love because my boyfriend told me I have beautiful eyes and beautiful hands. And I knew if I survived today, tomorrow I'm gonna see him. Tomorrow became a big red in my vocabulary. You're a better cutie for Matthew.

Are you familiar with the idea of the Stockdale Paradox? Do you know what that is? That's me. The Stockdale Paradox, so James Stockdale who was in the prison camps of Vietnam, he said that the paradox is, you have to unflinchingly accept the reality of the situation that you're in. So that was that he was in prison,

that he was being tortured, that people he knew were dying. But the paradoxical part of it was that he said, I never gave up hope that I would write the rest of the story, that in retrospect, I could turn this into an event, an experience for which I would not trade away. And I'm just curious what you think of that paradox having been in a similarly dark situation. His was influenced by stoicism, but how did you think about your ability to your choice to use your framing to make this into something that made the world a better place? I just want to say one thing. I think he came to our house. Our Victor Franco. You know, James Stockwell, he came to our house

for the 4th of July one year. You may not remember. Wow. You might have said, I'm sorry, yes. You met him. I met him. I met him. I know.

I know. The thing that was so wonderful, Ryan, that's why I wanted to go. Was that the two of them got up. My mother has a friend who used to be the head of the Navy in San Diego. And he came with his wife and they brought James Stalker. And he got up and introduced them to her party. It was the most unbelievable moment to see both these survivors

of different things, who both were the most positive, lovely people. You were so happy to be in their presence. You knew something absolutely horrendous that happened to them that you wish would never happen to anybody you knew. And yet, what they gave to the rest of us, they are celebrating with Fourth of July, was unforgettable, just as you described. So, mom, if you remember, it's a long time ago, but you've met him. Yes.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's why I have a doodard. Remember. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's why I have a do that. Remember. Thank you. What do you remember of him? Well, I just remember that he was as you described that you know, he didn't really want to talk about all the horrible things that happened, but he was willing to answer some questions about it.

Because what you saw in his eyes, like you see in my mother's eyes, you know, it's like, I'm glad I lived, I'm glad I'm here, I look forward to tomorrow, I'm glad everybody's here, this is a great day, it's America's birthday, and there's some good food around here, let's have that too. You know, I mean, he was so human. We asked what we had to survive. Curious that they always wanted to know what's going to happen next. Because I became very suicidal. After I was liberated, my parents didn't come back. My boyfriend was scared, and I have nothing,

no meaning, no purpose in my life, and I really wanted to die. And I knew that there was that voice. Someone just told me that I really made a big, big mistake that I didn't mention God in my book. So I don't have to mention God. I know my God because God was with me in Auschwitz and God did me to recognize that life is temporary. And we can make it by just living in a present and to think young but not young and foolish.

So that's what, you know, 95 years I'm curious and I'm so happy that when I die, I very remember as someone who did everything in her power to see that that will never happen again. That's a very beautiful thought and I think maybe maybe the right the right place to wrap up unless I either of you had any last thoughts that you wanted to share with this audience. I just want to thank you. I think this has been really good really interesting and I know and I've followed a lot of your work and I think that you are. You know, you're just one of our kind. It's very sweet to see it. Well, that means a lot to me. And I said, can I tell you a Thanksgiving story?

Please. And then when we came to America, Mary and came home one day and told me to buy a turkey because Thanksgiving coming up. And of course, I didn't know whether you drink it or eat it or sickness or what it is, but I knew I couldn't afford the turkey. So this is Baltimore, Maryland on Fred Street downtown. I work in a factory getting seven cents a dozen cutting of threads, of

boys' little pants. So I went to Schweiber, so I remember. And so I looked at the Turkish and the Gis and you name it. And finally I found a little chicken, a little little chicken, the little less chicken in that store. So I go to the boss and I give him my hand and he takes 25 cents and four pennies and give me the little chicken. So in the boss which I have to three change, by the time I got home, I had it all done, I had my choreography, I did my high kick. I said, guess what? We're going to have a baby turkey.

So she ordered a fresh turkey. And I remember my first Thanksgiving in 1949. And life has changed now. And I'm talking to you at 95. And I hope you live to be 100. My sister died a week or so ago. And she was 100. But she told you that she's 99. I don't know why one year makes a difference. But that's a Hungarian moment for you.

Well, I got to know a man here in Austin, his name was Richard Overton. He died about three years ago at 112. And sometimes I would sit on his front porch and we would talk. So I hope that you're with us until 112, still passing on lessons. I asked him once, I said, what's the secret to living to be a hundred?

I said, a hundred and 12. And he said, I said, do you take it day by day? And he said, after a hundred, it's more like day by night. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Sweet. Yes. He was a wonderful man. But it's truly been an honor to talk to you, not just once, but twice. And I so appreciate your books and your wisdom. And the advice you gave me earlier was wonderful. You said, I'll repeat it just to make sure I have it right. If I knew

if I knew then what I knew now I would do it differently and that's the end of the discussion. That's it. You got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoog podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in a couple years.

We've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music App today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.