The Choice

by Edith Eger

again and again how willingly we hand over our spiritual and mental freedom, choosing to give another person or entity the responsibility of guiding our lives, of choosing for us.

“When you stop doing what’s best for you and start doing what you think someone else needs, you are making a choice that has consequences for you.

“There is no such thing as getting back together without a new beginning. What’s the new relationship you want? What are you willing to give up to get there?”

When we abdicate taking responsibility for ourselves, we are giving up our ability to create and discover meaning. In other words, we give up on life.

Once he embraced his fear and his choices and took a risk, he discovered possibilities that he hadn’t known existed.

Story for R

was a beautiful question. Where does our power reside? Is it enough to find our inner strength, our inner truth, or does empowerment also require that we take action on the outside? I do believe it’s what’s happening inside that matters most. I also believe in the necessity of living in congruence with our values and ideals—with our moral selves. I believe in the importance of defending what is right and defying what is unjust and inhumane. And I believe in choices. Freedom lies in examining the choices available to us and examining the consequences of those choices. “The more choices you have,” I said, “the less you’re going to feel like a victim. Let’s talk about your choices.”

when you lose your temper, you might feel strong in the moment, but really you are handing your power over. Strength isn’t reacting, it’s responding—feeling your feelings, thinking them over, and planning an effective action to bring you closer to your goal.

And he had taken a moral stand. He had acted in alignment with a higher purpose: to combat racism, to protect human dignity. In defending his own humanity, he protected everyone’s. He paved a way for all of us to live in keeping with our moral truth and ideals. Doing what is right is rarely the same as doing what is safe.

TIME DOESN’T HEAL. It’s what you do with the time. Healing is possible when we choose to take responsibility, when we choose to take risks, and finally, when we choose to release the wound, to let go of the past or the grief.

We want so much to understand the truth. We want to be accountable for our mistakes, honest about our lives. We want reasons, explanations. We want our lives to make sense. But to ask why? is to stay in the past, to keep company with our guilt and regret. We can’t control other people, and we can’t control the past.

the most important truth I know, that the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to take absolute responsibility for your life; the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are—human, imperfect, and whole.

‘We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.’”

Freedom is in accepting what is and forgiving ourselves, in opening our hearts to discover the miracles that exist now.

You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now.

healing isn’t about recovery; it’s about discovery. Discovering hope in hopelessness, discovering an answer where there doesn’t seem to be one, discovering that it’s not what happens that matters—it’s what you do with it.