Welcome to Conscious Curiosity: "zoom out" edition—monthly email that helps us think about how we think with quick insights from experts & thought leaders. Basically cliff notes for grown-ups!
Ultimate freedom: the power to choose under any circumstance
Conscious Curiosity: Edition No. 4
{excerpt}:
"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: ​
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​the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
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​...in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision & not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally & spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."
***Note from Ansley:***
the first time I read these words by Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning, I could hardly absorb the power in them but I knew immediately that they had just changed me forever. I was in a season of some real emotional pain, struggling to accept circumstances not of my choosing. My attitude in that season up until that point was somewhere in the vein of feeling like this particular situation & life in general was happening "to" me, that I didn't have much, if any, agency over it.
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Suddenly grasping that my freedom to choose my response to & in my circumstances had not been taken from me, & in fact never could be, was like water for a parched soul. Not to mention the sharp perspective offered by the fact that the man who wrote these words survived four concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Another line from Man's Search for Meaning says:
​"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
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​Talk about a mindset shift! This is not to say we shouldn't name our grief or face our pain; in fact, it's necessary that we do in order to grow & heal. But this shift in thinking gives us meaning, purpose, & agency regardless of circumstance. For me, those three things made all the difference in helping to eventually propel me forward to new, more abundant seasons.
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Curious to learn more? Recommended resources below:
WHO IS VIKTOR FRANKL?
​Victor Emil Frankl (1905 – 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist & Holocaust survivor. His famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, tells the story of how he survived the Holocaust by finding personal meaning in the experience, which gave him the will to live through it.
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He went on to later establish a new school of existential therapy called logotherapy, based in the premise that man’s underlying motivator in life is a “will to meaning” even in the most difficult of circumstances.
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Stay tuned for the next edition dropping June 1st!
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​What to expect from Conscious Curiosity emails:
- on the 1st of each month: "zoom in" editions with useful tidbits from the experts on relationships, faith & psychology.
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- on the 15th of each month: "zoom out" editions with quick insights from experts & thought leaders to help us think about how we think.
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