1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,400 This episode is brought to you by Thorne, the industry leader in nutritional solutions. 2 00:00:04,720 --> 00:00:07,560 Now Thorne is actually trusted by eight U.S. 3 00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:12,440 national teams and championship teams in the NFL, NBA and Major League, 4 00:00:12,680 --> 00:00:17,920 as well as recently becoming the official sports performance nutrition partner of the UFC. 5 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:23,040 So when it comes to supplements, the tactical athlete space 6 00:00:23,040 --> 00:00:25,360 and the athletic space need two things. 7 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,760 We need efficacy, meaning the products do what they say they're going to do on the label 8 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:32,600 and then we need to trust the fact that we are not going to fail 9 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:36,320 either athletic drug tests or work related drug tests. 10 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:38,960 Now Thorne has actually been around since the 1980s 11 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:44,040 where they were used by physicians and hospitals for nutritional supplements for the patients. 12 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,960 They were so successful that athletic teams and even special operations teams 13 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:51,800 reached out to them and they started supplying them as well. 14 00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,720 Very recently, they actually opened their doors to the general public. 15 00:00:55,720 --> 00:00:59,040 Now, what sets Thorne apart is they manufacture their own products 16 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:03,200 in a state of the art NSF certified facility in South Carolina. 17 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:07,480 They use only the purest possible ingredients formulated with no stearates 18 00:01:07,480 --> 00:01:11,400 or arbitrary fillers in the cleanest manufacturing process. 19 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:16,000 Most of you listening come from a profession where it can take its toll physically and mentally, 20 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:21,160 and many of us are not able to bolster our nutrition purely with the food that we eat. 21 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:24,080 And that's where supplementation comes in. 22 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:26,600 So if you're ready to maximize your health and performance, 23 00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:30,440 visit Thorne.com, T-H-O-R-N-E.com. 24 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:35,160 Take a short product quiz to be paired up with the perfect health and fitness supplements. 25 00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,160 And for you, the audience, if you use the code 26 00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:45,400 BTS10, behind the shield 10, BTS10, you will get 10% off your first order. 27 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,120 And if you want to learn even more about Thorne, go to episode 28 00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:53,000 323 of Behind the Shield podcast and you will hear my interview 29 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:56,520 with Wes Barnett and Joel Totoro from Thorne. 30 00:01:58,080 --> 00:02:02,560 This episode is sponsored by 511, a company that I've used for well over a decade 31 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:05,080 and continue to use to this day. 32 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:09,040 And 511 is offering you guys the audience of the behind the shield podcast, 33 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:11,840 a discount on every purchase you make with them. 34 00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:15,040 Before we get to that code, I want to highlight a couple of products 35 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,240 that, again, I personally use today. 36 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:21,840 One of the most impressive products they just released is their Rush 37 00:02:21,840 --> 00:02:24,080 backpack 2.0. 38 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:26,440 Now, for many of you, whether you're going to the fire station, 39 00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:28,640 the police station, whether you're traveling with your family, 40 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,640 whether you're taking training courses, we have to fly, we have to drive, 41 00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:33,920 we have to take trains. 42 00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:38,840 And I have to say I own multiple backpacks, many of 511s, different ones. 43 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:41,960 But as far as a daypack, this one was the most impressive. 44 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,440 There are so many different compartments. 45 00:02:44,440 --> 00:02:47,000 The way it sits on your back is incredibly comfortable. 46 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:51,120 If you are a concealed carry person, there's also a spot for a weapon. 47 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:54,560 So they've thought of multiple, multiple things that a man or woman 48 00:02:54,560 --> 00:02:56,400 would have to do on a daily basis. 49 00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:00,160 That is in addition to all of the products that I talk about a lot. 50 00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:05,720 Their uniforms fit for men or fit for women in the first responder professions. 51 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:09,840 The footwear they offer, whether it's the Norris sneaker or the Atlas system 52 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:13,920 that is designed for foot health and therefore knees and back and hips 53 00:03:13,920 --> 00:03:15,680 and shoulders and neck. 54 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:18,200 As a civilian, I live in a lot of their clothes as well. 55 00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:21,200 Their jeans stretch, you can actually squat down in them. 56 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:23,880 We live in Florida here, so I wear a lot of their shorts, 57 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:25,840 which again, very, very lightweight material. 58 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:28,400 You can get it wet and it will dry almost immediately. 59 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,080 And then moving to the fitness and tactical space, 60 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:33,320 I used to have just a regular weight vest. 61 00:03:33,320 --> 00:03:37,920 Recently, I switched to a 511 vest and actually bought ballistic plates as well. 62 00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:40,320 My thinking was simply if I'm going to have a vest, 63 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:42,200 why not have one that protects me as well? 64 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:45,640 And that tack vest is trusted by law enforcement all around the country. 65 00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:48,240 So I mentioned they were going to offer you a discount code. 66 00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:52,640 So if you go to 511tactical.com and enter the code SHIELD15, 67 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:58,680 S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5, you'll get 15% off not just that one purchase, 68 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:00,640 but every time you visit their store. 69 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:04,680 And if you want to learn more about 511, their mission, their products, 70 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:08,640 then listen to episode 338 of the Behind the Shield podcast 71 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:12,640 with the CEO and founder, Francisco Morales. 72 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:14,720 Welcome to episode 500. 73 00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:18,120 Yes, we are at 500 episodes of the Behind the Shield podcast. 74 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:22,240 We're about five years old now and approaching 2 million downloads. 75 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:25,720 So I want to start by thanking every single one of you trusting this project. 76 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:30,360 And I was obviously looking for someone who I thought would be an incredible guest 77 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:35,520 to put in this particular spot, this incredible benchmark that we've achieved. 78 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,920 And there is no better person to me than Dr. Edith Eager. 79 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:44,120 So Dr. Eager is the author of The Choice and the Gift. 80 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:48,720 She was a young Hungarian girl, a ballet dancer, a gymnast, 81 00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:54,720 when the Nazis occupied Hungary and her parents were sent off to be murdered. 82 00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:58,720 And her and her sister survived Auschwitz. 83 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:01,120 That then took her on a journey of her own healing. 84 00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:05,720 And ultimately, she became a psychologist and immigrated here to the US. 85 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:10,520 Her books, I cannot underline how powerful her books are. 86 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:15,520 So I urge you to read The Choice, her actual biography, which is so incredible. 87 00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:17,720 And there's so much to pull from that. 88 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:19,120 And very different lenses. 89 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:21,720 I mean, here's a woman who's been through one would argue, 90 00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,920 probably one of the most traumatic experiences that you can go through. 91 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,920 And so to me, it's not about comparing trauma and downplaying your own. 92 00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:33,120 It's about understanding that if someone can find their way out of that kind of trauma, 93 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:35,720 we can all work through our trauma. 94 00:05:35,720 --> 00:05:39,120 We can all get to a place where we are reminded of gratitude, 95 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:42,320 where we realize that the future is how we write it. 96 00:05:42,320 --> 00:05:44,320 We're not defined by our past. 97 00:05:44,320 --> 00:05:45,320 So we sat down. 98 00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:48,120 It was actually two interviews put together. 99 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:50,120 We did 30 minutes and then 30 minutes. 100 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,520 And as I said, I am so honored. 101 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:55,320 Dr. Eager has been in all the, you know, the biggest. 102 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,520 And she took the time to reach out to our community as you were here. 103 00:05:58,520 --> 00:06:00,920 She has family members that are in the fire department. 104 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:03,120 And so there is so much to pull. 105 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:06,920 But aside from this podcast, I ask people to recommend books every week, 106 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:11,520 usually when I do interviews, but I cannot urge read The Choice. 107 00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:14,920 The Gift is another incredible book that she is her latest release. 108 00:06:14,920 --> 00:06:19,520 But if you want to really relate through the storytelling of her own journey, 109 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:21,320 read The Choice. 110 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:24,720 So before we get to this incredible interview, please just take a moment. 111 00:06:24,720 --> 00:06:26,720 Go to whichever app you listen to this on. 112 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:28,120 Subscribe to the show. 113 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:30,920 Leave feedback and leave a rating. 114 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:36,120 Every five star rating elevates this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find. 115 00:06:36,120 --> 00:06:43,120 And this is a free library of now 500 episodes, 500 incredibly powerful stories. 116 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:47,920 So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories 117 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:51,320 so I can get them to everyone else who needs to hear them. 118 00:06:51,320 --> 00:06:56,120 So with that being said, I introduce to you Dr. Eager. 119 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:58,120 Enjoy. 120 00:07:18,120 --> 00:07:22,120 I want to say thank you to you for being so generous today. 121 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:30,120 I know how much in demand you are for interviews and to take the time to speak to this audience today, 122 00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:35,120 first responders and military, doctors and nurses and everyone else who listens. 123 00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:39,120 So I want to start by saying thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. 124 00:07:39,120 --> 00:07:41,120 You're welcome. 125 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:45,120 And tell me about yourself. 126 00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:47,120 Where did you grow up? 127 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:49,120 So I'm originally from England. 128 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:53,120 I moved to America 18, 19 years ago now. 129 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:55,120 So I'm also a European immigrant. 130 00:07:55,120 --> 00:08:00,120 My story isn't quite as profound as yours, but it put us in the same place. 131 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:04,120 Yes, I was in London and I loved it. 132 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:08,120 And I was in Ireland and I loved it. 133 00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:17,120 And I think America is very interesting. 134 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:26,120 Many, many, many different kinds of people gather, the South and the East and the West and you name it. 135 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:32,120 And right now I think we are hoping to unite more. 136 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:45,120 And I know that the firefighters are doing that, that you care very much for each other. 137 00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:54,120 And that's what we had to do in Auschwitz because all we had was each other then and all we have is each other now. 138 00:08:54,120 --> 00:09:09,120 So I know that you do everything you can and I know that I like the British English very much. 139 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:14,120 I don't know whether you have that accent still. 140 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:16,120 I think I lost it a little bit. 141 00:09:16,120 --> 00:09:22,120 It's still there, but it got dampened down a bit with some American lilt, I think. 142 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:27,120 I'm going to say, by God, he's got it. 143 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:29,120 You got it. 144 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:38,120 So are you happy here and you miss England? 145 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:46,120 Yeah, I'm actually, I love it here and I want to really get your perspective in a little bit on your immigration here. 146 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:54,120 But yeah, I'm actually about to go home to England in three, excuse me, I'm going home next month and it's been three years because of the COVID epidemic. 147 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:57,120 So I can't wait to go back. 148 00:09:57,120 --> 00:10:04,120 I mean, I love living here, but I'm sure just like you, I feel very connected to where I was born and raised as well. 149 00:10:04,120 --> 00:10:11,120 Well, Dr. Eager, I'd love to start at the very beginning and again, what I would love to do is not lead you down the path that I know you've been led. 150 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:15,120 I've listened to some interviews, some fantastic interviews and other podcasts. 151 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:17,120 I've read the books. 152 00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:27,120 So kind of leading you through, I don't want to spend a lot of time and Auschwitz, I want to talk about the work that you did and how you process trauma and how you're helping so many people now. 153 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:29,120 But I do love to start at the very beginning. 154 00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:37,120 So if you could just give me a quick overview of your family life when you were young, I want to talk about the kind of the darker sides. 155 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:42,120 But what are some of the happy memories, you know, growing up in your early life? 156 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:47,120 So where did you grow up and what are some of the happy memories that you carry to this day? 157 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:51,120 I was born into a very talented family. 158 00:10:51,120 --> 00:11:04,120 And my sister Magda, who is still alive, played the piano and my sister Clara was a child prodigy in violin. 159 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:09,120 And my parents decided that it's time to have a son. 160 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:12,120 And guess what happened? 161 00:11:12,120 --> 00:11:14,120 They had a third girl, me. 162 00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:19,120 And I don't think that my parents were happy at all. 163 00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:28,120 My father told me that he just slammed the door and didn't want to have anything to do with me. 164 00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:34,120 And then my mom told me, I'm glad that you have brains because you have no looks. 165 00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:46,120 And so I think it's very important today for people now that we have the COVID to take time out, just like in football, 166 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:57,120 and and re-decide and regroup and see that you have a story, but you're not my story. 167 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:00,120 I have a story, but I'm not my story. 168 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:04,120 You know, I'm not a victim. I was victimized. 169 00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:07,120 I never forget what happened. 170 00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:14,120 I don't overcome anything because never in the history of mankind, 171 00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:28,120 such an unfortunate happening, 15 highly educated people decided that they can put 30,000 juice in the oven without without gassing them. 172 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,120 And it's called the final solution of Eichmann. 173 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:40,120 And I'm part of that final. I arrived in Auschwitz May 1944. 174 00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:48,120 So today I have three children, five grandchildren and seven great grandsons. 175 00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:51,120 And that's my revenge to Hitler. 176 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:56,120 There is a difference between revenge and forgiveness. 177 00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:59,120 You see, revenge can give you a little satisfaction. 178 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:01,120 OK, I got even. 179 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:10,120 I got the revenge, but I don't think it's really lasting long. 180 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:13,120 It's very temporary. 181 00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:19,120 And I decided that somehow. 182 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:27,120 Four o'clock in the morning when we stood outside, they were counting heads. 183 00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:33,120 And we were told that if you're not feeling well, we can stay behind. 184 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:36,120 That we're going to go to the hospital. But there was no hospital. 185 00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,120 There was only the gas chamber. 186 00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:53,120 So you had to learn very quickly not to react, but to respond and study and study and study the enemy because they could throw me in the gas chamber any minute. 187 00:13:53,120 --> 00:14:06,120 But what I'm giving you today is to look at your soul and you can look at your spirit because that spirit never dies. 188 00:14:06,120 --> 00:14:17,120 So I hope that people are not complaining and don't say yes, but to say yes and I can make a difference. 189 00:14:17,120 --> 00:14:21,120 I'm one person. I can give of myself more. 190 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:33,120 I can maybe go to an orphanage and find a kid that I go and play dominoes with once a week or even whatever it is. 191 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:43,120 Show him how to kick the ball and how to go into a fire engine and things like that. 192 00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:52,120 That you can be a big brother and a person who is a giver. That you give of yourself. 193 00:14:52,120 --> 00:15:01,120 What you really do is many times you're grieving. 194 00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:07,120 You know, grieving over something that is not happening. 195 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:13,120 And it's okay to cry because what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill. 196 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:17,120 But I ask people not to do two things. 197 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:27,120 When you come home from work, I ask your wife not to ask, how are you? How was your day? 198 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:38,120 It's better to say, geez, good to see you. I missed you. That it's better to say sentences rather than asking questions. 199 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:46,120 Especially why questions? Why is a past-oriented word? What I could have done, I should have done. 200 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:50,120 But you know, you cannot change the past. 201 00:15:50,120 --> 00:16:03,120 I live in the present. I live in the present and I'm so happy to have you as a really brilliant interviewer. 202 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:07,120 Well, thank you for that. I mean, your insight is so profound. 203 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:13,120 The beginning of the choice, something that really resonated with me because, as you said, 204 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:18,120 you're very clear on the message about becoming the prisoner, whether it's a physical prisoner as you were in Auschwitz 205 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:23,120 or whether it's the mental prison that a lot of us are outside of a concentration camp. 206 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:30,120 But when you look at some of the, as you said, the seeming disappointment from your parents when they didn't have a son, 207 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:38,120 the kind of mocking that was going on when you had the issue with your eye and you were told that you weren't beautiful. 208 00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:43,120 One thing that's come up on here is people comparing trauma. 209 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:48,120 Now, I've had people that were boy soldiers in Sierra Leone and a fellow Hungarian, actually, 210 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:56,120 Tamir Nagy, who was sex trafficked all the way through to people that were the middle child, that were the disappointment to the family. 211 00:16:56,120 --> 00:17:02,120 When you look back now, prior to ever being taken by the Nazis, 212 00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:14,120 what was the impact of that seeming lack of love from your parents on you when you were 15, for example? 213 00:17:14,120 --> 00:17:23,120 You know, the work I do as a psychologist, I think that everything is a grief. 214 00:17:23,120 --> 00:17:28,120 And we grieve over not what happened, but what didn't happen. 215 00:17:28,120 --> 00:17:42,120 See, I went to a Jewish school. When I came out, children were spitting at us and calling me a Christ killer. 216 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:45,120 I didn't know that Jesus was a Jewish boy. 217 00:17:45,120 --> 00:17:54,120 I didn't know that he became this wonderful prophet who tells us, love thy neighbor as thyself. 218 00:17:54,120 --> 00:18:02,120 And the teaching of that is really the most wonderful thing you can do yourself today, 219 00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:09,120 because you only have you for a lifetime. All other relationships will end. 220 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:21,120 So I hope self-love is really wonderful, that you get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, I love me. 221 00:18:21,120 --> 00:18:26,120 It's not narcissistic. So you're going to do that? 222 00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:34,120 I know that I have disappointments, but I don't have any discouragement. 223 00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:42,120 I can get angry. I can get angry, but I don't allow it to lead to resentment. 224 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:46,120 So feelings are very good. 225 00:18:46,120 --> 00:18:53,120 When I was very young, my mother took me to a ballet school, 226 00:18:53,120 --> 00:19:05,120 and my ballet master picked me up and said to me that, you know, all your ecstasy, 227 00:19:05,120 --> 00:19:14,120 it was using the word that I didn't understand at all, all your ecstasy has to come from inside out. 228 00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:24,120 I only learned that in Auschwitz when I realized that nothing is coming from the outside. 229 00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:29,120 And today I tell people, don't wait for someone to make you happy. 230 00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:39,120 You know, when you're happy, you have a lot of joy, and don't just sit around and wait. 231 00:19:39,120 --> 00:19:48,120 You know, I know that a woman is in her fifties and I need a man, Edie, I need a man. 232 00:19:48,120 --> 00:19:53,120 And I say, if I were a man, I would run from you. 233 00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:59,120 Okay? See? And so is with meaning in life. 234 00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:08,120 The meaning and purpose in life is very, very important, but it's something that you discover. 235 00:20:08,120 --> 00:20:15,120 It's a discovery. So after I was liberated and I was in a hospital, 236 00:20:15,120 --> 00:20:23,120 I became very suicidal because reality hit me. I didn't say what, I would say what for. 237 00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:27,120 I had nothing to live for. My parents didn't come back. 238 00:20:27,120 --> 00:20:31,120 My boyfriend was killed the day before liberation. 239 00:20:31,120 --> 00:20:44,120 And I remember, I remember that I heard that voice telling me to be for something rather than against something. 240 00:20:44,120 --> 00:20:56,120 So it's very, very easy, very easy for us to just kill ourselves because, you know, 241 00:20:56,120 --> 00:21:04,120 when you're dead, you're dead. And I know that I was very suicidal after I was liberated 242 00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:14,120 in the hospital when I could not hardly breathe because I was so sick and I had TB. 243 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:20,120 I had many, many things that was going on with me, wrong with me. 244 00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:32,120 So today I am telling you that I'm here talking to you as a 93-year-old woman of strength. 245 00:21:32,120 --> 00:21:36,120 I'm not strong woman. I'm a woman of strength. 246 00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:42,120 And you know, many people asked me to write a book for many years, and I would say, 247 00:21:42,120 --> 00:21:54,120 I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say, but not until Philip Zimbardo, who wrote the fourth book, 248 00:21:54,120 --> 00:22:05,120 told me that the survivors who are successful, who are successful, are all men. 249 00:22:05,120 --> 00:22:11,120 And they need a female voice. And that's how the choice came. 250 00:22:11,120 --> 00:22:21,120 And then after the choice, I was told that the choice is fine and became a New York Times bestseller, 251 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:28,120 but they need something more practical. And that's how the choice came about. 252 00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:32,120 Beautiful. So you had the choice was more of a biography and the gift was the second book. 253 00:22:32,120 --> 00:22:39,120 That was the practical one. I still love the choice more. I love the storytelling and the biography element. 254 00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:44,120 They're both incredible, but the choice obviously gives you far more depth of your story. 255 00:22:44,120 --> 00:22:52,120 You're a good role model. And you're a good role model to your children, 256 00:22:52,120 --> 00:22:59,120 because children don't do what we say. They do what they see. 257 00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:00,120 Absolutely. 258 00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:03,120 And I hope you're a very loving man, right? 259 00:23:03,120 --> 00:23:04,120 I try to be. 260 00:23:04,120 --> 00:23:11,120 And you're very kind man. I know you are kind. It's very good to be kind. 261 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:15,120 And I know I'm talking to one now. 262 00:23:15,120 --> 00:23:24,120 Well, thank you. Well, when you talked about the post-liberation was when you actually struggled with the suicide ideation, 263 00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:29,120 I found that very interesting because I've seen, again, in a lot of the stories I've had on here, 264 00:23:29,120 --> 00:23:34,120 that one of the healing elements is purpose. Someone comes through a mental health, you know, 265 00:23:34,120 --> 00:23:40,120 a post-traumatic growth, and then when they start a nonprofit, when they're able to help other people that were going through it, 266 00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:45,120 that gives them that growth. Now, you tell the beautiful love story of me and Eric, 267 00:23:45,120 --> 00:23:51,120 and the whole time you're thinking about seeing him again, as you just mentioned, he was executed, 268 00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:54,120 which is just heartbreaking the day before you got out. 269 00:23:54,120 --> 00:24:01,120 Was there an element of that purpose being taken away that after when you were safe and away from the Nazis, 270 00:24:01,120 --> 00:24:06,120 that was actually when you were at your lowest mentally? 271 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:15,120 We were very mature for our age. I want you to know we were also very militant. 272 00:24:15,120 --> 00:24:22,120 We were going to go to Palestine. And of course, that never happened. 273 00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:29,120 But we had our own book club. And we, you know, just what happened, my mother told me, 274 00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:34,120 I have good brains and that's exactly what happened. 275 00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:41,120 I was reading Interpretation of Dreams by Freud when I was 13. 276 00:24:41,120 --> 00:24:51,120 So I was doing exactly what my mother was calling me. 277 00:24:51,120 --> 00:25:01,120 And that also what happened that my father would go and play billiards with his cronies. 278 00:25:01,120 --> 00:25:09,120 And I stayed home with my mother babysitting. And she read me Gone with the Wind. 279 00:25:09,120 --> 00:25:16,120 And she said that I'm going to go and see terror. And I did go see terror. 280 00:25:16,120 --> 00:25:22,120 And what is important about it, it's fiction. 281 00:25:22,120 --> 00:25:33,120 But it's so beautiful prescribed different personalities, you know, like the hysterical woman, 282 00:25:33,120 --> 00:25:47,120 like the wife who recognizes that her husband loves another woman and she wants to kill herself. 283 00:25:47,120 --> 00:25:53,120 Sounds like Anna Karenina, you know, that she was going to kill herself. 284 00:25:53,120 --> 00:26:00,120 I had a Catholic patient who was going to kill herself to two o'clock in the morning. 285 00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:06,120 And I told her one time, I'm sick and tired of going to her house two o'clock in the morning. 286 00:26:06,120 --> 00:26:15,120 I never lost a patient. Okay. So I'm going to teach you something in Hungarian. 287 00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:26,120 And I did tell her a very, very, very unfortunate Hungarian word. 288 00:26:26,120 --> 00:26:33,120 So when the husband came home, she didn't have to go and write a letter that I'm going to die. 289 00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:40,120 She was saying that word that I called her husband. And you know what? 290 00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:47,120 She lost 150 pounds. She went back to school and became a social worker. 291 00:26:47,120 --> 00:26:54,120 So that's what you do. You turn bad into good. You find a gift in everything. 292 00:26:54,120 --> 00:27:03,120 And I know that when you are seeing people losing their whole home and everything in it, 293 00:27:03,120 --> 00:27:12,120 that you have a tremendous amount of empathy. You're very empathic. 294 00:27:12,120 --> 00:27:16,120 Yeah. Well, there's a lot of guilt as well for firefighters, you know, 295 00:27:16,120 --> 00:27:20,120 when we're not able to save a life and we're not able to save a house. 296 00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:27,120 And you have to be more realistic rather than idealistic and not to blame yourself. 297 00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:36,120 You do the best you can and never ever, ever go into, why didn't I do this or that, 298 00:27:36,120 --> 00:27:39,120 or I should have done it or I could have done it. 299 00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:44,120 You know, my parents had tickets to go to America and they never used it. 300 00:27:44,120 --> 00:27:50,120 So I beg of you, never ever put yourself down. 301 00:27:50,120 --> 00:27:56,120 It takes a lot of courage for you just to accept that there'll never be another you. 302 00:27:56,120 --> 00:27:58,120 And that's exciting. 303 00:27:58,120 --> 00:28:01,120 It is for my wife. 304 00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:05,120 Yeah. How did you meet your wife? 305 00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:09,120 I met her on one of those internet dating sites. I got divorced. 306 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:13,120 And I know you've got an interesting divorce story too and then a remarrying story. 307 00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:20,120 But yeah, my little boy's mother, it didn't work out and definitely there was no kind of coming around from that. 308 00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:27,120 But I met my wife now who's incredible. So yeah, it was literally an internet date that ended up being a marriage. 309 00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:30,120 So you're happy. 310 00:28:30,120 --> 00:28:32,120 Very, very happy. 311 00:28:32,120 --> 00:28:33,120 Good. 312 00:28:33,120 --> 00:28:39,120 So I have a question. Of course, people listening, and if they don't know about Auschwitz 313 00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:42,120 and the Holocaust and they can, you know, Google it, they can read the books. 314 00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:44,120 So I don't want to dwell on the bad part. 315 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:48,120 I would like to ask you about the psychology of how I got there in a moment. 316 00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:54,120 But starting with the humanity, there was some beautiful stories that I've heard you talk or tell, excuse me, 317 00:28:54,120 --> 00:29:00,120 about some of the incredible moments of kindness and compassion by some of the Nazi guards who, again, 318 00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:05,120 were probably at risk of losing their lives if they'd been seen being kind. 319 00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:14,120 So what were some of the moments that you really look back and remember as far as the against the grain kindness 320 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:18,120 and compassion whilst you were in Auschwitz? 321 00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:23,120 You know, I was interviewed by Larry King. 322 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:34,120 And Larry King asked me the question, have you ever experienced kindness among the guards? 323 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:39,120 And I told him that the war was ending. 324 00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,120 It was April 1945. 325 00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:46,120 And we were taken from one place to another. 326 00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:49,120 We were walking, walking, walking, walking. 327 00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:57,120 We ended up in Mauthausen, Austria. 328 00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:03,120 And then I was... 329 00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,120 You were in a village. 330 00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:21,120 I was remembering that in Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele came to the barracks and wanted to be entertained. 331 00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:26,120 And I did dance for him and I closed my eyes. 332 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:35,120 And I remember that the music was Tchaikovsky and I was dancing the Roman Juliet at the Budapest Opera House. 333 00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:44,120 And then, and then Dr. Mengele gave me a piece of bread. 334 00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:55,120 And I could have eaten the bread myself, but it was important for us to transcend our me, me, me. 335 00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:57,120 And thank God I did that. 336 00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:13,120 I did that because, because in April 1945, we were in a, in a small German village. 337 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:20,120 And we were told if we dare to leave the premises, we're going to be shot right away. 338 00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:25,120 But my sister suffered more from hunger than I did. 339 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:30,120 And she told me that if I don't get some food, she's going to die. 340 00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,120 So I didn't listen. 341 00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:36,120 And I went out at night. 342 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,120 And I know that you read my book. 343 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:45,120 And I looked around and there were carrots in the next garden. 344 00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:56,120 And I still knew how to jump and I stole the carrots and I came up the wall and I heard a gun. 345 00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,120 One, two. 346 00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:06,120 By the third time I said to myself, I'm going to die. 347 00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,120 But there was an eye contact. 348 00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:17,120 You know, I can kill you with my eyes and I can love you with my eyes. 349 00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:18,120 Practice. 350 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:22,120 Whatever you practice, you become better at it. 351 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:26,120 And you know, there was that eye contact. 352 00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:29,120 I don't know if you ever had a German father. 353 00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,120 A look can kill you. 354 00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,120 I had that look. 355 00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:39,120 And he turned the gun around and pushed me inside. 356 00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,120 I had the carrots. 357 00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:43,120 I gave it to Magda. 358 00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,120 And in the morning he showed up. 359 00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:54,120 He wanted to know who was the one who dared to not follow the orders. 360 00:32:54,120 --> 00:33:00,120 And I got so scared that he'll make kill us. 361 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,120 So I crawled to him. 362 00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:06,120 And he gave me a loaf of bread. 363 00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:10,120 And German people are starving too. 364 00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:14,120 I wish I could meet that man today. 365 00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,120 So yes, I met the angel. 366 00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:21,120 I met the kindness among the gods. 367 00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:25,120 Not all Germans were Nazis. 368 00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:33,120 I know a while ago I was reading in a newspaper that a German woman was on her deathbed. 369 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:39,120 And I asked her, why did you risk your life to save Jews? 370 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:46,120 And she says, my father told me that's the right thing to do. 371 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,120 So I don't go to Germany looking for Nazis. 372 00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:54,120 I am with the wonderful people. 373 00:33:54,120 --> 00:34:00,120 The largest Jewish population today is in Germany. 374 00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,120 And the German people fast up. 375 00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:09,120 And one of the things they do in schools, they take them to the concentration camps. 376 00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:18,120 And they fast up and they said, this is what happens when good people do very bad things. 377 00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,120 Well, that's so powerful to hear. 378 00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:22,120 Thank you for sharing those stories. 379 00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,120 And I think that's even being British. 380 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,120 I mean, we have a very dark history. 381 00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:27,120 There were concentration camps. 382 00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:32,120 I think the first concentration camp, if I'm not mistaken, was by the British in the Boer War. 383 00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:37,120 So my ancestors have done a lot of horrible things around. 384 00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:41,120 But again, that wasn't all English and Welsh and Scottish and Irish people. 385 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:45,120 It was, I think, sadly, a few people that really pushed that. 386 00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:52,120 Now, one thing I think that's, again, I would love to hear more about is ballet and gymnastics. 387 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:57,120 But ballet especially seemed to be instrumental not only in your physicality, 388 00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:05,120 but also the place that you kind of retreated to to find that, you know, that escape from whatever horrors were around you. 389 00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:12,120 So how important was ballet and movement and your overall health? 390 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:20,120 Not so much even in Auschwitz, but the recovery after, because after some of your recent talks, you still hold your leg up in the split. 391 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:26,120 So talk to me about the importance of movement and, you know, the journey out of Auschwitz. 392 00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:33,120 This is what I say. 393 00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:39,120 Whatever happens, I say to myself, I don't like it. 394 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,120 It's inconvenient. 395 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:46,120 And it's temporary and I can survive it. 396 00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,120 Everything is temporary. 397 00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:54,120 And that's why people need to recognize it's not what happens. 398 00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:57,120 It's what you do with it. 399 00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:09,120 So Auschwitz became a place for opportunity to discover, not recover, but to discover my inner resources, 400 00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:17,120 just like my ballet master told me that what I think I create. 401 00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:20,120 And so you get rid of two words. 402 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,120 I always do that. 403 00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:27,120 I'm never going to find a man that this is what many people realize. 404 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:32,120 It's called the negative self-fulfilling prophecy. 405 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:41,120 So pay attention what your inner voice tells you, because you know everything is temporary. 406 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:43,120 Everything is temporary. 407 00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:49,120 You have peace with your parents because half of you is your mother and half of you is your father. 408 00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:53,120 You carry that blood and I cannot change your blood. 409 00:36:53,120 --> 00:37:00,120 And then there is the environment, you know. 410 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,120 My God has got it. 411 00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:08,120 And you learned how to speak English with an accent. 412 00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,120 And you went to school. 413 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:20,120 And all that happened that you can interview me today by knowing that instead of going to the bar, 414 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:24,120 you go to the library. 415 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:34,120 And everybody becomes your brother and your sister that you don't have time to be against anything, 416 00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:41,120 but to be for uniting that I can be I and you can be you. 417 00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:49,120 But you and your wife together are much stronger than you alone. 418 00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:54,120 I just want to emphasize self-love. 419 00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,120 Self-love is self-care. 420 00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,120 It's not narcissistic. 421 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:03,120 You know, you put that down because we say that many, many times. 422 00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:08,120 My precious person here was born in Germany. 423 00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,120 She speaks fluent German. 424 00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,120 And we love the German food. 425 00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:18,120 My daughter made Wiener Schnitzel. 426 00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,120 Do you ever had Wiener Schnitzel? 427 00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:22,120 I have. 428 00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,120 I used to go skiing in Austria a lot. 429 00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:26,120 Oh, there you go. 430 00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:27,120 There you go. 431 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:28,120 There you go. 432 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,120 Well, that's what we had the other day. 433 00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:38,120 And my daughter's wedding anniversary was yesterday. 434 00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:44,120 And my daughter married a Nobel Prize winner. 435 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:45,120 Oh, really? 436 00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:46,120 Yes. 437 00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:54,120 His name is Robert Engel. 438 00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:56,120 E-N-G-L-E. 439 00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,120 You can Google him. 440 00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:05,120 He got the Nobel Prize in 2003 in economics. 441 00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,120 And that's the best marriage. 442 00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:11,120 53 years they are married. 443 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:17,120 And there is not a harsh word ever between them. 444 00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:25,120 It's very important for you not to raise your voice and not to put each other up or down. 445 00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:30,120 But I like the pioneer woman in America. 446 00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:36,120 The pioneer woman worked alongside with her husband. 447 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:44,120 And I think that's an important person who is not really behind her husband or in front of the husband. 448 00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:53,120 They work together as a team because men always use words that is up here. 449 00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:56,120 You want to understand everything, right? 450 00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,120 You want to understand. 451 00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,120 I don't know what that means. 452 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,120 I want to understand. 453 00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:07,120 Well, I don't know where you are with that. 454 00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,120 But many times men want to understand. 455 00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:17,120 And that word really belongs to the university, to the school, to the classroom. 456 00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:22,120 And we women say, how do you feel about that? 457 00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,120 And we go to the heart. 458 00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:30,120 And so I have a special place in my heart. 459 00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:34,120 And I call it my cherished wound. 460 00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,120 And I'm sure you're wounded too. 461 00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:41,120 We all are wounded one way or another. 462 00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:47,120 And really recognize that you could have died and you didn't. 463 00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:48,120 Yeah, absolutely. 464 00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:49,120 And it's interesting. 465 00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:53,120 I heard you talking about this subject with one of the other podcasts. 466 00:40:53,120 --> 00:41:01,120 And I think what I observed and you talked about, you know, the right partner, you amplify each other, you raise each other up. 467 00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:10,120 And I think one of the observations I've made is you take two individuals that fall in love and then they become a combined version of 468 00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:19,120 rather than staying as two strong individuals with dreams that work alongside each other and lift each other up, 469 00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:27,120 rather than kind of morphing into a singular organism that maybe is more detrimental than raising each other up. 470 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:34,120 Very, very well done because romantic love is temporary. 471 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:42,120 Falling in love is like you fall in a hole and then you fell out of love like you fell out of a tree. 472 00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:46,120 I think romantic love is temporary. 473 00:41:46,120 --> 00:42:00,120 But what you want to do is marry someone who will empower you, not deplete you, who tells you yes and rather than yes but. 474 00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:17,120 So get rid of the yes but and embrace the yes and because when your wife walks into the room or your child for that matter, 475 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:24,120 your eyes lit up that she is your partner for life. 476 00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,120 She is your soulmate. 477 00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:31,120 She is. My wife is in medical school right now, so we're four hours apart. 478 00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:36,120 But she supported me when I retired from the fire service to do this full time. 479 00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:40,120 And then now I'm supporting her while she goes through medical school. 480 00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,120 So, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. 481 00:42:44,120 --> 00:42:48,120 So love is not what you feel, it's what you do. 482 00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,120 Absolutely. 483 00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:56,120 Well, I'm sure you have probably been told over and over again by patients in the past. 484 00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:00,120 I feel this way, but obviously it's not as bad as what you went through. 485 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:11,120 And what I've seen with this project now, listening to stories of 500 people, your number 500, and it's an absolute honor to bring you on for that very important episode. 486 00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:16,120 But I hear the elements of childhood trauma in first responders in the military. 487 00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:22,120 I hear, of course, the acute things that we see, but also even the organizational stress, 488 00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:28,120 the stress by working under maybe leaders that aren't creating a good environment, they're creating in bad environments. 489 00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:37,120 So I'd love if it was OK to ask your concept of rather than the physical prison that you were in in Auschwitz, 490 00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:41,120 the prison that we create in our mind, whether it's from trauma, whether it's from stress. 491 00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:50,120 So how how do we identify that and then how do we start to work through that prison that we've created for ourselves? 492 00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:55,120 I'm going to send you on my handout. OK, let me read it to you. 493 00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:56,120 Please. 494 00:43:56,120 --> 00:44:16,120 Mental prisons, victimhood, avoidance, self-neglect, secrets, guilt and shame, unresolved grief, rigidity, resentment, paralyzing fear, judgment, hopelessness, not forgiving. 495 00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:30,120 That is very important because the other thing is that are you evolving or are you re-evalving? 496 00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:40,120 And people say I always do that. I will never do that. And to get rid of always and never. 497 00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:47,120 And forgiveness is that you give a gift to yourself. 498 00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:53,120 You don't have Godly power to forgive anybody for anything what they did to you. 499 00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:59,120 But you forgive even if they don't want to be forgiven because you want to be free. 500 00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:03,120 So it's a gift that you give to yourself. 501 00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:10,120 And I also talk about hopelessness. Don't cover garlic with chocolate. 502 00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:15,120 Don't minimize the pain. Don't minimize the fear. 503 00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:21,120 But how do you find still hope in hopelessness? So I'm going to send this to you. OK? 504 00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:23,120 Beautiful. Thank you. 505 00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:28,120 And how to be a survivor and not a victim. 506 00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:34,120 So an interesting thing that has just transpired the last few days is the withdrawal from Afghanistan. 507 00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:41,120 And I'm seeing a big, a very clear kind of red flag of a lot of the veterans that fought, 508 00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:47,120 whether it was in Afghanistan or Iraq. And I'm sure we had the same probably in conflicts prior as well. 509 00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:51,120 But a feeling of guilt and shame, a guilt and shame for leaving the people behind, 510 00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:58,120 and wondering was what we did worth it? Now these towns are occupied again with the same people we were fighting. 511 00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,120 What are you seeing with that? 512 00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:07,120 I let you know that you usually going to hear two things. 513 00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:16,120 We were put in a place we were not prepared for. We were told one thing and we found another. 514 00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:22,120 You can quote me on that because that's what happens. 515 00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:28,120 People are not prepared and then they come home and they want to kill themselves. 516 00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:40,120 And it's not ever hopefully can happen and not happen because that's what happens a lot of the times. 517 00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:47,120 People were not prepared for, they were told one thing, they found another. 518 00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:52,120 They were not prepared for what was coming. 519 00:46:52,120 --> 00:47:00,120 Okay. So where are you now sitting? In your office? 520 00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:03,120 Yes, yes, my office. 521 00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,120 Because I see a lot of books there. 522 00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:12,120 Yes, there are a lot including this great book. I don't know if you recognize it or not. 523 00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:18,120 But yes, I love to read and this has really made me read because having guests on I want to make sure that I've read their work. 524 00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,120 And usually it's because I enjoy their work in the first place. 525 00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:29,120 I'd love to bring that story then that I heard you talk about with the two Vietnam vets and one dealt with their trauma very differently. 526 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,120 So could I ask you to bring that story to this audience? 527 00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:47,120 So one of them was very angry, extremely, very much in pain and blaming country, God, you name it. 528 00:47:47,120 --> 00:48:05,120 And the other one said to me, it is very interesting that the same diagnosis, they were both paraplegics, but entirely different responses. 529 00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:21,120 The second one told me I'm thanking God for giving me a second chance because I sit in a wheelchair and I can see my children's eyes much closer and I see the flowers. 530 00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:40,120 And so here I was wearing a white coat, Dr. Eager, Department of Psychiatry, and I felt like a big imposter because I never dealt with my 16 year old that I ran away from. 531 00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:44,120 So that's when I decided to go back to Auschwitz. 532 00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:53,120 So what it is, it's about grieving, feeling and healing, and you cannot heal what you don't feel. 533 00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:58,120 It seems like a lot of our people lock things away. 534 00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:02,120 I love there's a Mexican proverb that says they tried to bury us. 535 00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:04,120 They didn't know we were seeds. 536 00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:08,120 And I think that's so spot on for the first responder community. 537 00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:18,120 Actually, I had an interview about a week ago now, and during that conversation, one of the children that had died when I was a paramedic popped into my head and I forgot about it. 538 00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:29,120 So, you know, with that, what are some of the tools that people can use to to start pulling that out, to start finding them? 539 00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:34,120 Because I think some people are completely unaware of trauma that happened when they were younger or in their career. 540 00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:40,120 I think what you want to do is invite it in. Invite the feeling in. 541 00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:48,120 You sit down, you invite it in. Don't minimize it. Don't run from it. Face it. 542 00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:56,120 OK? Because that was then and this is now. 543 00:49:56,120 --> 00:50:06,120 So that's why you want to get rid of guilt and you want to get rid of worry and live in the present. 544 00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:11,120 So it's not why me, but what now? 545 00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:16,120 Absolutely. Now, I've heard you talking about crying as well, and I can relate to this completely. 546 00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:23,120 I went through a divorce and I would deliberately put music on that I knew would make me cry because I could feel that emotional release. 547 00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:31,120 So with a lot of these people listening, male or female, you know, we came in the generation where you don't cry, you know, rub some dirt in it. 548 00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:37,120 You know, don't be weak. So talk to me about the value of tears, male or female. 549 00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:44,120 You know, I had a patient who whose dog died. 550 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:51,120 And he was crying and father came in and said, we don't cry. 551 00:50:51,120 --> 00:51:00,120 And dragged the boy and took him to a pet shop and bought a new puppy. 552 00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:11,120 He told me. I have yet to cry since I'm nine years old and I'm 58 now. 553 00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:24,120 So I think so much for crying and your father's message that crying is not appropriate for a boy. 554 00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:32,120 Not knowing that what comes out of your body doesn't make you ill, what stays in there. 555 00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:39,120 So what people do, they minimize or deny, you know, it's like it didn't happen. 556 00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:49,120 It's very important that you guide people to feel and and grieve and and heal. 557 00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:57,120 So there is no forgiveness without rage. You've got to go through the rage. 558 00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:07,120 Absolutely. So that's I think that's one thing that's misunderstood by some people is, you know, when there's forgiveness, you're just sitting there in the lotus position and then you're saying I forgive you and that's it. 559 00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:12,120 So I think a lot of this audience will understand that rage element is huge. 560 00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:17,120 And there's a punch bag next door to me that that can tell you I've certainly wacked it many times. 561 00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:23,120 Yes. And and you want to know how long you're going to hold on to it. 562 00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:29,120 You see, because when you are angry, you suffer. 563 00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:40,120 Because you have a lot of fear underneath. And so I think it's where you got to be very selective. I'm very selective. Who's going to get my anger? 564 00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:49,120 Absolutely. Well, another another thing that comes up and again, sadly, I think it's the elephant in the room with mental health in my profession is addiction. 565 00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:59,120 I was very, very lucky to go to Portugal and sit down with Zhao Guolao, Dr. Zhao Guolao, who spearheaded decriminalizing addiction in Portugal. 566 00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:08,120 As a paramedic, I see the ripple effects of drugs, you know, addiction being illegal in this country, not selling, not smuggling, but addiction. 567 00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:16,120 What's your without loading the question, what's your view on addiction as a mental health, you know, 568 00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:24,120 creating addicts as mental health patients versus incarcerating them in prisons? 569 00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:35,120 I think what is important to know how is it working for you, what you do in excess, anything that you do excess, 570 00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:47,120 you are not having a balance in your life, namely working, loving and playing not to do any of that in excess. 571 00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:57,120 So when you get a divorce, there was a time when you had beautiful moments with that woman. 572 00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:09,120 You didn't marry because you wanted to suffer and get a divorce. So, you know, it's very important to possibly join the 12 step program 573 00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:22,120 because these people are only using the first step on addiction. The rest is how to grow up. 574 00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:31,120 It's really growing up and taking inventory of your life and millions and millions of people go to meetings 575 00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:47,120 and become also helping other people who are going to the meetings and let them know that you don't try to overcome. 576 00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:56,120 You come to terms with it. I never overcome what happened to me or forget it. Don't run from it. 577 00:54:56,120 --> 00:55:06,120 Don't fight it, face it. And actually you become stronger for it. So suffering gets you stronger. 578 00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:13,120 Now you mentioned as well, I think I might have talked about this earlier in the conversation, but the element of purpose 579 00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:19,120 and then you had your real mental health struggle after you were liberated. 580 00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:24,120 And I see this in the first responder community in the military when you transition out that people struggle. 581 00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:30,120 They've lost their tribe. They've lost their purpose. They were helping saving lives and now they're at home. 582 00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:38,120 How important is purpose and or altruism to the individual's own healing? 583 00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:47,120 Well, it's just asking yourself very quick questions. What am I doing now and how is it working? 584 00:55:47,120 --> 00:56:01,120 You know, and you may be isolated. You may need to just get out of your home every morning and go to a meeting 585 00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:11,120 and ask people how you can be useful to them, not how can I help you get rid of this business of helping. 586 00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:18,120 How can I be useful to you? You're not Humpty Dumpty. You don't put people back together again. 587 00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:29,120 Don't minimize yourself, but also realizing that you can only help other people when they're ready. 588 00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:35,120 Beautiful. Well, there's a couple of other perspectives I want to get because you grew up in Hungary. 589 00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:43,120 There was the communism element and obviously the fascism element that came into your country. 590 00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:49,120 What, as we talked about before we started recording, the worst thing in the world, I think, is to watch history repeat itself. 591 00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:56,120 So firstly, through your eyes now, not only as someone who went through it personally, but as a psychologist, 592 00:56:56,120 --> 00:57:03,120 what were some of the elements that allowed the tyranny, in this case, you know, Adolf Hitler's tyranny, 593 00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:10,120 to move so many people to do such cruel things within their country? 594 00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:15,120 I know, of course, not all Germans were doing that, but the ones that did partake. 595 00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:22,120 What's the psychology behind allowing or getting so many people to steer so far from an ethical line? 596 00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:31,120 I'd like you to read the book by Max Weber, Capitalism and the Protestant Ethics. 597 00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:37,120 And he calls the Jewish people a pariah. 598 00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:47,120 See, you didn't kill people in Vietnam. You killed gooks and kikes, and you give them a name, 599 00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:58,120 and then they become subhuman, and you actually think you're doing a favor to the world to get rid of the gooks and the kikes. 600 00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:08,120 And of course, the Jewish people have been called the pariah, and I was called that I'm subhuman. 601 00:58:08,120 --> 00:58:12,120 I was told that I'm never going to get out of here alive. 602 00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:19,120 But thank God, I did not allow them to get to me. 603 00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:30,120 See, remember the pope goes to the 16th chapel and is very angry at Michelangelo. 604 00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:43,120 When are you going to be ready? And he looked down from his ladder and said calmly, when I'm ready. 605 00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:51,120 And that is very important. You want to talk to people who are ready to change, 606 00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:59,120 who are ready to give birth to the real you, to the true self. 607 00:58:59,120 --> 00:59:08,120 To your genuine self that you gave up early in life to fit your family dynamics. 608 00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:16,120 You become the firstborn, the responsible one. You become a middle child, a peacemaker. 609 00:59:16,120 --> 00:59:21,120 Or you become the charming manipulator, and the baby in the family. 610 00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:26,120 And we give them a name, and then they play the game. 611 00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:34,120 I think it's very important to take stock of yourself and see what you hold on to and what are you willing, 612 00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:41,120 that's a very good word, willing to be willing to take charge of your life. 613 00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:49,120 Absolutely. Well, we spoke earlier about coming back from World War II and then still witnessing racism in the South. 614 00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:53,120 And again, obviously not all people, but it was there. 615 00:59:53,120 --> 01:00:05,120 I've kind of got a hint in some of your other interviews that you're witnessing some sort of anti-Semitism, racism, whatever it is. 616 01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:09,120 What are you seeing now through your eyes, through your lens that you've been through all this stuff? 617 01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:16,120 What are you seeing at the moment and what can we do to change that? 618 01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:32,120 Well, it was very shaking when I saw a man wearing a T-shirt saying six million was not enough on January 6th in the Capitol. 619 01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:41,120 That was a real shock to me that history does have a tendency to repeat itself. 620 01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:55,120 And I think the white supremacy group is extremely, extremely popular and it's growing very much, very fast. 621 01:00:55,120 --> 01:01:01,120 So what can we do as Americans, as British, as Australians, everyone's listening now, what can we do? 622 01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:10,120 Because to me, you look to a, I'm going to use quotation, leader, and I use that both sides the last few decades, to change a country. 623 01:01:10,120 --> 01:01:13,120 I think you've got that completely wrong. I think the pyramid is upside down. 624 01:01:13,120 --> 01:01:30,120 What can we, the people on the ground floor, do to push against this this time, to not allow potentially another repeat of what happened in Hungary and Poland and Austria and Germany and all these places? 625 01:01:30,120 --> 01:01:33,120 Because the warning signs are so important and we have to catch them early. 626 01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:39,120 So as the average American, what can we do to push against that? 627 01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:58,120 Well, I am going to always tell you what I lived and I was facing a 14 year old young man many years ago who committed himself to David Koresh in Texas. 628 01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:02,120 I don't know if you're old enough for... 629 01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:04,120 Yeah, the Waco incident. 630 01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:14,120 It's a long time ago, but he told me he's a boot boy and I don't know a thing about boots. 631 01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:22,120 I want you to know, but I did look at his boots and I recognized it that yes, it's a pair of nice boots. 632 01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:32,120 And then he got up and he put his elbow on my desk and he said, Hey Doc, it's time for America to be white again. 633 01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:37,120 And I'm going to kill all the Jews. 634 01:02:37,120 --> 01:02:45,120 Now, I'm going to tell you the difference between reacting or responding. 635 01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:57,120 If I would have reacted, I would have carried him to the corner and I would tell him, how dare you talk like that. 636 01:02:57,120 --> 01:03:03,120 I saw my mother going to the gas chamber and I was sweating. 637 01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:08,120 But I did go to God and my God is Tinkerbell. 638 01:03:08,120 --> 01:03:11,120 I go to the free spirit. 639 01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:14,120 Okay. 640 01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:19,120 And my God tells me to find the bigot in me. 641 01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:22,120 And I said, that's not true at all. 642 01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:31,120 I came to America penniless and I went to the bathroom and one of them said colored in 1949. 643 01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:45,120 So I joined the people of color and I ended up marching for Martin Luther King in 1963, I believe, in the summer. 644 01:03:45,120 --> 01:04:05,120 But nevertheless, this is what God told me to create an atmosphere that that boy can feel any feelings with me without the fear of me judging him, which I know very well how to do. 645 01:04:05,120 --> 01:04:11,120 That's what I learned as a psychologist to be a compassionate listener. 646 01:04:11,120 --> 01:04:14,120 That's why I gave us two ears and one mouth. 647 01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:18,120 So we took less and listen more. 648 01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:20,120 Anyway, so I sat down. 649 01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:27,120 I did sit down, looked at him and I said, tell me more. 650 01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:31,120 He never knew who I was, nothing. 651 01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:39,120 And so I think it's very important to listen to your own voices and take stock of yourself. 652 01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:50,120 And now that we have the co-ed and to be able to make some changes because change is synonymous with growth. 653 01:04:50,120 --> 01:04:57,120 So the question I have, are you re-evaluating or are you evolving? 654 01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:08,120 I love that because that's so pertinent because we think about race, but we look at the division that's been created for and against the police, for and against wearing masks, for and against vaccinations. 655 01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:19,120 So yes, I think that's such a beautiful way of being introspective on your own biases and resolving that within yourself. 656 01:05:19,120 --> 01:05:21,120 Well, I want to say thank you so much. 657 01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:24,120 I want to cut this now because I don't want to go over the 30 minutes. 658 01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:31,120 I know you were dealing with some things last week and I'm so, so grateful that you sat down with me again to finish this off. 659 01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:33,120 But I just want to say thank you. 660 01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:42,120 I shared your story, one of the videos that they made on the internet a while ago, and it resonated with so many people. 661 01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:51,120 The book, I was elated and nauseated and angry and all these things in The Choice because it is raw and it tells the story. 662 01:05:51,120 --> 01:05:56,120 And I can't urge anyone enough to read The Choice and then The Gift as well. 663 01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:58,120 But here we are. 664 01:05:58,120 --> 01:05:59,120 I'm a firefighter. 665 01:05:59,120 --> 01:06:03,120 You've been on Oprah and all these other shows and you've done this incredible work. 666 01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:13,120 But I just can't thank you enough for taking the time today to come on this podcast and talk to the first responders, military and associated professions of the world. 667 01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:16,120 Son-in-law was a fireman. 668 01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:24,120 And what I learned that the firemen are beautiful people. 669 01:06:24,120 --> 01:06:28,120 They very much care for each other. 670 01:06:28,120 --> 01:06:33,120 They're not just for the me, me, me and not caring. 671 01:06:33,120 --> 01:06:44,120 So I want to congratulate you for transcending your ego needs and committing yourself to someone other than you. 672 01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:48,120 And you are a beautiful family and you care for each other. 673 01:06:48,120 --> 01:07:05,120 So I think congratulations is what I want to do today to let you know that you care for one another and you're a beautiful family of firefighters. 674 01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:13,120 And I like very much what you do. 675 01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:16,120 You know, you're saving lives. 676 01:07:16,120 --> 01:07:20,120 You really are doing your calling. 677 01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:23,120 This is not a job. 678 01:07:23,120 --> 01:07:25,120 This is your calling. 679 01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:33,120 And God has given you that gift that you middle of the night, five o'clock in the morning. 680 01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:34,120 It doesn't matter. 681 01:07:34,120 --> 01:07:51,120 You go and you do everything you can to save lives.