I can’t write a ‘normal’ newsletter this week.
As you may or may not know, I’m Jewish. Many of my family and friends live in Israel; I used to live in Israel. The past ten days have been – continue to be – a living nightmare for me and my community. As they are too for the many Palestinians within Gaza and around the world. I don’t have any words right now.
But, I have been drawing on one of my favourite books – The Choice – by psychologist and Holocaust survivor Edith Eger, to help me navigate day-to-day life when doing so feels practically impossible. Not sure if it’s a bit trite, but I’d like to share some quotes here. They’re a good reminder of what’s truly important and their wisdom can be applied to so many other difficult situations and experiences – heartbreak, overwhelm, change, grief – all the life stuff. I hope they are of use to you too.
Sending peaceful thoughts to all, and deep love to anyone affected by this conflict.
Lily x
On our thoughts:
“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.”
“Over time I learned that I can choose how to respond to the past. I can be miserable, or I can be hopeful, I can be depressed, or I can be happy. We always have that choice, that opportunity for control. I’m here, this is now, I have learned to tell myself, over and over, until the panicky feeling begins to ease.”
On forgiveness & revenge:
“It is too easy to make a prison out of our pain, out of the past. At best, revenge is useless. It can’t alter what was done to us, it can’t erase the wrongs we’ve suffered, it can’t bring back the dead. At worst, revenge perpetuates the cycle of hate. It keeps the hate circling on and on. When we seek revenge, even non-violent revenge, we are revolving, not evolving.”
“To forgive is to grieve – for what happened, for what didn’t happen – and to give up the need for a different past.”
“You can live to avenge the past, or you can live to enrich the present.”
On change:
“If I understand anything about that afternoon, about the whole of my life, it’s that sometimes the worst moments in our lives, the moments that set us spinning with ugly desires, that threaten to unglue us with the sheer impossibility of the pain we must endure, are in fact the moments that bring us to understand our worth.”
“Change is about noticing what’s no longer working and stepping out of the familiar, imprisoning patterns.”
On healing:
“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.”
On our feelings:
“This is how we release ourselves from the prison of avoidance—we let the feelings come. We let them move through us. And then we let them go.”
“I understood that feelings, no matter how powerful, aren't fatal. And they are only temporary. Suppressing the feelings only makes it harder to let them go. Expression is the opposite of depression.”
Finally, this:
“The truth is, we will have unpleasant experiences in our lives, we will make mistakes, we won’t always get want we want. This is part of being human… You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you… We cannot choose to have a life free of hurt. But we can choose to be free, to escape the past, no matter what befalls us, and to embrace the possible.”
Thank you so much for sharing these quotes with us! They truly are quotes to live by. Stay strong, sending you a big hug ❤️