“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” ~Viktor Frankl
In my mountain cabin, I sat down to write a new book a couple of years back. It was a dark and cold afternoon in February. It was a cold and dark afternoon in February. When I turned around I saw that my porch had caught fire.
I stood in my slippers in the snow, staring back at the front and entrance of the building, which were completely engulfed in flames, before I realized what was happening.
The experience was almost like death. My mind quickly took an inventory of all the things that were inside the cottage now burning down—pretty much all of my personal belongings. However, in that moment, I realized that nothing else mattered but the manuscript I’d been working on.
After the fire brigade left, and after I had taken one final look at what was once my home, I got in the car with Marius my border collie. (The car keys survived in a miraculous way.
I was on my way to my mother’s house, nearly 100 miles away, where I would, or so I thought, crash, cry, get drunk, whatever. Any sort of self-care—bathing in chocolate or drugs, massive allowance for self-pity— seemed justified under these circumstances.
Lucky for me, I also realized that a little meditation and self hypnosis might be beneficial. As I did, I received a deeper intuition.
I was given some guidelines by a voice of inner wisdom, or Higher Self (or whatever you call it) that has access cosmic intelligence, to maintain a positive state of mind despite my misfortune.
The rules that I was given were:
- You must not drink alcohol under any circumstances.
- Eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Reduce sugar intake. Your system is under shock and won’t be able to eliminate the toxins without further damage.
- Spend an hour in the gym each day, working out intensely. This will help you to flush out stress hormones, and make you stronger.
- You can forget about your house for now. Focus on your project, which is the one that will give you the most energy and hope for the future. This would be writing your novel. Give it the highest priority. Protect the area where it takes place and give it plenty of time and attention.
These were definitely words of tough love. Wouldn’t it be, in moments of a great crisis, loss, or trauma, only natural to seek comfort and distraction? However, I’ll remain forever grateful to have received this different kind of inspiration at the right time. It would have been easy to sink into a pit of victimhood and self-pity.
In Andersen’s fairy tale The Little Match GirlOrphaned and desperate, she sells matches to survive. It’s winter and she’s suffering from the freezing cold, so eventually gives in to the temptation to light one of those matches to warm her hands.
In the moment of ignition, she feels like being back in her late grandmother’s living room, cozy with a fireplace, roast dinner, and a luminous Christmas tree. However, her short-term escape has a price. She becomes addicted to lighting matches, and eventually she will waste all of her merchandise before dying. If we give into temporary temptations for relief, we can slowly deplete our resources by wasting them.
But there is always a way to get out of a situation. The word is derived from the Latin word You can also find out more about crisis Ancient Greeks is the origin of the word “Back” κρίσις, This means to make a decision. We are forced to concentrate our attention in moments of danger, loss or threat.
It was only when I stood in the snow and watched my house burn that I realized the importance of the situation. Even before that, I took writing seriously, but only in the crisis did I learn to prioritize my soul’s calling against all odds.
In a crisis, the essential decision question is:
Do we allow our lives to be shaped by the traumas from the past or do we have an inspiring vision of the future?
One time I attended a conference where an interesting idea had been presented.
We have all heard of EntropyThe tendency of closed systems to advance in time toward chaos. (For example, a ice cube that is heated to become liquid water (increased chaos as the molecules are more free to move), and then brought to boil (as molecules in the vapor continue to move randomly).
It is, however, less often discussed that—following from the mathematical equations—there also must be a counterforce to it.
The counterforce is known as syntropy. It moves because it is the law of symmetry Backward In time, harmony will rise.
The idea has been put forth that if the entropy of physical systems (non-living), then syntropy would be true for conscious (life) systems. This, in a strange and mysterious way must have been (retro-caused) by the future.
Although intriguing, first, this sounded very much like science-fiction to me…
When I started to consider it more deeply, I saw how true this was. Psychologically speaking, the future can indeed have an enormous harmonizing and organising effect on our current lives.
Imagine, for example, an athlete who spends hours in the pool. They will tell you that they do this to train for the Olympics. The Olympics are In the futureBut it Causes Swimmers In the present Instead of wasting time, follow a structured and well-organized training regimen.
Since the beginning of psychology, it has been well documented that having a worthy future goal can save your life.
Viktor Frankl, the world-famous psychotherapist, observed his fellow prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. He taught later that those with a reason to live (e.g. a manuscript or study to finish or a relationship to renew) were the most likely to survive, even in those horrific circumstances.
After working with battered woman for many years, I came to the same conclusion. Hypnotherapy is a collection of techniques that are grouped under the umbrella of future life progressions, This allows them to explore different futures subconsciously. In one exercise, women were asked simply to imagine that a miracle had happened overnight and they were now in their ideal future.
The people who were most resistant to change are those who cannot imagine anything else. You can also find out more about the following: Future day is different than their current reality. It turned out that even more important than healing their trauma, was to be able to move forward. Teach their brains how to imagine a different future.
If we want to take the high path out of a crisis, we must learn that—to imagine our future in the best possible way. Focusing on what is most important and worth pursuing in your life, rather than the trauma and pain of the past or the trauma itself, will help you to find the high path. Our worthwhile goal, once we find it, will be a lighthouse for us, helping us navigate safely into the future no matter how obscuring our current circumstances may seem.
What is your most valuable goal? Ultimately, as Viktor Frankl also said, that is not something we must ask, rather realize that in life it is us who are being asked: “In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
What’s your best response?
Viktoria G. duda
Viktória G Duda, Ph.D. is a writer, hypnotherapist, and consciousness researcher—but first and foremost an ardent student of human nature, who has widely traveled both the outer and the inner worlds to find meaning. Visit her website at viktoriaduda.com to learn more about her.
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