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3 Simple Practices for Resilience
Offered to us by a Holocaust survivor
The Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, known for his commentaries and insights on the human experience, once wrote:
“Man is the creature that can get accustomed to anything — and I think that is the best definition of him”
If we agree with Dostoevsky’s definition, then the psychiatrist Victor Frankl has lived through one of the most human experiences possible: he was forced to endure and adapt to the unimaginably harsh conditions of a Nazi concentration camp, eventually living to tell the tale.
How did Frankl survive — not just physically, but spiritually — going on to continue a productive career after such an adverse experience? In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he shares with us the strategies and techniques he used to keep his inner strength under such catastrophic circumstances.
In this article, we’ll explore some of these lessons given to us by Frankl, this ultimate ‘Dostoeyevskian human’, and see how they may help us to better deal with our own circumstances and build up our resilience in life.
