Looking for a book about the triumph of the human spirit

[Steppingfeet]

Hello, one of my dear friends shattered her hip recently. The pain is considerable, but worse than the physical component is the suffering around the prospect of losing capacity permanently, including being unable to do things that were once vital to her soul, like dancing. This is not a foregone conclusion, but a very real potential.

She's also a person of incredible will and faith, having healed and overcome great trauma in her life, having broken out of old containers in the discovery of new levels of self-empowerment, self-expression, and purpose, etc. (She even discarded shoes and learned to walk barefoot everywhere, including on concrete and snowy mountainsides!)

So while much of her consciousness is reduced to base-level concerns around how to move, how to eat, etc., she is creating space to step outside of the inner narratives to be with what is. For instance, being on the front porch and feeling the joy of the breeze against her arm. Looking up at the moon and basking in its reflective glow. Enjoying the insect that landed on her lap, etc.

She said that she would love to receive a book I am going to send. I'd like to add to my sending some biographies of people either doing the impossible or finding new purpose or thriving even in the face of significant limitation.

I was reading about FDR a while back. Working his way back from the crippling effects of polio he accomplished incredible political feats. In response to people asking about his political work he said ""If you had spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your toe, after that anything would seem easy." That's a small window into the mentality I'm seeking.

Hellen Keller is another example. After having lost both sight and hearing in a childhood illness, she didn't become a victim of circumstance, she went on to accomplish incredible things, from a college education to writing multiple books to helping those with physical impairments.

Has anyone found inspiration in this area? Please share. If you don't post to Bring4th, I'd be grateful to receive a PM. Thank you in advance.

[Aion]

I'm not sure if there are any books available, but definitely check out Alvin Law, a very talented musician with no arms with some very profound life philosophy.

[Vasilisa]

I immediately thought of M.Erickson ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson) and A. Herman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_German) . I myself am very inspired by the biographies of such people.
But personally, I have always been inspired and supported by the words of Ra, and taught how to follow the path of balance. For me, this kind of magic has proved invaluable, especially seeing the storms the people around me are getting into.

[FirstDistortion]

I would suggest 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl.

Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust in Auschwitz by the power of attitude and optimism. This led him to create a system of therapy called Logotherapy, based on the idea of finding optimism and meaning in life despite any circumstance.

[Steppingfeet]

Thank you, Aion, Vasilia, and FirstDistortion. I will look into all these. I would appreciate other suggestions.

I would suggest 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl.

Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust in Auschwitz by the power of attitude and optimism. This led him to create a system of therapy called Logotherapy, based on the idea of finding optimism and meaning in life despite any circumstance.

I've read this. It is a towering work. And that is a concise synopsis. Thank you.

When he is on one of his daily forced marches, facing frostbite and starvation, and he thinks about his wife and their love so intensely that he's transported to a realm of the sublime... and reminisces about seeing her again... and she becomes nearly tangible to him even though intellectually he knows she's probably already dead... I lost it. It took me a couple tries to finish that passage.

Stories of resilience, overcoming, surpassing limitation and defying odds - these stories are abundant in the world, the vast majority of which go unrecorded in the pages of history. But I have yet to personally encounter one that speaks so poignantly and powerfully to will and faith overcoming any situation than Frank's dispassionate account of surviving the holocaust. The nazi concentration camp is is like humanity's laboratory for the most extreme and worst possible condition to test the human soul. His example, and others that he notes who didn't survive, highlight what is possible.

Interesting his naming of his therapy as "logotherapy." Meaning and its pursuit were at the core of the human enterprise in his findings. Humans could heal through the rediscovery of meaning. Even suffering, terrible suffering could be endured. As he said "Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'.”

I included a quote from his book in something I wrote last year:

Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors—be they of biological, psychological or sociological nature? Is man but an accidental product of these? Most important, do the prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

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: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the tyrannical inmate.

That people can heal through the discovery of meaning, I think that this is what the Confederation gifts us, as does any system or entity that confers and uplifts perspective. Perspective is all that there is, offering suffering and freedom, and defining the contours of our identity.

99.5 Ra: As in all distortions, the source is the limit of the viewpoint.

Thanks FirstDistortion.

[flofrog]

These two I loved, not quite centered on spirituality the first one, the Lafy is a Spy, by Don Mitchell, nearly reads as an adventure book, real story pre and during WW2, and then a book that so truck my heart, the City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre. Dominique Lapierrre is french and visited Kolkata with his wife, also named Dominique, and wrote this book after. Really beautiful.

Thank you to all for your books invitations... my pile on my table is growing.

[flofrog]

Also, I dont know if this would be of interest, Steppingfeet, but since your friend seems to have so much grit.. I just remembered Grit, by Angela Duckworth. She writes about many many people who persevered.

[Sacred Fool]

 
Even though the plot concerns a guy getting up off his butt to go kill people. many find the Bhagavad Gita quite inspiring...but not exactly in the way you are seeking.

I wish your friend clarity of being and within that a full measure of contentedness and spaciousness of spirit.

  

[flofrog]

Getting off his butt SF, really ?

[Sacred Fool]

Getting off his butt  SF,  really  ?

Yep, for real.  Arjuna, the royally born master archer finds himself on the eve of the culminating battle of a vicious civil war, and he is losing heart.  He throws down his bow because doesn't want to fight his old teachers, his cousins and friends.  Who would?  But his inimitable chariot driver, Lord Krisha, explains to him--in much detail--the nature of living and illusion and truth behind truth.

And do the good guys win out?  Well, you'll have to read it and see.
 

[flofrog]

oh I did, its just that I was not thinking about Arjuna's butt really. I need to go out more.

[Vasilisa]

There is a Russian TV series about Anna Herman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Tohm0cbtc