ANSWERS & ENCOURAGEMENT

HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS

ABOUT ANGER ...

~ By Russell Bishop ~

Anger Is Not a Primary Response

 

Have you ever been upset with someone and told them off - in your mind? You know the drill - you imagine talking to the person, perhaps rehearsing what you might say were you to actually talk to them, and you wind up filling in the blanks for what they might say as well. That, in turn, leads to how you would respond to what you just made up for them to say. And on it goes.

 

How often do we start with something that has some basis in fact, and then add elements to the story that we just make up? If you rehearse the scene enough, it will begin to take on its own element of truth. If you tell the story with enough conviction, you can wind up with very real feelings, both emotionally based and even physically based. You can scare yourself by what you tell yourself, and you can become angry by what you tell yourself.

 

What makes this practice so difficult is that by the time you have added emotional and physical feelings to the story, they actually begin to take on an element of reality - after all, you are feeling these feelings, aren't you. For some, the presence of the feelings suffices for proof that the situation and their response is, in fact real. The Truth, as it were.

 

When we started a series on the differences between positive thinking, positive focus, and positive action, we suggested that a positive focus (not wishful thinking, but focus on a realistic, positive outcome) can help you discover choices you can make that can help lead you forward. That's a form of telling yourself a story, albeit a story that might prove useful in terms of encouraging you to move forward.

 

Many of us know the opposite version of this kind of storytelling. Have you ever imagined yourself about to embark on a new experience and started to tell yourself all the things that might go wrong? That could be anywhere from the time you were on a high diving platform and scared yourself thinking about all the things that could go wrong, over to imagining a conversation with your boss and imagining how badly that might go. Instead of a raise, they might fire you.

 

If you're like most people, you have engaged in this kind of negative storytelling, either about someone else, or about your own self. The latter is the most interesting. As my mentor used to say to me when I would give voice to my negative thinking: "Russell, if you're going to indulge in a fantasy, why would you choose to lose in it? After all, it's your fantasy!" The great thing is that everyone's right! If you find this approach to self-awareness useful, then it's useful! If you don't, then it's not.

 

One reader shared an interesting
awareness about anger:

 

"Russell, Looking at the comments, your article got some people thinking. The part on fantasy conversations reminded me a recent occurrence. Perhaps you'll find this interesting. I'm not at all good at putting things behind me. Often I'll engage in fantasy conversations, reliving and revising events from the past, or inserting events into the past. Usually they're negative, instances where I felt mistreated or dismissed. And emotions get stirred up, often anger.

 

"The other day I was having such an adventure, and feeling angry, and I thought "as if being angry will change anything." Then there was a brief glimpse, with the sense that this was a glimpse into something that was really there, that at some lower level I really think this way - that being angry will change it. Or that the fantasy conversations will change what has occurred. An insight, and like I said, I trust that I was seeing something that's really there.

 

"It makes me wonder how much we operate on the basis of something irrational, that we know is irrational. This one - that I can change the past by replaying it or emoting on it - doesn't come from upbringing or past experience; it's something I conjured up myself. Creating my own little world which is preferable to the real one, and refusing to accept, on some lower level, that the real world isn't going to be changed. I'm pretty sure this is far from unique to me; I'd guess we all do something like this. But it's very difficult to notice. Those little glimpses don't happen very often." --Chip

 

Nice awareness, to be sure. I know I have found myself trying to change the world, the situation or someone else by being angry. I have tried expressing the anger to get someone or something else to change, I have tried keeping it bottled up, I have tried seething inside, telling myself stories about how unfair life is, or how the other person should be different. I've tried all kinds of approaches with anger. Not terribly effective in my experience.

 

Have you ever been angry about
something you don't care about?

 

Careful, now - this could be a trick question. I have posed this question to thousands of people. Most, after considering the question for a few moments, realize that indeed, the only things they get angry about are things they care about. After all, if you don't care, you simply do not care. As in, no caring. Doesn't matter. Zip.

 

I have learned that the often unspoken message in the anger has to do with how much something matters. For many, the underlying message in the anger goes something like this: if you cared about (me, others, the situation), you would be different (do it my way, not do it your way, etc). It's as though the anger is supposed to make the situation change, or the other person behave differently. Sometimes it appears to work, at least in terms of intimidating someone else. Then there are all the other times.

 

While far from easy, I do my best these days to look past the anger and inquire into the caring. I try to approach the situation with this internal thought process: Clearly, this is upsetting to you and it matters deeply. What is it that is important to you here? Is there something that I'm doing that goes against what you care about?

 

Obviously, these pretend words are a bit clinical, but perhaps you get the idea. I'm trying to understand what's behind the anger. It's pretty difficult to deal with the emotion of anger in any meaningful way, yet if I can understand the underlying message of caring, there just may be something that I can address.

 

Have you ever been upset with your husband/wife/lover or other stranger, and then gone about your day "showing them" just how upset you are by remaining angry? Even when they're no longer present? That's just great isn't it? They're supposed to be different because you're angry? Or at least they should feel punished by us staying angry? We've all heard the old saying about "stewing in your own juices." This is one version of stewing.

 



 One of my favorite quotes, attributed to many,
ranging from St. Augustine to Nelson
Mandela, goes something like this:

"Resentment is like drinking poison
and hoping the other person dies."

 

I've previously shared a turning point in my life, on a strike line at UC Berkeley many years ago. I was hit by a tear gas canister, picked it up to throw it back (no one told me how hot a canister can be), and had a brief moment seemingly outside my body where I could see and hear myself. I was clearly very angry, and I heard myself screaming, "why don't you a**holes love us?" Then, boom, right back in the old body. This time, with wave after wave of awareness washing over me: my message was one of peace, love and caring while my strategy was to yell, scream and throw things.

Are you trying to create a better life, experience or world through your anger? If so, what is it you care about so deeply that you would take that poison into yourself? What would you like to have change or be different? How could you work more directly or effectively to produce that kind of change? Some good advice might be found from Alexander Solschenizyn who said something to the effect of: if you would put the world to rights, with whom would you begin? Yourself or others?

 

A great question, to be sure. Of course, you could always come to the realization that the other person or situation will not change. Then you get a choice: accept what's present, change your reaction, or perhaps just leave. Winston Churchill had an interesting thought on the subject. I'm pretty sure this will not pass the muster of historical context, but it's revelatory in some ways, with a twisted sense of humor:

 

Lady Nancy Astor to Churchill:

"Winston, if you were my husband,
I'd poison your tea."

Churchill's reply:

"Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it."

 

 

Russell Bishop is an Educational Psychologist,
professional life coach and management consultant,
based in Santa Barbara California. You can find out
more about Russell at http://www.russellbishop.com/
Reprinted from HuffingtonPost.com



FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

Let Your Heart
Talk to Your Brain
~ By Sara Childre ~

Did you know that the heart contains a brain in its own right? What do researchers mean when they talk about heart-brain interactions? Why is it important to you? Researchers at the Institute of HeartMath and other organizations have shown that the human heart, in addition to its other functions, actually possesses the equivalent of its own brain, called the 'heart brain,' which interacts and communicates with the 'head brain.'

 

When I first heard about this, it intuitively made sense. Then as I delved into the research, it really confirmed what I have felt for a long time: that the heart has its own way of KNOWING. Until recently, scientists assumed and most of us were taught that it was only the brain that sent information and issued commands to the heart, but now we know that it works both ways. The heart and head communicate via a number of pathways. Between them they continually exchange critical information that influences how the body functions.

 

Dr. J. Andrew Armour first introduced the term 'heart brain' in 1991. Armour showed that the heart's complex intrinsic nervous system qualified as a "little brain." This heart brain, explains Science of the Heart, published by Institute of HeartMath, "is an intricate network of several types of neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells, like those found in the brain proper.

 

Research has shown that the heart communicates to the brain in four major ways: neurologically (through the transmission of nerve impulses), biochemically (via hormones and neurotransmitters), biophysically (through pressure waves) and energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions)." Its elaborate circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain — to learn, remember, and even feel and sense.

 

Heart-Brain Communication Pathways Diagram

The diagram above shows the neural communication pathways between the heart and the brain. The heart's intrinsic nervous system consists of ganglia, which contain local circuit neurons of several types, and sensory neurites, which are distributed throughout the heart.

 

The intrinsic ganglia process and integrate inflowing information from the extrinsic nervous system and from the sensory neurites within the heart. The extrinsic cardiac ganglia, located in the thoracic cavity, have direct connections to organs such as the lungs and esophagus and are also indirectly connected via the spinal cord to many other organs, including the skin and arteries.

 

The "afferent" (flowing to the brain) parasympathetic information travels from the heart to the brain through the vagus nerve to the medulla, after passing through the nodose ganglion. The sympathetic afferent nerves first connect to the extrinsic cardiac ganglia (also a processing center), then to the dorsal root ganglion and the spinal cord. Once afferent signals reach the medulla, they travel to the subcortical areas (thalamus, amygdala, etc.) and then to the cortical areas.

 

"Communication along all these conduits significantly affects the brain's activity," Science of the Heart says. "Moreover, research shows that messages the heart sends the brain can also affect performance."

 



One important way the heart can speak to and influence the brain is when the heart is coherent - generating a stable, sine-wavelike pattern in its rhythms. When the heart is coherent, the body, including the brain, begins to experience all sorts of benefits, among them greater mental clarity and intuitive ability, including better decision-making.

 

Although the heart and brain are in constant communication, each of us also has the capacity to consciously and intentionally direct our heart to communicate to the brain and body in beneficial ways.

 

When we intentionally experience sincere positive emotions, such as caring, compassion or appreciation for someone or something, the heart processes these emotions and the heart's rhythm becomes more coherent and harmonious. The heart then sends this harmonious information throughout the entire body via the processes mentioned above — neurologically, biochemically, biophysically and energetically.

 

We've all had the experience of feeling the uplifting and harmonizing effects of sincere positive emotions. Now that we understand why, we can create those experiences more of the time. I often use one simple tool, called the Quick Coherence® technique, to shift into a positive feeling and coherent heart rhythm in less than a minute. It can take a little practice, but it gets easier and quicker the more you do it.

 

 

Quick Coherence® Technique
(go here for details)



 

Heart Focus: Shift your attention to the area of the heart and breathe slowly and deeply.

Heart Breathing: Keep your focus in the heart by gently breathing — five seconds in and five seconds out — through your heart. Do this two or three times.

Heart Feeling: Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. Focus on the good heart feeling as you continue to breathe through the area of your heart.

 

By Sara Childre, President and CEO of the non-profit Institute of HeartMath. Since 1991, Sara has helped oversee and develop HeartMath trainings, educational products and scientific programs. She was appointed vice president and CFO of the
institute in 1992, then president and CEO in 1998.

 

Reprinted from Care2.com

 

ANSWERS & ENCOURAGEMENT: Finding Bliss

TEN SIMPLE WAYS

 TO EXPERIENCE BLISS

... By  Debbie Gisonni ...
 

The beautiful photos on this page were taken by my friend  Laurie Sutherland  ( See More Here  - LogIn to Facebook) "Each of the transformational steps below miraculously  'appeared' in the early stages of my own spiritual path. Starting in 1986, I suddenly learned to laugh at my mother's cruel words — because it dawned on me that her caustic comments were ridiculous enough to make them more hilarious than hurtful.  Later, I was drawn to Develop My Intuition, Slow Down, Surrender to Life, and to discover the other tips shown here, long before this article was written. The process completely changed who I thought I was, and led me to take a huge Leap of Faith into a new and infinitely more rewarding life." ~Chelle Thompson   If I asked you what you wanted most out of life, either for yourself or your family, you'd probably say "happiness." You might say "money," but only because you think money will make you happy, which we all know doesn't. In the 24/7 technology-centric environment in which we live and work, true happiness seems to be less attainable than ever before, yet it's the one thing everyone seeks. Here are 10 ways that can help you bring more happiness into your life:   1. FIND THE HUMOR:  Don't you love being around someone who makes you laugh? There is humor to be found in just about anything that happens, even if it's just isolated moments within a grim situation. Put your comedian hat on and allow yourself to laugh. Laughter helps lighten the darkest of days, and as an added bonus, studies show that it helps boost the immune system. If you're healthier, you'll naturally be happier.   2. ACCEPT YOURSELF AND YOUR LIFE: Accept yourself, with all your imperfections, and accept your life with all its ups and downs. Imperfections are what make you interesting. Life's ups and downs are what make it exciting. Wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same and nothing ever changed? Next time you're down, find something positive for which to be grateful and focus on that. 3. PRACTICE NEUTRALITY:  Neutrality keeps stress to a minimum and happiness to a maximum. It enables you to allow others to have completely different beliefs and opinions than yours without your judgment. You never have to be right, correct a wrong, control another person or prove a point. What others do and think or how they live their lives is really no business of yours, so just let it be.   4. TAKE TIME TO PLAY: There are 24 hours in a day. If you spend 18 of them working and the remaining six sleeping, like many people do, you can't possibly be happy. Be sure to schedule some play time every day. That could be spending quality time with your family, a spa treatment, a hobby, a vacation, a sport or even sex! Play gives you a much-needed break so that when you do return to work, you're more refreshed and productive.   5. DEVELOP YOUR INTUITION:  Believe it or not, tapping into your natural insight and intuition will make life much easier and happier. It can save you lots of time agonizing over decisions, and in some cases, it can even save your life. The best way to develop your intuition is through some kind of meditative practice. That could be as simple as taking a mindful walk, a yoga class, or practicing a few deep breaths every day. It's anything that helps clear your mind so you can connect within for a few moments. 6. NURTURE YOURSELF: You must remember to nurture all of you — the physical, emotional and spiritual you. On the spiritual side, this means giving yourself time to connect with your higher self to create inner peace and awareness. On the emotional side, it means doing things that make you feel good as long as you're not harming another person — quality time with loved ones, eating chocolate, gardening. The physical side is about honoring your body with nutritious food and exercise.   7. SLOW DOWN:  Let's face it. We're all in a big fat rush all the time. When you move quickly, you push aside all the things that give your life meaning, like being generous, thankful or kind to people. At the end of your life, it doesn't matter how much you got done in record time. What matters most is how many people you impacted positively and how much of your time was spent lovingly.   8. LIVE IN THE PRESENT: In order to enjoy life, you must live in the present. We spend a lot of time in regret about what has already happened or in fear about what might happen, rather than enjoying what's happening right now. The past is done and therefore cannot be changed. The future is unknown, so why worry about it? The present is now and the only time in which you can truly participate.   9. SURRENDER TO LIFE:  We are so hard-wired to control — to make things happen with our will. Surrendering doesn't mean giving up your power, but rather empowering the spirit within you to take over the controls once in a while. It means going with the flow, even though you don't know the outcome. It means taking a different turn even though it wasn't part of your plan. It means accepting that sometimes you don't have all the answers.   10. MAKE SOMEONE ELSE HAPPY: Think about how many ways you can make someone happy. It could be a pleasant smile, a compliment, a gift, a favor or anything else that brings joy to another. When you live your life with compassion and kindness for others, it gives you a natural "high" on happiness. Try it today. I guarantee you'll like it. By Debbie Gisonni, author, speaker and business leader. After a series of family tragedies that occurred while she was an executive in the high tech industry, Debbie embarked on a mission to help others navigate the ups and downs of life through her books, articles and talks. Debbie is the  President and CEO of Stillheart Institute, an educational retreat center and sanctuary in Woodside, CA, where organizations conduct programs for personal, professional or spiritual growth and development.  Her clients range from spiritual gurus to corporate leaders. Reprinted from HuffingtonPost.com

BEING THE CHANGE: 'Life Is Beautiful'

Alice Herz-Sommer

108-Year-Old Pianist & Holocaust

Survivor On Conquering Hate

A renowned concert pianist and a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Alice Herz-Sommer has packed a lot into her 108 years. At age 83, she had cancer. And despite the tragedy of losing most of her family in the Holocaust, she remains resolutely optimistic.  Alice survived the concentration camps through her music, her optimism and her gratitude for the small things that came her way — a smile, a kind word, the sun. When asked about the secret of her longevity, Alice says: "I look where it is good."

 Alice Herz-Sommer is, I think, the most optimistic person I have ever met. She sits in her armchair in her single-roomed north London flat beaming at the beauty of life and treasuring the moment. She is 108 and cannot quite believe her luck. This is not wholly what you expect as you read the summary of her life. It is true that she is an immensely gifted pianist, who has found great sustenance from her art and who, even now, practices for three hours a day. But she has also experienced more unhappiness than any optimist has a right to expect.

With her Jewish background, she endured the miseries of the Prague ghetto, spent two years in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) concentration camp, where nearly 35,000 prisoners perished. Her husband was moved to Auschwitz in 1944: she never saw him again. She lost many in her extended family and most of the friends she had grown up with.
 

  

At age 104, she had a book written about her life:
"A Garden Of Eden In Hell"   published by Pan Macmillan.

All this she tells, with a near-perfect recall of dates, names and places. If she was ever bitter about the hardships she endured or the losses she suffered, it is all wiped clean. Instead, there is an almost evangelical zeal in communicating the necessity of optimism.

She lives on her own in Belsize Park. Until she was 97 she went swimming every day at the pool in nearby Swiss Cottage. Her daily routine still involves playing the piano from 10 am to 1pm. Her musical memory is, she says, still excellent. She begins by playing a Bach prelude before working her way through the repertoire — Schubert, Beethoven and so on — which she has always played. Twice a month she plays with a violinist and occasionally trios with her daughter in law, a cellist.

Her story begins in 1903, the year she was born in German-speaking Prague, then still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Her mother came from a musical Moravian family and was a childhood friend of Gustav Mahler. Sommer remembers hearing the first performance of Mahler's second symphony in Prague when she was about eight. "Still now when I listen to Mahler my mother is next to me," she says. 

As a young girl, she knew Franz Kafka — he was the best friend of her elder sister's husband. “He was a pessimistic man,” Alice said with a smile, as if she was talking of an incident that had happened yesterday. “But he made up stories for us!”

Alice Herz-Sommer with Kafka. When a person experienced that world as she did growing up – tagging along to the weekly meetings of Franz Kafka’s writing group, being friendly with Gustav Mahler’s family, having Sigmund Freud visit her house – her impulse to redeem the promise of late Habsburg Prague is easy to understand. She acknowledges the limits of that society, its failure to protect many of its most talented inhabitants. But she finds it more productive to acknowledge the capacity for good and evil in all human beings than to stereotype them on the basis of their heritage.

She started playing the piano when she was five and was soon taking lessons with a distinguished pupil of Liszt, Conrad Ansorge ("as a pianist, extraordinary, as a teacher, not so good"). Her sister was simultaneously taking lessons from Alexander Zemlinsky, under whom she sang in a performance of Mahler's eighth symphony. By her mid-teens, Alice was giving lessons and touring as a pianist, playing Schumann, Bach, Beethoven, Suk and Smetana.

She met her husband to be, also a musician, in 1931 and married him two weeks later. "He spoke five languages. He was an extremely gifted man, extremely gifted," she says. Their only son, Raphael, who went on to be a concert cellist, was born in 1937.

Everything in this busy, fulfilled and creative life changed in March 1939, when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia. "This was a hard time for Jews," she says with some understatement. "Nothing was allowed. The food was very poor. We could only buy things for half an hour in the afternoon. We had to give away all our belongings. We were poor, we had nothing. For me the greatest punishment was having to wear the yellow star, here on the left side. When I went on the street my best non-Jewish friends didn't dare to look at me. I didn't know if I should go and speak with them. It was a very, very, very hard time, this I must say."


 
Most Jews were sent to a ghetto, but for a while Sommer, her husband and her son were allowed to stay in their own flat. "Above us was living a Nazi, and beneath us a Nazi."  Then, in 1943,  the three were sent to Theresienstadt. 

"The evening before this we were sitting in our flat. I put off the light because I wanted my child to sleep for the last time in his bed. Now came my Czech friends: they came and they took the remaining pictures, carpets, even furniture. They didn't say anything; we were dead for them, I believe."

And at the last moment the Nazi came — his name was Hermann — with his wife. They bought biscuits and he said, 'Mrs Sommer, I hope you come back with your family. I don't know what to say to you. I enjoyed your playing - such wonderful things, I thank you.' The Nazi was the most human of all."

"When you know history — wars and wars and wars ... It begins with this: that we are born half-good and half-bad - everybody, everybody. And there are situations where the bad comes out and situations where the good comes out. This is the reason why people invented religion, I believe."

The following day the three of them spent an hour and a half on the train to Theresienstadt — bizarrely, a "show camp" for Red Cross inspections and simultaneously a staging post for tens of thousands of inmates who were shipped off to their deaths in other camps. The Red Cross inspectors noted the cultural activity: the inmates included numerous artists, writers and musicians. 

Alice Herz-Sommer: Chopin etudes amid the horrors of the Holocaust  "It's an excellent piano, but it doesn't matter! I played on very bad pianos," she said, tapping her fingers on the table. "It's nice to play a good instrument, but the main thing is what you know. It takes hard work — and you must love it!"

 "We had to play music because the Red Cross came and the Germans were trying to show what a good life we had," says Sommer. "It was our luck, actually. Even so, hundreds and hundreds were dying around us every day. It was a hard time."

They lived in barracks for two years; they were given black water coffee for breakfast, white water soup for lunch and, in the evening, black water soup. "We lost weight. People ask, 'How could you make music?' We were so weak. But music was special, like a spell, I would say. I gave more than 150 concerts there. There were excellent musicians there, really excellent. Violinists, cellists, singers, conductors and composers."

The conductor Rafael Schaechter recruited 150 singers and conducted 15 or more performances of the Verdi Requiem, some of which Sommer sang in. And she gave her own concerts. "I played twice, three times a week. The audience were mostly old people - very ill people and unhappy people - but they came to our concerts and this was their food."

 

As a child Sommer's cellist son Raphael took part in performances of Hans Krasa's children's opera Brundibár, given as part of the Nazis' attempts to show how "normal" life was in Theresienstadt. Out of 15,000 children who were sent to the camp, he was one of only 130 to survive the war.

 
"In 1944, my husband was among thousands who were sent away. His last words to me were, 'You mustn't do anything voluntarily.' I didn't understand what was in his mind. This was on Monday. Three days afterwards, again thousands were sent away, mothers and children of the men who had already been sent. In the second transport the women went voluntarily because they wanted to meet their husbands. They never met them. So my husband saved our lives. He was sent to Auschwitz first and then sent to work in Dachau and, six weeks before the end of the war, he died from typhus. I brought up my son alone."

Does she think she had a particular toughness? "Yah, I tell you something. I had a twin sister — same mother, same father, same upbringing. She was extremely gifted, but a terrible pessimist, but I was the contrary. This is the reason I am so old, even now. I am sure. I am looking for the nice things in life. I know about the bad things, but I look only for the good things. The world is wonderful, it's full of beauty and full of miracles. Our brain, the memory, how does it work? Not to speak of art and music ... It is a miracle."
 
On May 9 1945, the Russian army arrived to relieve the camp. "We knew already that Hitler had lost the war so we expected to be relieved. I remember my brother took his violin and went immediately to Prague. I stayed in the camp for a month or two because I was told there was an epidemic. When I came back home it was very, very painful because nobody else came back. The whole family of my husband, several members of my family, all my friends, all the friends of my family, nobody came back. It was a hard time." 

"Then I realized what Hitler had done. I never spoke a word about it because I didn't want my child to grow up with hatred because hatred brings hatred. I succeeded. My son had very good friends in Germany and they invited him to play and they appreciated him. And I never hated either, never, never."

In 1949, she went to Israel with her sisters and taught music in Tel Aviv. "I must say, when I moved to Israel there was not a day without political tension, but [to experience] democracy! After Hitler and Stalin, you feel what it means. You can read, speak, trust everyone. It was a beautiful life in Israel, inspiring. Musicians, scientists and writers — they all came and lectured. It was a cultural center. I was very happy."

I ask her about her feelings of identity. "My parents were not Jewish. I am not. My husband was not. We are Jewish without religion. I belong to this group because of my ancestors, of course. I understand when we are in a terrible situation we are needing hope. Religion, for me, is a symbol of hope. It helps, this hope." 

At the prompting of her son, she moved to London 20 years ago. Until recently she went to the University of the Third Age three times a week to study history, philosophy and the history of Judaism. She has now stopped because of problems with her back. 

  

She feels very at home in England. "It's because English people are so polite, and this politeness is not superficial. The English respect each other more than others. They are cheerful and helpful and I admire their humor. English humor is not laughing, it is distance. They observe life and always stay stoic. Admirable people. I love them, I love them."

In 2001, Sommer had to endure the grief of losing her cellist son, who died suddenly while on tour, aged 65. She found comfort in playing the piano, and still loves it. "I love work. Work is the best invention, the best. Playing the piano is still a discipline. It makes you happy to have something. The worst thing is boredom. Boredom is dangerous."

Every Saturday, she plays Scrabble with another musical survivor of the camps, the cellist Anita Wallfisch, who played in the Auschwitz camp orchestra. "We don't speak about the past," says Sommer. All her family and friends are dead. "I have never met anyone of this age. Never. When I was young, somebody of 60 was regarded as an old man." 

Does she ask herself why she survived? "My temperament. This optimism and this discipline. Punctually, at 10am, I am sitting there at the piano, with everything in order around me. For 30 years I have eaten the same, fish or chicken. Good soup, and this is all. I don't drink, not tea, not coffee, not alcohol. Hot water. I walk a lot with terrible pains, but after 20 minutes it is much better. Sitting or lying is not good."

"My fingers are not as good as they were, but where it's a problem I change the fingering. I have a very good memory. I start every day with an hour of Bach. I play all the 48 preludes — not the fugues — which is very difficult, even when you try one page without mistakes. After Bach, I play my other pieces in order not to forget."

"In any case, life is beautiful, extremely beautiful. And when you are old you appreciate it more. When you are older you think, you remember, you care and you appreciate. You are thankful for everything. For everything."

By Alan Rusbridger
Reprinted from:
www.Guardian.co.uk

READ MORE HERE: 

www.nickreedent.com

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INTERVIEW: ALICE HERZ SOMMER & TONY ROBBINS 
 "Everything Is A Present: 108-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor On Beauty, Love And Conquering Hate"


WATCH THE VIDEO:
 www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=3008
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BBC PROGRAMME "HEART AND SOUL" ALICE HERZ SOMMER
Now 108 years old, concert pianist Alice Herz Sommer has led an extraordinary life. Alice and her six-year-old son Raphael were sent to the Terezin camp in June 1943, where they spent two gruesome years — but survived. Alice's gift for music saved her from despair in the camp where thousands of prisoners died. She gave many recitals there and it was music that kept her alive and fed her irrepressible optimism, which is still with her today. "For me, music is God", she says. "I always have music in my heart and no one can take that away from me." After several years in Israel, Alice now lives in London.  For Heart and Soul she tells her story to Judi Herman.

LISTEN NOW (28 minutes):
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lw91w

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TEN VIDEOS FEATURING ALICE HERZ-SOMMER

Alice, the worlds oldest Holocaust Survivor begins each day practicing Bach and Beethoven. "I am alone but not lonely because my life is rich with music." 

 CLICK HERE TO WATCH

MAKING A DIFFERENCE: In South Africa

THE ELEPHANT WHISPERER

Lawrence Anthony, a legend in South Africa, bravely rescued wildlife and rehabilitated elephants all over the globe from human atrocities, including the courageous rescue of Baghdad Zoo animals during US invasion in 2003. On March 7, 2012, Lawrence Anthony died. He is remembered and missed by his wife, 2 sons, 2 grandsons and numerous elephants.

Two days after his passing, the wild elephants showed up at his home led by two large matriarchs. Separate wild herds arrived in droves to say goodbye to their beloved man-friend. A total of 20 elephants had patiently walked over 12 hours through the Zululand bush to get to the South African house of Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives. The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony. For two days the herds loitered at Anthony's rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu — to say goodbye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died? Known for his unique ability to calm traumatized elephants, Anthony had become a legend.

Witnessing this spectacle, humans were obviously in awe, not only because of the supreme intelligence and precise timing that these elephants sensed about Lawrence 's passing, but also because of the profound memory and emotion the beloved animals evoked in such an organized way:  Walking slowly — for days — making their way in a solemn one-by-one queue from their habitat to his house. Lawrence's wife, Francoise, was especially touched, knowing that the elephants had not been to his house prior to that day for well over a year! But yet they knew where they were going. The elephants obviously wanted to pay their deep respects, honoring their friend who'd saved their lives — so much respect that they stayed for 2 days and 2 nights. Then one morning, they left, making their long journey back home.

There are two elephant herds at Thula Thula. According to his son Dylan, both herds arrived at the Anthony family compound shortly after Anthony's death."They had not visited the house for a year and a half and it must have taken them about 12 hours to make the journey," Dylan is quoted in various local news accounts. "The first herd arrived on Sunday and the second herd, a day later. They all hung around for about two days before making their way back into the bush."  Elephants have long been known to mourn their dead. In India, baby elephants often are raised with a boy who will be their lifelong "mahout." The pair develop legendary bonds — and it is not uncommon for one to waste away without a will to live after the death of the other.

Long ago another line of elephants approached the Anthony house, but these were wild elephants in the 21st century, not some Rudyard Kipling novel. The first herd to arrive at Thula Thula several years ago were violent. They hated humans. Anthony found himself fighting a desperate battle for their survival and their trust, which he detailed in The Elephant Whisperer:

"It was 4:45 a.m. and I was standing in front of Nana, an enraged wild elephant, pleading with her in desperation. Both our lives depended on it. The only thing separating us was an 8,000-volt electric fence that she was preparing to flatten and make her escape."Nana, the matriarch of her herd, tensed her enormous frame and flared her ears."'Don't do it, Nana,' I said, as calmly as I could. She stood there, motionless but tense. The rest of the herd froze."'This is your home now,' I continued. 'Please don't do it, girl.' I felt her eyes boring into me.

Anthony, Nana and her calf

"'They'll kill you all if you break out. This is your home now. You have no need to run anymore.'" Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation struck me," Anthony writes. "Here I was in pitch darkness, talking to a wild female elephant with a baby, the most dangerous possible combination, as if we were having a friendly chat. But I meant every word. 'You will all die if you go. Stay here. I will be here with you and it's a good place.'" She took another step forward. I could see her tense up again, preparing to snap the electric wire and be out, the rest of the herd smashing after her in a flash. I was in their path, and would only have seconds to scramble out of their way and climb the nearest tree. I wondered if I would be fast enough to avoid being trampled. Possibly not. Then something happened between Nana and me, some tiny spark of recognition, flaring for the briefest of moments. Then it was gone. Nana turned and melted into the bush. The rest of the herd followed. I couldn't explain what had happened between us, but it gave me the first glimmer of hope since the elephants had first thundered into my life."

It had all started several weeks earlier with a phone call from an elephant welfare organization. Would Anthony be interested in adopting a problem herd of wild elephants? They lived on a game reserve 600 miles away and were "troublesome," recalled Anthony."They had a tendency to break out of reserves and the owners wanted to get rid of them fast. If we didn't take them, they would be shot." The woman explained, 'The matriarch is an amazing escape artist and has worked out how to break through electric fences. She just twists the wire around her tusks until it snaps, or takes the pain and smashes through.'"  'Why me?' I asked."'I've heard you have a way with animals. You're right for them. Or maybe they're right for you.'"  What followed was heart-breaking. One of the females and her baby were shot and killed in the round-up, trying to evade capture.

The French version of "The Elephant Whisperer"

"When they arrived, they were thumping the inside of the trailer like a gigantic drum. We sedated them with a pole-sized syringe, and once they had calmed down, the door slid open and the matriarch emerged, followed by her baby bull, three females and an 11-year-old bull."  Last off was the 15-year-old son of the dead mother. "He stared at us," writes Anthony, "flared his ears and with a trumpet of rage, charged, pulling up just short of the fence in front of us." His mother and baby sister had been shot before his eyes, and here he was, just a teenager, defending his herd. David, my head ranger, named him Mnumzane, which in Zulu means 'Sir.'  We christened the matriarch Nana, and the second female-in-command, the most feisty, Frankie, after my wife. We had erected a giant enclosure within the reserve to keep them safe until they became calm enough to move out into the reserve proper. Nana gathered her clan, loped up to the fence and stretched out her trunk, touching the electric wires. The 8,000-volt charge sent a jolt shuddering through her bulk. She backed off. Then, with her family in tow, she strode the entire perimeter of the enclosure, pointing her trunk at the wire to check for vibrations from the electric current.

"As I went to bed that night, I noticed the elephants lining up along the fence, facing out towards their former home. It looked ominous. I was woken several hours later by one of the reserve's rangers, shouting, 'The elephants have gone! They've broken out!' The two adult elephants had worked as a team to fell a tree, smashing it onto the electric fence and then charging out of the enclosure. I scrambled together a search party and we raced to the border of the game reserve, but we were too late. The fence was down and the animals had broken out. They had somehow found the generator that powered the electric fence around the reserve. After trampling it like a tin can, they had pulled the concrete-embedded fence posts out of the ground like matchsticks, and headed north."

The reserve staff chased them — but had competition. "We met a group of locals carrying large caliber rifles, who claimed the elephants were 'fair game' now. On our radios we heard the wildlife authorities were issuing elephant rifles to staff. It was now a simple race against time." Anthony managed to get the herd back onto Thula Thula property, but problems had just begun:

"Their bid for freedom had, if anything, increased their resentment at being kept in captivity. Nana watched my every move, hostility seeping from every pore, her family behind her. There was no doubt that sooner or later they were going to make another break for freedom. Then, in a flash, came the answer. I would live with the herd. To save their lives, I would stay with them, feed them, talk to them. But, most importantly, be with them day and night. We all had to get to know each other." It worked, as the book describes in detail, notes the London Daily Mail newspaper. Anthony was later offered another troubled elephant — one that was all alone because the rest of her herd had been shot or sold, and which feared humans. He had to start the process all over again. And as his reputation spread, more "troublesome" elephants were brought to Thula Thula.

Anthony is the author of three books, Babylon Ark, detailing his efforts to rescue the animals at Baghdad Zoo during the Iraqi war, the forthcoming The Last Rhinos, and his bestselling The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild.  

So, how after Anthony's death, did the reserve's elephants — grazing miles away in distant parts of the park — know?  "A good man died suddenly," says Rabbi Leila Gal Berner, Ph.D., "and from miles and miles away, two herds of elephants, sensing that they had lost a beloved human friend, moved in a solemn, almost 'funereal' procession to make a call on the bereaved family at the deceased man's home."

IN HIS ELEMENT: Lawrence Anthony on his KwaZulu-Natal
reserve, relaxing in a game-viewing vehicle with his dog, Tug

"If there ever were a time, when we can truly sense the wondrous 'interconnectedness of all beings,' it is when we reflect on the elephants of Thula Thula. A man's heart's stops, and hundreds of elephants' hearts are grieving. This man's oh-so-abundantly loving heart offered healing to these elephants, and now, they came to pay loving homage to their friend."

His sons say that their father was a remarkable man who lived his life to the fullest and never looked back on any choices he made. He leaves behind his wife Francoise, his two sons, Dylan and Jason, and two grandsons, Ethan and Brogan. Lawrence will be missed by all.

BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN BY ROB KIRBY:
  http://www.robkerby.com/

CONTRIBUTED BY TREASURED INSPIRATION LINE READER
AND FRIEND, PAZ, WHO LIVES IN THE PHILIPPINES

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READ MORE: 
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9131585/Lawrence-Anthony.html