Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Viktor Frankl

Pay Attention To Taylor Swift. Really.

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taylor-swift-vance-joyA friend reached out this week to ask if I’d ever read Viktor Frankl’s classic book Man’s Search For Meaning. I told her I had, it remains one of the most important books in my life and it’s formed much of my approach to living. We had a sparkling dialogue about it (I just love sparkling dialogues, don’t you?) and the next day I pulled my copy off the shelf and settled in for a re-read.

Frankl, a leading psychiatrist and thinker, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and other camps during World War II. Coming from that horrific experience, Frankl gained deep understanding of how people under tremendous physical, emotional and spiritual pressure react. It became his life’s work. In short, Frankl believed that people can endure nearly anything if they are deeply connected to something bigger than themselves, or are doing something in service to others.

This is why you might stay in a job you hate – it provides the income you need to give your children a great education. Or, it allows you to care for your aging parents. It might give you the space to write poetry, or raise rescue animals.

You do what you do – even if it’s hard – when you feel you’re serving a bigger purpose.

In the re-read, a key passage from Frankl’s preface stood out to me:

“Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.”

And that’s when I realized just how powerful Taylor Swift is.

You see, I recently saw Taylor sing on a British TV show called The Live Lounge. Now, the premise of the show is this: famous musicians sing songs that aren’t theirs. They cover other popular songs – a really fun concept.

So, Taylor could have chosen any song. She could have phoned it in – I mean, she’s an international superstar! She could have been silly or jaded or intent on preserving her famousness and make a boring choice.

But she didn’t.

From what I could see when I watched the clip, Taylor chose to sing a song that gave her joy, that she could be creative with.

She covered Vance Joy’s great song “Riptide.” Here’s the link: BBC Radio

If you watch it, you’ll see that at certain points Taylor is amused with herself as she sings certain words. She lingers on phrases. She doesn’t just cover the song – she interprets it.

And that’s when I realized that Taylor Swift is deeply, powerfully connected to her “why”. And it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with seeking fame.

Her why, in my opinion? She’s a musician. Plain and simple.

I am sure she faces a lot of pressure to be commercial and crank out hit after hit. There are probably people who suggest she phone it in and collect the cash. I’ll bet she has plenty of haters.

But I’ll also bet that despite all of that pressure, she feels compelled – yes, compelled – to do what she’s doing. And to do it her own way.

She’d do it even if she wasn’t famous.

Which, according to Frankl, is precisely why she’s famous.

Now to you. And to me. What can we learn here?

I think it’s this: whether you know it or not, whether you’re currently connected to it or not, you’re here to create something. You’re here to make meaning with your life – to do good – in service of something larger. The more you do it, the happier you’ll be. The more you do it, the more successful you’ll be.

Try as you might, it doesn’t work to only pursue fame – you live fully when you fully pursue meaning. 

Serve your creativity – whatever it looks like for you – and in so doing, you will succeed. It might be a long path, and the success may look really different than you imagined, you might even fail a time or two. But if you are deeply in touch with your “why”, you’ll get there.

And, if you’re at a place in your life where you feel disconnected, or things seem futile, or you don’t even know why you wake up in the morning – do yourself a favor.

Read Frankl.

 [photo credit: Time]

What’s Your Why?

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Let’s face it. It’s a scary world out there. People are losing their homes, and losing their jobs. In fact, unemployment in the U.S. hasn’t been this widespread since 1974.

Think — babies born in 1974 are 35 years old today. Probably married. Probably a couple of kids. Couple of credit cards. Car payments. Mortgage. Bills.

Thirty-five year olds have no frame of reference for what’s going on now. My guess is they figured home values would always go up, as would salaries, bonuses and retirement plans. When up, up, up turns to down, down, down — it’s a frightening, unsettling experience.

Even folks with jobs who pay their mortgages on time are feeling beseiged, as if at any minute they could be in trouble, too. We feel powerless. The rug has been pulled out from underneath, or is about to be tugged violently. What’s the purpose of life if you lose everything you’ve worked your whole life to achieve? Where’s the meaning in that?

This week I picked up an old favorite to re-read — Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning. Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Dachau, and he writes eloquently about his harrowing experiences in the death camps. It was through unimaginable suffering that Frankl was able to find meaning not only in his life, but to fully understand how others find meaning in theirs.

Frankl suggests that meaning and purpose is derived from having a why. Why live? Why suffer? Why keep putting one foot in front of the other? In the camps, Frankl discovered, survival of the inmates was completely dependent on having a why: “Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why — an aim — for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence.”

Frankl says our why is always one of three things: doing something, loving someone, or rising above yourself by turning tragedy into triumph.

Now, I have to say this. Losing your job is not the same as being in Dachau. Even in 1974, people ultimately found new jobs. Losing your home? Not Auschwitz. But these are certainly tough times. To survive, you have to know your own personal why.

And if you’re stuck, struggling, hurting, depressed… you especially need to get in touch with your why and let it guide your life.

Ask yourself, what’s my reason for being here? Is there something you need to accomplish? Someone whose life you cherish? Is your why to parent your children into independent adulthood? Is it to love and support your spouse? Is it to take this very difficult time — to be willing to lose everything you’ve worked for — and emerge stronger, more confident, and wiser?

All of these are excellent whys. And when you have your why fixed firmly in your mind, you can do more than endure. You can move forward and thrive.

You not only can. You will.

Forgiveness

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I was a guest speaker at a book club the other night – reviewing the best of parenting, relationship and personal growth books – when I was asked, “What about forgiveness?” In response, I talked about the ideas in Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring’s book How Can I Forgive You?, but as I drove home I felt unsatisfied with my response. It wasn’t complete enough.

Don’t get me wrong. Dr. Spring’s book is terrific, providing a workable framework for moving to forgiveness. It’s practical, it’s pragmatic and it’s well-written. The book was not my problem. I was glad I had mentioned such a useful book.

No, my problem was – no surprise for this “words girl” – the semantics of the word “forgiveness”. What is it? What does it mean? We hear about forgiveness from pulpits and pop culture all the time. Why, it’s a gift we give ourselves! It’s the right thing to do! Forgiving is a sign of our spiritual development and piety!

Forgiveness has become such a ubiquitous word, in fact, that perhaps it’s lost its potency. I bump into someone in a crowded store and I say, “Excuse me.” Am I asking forgiveness for my offense? Many of us say “sorry” almost as often as we say “uhm”. Do we seek forgiveness each time we blurt it out? Teens say, “My bad” and their buds say, “No problem.” Is that a forgiveness exchange?

What does “forgiveness” mean?

As I drove home, pondering, this definition popped into my head:

“Forgiveness is when the hurt you’ve suffered no longer drives your decision-making, nor defines who you are. “

Here’s an example: Tom’s wife left him for another man. Tom was devastated. For the first few months, he was among the walking wounded and would tell the story of his betrayal to anyone who’d listen. And some who didn’t want to listen. His mind was filled with thoughts of retribution, retaliation and revenge. Nearly every thought he had, nearly every course of action, was directed by his wife’s affair and their subsequent divorce. And women? Pffffft. Since his wife had betrayed him and she was a woman, then all women were capable of betrayal and should be avoided. Women were not to be trusted. No one was to be trusted.

He was not in a place of forgiveness.

Over time, though, he began to add different activities to his schedule. He got into mountain biking, planned outings with friends and explored his beliefs. He recommitted himself to his work, and got a promotion. He gingerly made friendships, then dates, with women. Gradually, his decisions were based on his life now, not his life then. He no longer needed to tell the story of his wife’s affair to people – because it no longer seemed that relevant. If you asked him, he’d say, “I’m Tom. I’m a 45 year old engineer who likes mountain biking, wine and hanging with friends. Oh, and I’m divorced.”

He had arrived at the place of forgiveness.

That doesn’t mean his wife’s affair had no impact on Tom’s life. It did. Forgiveness didn’t mean Tom pretended he wasn’t hurt. He was. It doesn’t mean it was OK for Tom’s wife to have had an affair. It wasn’t. What happened in his marriage became a part of the accumulated experiences of Tom’s life – just not the key, defining part of his life.

Forgiveness meant that Tom was no longer driven or defined by his hurt.

In many cases, one person hurts another person and they stay in a relationship. The hurt may be big or it may be small. But it’s a hurt and the only way forward is through forgiveness. This mutual forgiveness benefits both parties.

We’ve seen how a hurt person’s path to forgiveness helped him. In an ongoing relationship, forgiveness is a huge relief for the injuring party, too. She knows that she’s not going to “have to pay for this for the rest of my life” since his decisions are not going to be solely based on the hurt (“I’m only doing this because you lied to me twenty-five years ago.”). And she knows he’s not going to forever define her by having hurt him (“You know I can’t trust you because you lied to me that time twenty-five years ago.”). But to get to forgiveness she has do her part. She has to acknowledge that he’s been hurt, she has to work to help him recover, and she has to promise not to willfully repeat the injury in the future.

Sometimes the person who needs forgiveness is you. Many people, for instance, carry shame and guilt over a failed marriage, or a lost job, or a blown diet. “If only I had…If only I had been…If only I hadn’t…” is a constant refrain. Yet, this song is an oldie. It has a good beat, and you can dance to it. But it’s the same old song and dance. Singing it keeps us firmly in the past. When where we’ve got to live is in the now.

Forgiving ourselves – acknowledging what happened, how it impacted us then and now – and moving to the point where our perceived shortcomings no longer fuel our decision-making or define who we are, is the key to living in the present. And living happily. This may require therapy to understand how we hurt ourselves in the past and to work through the issues so that we don’t continue to hurt ourselves in the future.

Viktor Frankl, noted psychiatrist and author of the classic Man’s Search for Meaning, founded an innovative school of psychology called “logotherapy”, which holds that if people have meaning and conscience in their lives then they are more apt to be successful. This idea underpins much of modern psychological thought and took mental health into new and productive areas.

Now for the reveal. Frankl developed his theories while imprisoned in Auschwitz. Man’s Search for Meaning details the suffering, deprivation and humiliation the men and women in the camp endured. It was unlike anything most of us have seen. No one should experience such inhumanity.

Although Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz birthed the most significant work of his life, Frankl didn’t appear to define himself by the time in the camp – rather, he defined himself by his work, his life.

He became bigger than what he had suffered.

And that’s the promise of forgiveness. You can become bigger than your hurt. With forgiveness you can leave the wound in the past and be your best self. And you can start right now.