I Read It So You Don’t Have To: The Gift

How to break free from the mental prisons that are holding you back.

This is an article in the ‘I Read It So You Don’t Have To’ — series where I share what I learned from the books I have read, so you don’t have to read them.

In this article: The Gift by Edith Eger.

What The Gift is about

Edith Eger is a concentration camp survivor, writing about 12 mental prisons that are keeping us from being our best selves and living our best lives.

12 Mental Prisons — Made in Canva by Dagmar

These 12 mental prisons are habits, thoughts, and beliefs that determine and often limit (hence why prison) what we do, how we feel, and what we believe is possible.

In response, Edith developed Choice Therapy — which highlights the patient’s power to choose in light of inevitable and universal suffering. As Victor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search For Meaning, “You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.”

Edith’s Choice Therapy is built on 4 psychological principles:

1. ‘Learned Helplessness’ (believing you have no efficacy in your life) versus ‘Learned Optimism’ (realizing that you are able to create meaning and direction to your…