How is your heart? Are you experiencing a season of life when it feels as if your heart literally can’t take another moment of despair? Has betrayal broken your heart?
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived the holocaust. He was tortured while in the prison camps waiting for his turn in the gas chamber. The conditions were beyond desperate! The setting was horrifying and unbearable! Somehow, however, he was able to maintain a positive perspective and had a beneficial influence on every prisoner who would listen to him. He chose to view their grave situation through a lens of hope.
He believed that humans are motivated by something he called a “will to meaning,” which equates to a desire to find meaning in life. He argued that life can have meaning even in the most miserable of circumstances and the motivation for living comes from finding that meaning. To take it a step further, Frankl wrote:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances…”
This opinion was based on his experiences of suffering, and his attitude of finding meaning through the suffering. Frankl believed that when we can no longer change a situation, we are forced to change ourselves.
Viktor Frankl not only survived the holocaust, he went on to develop an approach to therapy based on the premise that the human person is motivated by a “will to meaning,” an inner pull to find a meaning in life.
I believe he had the most resilient spirit and unrelenting endurance to survive the torturous events he experienced with an uncompromising determination. It is something we can all learn from.
You may find yourself at a loss right now, surrounded by uncertainty and feeling disappointed by life. The truth is that even when we can’t manage an outcome, we can manage our response to it.
Your heart may be broken, it may be hesitant to believe but finding your “will to meaning” is so healing. Finding the meaning for your life restores strength and tenacity!
This Valentine’s Day may not be the day you envisioned. In fact, in a million years, you would not have anticipated that this is where you would land in life! So, you may have considered staying home all day, throwing the covers over your head and trying to hide from a world that is seemingly head over heels in love.
Valentine’s Day often reminds us of romantic relationships, so the tendency is to focus on what singles don’t have. Taking time to enrich another person’s life may be exactly what your broken heart needs.
It might do your heart a world of good to support the marriages of friends and family by offering to babysit so they can spend time together as a couple. Or you may decide to invite other singles over for a pizza party. You could also reach out to a widow, or someone in need, with a note, flowers, or time spent in prayer together. When you decide that this circumstance is not going to dictate your response, your heart starts beating again!
No matter how you decide to reach out, in so doing, I hope it is a healing experience for you and I pray that in the process hope is restored in that beautiful heart of yours!
Romans 15:13 – “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Written by: Beverly McManus is a Nationally Certified Counselor by the NBBC. She is also licensed by the State Of Tennessee Health Related Boards as a Licensed Professional Counselor with a Mental Health Service provider designation. Tennessee License number is LPC0000001934. https://www.facebook.com/BeverlyMcManusCounseling/