The space between

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

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"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

- Viktor Frankl.

Viktor Emil Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor.

He was the founder of logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy which describes a search for purpose or the meaning of life as the primary human motivation.

As Jewish man who reached adulthood in 1930's Austria he lived a life of great loss and hardship.

In 1941 Shortly after his marriage to Tilly Grosser the Nazi party forces them to abort his first child. 2 years in 1943 later Tilly dies in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.

That same year Viktors father Gabriel does of starvation at the age of 81 in the Theresienstadt Ghetto concentration camp.

In the following years both his mother and brother are killed in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

He is a man who ( like many others who lived a similar life) rather than react to this losses by shutting down and losing trust in anyone not like him, he took a beat. He gave space for his thoughts and emotions he then thought about the best way to act on them because if he couldn't change the world that caused his loss he would change himself to be better able to deal with that loss.

In 1947 he married Eleonore "Elly" Katharina Schwindt a practicing Catholic. They lived a life celebrating both cultures and had a daughter together.

Rather than shrink away from the works that had wronged him he dedicated his life to looking for the good in people and in ways to encourage that good.

So next time you're out in the world and you encounter a situation that threatens to set you off, take a beat, give it some space and think about your reaction. Will your reaction improve the situation or will it fuel it? Is it the situation that needs to change or is it how you view it?

-JB