Emotional Freedom

In the beautiful book, The Choice, a memoir of transcending her experience in Auschwitz, Dr. Edith Eva Eger writes about speaking to a group of soldiers just returning from Afghanistan: “I was there to talk about my trauma - how I survived it, how I survived the return to everyday life, how I chose to be free.” She goes on to explain, “My mama told me something I will never forget. She said, ‘We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.’...

Standing on the stage...I could see in my conscious awareness something that is often elusive, often invisible: that to run away from the past or to fight against our present pain is to imprison ourselves. Freedom is accepting what is...Opening our hearts to the miracles that exist now.”

Ilse Elisabeth Plattner’s important article, “Granting Children Their Emotions,” which is the foundation of an Out of the Box training kit, reminds early educators that the seemingly small emotional upsets children experience daily are actually vitally important to acknowledge and support in order to help children learn to experience emotional freedom. She gives these examples of how adults often unwittingly ignore opportunities to provide children this vital support:

“At the airport: A little girl, about two and a half years old, stands in front of the chairs where the adults sit, heartbreakingly crying, tears rolling down her face. The mother looks away, so does the grandmother. Both look in the opposite direction of the child, as if neither hear the child nor belong with the child.

In the supermarket: A boy, about four years old, walks backwards along the side of the trolley that is pushed by the father and the mother. The boy cries furiously, his face is blushed, his nose is running; he attempts to face the parents, but he cannot get their attention.

Luca, eighteen months old, is playing with some toys in the living room. All of a sudden he starts shouting for joy. The parents, watching TV, shout, both at the same time ‘Lucaa!’ (meaning ‘Be quiet!’).”

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