#FF Friday's Fabulous Finds: How A Woman Plumber Saved 2,500 Children

Thought for the Day: Usually on Friday's I share Fabulous Finds on various topics that I read over the week. This week I am sharing something a bit different. It came to me in an e-mail. I actually hate chain letters or e-mails imploring that you send them to 10 friends or more or else you will have bad luck. Usually I do not forward them, since I find them annoying.  This one felt different, however, I still felt funny sending off a mass e-mail. Instead, I decided to post it on the blog & hope that you will share it with others in any way you feel comfortable. It is the story of a brave woman who risked her life to save children's lives. I do not know who wrote this e-mail, but have heard the story before & know it is based on a real person. Last week in my psychology trivia question, I shared the fact that only 42% of people who find out that a friend is suffering from domestic abuse do anything to help their friend & insure their safety. The psychology of bravery is not well understood, but we all could learn from Irena Sendler who could not simply stand by & ignore the tragedy that was occurring in Warsaw Poland. I hope you will share this find with others as a role model of bravery to emulate when we learn that others are suffering. Have a wonderful weekend.

Remember this  Lady?

 Irena  Sendler

Died: May 12, 2008 (aged  98)  Warsaw, Poland

During  WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.

Irena  smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried.   She also  carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck,  for larger kids.

Irena kept a  dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the  ghetto. The soldiers, of  course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and  the barking      covered the kids/infants  noises.

During her time  of doing this, she managed to smuggle out  and save 2500  kids/infants.

Ultimately,  she was caught, however, and the Nazi's broke  both of her legs and arms and beat her  severely.

Irena kept a  record of the names of all the kids she had  smuggled out,  in a glass jar that she  buried under a tree in her back yard.   After the war, she tried to locate any parents  that may have survived and tried to reunite the  family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster  family homes or adopted.

In 2007 Irena  was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was  not selected.  Al Gore won, for a  slide show on Global Warming.  

Later another  politician, Barack Obama, won for his work as  a community organizer for ACORN.

In MEMORIAM - 65  YEARS LATER I'm doing my small part by  forwarding this message.  I hope  you'll consider doing the same.  It is now  more than 65 years since the Second World War in  Europe ended.

This  e-mail is being sent  as a memorial chain,  In memory of  the  20 million Russians, 10 million  Christians, 6 million Jews, and 1,900 Catholic  priests who were murdered, massacred, raped,  burned, starved and humiliated! 

Now, more than ever, with Iran , and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth', it's imperative to make sure the  world never forgets,  because there are others who would like to do it  again.

This  e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!

Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.  Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.  

Throwback Motivational Monday: Who Needs Emotions?

Thought for the Day: Let's face it. Emotions are tough! Who needs anger, sadness, rage, or jealousy? Many of my clients have spent their lives trying to avoid confrontations. Others can't seem to stop getting into fights with family & friends. You may be wondering who needs emotions, since they seem to just complicate relationships. I just finished making the above image which looks like a poster for a science fiction movie, but I made it while thinking about a client of mine from many years ago. I'd like to use it as part of an illustration about emotions, so bear with me.

Here's an important post from back in June which I decided to repost today. Have a great start of the week!

I'd like you to imagine that you are about 13 years old & growing up Jewish in Europe. You live with your mother, father, 5 sisters & brothers in a suburb of Krakow Poland (Krakow had 237,000 residents with at around 60,000 Jewish citizens). Your parents each have 4 siblings & they too have several children living in your neighborhood. When your family gets together for holidays your family is joined by 30 or 40 cousins of varying ages, 8 aunts & uncles & your grand parents at the gatherings. Your friends & neighbors have similar families. You go to school with hundreds of your friends & family members. Not long after your thirteenth birthday, war breaks out & the family is uprooted. You are separated from your relatives & end up in work camps & finally in a concentration camp struggling to survive. When the war ends you are 17 years old. You walk hundreds of miles to get back home. When you arrive, you discover that you are the sole Jewish survivor of your entire neighborhood. You go to a bar & get drunk. The next day, you leave your home town & never look back. You do not shed a tear & vow to forget everything that happened to you before the age of 17.

This was the true story of a client of mine in Israel (although I am not sure the town was Krakow, I simply used it to give a sense what my client experienced) . He did not come to therapy for himself. He came when his 13 year old son was hospitalized in a school for emotionally disturbed children. His son was out of touch with his emotions. The staff used to say that the boy was like a "robot." Both of his parents were survivors of the holocaust. The child was paying the price of their need to avoid their emotions at all costs. With help the parents & their son were able to start working through the powerfully difficult emotions they had been trying to avoid.

Who needs emotions? We all do. Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad, they just are part of being human. If you are alive & human, emotions can help cope with the challenges of life.  As the heartbreaking pictures come in from Oklahoma, how can people cope without tears & hugs? As the survivors from Boston heal from the trauma of the bombings, should they try not to feel their anger? Emotions help us express the pain, anger, sorrow, regret & fears so that we can find our way back to life. If we try not to feel the negative feelings, we may survive, but may lose the positive feelings that we want to have. It takes a lot of energy to repress negative feelings & there may not be energy left for the positive emotions of joy & happiness. One theory proposes that depression is anger turned inwards. Avoiding emotions may be one of the things that keeps you from being motivated to follow your dreams.

Are there emotions that you have been trying to avoid? Have you found ways to express them? What has helped you? By sharing your experiences, you may help someone recognize their own blocks & start finding ways to deal with their emotions.