In 1990, famous author psychiatrist Viktor Frankl delivered a keynote address at a conference held in Anaheim, California. There in front of around 7,000 people, Frankl told the compelling story of his life. He described the terrible things that happened to him while he was imprisoned in a Nazi death camp and how he was physically and psychologically abused and tortured.
During his talk, Frankl described one day in particular that seemed to be a change in his life. On a wintry day in Poland he was being marched through a field with a group of other prisoners. Without proper dress and ill from malnutrition and mistreatment, he began to cough. The cough was so severe that he fell to his knees. A guard came over and told him to get up and keep walking, but his cough was so intense that he could not even answer. This invited beating with a club from the guard and he told Victor that Victor would be left to die if he did not get up. Sick, in pain, and being hit, Victor had no power to get up.
He was expecting doom and all of the sudden he was no longer in Poland. Instead, he found himself imagining himself standing at a lectern in post war Vienna giving a lecture on “The Psychology of Death Camps.” He had an audience of two hundred rapt with attention. The lecture was one that he had been working out the whole time he had been in the death camp. He spoke about how some people seem to survive the experience better than others, psychologically and emotionally. It was a brilliant lecture, all taking place in his mind’s eye and ear. He was no longer half-dead in the field but living in the lecture.
During the lecture, Victor told the imaginary audience about the day he was in that field being beaten and was certain he didn’t have the strength to get up and keep walking.
Then, wonder of wonders, he was able to stand up. The guard stopped beating him and he began, haltingly at first, then with more strength, to walk. As he was imagining describing this to his audience, his body got up and began to walk. He continued to imagine this lecture all the while he was the cold march back to the death camp. He collapsed into his bunk, imagining ending this brilliantly clear speech and receiving a standing ovation.
Many years later and thousands of miles away in 1990 in Anaheim, California he received a standing ovation from 7,000 people after this speech.
What did Viktor Frankl do that changed his condition? He vividly imagined a future in which his problems were resolved and then worked backward to the present to determine what he would need to do in order to make that future a reality.
If you are stuck with a problem, turn your attention to a brilliant picture of your future life in which the problem is no longer with you is a major step in manifesting your magnificent life. Then, of course, you have to work backward to the present to figure out what you could do to make that future a reality. It is so simple
