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You are here: Home / Thirty Days of Light / 30 Days of Light – Willingness after WWII

March 22, 2011 By Janneke

30 Days of Light – Willingness after WWII

Survivors of great trauma I have learned  seek — often constantly– safety. Paradoxically, most survivors  I know are also accomplished risk-takers.

Most show as much willingness and effort as these folks, trekking along the journey of life.

I guess it’s all about choice.

David Viscott, noted in his book Risking , if we choose to take a risk, life goes forward. If we wait to take a risk due to overly seeking safety, guess when we take the risk? When our backs are against the wall. With that experience of risk, who would want to risk again?

And after war, the impossible choices that must be made in times of war, who would ever want to choose again. Just choosing to live fully again, takes great courage.

Many survivors I know are still exhausted by their own constant search for safety, many have surrendered the constant search and feel safe anyway, and many are excellent calculated risk takers.

Where does your willingness take you now? Do you insist on building your own safety, much to the despair of yourself and others? Have you surrendered in best sense of the word surrender (moving over to the winning side)?  And after surrendering, do you find you feel safe anyway? Are you ready to take a risk in your life, hopefully before your back is against the wall?

Tell me about your safety, tell me about your risk-taking, I would love to know. (Tomorrow I will tell you some of my willingness and risks, after that some of Beppe’s – Grandma’s)

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Helen Keller

“I don’t want to tiptoe through life just to arrive at death safely.”

Cheri Huber

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Filed Under: Thirty Days of Light, Trauma-Healing Tagged With: Beppe, Cheri Huber, David Viscott, Dutch-American, Generations after World War II, Risk, Willingness, World War II

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Meet Janneke

Janneke Jobsis Brown
Following Shadows is inspired by my own story. As a survivor of an international childhood with parents who were World War II survivors, I know the generational after-effects of starvation and slave labor in Japanese concentration camps for my father, and the terror of Nazi occupation for my mother. I know the challenges of struggling to feel at home across three countries: The Netherlands, Iran and America.

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