LIVING AND LEAVING MY LEGACY, VOL. II and Writing Your Life Story

Merle Saferstein has worked closely with hundreds of Holocaust survivors, helping them to write and pass along their personal thoughts and histories. Now she’s helping others share their lifetime stories with legacy journaling, through her book LIVING AND LEAVING MY LEGACY, VOL II.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to get connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Good morning, and thanks for listeningto get connected. Imagine having a written
record of your life, your thoughts, your feelings, lessons learned, conversations,

(00:22):
travel adventures, dreams. Our guestis Merl Saferstein. She's worked closely
with hundreds of Holocaust survivors, helpingthem to pass along their legacies of remembrance
to thousands. Now she's helping othersshare their lifetime stories with legacy journaling.
Her book is Living and Leaving MyLegacy, Volume two. Merl, thank

(00:43):
you for being on the show.Thank you. I'm slighted to be here.
Merl safer Stein was the director ofeducational Outreach at the Holocaust Documentation and
Education Center for twenty six years.She later developed the course Living and Leaving
Your Legacy and teaches and speaks toaudiences locally, nationally, and internationally.
Merl. How is legacy journaling differentfrom regular journaling? Regular journaling is a

(01:07):
journal that we really write just forourselves, for our eyes only. So
a legacy journal is something that isit's material, for example, that I've
taken out that I'm willing to sharewith other people. So I'm taking some
of the things that were important tome and passing them along. Another really

(01:27):
good example of this is I taughtthese legacy classes and I had a woman
in the class who was thirty eightyears old when we started, and she
had dress cancer. She had ayoung child, and at age forty,
I suggested to her that she startedkeeping a journal, and also that she

(01:48):
do some kind of video for herdaughter, life lessons or whatever. She
was pretty sick, and so shebegan to write and wrote for about two
years. In about three weeks beforeshe died, her brother called me and
asked me if I would be willingto take Sarah's journals and read them and
take excerpts out so that her daughtersomeday could have them. So I agreed,

(02:15):
knowing that Sarah had written her journalsstrictly for herself, and so when
they arrived in this box there wereten journals. I remember just not even
being able to open the box fora while, but when I did,
I just concentrated on I just spenttwo and a half weeks just immersed and
I realized that she had. There'sno question in my mind that she had

(02:35):
written them for herself. But asshe got close to the end of her
life, she realized that there mightbe something that she could pass along from
her journals. And so what Idid was I took these excerpts, I
made them into a book. Ibound them, I picked a cover that
was her cover from one of herjournals, and then when I finished it,
I sent it to this little girl'suncle and said, please save this

(03:00):
till she's eighteen years old, becausethere were things in there that I knew
she could not absorb as a youngchild, but that someday would really be
meaningful to her. And so,like Sarah's journals, you know my journals
are the same. I really didthis for my children and then decided to
share it with the broader world.From your journal entries than actually this book,

(03:23):
you say you used to write atleast twenty letters a week back in
the days when we really wrote lettersregularly, which is very impressive. Letters,
even though the response is delayed,are ideally a two way conversation,
And I wonder, how do youthink about journal entries when we're writing to
a specific person do you still thinkof them as a conversation with someone or

(03:46):
are they more just talking about yourthoughts. Actually, it's a great question.
They're actually a conversation with myself.So in a way it's my companion.
But I know that I'm writing onlyfor myself. And it's interesting because
I did write to someone from nineteeneighty three until he passed away in October

(04:10):
this past year, and I've juststarted to read our letters because he had
set me on my letters, andI have all his letters, and I
you know, when you say thatI wrote twenty letters a week, I
have no idea how I journaled theway I did. Wrote these long,
long letters to him, ten pagetwenty page letters, I mean, and
raised a family and worked in asa wife. So it is pretty interesting.

(04:32):
But to have the record, Nina, of all of this is just
such a huge gift I've given myself. Our guest is Merl safer Stein.
She's a council member of the InternationalAssociation for Journal Writing, a contributor to
The Huffington Post, Medium Authority magazine, Women Writers, and Thrive Global.
Merle was chosen as the twenty nineteenGreater Miami Jewish Federation Volunteer of the Year.

(04:57):
Her book is Living and Leaving Myleg see volume two. You're listening
to get Connected on one oh sixpoint seven light FM. I'mina del Rio.
You know, I recently finished someone'sautobiography, and in some ways it
was kind of like a fairy tale. There were scares and struggles, but
most of her stories had a happyending, and at the end of the
book in the epilog, she saidit was by design she chose to leave

(05:18):
out the darkest stories from her experience. Of course, everybody has a choice
to remember or reveal as they like. But what are your thoughts on editing
your experiences when you're sharing them.I think that's a really important question.
I initially did not put in someof the shadow work, you know,

(05:39):
the stuff that the darker moments ofmy life. And friend, she's a
psychologist, who kept saying to me, Merle, if you want people to
relate to this book, you aregoing to need to share some of the
struggles of life, because people,you know, no one's life is perfect,
and no one wants to read onlygood think that. You know,

(06:00):
it's just not realistic. And so, for example, the chapter on marriage,
I read it you know, whenI took out the excerpts, and
I was really comfortable with it,and then my friend kept saying, we're
all put in the dark side,and so I went back into the excerpts.
So I had an object anywhere fromseventy five to four hundred fifty pages,

(06:23):
and marriage was one of the fourhundred fifty one pages. And I
started pointing out some of the difficultmoments. And I want to say that
it made such a difference because thethings people react to are those things,
you know. My hope, myhope is that people will read this book
and look at it, look atmy life as a reflection into their own,

(06:46):
and so by putting some of themore difficult experiences, people are going
to relate to that and they do. And what have you learned about yourself
as you look back at your relationshipsand your choices and your own life.
What I've learned is that what's changedis my way of looking at the world.

(07:08):
So my behaviors have changed, butI am still the same person who
lives with purpose, who wants desperatelyto make a difference in touch lives,
and so that hasn't changed. Buthow I approached things has changed. And
one of the most interesting things forme was watching how I would have an

(07:30):
idea, plant a seed, andthen through the years watch it grow.
So, for example, the legacyclass I knew when I retired from the
holocausts and I wanted to teach.I had no idea what In my journals.
One day I was writing about legacybecause that's what I helped the survivors
pass along, and said to myself, you know, I wonder if there's
a market for that. I wonderif there's something I could do, would

(07:53):
people be interested in thinking about theirlegacy? And so I watched it grow
just through right to my journals,and that to me was really fascinating.
And just talking about your work withthe Holocaust survivors, how did you feel
about hearing their stories? You know, they're so important for so many reasons.
Right before I left the Holocaust Center, one of my friends, who's

(08:13):
a young gie in therapist, saidto me, I really think that you
should think about how it is thatyou can sit with other people's pain and
really listening to the Holocaust survivor stories, and there were hundreds of them,
it really is difficult, and Ijust I've been very lucky that I could

(08:35):
listen to them, absorb them,know that it's important for me to pass
them along, but not to thepoint that I couldn't sleep at night.
Where there are people who actually havenot been able to read the chapter in
my book that's forty eight vignettes ofHolocaust survivors. They've said to me they
can't do it. And I understand. I mean, it's really brutal stuff.

(08:56):
And there were days that I wasleft feeling very sad, not understanding
how humans can treat one another inthat way. But I also knew that
it was really my job to helppass along their message and to do all
I can to help people to learnthat this is not the way to live

(09:18):
life. Of course, most ofthese people, I would assume when they
began they were much older. Mostof us believe that this is something you
would start when we are older orbecome a parent. When do you think
it's the right time to begin?Right now? Right now? Not wait?
Really, I mean people ask methat all the time. They'll say,

(09:41):
I'm so sorryed in journal, Ionly wish, and I say,
you know what, it's not toolate, because any time you start is
the gifts you're giving yourself and reallyit is. And people say, how
do I start? I have noidea, and so I say, start
with right now, right now Ithink, or right now I'm feeling and

(10:01):
just being able to put down whateverthat is. It's amazing where our pens
will take us. Is that yourfirst exercising class or some version of that.
Well, I do a journaling circleevery Sunday. We've been doing since
the beginning of COVID, so we'vehad a one hundred and fifty sessions together.
And I have all kinds of prompts. But in the book, I

(10:22):
have prompts at the end of everychapter, and so people could read the
chapter and then write prompts just basedon those prompts that I've put down.
So yes, if someone's really stuckand they say I have no idea what
to write or I can't write onthe prompt you gave me, I'll say,
okay, then write what you're feelingright now. How often do you

(10:45):
write? What would prompt someone towrite? I think the idea of writing
every day is very It could befeel like a burden for some people.
Well for me personally, I didwrite every day for a long time,
and then when I started doing thisproject, I realize that there's a lot
in there I really did not haveto have. And so now I write

(11:05):
when I need to write, althoughpretty much I sit down in the morning,
early before I do anything else andwrite. It's just a way to
start my day, to clear myhead. You know, it's different for
everyone. I think that some peopleneed the structure and so they will set

(11:26):
aside a time to write. Otherpeople can only write when they want to,
and some people can't write and theycan draw, so they draw in
their journals. You know, itjust depends on what works for you.
And that also gets me to videodiaries and audio diaries. What do you
think about those? I think they'rewonderful. I think they're really important,

(11:46):
and I encourage people to for suredo that. Just getting into your phone
is a great way to record what'sgoing on in your life. And I
do have people who journal my phonein that way, and that's considered to
me. That's considered as valuable asjournaling. By Penn, we talked about
starting journaling. Are people ever finished? Do people ever finish with journals?

(12:11):
You know, you've said what youwant to say, You're at the end
of whatever you think you are orwhere you are, and you've said enough.
I don't think so, I don'tknow. I know that people start
journaling when they're going through difficult times, and so they will journal through difficult
times and then stop in the middleof a journal and then not pick it

(12:35):
up again till the next difficult time, and very often not even pick up
that journal, but start a newone. So I know lots of people
who do that. I truthfully,a long time ago, during an interview,
someone said to me, what wouldyour life be like without journaling?
And I said, I cannot answerthat. It's inconceivable to me. So

(12:56):
I don't know. Maybe someone cansay, all right, I'm done earlier,
I don't ever want to journal again, but it just doesn't compute for
me. That would not be somethingI would say. Merl Saeferstein's book is
Living and Leaving My Legacy, Volumetwo. Thank you for being on Get
Connected, Thank you, thank youso much. This has been Get Connected

(13:18):
with Nina del Rio on one ohsix point seven LIGHTFM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarilyreflect the views of the station. If
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Thanks for listening.