“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
—Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I’ve always been interested in self-repair – the ways in which we put ourselves back together after things fall apart. Over the last year, more and more of us are feeling a little (or a lot) broken, worn out, even traumatized. According to a study done by Harvard Medical School researchers 61% of men and 51% of women in the US report at least one traumatic event in their lifetime.
The good news is that many of us find ways to move through emotional exhaustion and trauma. We lean on friends, adopt practices that strengthen our personal resilience, and draw upon the wisdom of wise teachers through the books they have written. Slowly we navigate our way from down-and-out back to a state that feels more familiar, stable, and hopeful.
It’s one thing to “make it through” – to survive and bounce back from a traumatic event like a terrible illness, the death of a loved one, a physical assault or even the enduring trauma of living through war or persistent racial violence. But it’s another thing to actually grow from adversity. Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun call this Post-Traumatic Growth. To describe post-traumatic growth, they use the metaphor of an earthquake: You are living your life relying on a particular set of beliefs about the benevolence and controllability of the world when boom! – something happens that shakes you from your default way of being.
It’s precisely when the foundational structures of self are shaken and shattered that we are faced with the opportunity for true growth. In the short term, the pain, anxiety, anger, and depression we feel from trauma are real and should not be ignored. However, in the longer term, hardship invites us to reconsider who we are and to make new meaning of our lives. That new meaning may live right alongside the pain but somehow the meaning also becomes a salve for the pain.
Tedeschi and Calhoun found seven kinds of growth that happen as a result of a struggle with highly challenging life circumstances:
Greater appreciation for life
Greater appreciation and strengthening of close relationships
Increased compassion and altruism
Identification of new possibilities or purpose in life
Greater awareness and utilization of personal strengths
Enhanced spiritual development
Creative growth
As you read this list can you identify some of the gifts you’ve taken from the most adverse experiences throughout your life time? Where are the opportunities to cultivate growth in the midst of current adversities you face?
Image credit: Alaric Duan on Unsplash
What you shared here made me appreciate what my mentor used to say〝No Crisis, No Growth”.Thank you.
Thank you for sharing this quote from your mentor Koichi. I love it.
– Larry
Loved this Larry and reminds me of the words of Victor Frankl, who said man’a ultimate freedom is to choose one’s response to any given circumstances. Even when things seem out of control, we can find a new floor to stand on and from which to respond.
Thanks for sharing the additional Frankl quote Ross. Another unattributed quote that I think a lot about is: “We don’t choose our pain but we choose our suffering.” In other words, the painful moments of our lives can quickly turn into suffering based on the meaning we make. — Larry
Great piece. Bruce Feiler, a popular writer, continues the image you share and calls them “Lifequakes.” It is in his book Life is in the Transitions. “Lifequakes” resonates with a lot of us since everyone has them. He writes about how all of us have disruptors that occur in our lives, on average one every 12-18 months. He says: “We manage to get through these disruptors with only minor upset to our lives. We adjust, draw on our loved ones, recalibrate our life stories. But every now and then, one – or more commonly a pileup of two, three or four – of these disruptors rises to the level of truly disorienting and destabilizing us.” That’s a lifequake.
Thank you Larry. In this time of POST TRAUMATIC living, I have found that somehow life has sifted out for me what is really significant for me to do ~ the invitation to vocation is becoming clearer.