"The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken places." ~ Hemingway
We all know about post-traumatic stress (PTS), but how many of us know about post-traumatic growth (PTG), a very hopeful and achievable way of life beyond the losses, adversities and traumas we have experienced? It is a term that was coined in the 1990s and is now becoming increasingly popular as positive psychology and the specific area of resilience building have gained momentum in our society.
What is post-traumatic growth? It is a positive change and growth that results from an emergency or a loss. It channels our pain into something positive.
It is more than just a return to the life we had before the negative event. it's about psychological shifts and changes in ourselves, our beliefs and attitudes, our actions, the meaning and purpose in our lives, our relationships, to an even greater level of function.
This does not mean that we do not suffer and feel enormous pain. In fact, we have to allow ourselves to go through the painful and terrible feelings that we would rather suppress. It is similar to the grief process in which we have to go through it to overcome it.
Only later, when the intensity of our negative feelings diminishes and diminishes, do a few small sunbeams penetrate through the emerging clouds and we very slowly begin to move forward and integrate the challenge into our lives. We are building a new normal.
Without having a formal concept or name years ago, I went through my version of post-traumatic growth as a result of Nava's miracle: her survival and full recovery from an almost fatal medical crisis.
She was in a medical coma on a ventilator for four months and then in a rehab hospital for nine months, learned something new and finally miraculously regained all motor and physical functions.
When she returned home after a year of hospitalization and rehabilitation, I went back to work and resumed my life at home (after living in rehab). Needless to say, I was thrilled to witness this miracle – her survival and recovery – and I felt like her mother for the second time in my life.
Over time, however, I felt uncomfortable inside – empty, bored and full of fear, the feeling that this was simply not enough. And then I would feel guilty if I felt that way. finally I had our wonder, what more could I ask for ???
It felt so small to come back to life. I had just seen life most fragile when I was sitting at her bed listening to every beep and beep of machines breathing for Nava and keeping her alive with tubes coming out of every opening on her body on a bed, that turned in all directions.
In a minute she had eaten a blueberry muffin and was waiting for an operation. The next minute she was in a ventilator fighting for her life. If it didn't make me realize how our lives are hanging by the thinnest thread, then nothing would. And I started to feel my inner movement and fear more and more. This slowly became clear to me:
I had just experienced something wonderful. I had to do something to honor it. While people do things to honor a life that does not survive, I have had a burning need to do something to honor the magnificence of a life that has done despite all the odds.
It was clearly not enough to just go on to record the pieces I had stopped on. It would be like glossing over the most traumatic year of my life and not giving the miracle of life the respect and glory it deserves. Not to mention the miraculous full recovery when, after more than half a year with tubing and subsequent tracheotomy, she slowly began to breathe and eat on her own.
And so the struggle began, what to do. I also felt a strong sense of urgency to waste time on this earth where we have an unknown and unpredictable amount of time.
In retrospect, that was my fear of growing and penetrating. Everything seeped away in me and my frustration then became what I had to do …
I tried many different things that I thought made sense: from clowning with Patch Adams to caring for a puppy for the disabled to writing a book (which didn't go anywhere at the time) and other minor tasks. I was looking for something big, like some people found organizations and foundations out of their tragedy. But that didn't happen.
But what has happened beyond these accidental adventures of adventurous charity, as I now see so clearly, is that everything happened from within. So while I was in a hectic and frustrated search for the outside, I lived more engaged than ever.
As I said above, a sense of urgency to do what I was about to do became my M.O. When I saw a class in the city that interested me, I dragged myself into the city once a week during the school year instead of waiting for the summer when I was away from my school job. A friend of mine would say, "Whatever you say to Harriet, she'll run with it, so be careful!"
Now, to be fair, I was always energetic and energetic. But this part of me took on a whole new level as I became more conscious. My interest in various things increased and I felt that there was so much to learn and do. The world became my oyster.
Everything I researched meant something to me, and what I didn't, I finally threw on the track.
After a few years in my school job, I decided to do what I really wanted to do in my professional life: to work with people who (in all areas) experience grief and loss in a clinical setting – in my practice – and support them on their way to coping with and growing later.
As someone who was always interested in people who lived on well despite their needs, I developed and curated my own project to find and interview people, to learn them and make them visible to others, the qualities and coping tools that made her grow and thrive beyond her challenges. This eventually became my book.
And so I shot post-traumatic growth. How can it work for you?
Drs. Tedeschi and Calhoun from the University of North Carolina, who coined this term PTG, identified five main areas in which we can experience post-traumatic growth as a result of our adversity:
In relation to others
Increasing closeness to others, increased compassion and empathy for those who experience difficulties, greater authenticity and connection.
Connect with people on a deeper and more real level. Recognize where and with whom you feel better understood, connected and supported. How do you react to others with pain? Do you feel more sensitive to the sufferer? Has your helping hand expanded more to those in need? Have your relationships made more sense in your life? Do you take more time for them?
Appreciation of Life
Awareness and gratitude for what we have, focus on beauty and kindness, life with more presence and intention; the lack of a matter of course.
Start enjoying the ordinary things in life because it is the everyday beauties and joys that call, nourish and fulfill us.
What do you notice now that you rarely noticed it before? What are you really slow to see? Are you more mindful and reveling in the now? Awe is a positive emotion that amazes us and increases our well-being.
Which beauty calls for you? Is it the mountains that give us a perspective of smallness and humility in their size? or the vastness of the star-filled sky; or the ocean with its ups and downs of the waves in their calm and the subsequent crash; or the rising and setting of the sun that we can always rely on to appear and then disappear?
New Opportunities
reassessment of important and real / priorities; leave your comfort zone and take risks; Openness to new ways of life, for new experiences, for learning and for new ventures.
Take stock of your life and think about your highest values and priorities. What is now unimportant after your tragedy, trauma or crisis?
What new opportunities are you interested in after dealing with your grief and emotional pain? How do you want to expand? What did you notice means more than anything else? How can you better honor these things in your personal and / or professional life? How can you use your time and energy in a way that reflects your values and that you really value?
Personal strength
More self-confidence and self-esteem, recognition and appreciation of one's own skills and competencies, self-pride, greater resilience and coping ability.
Think about your strengths and feel good that you have overcome your difficulties in a way that you thought you never could.
How did you deal with pain and need in a healthy way? What strengths did you use to deal with the trauma / adversity? How can you continue to use these strengths to enrich your life? There is a very interesting free survey that lists and classifies your character strengths. What are your top five? How do you agree with your self-image?
Spiritual Change
Transcendence on things beyond ourselves, renewed purpose and meaning, questioning and searching, while we reconfigure our redesigned tapestry.
Consider the existential questions of life on a more personal level. Instead of "What is the meaning of life", ask yourself: "What is my purpose here and how can I recreate it for myself?" How do I connect with my meaning every day? "
How do you redefine success and live well? How do you want to spend your days on earth? What traces / effects do you want to leave / have? How has your perspective broadened beyond you? Are you more connected to a purpose?
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Once the bad circumstances come, growth can happen if we try to do good, find new ways of life that can be enriching and meaningful, and grow and develop in one of the areas mentioned above.
The creation of new goals and the search for positive ways to adapt to a new reality are the hope and the potential for post-traumatic growth.
If we know that there is opportunity for change and growth and that we are not doomed to live out the misery of our challenges and losses, we can do something. For some it is more natural, for others it is something to work towards. Either way, it shows a better way to master our inevitable life challenges and live beyond.
About Harriet Cabelly
Harriet Cabelly, LCSW, is a therapist, positive psychology coach, and speaker. She has a private practice that specializes in grief and need. She is passionate about helping people cope with their critical living conditions and grow. She is one of the coaching experts for 970, The Answer-Conversations with Joan. Harriet published her first book Living Well Among Adversity.
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