The Dalai Lama sums this benefit perfectly:
The person who has had more experience of hardships can stand more firmly in the face of problems that the person who has never experienced suffering. From this angle, then, some suffering can be a good lesson for life.
The second gift of great challenge is that it strengthens and filters relationships. When Jeannine Brown Miller lost her 17-year-old son,
time slowed to a crawl in the days immediately after Jonathan’s death (Stix).
The event surely sifted out her true friends from her fair-weather friends, but it also created new ones. Five hundred of her son’s classmates attended the wake and funeral and support from her community stayed strong because they opened their hearts to one another. A local coffee shop now serves “76” coffee to honor Jonathan’s retired football number. When people like Jeannine go through the loss of a loved one, they commonly report a
greater appreciation of and tolerance for the other people in his or her life (Haidt 139).
And when the pain subsides, Jeannine will feel love and gratitude towards the people that cared for her in her time of darkness. She will no longer waste energy on insignificant feelings or events because the tragedy helped her realize what is truly worth valuing.
Adversity’s third benefit is that it dramatically alters how we approach daily living. In 2007 Randy Pausch was given 3 to 6 months of good health, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer 11 months earlier. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation all failed to keep the cancer from spreading to his other organs. This revelation profoundly influenced his present priorities and philosophies. Soon after this terminal diagnosis he went on Oprah, to deliver an uplifting and inspiring talk urging others to live out childhood dreams. His “Last Lecture” was so impactful that it was turned into a book. Randy’s turning point is not uncommon – those diagnosed with cancer often describe it as a wake-up call.
In his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs summed the beneficial transformation people experience in the possibility of death.
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Now that we know how people grow from adversity, we’ll focus our exploration on some exercises that help anyone—from coaching clients to our family members—cope with adversity.
- Seek social support. At first glance, it would seem that the worse an event someone endures, the more coping the victim of tragedy must do (for example, losing someone to suicide carries more shame than losing someone in a car accident). But in Jamie Pennebaker’s studies of how people cope after trauma, this detail was largely irrelevant—what mattered was the action people took afterward. “Those who talked with their friends or with a support group were largely spared the health-damaging effects of trauma” (Haidt 147). This falls in line with the benefit number two listed above. Trauma offers the opportunity to prune out fair-weather friends and strengthen the friendships that serve us, so actively strengthening them not only helps us grow from adversity, but it promotes wellbeing as well. In a coaching setting, ask how your client is coping. If they become unsure of what action to take, offer them this insight and challenge them to seek social support to help cope.
- Write a compelling, constructive story. When crisis strikes, it shatters our lives—from belief systems, to daily habits, to a sense of meaning—victims have no choice but to put the pieces back together. But with the pieces all scattered, we can put them back in new and compelling ways. The human mind has a desperate need to make sense of events, and how we write the rest of our story is crucial. We must ask ourselves, “Now that this happened, how will I put the pieces back together in a meaningful way? How will I take action in my life to benefit from this tragedy? What is keeping me from being at peace with this situation? Is this chapter of my life still open and if so, what will it take for me to close it?” These questions can be done using powerful questioning during a coaching session, in conversation with support groups, or in writing exercise. To ensure you or your clients are benefitting from this strategy, check to make sure their insight into the situation is increasing. Once they have made sense of the story, their wellbeing will no longer increase if they are simply simply venting or retelling an already written compelling story (Haidt 148).
- Identify, dissolve, and avoid triggers. Each of us carries with us old emotional pain that has accumulated during the course of our lives. Most of the time it remains dormant, but it may be triggered at any time. For example, someone who was neglected as a child may experience deep inner turmoil whenever a situation resonates or resembles the old emotion they experienced in childhood. These triggers form because “Any negative emotion that is not fully faced and seen for what it is in the moment it arises does not completely dissolve. It leaves behind a remnant of pain” (Tolle 141). A powerful coping strategy is to identify the triggers that spark memories of tragedy and the accompanying negative emotions.
In a coaching session, powerful questions are a great way of identifying triggers. For example, questions like
What about this situation triggered the memory of this loss? What is the common pattern among these experiences that may be triggering you?
can be powerful in creating awareness for a client. When possible, it can be extremely beneficial to dissolve the connection between the trigger and the old emotional pain. This can be done using visualizing exercises, where the client sees himself or herself experiencing the trigger without reacting to it. If the connection cannot be dissolved, employing strategies to avoid triggers can still be beneficial. For example, ask your client,
What strategies can you implement to lessen the power these triggers have over you?
Throughout this paper we learned about the many facets of adversity by exploring the idea that it can be beneficial in certain situations. We explored the unconscious assumptions about trauma, and learned that hidden within great disadvantage are often great opportunities for growth and resilience. Not only this, but we touched on the idea that necessary pain is a part of life—only the most abnormal lives are free of any and all suffering. Then we explored how and why people benefit from trauma and loss by looking back at positive psychology’s findings.