Post Traumatic Growth.

Life is going to happen to all of us at some point, it is not a matter of if; it is a matter of when. You are either going through a storm, coming from a storm, or heading to a storm. As British writer Vivian Greene once quipped “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to end, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” We all have a choice when these storms of life come whether to be better or stay bitter, learn the lessons or let the situation lessen us, get the message, or stay stuck in the mess. Post Traumatic Growth is the change that occurs in us after we go through these storms of life. It is the transformation that happens in us after going through a painful period.

It is the lesson and the resiliency we exhibit when the vicissitudes and challenges come visiting. We become transformed when we see every trial and tribulation in life as a learning opportunity, an opportunity for a rebirth, restart, or reinvent ourselves. It is the story that we tell ourselves when we are going through this pain that shapes the course of our lives. It is growth that comes after a painful divorce, getting laid off, having a miscarriage, losing a parent, or having a health scare. It is the growth you experience after pushing yourself to the extreme or finishing a marathon. As the saying goes “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” By recycling our pain, we get transformed and it is that transformation that leads us to our purpose in life.

Post Traumatic Growth is a feeling that I experience almost every day in the gym as I spend on average 60-90 hours every month exercising. I also experience TPG whenever I finish a marathon and it is a feeling that can’t really be explained unless you experience it yourself. I participated in six full marathons in 2022 and I am on course to finish 10 marathons in 2023. The feeling I get whenever I finish a marathon is both transformative and painful. It is usually compared with the childbirth process wherein the delivering mum swears not to go through the experience again but still tries it for her next childbirth.

After every marathon, I can hardly lift my leg well because of the pain. It is really tough on the body but you begin to go through the post-traumatic growth when you begin to witness the transformation of your fitness. People comment about how fit you are and how you look younger than your age. The confidence that you build from setting and achieving a somewhat difficult goal such as finishing multiple marathons in a year is very gratifying. The growth transforms every area of your life as how you do one thing is how you do everything. As a result of the pain and hard work during training, I have been able to reduce my marathon personal best time from 4 hours to 3:44 and now 3:20. I would be running a sub-3 hours marathon by 2024 but that would also require another level of training and post-traumatic growth.

Post-traumatic growth (PTG) ¹ is the positive change that can happen in the wake of a traumatic event. When people go through trauma, alongside the distress they feel, they often discover something they value about themselves and change in ways that can add up to a personal transformation. PTG is the positive psychological change that comes about as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life circumstances. When we go through major adversity it is normal to fear that it will break us but in time people generally return to their previous level of well-being.

PTG goes beyond recovery to something more positive emerging from the negative experience. Not simply a return to baseline after a period of suffering, it is an experience of improved functioning. Research suggests that a traumatic event doesn’t have to doom us to eternal suffering, instead, it can act as a springboard to a life of higher well-being and deeper meaning. People who’ve experienced PTG talk about feeling stronger and having gained unexpected benefits from the adversity.

In 1995, Dr. Lawrence Calhoun, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, coined the term “post-traumatic growth” to describe resilience that not just allows one to come back from a crisis but to come back changed for the better. “It’s not about being resilient,” he says, “Resilience is when you get punched, stagger, and then jump right back up. Post-traumatic growth is different—when you stand back up, you are transformed. ²

A study of more than three thousand U.S. veterans who had all experienced trauma found that those experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were more likely than those without PTSD to experience post-traumatic growth. This included both a better sense of personal strength (“I discovered that I’m stronger than I thought I was” and “I know better that I can handle difficulties”) and appreciation of life (“I have a greater appreciation for the value of my own life”).

A lobster is a squishy animal stuffed inside a hard shell. It grows, but the shell does not. Eventually, it gets too big for the shell, and the discomfort of that confinement leads it to scuttle under a rock, shed the too-small constraint, and grow a new, bigger, thicker shell. The process is uncomfortable, and leaves the lobster temporarily vulnerable, but ultimately it gains new size and strength that it would never have developed if it hadn’t gone through the struggle.

You and I should embrace discomfort for at least three reasons, whether we deliberately choose to or it simply happens to us. First, comfort is overrated. It doesn’t lead to happiness. It often leads to self-absorption and discontent. Second, discomfort is a catalyst for growth. It makes us yearn for something more. It forces us to change, stretch, and adapt. Third, discomfort signals progress. When you push yourself to grow, you will experience discomfort, but there’s profit in the pain. ³

All trauma is transformative, and it can either make us or break us, but the good news is we don’t have to wait around passively and see how the chips may fall. We can decide that we are not going to let this destroy us; and that instead, we will squeeze out as much personal growth from this as we possibly can. Life is not about fairness; it is about growth. And in order to survive under harsh conditions, we must learn to adapt—and if we don’t, we will die either physically or emotionally. ⁴

In her book, The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook: Practical Mind-Body Tools to Heal Trauma, Foster Resilience and Awaken Your Potential, Clinical Psychologist Dr. Arielle Schwartz writes about how trauma can be transformed into a growth opportunity for resiliency and recovery. 5

As an outcome, resilience involves experiencing yourself as capable of handling life’s challenges and the choices you’ve made that determine the outcome of your life. You are able to look at your most difficult events and say, “This happened to me—and it is over now.” Turning toward pain builds character. It provides you with an opportunity to realize that you are stronger than you previously believed, which facilitates post-traumatic growth (Tedeschi et al., 2018). As you feel stronger, you are more likely to see yourself as able to bring your gifts and contributions to the world. In turn, you are more likely to accept yourself as you are, have an increased appreciation for life, develop new interests or passions, and discover a new spiritual framework for your life. Just as the phoenix rises from the ashes, you have the capacity to rise again.

Meditation

• Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Individuality
  • The power of social conditioning – The world around us says we have to follow a certain path and hit a certain milestone by specific ages, school, career, family, and retirement.

• Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Outside Help
• When we need to make a decision or take action with huge consequences for ourselves or others. Instead of relying solely on our own reasoning or ability, we can let the best person for the job lead the way; this isn’t always easy. Sometimes, we think we know best and we want to be self-sufficient so we refuse outside help.

Podcast

• Apple Music’s Zane Lowe ON Manifesting Your Dream Life, Navigating Anxiety, and Finding Real Love

All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.