Goals and Mindset for Thriving after Divorce

Setting ourselves goals and adopting the mindset of thriving, not just surviving.


Setting goals for our future is massively important, as long as the goals are also backed up with a plan for action to make those goals a reality!


What goals do you have?

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My Life Is Empty After Divorce. Will I Ever Feel Better?

You absolutely can feel better. You just have to start doing a few things differently.

The end of your marriage leaves huge holes in your life, in your identity and in your mind. And it’s these huge, gaping, bottomless voids that make you feel that your life is empty after divorce.

From my vantage point of having lived through the misery of a failed marriage and after that over a decade of helping others recover from divorce, I can tell you without any doubt that your life can be better than it is right now.

And the sooner you believe that your life can be better, the more quickly you’ll stop feeling "my life is empty after divorce".

There are basically two different reasons why people get stuck in the pain of divorce. First, their lives are so different from what they were before that they have a very difficult time accepting their new normal. Second, they are still reeling from the pain of their divorce.

If you’re struggling with the differences in your life now when you compare it to then, the best thing you can do is to work on acceptance.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that you have to approve of the way things are just that they’re the way they are. It just means you know things are the way they are and that you can change them.

The situation you’re in right now is just your starting point for creating the life you want to have – a life that’s full and meaningful and definitely not empty.

These two inspirational quotes may help you find the strength and courage to move forward from feeling your life is empty now that your marriage is over.

"Where there’s life, there’s hope." Publius Terentius Afer

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Wayne Dyer

If you believe your life is empty because you’re still reeling from the pain of your divorce, that’s OK.

Healing after divorce is difficult and lonely.

You can help yourself heal by getting proactive. Do everything you can think of to help yourself along. Some of what you might consider doing to help yourself heal include:

• Remember that grief is a normal part of divorce for most people and allow yourself to grieve – just don’t regularly throw yourself pity parties.
• What’s going on in the here and now is more important than what happened (or didn’t happen) in the past. So, don’t dwell on the past and focus as much as you can on today.
• You’ve lived through a lot of tough stuff with the end of your marriage and it’s easy to think that everything happened to you. But if that’s what you truly believe, then you’re only a victim. The surest way to heal and move on from feeling as if your life is empty after divorce is by shedding the victim mentality and figuring out how you can become victorious.
• Taking care of yourself and your needs can be difficult when you’re in so much misery and feeling utterly alone because of the end of your marriage, but it’s one of the best things you can do for yourself. Make sure you’re eating enough, getting enough sleep and doing a little exercise every day. Doing these little things will help you have the strength you need to heal.

Regardless of the reasons for you feeling that your life is empty after divorce, there’s one thing you’re already doing that is helping you to move forward. And that’s asking for help.

You found this article because you were searching the internet for help. Don’t let your search end with Google. Go to Amazon and find books. Ask your family and friends for help. You can even ask a helping professional for help too.

You can fill in the holes of your identity, your mind and the empty life you’re living now that you’re divorced. It’s probably not going to happen immediately and you’re going to have to work for it.

But you’ve just gotten some important information about the next steps you can take. Take the ones that make the most sense to you and change your life for the better.
You deserve it and you can do it..

Source: https://drkarenfinn.com/divorce-blog/life-after-divorce/446-my-life-is-empty-after-divorce-will-i-ever-feel-better

Personal Growth: Five Steps to Positive Life Change (And the Big Payoff!)

Ready to take the five steps to positive life change?

         

In my first post in this exploration of how we can produce meaningful and last life change, I described the four obstacles that prevent change. In my last post on this topic, I introduced you to the five building blocks of change. These steps I just described set the stage for change, but the real work lies ahead. Change can be scary, tiring, frustrating, and repetitious. And change takes time. How much?, you might ask. It depends on your ability to remove the four obstacles to change and embrace the five building blocks I discussed above. It also relies on your ability to commit to the minute-to-minute process of change. But I have found that when someone makes a deep commitment to change, they can expect to see a positive shift in 3-6 months.

With the foundation for positive life change now in place, it's time to take action. Here are the five steps you must take to turn possibility and hope into real change.

Explore Your Inner World

Perhaps the most difficult part of changing your life involves exploring your inner world. True change cannot just occur on the surface or outside of you. Change means not only understanding who you are, but also why you are who you are, in other words, what makes you tick. The first step you must take is to identify the obstacles that are preventing you from changing. You need to "look in the mirror" and specify what the baggage, habits, emotions, and environment are that are keeping you from your goals. Understanding these obstacles takes the mystery out of who you are and what has been holding you back. It also gives you clarity on what you need to change and gives you an initial direction in your path of change.

These explorations of your inner world can enable you to finally understand why you have been the way you have been and done things you have done even when neither have worked for you ("So that's why I've been this way all of my life!"). This process will also help you to remove the obstacles that have stood in your path to change. These insights also, at a deep level, liberate you to move from your current path to another that will take you where you really want to go. Most importantly, truly understanding your inner world will allow you to finally put the past behind you-when most of your life you have been putting your past in front of you.

Change Goals

Once the path to your goals has been cleared, you still need to have a clear idea about your final destination. Think of its like GPS; you can't get directions unless you input where you want to go.

When you establish clear objectives of the changes you want to make, you are able to better focus your efforts and direct your energy toward those changes. These goals should identify what areas you want to change, how you will change them, and the ultimate outcome you want to achieve. Moreover, the goals should be specific, objective, and time defined.

Action Steps

So far, everything you have done to change has been talk. Now it's time to actually make change happen. Action steps describe the particular actions you will take to achieve your change goals. They may range from adhering to an exercise regimen to maintaining emotional control in a crisis situation to staying focused when surrounded by distractions. Action steps give you the specific tools you need to act on the world in the present and to give you alternative actions that counter your old baggage, habits, emotions, and environment.

Forks in the Road

Taking the action steps and achieving your change goals depends on recognizing important forks in the road. I make the distinction between the bad road and the good road (there can actually be multiple bad and good roads, but let's keep things simple). The bad road is the one that you've been on for so long driven by the four obstacles I described above; it's a "feel bad, do bad" road. In contrast, the good road is the one you want to be on; it's a "feel good, do good" road.

This fork in the road is simple, but not easy. It's simple because you would, of course, want to be on the good road. It's not easy because you have years of baggage, habits, emotions, and environment continuing to propel you down the bad road.

A key to the change process involves recognizing the forks in the road when they appear because without seeing the forks in the road, you obviously can't take the good road, that is, makes positive changes. This awareness isn't as easy as it seems because all those years of obstacles has created a myopia that can limit your field of vision causing you to miss the forks when you come upon them.

In all likelihood, you will initially only recognize the forks when you are long past them ("Darn it, I wish I had seen that fork earlier!"). But, with time and vigilance, you will see those forks earlier and earlier until one day an amazing thing will happen; you will see the fork when you arrive at it.

Unfortunately, because of the Sirens' call of the four obstacles, you will still probably take the bad road at first. But, one day, another amazing thing will happen. You will recognize that fork in the road as you approach it and, yes, you will take it! And you will never be the same person again.

Don't get me wrong; you don't have it made yet. You'll have setbacks and struggles because you will still go down the bad road sometimes; those obstacles take time to dismantle. But every time you take the good road, you'll see what a great road it is to be on and it will encourage you to continue to resist your baggage, habits, emotions, and environment and to take the good road at the many forks that lay ahead.
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Three Ps
One of the most difficult aspects of change is the need to make a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and minute-to-minute commitment to change (Every time you miss an opportunity for change, you further ingrain your old obstacles). A helpful reminder of this necessity is what I call the Three Ps.

The first P, patience, is a constant reminder that change takes time and that if you maintain your commitment, you have a good chance to make the changes you want long lasting.

The second P, persistence, means you must keep vigilant and, as the saying goes, "keep on keeping on" in your journey to change.

The third P, perseverance, refers to your ability to overcome setbacks and maintain your motivation and confidence in the face of periodic failures and disappointment.

The Payoff

There is an immense payoff for your commitment and efforts at change: A life-altering shift in who you are and how you think, feel, and behave. A new direction that your life will take. And finally moving toward achieving your life goals. As a former client told me so poignantly: "I realized that I would never have to go back to the way I used to live my life, and I have never been so happy!"

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201201/personal-growth-five-steps-positive-life-change-and-the-big-payoff

Depression as a Starting Point for Change

It takes guts to admit to yourself that things aren’t going really well. It takes courage to talk to your nearest and dearest friends about the difficulties that you’re going through. There is certain stigma in society, built upon the foundation of an egotistical thinking, which implies that having problems — being depressed — is a sign of weakness.

Research shows that in America, the main cause of stress in a household is associated with stress at the workplace. Dealing with lousy managers, lazy coworkers, and being exposed to a pressurizing environment will undoubtedly start to take a toll on you.

The world, in this regard, can certainly share a similar sentiment: we’re living in the dark ages of economic and emotional stability, even equality for that matter.

Becoming an adult.

Although depression, anxiety, and social stigma exist during the period of adolescence, the aftermath starts to become visible only after a certain age, perhaps at a time in your life when you’re being exposed to a larger number of adults who are not only dealing with their own stresses, but manage to provoke difficult emotions within yourself; all of which are associated with the things that have happened to you in the past.

It takes a certain determination to switch depression off, to use it as a tool for growth, rather than a tool for self-sabotage.

The answer lies in the question.

It’s easy to numb your pain. It’s easy to go out for drinks, to cry about your problems and then forget about them momentarily. It’s easy to reinforce anger and sadness by rehashing the same experience in your mind a thousand times. It never did any good to me, so I can’t image it doing any good for anyone else. Numbing pain is not the answer for finding a solution as to why you’re depressed in the first place. If I learned anything from spending several years in lonely solitude, it’s this: the answers to your depressive behaviors and patterns lie within you, not somewhere in the external world.

When you prepare dinner for yourself, and your family, why did you do it? Was it because you love them, or because it’s something that needs to be done every single day as part of life? What if the core reason for doing it was the fact that humans need to feed their hunger, a quintessential part of the human life is to nourish the body with food. So, if you can find the core reason for needing food, can you not do the same for finding the ultimate reason for your depression?

Why am I depressed?

Just by asking a simple question, without judging yourself, it’s possible to hear the underlying reason for why you’re feeling a certain way. Whenever I’m going through a difficult time, that is my ultimate question to ask myself, because unless I do — I find myself drifting away deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of an endless loop that starts to creep up on my awareness as some sort of a hatred machine for everything around me.

What to do with the answer.

You might be wondering, what’s next? What comes next after getting the answer? It’s simple, what comes next is internal change in how you approach your depressive behaviors, fears and anxieties about anything in the external world. It’s unprecedented how many of us have become professional suppressors of our own emotions, yet all it takes is to bring awareness into that which is driving us crazy, and within that split moment things start to change immediately.

The ego begins to lose its grip over what has happened in the past, because you’re starting to actively seek a solution, you’re seeking the underlying root cause for the emotions that you’re feeling.

During my teenage years, I developed the habit of being a bully. I bullied people because it was “fun”, my close friends liked to do it as well, and I didn’t really know any better. Then a few years later, I found myself on the other side of the coin, and became a target for others to bully me. At that time, things like karma or cause and effect never crossed my mind, but now in my mid-20’s it is starting to make a lot more sense.

I had built this pitch-perfect picture in my mind of how another person should appear, and if he wasn’t living up to those insane standards I was in the position to condemn him for not having the same luxuries as I did, of which I had very little regardless.

Pain stores itself in your body, your subconscious.

Our past experiences shape our present moment, the more we hold on to those experiences the less we get to experience of that which is already here in this moment. The more difficult our past experiences, and the less we invest to resolve emotions associated with them, the less joyful becomes the present moment. It’s a time tested theory, yet we’re still learning to navigate this concept for the purpose of becoming a better version of ourselves. In society today, it’s hard to really take time for yourself to rejuvenate and heal, without having someone yell at the back of your mind that what you’re doing is stupid, and pointless.

The irony lies in the fact that whoever does condemn you, for your humble choice to change, is likely to be dealing with emotional pain himself. My life changed completely at the age of 20, my old life had ran its course and I began to dedicate myself to mindfulness and meditation as a daily thing. It took my parents 3 years to accept that things have changed in my life, it has taken some of my friends to this day to learn how to let go of a version of me that is no longer there.

Yet, such is the journey of life. We, you, have the choice as to whether we want to hold onto things, or learn from them — to accept the inevitable and push forward in a new direction.

Change will always start within.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-ivanovs/depression-as-a-starting_b_12742436.html?utm_hp_ref=emotional-wellness

The 5 Benefits of Being Optimistic

When running a business, as we all know, there will be difficult days, hard times and stressful periods. Although it’s not easy to spot the silver linings, having a positive attitude can help us push through rough patches.

Here are a few benefits optimism and positivity can bring, even in the face of adversity:

1. See failure as a new start.

Failure is not the end, in fact it is often the beginning of something great. When things are good, we coast along without making any quantum leaps. When things go bad, our world gets shaken up, which requires us to grow, see new things and start afresh.
Optimism allows us to learn from failures, pick up the pieces and move on to something greater. The greatest business ideas, and times in life, can be born from failure.

2. Be expansive.

Pessimism makes us contract and shy away from new or adventurous things. It causes us to fixate on the negative possibilities and be trapped by fear of failure.

Optimism, however, opens us up to new ideas, new experiences and new possibilities. It frees us up to consider new options and change our businesses, and lives, for the better. It helps us look to the future and create expansive, evolving realities.

3. Get healthy.

Dwelling on negativity isn’t healthy. Not only are optimists generally happier and less stressed, but also they tend to have healthier hearts.

In a study of more than 5,100 adults, researchers from the University of Illinois found that those who were the most optimistic were 76 percent more likely to have health scores in an ideal range. In addition, optimists had significantly better blood sugar and cholesterol levels, exercised more, and had healthier body mass indexes, and were less likely to smoke than pessimists.

Focusing on the positive, instead of the negative, improves mental well-being, which can motivate individuals to take better care of their bodies, as well.

4. Spread good vibes.

Optimism is contagious. Having an upbeat attitude can inspire everyone around us. A survey conducted by Gallup found that only 35 percent of U.S. managers are engaged in their jobs. This lack of engagement and its impact on employees costs the U.S. an estimated $77 billion to $96 billion each year.

Attitude is everything. Optimistic leaders can help motivate and engage their employees. A positive team will be driven to accomplish goals and work together to move things forward.

5. It is the best choice.

There is no better alternative to optimism. Pessimism doesn’t achieve much, and doesn’t have any benefits over optimism. Being optimistic obviously doesn’t mean seeing rainbows 24-7. Everything won’t always be great. But optimism helps us see new opportunities, learn from different situations, and keep moving.

In life, movement and growth is essential, which optimism helps us achieve.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246204

7 Divorce Mantras That Will Improve Your Life

You must change the way you relate to your ex, both in the real world, and in your head.

Going through a high-conflict divorce is like living with a chronic illness. There are periods of relative calm, followed by stretches of gut-twisting agony. Flare-ups consume you and peaceful moments make you wonder when the next bomb will be tossed.

When dealing with a high-conflict ex, the only thing that’s certain is that this person will not change. He is a drama addict, and to get his fix he will bad-mouth, cyber-bully, manipulate children, remain gainfully unemployed, perform feats of vanishing-income magic, threaten litigation, twist words, cast aspersions, steal your thunder, all while managing to convince the public he is Father Of The Year.

If, somehow, your ex were able to stop her shenanigans, she would have to deal with her own shortcomings. And what fun is that? She needs a target on which to project her sense of personal failure, and that target, unfortunately, is you.

Forever.

Now that you know your ex is not going to have an Aha Moment, and you will remain together till death do you part, you must examine your own actions and thought patterns that keep you engaged in a losing battle. You must change the way you relate to your ex, both in the real world, and in your head.

How you interact with your ex is a habit, and breaking any habit takes discipline. Set aside five minutes in the morning and before bed to meditate. You don’t need an altar and incense to do this. You just need to reflect on the things you can do to feel less crazy. You need to stop letting thoughts of your ex take up so much space in your head, and swap them out for empowering mantras. Read on for a sample of conscious intentions — and how practicing them can improve your life.

Detach yourself from the outcome

You can’t control your ex, his attorney, or the family court system. But you cancontrol your own actions, so be mindful of your thoughts and choices. Set intentions for what you need to do now — file a child support modification or e-mail your ex about therapy for your child — and don’t obsess about what will or won’t happen. White-knuckling your way to the future will take you out of the present and keep you from enjoying non-divorce-related activities.

Don't try to reason

High-conflict people aren’t reasonable. They only see their side of things. They have intense emotional reactions to minor situations. They lack healthy conflict resolution skills. Trying to “talk sense” into someone like this is like going to the hardware store repeatedly looking for milk — and then getting upset that there’s no milk to be found. You will feel much more grounded once you stop expecting a crazy person to act sane.

Act, don't react

Your high-conflict ex creates drama to keep you engaged. You know you’ve taken the bait when you catch yourself yelling, crying, cursing, or sending an invective-laded email. As tempting as it may be to retaliate, responding to your ex’s drama with your own drama will just invite more attacks. So stick to the facts when communicating. Deflect outbursts with “Nevertheless,” or “I understand.” You will never truly be divorced until you learn to manage your own emotional reactivity to your ex.

High conflict divorce, like life, isn't fair

Family courts deliver answers, not necessarily justice. Children sometimes align with a toxic parent. People you thought were your friends fall off the radar. You work a full-time job and live in an apartment while your gainfully unemployed ex lives in a mansion and is supported by a wealthy fiance who seems oblivious to her shenanigans. Wallowing in bitterness and resentment won’t change your circumstances. Accept that suffering is part of life and try to shift your focus to what’s going your way.

My children deserve a relationship with my ex

No matter how you feel about your former spouse, your children still deserve to love and be loved by their other parent. Unless your ex is truly unfit, you need to support your kids’ relationship with him. Trying to change your ex’s parenting style is futile and interfering with the bond between him and your children is unfair to your kids. Focus on your own parenting: is there anything you need to change? Develop patience? Improve time management? Set better limits? Have fun? Stop trying to control your ex, or worrying that your kids love him more, and work on yourself instead.

You probably are not the stupid, crazy, incompetent person your ex says you are, so stop taking what he says personally. Remember: high-conflict people are always looking for someone to blame and you are a convenient target. He is likely spouting off as a way to defend against the shame of divorce, or to project his unowned sense of inadequacy on to you. What he thinks of you is about him, and you can’t change it anyway, so get on with your life.

Source: https://goodmenproject.com/divorce/7-divorce-mantras-will-improve-life-wcz/

Divorce Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me

My daughter runs in a field of dandelions as the ferry we just missed lurches out onto the water. I unwrap a warm piece of flatbread pizza, rip it into chunks and yell, “Lunch!” We spend two carefree hours playing and making priceless memories as we wait for the next ferry to take us to Vinalhaven, Maine. Having small adventures like this one has become our new weekend routine. It’s just one of the new things I love to do now that I’m single.

Two years ago, my life looked a lot different. I was married to my husband of five years and expecting my daughter. A few weeks after I gave birth, I discovered that my husband was having an affair. He said it was purely an emotional one, but the revelation ultimately uncovered a tangle of lies and infidelities. It ultimately led to our divorce.

Yes, my life blew up. But amazingly, it then came back together and improved in ways I never could have predicted. In the two years since I left my husband, I improved my credit score by a hundred points, qualified for my first mortgage, bought my first house and decreased my debt by 80%. I wrote and sold a book to a major publisher. I’ve spent more quality time with my family and friends these last two years than in the previous 10 combined. And I booked a trip with my daughter, our first vacation together, without consulting anyone. All of the energy I used to funnel into my partner I now invest in myself and my child.

All of this compels me to ask: Is being coupled truly beneficial to both parties? Or do long-term, monogamous, heterosexual relationships actually bring down the female partner?
A hundred years ago, women had to marry in order to function in society. In fact, a woman wasn’t even considered her own person in the eyes of the law — she was just a subset of her husband. Unmarried women stayed on the fringes, isolated and scorned. In the U.S., women could be barred from opening bank accounts, owning land and securing mortgages without the help of their husbands — and up until the 1970s, we could still be prevented from getting credit cards independent of a partner.

But I’ve seen firsthand that the bulk of the work still seems in marriages still seems to fall on the woman — even in relationships where couples agreed to split domestic duties. Their houses are clean, food shopped for and cooked, clothes laundered and kids cared for. And, in many marriages, the female partner contributes equally to the household finances — and more and more married women are actually the primary breadwinners in their families. In fact, in my own marriage, I invested a substantial amount of my savings into my husband’s dream of owning a restaurant. I realized later that if I still had that money, I’d be in a much better position to pursue my own dream: a graduate degree in psychology.

The reasons for entering a union are no longer necessarily monetary, because women can now gain financial independence through their own livelihoods. Nor are they necessarily biological, since reproductive technology allows women to become mothers by choice. Single women are buying homes at twice the rate of single men and have emerged as an influential voting bloc, proving our power. We can create the lives we want on our own.

So why is finding a partner something women still strive for? Why is coupling up still idealized in movies, books, songs and magazines? Why are our parents still teaching us that marriage is an essential part of adulthood? Why do we still look askance at a single woman of a certain age, wondering silently if there’s something wrong with her?

Maybe everything is right with her. Maybe her fairytale ending didn’t involve a prince charming. Maybe she’s moving around with agency, thinking: I am creating this life on my own terms. I don’t need a partner to complete me. I am already whole.

Of course, there are certain harsh realities for single women households, and disproportionately so for women of color. Black and Hispanic single female heads of households are more likely to live in poverty than their Asian and white peers. And black and Hispanic women are paid substantially less than white men, meaning that it can often be difficult to live on a single salary.

In my own life, I was fortunate enough that I had the support to strike out on my own. I was able to move in with my parents for the first months of my daughter’s life. I was terrified. Eventually though, as my daughter grew out of the colicky newborn phase and we moved into our own place, I started to trust myself. I didn’t always make perfect parenting decisions, but I made the best calls I could on a day-to-day basis — and I learned to be OK with that. It wasn’t until I was forced into single parenthood that I realized raising my daughter alone had been an option all along. It didn’t even occur to me that doing it on my own could be financially and practically easier — and even more emotionally fulfilling.

I want nothing more than to pass on this idea of self-reliance to my daughter. I will tell her to trust her gut. I’ll teach my daughter that there’s no right or wrong way to grow into herself, as long as she stays open to learning and changing and striving to make healthy choices. That there’s a difference between being kind and being so accommodating that you sacrifice your own needs. I’ll teach her that she’s whole, with or without a partner.

It’s been two years since my divorce, and I’m still reveling in my newfound freedom and close bond with my daughter. Two nights ago, as the temperature climbed to a sweltering 90 degrees, we turned the fan on high, put on Christmas music (her favorite, no matter the season) and danced around the house. I know that someday I may decide to seek out an equal and fulfilling partnership. Right now, though, I can’t imagine adding a third party to the mix.

Source: http://motto.time.com/4871839/divorce-financial-lessons/?iid=sr-link1

The Gift of Adversity

How often have you heard people say, after sustaining a major trauma, “It was terrible at the time, but it turned out for the best?” Can this really be true, or are they kidding themselves? Was it really a change for the better or just a rationalization to make them feel better?

What got me thinking along these lines was a decision to write a collection of stories about lessons I had learned from events in my life and in the lives of others I have known. On reflection, I realized that my most valuable lessons arose from difficulties and setbacks I had to confront, and imperfections I had to accept. Paradoxically, these adversities yielded unexpected gifts.

Before going any farther, I should emphasize the obvious: Adversity is in many ways undesirable — like when dog bites man. At its worst, adversity can be paralyzing, disabling or even fatal. On the other hand, it is interesting to consider what Shakespeare called the sweet uses of adversity, comparing them to the precious jewel in the head of an ugly and venomous toad. Nietzsche agreed, famously declaring that, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Such observations led me to my latest book, The Gift of Adversity.

But anecdotes aside, was Nietzsche right? What does science have to say about the matter? In 2004, Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence G. Calhoun of the University of North Carolina Charlotte defined a concept they called posttraumatic growth (PTG). They write that, “the frightening and confusing aftermath of trauma, where fundamental assumptions are severely challenged, can be fertile ground for unexpected outcomes that can be observed in survivors.”

I can personally attest to the accuracy of their statement. Here is a description of how I felt, after I was stabbed, nearly to death.

As I recovered physically, a new urgency stirred inside me, or rather, it felt as though something entered me from the outside — a force, a power, a drive — that directed me to create, produce and reproduce. I was like someone swept along in the thrall of a post hypnotic suggestion. My senses were heightened for everything, including a powerful sense of time passing. I had enormous appreciation for being alive. I felt I had to do things with my life — and quickly. I could relate to people who feel as though they have been born again.

Apparently this type of change is common, and Tedeschi and Calhoun emphasize that PTG is “a consequence of attempts to re-establish some useful basic cognitive guides for living.” The field of PTG is part of the exciting new discipline of positive psychology in which researchers and clinicians strive to understand how to boost psychological health and happiness, not simply to reverse sorrow and distress.

Psychologist Mark Seery and colleagues analyzed data from a national survey and concluded that, “a history of some lifetime adversity predicted better mental health and psychological well-being than did a history of no adversity or high adversity.” Seery’s group followed up with a prospective study in which they assessed past history of adversity in 147 participants and then gave them two challenge tests: one negative — having them plunge hands into ice cold water — and one positive — giving them an intelligence test. As with their earlier survey findings, the researchers observed that those people with intermediate histories of adversity showed more resilience on both tests than those at either extreme of the spectrum (no adversity or a high degree of adversity).

Such findings may lead us to conclude that Nietzsche was only partially correct, though it hardly improves the epigram to say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger — unless it almost kills you.”

Studies like those of Seery and colleagues are undoubtedly important, but because they are confined to the laboratory and span just a short period, they probably underestimate the transformative powers of adversity — how hardship toughens us, deepens our understanding of life and of ourselves and, in the end, leaves us with hard-earned wisdom — the bittersweet fruit of adversity. It is that type of transformation that I have sought to capture and communicate in my new book The Gift of Adversity.

Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D. is clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School. Besides The Gift of Adversity, he has written the New York Times best-seller Transcendence, and Winter Blues. He maintains a website at www.normanrosenthal.com.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-e-rosenthal-md/overcoming-adversity_b_3779880.html