How do you cope in the face of adversity? When life throws unpredicted challenges in your direction?
The past week has definitely been “one of those” weeks where this has been the case for us. Let us fill you in - first Murphy – the most lively puppy in the world had ‘the’ operation, meaning he needed to be on cage rest for a week – not easy for any of us. Then on a 200 mile trip to see family, the car breaks down, obviously on a junction on a motorway! And yes, the repairs are going to take weeks and the bill makes your eyes water. Next, we needed to work out how to get home minus the car. Follow that with one of us feeling ill throughout and that turning out to be Shingles. Yep, quite the week! Hence we felt the need to discuss managing adversity and challenge!
How do you cope when you feel completely out of control? For example sitting on a junction of a motorway in a broken down car - there were moments of “freeze”, moments of shock, before the need to be practical kicked in and we got “doing.” There was definitely something about not being alone and working alongside someone to overcome a shared problem.
What do we learn from this – because we always learn something in adversity, right? We learn that in the moment it is about getting through, identifying priorities and addressing those, and hanging in there. If you can share the load then do, and some days survival is good enough.
But beyond that it is also about learning when to “stop doing” because when we are in the midst of challenge it can be tempting to keep acting, keep going and not stopping to think. But, hey guess why one of us got sick, because our body became so run down from all the “doing.” So finding the balance is essential.
‘Lower the bar’ is my moto in that. If you are exhausted – rest. Allow yourself…I think the problem is *that* default setting, if you have known trauma, the default is to put your head down and carry on; stopping and thinking is DANGEROUS. When, sorry, in my eyes the reverse is true – you can only really rest in the stopping, they go hand in hand.
Resting is not dangerous, it is the fear of stopping; because stopping equals thinking usually! Ouch. Stopping also brings with it a huge surge of guilt (back to that default position) – multiply that by YEARS!!! You have always ‘just carried on’, there comes a point where that’s not okay anymore.
You undoubtedly “””learned””” from the trauma you endured never to ask for help, never to appear ‘vulnerable’ to another – because it’s that vulnerability that puts you at risk…BUT, unless we had taught ourselves car mechanics whilst sat on that junction on YouTube (if we’d have had the signal eh!) we HAD to ask for help. There is no ‘shame’ in that! That’s why the RAC exists!!!
But that ‘not asking for help’ bit is about trust too; in trauma, *as a result of trauma* – how do you allow yourself to trust again? Gradually. There is no other way, look for clues, look for consistency…but “just notice” your responses, your reactions…did we want to call out the RAC? Nop. Did we have to? YES! In trusting RAC Nigel our situation improved! We had no other option, we had to trust and that was what got us out of dire straits!
How do we reverse adversity? Can we take a moment to reflect on what has happened when we are through the crisis period and see where we can learn for ourselves, or for others. Look at what we do here, take our lives, reflect and share what we learn. That is what Transcend Trauma is all about; reflecting what we have learned through the challenges we experience in life and the responses to trauma and advocating for change as a result. That is reversing adversity, using it for a better outcome.
If reversing adversity is spiking your interest, then we can highly recommend Carolyn Spring’s book “Recovery is my Best Revenge” along with her website carolynspring.com where she has a range of resources designed to help reverse adversity.
Add comment
Comments