Why We Can’t Escape Adversity
Hurricanes, earthquakes, economic downturns, illness, injury, death: no matter who we are, where we live, and how many material goods we have, adversity is a fact of life.
Adversity ranges from everyday frustrations like a terrible commute and a bad boss or demanding teachers, to life-changing events such as natural disasters, serious illnesses or bad accidents. Even the most fortunate people will lose friends and family members in the fullness of time.
If adversity can’t be avoided or controlled, what can we do? While weather, politics, the economy, and illness might be out of our control, what we can work on is our mental strength and resilience. By mastering coping skills and cultivating optimism, you can be better prepared to weather anything the world throws at you.
Of course, looking after common-sense practical matters, such as keeping a nest egg and making sure your insurance is up-to-date, doesn’t hurt either.
What Happens when You Accept that You Can’t Control Everything
Worries are a natural part of life. Everyone worries and, in fact, the worry mechanism can serve a useful function if it spurs action.
For example, it’s good to worry about an unusual smell of gas in your house, or about the bear-like sounds coming from a nearby cave on a spring hike. When you call the gas company, or move away from the cave, you are taking sensible measures to keep yourself safe.
However, most of the time, we worry about things that we can’t control. For example, on a plane it’s common to worry about the plane hitting turbulence. However, unless you are the pilot, there’s nothing at all you could do about it. Instead, your worries use mental energy that you could be spending on work, learning, or just relaxing and enjoying the view.
Negative Thought Patterns
When you become preoccupied with turning over “what-ifs” and worst-case scenarios, worry itself becomes the issue. Worry can be overwhelming, even paralyzing. Here are several common patterns that negative thinking falls into:
- Exaggerating or minimizing events
- Jumping to conclusions before the evidence is in
- Catastrophizing, or focusing on the most negative outcome possible
- Disregarding important facts about a situation
- Oversimplifying – sorting events and beliefs into simple, black-and-white categories like right/wrong, good/bad
- Overgeneralizing from one event
- Mind reading – assuming other people are thinking badly of you, without evidence
- Emotional reasoning – drawing conclusions based on feelings, rather than facts
Rather than being helpful, all these thinking patterns make adversity worse by adding stress, draining your energy, and blocking your view of real, practical steps you could take to solve your problems. Persistent negative thoughts can also create new problems out of nothing.
Gaining Control over Negative Thoughts
Instead, by recognizing and accepting that you can’t control everything, you gain new skills to better manage the one thing you do have control over: yourself. Ironically, to gain mastery over your thoughts, the first step is to realize you can’t control them — you can only control your reaction to them.
Simple meditation exercises, such as working on keeping focus on the breath for five minutes, help train the brain to choose what to focus on.
For example, when twelve young Thai soccer players and their coach became trapped in a cave in summer 2018, the world held its breath waiting for their rescue. Inside the cave, however, the boys were doing the opposite: under the guidance of their coach, a former Buddhist monk, they were practicing breathing exercises and mindfulness. This practice helped keep the boys calm throughout their ordeal. Why?
The practice of meditation and mindfulness can help ground the practitioner in the moment and release negative thoughts and emotions. Even in an objectively bad situation like being trapped in a cave, our thoughts and fears can shape our experience.
By learning to let go of negative thoughts, meditators are better prepared to face the world objectively and effectively. In fact, experienced meditators may even have more brain power with which to solve their problems.
A 2005 study by Harvard researchers showed that experienced meditators (averaging 40 minutes of meditation per day) had changes in their brain structure that offset the changes associated with aging. In other words, 50-year-old meditators had the brains of 25-year-olds.
Link for more information – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/
In a follow-up study, the researchers had people with no meditation experience embark on an eight-week program. They found that in just eight weeks, participants increased the grey matter in brain regions associated with learning and memory, emotional regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.
Mindfulness practice is a powerful way to seize control over your thought patterns, let go of things you cannot control, and free up mental energy to help solve your problems.
Link to follow-up study – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004979/
If you are interested in learning meditation, there are many online programs and apps you can use on your phone. In-person meditation training can be found at yoga studios and even community centers.
Adjusting Your Perspective
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the title character reflects that, “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Keep in mind that at this point in the story, Hamlet’s father has been murdered by his uncle, who has married his mother. And yet, despite this objectively bad set of events, Hamlet is still able to see that our thoughts change how we experience the world.
Several hundred years later, scientific research is catching up with Hamlet’s insight. Current research suggests that optimism and pessimism are explanatory styles.
Link for more information – https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/positive-thinking/
Explanatory styles are the storytelling tools people use to make sense of events. People frame the stories they tell themselves using three questions:
1. Did it happen because of me (internal) or someone/something else (external)?
2. Will this always happen to me (stable) or can I change what caused it (unstable)?
3. Does this affect everything about my life (pervasive) or is this just the one event (limited)?
Optimists tend to view problems as external, unstable, and limited, while pessimists view them as internal, stable and pervasive. These world views have profound implications. Pessimism is associated with serious mental and physical problems, while optimism seems to confer multiple health benefits.
Fortunately, an optimistic explanatory style can be cultivated. Even when bad things are happening, you can retrain your brain by working hard to rewrite the stories you tell yourself. Psychologist Martin Segelman has written a book, Learned Optimism, that details strategies you can use to start retraining your brain. The non-profit website Pursuit of Happiness also contains scientific references and tools to help you start building a more positive world view.
As a first step, begin by starting a daily gratitude practice. Each day, write down three things you are grateful for, however small. This small step will start to shift your perspective to the positive.
Prioritizing and Setting Goals
When you are faced with adversity, firstly make sure your basic needs are taken care of, and then take some time to set realistic goals to help improve your situation.
Step One – Take Care of the Basics
In 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow proposed a theory of human motivation. He proposed that humans have five levels of needs, arranged in a pyramid. Until the bottom (biggest) needs are fulfilled, we can’t progress to the next level.
The levels are: physiological (basic bodily needs, such as food, water, and air); safety (shelter, clothing); belonging and love; esteem; and self-actualization. The ultimate goal is self-actualization, but if any needs of the lower levels aren’t met, they will take priority. During times of adversity, this pyramid is a helpful way to start prioritizing goals.
Regardless of the situation, your most basic needs must be taken care of first. Clean water, food and breathable air are closely followed by clothing and shelter. In a natural disaster, these things must be secured first.
These needs, both in yourself and in your family, can also become urgent in times of illness or accident. No matter what, the kids need dinner, the dog must be let out, and the rent/mortgage needs to be paid. No matter what is going on, a plan for looking after these basics should be put together first.
To do this, you may need to lean on friends, family, and even community organizations. Asking for help can be difficult, but it’s also brave. Ask for the help you need and be ready to give back once your crisis resolves.
Step Two – Manage Your Energy
The “Spoon Theory” is a story developed by writer and activist Christine Miserandino to help explain what it’s like to live with a chronic illness or disability.
To help explain to a friend the reality of living with a chronic illness, Christine handed her friend a handful of spoons, representing the day’s finite store of energy. She asked her friend to list off basic daily activities (waking up, showering, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and so on), and for each task, she took away one or more spoons.
Soon, the spoons ran low, and her friend had to make hard choices about how to spend her time for the rest of the day. This metaphor helped to show her friend the difficult trade-offs needed in dealing with illness.
The spoon theory is one way to help explain to friends, family and colleagues what you are going through when you are facing adversity. Dealing with a crisis is energy-intensive, especially if it’s a long-term issue. As difficult as it may be, being realistic about the energy you have to spend each day will help you prioritize and set appropriate goals.
Step Three – Set Your Goals
As poet Robbie Burns says, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” Adversity can reshape our lives, close avenues we were pursuing, and alter our abilities in ways that put our dreams out of reach. How, then, to set new goals?
1 – It’s important to gather a realistic idea of where you are now, without exaggerating the negatives or minimizing the difficulties. If you struggle with negative thought patterns, you may need the help of a therapist or life coach to help you draw an accurate picture.
2 – Next, allow yourself to feel your emotions around where you are. You may experience grief, anger, and a sense of loss. That’s ok. Denying or minimizing your emotions doesn’t make them go away, only feeling them and then letting them go will free you to move on in your life.
3 – Gauge what’s most important to you in life. Achievement? Helping others? Family? Learning how to finally relax and smell the flowers? There are no right answers — this is personal to you.
4 – Create a SMART goal to bring you closer to that which you value most. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. Larger goals may require many, smaller sub-goals to achieve.
5 – Now the hard part starts: working consistently and persistently toward your goal, even if you are moving millimeters at a time.
You may no longer be aiming at your original destination, but it’s OK to change goals; the important thing is to have one.
For example, when Stephanie Buxhoeveden was in graduate school, she was overcome with a strange numbness that prevented her from continuing her training in Nurse Anesthesia.
Instead, rocked by a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, she shifted her training to become a neurology nurse practitioner and founder of Just Keep S’Myelin, a website with information for MS patients. Stephanie explained how adversity changed her life goals in a 2015 TEDx talk.
Getting External Support
No matter what kind of adversity you are facing, getting help from an objective source can be tremendously useful. Here are some supports you may consider.
Life Coach
Life coaches can help you set goals and develop action plans to achieve those goals. They can also help you identify issues in your past that may be holding you back, and give you tools to help change unhealthy or unproductive patterns. To find a life coach near you, look for professionals certified by the International Coach Federation.
Professional Support
If you need career help, there are numerous places to look. First, think about your own network. Is there someone you trust and admire that you can go to for advice?
Many companies and professional organizations have formal mentoring programs that you can join. Industry-specific organizations, conferences and meetups are a great way to meet others in your industry and expand your network.
If you are at an earlier stage in your career, many community organizations have job skills and networking events. Check with your local community centers and libraries for resources. Colleges and universities also have job search and career programs available for alumni and the public.
Support for Medical Problems
A major health crisis can affect your entire life. It’s important to get help and advice from people who know what you have been through. Your doctor may be able to connect you with local groups that offer support for people with your illness or disability.
If there is nothing in your area, online support can be very helpful as well. You may also find it beneficial to talk with a therapist or life coach to work through your emotions around your diagnosis, and to help you build realistic plans for the future.
In addition to your doctor, there are other medical specialties that may be helpful in a health crisis. Depending on your illness, you may benefit from talking with a dietician, physiotherapist, osteopath, audiologist, massage therapist, or other professionals. Ask your doctor if there any other medical specialists who you should meet with.
If you are a caregiver to someone who is sick, it’s important to take care of yourself as well. Many groups exist to offer support to caregivers. Be sure to talk to your doctor about ways you can take care of yourself, as well as the person you are caring for.
Financial Support
Financial adversity can come on its own (through loss of a job, bankruptcy, or failed investments), or it can come alongside other forms of adversity such as an illness or injury that prevents work, or a natural disaster that ruins a place of business.
Whatever the cause, difficult financial times are profoundly stressful. Support for financial problems can be found through a variety of non-profit organizations. The best way to connect with organizations in your area is to start at your local library.
In addition to listings of local resources, libraries offer free workshops on job searching and other career topics, financial workshops, free internet access, and free entertainment (not just books, either; most libraries offer music, movies and more, and even let you stream to your devices).
Many libraries also offer digital and physical tools, including spaces to record media, access to specialized software, and even tools such as laser cutters or sewing machines. These tools can help you complete personal projects, or even start a business.
Spiritual Guidance
During times of adversity, many people find comfort in their faith. If you are religious but haven’t recently been engaged with your church, temple, synagogue or mosque, consider reconnecting with your faith and leaning on your community for help in crisis.
If you are not religious, there is still comfort to be found in secular philosophy. Humans have grappled with questions about our role in the universe, the nature of suffering, and how to find meaning for as long as we have had the ability to communicate.
You may find comfort in reading works of philosophy and literature that address these questions. Your local library can help with suggestions.
Turning Something Negative into a Positive
The world is full of clichés about how to turn around adversity. When you are going through a difficult time, hearing something like, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” or, “Every cloud has a silver lining” is not always helpful.
Adversity can be hard, and painful, and it is OK to grieve and mourn your losses. It takes time to process your emotions around a negative event. However, after the initial grief has worn off, it is important to start looking around for the positives.
Here are a few tips for reframing your world view:
1 – Practice gratitude. Think about things that you are grateful for, that you value, and that you love. By reflecting on the good, it helps diminish the power of the bad to affect your mood.
2 – Focus on others. Volunteer, give back, and find ways to help others. Focusing on someone else instead of yourself has the effect, ironically enough, of improving your own mood.
Link for more information – http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721412469809?ssource=mfr&rss=1
3 – Use your skills for a higher good. Adversity is a stern teacher, but through your experiences, you have gained skills and strengths. Research shows that the greatest happiness comes from using one’s strengths to work toward a higher value. Find ways to work toward something you find meaningful, and you just might find happiness along the way.
Link for more information – https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/martin-seligman-psychology/
The Authentic Happiness project at the University of Pennsylvania has a number of resources and tools to help you work on developing optimism, gratitude, and happiness, as does the Pursuit of Happiness organization mentioned previously.
Living with gratitude, positivity and kindness after adversity isn’t easy, but it’s a path to a truly meaningful, happy life. And that is everyone’s ultimate goal.
