How To Use Adversity To Grow

It is human nature to want to spend our time and energy getting what we want and trying to avoiding what we don’t want, right?

The problem is that inevitably we all get hit with some sort of tragedy or adversity that can make you feel like you’re out of control and at the mercy of a hostile world.

Bad Things Happen

Unfortunately, bad things do happen to good people.

Certainly, when catastrophe hits or you’re disappointed because a dream didn’t come true, the last thing you want is someone trying to get you to “see the growth opportunity” in the loss, disappointment or unsolved problem.

What we all need first when we’re in the middle of a crisis is the kindness of someone who cares and listens without judgement.

We just need compassion, love, and acceptance when we’re hurting, scared or angry.

Feel Your Feelings

Most importantly you need to let yourself feel your feelings.

Only when you allow yourself to feel your emotions, will true healing start to happen.

Once you’ve allowed the heavy emotions to move through you and get released, you will become lighter and hopefully more open to some meaning and growth from the experience.

The problem is when faced with adversity, many people tend to fall into victim mode feeling victimized by life.

However it is possible to get out of the victim mode by examining adversity for possible learning and growth.

Find Meaning in Everything

Get out of being in the victim mode by asking yourself good questions:

What lessons could you learn from this setback, this mistake, this horrible thing that happened to me?

If you are the script writer and director of the movie of your life, why did you write this situation into your movie script?

How are you growing here from dealing with this adversity?

Spiritual Avoidance

This is not to suggest that you use these questions to skip feeling what you are feeling.If someone close to you dies and you go straight to “How am I growing here?” without grieving the loss, you’re probably in spiritual avoidance.

But asking yourself how you might be growing while you grieve can expedite the healing process.

Shift Your Perspective

We can never fully understand why things happen the way they do.

But when you shift how you perceive what happened, you realize that it’s possible to find meaning in even the seemingly meaningless events in our life.

You can apply this practice whenever you find yourself spiraling into an ongoing victim story.

Get Perspective

Sometimes it is very hard to get this perspective on your own.  I know I have my own life coach to help me with perspective.

As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

So if you need some perspective on something you are dealing with I’d love to help!

Click here to sign up for a complimentary clarity session.