Life is a paradox and pain is a teacher...Transcendence never stop growing... It is the pain, challenges, that make the beauty so beautiful to are tearful eyes.... May a open heart grow for a lifetime and beyond . Make me think of the trees, mighty ponderosas some with scars, broken branches, maybe there not a straight as the one next to it but continue to grow they do for they search for transcendence, wisdom amidst the ocean skies , grounded in their root they bring back stories to share to us amongst this earth for wisdom seeker they are amidst the ever changing storms they continue to grow in search of it...
Years ago, I stumbled across an online lecture by James Gordon, MD on post-traumatic growth. It was extraordinary in its perspective on the expansion of your heart space after grieving for so long. It seems they are both sides of the same coin. You learn to sit with the discomfort until it passes like the weather allowing yourself to grieve the person you used to be. David Kessler is another great author that guides people through difficult emotions. Trauma changes you. Processing these deeply to integrate and emerge as a new “you” can take years…I know it did for me! There was a before-Kate and after-Kate from trauma at ages 14-17. I am 39 and I am still learning how to navigate and reconcile this.
In his theory of positive disintegration, Kasimierz Dabrowski states that he observed different ways to deal with trauma. He lived through both world wars and saw people that just brushed off what they experienced during the war. He also saw people who broke over the same experiences.
But then, there was the third group. They at first seemed to break as well, but then emerged like the phoenix from the flames, totally changed, in a better place.
He studied this growth after trauma for years and found several preconditions. These seemed to be disheartening for most people at first, but then he added another way to find success.
In most individuals he observed, innate traits had given them the ability to leave behind trauma and, through what he called positive disintegration, emerge on the other side. Those traits he called overexcitabilities. An overexcitability is the mechanism that lets people react with a firework when they are met with a small trigger. There are originally five, now six overexcitabilities: intellectual, imaginative, emotional, sensorial, physical, and spiritual. Let's call these intensities.
But those are not enough. One also needs (and here I add new research about intelligence, as Dabrowski only added intellectual intelligence or IQ) the corresponding intelligences. Let's call these complexities.
Dabrowski found that especially combinations of these three intensities and complexities allowed for positive disintegration: intellectual, imaginative, and emotional. He called that a person's developmental capability.
People with high developmental capability were able to learn and grow from trauma. But (and here is the relief for most of us), people in developmentally friendly environments were too.
He found that traditional psychology and psychiatry aims at integrating people back into society, and not at them growing from trauma. Society with its expectations toward individuals and innate needs and basic thrives of the individual build a balanced system of compromise we call "normal". But they also prevent exactly this type of growth with their centripetal force.
We need the centrifugal force of developmental capacity to leave living as is expected from us to become self-authoring people. Or we need a friendly environment that, with its positive expectations, emphasizes on such growth after trauma.
Glad to see that some people are waking up to this.
Your comment resonates with me, Ralph. Thank you for sharing. I am reminded of the book about orchids and dandelion children. Those same traits we carry throughout adulthood. In the right environment, and orchid can not only blossom, but thrive! What a beautiful flower it is, too. Dandelions are so whimsical, popping up through the cracks of concrete. Resilient buggers. It takes all kinds and individual approaches to processing life’s ups and downs are so important!
I've loved this article so much and it resonates so deeply. I've grown most from the most painful moments of my life. It also resonated because it so happens my research and my whole work is in the space of psychological 'growth pains' and I have found they are crucial to our life-long growth. Here's a bit of the science of what makes 'growth pains' so important and how we can purposefully transform our moments of breakdown into steps towards breakthrough: https://www.verticaldevelopment.education/p/the-way-out-is-through-contrasting-emotions-vertical-development
Wow… these lines really opened my eyes. So many things suddenly get clear… I‘ll have to read it several times and think about it. I‘ll definitely get the book! I want to know more because there are several things in my life and on my horizon that might get much clearer then. Thank you for recommending it!
That is so, so beautiful and poignant. I've kind of had mini-realizations similar to this in my mid-to-late teens when some of the family difficulties that I was experiencing during my childhood were about to hit their climax.
The section that hit me the hardest in the post was: "There were tears and moments spent writhing on the floor, but you got up, had breakfast, and went to work anyway. You witnessed the warrior within yourself. The valor. And you carried on. Your hair grayed, but you grew."
I definitely had moments where I was listening to music and writing on the floor crying in the unpredictable nature of the situation, but somehow, I got up and went to school the next day, as if nothing had happened. Thankfully, there were kind souls that I could share the difficulties with at the time and they helped me through the situation.
And I also had a personal moment of growth relating to this quote: "Most of all, post-traumatic growth leads to compassion. Because you’ve seen and experienced pain, your heart has stretched. Its capacity for love is greater, and its desire to help others is stronger."
Reading this felt like meditation to me, a reflection on ‘self.’ It also sparked a reminder to take notice of my compassion reserves, to save even a small bit for myself when I typically feel much more urgently compelled to help others through my work.
I have mixed feelings about this. I would say that instead of celebrating difficulty and trauma as crucibles for growth, maybe the important thing is to have radical acceptance that life contains these horrible painful times. And we are not all alike in our responses to grief, trauma, and pain. I feel like a warrior when I'm actively managing a terrible situation, but I sure don't when I have a moment to breathe. I feel broken and depleted and sometimes changed in a negative way. Life has made me wiser, yes, but it has also made me guarded and less open.
Here's some pix of Redbuds in bloom from last year!
(I found them after seeing something from you saying you'd like to see some pix of them -- but by the time I found them, I had lost the place you asked from.)
I want to know at what point does the emotional growing pain becomes a mental health disorder like depression. Like how much pain should we endure , till we decide it's time to take it easy in life.
In India also we grow up with this thought , but now the younger generation is now learning from the west to take life a little easy - I mean not the part of advocating numbness or distractions ( although that is also becoming a part of our culture ), and of course there is some pain we cannot avoid , but the habit of deliberately putting ourselves in painful situations ( thinking we will gain from it ) has actually not helped us.
Also, Personally I think , being able to get out stronger out of a trauma or a painful situation comes in the hands of privileged people, not everyone is able to grow out of it.
But I can be wrong - and maybe I need to look at this from a different angle.
Hey ! I hope this comment did not cause you any pain ( referring to your post on having thick skin ). I really didn't mean to give any feedback or anything - I don't know much about the topic but I have some opinions and I'm not sure how valid they are - but I wanted to share and ask.
I'm sorry if this comment was hurtful - definitely not what I intended.
Oh my goodness Sanya, not in the SLIGHTEST. I promise it had nothing to do with you or with any other Quiet Life member, as it happens! I'm sorry you had even a moment of concern about this.
What a wonderful passage from Emma Seppälä's SOVEREIGN. Thanks so much, Susan -- wow.
Yes. Yes, indeed. Growing pains do roll right on, life-long. 'Tis so, yet given the culture of my early years, it took me four decades even to glimpse this empowering perspective on life's roller-coasters. Thank goodness (I mean Goodness itself) for my continuing to absorb and accept how true-true-true it is. A time or two, I longed to leave life. Still here, though, amid the jabs of growth.
Nifty, since there is no end to the inevitable rocks in my path. Some are permanent fixtures, too. Part of Being Me includes all persistent wounds and scars.
In my mid-sixties over a decade ago, I found a fine lay-buddhist philosophy and community. They keep me practising ways to relax in each moment so that, with alertness, old-fashioned pluck, and good humour, I may greet any obstacle with a grimace, a ponder, a grin, and the sovereign spirit's motto: "Okay -- just bring it on! This is life unfolding."
Simply put, our inner sovereign knows in her bones that "So it goes." – a rueful mantra uttered every chance he got by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. For me, 'So It Goes' too sums up a sorrowful yet sane clear-eyed outlook and in-look. It's ready to energise my latent courage to carry on. Still becoming my own cheerleader: Yep: “Here it comes, so bring it on, dear Universe. We've GOT this! Let's 'turn poison into good medicine.'”
For some of us, "post traumatic" is by far the most frequently followed by "stress disorder".
I'm happy for those who made it through trauma stronger, but we should not only "rah rah" them: We should also remember those who just weren't able to withstand it w/o major psychological injury.
Life is a paradox and pain is a teacher...Transcendence never stop growing... It is the pain, challenges, that make the beauty so beautiful to are tearful eyes.... May a open heart grow for a lifetime and beyond . Make me think of the trees, mighty ponderosas some with scars, broken branches, maybe there not a straight as the one next to it but continue to grow they do for they search for transcendence, wisdom amidst the ocean skies , grounded in their root they bring back stories to share to us amongst this earth for wisdom seeker they are amidst the ever changing storms they continue to grow in search of it...
I love this.
Years ago, I stumbled across an online lecture by James Gordon, MD on post-traumatic growth. It was extraordinary in its perspective on the expansion of your heart space after grieving for so long. It seems they are both sides of the same coin. You learn to sit with the discomfort until it passes like the weather allowing yourself to grieve the person you used to be. David Kessler is another great author that guides people through difficult emotions. Trauma changes you. Processing these deeply to integrate and emerge as a new “you” can take years…I know it did for me! There was a before-Kate and after-Kate from trauma at ages 14-17. I am 39 and I am still learning how to navigate and reconcile this.
In his theory of positive disintegration, Kasimierz Dabrowski states that he observed different ways to deal with trauma. He lived through both world wars and saw people that just brushed off what they experienced during the war. He also saw people who broke over the same experiences.
But then, there was the third group. They at first seemed to break as well, but then emerged like the phoenix from the flames, totally changed, in a better place.
He studied this growth after trauma for years and found several preconditions. These seemed to be disheartening for most people at first, but then he added another way to find success.
In most individuals he observed, innate traits had given them the ability to leave behind trauma and, through what he called positive disintegration, emerge on the other side. Those traits he called overexcitabilities. An overexcitability is the mechanism that lets people react with a firework when they are met with a small trigger. There are originally five, now six overexcitabilities: intellectual, imaginative, emotional, sensorial, physical, and spiritual. Let's call these intensities.
But those are not enough. One also needs (and here I add new research about intelligence, as Dabrowski only added intellectual intelligence or IQ) the corresponding intelligences. Let's call these complexities.
Dabrowski found that especially combinations of these three intensities and complexities allowed for positive disintegration: intellectual, imaginative, and emotional. He called that a person's developmental capability.
People with high developmental capability were able to learn and grow from trauma. But (and here is the relief for most of us), people in developmentally friendly environments were too.
He found that traditional psychology and psychiatry aims at integrating people back into society, and not at them growing from trauma. Society with its expectations toward individuals and innate needs and basic thrives of the individual build a balanced system of compromise we call "normal". But they also prevent exactly this type of growth with their centripetal force.
We need the centrifugal force of developmental capacity to leave living as is expected from us to become self-authoring people. Or we need a friendly environment that, with its positive expectations, emphasizes on such growth after trauma.
Glad to see that some people are waking up to this.
Your comment resonates with me, Ralph. Thank you for sharing. I am reminded of the book about orchids and dandelion children. Those same traits we carry throughout adulthood. In the right environment, and orchid can not only blossom, but thrive! What a beautiful flower it is, too. Dandelions are so whimsical, popping up through the cracks of concrete. Resilient buggers. It takes all kinds and individual approaches to processing life’s ups and downs are so important!
I've loved this article so much and it resonates so deeply. I've grown most from the most painful moments of my life. It also resonated because it so happens my research and my whole work is in the space of psychological 'growth pains' and I have found they are crucial to our life-long growth. Here's a bit of the science of what makes 'growth pains' so important and how we can purposefully transform our moments of breakdown into steps towards breakthrough: https://www.verticaldevelopment.education/p/the-way-out-is-through-contrasting-emotions-vertical-development
Wow… these lines really opened my eyes. So many things suddenly get clear… I‘ll have to read it several times and think about it. I‘ll definitely get the book! I want to know more because there are several things in my life and on my horizon that might get much clearer then. Thank you for recommending it!
That is so, so beautiful and poignant. I've kind of had mini-realizations similar to this in my mid-to-late teens when some of the family difficulties that I was experiencing during my childhood were about to hit their climax.
The section that hit me the hardest in the post was: "There were tears and moments spent writhing on the floor, but you got up, had breakfast, and went to work anyway. You witnessed the warrior within yourself. The valor. And you carried on. Your hair grayed, but you grew."
I definitely had moments where I was listening to music and writing on the floor crying in the unpredictable nature of the situation, but somehow, I got up and went to school the next day, as if nothing had happened. Thankfully, there were kind souls that I could share the difficulties with at the time and they helped me through the situation.
And I also had a personal moment of growth relating to this quote: "Most of all, post-traumatic growth leads to compassion. Because you’ve seen and experienced pain, your heart has stretched. Its capacity for love is greater, and its desire to help others is stronger."
Reading this felt like meditation to me, a reflection on ‘self.’ It also sparked a reminder to take notice of my compassion reserves, to save even a small bit for myself when I typically feel much more urgently compelled to help others through my work.
I have mixed feelings about this. I would say that instead of celebrating difficulty and trauma as crucibles for growth, maybe the important thing is to have radical acceptance that life contains these horrible painful times. And we are not all alike in our responses to grief, trauma, and pain. I feel like a warrior when I'm actively managing a terrible situation, but I sure don't when I have a moment to breathe. I feel broken and depleted and sometimes changed in a negative way. Life has made me wiser, yes, but it has also made me guarded and less open.
I love the idea that pain could be the Friend who loves us so much that He would break our hearts to make them grow larger.
Here's some pix of Redbuds in bloom from last year!
(I found them after seeing something from you saying you'd like to see some pix of them -- but by the time I found them, I had lost the place you asked from.)
https://imgur.com/a/4lsHxQ4
these are GORGEOUS - thank you, Michael!
You're very welcome!
Thank you for saying so!
I'm just blown away by them every time I see them!
I want to know at what point does the emotional growing pain becomes a mental health disorder like depression. Like how much pain should we endure , till we decide it's time to take it easy in life.
In India also we grow up with this thought , but now the younger generation is now learning from the west to take life a little easy - I mean not the part of advocating numbness or distractions ( although that is also becoming a part of our culture ), and of course there is some pain we cannot avoid , but the habit of deliberately putting ourselves in painful situations ( thinking we will gain from it ) has actually not helped us.
Also, Personally I think , being able to get out stronger out of a trauma or a painful situation comes in the hands of privileged people, not everyone is able to grow out of it.
But I can be wrong - and maybe I need to look at this from a different angle.
I'm going to flag your question for Emma, Sanya!
Hey ! I hope this comment did not cause you any pain ( referring to your post on having thick skin ). I really didn't mean to give any feedback or anything - I don't know much about the topic but I have some opinions and I'm not sure how valid they are - but I wanted to share and ask.
I'm sorry if this comment was hurtful - definitely not what I intended.
Oh my goodness Sanya, not in the SLIGHTEST. I promise it had nothing to do with you or with any other Quiet Life member, as it happens! I'm sorry you had even a moment of concern about this.
Phew !! That's such a relief !! 🥲
Thanks for sharing this, Susan! In case you wanted to know the Chinese characters for the quote, it’s: 吃苦是福. 🙂
wow, thank you, Casey!
You’re most welcome!
What a wonderful passage from Emma Seppälä's SOVEREIGN. Thanks so much, Susan -- wow.
Yes. Yes, indeed. Growing pains do roll right on, life-long. 'Tis so, yet given the culture of my early years, it took me four decades even to glimpse this empowering perspective on life's roller-coasters. Thank goodness (I mean Goodness itself) for my continuing to absorb and accept how true-true-true it is. A time or two, I longed to leave life. Still here, though, amid the jabs of growth.
Nifty, since there is no end to the inevitable rocks in my path. Some are permanent fixtures, too. Part of Being Me includes all persistent wounds and scars.
In my mid-sixties over a decade ago, I found a fine lay-buddhist philosophy and community. They keep me practising ways to relax in each moment so that, with alertness, old-fashioned pluck, and good humour, I may greet any obstacle with a grimace, a ponder, a grin, and the sovereign spirit's motto: "Okay -- just bring it on! This is life unfolding."
Simply put, our inner sovereign knows in her bones that "So it goes." – a rueful mantra uttered every chance he got by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. For me, 'So It Goes' too sums up a sorrowful yet sane clear-eyed outlook and in-look. It's ready to energise my latent courage to carry on. Still becoming my own cheerleader: Yep: “Here it comes, so bring it on, dear Universe. We've GOT this! Let's 'turn poison into good medicine.'”
Today is no exception.
I love this, Catharine -thank you.
For some of us, "post traumatic" is by far the most frequently followed by "stress disorder".
I'm happy for those who made it through trauma stronger, but we should not only "rah rah" them: We should also remember those who just weren't able to withstand it w/o major psychological injury.
thanks!! now I have a new audible book to listen to ....was needing a new one :))
Same. Love audio books.
🌹