Will I Ever Get Out of this Mess?
Bounce Back with Might!
The world has teeth…it can sometimes bite!
Human life often makes us vulnerable to hard hitting distractions at certain points in our lives which makes us believe that we have reached the threshold and now there is no way for the situation to improve. We feel dejected, lost, bruised beyond repair and can see no light at the end of the tunnel.
However, such situations are very expected and predictable hallmarks of the human survival. For some people, these hard times come frequently – the impact of the trauma is overwhelming and recovery, if it comes at all, can be agonizingly dawdling. Others show resilience and are able to slide through these times fairly easily, bouncing back to a normal life again rather quickly.
Have you however ever wondered that why some people bounce back in the face of adversity & calamity, while others fall apart? Have you ever wished you could be one of those that rise above and do not succumb to the pressures of daily life or unexpected potholes?
Resilience – the suppleness required to rise back, the strength required to adapt to change – lies at the core of mental and emotional health.
The normal life cycle too contains foreseeable periods of life disruption. For example, when we move from childhood to adolescence, everything we had previously known about the world goes through a shuddering transformation. Similar stages of disruption occur when the adolescent moves into young adulthood, and then into a career, a permanent relationship, possible parenting, middle age, and then retirement and aging. These periods of transformation can bring compelling emotional reactions such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, and anger. Those who lack resilience find these changes to be a struggle. Others welcome the changes and move through the transformations swiftly and naturally.
Apart from the age focussed transitions there are the more impactful ones…the sudden unexpected jolts of disruption that can be caused by unexpected events that turn life upside down. An accident, an illness, a sudden job loss, a crumbling business, the demise of a loved one, divorce, national tragedies, natural disasters, tumultuous relationships, and financial upheavals can contest anyone’s capability to cope. Any of these can become “make or break” situations, depending on the degree to which resilience comes into play.
As overbearing as life situations or events can become, humans are gifted with an ability to reorganize their lives after a disruption and to achieve new levels of order and meaningfulness. However, that is only possible if we know how to activate our core power of resilience.
In fact, in order to experience life to the fullest it is important to sail through the process of meaningful change and reintegration. In other words, life disruptions are not necessarily a bad thing because they help us to grow and to meet future challenges in our lives with increased capacity and better outlook.
There is no denying the fact that during the depths of chaos we are certainly vulnerable because we do not know what lies ahead – but as we learn and adapt during the chaos, we prepare ourselves to meet further stresses in the future. Coming out successfully through any cycle of chaos and stress in life will leave us much stronger with regard to future life disruptions.
All of us can learn methods to become more resilient. Sometimes, however, our lack of closure on previous life experiences blocks us from adapting to new periods of stress as they come along. Childhood abuse, acts of violence, distorting and deceiving relationships may be reasons of unresolved conflict in people’s life and may hence alter their capability of bouncing back.
In cases where an individual’s capacity to fight is not enough a professional psychotherapist or counsellor can surely hep. Working with a trained professional can be the route for people to gain closure on unresolved issues and to work towards a more integrated approach regarding future situations.
When life unravels, we’re all a seed needing to trust that the darkness we’re residing in temporarily will in the end move us towards our next fertile direction. So become the seed that sits in the dark, damp earth because the spring will come and take us in the direction in which we are bound to sprout!
“And thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson