Sometimes, as with Cyr, the change hits like a bolt of lightning. W. Keith Campbell, a professor of social psychology at the University of Georgia in Athens whose research focuses on the self, calls this phenomenon "ego shock." He has found that a serious blow to self-esteem can temporarily freeze normal psychological protective mechanisms. The way we react to a sudden ego threat (a public rejection, a professional failure) is often to go numb: Just for an instant, time stops, the mind goes blank and the world suddenly seems unfamiliar.
Campbell believes something similar happens to many people who experience a terrifying physical threat. In that moment, our sense of invulnerability is pierced, and the self-protective mental armor that normally stands between us and our perceptions of the world is torn away. Our everyday life scripts—our habits, self-perceptions and assumptions—go out the window, and we're left with a raw experience of the world.
The phenomenon is akin to what Zen Buddhists strive to attain in meditation
or what people report about religious
rapture. Colors become more vivid; ordinary objects seem suddenly beautiful. It's an experience of sublime bewilderment tinged with fear—the old-fashioned meaning of awe. "When you take the self out of the picture, sometimes the world emerges as more powerful, as wondrous," he says. "It's this opening experience: 'Oh my god, look at this world.'"
In her moment of desperation, Tracy Cyr was struck by this feeling of euphoria. "You see the truth of things, and you can't help but be in wonder, in glorious wonder," she says. "Everything is OK. Everything is perfect and good. There's absolutely nothing to fear."
After such a shock, people often say that their lives are transformed involuntarily and that their old values or habits evaporate in an instant. Campbell found that more than half of the people in his studies who had experienced an ego shock said that it ultimately had positive long-term effects upon their lives. "Really negative events have the ability to shake up the status quo in your life, which opens the door for change," says Campbell. "You could become a depressed, despairing drunk—or you could become a much better person."
Still, actually implementing these changes, as well as fully coming to terms with the new reality, usually takes conscious effort. Being willing and able to take on this process is one of the major differences between those who grow through adversity and those who are destroyed by it.
Crises challenge our deepest beliefs: that bad things don't happen to good people, that life makes sense, that we have control over what happens. Tedeschi describes them as seismic, because they overturn basic assumptions upon which life is built. Afterward, a new framework must be constructed. "That's no small thing," he observes. "It requires some people to make big changes not only in how they think but in what they do and in how they choose to live." Brooding over what happened—in other circumstances a dangerous warning sign of depression—may actually be essential to the process of growth.
Notably, the people who find value in adversity aren't the toughest or the most rational. Instead, they tend to be ordinary—neither the best- nor the worst-adjusted. What makes them different is that they are able to incorporate what happened into the story of their own life. They are willing to undertake the painful process of rethinking who they are and giving up an old script that no longer applies. "Maybe one of the keys [to growth] is the capacity to admit that you've been changed by experience," says King. "Which means admitting that you're vulnerable, and admitting that there would have been good things about your life if you hadn't had to go through those negative events."
Eventually, they may find themselves freed in ways they never imagined. Survivors often say they become more tolerant and forgiving of others, capable of bringing peace to formerly troubled relationships. They say that material ambitions suddenly seem silly and the pleasures of friends and family paramount—and that the crisis allowed them to reorganize life in line with the new priorities.
For Arizona senator John McCain, a terrible experience gave him one lasting benefit: confidence in his own priorities. Captured in the Vietnam War, he spent five years as a prisoner of war, enduring torture and solitary confinement. 30 years later, he has a reputation as a maverick who is willing to take a stand. "In my case, what made life easier is that I now know the difference between what's important and what isn't," he says. "That is a gift: having the confidence to know that you clearly see the difference between right and wrong, between principle and pragmatism." His book Character Is Destiny profiles a procession of historical figures—from Sojourner Truth to Winston Churchill—who he believes exemplify this quality.
People who have grown from adversity often feel much less fear, despite the frightening things they've been through. They are surprised by their own strength, confident that they can handle whatever else life throws at them. Like Tracy Cyr, many also feel transformed by a sense of deep compassion for and connection to others that is intensely rewarding on its own.
"People don't say that what they went through was wonderful," says Tedeschi. "They weren't meaning to grow from it. They were just trying to survive. But in retrospect, what they gained was more than they ever anticipated."
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