Negative Experiences Can Add Meaning to Your Life

As a society, we are becoming more accepting of mental illness—and this is a good thing. At the same time, the range of emotions we experience from time to time, such as sadness, anger, irritability, anxiety, fear, and grief, along with actions such as avoidance and reactivity, are increasingly likely to be seen by us as possible “symptoms” of mental disturbance that lead us to seek professional help. Here are a few examples of events that elicit one or more of these emotions and actions:¹

• A person buying a new house feels a lot of anxiety about the process and all that needs to be done, and wants to give up on the idea.
• A person wakes up one morning feeling tired and not motivated to get up. Feeling "blah," they want to stay in bed all day.
• A student facing an important exam is highly anxious and thinks about dropping the course.

When Bad Things Happen: Getting Through It May Add Meaning to Your Life

There is a line of psychological research that suggests that getting through difficult or negative experiences, such as death, divorce, health crisis, loss of a job, or life events like those listed above can add meaning to your life. Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota tells us that “…trying to live in a world without challenge, troubles, or difficulties is both not realistic, and…could actually make for a life less meaningful.” ²

Vohs’ and her associates along with several other research teams have found that people who were self-reflective about their difficult experiences found significant changes in how they viewed themselves and increased the meaningfulness of their lives. Being self-reflective in the face of negative life experiences can have good outcomes:

• It can increase your resilience in the face of subsequent life difficulties and negative experiences.
• It can increase insight into yourself.
• It can fuel the development of wisdom.

Increasing Resilience to Stressors and Adversity

Researchers at Macquarie University in Australia have developed a model of how systematic self-reflection strengthens resilience in the face of life’s adversities.⁴ They argue that exposure to stressors (life’s adversities) does something unique—it triggers systematic self-reflection, which is the evaluation of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Self-reflection increases resilience to subsequent difficulties because it facilitates the capacity to evaluate task-oriented coping, problem-solving strategies, and resistant beliefs about oneself.

Developing Insight Into Oneself

A study done at the Oregon State University with adults 56 to 91 years of age found that the majority of the participants said that the difficult experiences they focused on for the study “…disrupted their personal meaning and prompted the person to reflect on themselves, their fundamental beliefs, and their understanding of the world”.⁴

The goal of the study was to better understand how wisdom develops in the context of adversity—when bad things happen. When people in the study were asked to think about an adverse event, they had an answer right away—they remembered them.

The researchers found that people reacted to their difficult life situations in three ways:

• For one group of 13, their difficult life events led to little or no questioning of meaning in their lives. These folks simply accepted the event as something they could not change.
• For five of the participants, the difficult life event helped them clarify a specific value or belief that had not been clearly identified previous to the event.
• For the majority of the participants (32), the difficult life event prompted the people to reflect on themselves, their basic beliefs, and their understanding of the world. The event “rocked their boat,” challenging how they saw life and themselves.

Developing Wisdom

In the Oregon State study, the social situation of the people experiencing difficult life events had a significant influence on those who were self-reflective. These folks asked for and received unsolicited emotional help from others.⁶ These others shared their experiences with difficult life events.

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Getting support from those with similar experiences exposed the participants to new ideas, leading to a deeper sense of themselves. The participants noted that these social supports helped them develop wisdom around compassion and humility.

As Vohs notes, those participants who were expected to "get back to life" did not experience the same kind of self-insight and increased wisdom as those who were supported in their personal exploration of their difficult life event.⁸

About Self-Reflection

What does the research tell us about self-reflection in the face of difficult life events? It tells us there is a certain kind of self-reflection that produces these outcomes.⁸ It is succinctly labeled What Not Why.

Being self-reflective by asking “Why did this happen?” can lead to an easy and plausible answer or two, which allows us to stop looking. Asking why may stir up negative emotions, trap you in the past, and suggest that the cause of your unhappiness is outside yourself, which can promote the idea that you are a victim.

Asking “What?” leads to self-reflection. Here are examples of What? questions. “What is going on?” “What am I feeling?” “What’s another way to see this situation? “What can I do to respond better?” These are the kinds of questions that lead us to positive self-reflection that will better help us cope with the situation and understand ourselves better.

Here is an example of how to use “what” questions in the face of a difficult situation. A student has just failed a test in a course in his major program and is worried and anxious.

Questions and answers:

• What am I feeling? I am anxious. I may not be smart enough. Maybe I should drop out of the program.
• How am I reacting? I am losing sleep. I am avoiding people because I don’t want to talk about the test failure.
• What are the problems? My course grade will be affected, my class standing will fall. I may have to repeat the course.
• What's another way to look at the situation? I am not the only one who failed the test. I found out that most of the students failed the test. They too felt anxious and worried. Failure on this test will not cause me to fail the course.
• Are there circumstances that help explain the failure? The program scheduled three tests in a week in error. Students did not have enough time to study.
• How can I respond better? I can work through this situation with support and self-reflection and be better prepared for future difficult school situations. I can remember that I tend to feel anxious if I think I am not measuring up. I will check with the professors about any unusual circumstances of test-taking situations. I will continue to rely on my social support.

The student did talk to talk to his father, who is both a great supporter and helps him get some perspective on difficult life events. He also talked to a relative about his emotional reactions to failing the test.

When to Seek Professional Help With Your Difficult Life Situation

The next time you are going through a difficult time and are wondering if your feelings and the reactivity are symptoms of a mental disorder, ask yourself if your situation and feelings have prevented you from functioning as you typically do for an extended period.

You may also wish to consult a professional if people around you notice that things are not going well for you and tell you they are concerned.

You can read about the increasing risk of identifying our typical human experiences as “symptoms” of a mental disorder in my recent post.

The Value of Self-Reflection in Difficult Life Circumstances

Professor Vohs reminds us that when a negative experience occurs, it can force us to reflect on what happened, “…effectively fueling the processes that provide meaning in life.”

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