Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth: What Happens Now?
Where do we go from here?
After exposure to trauma, the question of how we carry on, and where to, can feel nearly impossible to answer. The experience of trauma affects both the mind and the body in tandem—stress hormones cortisol and norepinephrine flood the body, resulting in prolonged panic and agitation. The sympathetic nervous system, which controls our “flight or fight” response, kicks into high gear while the parasympathetic nervous system allows us to shut down when we feel unsafe. It’s not uncommon to experience physical symptoms like muscle tension and fatigue in addition to psychological symptoms like anxiety, dissociation, and fear. The range is wide and often all-consuming. Life after trauma, be it a singular trauma or a prolonged series of them, can feel nothing short of unimaginable.
It just so happens that as a species, human beings are remarkably resilient.
Dr. Arielle Schwartz, a highly sought-after licensed clinical psychologist based in Boulder, CO, focuses much of her work on the idea of post-traumatic growth. Developer of Resilience-Informed Therapy and author of The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, Schwartz writes: “Resilience is not a trait that you either do or do not have; it is a set of strategies that can be learned and practiced” (drarielleschwartz.com). But what exactly is post-traumatic growth, and how can we cultivate resilience in our daily lives?
The term post-traumatic growth was coined by psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in the 1990’s. In essence, it refers to the positive psychological changes one may experience after a challenging or traumatic event. Taking again from Dr. Schartz’s website, “Turning toward pain builds character. You have an opportunity to realize that you are stronger than you previously believed, which facilitates post-traumatic growth. As you feel stronger, you are more likely to see yourself as able to bring your gifts and contributions to the world. In turn, you are more likely to accept yourself as you are, have an increased appreciation of life, develop new interests or passions, and discover a new spiritual framework for your life.”
In speaking with Tami Simon, host of podcast Insights at the Edge, Dr. Schwartz shares wisdom from The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, offering useful tips on how to foster resilience and healing in the wake of trauma. According to Schwartz, we adapt to adversity in three ways: orienting to our strengths, attending to our pain, and taking charge of the narrative that defines our lives.
Orienting ourselves to our strengths is a resilience-based practice. Instead of focusing our lens of awareness on what’s not working in our lives, we take time to notice what is working. What’s
going right? How have we survived so far? What do we already practice to carry ourselves through the hard days? While learning to orient to our strengths, it’s useful to have an ally to turn to, be it a friend, a family member, or a pet. In moments of critical or harsh self-talk, we can imagine the gentleness and kindness our ally might look at us with, “bringing in their compassionate, loving voice as a placeholder for our own difficulty with self-compassion” (41:00).
Attending to our pain sounds appropriately scary, which is what makes pacing so important. Schwartz says that because our nervous systems can’t digest or metabolize all our pain at once, it’s best to start with just the front-leading distress. What exactly does this mean and how can we practice it? Schwartz recommends a simple visualization exercise: imagine a container—it can be anything you want: a filing cabinet, tupperware, one of her clients even imagined the Grand Canyon with a lid on it—and place your overwhelming feelings and memories inside it. Schwartz says, “You can create safety through structure for your nervous system by taking just one part of the memory and letting the rest stay in the container…[making] an agreement with the rest of it that in the right time and in the right place, we’re gonna get to that, too” (46:35).
Lastly, taking charge of the narrative that defines our lives centers around meaning-making. Schwartz believes the idea that everything happens for a reason does a disservice to the reality of our traumas, but meaning-making isn’t about looking for a reason why something happened to us—it’s about how we relate to what happened to us. The focus is: how do we adapt to what’s shaped us? Who do we want to be in the world? How do we take responsibility for our lives as we move forward? As Schwartz says, it’s a delicate process, especially if we’ve lost something in a traumatic event. But there is meaning to be found, to be created: “It’s anything that lights you up, that gives you drive, anything that gives you a sense of worth and importance. We can start to shape our lives in that direction, which can be as small as: how do I take care of myself so I can be loving to the people I interact with? … What do I do from here?” (50:23).
The small questions can feel just as difficult as the big, existential ones: How do we get out of bed in the morning? Where is there even left to go?
The aim of resilience-based practices is to assure us that we can go wherever we want to, even after the unimaginable has happened. Of course, it’s much harder to actually practice than it is to outline in a series of steps. This is why we have our allies and our containers. While doing this work (ideally with the help of a therapist), grounding exercises are extremely important. Dr. Schwartz writes, “You can practice lying down on the ground and releasing your weight into the points of contact with the floor beneath you. Notice how it feels to relax. Explore whether you feel safe. Make space for any emotions that arise in the process” (drarielleschwartz.com). For those who might feel overwhelmed by whatever emotions or sensations come up, grounding through nature may be a gentler place to start, allowing you to feel both present and distracted, focusing on external sensory ground points rather than internal ones.
Relational grounding is also a useful tool, especially for those with deep relational wounds—being held by another, being attuned to each other. Relational grounding exercises can be a safe space to practice attuning to your partner, as attunement involves making the conscious decision to be present, mindful, and aware of one another’s needs. Dr. Schwartz suggests, “Explore what it feels like to surrender into loving contact by asking your partner to gently support your head. Can you still feel yourself while in contact with another? Do you lose yourself? … If you lose yourself, make an agreement with your partner to stop contact and come back home to yourself” (drarielleschwartz.com).
Many of us have our own personal traumas, and we have our collective traumas, too. We’re all, in our own ways, trying to come back home to ourselves in the midst of uncertainty. We’ve faced a tremendous amount of grief and loss within the last two years of the pandemic; the realities of police brutality, climate change, and the attack on LGBTQ+ rights are frightening and painful; the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade feels like a shock to the system, even if we knew the threat was looming. In these times, holding on to our allies and containers and the floor beneath our feet are all radical acts. Holding on to each other, too.
Podcast link: Arielle Schwartz : Trauma Recovery and Post-Traumatic Growth
