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“Resilience matters in success. Character is not formed out of smart people. It is out of people who have suffered. I wish upon you pain and suffering.” —Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to a group of Stanford students
Getting beat up by life—periodically, of course, with some time in between to recover—may just save your life. Hard times can strengthen us, and when we're strong, it increases our capacity to celebrate and enjoy our lives.
Jensen Huang has gone through significant struggles himself. Long story short: Huang was born in Taiwan, moved to Thailand, and was then sent away to Washington, to a school for “difficult” children. His main chore as a nine-year-old was to clean the toilets in the dorm.
I can relate to struggle. Despite the many privileges I've been blessed with, I’ve had my share of difficult experiences. In retrospect, I'm grateful for this. I grew up with a speech impediment and an auditory-processing learning disorder and was bullied constantly in elementary, middle, and high school. I used to be afraid of answering the phone because I feared I could not say "hello" in time before the person calling would hang up from the silence on my end.
In high school especially, I was also chronically teased because of acne, called "pizza face" routinely in class and recess. I periodically ate alone at school. It wrecked my self-esteem, appetite, well-being, and relationships.
Fortunately, channeling what I see as my own resilience and post-traumatic growth (PTG: experiencing positive shifts in outlook, purpose, strength, wisdom, relationship improvements, and meaning above one's previous baseline before the hardship occurred) and receiving EMDR trauma therapy transformed my life. Those past experiences don't bother me anymore; in fact, they've become conduits to my success.
It turns out I'm not alone. Many people don't suffer from PTSD after facing significant hardship; as many as 70 percent of survivors of various forms of trauma report experiencing some positive change in at least one domain of life.
Human nature is to be resilient. It turns out resilience (bouncing back from hardship and returning to baseline) and PTG can be summarized down to certain skills, practices, and traits that we can cultivate, develop, and strengthen with time, in and out of therapy. Here's how (with personal examples):
- Focus on how life can have more meaning and purpose after surviving trauma. Personally, I've noticed how the hardship I've faced above has helped me connect to the pain of others, especially my clients. I think I'm a better therapist, largely because I survived and grew from the bullying trauma I faced. It has connected me to my life's purpose of helping others heal trauma and training EMDR therapists to do the same.
- Reevaluate your life philosophy after surviving trauma. This can unintentionally lead to positive personality changes, such as more confidence, self-control, warmth, and emotional stability. Surviving the bullying helped me realize that, despite living in an image-focused materialist world fueled by social media, I wanted and have lived more internally-driven than externally—originally, the teasing I endured forced me to—not as easily moved or affected by others' harmful words or actions. I see it as an embodiment of the well-known adage "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me." I thank the bullies for pushing me to make this shift sooner rather than later.
- Discover you’re stronger than you thought because you endured trauma. We genuinely don't know what we're capable of until we're tested. The bullying, stuttering, and learning challenges I faced didn't stop me from completing my doctorate, landing multiple scholarships, learning Spanish, and building a successful business, among many of my accomplishments. In fact, I think it strengthened my drive to succeed and my passion for learning, encouraging me to break the barriers these challenges tried to impose on me.
- Discover new feelings of appreciation, gratitude, and less unnecessary seriousness from enduring trauma. This can be increased appreciation for life, self-acceptance, and/or autonomy. Ironically, I'm also not sure if I would have become this successful in my career if it weren't for the hardship I faced. It forced me to learn many healing methods and focus on all my blessings. Again, I thank my bullies for not only helping me realize this sooner rather than later but also connecting me to my mindfulness practice.
- Discover how you’re part of something bigger than yourself, perhaps feeling more spiritual from enduring trauma. Bullying, acne, stuttering, and learning challenges are among the many issues fueling trauma in others' lives and because I suffered from them so acutely, I feel universally connected to others' pain—even people in other countries I will never meet. It has helped me build close relationships with my loved ones, students, clients, and colleagues, and feel compassion for strangers I bump into in public.
- Realize how your relationships become more important and increasingly connect to what really matters after suffering trauma. As I mentioned above, I've noticed my trauma has given me tools of compassion, empathy, and care that have proven to be extremely useful in my personal and professional pursuits.
- Flex your creativity muscle. Artists, musicians, and writers report their creative drive to decrease when their lives are generally calm, easy, and un-chaotic, and that stressful events, like a divorce or a pandemic, can replenish their creative juices. I'm sure you can think of many examples of this, public and private. Thank you, hardships, for giving me so much material to write about (especially this post).
Hardship forces us to grow and learn. It can have unintended positive consequences and a "silver lining." My own experiences, those of others, and the research suggest PTG is more commonplace and accessible than you may imagine. How has your struggle strengthened you?
