We Can Overcome Anything: With A Smile, A Slam Of The Door Or Not Looking Back
Most of the time, we don’t have a life jacket for every shipwreck or a parachute for every jump into the void. However, we can still get away with it. Sometimes it will be with a smile; other times it will be by slamming the door and not looking behind you. Because even if we don’t have an ointment to heal every mistake or a compass to show us the best path, sooner or later we do: we walk forward proudly and with our heads held high.
This reasoning may sound like a positive psychology slogan, it’s true. A slogan that would defend the idea of “when we want, we can”, accompanied by a smiling smiley. However, we must admit that this psychological point of view is much more than a simple slogan cruelly lacking in meaning. In fact, we can see an evolution since Martin Seligman established his theoretical and scientific foundations in the 90s.
Current positive psychology is experiencing a second wave. One that assesses a key aspect: our ability to change. To achieve this, we need to understand how complex emotional experiences are. Of course, separating the positive from the negative is not always easy. To survive, to overcome any adversity, you have to know how to live with all this range of feelings. These are often synonymous with challenge, yes. But they are also complementary and are part of a balance that must be self-regulated effectively.
But where is the exit?
Perhaps your problem can be solved with an airplane. By taking distance, by changing air, continent, skin, habits. Or maybe not. You may need to say out loud what you’ve been missing for a long time. To express yourself clearly and to close this stage of your life with a smile or by slamming the door. You may already have what you need: you just have to realize it.
Whatever your personal situation, whatever your black hole, there is only one thing you need to know. You can always get out of it by fixing your gaze on the “exit” and not on the labyrinth of the problem. Because, whether we believe it or not, this is what we do most of the time. So when adversity visits us and traps us in its web of unexpected and injustice, we often focus on what we did wrong, what we unworthy of what threatens us … We always look at the fear in the eyes but never see what is beyond.
Every problem has a border. Going beyond this border will allow us to breathe, to move away this feeling of suffocation. And to think of a plan to escape us. But do we do it? In truth, no. And this is a mistake we often pay for. Adversity paralyzes and we are not used (and ill-prepared) to deal with negative emotions. We do not tolerate them. Positive psychology, in this second wave, focuses on the importance of our resources: we must not imprison them. If we can come to terms with our negative emotions instead of struggling with them, we will move forward.
Lessons on adversity
In recent years, positive psychology has advanced incredibly. We have more and more works and articles at our disposal, texts that focus on what is known as post-traumatic growth psychology. This current asserts that even if we can overcome everything, we will not come out of this tunnel being the same. Every process involves change. Any change involves losses and gains. Ultimately: transformations.
Lessons on adversity tell us that we may be losing a fragment of our innocence. From our capacity for confidence, from our spontaneity of the past… During this process of leaving, we will let go of certain things. And we will keep injuries, there is no doubt about it. However, as poet and architect Joan Margarit points out, an injury is also a place where we can live. It is because an infinite creative force emerges from us. Because we find personal resources that we did not know. And because we are establishing a more satisfying view of ourselves.
We can always overcome anything if we draw an exit plan. If we realize that we will never be the same again. We will be stronger. Understanding and assimilating these principles will undoubtedly help us on this vital journey which allows us to understand that no one is immune from adversity. We all have the potential to trigger post-traumatic growth.
Martin Seligman himself reminds us of this in his work on September 11. He could see, in many of the people who had survived the terrorist attack, a tremendous capacity for resilience. Often the harshest events can act as catalysts for the most positive changes. They give us a more humble outlook, greater temperance, psychological resistance, an acceptance of our own vulnerability and a more honest and precious philosophy of life.
To conclude, a person’s strength is not in the strength they have to resist certain things. Our strength lies in our indomitable will to transform and rebuild ourselves, again and again.
Our thoughts Is it possible to come out stronger from negative moments? If we want to grow on a personal level, this is precisely where …
