Bouncing Forward: Transforming Bad Breaks into Breakthroughs - Hardcover

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Michaela Haas, PhD, is an international reporter, lecturer, author, and consultant. She is the owner of HAAS live!, an international coaching company that combines her experience in media with mindfulness training. With a PhD in Asian Studies, she has been teaching Buddhism at the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of the West, and various Buddhist centers in America and Europe. She has been studying and practicing Buddhism for almost twenty years. Since the age of sixteen, she has worked as a writer and interviewer for major nationwide German newspapers, magazines, and TV stations, including hosting her own successful nationwide talk show. Michaela divides her time between Malibu, California, and Munich, Germany. Visit MichaelaHaas.com.

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Bouncing Forward

Introduction

Crisis as a launching pad for growth

When the challenges come, I hope you remember that deep within you is the ability to grow. You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It’s a muscle you can build up and then draw on when you need it.

—SHERYL SANDBERG1

Dr. Maya Angelou gave me a gift: the title for this book. When asked how she emerged from her violent childhood and rose above poverty and hardship, the poet and civil rights icon called her emergence “bouncing forward, going beyond what the naysayers said.”2

You have probably heard of posttraumatic stress. But beyond the medical community, few are aware of the evidence of posttraumatic growth. It may seem paradoxical even to put the words “trauma” and “growth” next to each other in one sentence. And yet, survivors and experts are increasingly focused on the new science that we can not only heal, but benefit from hardship. As someone who has struggled with chronic illness, I myself needed to learn that this is a possibility, and perhaps you chose this book, because you do, too?

The common notion of resilience entails a sense of bouncing back from a severe crisis,3 but for me, the idea that we can “bounce back” from a devastating blow and “return to our original shape” falls short. We never forget the ones we’ve lost or the arduous struggles we’ve fought. The lives we lead are markedly different before and after a trauma, because these losses and struggles transform and profoundly change us.

This book is not about bouncing back, but rather about bouncing forward. About letting the fire of trauma temper and teach us.

Let me be clear: I am not suggesting in any way that trauma is good or that we need to “get over it” already. As Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild, told me when we spoke about her struggle with grief: “I hate the word ‘overcome,’ actually, because it sounds like a negation of the experience. The key to my ability to move on with a sense of life and beauty has to do with the fact that I always carry my suffering with me. Once I learn to say, ‘Yep, here is this part of my life that is sad and hard and unfortunate,’ I can make room for other things, things like happiness and contentment and peace. In so many ways, I learned to look at that burden, that suffering I had to carry, as a gift, even though it is a gift I would gladly return to the store. The fact is that this gift is mine, and that I need to make something of it. I’ve made a lot of progress in my life, in part because I decided to strive to turn that ugly experience into something else, something beautiful.”

Of course, we wish we had our loved ones back, that we were not sick, that we didn’t experience or witness terror, violence, rape, addiction, accidents, injury, betrayal, poverty, or grief. But in reality, most of us live through five or six traumatic events in our lifetime. One in five Americans has been laid off from their job. Nearly 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce. Over 19 percent of adults nationwide have suffered the death of a child. This year alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with cancer. Yes, traumatic events happen to the best of us. Whether it’s an everyday crisis, like a divorce or a car crash, or a “capital T” trauma, like violence or severe illness, it is crucial to know that the trauma is not the end of our story. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can master what matters most: our response to it—our mind.

How can we get our lives back?

Here is the most encouraging fact I’ve uncovered: We really can do it! Leveraging a crisis as a force for personal development is not reserved for the rare and heroic; in fact, posttraumatic growth is much more common than posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the stress actually serves as the fuel for the growth. According to Richard Tedeschi, posttraumatic growth’s leading researcher, as many as 90 percent of survivors experience at least one form of posttraumatic growth, such as a renewed appreciation for life or a deeper connection to their heart’s purpose. This does not happen immediately or easily, and rarely by itself. We need to actively work toward positive change, and we need the right tools and support in order to transform a bad break into a breakthrough.

This is the focus of Bouncing Forward: to open our eyes to possibilities.

My hope is that this book will offer you a new perspective on pain: A new meaning of life. A renewed sense of optimism. Because a growth mindset not only fortifies us in challenging times, but the same qualities and skills help us in our everyday lives as well. In fact, ideally we cultivate resilience while the proverbial waters are smooth so that we have a buffer and good sailing skills when the going gets tough.

The goal of researching the science of posttraumatic growth is precisely this: to find out what protects us and those around us from unnecessary suffering; to discover strategies to intervene when life’s trajectory goes ballistic; to help the healing. And not only to heal, but to use the crisis as a launching pad for a new beginning.

This sounds encouraging, but what exactly is posttraumatic growth? How do we achieve it? Are we ever going to feel better? How do we move on from feeling stuck, afraid, angry, ashamed, sad, and hopeless? Will we ever be happy again? How do we get our lives back?

In Bouncing Forward, I address these questions not only through my research with resilience experts and encounters with survivors and trauma “thrivers” from all walks of life, but through introducing you to the tried-and-true methods that helped them.

The groundbreaking science of posttraumatic growth is still new, ever expanding and adding fresh insights. Psychologist Stephen Joseph regards the science of posttraumatic growth as “one of the most exciting of all the recent advances in clinical psychology, because it promises to radically alter our ideas about trauma—especially the notion that trauma inevitably leads to a damaged and dysfunctional life.”4

Over the following chapters, we will explore some of the skills we need to face life’s perils and pitfalls. Our upbringing plays a role, as do genetic factors, resources, social skills, and our purpose in life. You’ll walk away with a deep understanding of the strength of your spirit and five powerful practices to transform your own life.

A crisis is not a cul-de-sac, but rather a watershed moment. What we do next matters: advance or retreat, take a turn south or north, run or hide, crawl or fly. We can avert our eyes or dig deeper, try harder or grow softer, close down or break open.

We are stronger than we think

Ever since I watched my grandfather succeed as a businessman and father of five despite his crippling injury from polio, I’d wondered: How is it possible that some people emerge from pain fortified? Throughout my decades as a reporter, when I visited tsunami victims and torture survivors, these questions tugged at me: Why do some people fall apart after catastrophes while others not only survive but thrive? What makes the difference?

When I was diagnosed with a debilitating virus in my twenties and found myself bedridden for eight months, this quandary became deeply personal. How could I glue the smithereens of my life back together and become whole again? Had my resilience just been a mirage?

Resilience is such a catchy concept. Estee Lauder sells...