You Can Overcome Everything: Defy Your Adversities

When you feel shipwrecked, you will not have anyone give you a life jacket. When you have to take a big step blindly into the wide emptiness, you will not have a parachute. But you somehow manage to get through these experiences, because you can overcome everything.

Sometimes you do it with a smile, other times you slam the door shut without looking back. You may not have a cure for every mistake or a compass that always points the right way. But do not trust, because sooner or later you will overcome everything. You will emerge victorious from the battle with your head held high.

This may just sound like another motivational phrase from positive psychology; another “if you want, you can!” poster with a big  smiley. The truth is, however, that this psychological focus goes much deeper than blunt slogans.

We can actually see the evolution of this concept since Martin Seligman presented the theoretical and scientific basis for positive psychology in the 90s.

Modern positive psychology is undergoing a second wave. This new edition values ​​human capacity for transformation. To do this  , you need to understand the complexity of the emotional experiences and realize that it is not always easy to separate the negative from the positive.

To survive and overcome everything, you must know how to live within this range of emotions. They can be challenging, but also complementary. They are part of an emotional balance that self-regulates itself quite effectively.

You may be able to solve your problem by distancing yourself or changing surroundings. Sit on a plane, go somewhere, break your routine. Or maybe it’s not – maybe it’s what you need to say what you’ve been holding on to for so long and finally express yourself clearly.

Close this stage of life with a smile (or slam the door). It is also possible that what you need is already there; you just have not realized it yet.

Whatever the situation, whatever the problem is or how deep the black hole you have to get out is, remember one thing: you will come out. The key is to focus on the way out, not to get caught up in the problem itself. Believe it or not, most of us do the latter.

So when you face adversity, you may just focus on your pain and injustice…  You see the fear in the white eye, but you can not rise above it.

Every problem has its limit. If you manage to get over it, you will finally breathe fresh air and create an escape plan. But how many of us actually do that? We do not do that so often, and it has consequences. Adversity can be paralyzing, and we are poorly trained and used to dealing with negative emotions. Most of us can not tolerate them.

The second wave of positive psychology focuses on the importance of not depleting our resources. If you succeed in accepting your negative emotions instead of fighting them, you will make progress.

In recent years, positive psychology is not the only area that is experiencing interesting progress. Every day comes more studies and articles that focus on the psychology of post-traumatic growth. This branch of research emphasizes that even if things do not always go the way, one will come out on the other side as a changed person.

All processes involve change, and change suggests loss, gain, and transformation.

Lessons learned from adversity tell us that we may lose some of our innocence. You lose your ability to trust, your spontaneity… Some things fall away during the process and you do not get to the other side unscathed. There is no doubt about that.

But as the poet and architect Joan Margarit said,  a wound is also a place to live. In this difficult place you will find unparalleled creative strength. You discover resources you did not know you had and you create a better version of yourself.

You can overcome everything if you have an escape plan. All you need to do is realize that you will not be the same on the other side. You will be stronger. Understand this and internalize these ideas to get help on life’s journey. First, you must realize that no one is immune to adversity, and second,  that we all have the potential to exercise what is called post-traumatic growth.

Martin Seligman himself reminds us of this in his work around 9/11. One thing he saw in everyone who survived the terrorist attack in New York was their capacity for resilience. So often the most difficult events lead to the most positive changes. They give you humble and more stable. You become more resilient, accept your weaknesses and give yourself a more holistic philosophy of life.

A person’s strength is not found in the strength she has to oppose certain things. It is found in the indomitable man who transforms and repeats himself, over and over again.