Overcoming Adversity
Today’s post is a guest post from the lovely Nicolette Lafonseca. It’s jam-packed full of brilliant tips for overcoming adversity, something we’re all facing right now, and I really hope you enjoy it.
I think it goes without saying that 2020 has thrown up all sorts of issues that none of us were expecting. Many of these have brought adversity; financial, grief, anxiety. I have long admired the work that Sophie does across her channels as the Joyful Coach and with her podcast, so when I was ‘talking’ with her about my life journey I was honoured to be asked to come here and talk about overcoming adversity.
I have had to overcome rape, sexual abuse, neglectful foster carers, bullying, physical disability, cancer, chronic mental illness, an abusive husband, poverty and a growth in my brain. Don’t worry I am not going to drone on about my life, I suffer no delusion that I am that interesting but my life experiences and getting to where I am now has given me an insight that I hope others can benefit from.
If you do a quick Google search for overcoming adversity you will find a plethora of articles and musings on the subject, I am about to disagree with most of them. See this as a myth busting session if you will.
What people say “You make your own luck”
What I say “Stop blaming yourself”
Often when I talk about my life I find that it sounds unrealistic, even I stop and think, hang on a minute is this your life or an entire series of Jerry Springer, no one is that unlucky. I would then start to create a very negative spiral of self-loathing and blame. Why are these things happening? This must be because I deserve it. It must be because I put bad energy into the universe.
There is some truth to the fact that you make your own luck in that you can be a person who is open to opportunity or a person who has closed themselves off to seeing what the world can offer. The danger lies when this narrative falls into victim blaming. The Secret was all the rage, I followed the trend and read it and loathed it. Cancer victims, sexual-assault victims, holocaust victims -- they’re responsible? The book is riddled with these destructive falsehoods. It was not until I became good friends with Victoria Jackson that I realised how the Law of Attraction, which The Secret speaks of was so misunderstood and badly represented. Unfortunately this incorrect narrative has people victim blaming themselves. I ask you how can one successfully overcome adversity if they are blaming themselves and filling their thoughts with negative constructs designed to put them at the centre of why bad things happen.
You can only begin to overcome the things that are harming us by believing in ourselves by not getting into a cycle of blame. If I had only done x, y or z. This brings me to my next point.
Growth mindset v escapism
So many articles mention growth mindset. Learn from adversity. Learn from mistakes. Growth mindset is vital. I work with my little boy on this all the time, he is neurodivergent and has such difficulty processing his perceived failures. I am a huge fan of growth mindset but what these articles neglect to mention is the need to allow room for escapism also. We should learn but we also need to allow our mind to be free from stress to fully heal from adversity. Stress is only going to lead to burnout and adversely impact our physical health. So work on your growth mindset but then allow yourself escapism. My escape is believing I could be a vampire slayer or that Meera Syal is going to call me up for a date this Friday.
Nietzche is wrong!
Yes he is the guy famous for the phrase “That which does not kill us only makes us stronger” This is simply untrue, often it leaves us weak as a kitten. Without stating the obvious that many physical ailments can have a lasting effect on us let us look at the mental impact of that statement. I was a social worker for nearly a decade and I can assure you that trauma compounds. If this was not true PTSD would not exist and it does. Children who have grown up in adversity and suffered trauma are not more resilient in fact quite the opposite and smaller events can trigger a large, and sometimes unexpected, response in them as adults.
So how can we help ourselves with this?
SPEAK UP!
Today we see people posting with trigger warnings and talking of triggers is now an accepted part of our modern vernacular so don’t afraid to tell people that their words or behaviour is triggering for you. Tell those who are close to you what your triggers are. Overcoming adversity is NOT about it not affecting you it is about learning to manage it and part of that is becoming self-aware so that you can protect yourself from triggers.
Lean into it
At first this may sound as though I am advocating self-pity and wallowing. It is more a level of acceptance that the sun cannot shine every day. We are not the best version of ourselves all the time and sometimes bad things do happen. The things that are sent to try us may well be disproportionate but that, sadly, is life. After having so many issues with my health and personal life I fell victim to the it’s unfair trap. Life is often feel unfair and trauma is not distributed equally. We need to accept that and allow ourselves to move through it at a rate that is natural to us and commensurate to the event. We are plagued in society by toxic positivity that we forget that we need to experience a full range of human emotions to make us whole. Allow the grief. Allow the purge. It is okay to moan sometimes, we live in such fear of being “that” person that we forget how unhealthy it is to always mask our pain, it is about achieving balance. Write it down, spill to a loved one, let it out. Think of these cathartic experiences as if we are drawing out poison from a wound, it cannot heal until we do that.
Re-frame things and keep swimming
When we are trying to move through adversity or a trauma we often set ourselves up for failure. We try to go from completely floored to being CEO of the world, that is a big jump. An unrealistic jump is only going to set you up for failure. By doing this you are less likely to move forward and more likely to create a relapse. You need to be in tune with when and how far you can push yourself.
When I was suffering with anxiety, and agoraphobia I set myself realistic steps. It would not have been reasonable to go from scared to open the door to the postman to embarking on a book tour in one leap. I did attend promotional events for my book but I did it incrementally and celebrating those small wins. It is easy to forget that opening the door and collecting the milk is a big event depending on which curve you are grading on. So in the words of Dory just keep swimming you will get there on your own terms.
Ignore the advice to be inspired by others
So many experts on the internet tell you to look at the achievements of others or stories where someone has overcome adversity, please don’t do that. I have written extensively on my blog about breast cancer, mental illness, disability and baby loss. I have received so many emails from people telling me that I am inspirational and in the same sentence saying they wish they could be more like me. This is what I send to them.
“I am not inspirational, I am a deeply flawed person who has moved through events that have floored me and I have gotten back up again. I have approached life with a certain stubbornness that has served me well but it has also been damaging in the past when I have not allowed myself to rest or grieve when I needed to. If you want to take some inspiration from me and that helps you take all you need and I am always on the end of an email for my readers but never compare yourself to anyone else, not one is more inspirational than you are, we are all coming from different places with different levels of support and life is nuanced. Never strive to be another person because then the world would lose you and that would be a real tragedy. Write down three things about yourself that you like no matter how big or small they are and put them somewhere to remind yourself how inspirational you are”.
When we talk about overcoming adversity we often associate it with building resilience and this gives a false impression that at some point we will have faced so much that adversity is now water off a ducks back. That is not correct it is simply practice, in this case practice does not make us perfect it makes us practiced. We learn about what helps us, I for one use humour as my go to. Having a growth in my brain is actually petrifying but I laugh and joke and show people MRI scans saying well at least we know for certain now that I do in fact have a brain. That is my way of putting fear in its place. This is something that may not work for you but we find our path with practice, that is what we build is a bank of coping mechanisms.
Another way to see it is as a channel swimmer. They train to build up a resilience to the cold water, that does not mean that they stop feeling the cold, no they learn to swim through it.
In summary
· Don’t blame yourself
· Allow time to move through it
· Practice kindness to yourself
· Don’t fall into a comparison trap
· Learn about what works for you
· Ask for help and tell people what you need
· Build a support network (remember the best way to get a friend is to BE a friend)
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Nicolette Lafonseca is an author, creativity trainer and EQ expert she has developed courses to aide people to find their calm and is an advocate for slow creative living. You can find her at Archie & The Rug, join her book club and on Instagram.
