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Growth Choices




Have you ever heard of the idea that your external world (your physically manifested experience, the object sensory input from the world around you) will be influenced by your internal world (your mental space, your mindset, your beliefs)? It’s similar to the concept that what you love about others you love in yourself or what you dislike in other people mirrors what you don't like about yourself. Our internal tone can affect how we see the outside world and how we experience it. 


For example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a diagnosis for people who have suffered a trauma and manifest symptoms such as anxiety, paranoia, chronic fatigue, trouble sleeping, irritability, shame or guilt.


People who struggle with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or trauma may have heightened awareness and arousability due to a change in brain chemistry and change in beliefs influenced by the trauma. Cortisol levels and certain areas of the brain can become imbalanced after trauma. They may perceive the world differently as their brain processes things differently. Their own subjective experience (their personal experience) of the external world can be completely different from someone having the exact same sensory input. For example, walking in the dark on a city street at night or loud noises. Some people are terrified of these things, and others do it routinely, not thinking twice. 


Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) is a newer concept being studied in psychology that is seen when people have a traumatic experience and manifest symptoms of feeling as though they have come away stronger, having learned something, or are better for what they went through. PTG can manifest suddenly or over time; after an acute (one time) trauma or a chronic trauma. People with PTG are more likely to heal and process through their traumatic experiences as well as have better health outcomes. 


Whether you develop PTSD or PTG isn’t just genetics. It is influenced by your support system, your self image, your beliefs, your health, your past experiences, etc. There are many factors that influence how you react to trauma. Some of these are out of our control like genetic predisposition or what you were taught as a child, but there are things within your control you can do to build resilience and growth. Our brains are elastic, always changing and learning. We are able to rewire our brains when we practice making growth oriented choices. 


Emotionally intelligent people choose to create meaning from the events they face in life. They see obstacles before them and interpret these as opportunities for growth and learning rather than problems that will weigh them down and cause suffering. Cultivating this growth strategy and mindset can be hard work. You might have limiting self beliefs that you’ve been told your whole life or maybe have suffered a great deal and it’s become part of your identity. There’s plenty of reasons this might not come to you as naturally as some people, our experiences are all so vividly different and unique. 


This isn’t necessarily easy, it takes time, hard work, and dedication for this mindset to become natural. Do you want to change the way you view the world? Let’s say you’re willing to put the effort in, even if just to make some minor changes to how you might approach problems in your life. Here are some things you can try that have helped me and many others turn their lives around. 



Gratitude


A gratitude list in the morning can cultivate a mindset of appreciation and seeing the good in our lives. Try writing down or intentionally thinking about 3-10 things you’re grateful for in the morning. Even more effective is really feeling what your body is feeling when you do this. Tap into your body through just sitting or a body scan and noticing what sensations arise (tension, lightness, excitement, warmth, pressure). Closing your eyes and sitting with the feelings that arise in your body can be a very powerful way of shifting our mindset. 


This habit can strengthen the neuronal cells in your brain that activate when you feel gratitude. Envisioning and thinking about the beautiful things around you and the many things to be grateful for can fire up these connections. Strengthening this synaptic connection of energy can make it more likely for this to happen again. As my neuroscience professor used to say ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’. Try it for yourself! It feels pretty good to turn your attention to the things in your life that you love. 



‘What did I learn’


Another skill is utilizing the ‘what did I learn’ technique. Take any difficult situation you have endured, perhaps coming away from it with pain or suffering or dealing with difficult emotions such as frustration, guilt, shame, anger or disappointment. These situations can become an obsession, sometimes we live in the past, ruminating on what we could’ve done differently or how we just wish it wasn’t like this - resisting the experience. To try and create meaning from these experiences and reduce the suffering they cause us we can ask what it taught us. We reframe the situation in our brains from ‘this experience is causing me pain’ to ‘this experience has value and purpose’. This can be a powerful shift whenever practiced and teaches us to seek for what good we can take away from whatever is happening. 


It is normal to still feel difficult emotions. This technique will not necessarily make your problems disappear, but it can change the way your brain responds to struggle in the future and how you re-experience the issue whenever you reflect on it. Maybe you will see it as an opportunity for growth rather than feeling resistance towards an experience you believe will haunt you forever. It is what you make it, the obstacle can become the way. 



Radical acceptance


Radical acceptance is a Dialectical Behavior Therapy skill that can aid you in the process of moving through difficult times. When there are circumstances that are outside of what we can change we can  resist it, try to avoid and imagine some other way it should’ve gone, or we can use radical acceptance. This requires being able to reflect on your experience and say ‘it is what it is,’ and let go of how you think it should be. This alongside an intentional mindset of finding value can be very impactful. You view yourself as a victim to the situation or as experiencing a part of life and learning something.


In Buddhism it is a common belief that attachment and resistance (being attached to an outcome or the world being a certain way, wanting something to be a different way than it is) lead to suffering. Attaching to an expectation can set us up for failure, not everything will go the way you want it to - in fact many things in your life will happen in a way you don’t expect. Failure, death, sadness, grief, loneliness, confusion and illness will always be a part of life, this we cannot necessarily change. So what can we do when these situations arise? Make the best of them. Allow them to teach us something by deciding that they will teach us something. Finding meaning, and utilizing it in the future. Choosing to grow over perish.


For example, if someone is no longer a part of your life, you can choose to reflect on the lesson that not everyone will stay in your life forever. There’d be way too many people, and maybe you grew to value different things. That’s okay, and normal. Perhaps that relationship was not meant to stay in your life for a reason, and that’s okay. People come and go, so it is the way of life. Rather than ruminating on what went wrong or how the world could do this to you, you’re allowing it to be what it is.



There are an incredible amount of lessons for us to learn and take away from the experiences we face. We have options to take control over how we show up and respond to some of these things. Utilizing these skills can help us choose growth over victimhood. 

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