Growth After Trauma

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. Such a pleasure to be with you. I have another makeshift studio. I'm bringing you both audio and video so that we can use some of our podcasts on IGTV as well. This is season 3 of the No Ego Podcast. It's been kind of a mess, some mix-up or mash-up of starting with having you write to me via email and give me not just your questions but situations you're finding yourself in with the luscious detail that I can then invite a guest on, whether it's Alex Dorr, our VP of People Evolution, or a great employee attorney friend, Pam Bourne. I want to take your situations, your questions. It could be one of my business colleagues. It could be a great coach of mine like Stephen Matthew Adams. I want to take those situations and be able to respond with a, a rich exploration of many possibilities and ideas for suggestions and techniques in And linking things to understanding so that you could really move through the world more skillfully. So if you could send those to me, info@psychwakehampton.com, info@psychwakehampton.com, send me your current situation so that we can go back to how we started this podcast and really bring in some experts, bring in the best I have to work on the situations you find yourself in. today. So what's relevant? And my promise is I'll go out and try and find the best person or people to chime in and crowdsource some great experiences and techniques and strategies for you. So please send in your situations. As you can tell from my background, this is another kind of homemade, home-filled, filmed podcast. I am filming this today from a quick hiking trip I took, so I'm in my hotel and wanted to talk to you though about a phenomenon that I was just recently reminded of. I'd forgotten about, and that phenomenon I want to talk about today is post-traumatic growth, PTG. It is emerging from trauma in a way that one is changed for the better. So I've talked a lot about being impacted but not traumatized by all the things going on in our world today. I really ask people to get into reflecting what my current situation has revealed to me, what is falling apart for me, where can I make friends with uncertainty. And while taping my course on resilience, which will be out next month online— you can just take it, don't need to go through learning and development, don't need to have me come to your organization virtually— have a great course coming your way on resiliency. By the way, Alex Dorr just filmed a course on mental minimalism, so we have 2 really blockbuster awesome courses coming out to you online next month. Very excited about it. But as I'm working with leaders and individuals that are living in the US and, um, and south of the US and other countries, especially Mexico and South America right now, They're asking me for a lot of resources on resilience. How do I use this time for the better and grow my own resilience? How do I capitalize on these experiences for resilience in my people? How do I not just develop resilience but be resilient, grow resilience? It's really the big word right now. How do we foster resilience, our own and others'? And so I've been doing a lot of thinking on resilience. And resilience is this ability to bounce back. It's A little bit more about the individual and their ability to do hard things, to manage and still be able to produce results in very challenging circumstances, to not just muscle their way through, but to be able to, in a sustainable way, respond to challenge and disruption. Awesome competency. So I've talked a lot about resilience and how that is dependent on self-reflection. And I've also gotten back into the research I've done on accountability and what differentiated people who happen to score high in accountability versus those who might have scored lower in accountability. What are those differentiators? And while I'm doing this, I was talking to a really good friend, fantastic businessman, Doug Claffey at EnerGage. Hi, Doug. And he reminded me, he said, you know, have you heard of PTG? And I'm like, that sounds familiar. What? Where have I heard of that? He said, well, it's post-traumatic growth. I'm like, I can't believe I forgot about this whole field of study that, that evolved, kind of started in the '90s and continues to evolve. And it's not just resiliency. It's not just an individual able to respond and bounce back. It is seemingly being able to emerge after you completely fall apart in a transformed way. See, resiliency gets us through the moment, but pretty much we bring a lot of what used to be with us, and we don't make super long-lasting changes. We can handle the circumstances, but it may not propel profound growth. It's good, but when I talk about contemplation rather than just self-reflection, going beyond. It really is this post-traumatic growth phenomena that I think is important for you to know about, to know the possibility of not being traumatized but actually capitalizing on the impacts for profound growth while things are falling apart. Being able to allow the falling apart, knowing there's a possibility of profound found things on the other side, that you can be transformed, that you can come to value relationships differently, that you can be rearranged and have your spiritual beliefs altered, that you can come to see the world in some profoundly new ways. And when he reminded me of that, I thought, that's right, I When I gave my TEDx talk in Omaha, there was an incredible neuropsychologist that talked about post-traumatic growth and how people respond to a spinal cord injury differently, and the study of why some people come through profoundly changed, evolved in big ways, and make meaning of their experience, and then go on to be of service in completely different ways than they had intended for their life, where they really are renewed, transformed, where they are— Changed. Changed. Resiliency is awesome because it gets you through and you can be grown by the experience, but I just didn't quite have the words for me talking to you about the world health crisis and the amplified conversations about race in our nation and the unemployment rates and the economic downturn. And it's like resilience just wasn't quite enough, and I'm so glad I got reminded about post-traumatic growth syndrome. You have got to go Check this out. Danielle Laporte, and I just, I love her work. If you're not tuned into her, go tune in there. I've mentioned her multiple times, but she made, I think it was just an entry on Instagram that I've been walking with lately, and it is that hopefulness basically is the ability to imagine On the other side of this, not just that this will turn out okay, not just a positive outcome, but multiple positive possibilities. This takes hope beyond a strategy. It says I can envision multiple possibilities that all would be amazing on the other side of this. Not just a long shot, not just gosh, I may get through this and maybe I'll get lucky and something good would happen. That's not agency, the intentional action of imagining multiple possibilities without attachment to one where we get hooked on and attached, which will lead to suffering, but the ability to envision with great expectancy multiple awesome possibilities and to be open to any or all of those possibilities, that, that really is the embodiment of active hope, of Intentional hope of welcoming in all the many things that could be beyond your current view of the world, your view of your own life, and to be out there, the imagining of multiple possible beautiful things. So assignment number 1, I want you to get busy. This isn't just making a vision board. I want you to get busy truly sitting with and meditating on Amazing possibilities that are there for you a day out from today, a week out, a month out. Not just trying to find the silver lining, not trying to spiritually bypass, not trying to just think positively. Truly spending some time in imagination, playing with the creative act of finding multiple. Possible possibilities, that they're all possible possibilities— that's redundant— positive possibilities, and that it's not just about getting through. Set your goals higher. And as I'm walking with that, and my conversation with Doug and a lot of other people, I've been asking like, what do you think? How quickly do we bounce back? Like, what's the other side look like? Like, do you think we're gonna be resilient? Do you think this is gonna keep us humans down and out for a long time? What do you think the effects are gonna be? And I am finding overwhelmingly— there's a few Debbie Downers, but overwhelmingly most people are saying, you know what, I think we will recover, and sooner than you think. And you know, history makes a case for it. Doug kind of reminded me that after the Spanish flu, what came next? The Roaring '20s. After, um, I forget which plague, I think the bubonic one, like the Renaissance came. Like, we are known as a human species, if you look, if history is any indication, of coming back better with some pent-up demand and some pent-up creativity. And so as I talk to people about— now my favorite question, like, what do you think, how does this all kind of turnout. A lot of people are like, I don't think we'll just live in our homes isolated from everybody. They're like, I do see us going back to concerts and appreciating how sweet they are, being able to gather together and eat at restaurants. And I do believe we'll get back to packing stadiums full. And, and you know, that, that's very much supported not just in history, that following really challenging times, we as humans are a pretty resilient group, and that we don't just need to leave it to chance. Although just left to chance, the odds are in our favor that we can come back in a pretty big, cool way. I started to say, well, how can we rather just be passive and wait for that? How can we be active with that? How can we be an active participant in This opportunity we have to create this rare— it's a rare opportunity to create like something better intentionally. And so when Doug and I were talking about that, it was just a quick conversation. I started asking people about how do you think this will turn out? Will we get back together and do trainings? Will we always just have to have small bubbles? I mean, are we just We wait for a vaccination, and then you know how does this bounce back? And I started to really get intrigued with being reminded about PTG. So I'm going to give you a little bit about it today. I want to get your thinking started. Go out there and research it because here's what we know for sure: when you ask, once they was with college students, and they asked college students like if they had had a traumatic event in their short life, and it was almost ninety percent. Could identify something very traumatic, whether it was a car accident or a sexual— some sort of sexual assault or, you know, a difficult death of a loved one. So if like 90% of the human race is able to go on and do great things after trauma, most of us don't end up post-trauma with like post-traumatic stress disorder. We have proven ourselves to be a pretty resilient group of a pretty resilient species. Like, we do come through. And the question is, when you look at folks that have more than just trauma but have something where, like, it really erodes kind of what they thought the world was built on, their, their core beliefs are challenged, they are put through something so traumatic, not just something they have to be resilient around But something so traumatic that it just takes the rug out from under them in a big way, what happens then? Is that always post-traumatic stress disorder? And the answer is no. That unfortunately for some, yes, it is a way that the body responds with overload and, and really challenging effects after being traumatized. And I don't want to discount that. I just want to point out that a whole larger percent of folks don't end up with that response, that there's other possibilities. And I think at times we're so into the religion of suffering that we just assume that we'll be negatively impacted, and we forget our partnership with co-creating and coming through, that there is a possibility of emerging better off than ever, of us creating something, of us altering our relationships and our belief systems where this could not just make us stronger, but make us kinder and more compassionate and just better people. And so I have it here. So post-traumatic growth syndrome is the theory that explains a kind of transformation after trauma, not just surviving trauma. And it was originally brought out like in the '90s and It's that people who endure psychological struggle following adversity can often see positive growth afterwards. And this is what I'm going after when I say, let's not waste, you know, um, a pandemic. Like, let's honor what we've all been through collectively, which has been horrible, right? And let's honor it with our own attention to our own growth and development. Now, A better way to grow is through positive experiences. So this is in no way saying, oh my gosh, isn't trauma a great thing? No, it is saying that given trauma, I want people to know there's possibilities out there to grow differently. Um, so something that shakes your core beliefs, and I think for a lot of us we've had some of our core beliefs shaken. Hopefully, hopefully, if nothing else, the visibility of what people of color experience and have for hundreds of years in our country has challenged our core beliefs to our very foundations. Like, I'm hoping for all of us that we allow that, that you can have this big growth spurt afterwards. And how do we capitalize on that? Like, who have they studied? Like, who comes out with some transformational growth, and they have. And it seems as though people who are willing to be open to their experience, go deep into the feelings, have some sense-making, which is one of our steps of accountability— sense-making mentoring— have someone in their life that they can help make sense of what happens, that they can find meaning in what happened to them, and that There's some extroversion involved, not only extroverts, but that they're reaching out and connecting with others. So who tends to grow after a traumatic event? Who has this profound experience that they really believe— they can look back and say, that was such a turning point, I'm so grateful even that happened to me? Those folks who are open to the experience, are willing to go deep and not avoid the feelings, not ruminate and be in unhealthy mental patterns, but are willing to feel the feelings and, um, be in that discomfort, and who will connect with others, extrovert out and connect, and be able to talk about it and debrief with others in a way that helps them find meaning. Pretty cool stuff when you think about the role of a leader. Now, the role of a leader is when we're going through traumatic things and we want people to come out and be positioned for post-traumatic growth, what does that mean for us as a leader? Can we, you know, can we foster this? And so as a leader, what that means is, first of all, we can't too quickly insist upon It happening. We can't— when somebody gets into some feelings, we can't discount what's happening to them and too quickly say, yeah, but let's look at the growth opportunity here. You have to let live the experience that's letting live. And that's why we've talked a lot about getting back to the basics and making sure people are safe and having people feel heard and holding space for people to be able to share what it's like for them and to be able to connects with another person about their experiencing. So this is not something you do pre-empathy. Empathy is, I really— I may not understand because I've experienced it myself, but I can relate to the feelings you're having, and I can find great compassion and empathy for the pain that you're in. The call to greatness is that gentle call later that said, would you be willing to enter into some self-reflection and contemplation and see if we can make some sense of this and see See what it reveals to us and see where it can grow us. And that's the leader coming in with the self-reflection and helping people make sense of the experience that they're going through and to really find how they can transform for the better. So we can pave the way. We can put out there just the knowledge that it's a possibility. That there's more than one possible positive outcome besides just surviving this thing. And I think that's the hope that leaders need to not only put out there but call upon people. The call to greatness we can be making as leaders is saying, what if we can do our part to be changed for the better by this? And so I think it's so exciting because people who measure in the ways that social science measured experiencing post-traumatic growth reported that they had a sweeter, greater appreciation of life and far more gratitude and appreciation for the basics and the small things. And that even though they weren't grateful for what was happening, they could find this gratitude in the moment while things were happening. It was a way of being content or happy even when life is messy. And they also found that they were stronger than they ever knew. So they have this new sense of their own abilities that they just never knew that they were capable of that as an individual or as a group or a team. And they really are in touch with the possibilities in life and how unlimited life could be and their responsibility to others, relationships. They have a new sense of interdependence and kind of unity and striving for unity. They definitely report spiritual changes. Wow. If we have to look at what's going on in, you know, what we want for our communities and our corporations and what are we calling for, we're calling for, can we acknowledge our interdependence? Can we strive for more unity? Can we have more equity, um, whether it's social justice or racial or, um, you know, gender equity at work. Like, when I ask people what they would hope for us to improve upon, whether we're doing engagement surveys or whether I'm just in talking about what could make this a better place to work or what would make your life better, they go through the list. I want, you know, people— I want to be in a place I appreciate and that people are grateful and that we have some spiritual meaning in our lives. Like, This is what everybody wants. The science suggests that it's possible after trauma to emerge with what they call post-traumatic growth. I'm like, wow, here's a new way to connect the dots for folks and for leaders to really be able to put this into practice. That as a leader, we can't mandate this thing. We can't discount people's feelings by saying, well, you should have a growth mindset. This isn't about telling. It is about holding space for people to experience what they experience. Helping them use good mental processes so they don't start thinking their feelings, that they aren't feeling feelings based on judgment rather than reality, that they just are able to share and breathe through and get in touch with and go deeper into the moment. And then inviting them first to self-reflect—that gets them through the moment with resiliency, right? And then to. Have them contemplate what the greater possibilities are and where they could grow next. That this is a fairly normal process. This is a this is as available or more available to you than being traumatized by all of this and being stressed out and being set back. And we just don't have to greet what's going on with suffering now. Pain is we have feelings about what's happening. There's some painful things going on right now, folks. But suffering is when we take it and rather than grow beyond it or use it as rocket fuel to, um, be different in the world, we attach to it and have it fuel our ego and further proof that we're victims and reinforce that whole victim-mindedness. So it's so fascinating that we could have this opportunity. And when I think about as a leader what I can write on and do next to have to say, as a leader, is there a way we can facilitate post-traumatic growth? As a leader, can we help shape the thinking of the co-creators right now, which is all of us with kind of the universe, to keep on the table the possibility that this is a big moment in our evolution and that so many incredible things are possible for us. You know, I received a gift one time. I think it's called kintsugi. It's a Japanese, um, art where if something that's porcelain is broken, that it's mended, but it's mended with a mixture of beautiful grout, so to speak, but the grout is made with some gold and, and other like precious elements. And so when it's repaired, the repair takes a porcelain object and makes it into a work of art. And the art, what makes it artistic, is first the breaking and then the repairing. Without the breaking, it would still just be A porcelain piece and not art. Like, when I got that gift, it was really meaningful to me. It was at a time that felt like my life was falling apart. And I've mentioned this before, but Pema Chödrön's book When Things Fall Apart is just a classic for us to pull off the shelf and be reading at this time. But the science and history suggests that not only are we gonna recover, but We have demonstrated just this immense capacity in humans for resiliency and growth. Like, it is our birthright. It really— it is what has been our signature for quite a while as we've moved through some of these difficulties. And when leaders connect with me and they're like, oh my gosh, I need to teach my team to be resilient, Resiliency is actually more common than you think. Now, intentional resiliency, it may not be a gift that somebody's willing to give you at the workplace. Just like with engagement, it's discretionary effort. Most of us though, if we have a medical diagnosis that is devastating, we're resilient and we— very few of us enter deep, dark depressions never to return. Like, most of us are very resilient. It's very common. It's discretionary. So as I've developed this class on resilience, I'm like, wait a minute. Resilience is something though that has a lot about our choices. It's that stepping up or stepping down. Resilience is something I need to choose to, um, a path I need to choose to take. And in the course, I give you a lot of techniques to keep resilience an easy, ready choice for you to make in your own life. But it is pretty, um, common and And I think remarkable. I think our capacity for resilience, I mean, we've proven it. It's common, but it's remarkable. When I listen to some people who report on post-traumatic growth experiences, what they've been through, what they're able to create in their lives as a beautiful new object based on the repair from a life-shattering event is really, really profound. We really can thrive in the aftermath of a disruptive situation, a painfully disruptive situation. We can thrive, and that's the hope I want us leaders to be instilling in others. You know, right now we have a lot of things being revealed about the human race that just is messy and ugly and a lot we shouldn't be proud of. Everything from, you know, not doing our part to keep other people safe from COVID or ignoring science, but also what's being revealed to us about how we have— those of us identify as white— have merely gone along our way not even noticing what was so obvious to people of Of color. And again, this isn't justification of trauma. I prefer to not have anyone have had the trauma of having to work on the front lines or having to, um, you know, recover or have someone in their lives pass from COVID But we really need to keep in people's minds while we're looking at the underbelly of the human race that there's this other part of the human race that through our choices we can really Sometimes unexpectedly come through with just a more profound, big open heart and open mind and love for the world. And this is all about the act of making sense of what seems to be kind of an unfathomable event. And that's where the leader comes in. The leader comes in not preaching and teaching. The leader comes in to meet the person in their pain, have empathy for that, folks, For that person. And then at the appropriate time, not too soon, but at the appropriate time, start to gently prod for what does that reveal to you and where do you need to grow next in order for you to make good use of that experience. And, you know, definitely we are all shook up. There are a lot of things happening in our world that really have I know me shaking my life up caused me to really take another look at what are my values and what are my goals, and have I been living in a way that those values are visible? Like, have I been living with my values out loud? Like, can you tell by how I am with you today that what my values are? And It's like we've got to look at this stuff because, um, post-traumatic growth comes after like a seismic event. I mean, like, think earthquake, think devastation. And we're in kind of a mental earthquake. But, you know, Viktor Frankl wrote so much about this. He didn't call it post-traumatic growth, but he wrote so much about when we can't change the world, then we need to change ourselves and the way we are in the world. And how can we pursue the new opportunities that are coming our way? Because what is the worst thing we can do is resist it, avoid it. The key when you look at post-traumatic growth is the key is that people are not doing emotional avoidance things like drinking and, you know, avoiding or raging or venting or, you know, self-soothing. People are not— people who have experienced post-traumatic growth allowed themselves to go deep in the hole, go deep and not try and numb themselves out. Definitely self-care, but not self-soothing. And so they didn't try and regulate these emotions or deny them or, you know, positively think their way through it. It was this ability to feel the feelings and be in that place, which is why I'm talking a lot about emotional support as we feel what we feel. But not being owned by those feelings. So feeling the feelings and trying to move that energy through, and then responding with ways that tend to look towards future and hopefulness. Because the worst thing we can do when we start to think our feelings and we start to vent, we start to ruminate, is use what's happened to us as further proof that the world's unsafe and that I'm a victim and that I'm helpless and I don't have any agency. And that's the type of like unhealthy, you know, whether it be obsessive thinking or rumination or catastrophe thinking or getting way too far out in the future. Or if you can, without thinking your feelings and reinforcing your victim mindset, feel the feelings and experience it but approach it with curiosity. And curiosity and openness to the experience and openness to multiple possibilities is really the Hallmark in this is a bit of like psychological flexibility, um, mental flexibility that we talk about, like the ability to not name something too soon, to walk with curiosity. Um, and when you think about your own life— and I'd invite you to do this— from my life, some of the times I was at my most creative was following a pretty big disadvantage. When you talk about, you know, true artists— and we're all artists— but people living out that way of life this lifetime. These artists out there, you know, they don't want necessarily cushy lives. Don't often help them get inspiration. Like, they take their disadvantage and transmute it into something bigger. And that's what, like, the concept of alchemy— alchemists talk about transmutation, how to take Disparate elements and transmute it into something greater, something, um, um, you know, yet unknown but desired. And it is our place, I think, for us to really start to look at how do we go against our natural inclinations, like the ego's view of the world. How do we toggle up and continue to toggle up and just be willing to come, sit, stay Martha Beck did a great article one time in Oprah Magazine, and it was like the same directions you give your pet are directions you should take in a tough time in your life. And I just— that, you know, the weird things that stick in your head: come, don't run away from it, come, move towards the pain, sit, be with it, don't fix it, don't You know, it's like, come sit, stay, stay curious far longer, and then open yourself up to— I don't need to think my way through and be in that I know mind. I'm going to get into the willing to break open without knowing, that letting go of the safety net and the, the ropes, that willingness to free fall. One of my yoga teachers said the reason why we practice is not necessarily that you're going to grow the very wings that would lead you if you happen to fall off a cliff, but to understand that if you fall off a cliff, you'll be able to grow your wings on the way down. Like the, the, the faith and the belief that That's possible and that you're ready for that, that you're open to that possibility. And so it really goes against what we naturally do, which is toggle down, see the world through the lens of ego, find insult where there isn't any, collect evidence about how we should suffer. And again, pain, yes, with what happens. Suffering is how we keep the pain alive in our lives rather than Participate in transmuting that into something beautiful. And that's really our work right now, I think, is not just, oh my gosh, can I survive this and hopefully get back to some sort of normal? Or can I come out with an advantage? Like, maybe I really like this working from home, so I only have to go in the office a couple days a week. Like, let's stop thinking about surviving it and having a few things in our favor at the end of this. Let's not think about how the world will change. Let's think about how we want to be changed, how we want to move through the world differently tomorrow and the day after and the day after. But without giving ourselves space for the imagining of what could happen, we really are just kind of walking blindly forward as kind of wounded prisoners in our reality. And that's why another place for a leader is to help manage energy away from why we shouldn't have to and why this is dooming for us, why this is doom and gloom, and instead to just keep that question on the table. Yeah, but what if we could? Yeah, but what if we could? How could we? And right now we need as inclusive of an environment as we can get for people to talk about What would the beautiful possibilities be? A world we're curating and designing right now. There's no more the system won't let— like, it's breaking open. There's no more we can't. We're the only ones that can. And so as a leader, we can't just hope we'll think of something as the time comes. We have to spend some real time envisioning What would it look like? What would beautiful look like? What would great look like? What would— what if we could have it all? What if we could work in, have workplaces that incorporated more of us? And what if we could have a nation that had equity in the many places that there's lack of equity? Like, what if we could? And with that visioning, then really start to tap into how can we. And when the ego takes us into why we can't, or why we shouldn't have to, or how we're all kind of doomed and want to revert to the suffering, I think leaders right now are not giving false hope. But we don't need blame; we need leadership. We don't need lamenting and wallowing. We need envisioning, and we need a lot of us. step up, imagining beautiful possibilities, and committing to post-traumatic growth. Committing to it. It's a possibility. It's in the research. It is a more common experience than post-traumatic stress disorder. Resilience is remarkable and common in the human race. I know a lot of us are out like, how can I keep my people resilient? But let's make sure our goal isn't just to survive this thing and keep the wheels on the bus. Let's make sure our goal is amazing. And a book I just ordered that I think will be amazing— so I'm pre-recommending a book I haven't read— but, um, and I even think I bought this book once and gave it away. I'll have to go back through my Amazon order history because I love the title of it. It's called Transcend, and it's, um, written by Scott Barry Kaufman, and he is a psychologist who's done quite a bit of work in trauma responses. And so it's got some good social science review in it. And, um, and maybe I just pre-ordered it because I think it just came out recently, but want you to go out and check that out. Let me know how you like it. So I just wanted to stop by. I'm using some of these podcasts not always to just teach and train you— I've got courses for that— but to just riff and ponder with you So here's my assignment. I've given you plenty through this, but my first assignment is sit down and not just surf through a few channels in your brain, but really pinpoint and spend time with the envisioning of many possible positive outcomes for what we're going through today, and then find some places to commit to that and Be empathetic with people, but work to support how we can make that happen. We're not doomed. This isn't, this isn't a negative. We're going to come back, and we can come back stronger and better. But what we're not getting enough of out there is hopeful leadership, not denying and just saying it's all going to end up okay when it doesn't feel like it. Acknowledging what's happening and calling upon all of us to envision and create, curate the world we want to live in. We really have that power. We're not limited in the ways our ego would have us believing. So comments below, what are you thinking about? Go explore this. Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Zakariyya. For reminding me of a very important topic. So what I will do next is I will take resilience, which is how to get through the moment, and I will see how I can't help you grow in, um, in this way as well. So be well and enjoy your week. This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama and End entitlement and transform your world place. I'm Sai Wakeman.