Resilience or personal growth for some of us can be a struggle.
What if it could be a choice?
Through my life experiences I have realized that it can be just that.
I'm happy to share with you all today my journey with this question.
Most of us have some close friends that we tell a lot to.
My dad was such a friend.
Last April on my Dad's Birthday,
I received a call, expecting it to be for him.
It was from the hospital.
They told me your father has pneumonia, he is very sick,
Can you come in?
So after rushing in there, one of the nurses took me aside and told me:
"Your father is the sickest patient here in ICU
there is no guarantees and we had to induce a coma."
I began to slip into a dark place.
I later learned that some emotional symptoms of trauma
can be denial or disbelief, guilt, shame, self blame,
fear and anxiety.
Some physical symptoms can be insomnia or nightmares,
difficulty concentrating, aches and pains, agitation, edginess.
As I began to deal with my father's situation,
what startled me was I identified with these symptoms and more.
Now, I am generally an optimistic kind of person,
So a lot of these symptoms were foreign to me.
They lasted for more than a month,
So I decided to seek help.
I talked to a few different counselors
and started to open up more to my friends and family.
about what I was going through.
I started to talk about my father's struggle with addiction,
it eased the pain but just a little.
Tthen things started looking up he was getting better,
he was out of his coma.
I cherished the next six months,
my son had his grandpa back,
he was the same old self but recovering in the hospital.
I felt relief from the fear of losing him,
from what I felt it was like the consequences of loving someone,
but I still struggled, struggled with acceptance,
acceptance of his life and his choices.
We started to make plans on when he was going to get out
and how he was going to come spend time with me and my family.
Then the pneumonia came back.
I got a call and they said: "Your father is sick again
and has at most 24 hours to live."
I spoke to him one last time, he said: "I'm sorry. I love you."
he passed away the next morning.
The pain and despair came back much stronger than last time,
as if built up or continuation of everything I have experienced before.
I eventually realized that in order to understand what I was going through,
I needed to learn. So I started to research things
like death, trauma, pain, post traumatic stress disorder
and then resilience,
and post traumatic growth.
Post traumatic growth
means a positive life change that occurs as a result of traumatic event.
Where resilience is an individual's capacity to withstand stressors
and not manifest psychological dysfunction.
I realized I was experiencing psychological dysfunction.
I learned there are three domains of
post traumatic growth and how people experience them.
The first one is existential or spiritual.
A few examples might be a greater appreciation of life.
Perhaps enjoying life more, maybe you change your priorities.
Perhaps one who's been head deep in work might spend more time
with their family or connect with old friends.
Perhaps to change their view of the world, maybe start to see beauty
and wonder where you had not before.
The second is relationship growth.
Maybe you have an increased appreciation for the loved ones in you life.
Maybe a willingness to engage in new relationships,
or discover new perspectives to built the relationships you already have
and what they really mean to you.
And the third is self growth.
Could experience an increase sense of personal strength.
Maybe you start appreciating the smaller things in life.
What I found interesting was that post traumatic growth has the ability
to transform someone's life unlike the apparently similar concepts of resilience,
which is about back to normal or coping with the situation.
Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.
That's something C. S. Lewis once said.
In all of my research the conclusion I came to was
when you experience a traumatic event you have three main potential paths:
either you're lucky and you are resilient, you experience growth,
or you suffer.
Now lots of us experience pieces of all of these, but some people take one road.
By now I bet you're all wondering how choice plays a role into all of this,
So I will explain.
A while after my father's passing
I was reading other people's story in an attempt to help my own pain.
And I came across an article by a girl who had lost her father
and I felt she had much more extreme circumstances than I did.
Yet she had moved on and grown from it.
I must have read it at least ten times.
I remember afterwards telling myself:
"There is way out. I don't need to be suffering,
and if someone else can do it so can I."
That was my choice.
That night I slept better than I had in a long time.
The next day I started asking myself questions like:
"What really makes me happy?"
"Do I feel closer to my friends and family?"
"How can I improve the relationships I'm in?"
"What is my sense of meaning and purpose?"
"What are my true goals and dreams?"
"Who am I really?"
And "how can I honor my dad in my life?"
Within a couple of days the despair and pain went away completely.
The way we think changes how we feel and who we are.
These simple questions completely transformed my thoughts.
Memories of him passing turned to good times growing up.
I could concentrate better than ever on my studies.
But most importantly I accepted his death and his life,
learned form it and will continue to.
I also started to spend more time with my friends and family.
For me it was a choice.
Next time, will you make a choice?
I'll leave you with a quote from Eckhart Tolle:
"When something negative happens to you, there's a deep lesson concealed within it"
Thank you.
(Applause)