11/11/2024
As a therapist for many years, I learned to give people room to make meaning of the sufferings they’ve experienced, and I’ve also learned to sit with clients when no sense can be found. I’ve learned we don’t need to rush to make “positive meaning” out of terrible experiences. Sometimes bad things happen; it doesn’t make sense, is unfair, and has no meaning! And the pain of that suffering reverberates in our cells, impacting how we see ourselves and the world. We long for the days of naivety because the suffering broke us. Yes, we can carry that brokenness and allow it to make us more empathic and less judgmental, but those traumas aren’t always worth the change or what we now call resilience. Often, we paint resilience with a broad brush as an overall positive thing, forgetting that suffering and trauma can be so powerful that they encode themselves into our DNA, changing us and our offspring. It is ok to say this sucks, we don’t know, it’s terrible, I’m sorry. Validate people’s experiences without rushing to get them to the lesson and the resilience they’ll build. What are your thoughts about resilience?
