Photo credit: Pennsylvania National Guard, Flickr
Humans have a remarkable capacity for resilience. Over and over, we hear stories of people who, after trauma and adversity, pick themselves up, put the pieces back together, and go on with their lives.
But for many, there's a place beyond recovery. For this group, life's most difficult experiences prompt them not only to bounce back, but to bounce forward. These are the people who David B. Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz spotlight in their new book, Supersurvivors: The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success. They define a supersurvivor as “a person who has dramatically transformed his or her life after surviving a trauma, accomplishing amazing things or transforming the world for the better.”
By telling the stories of those who created better lives for themselves following a traumatic event, and considering the experiences in the context of recent scientific studies on trauma and recovery, Feldman and Kravetz uncover five key characteristics shared by supersurvivors:
They have a sense of “grounded hope.”
They’re delusional, but in a good way.
They're willing to be helped by others.
They know the power of forgiveness.
They find strength in something larger than themselves.
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