There’s a lot of documentation about post traumatic stress.  Events in the present striking back instances of the past.  This combined with a general experience of anxiety, sometimes nightmares, and a general reliving of what was experienced.  It’s a very valid space and one where given conditions of empathy in a Counselling space can soothe out the pain of what has taken place to allow healing to occur.

On the other side of the coin there is also post traumatic growth which is less spoken about but seems to be gaining more attention and popularity thesedays.  This is whereas the trauma becomes like an obstacle which is overcome.  I do love all this as there is the sense of the hero/heroine emerging with the battle scars while ultimately stronger.  Tony Robbins is quite a master at igniting this in people and I totally stand for this notion.  There are also really powerful stories by the likes of Michael J Fox (talking about Parkinsons), Mohammed Ali (also talking about Parkinsons disease) and a beautiful book I’m reading now called Grace and Grit by Ken Wilber about his relationship with his terminally ill wife.

I think it’s totally fine to work with whatever space you are in in relation to all this.  It was during the last few months when I was attending some work shops by a coaching colleague who spoke in a way which resonated with me about the potential danger of enhancing the idea of post traumatic growth in the sense it could lead someone to think they were failing if they weren’t getting to this almost super human state.  I resonated with where it was coming from.

After this I then heard a brilliant interview between Joe Rogan and Jane McGonigal.  It is Jane McGonigal who created the game and book called ‘Superbetter’ which is all about overcoming these obstacles.  Her original idea for the game came from her suffering her own brain injury which she then decided to make into a game.  She was asked about the idea of the post traumatic growth and I loved her so human response where she described how it was obviously great to find meaning and therefore grow from a situation.  At the same time though she said how she often got frustrated at constant migraines she had which she never had before.  She was very in touch still with a part of her which still wanted her life before while at the same time finding meaning in the growth which was now occuring.

The term my colleague has is ‘Its okay to be human’.  I think its really important in counselling and coaching to be able to see all three of these dimensions.  There were points where I was maybe just thinking of the first two but there’s a nice reality to be able to take in this middle ground and to be able to feel angst and frustration at some things lost and the regrets while at the same time importantly healing and growing towards a new future with meaning.