Are You Facing Adversity

Are you facing adversity? That’s an interesting question. It implies first, that you’re in the midst of a tough time in your life; and second, that you’re not ignoring it or running away from it, but that you have turned your face into the storm, so to speak. So let me ask it again, are you facing adversity?
I have spent much of my working life helping people who have been in the midst of many kinds of adversity and I have experienced my share of adversity. Together, these experiences have given me the opportunity to notice what helps and what doesn’t when people are in tough times. It appears to me that facing adversity successfully includes these five actions or processes:
1. Face it
2. Get your feet under you
3. Clean up the mess
4. Cope with the fallout
5. Dig for the deeper meaning and the hidden benefit

Featured Quote

The hallmark of individuation is the differentiation of the individual psyche from its containment in the collective psyche from its containment in the collective psyche. This process is accompanied by a progressive awareness of the transpersonal psyche and the task of mediating and humanizing its energies.

— Edward Edinger, The Creation of Consciousness