Supersurvivors , livre ebook

DAVID B. FELDMAN LEE DANIEL KRAVETZ

SUPERSURVIVORS
The Surprising Link Between Suffering and Success
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Contents
CHAPTER 1 To Survive or to Supersurvive
CHAPTER 2 The Paradox of Positive Thinking
CHAPTER 3 The Truth of Illusion
CHAPTER 4 The World We Thought We Knew
CHAPTER 5 The Company We Keep
CHAPTER 6 Awakened by Death
CHAPTER 7 Faith s Mixed Blessing
CHAPTER 8 Forgiving the Unforgivable
CHAPTER 9 The Right Choice
Epilogue
References
Acknowledgments
Follow Random House
Copyright
About the Authors
David B. Feldman, PhD, is considered to be among the top experts on hope in the field of psychology. An associate professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University, he holds a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Feldman is the author of two previous books, has written for Psychology Today and the Huffington Post , and has published numerous research articles. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
www.davidfeldmanphd.com
Lee Daniel Kravetz has a master s degree in counseling psychology and is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism. He has written for Psychology Today , the Huffington Post , and the New York Times , among other publications. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and children.
www.leedanielkravetz.com
Praise for Supersurvivors
Supersurvivors might well be a how-to manual on taking adversity and turning it into an advantage. As I read it, I kept thinking: I wish I d had this book ten years ago Aron Ralston, survivor, speaker, author, and subject of the film 127 Hours
An inspirational read that s rooted in hard science People
If you read Feldman and Kravetz, you will come away inspired and more attuned to the factors that influence resilience-including religious faith, the ability to forgive, and awareness of mortality Harvard Business Review
Turns out surviving the most dangerous situations has some good lessons we can use to learn how to be resilient in everyday life Time
Fascinating. . . . ultimately, we discover our ability to deal with unforeseen challenges and realize the remarkable potential of the human spirit Diane Dreher, Ph.D., Psychology Today
It s rare to find a book that appeals so well to both the head and the heart. Marrying eye-opening stories with thought-provoking science, Feldman and Kravetz open a powerful window into a world of forgiveness and hope Frederic Luskin, Ph.D., author of Forgive for Good and director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project
This summer s Big Idea book Bloomberg Businessweek
Supersurvivors is a brilliant rethinking of the consequences of trauma. This book will change the meaning we give to survival, both for individuals and for our culture as a whole Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche
This is a blockbuster that every leader, parent, doctor, teacher, student, coach, and caregiver needs to read. I can t remember the last time I was so fascinated and moved by a book-let alone one grounded in science Adam Grant, Professor at the Wharton School of Business, and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take
Just surviving suffering is a form of success. But these people have done more than survive, and their stories are worth your time. One day you may need what they have Linda Ellerbee, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Journalist, TV Producer, and New York Times bestselling author
Hope for the endurance of the human spirit in the face of tragedy. Artfully described . . . intensely powerful . . . riveting . . . uplifting Kirkus Reviews
A charming and thoughtful mix of scientific thought and anecdotal evidence Mindful
Supersurvivors dares to ask, How, really, do we heal? From real case studies and hard science, the answers it finds shake the foundations of the way we conceive recovery Po Bronson, New York Times bestselling author of NurtureShock
Supersurvivors provides the contemporary science about the biology of hope that is vital for all of us-all of us-as we daily confront challenge big and small, real and imagined Walter M. Bortz, II M.D., Clinical Professor of Medicine, Stanford University, and author of The Roadmap to 100
For my parents, who taught me how to hope.
-DAVID B. FELDMAN
For Mimi. You were right.
-LEE DANIEL KRAVETZ
1
To Survive or to Supersurvive
To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
-E. E. CUMMINGS, SUPERSURVIVOR
O n the spectrum of trauma survivorship, everyone falls somewhere between hiding under a rock and becoming a rock star.
Asha Mevlana lay on a table in a small examination room at Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center in the West Village, New York City, when this first crossed her mind. She was twenty-four years old, dark-haired, and beautiful. The technology industry in 2002 was making young people all over the city rich. She had a great job at a start-up, an apartment in SoHo, and a pearl-shaped problem within her left breast.
Asha had already guessed that it was cancer; the lab technician s grim look was merely confirmation. The defining moment of her ordeal, however, wasn t the diagnosis. It wasn t the biopsy at Sloan Kettering. It also wasn t the undeniable sensation that her life was spinning out of control as she underwent eight months of chemotherapy. It wasn t her baldness or her candle-wax pallor, either.
For Asha, the defining moment came after the doctors announced that she was cancer-free and sent her back out into the world. She noticed that something within her had changed. While she d been facing her mortality, everyone else had gone on blithely living their lives. Her coworkers talked about the crummy New York weather, the long lines at Starbucks, and the finalists on American Idol . The blissfully mundane events of their lives seemed to diminish the most significant and defining experience of hers. Everyone seemed to place value in such inconsequential things, and she found herself yearning for a time when she did as well.
Life as Asha once knew it simply didn t make sense anymore; it seemed empty. So, she promptly dropped out of it. I m not a religious person, but I prayed: Just give me a second chance and I m going to change my life. I m going to do what I m passionate about, she says.
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Asha is not alone.
According to the American Cancer Society, roughly thirteen million people around the world are diagnosed with cancer each year, a number that is projected to double in the next two decades. The journal Neuroimaging Clinics of North America provides a similarly grim outlook, with a startling ten million people worldwide affected every year by traumatic brain injuries. The harsh reality of widespread trauma becomes even more apparent once we combine these numbers with the World Health Organization s calculation that fifty million people a year survive car wrecks; the United Nations finding that one out of every three women will be beaten, raped, or otherwise abused during her lifetime; and the realization that these statistics cover only a small portion of the catastrophes that befall people every day.
It is no coincidence that the seeds of this book took root during a particular point in history, one that could be fairly characterized as traumatic for a lot of people. America s housing bubble ruptured, global markets plummeted, millions of people lost jobs and homes, the Tohoku earthquake shifted the earth on its axis by more than six inches, and as acts of terrorism spiked, people found themselves grasping for a sense of safety. These days, such events are practically the backdrop of daily life.
Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry Judith Herman calls trauma the affliction of the powerless. The problem is we re all powerless against the vicissitudes of fate. At the moment of trauma, the victim is rendered helpless by an overwhelming force. When the force is that of nature, we speak of disasters. When the force is that of other human beings, we speak of atrocities, she writes in her book Trauma and Recovery . Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life. Depending on the particular type of trauma, about a quarter of survivors will fall into posttraumatic stress disorder, a painful and often debilitating condition. Others will experience significant depression or anxiety.
In the midst of all this adversity, it s tempting to become pessimistic and fall into a kind of fatalistic hopelessness. It s easy to overlook the amazing potential for resilience in us as human beings. Amazingly, even in midst of trauma, people continue to smile, to love, to celebrate, to create, and to renew. In making this observation, we absolutely do not mean to belittle the impact of traumatic times or the suffering many have endured and continue to endure. Suffering is real, but resilience is also real. It is an incredible and encouraging fact about human nature that, contrary to popular belief, after a period of emotional turmoil, most trauma survivors eventually recover and return to their lives. They bounce back.
And in some cases, they do much more. They bounce forward , and in truly remarkable ways. A significant minority, as a result of the trauma, feel called upon to engage in a wider world, Herman writes. They refocus their energies on a new calling, on a new mission, on a new path, on helping others who have been victimized, on education, on legal reforms, or any number of other big goals. They move beyond mere resilience. They transform the meaning of their personal tragedies by making them the bases for change.
We call these people supersurvivors.
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In the aftermath of her cancer diagnosis, Asha paid for improvisa tional violin lessons. Her teacher took a unique approach with her. She asked me to