Not Defeated. . .

We are not defeated by adversity but by the loss of the will to strive. When I tell people some of the stories of my life, they often comment that I’m strong. I don’t think of myself as strong. I think of myself as sensitive, with hope and curiosity strong enough to believe that I will figure it out and get through it. Let’s not confuse being able to look back at an event, even when traumatic, and talk about it in the past as being strong, as if it hasn’t touched us. It all touches us if we are human. The question is if we are willing to let it make us more human by allowing the experience to teach us about ourselves. I’m talking about being strong enough to be vulnerable to our own humanity. We are not less human if we don’t feel. But we are closed down and shut off from our own humanity, which is all we have at the end of the day. It’s what connects us and keeps us alive. It’s what makes us able to pause and rethink if there’s a better way to solve a problem. It’s what makes us curious and what we need to have confidence. Adversity can be a powerful catalyst for growth, it is not on its own enough to cause profound change in a person. In order to grow through adversity, an individual must meet challenges with patience, thoughtfulness, and understanding