Resilience can get you through life's trials

They allow pain to spur growth
In 1983, at the peak of her career as a nature photographer, Linda Joy Montgomery learned she was going blind, the result of nerve damage caused by type 1 diabetes. She was terrified. "Photography wasn't just a job, it was my mission," says Montgomery, 54, of Black Mountain, NC. "I didn't know how I was going to function." But as she listened to her doctor's crushing diagnosis, she heard a voice from the inside. "It said, 'This is not the end, this is the beginning,' " she recalls. "Although I still had doubts and fears, I believed this was happening for a reason."

Though she could no longer express herself through her camera and photographs, she began writing poetry. In 1989, she published a book called Silent Strength that combined her nature photographs with her inspirational verse. She also found a new calling as a motivational speaker and created the True Vision Institute, teaching elementary students how to tap into their intuition and imagination.

Montgomery's ability to grow and find meaning in her misfortune is no aberration. Studies of victims of rape and incest, life-threatening illness, natural disasters, and combat, as well as Holocaust survivors and parents of chronically ill children, show that resilient people find the proverbial silver lining by reinventing themselves. Some gain a new appreciation for life; others, a renewed closeness to the people they love. "After overcoming a challenge, you develop a deep self-confidence and sense of optimism: 'I've been here, done that, and I'll survive,'" says Al Siebert, PhD, author of "The Resiliency Advantage," who has interviewed hundreds of such survivors.

What you can do: Accentuate the positive. Cultivate your childlike curiosity, grab every opportunity to laugh, spend time with friends. When trouble strikes, these will be your best resources. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, and others have found that during bad times, feeling positive — making plans for the future, expressing love and gratitude — helps people bounce back more quickly. "You need to find ways to adjust to fluctuating circumstances," says Siebert.

They insist on changing the world
Ken Druck, PhD, an organizational psychologist and high-profile executive coach in San Diego, has taught resilience skills to top execs at companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Pfizer. But in 1996, Druck experienced every parent's worst nightmare: His 21-year-old daughter, Jenna, was killed in a bus accident while studying abroad in India. That's when he learned that all the resilience in the world couldn't prepare him for the death of a child.

"After my daughter died, I wanted to die," says Druck. "While at no point was I suicidal, I, like many bereaved parents, had lost my sense of purpose. All the goodness had gone from my life."

Yet before the year was out, Druck, still reeling, had set the wheels in motion for his new life. To honor his daughter, who was San Diego's Young Woman Entrepreneur at age 9, he established the Jenna Druck Foundation. Its Young Women's Leadership Program provides leadership training for thousands of girls each year. A second program, Families Helping Families, offers free support services to bereaved families, individuals, and communities after the death of a child. Druck and his staff were on the scene following the Columbine High School shootings, at Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks, and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"It helped me heal," says Druck. "When you lose someone, love endures. But it hurts to not be able to express that love in the way that we're all accustomed to. Starting a foundation and doing good things every day in my daughter's name was another way for me to say 'I love you.'"

What you can do: Always give before you take: Helping others may be part of a human self-righting mechanism. In a study of rescue workers who dug through the rubble after the Oklahoma City bombing, most, though understandably distressed, had few or no symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder afterward. More than a third told researchers that even though their job involved the removal of human remains, it still gave them a sense of "relief and closure." "I once heard that in German concentration camps, there were a few men who always gave away their last morsel of food to other people," says Brooks. "That illustrates that you have the freedom to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances, to control the only thing you can control in life — you."

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