Adversity to Advantage: Navigating Life's Setbacks and Emerging Stronger Than Before by Regi Publico

Life is like a trip with good and bad times, successes, and tough moments. Everyone faces adversity, but what matters is how we handle it and use it to do better and be better. 

In this article, we shall explore the skill of transforming adversity into advantage. We'll tap into emotional resilience's power and adopt a mindset that propels us to emerge from life's challenges even stronger than ever before.

Understanding What Adversity is All About 

Adversity presents itself in various forms—personal struggles, professional hurdles, health challenges, and setbacks in relationships. 

What’s crucial is recognizing it as an inherent facet of life. It’s natural and inevitable, and it signifies neither failure nor frailty. Adversity is the gateway to growth, transformation, and fortified emergence.

Shifting Perspective: Seeing Challenges as Catalysts

Adopting a new outlook is key to facing adversity. Instead of succumbing to negativity, we can see challenges as opportunities for change. 

Adversity pushes us beyond our comfort zones, compelling us to innovate, adapt, and explore. This shift in perspective ignites determination to conquer challenges.

The Role of Emotional Resilience in Overcoming Adversity

Emotional resilience is at the core of conquering adversity. It's about bouncing back and staying steady when life gets rough. Growing emotional resilience gives us the tools to face tough times with strength and bravery. Here’s how: 

Building Emotional Reserves

Emotional reserves resemble a reservoir of strength we can tap into when facing challenges. This entails nurturing our emotional well-being through self-care practices, fostering positive self-communication, and cultivating meaningful relationships. A surplus of emotional reserves equips us to readily navigate the emotional impact of adversity.

Developing Coping Strategies

Coping strategies are the practical techniques we use to manage stress and overcome challenges. These strategies can range from mindfulness exercises and deep breathing to seeking support from friends, family, or professionals. Developing a toolkit of effective coping strategies empowers us to face adversity with a clear mind and a steady heart.

Transforming Setbacks into Personal Growth

Setbacks and failures act as the building blocks for personal growth. They offer valuable lessons and insights that can shape our journey towards becoming better versions of ourselves.

Learning from Failures and Mistakes

Mistakes and failures are not indicators of incompetence; they're opportunities for growth. Analyzing what went wrong, understanding the contributing factors, and learning from these experiences help us refine our approach, make better choices, and build resilience.

Cultivating Adaptability and Flexibility

Adversity demands adaptation to new situations and challenges. Being adaptable helps us navigate new things easily. It's about embracing change, being open to new ideas, and getting good at doing well in ever-changing environments.

Strategies for Emerging Stronger from Life's Challenges

When faced with life's challenges, it's essential to have some strategies that can help us not only endure but also thrive. Here are some effective approaches to emerging stronger from adversity:

Setting and Pursuing Resilience-Driven Goals

Resilience-driven goals are aspirations rooted in the desire to grow and overcome. 

By setting goals that focus on building emotional strength, adapting to change, and learning from setbacks, we create a roadmap for our personal development. These goals serve as beacons of hope and motivation, guiding us through adversity toward a stronger future.

Seeking Support and Connection

One of the most powerful strategies is seeking support and fostering connections. Adversity doesn't imply solitude; remember, we're not alone. 

Reaching out to friends, family, mentors, or support groups gives us access to diverse viewpoints, motivation, and understanding. Sharing our challenges serves as a means to unburden ourselves emotionally and reinforces our belonging to a supportive community.

Prioritizing Wellness

Incorporating wellness into our journey can offer a transformative experience. So indulge in a luxurious facial spa to rejuvenate your skin or a wellness retreat to revitalize your soul. 

These practices can serve as a much-needed pause from life's challenges, allowing you to reset and gain a fresh perspective.

Embracing Change and Reinvention

Adversity often prompts change, and embracing it can be a powerful strategy. Instead of resisting change, view it as an opportunity to reinvent yourself. 

Use the momentum of challenging times to explore new interests, acquire new skills, or pursue passions you've set aside. Embracing change with an open heart can lead to unexpected personal growth.

Celebrating Small Wins

Amidst life's challenges, celebrating small wins can provide a sense of accomplishment and boost your morale. Recognize even the smallest achievements and milestones along your journey. 

These celebrations aren't just about recognizing your advancements. They're also powerful reminders of your resilience and the strides you're taking, making you even stronger.

Conclusion

Life's setbacks might feel overwhelmingly difficult, but they can be overcome. By shifting your perspective and leveraging the lessons they offer, you can navigate adversity and emerge stronger than before.

Guest Author

 Regi Publico is a full-time writer who is also an artist for fun. She takes pride in her towering collection of books and loves reading about anything under the sun. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge through every article that she writes.

Overcome adversity and build resilience

Rob Swymer is a seasoned sales executive of over 40 years who embodies a servant leadership mindset. He leads his teams with empathy and applies the lessons learned from his adversity to help others build resilience and thrive, not only in business, but in their personal lives as well.  Working in sales can help develop so many life skills and Rob feels that at some point everyone should both work in sales and public facing roles.  Both can help with building the human connection, developing trust and being authentic whilst doing it. Rob feels that people’s perception of salespeople is not good. His take is that we’re here to serve and make people lives better in the long run, no matter what you’re selling.

Communication is at the heart of the human condition – communicating authentically is the best way to be your best self. Rob feels that authenticity is the ability to be yourself wherever you are and whoever you’re with. But with this comes vulnerability. Vulnerability comes through adversity and adversity builds resilience but if you are vulnerable enough to talk about your adversity then you will make a massive impact on the people you touch or meet. The human connection will be very strong. It needs a very adult form of relationship to build trust and be vulnerable – authenticity based on vulnerability is a very adult concept that does not work for all cultures, places or times. Some things translate and others don't.

Vulnerability, authenticity and adversity are a set of skills. Rob believes that resilience is something you learn and build from the events in your life. He grew up in adversity and had severe learning disabilities so had to navigate through these. He learned to adapt and practice self-care. When he was ten he was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome and was bullied at school and in later years struggled with alcohol addiction which led to suicidal thoughts and depression. At 23 he learnt he had Keratoconus and needed a cornea transplant. Then eight years ago his wife of 32 years suffered a brain aneurysm. Rob’s life changed at that moment but looking back he feels that events and adversity stacking really prepared him for when lost his wife.

A year after his wife died Rob moved back to Atlanta. His friends kept him busy and one friend focused on his health and wellness. He a while he realised that their relationship might become something more so he went to his two boys to ask them what they thought. They said ask her out so they went on a proper date, their relationship blossomed and three years later they got married. They now have a blended family and Rob feels it is a wonderful ending to a tragic event, that the rise is always sweeter than the fall.

Rob believes our internal voice influences every thought, belief, and action. He used this model to move forward. In reality the internal voice is louder than any external voice you can hear. He thinks you need to start with mindset. If you get the mindset right on a daily basis or however often you need to check and with the inner voice in check as well there is nothing you cant achieve. 20% - 30% of people don't have an inner voice but even if you don't have an internal monologue you can learn the process to bring out your internal voice.

Rob also lives a life of gratitude but feels you need to go out to find happiness. You don't wait to be happy, you find the enjoyment and mine the pleasure saying that whatever situation you’re in you’ll find something to be grateful for.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more at robswymer.com His new book is Surrender to Your Adversity,

From adversity to emotional wellness

Rosie Mankes is a two-time cancer survivor. In 2008 she was diagnosed with Stage One Lung Cancer and had 10% of her right lung removed. Then, in 2015 she was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer but tested positive for the breast cancer gene so ended up having a bilateral mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. After her second cancer journey decided she wanted to be a life coach to help serve others and she is also a speaker and author of a book

In her book Rosie writes about how she moved from significant adversity to emotional wellness in the space of one year. In 2015 as well as her breast cancer diagnosis she also had to transition her Mother to an assisted living facility because of her progression of her dementia. Her Mother had always lived in New York so was very fearful of leaving the only life she had known behind so she could move closer to Rosie and her family in New Jersey. Then, when things were just starting to settle down, Rosie’s 58 year-old brother died an accident.

Rosie felt cursed and didn’t know how to get out of bed and attempt to be herself. She needed to find out how to move from that place of despair and find a way to emotional wellness and healing. She wanted to find joy in everyday living again. Rosie used to think before that year that it was all about the big picture – if you can just do one big thing you can fix it but she found that when she was in that place it was a series of smaller things that created the change. It was more about grass roots foundation building, digestible bits of information because when you are really down you cant comprehend more than a little bit at a time.

Rosie wasn’t happy so one of the first things she did was to define what happy was. She decided to write down five day-to-day things that made her happy but she ended up with a blank page because she wasn’t happy. She then took a side step and wrote down five things that could make her happy. She came up with a very basic list – sitting with her dogs, watching a sun rise or set, taking a walk – but it wasn't a list of what made her happy so she turned them affirmations and read them constantly until she felt strong enough to integrate them into her life.

She also took a look at the things she had given up during that year. One of the things she had stopped doing was listening to the radio because of the connection she felt to the lyrics. But music was a large part of Rosie’s life so she worked on bringing it back in to her life. She had also stopped exercising partly because of the surgery but she then suffered from crippling anxiety. She didn't really want to go back but she did and she then realised that she needed to look at her gym buddies and visulise who they were, what did she want from her encounter with them and what did she want share. Once she had visulised this at home, she had prepared herself for the encounter and made it easier for her to push through it

As a life coach Rosie feels she has most value when she is working with breast cancer sufferers, helping them deal with the personal things - feelings and emotions that go with losing part of your body. Having been diagnosed with lung and breast cancer Rosie feels breast cancer is far more personal as the body changes are very hard to deal with so the experience that she has been though can help other women express their emotions and fears and help them get through their journey.

Rosie also works with families who are having to transition their parents into assisted living or memory care facility from home. When she was transitioning her mother she felt a lot of guilt because she didn't ever think her mother would ever need to go into a facility. However, her mothers care level needs were high and Rosie’s ability to look after her was low due to her breast cancer. Now Rosie likes to help other people deal with the denial of needs, the guilt that might come along, the preparation of question you need to ask and generally be as knowledgeable as possible so you are better able to cope.

You can find out more about Rosie at Rosiemankes.net Her book is Find Your Joy and Run With It,

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Pulling the gems from adversity. Mindsets and tools to rebuild, inspire and dream bigger.

Susan De Lorenzo is an author, speaker and certified transformational life coach who focuses on helping women who are emerging from life-altering adversities. As a survivor of invasive breast cancer whose marriage dissolved as treatment ended, Susan draws on her personal journey as well as her training as a life coach to give clients, readers and listeners the mindsets and tools to rebuild their lives in alignment with their deepest desires.

Susan works with her clients to build a mindset where, no matter what has happened, you believe you can create something even greater through a higher platform of awareness to give inspiration to dream bigger and go for more.

Although her mother was a breast cancer survivor, when Susan had her breast cancer diagnosis she was shocked.  She never imagined it would happen to her and the diagnosis unravelled her. The first diagnosis was not the most serious. During a check up her oncologist asked if anyone had spoken to her about the lump in her other breast. At the time Susan was working full-time, had an 18-month old son and a new house that needed a lot of work and she found that she was very angry. The diagnosis was very hard to digest and she was very resistant to it and didn’t even want to do chemo.

People sometimes describe cancer as a battle but Susan thinks we need to develop the relationship we have with ourselves which is what gets us through. When adversity hits us we need to ask what can I do with myself to make it OK - I know it’s not going to be great but how can I keep my awareness that I’m not alone and am connected to life. Knowing that can be the strength by making it real for ourselves and our centre or eye of the storm. We are the centre of our own experience. Families often don’t know what to do to help and we end up comforting them. They don't have the skills to help or they have their own thoughts and feelings about what you’re going through. We need to remember that's their experience, I have mine.  

In the US divorces relating to couples where one is going through cancer are higher than the national average. Susan knew her marriage was going to be problematic but was determined to get married and have a family. She grew up with a parent who suffered with depression and this was something Susan’s partner suffered from as well.

Susan had 4 surgeries and 6 months of chemo and radiation but was then told she was cancer free. She found she had a new love of life. She wasn't going to play small anymore and was at a higher level but her partner was in depression. Susan felt they should work at their relationship but her partner wanted to be alone – he couldn’t deal with how happy Susan was.

When we go through adversity and start to come out the other side we sometimes find that we are going at a different speed to our partner. The other person is still where they were and unless you move together it becomes a challenge

The model of marriage is very romantic but the idea of staying together is impossible unless both people are growing. We need to remember it’s OK to let go if the other person doesn't grow at the same level. People move ahead and change. It takes something fundamental to change. We need to re-engineer relationships and remain interested in growth and what’s going to be next. We need to have something to look forward and to stay real by talking about the elements of life, what’s happening in the world and what’s happening to friends.

Susan works with clients coming out of life altering adversities.  The first thing they learn is to understand is that it’s not just other people who overcome adversity and that they can too. They need to be open to the idea that this is for me too so how can I design my life so it gets me to a place where I love my life.  This needs building and learning to overcome beliefs and conditioning – the not good enough syndrome.

Susan now spends her time between Rhode Island and Florida. Later this year Balboa Press will be publishing her new book Pulling the Gems from Adversity where she shares the five stages of working through adversity to come back even stronger.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Susan here. Our previous podcast episodes and upcoming guest list are also available.

Our full blog archive is also available.

You can get in touch with Susan at https://SusanDeLorenzo.com or at her Facebook page