The Wisdom of Adversity

THE life of Devon author Carmella B'Hahn, left, was shattered in 1992 when her five-year-old son fell into a river and drowned. But as well as loss and grief, Carmella also experienced "awe-filled wonder at the great mystery of death and deep gratitude for this life-changing event". She dedicated her life to research into transformation from trauma and her book, 'Mourning has Broken', is the result. Here she writes exclusively for Connect

Adversity is a fact of life, and the way in which we respond to it can either make or break us. Most of us hide from pain, unconsciously chasing the impossible dream of a sorrow-proof existence. But perhaps in our most painful places lies the raw material for resilience and wisdom - fuel for positive transformation.

My life did break, temporarily, shattering my reality in an instant and calling me to discover my inner strength and to re-member myself. In 1992 my five-year-old son, Benjaya, fell down a riverbank while playing with friends. He drowned. There one minute, gone the next.

There is prolific, useful literature on how to survive and cope with adversity and trauma. I read much of it. It tells how resilience can be fostered by: stable positive relationships; finding someone to listen to your story; using your intellectual capacity to analyse your situation and to avoid self-defeating behaviour; responding actively instead of passively as a victim; using the support of your community; taking the pain and using it to help others.

However, little is said about the place I found myself inhabiting after the death of my son. Together with the awful emotional anguish, I felt an awe-filled wonder at the great mystery of death and deep gratitude for this life-changing event that was causing me to feel more alive, more compassionate and more fully human. I experienced my pain as an awesome initiation and discovered strength I never knew I had. It was a solitary experience, as few could understand how I could possibly experience anything positive in the death of my son.

It became my quest to find others who had also managed to raise a phoenix from the ashes of their pain, and for five years I conducted a research project to discover and document the common keys to positive transformation through trauma. I interviewed people from all walks of life, ethnic backgrounds and religious/spiritual persuasions in-depth, hoping to confirm my theory that those who suffer the most deeply have the greatest opportunity to wake up from automatic pilot and discover their innate resilience.

My book, 'Mourning Has Broken: Learning from the Wisdom of Adversity', was the result.
I discovered that the interviewees who had truly broken through and now felt stronger and wiser, had similar ways of thinking, seeing and experiencing their reality. I grouped these common approaches into categories, which I call 'eight keys to handling adversity'. They are:


1. Find the bigger picture;
2. Trust and surrender control;
3. Share your pain and choose life;
4. Reassess relationships;
5. Identify and release life-long patterns;
6. Cultivate compassion: silence the judge;
7. Reclaim your heart and spirit;
8. Find the hidden gifts.


There is not space here to examine all eight in detail, so I will take the first and last key and expand on them. The first is the ability to see the bigger picture.

When the chaos of crisis hits, it is appropriate to be 'out of our minds', experiencing the impact of the events at hand. "The eyes experience less stress when they look upon a wider horizon," said philosopher RD Chin, and so it is that when we are ready to lift our heavy eyes to a wider horizon we may begin to see sense, even wisdom, in the adversity that had initially been missed in the fog of intense emotion.

However, if we are used to a scientific worldview, the wider picture may be limited. Individual events and synchronicities (defined as meaningful coincidence) do seem unconnected and senseless if we are using the medical model - diagnosing only the meaning of the symptoms of the parts. When we shift our perspective to more of an overview, and question how these painful parts might fit within the context of our whole life pattern, our relationship with those parts has the opportunity to transform. Also, we may discover or remember premonitions (often present before major life challenges) and these can call into question the nature of accidents.

For example, a woman whose daughter, Linnaea, was 'accidentally' shot and killed by a young boy playing with a gun told me: "As a child, I read a story by a man who had accidentally shot his best friend. His tragedy touched me so deeply that I knew I never wanted to have guns in my life or in my house. So we didn't. It's like Sleeping Beauty, where you isolate all of the spinning wheels and yet somehow that spinning wheel needs to be found."

Linnaea bought her Christmas presents the month she died. In July, after her death, a video was found of her pantomiming being shot and falling to the ground as if dead. Coincidence, or part of a bigger picture?

When gathering the surrounding details to the numerous different traumas of my storytellers it became increasingly impossible for me to deny that there is a mystery intelligence, also described by some interviewees as "a plan or purpose", behind these tragic happenings. Is that so for all such events? And, if we knew this to be so, would we grieve differently for that which we have lost?

The last key - Find the hidden gifts - holds an approach that is central to the process of healing. The French word for wounded is bless, which is from the same root as blessing. And the Chinese symbol for crisis depicts both danger and opportunity. The discovery and constructive use of the blessing/opportunity inherent in a dark night of the soul is the key that runs through every story. And its discovery results from asking (when the time is right) the down-to-earth questions, what can I learn from this? And what is the gift?

Usually we want to wriggle free from the discomfort of pain, and yearn for the joy we believe we don't have, as if joy is an illusive quality outside of ourselves. The two qualities remain separated in our minds, perceived as mutually exclusive. However, joy and wisdom are to be found at the same source as anguish - within.

When we finally recognise and accept the hidden gifts presented by our particular challenge, the light then joins the shadow, like the Taoist yin yang symbol of wholeness. The idea is not to escape or suppress the pain by looking for positives to take its place; it is to accept the cloud of pain while opening our eyes to the silver lining that already exists. To hold the pain and joy, the bitter and the sweet, side-by-side, is the aim - the two halves making a whole and providing us with a feeling of our own fullness.

Karen Proctor, a self-confessed "control-freak", found herself in a horrific car crash. Rendered helpless in hospital, she said: "My lesson was to let go of control and soften my heart. I hated dependency because my mother was dependent, but I found myself in a situation where I was totally dependent on others, including degrading things for someone so haughty.

"I am so grateful that life gave me the opportunity to break down my pride and become more humble. I could have died at 34. Now I see the beauty in people and my eyes are wide open. Life is such a gift. Why we forget that is astounding to me."

Death and dying worker Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said: "Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings." But do we need shocking personal trauma to etch and sculpt its lessons into our being before we become mature in our beauty? Despite the remarkable transformation of those whose stories I have gathered, I think not. Although all of us will inevitably encounter some adversity in our lives, perhaps there are other ways of stepping into the fullness of who we are.

I have come to use the term 'Osmotic learning' to describe the conscious process of absorbing useful messages from the stories of others, thereby accelerating our own rate of personal transformation. And, if trauma does perchance come our way, having consciously absorbed teaching from the challenges of others, there will be less destructive impact, and we will be more prepared to be moved and deepened by the grief and to allow its inherent wisdom to emerge.



Carmella B'Hahn, who also co-authored Benjaya's Gifts, lives in South Brent, Devon, and runs workshops in the UK and US on transformation through trauma. She will be running a workshop at Hazelwood House, Loddiswell, February 28 - March 2 (call 01548 821232 for details). She also offers grief counselling and can be contacted at carmella@macunlimited.net or 01364 73478.
Mourning Has Broken is available from bookshops or from Carmella B'Hahn at: 11 Wellington Square, South Brent, Devon TQ10 9AG. Price: £11.99 (postage free).