“You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage,” former First Lady Michelle Obama once said. “Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.”
The challenge of adversity in trauma recovery, as well as recovery from trauma’s many manifestations, is an exhausting intimidation. Facing the reality of trauma, seeking trauma treatment, and working through trauma recovery is quite enough challenge for one person’s lifetime- not to mention surviving trauma itself. Trauma recovery is never a guaranteed “get out of jail free card” from the rest of life, not even additional trauma. Recovery does not act as a sanctuary from all of life’s complicated twists and turns. Life is full of adversity and challenges of adversity to be overcome.
Adversity can be defined as “unfavorable fortune or fate”, according to dictionary.com.Trauma is adversity in its most succinctly defined form. There is rarely anything favorable or fortunate about the fate of trauma. Coming upon more unfavorable, unfortunate fateful moments in life is overwhelming at least. Precisely when you feel you’ve regained the strength to cope with life’s more minimal problems, larger ones seem to crop up. Though you know that overcoming adversity is par for the course in life and recovery, it doesn’t make the process any easier.
Overcoming adversity is equal parts strength, survival, resilience, and hope. At times, the best you will do in the face of adversity is just get by. Other times, you will fly through challenges unscathed and unphased by the idea of adversity at all. As with all things in recovery and life, there are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys, ups and downs. The changing tides of life itself is an area of adversity with which we have to cope.
There are innumerable ways to cope with adversity, depending on who you are, what you’ve been through, and what works for you in your recovery. For everyone, however, there is one only one true way to overcome adversity: keep going. You get through it by getting through it. You keep going, by keeping going. You gather strength as you go along.
At The Guest House Ocala, we welcome everyone who has experienced trauma and, as a result, is suffering from addictions, mental health disorders, or other manifestations. Our programs are custom tailored to the specific experiences and needs of each client. Everyone has a story. Change yours today. Call us at Call 1-855-483-7800.