Overcoming Adversity, How Do We Deal With It?

Overcoming Adversity – The Challenges, The Feelings

We are familiar with the term overcoming adversity, because it originates from adversary, (an enemy or opponent in a competition or war), and adversity is the misfortune or bad luck. The word Adversity comes from the Latin meaning ‘turn against’.
 
We tend to think of ourselves as being a victim of bad fortune, when things happen to us or against us, and we often feel cross, fed up, enraged or knocked back by things going wrong, getting worse or collapsing.
 
Sometimes it’s our health or a loved one’s. We thought we or they were going to get better, or that the treatment would work but it hasn’t, and the pain and challenge and problem continues with no apparent solution.
 
Sometimes it’s our relationships. We feel we just can’t tolerate the feelings the other brings up in us any more. We hit a wall. We don’t know what to do.
 
Sometimes it’s our career. We’ve been overlooked, undervalued or we can’t get on top of our finances and we feel exasperated.
 
Sometimes we are compared with another or we are actually in competition in sport, work or in another area. We just can’t improve, get ahead, win, be successful, get motivated, reach our goals.
 
Sometimes we face a huge, unpredicted shock like a severe illness or loss of someone or something.
 

Overcoming Adversity

The stuff we don’t want, can’t deal with or make sense of, which comes with feelings of anger for being made to feel and experience this stuff when we may see others living an apparently happier, more successful life.
 
So, what do we do with it? Fight it? Get angry? Be defeated by it? Try to fix it? Work harder? Numb the feelings with substances or over doing exercise, work, sex, food…or something else? Freeze and try to disappear. Isolate ourselves? Reach out to people we love and trust for support? Seek guidance? Take time out? All of the above? Something else?
 
Why does stuff happen to us? We may have created a stable and comfortable life with many good things, and learnt to accept the pains and sorrows from loss and failures. We are aware of our own abilities and feelings, and work to make the world a better place, or at least our world.
 
Is it because life is tough or have we done something wrong? Are we just unfortunate and a victim of random circumstance? Sometimes we don’t do the one thing which often is the key to the beginning of the solution.
 

Let’s do an experiment…

 
Stop and sit comfortably. Relax the body and take a few deep breaths. Bring to mind an ordinary issue or challenge you are facing at the moment. If it’s a huge issue and you’re right in it then take that issue. Just sit with it while you are breathing. If you can imagine it, visualise it in a physical form or feel it, hear it then stay with that. If not just stay with the sense or idea of it right now.
 
Just intend to BE with it and DO NOTHING with it. Keep breathing and feel it. If you start to feel numb, try to come back to your body, maybe by tapping or moving your feet and fingers. If you feel emotional let it express. If you can’t do this exercise that’s fine. Stay with whatever you are feeling. Keep breathing and feeling without going anywhere.
 
Consider the word – adversity – turning against. What if you turn towards it. Overcoming adversity – Right now the issue is causing conflict in you. You are split in two. The part suffering and the part resisting it. Turn the resistant part towards the pain. Just be and relax any tensions, and breath deeply into it. Feel yourself growing to house and contain this conflict. Let yourself BE in the middle of this right now and keep allowing whatever is there.
 
After a few moments just relax, take a bit of time, have a cup of tea or some fresh air if you can. You could jot some notes in your journal about how this practice was for you and maybe return to it again.
 
There is something very powerful and transformative about being present without doing anything in the middle of the pain point, the challenge, the feelings, the issue.
 
For more conversations on this topic please feel free to comment, or get in touch. If you would like a call to arrange a session to look at this further, please click to start a conversation today.