Dr. Zafirides Resilience: How Adversity Makes Us Stronger

I really enjoyed this episode. It did a terrific job at explaining fear of failure.

People with PPD tend to be perfectionist and goodist. It could very well be that behind these traits is fear. We are perfectionists because we fear failing at a task or we are goodist because we fear making someone angry or facing adversity. However, as Dr. Zafiridies points out, everyone faces adversity at some point and who we are is more determined by how we handle adversity then anything else.

A lot of people who first give this approach a try don't believe that they can become better again. It is so easy to feel like we are weak and don't have the strength (emotional and physical) to get better, but, as this podcast shows, this just isn't the case. People who are able to handle living with chronic pain are some of the strongest people I know. It takes a lot of courage to keep perservering when experiencing severe chronic pain. Pre-learning about PPD was one of the most trying times of my life, but I actually think I learned a lot about who I am during it. The strength that we gain by perservering with our pain, is the same strength and courage that will help us do the PPD approach and fully recover.

Sure, having chronic pain is scary and being afraid of physical activity is something I know all too much about. I faced a lot of tough times when I was in pain. Since my wrists hurt and I couldn't type, I couldn't work with computers and had to choose a different career. This really lowered my self worth for a while, and made me feel inadequate in a lot of ways. But I actually think the adveristy I faced being in chronic pain was what gave me the strength to actually accept the diagnosis and start being active again. I had to overcome so many hardships due to my disability that I thought, what's one more thing. People who are at the point where they are learning about TMS/PPD for the first time have faced a lot of adveristy, and this adversity really does give us the strength to overcome our fear and get better. What are some other adversities people have had to overcome due to their symptoms? Do you find strength through overcoming these situation as well?

If you are afraid of your symptoms or of being active again then I recommend listening to this podcast. There is a lot in it that relates back to PPD and some of the issues people struggle with.

 

Forest, I related this topic more to how I beat myself up when I'm not good enough, outside of my symptoms. It's really good to be reminded that this is totally unnecessary and that we can't be perfect and successful all of the time. In fact, successful people understand that they must take risks, which means that they very likely might fail before reaching their goals.

It would be interesting to see how many TMSers take risks in their lives in order to achieve goals. Outside of TMS, that is. After all, we're driven and perfectionist - but are we driven enough to take risks, or are we so perfectionist that we're afraid to fail?

Jan