I was chatting over WhatsApp with a good friend of 30 years a few days ago. The previous weekend his family had had a huge scare. His 19 year old son had been out with his cousin at a bar where the cousins’ drink was spiked. I don’t know the exact details of how events unfolded, but to the best of my understanding the cousin lost consciousness after they arrived home and it took one hour for an ambulance to arrive. During this time, my friends son thought his cousin had died. Thankfully that was not the case and after three days in hospital the cousin recovered.
Without giving my age away, I am far older than the two 19 year olds in this story, and fortunately I have only experienced losing two close family members in my life to date; my grandparents. That was traumatic enough but there was also a sense of inevitability about it, the natural sequence of life.
To lose someone young who is close to you as a teenager is not the natural sequence of life and the psychological trauma would therefore likely far larger. For an hour my friend’s son thought he had lost his cousin so it is no surprise that he was still traumatised by the experience a week later.
How as a parent, as a leader, as a colleague can we support people who have such traumatic experiences. How do we communicate with them? I am not a clinical psychologist and this is a huge subject, so I will focus my responses on what I know and how I try to counsel people in such situations.
With any experience in life, whether good or bad, it is often good practise to take a step back and analyse what happened and what you could have done differently. I appreciate this is a rather cold and calculated approach, and that in the heat of the moment it may not easy to do, however removing yourself from the emotions of a situation and taking a helicopter view while you assess what has happened is usually good practise. It allows you to recognise what was in your control (and therefore what you should change to avoid a repeat occurrence), and what was not in your control.
This latter point is very important; too many people waste time and energy focusing on what is not in their control. For example, leaving your drink unattended is very much in your control. The fact that there are evil people in the bar spiking drinks is not in your control. You therefore either stop going to that bar, or be far more vigilant if you do.
The second point I would like to suggest is that every experience offers learning. Once again, we should not apply this only to bad experiences, we should also analyse our successes for the traits and behaviours that led to success. By identifying both positive and negative behaviours, we can identify appropriate responses for future situations.
Finally, it’s not the experience that defines you, but how you bounce back. We all have bad experiences in life. Everything from failed relationships to losing a job, a severe illness or accident to a business venture gone wrong. These life experiences offer us a second chance to be the person we want to be and to do the things we plan. They are a reminder that life is precious and not a dress rehearsal.
I have a friend who survived the Bali bomb in 2002. He was in the Sari Club with his back to the explosion – after a month in a coma, he survived. His 5 friends facing the explosion were not so lucky. He has lived every day since focusing on his goals, improving his life, and practicing gratitude for his second chance.
What is it that you have been planning to do and haven’t done yet? Don’t wait for a traumatic event to give you the momentum you need to take action. Take the steps you need to take now! And when someone you know needs some guidance, I hope that the three points discussed in this blog can be of some help.
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