What Abi Taught Us (16 page)

Exercise in reaching out to others

1. Name three people you feel comfortable talking to.

2. How often in the past week have you talked to each of them?

3. What practical step can you take to see or talk with each of the three more?

4. Name the number one person you feel comfortable expressing sad feelings to.

5. Think of one more person you currently don't express sad feelings to, but whom you think would make a good listener.

6. What practical step can you take to enable you to talk to this person? Does it require a dedicated time, a specific environment, finding a place where you won't be interrupted?

7. Name three people who help promote positive emotions in you.

8. Work out one way to see each of these people over the next three weeks (ask them to help you make a plan that appeals).

Chapter 11

Strengths

RESILIENCE SCIENTISTS STRESS
the importance of understanding and harnessing our personal strengths to weather adverse events. One of the basic tenets of the relatively new academic disciplines of wellbeing and resilience science is that they adopt a strengths-based approach. Whereas psychology has traditionally adopted a deficit-based stance, focusing on identifying and treating mental illness (fixing what is wrong with people), resilience psychology focuses on a range of personal strengths that assist healthy adaptation to trauma.

To enable sound empirical research investigating associations between character strengths and life satisfaction, occupational and educational performance, and physical health, psychologists first had to devise a classification system and methods to measure those strengths. In the early 2000s, 55 distinguished scientists therefore
worked together on a three-year project to create a classification of positive human traits. The resulting Values in Action (VIA) classification of character strengths, comprising 24 universally valued different strengths of character, has since been employed by scientists in hundreds of peer-reviewed studies conducted across cultures.
¹

Strengths, in this context, mean ‘positive traits reflected in thoughts, feelings, and behaviours'.
²
We all have strengths, but each of us rates ourselves as stronger in some and weaker in others.

Like most people, I wasn't aware of possessing any particular character strengths until I took the VIA survey as part of my training. A quick (around five minutes) online psychological survey determines your leading strengths of character and delivers them to you in an email—it's as easy as that. Go to
www.viacharacter.org
or see the box at the end of this chapter. To date 2.6 million people across 190 countries have taken the survey.

Studies show that knowing our strengths is associated with a raft of desirable outcomes—including academic and career success, achieving personal goals, higher performance at work, and better health. But when I conducted my own empirical research into character strengths, I was still surprised by the results. Because my work frequently involves assisting businesses to develop and implement wellbeing and resilience strategies, I was interested to investigate what impact using strengths had in the workplace. I was fortunate enough, working at Auckland University of Technology, to have access to a sizeable database of New Zealand workers who had all responded to the
Sovereign Wellbeing Index, New Zealand's First National Wellbeing Survey
. By analysing the responses to scores of questions on wellbeing, I was able to split the large sample of workers (over 5000 adults) into
two groups—those who were really flourishing in life (according to a whole battery of psychological variables) and those who were languishing. The results showed that those employees reporting that they knew their strengths were eight times more likely to be psychologically flourishing than those who seldom used their strengths. Moreover, once I took the analysis a stage further to explore the impact of employees actually using their strengths, I found that those using their strengths most were 18 times more likely to experience flourishing mental health than those seldom using their strengths. What's more, this result was independent of socio-demographic differences and participants' income. This was a staggering finding.

Having said this, I wasn't particularly aware of having harnessed the power of my strengths during the first six months of bereavement until I was asked to present my work at an academic conference. Once I sat down and carefully considered if and where I'd used any of the VIA character strengths to aid my recovery, I was surprised to discover how much I had leaned on them for support and direction at different times.

Prior to Abi's death, I knew that the character strengths I related to most (my ‘Signature Strengths' in VIA parlance), and that were consistently identified when I did the survey, were love, gratitude, enthusiasm, perseverance, curiosity and love of learning. From previous assessments, I was also aware that forgiveness, honesty and bravery were way down my list—strengths I did not view as essential parts of my character. So, it struck me as ironic that,
at the darkest juncture of my life, forgiveness was the character strength that came to my rescue. As a researcher investigating character strengths I should not have been so surprised, given that ‘we may all possess strengths that we do not display until we are truly challenged'.
³
Apparently, crises do not necessarily forge character, but reveal it. Psychologists call this the Truman Effect, after the incredible transformation displayed by Harold Truman who went from living an undistinguished life to becoming a great American president in the wake of Roosevelt's death.

Forgiveness
came quickly and naturally to us. From the night we were told about Abi's death, all four of us agreed that we wouldn't blame the driver. It wasn't that we
didn't
recognise the driver's culpability. Given he ran straight through a STOP sign on a rural Canterbury road to hit the car Abi was in, we were all too aware that he was in the wrong. It was more that we instinctively knew no good would come from blaming him. It was not a wrong that could be righted—at least not in any way we wanted. Nothing was going to bring her back. Forgiveness was the only logical choice: in the face of so much pain, misery and loss, what possible benefit could be gained from not forgiving him? I was already pretty sure he was unlikely to ever do it again.

Forgiveness also provided something of an aligning framework for us in those first few days and weeks. No one else in my family would outwardly acknowledge the impact of our collective forgiveness (that's just the role of the overly psychologically aware mother!), but the unifying bond it offered us is perhaps best understood by imagining the discord that would have reigned had three of us felt forgiving and one cast blame towards the driver. That dissonance would have brought a very different atmosphere to our household indeed.

Gratitude
has always played a big role in my life. I have a habit developed over the years of appraising my life and feeling extremely grateful for all that I have. Abi had it too: she used to literally shake with the thrill of all that she had—something I remember doing as a child. Initially, this habit worked against me in bereavement, because it made me constantly aware how awful my life had become. But gratitude has returned over time. I have been able to firmly ring-fence Abi's death and choose to focus on the good aspects of her life instead. I often find myself
thinking how lucky we were to have had her alive for
all
of the boys' childhood, so that, in time, I hope we will be able to look back on their childhood years with our family intact, enjoying unblemished memories quite separate from her premature death. Gratitude also helps draw my focus back towards the boys and all that we have, rather than dwelling exclusively on what we have lost.

Love
is my backstop, some kind of cure-all, a salve for all woes. When misery bites, I have turned to love to pull me back into the world and to switch my focus. Our capacity for love amazes me. Enhanced empathy is recognised as a frequent by-product of losing someone we love. Bereavement makes us acutely aware how important relationships are: how fragile and precious too. I certainly feel less judgemental, more accepting and kinder than I was before the accident. Besides, actively helping others gives us a break from the obsession with our own loss and pain. I can recall walking and talking with friends, asking about their lives over that first year, being told, ‘You don't want to hear about my troubles though', and explaining that yes, actually, I do. It helps to look beyond my own reduced world. But, bearing in mind what I said in the previous chapter about how frustrating it can be when others compare their grief to our new fresh experience, there's obviously a fine line to be trod here. Sometimes hearing about and sharing in others' worlds can be most therapeutic for the bereaved; I guess the trick is to take their cue.

Over the past year, my
curiosity
and
love of learning
has propelled my quest for knowledge about grief and bereavement. I've read endlessly, soaking up all the research, blogs, poetry and personal accounts I can in the hope of finding answers—to
grow my understanding of the processes of grief, find the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and take solace from shared experience. Knowing that others have felt and experienced the same really has helped—making me feel less alone, and, quite frankly, less mad.

Others I have spoken with while researching this book have shared stories of the changes they've noticed in their character as a result of their loss, and the strengths that have supported them along their journey through grief. For example, my colleague Dr Elaine O'Brien says that ‘learning about, identifying, and applying VIA character strengths has been an important tool in helping me cope with bereavement and losses in my life'.
⁴
She gives the following examples of how bravery, kindness, humour, gratitude and spirituality helped her.

Bravery
, she said, ‘was important for me to be a vigilant, vocal advocate for our family when all my father's bodily systems seemed to be shutting down. Against my father's verbal wishes for wanting to “rest”, his medical team let him down, just torturing him, giving him procedure after procedure. I spoke up for what I believed my father wanted, but this was all too often met with deaf ears from the doctors. Even after my father's death, I continued to advocate, writing letters to the hospital about their poor care and communications, as well as aiming to advocate for people to start discussions about end of life wishes and conversations. I would not want others to experience what our family, and especially my father, had experienced.

‘Seeing the
kindness
and care my husband, Sean, demonstrated toward my father always, but especially after he was “locked in” and could not speak from a stroke, made me fall in love with him all over again. The care my daughter, Lianna,
showed for me during the losses of both my parents' abilities was a comfort, and made me proud of her grace and kind-heartedness. Realising the power of giving, and receiving, comfort and care from those who care about me, and my family, truly lifted my spirits during times of despair. Having
humour
in your back pocket, and remembering friends who really enjoyed life, inspired me and lifted me up when I felt there was no feeling of hope or joy.