Unlike the other four gifts, growth is biological, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It happens in its own time and its own way, whether you want it or not. Just as when we plant a garden, we add “nutrients” to the soil—humility, patience, empathy, and forgiveness—enabling us to create a more favorable environment for positive growth and optimal conditions.
Sometimes, it feels like a dream: You’re in an empty field with a burnt smell. Nothing is alive or growing, at least nothing you can perceive with your physical senses. On the surface, it appears as if nothing could flourish again. But in the psyche, seedlings of ideas are nourished by the power of the first Four Gifts: Humility. Patience. Empathy. Forgiveness.
Signs of Growth
With the gift of growth we can say, “While we would never wish that type of loss on anyone, as a result of what we have been through, we have gained knowledge, strength, and hope. Our lives have meaning. We know what—and who—truly matters to us, and we appreciate them.”
We are surprised when our first waking thoughts are not about the loss.
“You stop pretending that this day isn’t different from the day before everything important went missing,” says a friend, whose twenty-year-old son was killed crossing the street.
“When you wake up, it’s the first thing you think about,” he says. “It goes on for years. It’s the shattered lens through which you see the world.”
When we have grieved and prayed and fought, and have arrived at a place where we no longer define ourselves by our connection to that mega-event, we grow stronger and more resilient.
“I don’t tell people I work with that my father was killed on 9/11,” says Ian Grady. “I don’t want to be prejudged based on that way. I want to be treated the same. I don’t want or need a special break.”
Many of the teenagers from my World Trade Center program are now adults with children of their own. Seasoned by losing a parent in a terrorist attack has strengthened their commitment to being there for their own young families.
“God forbid anything like this happens again. But you know there’s a big possibility that it will,” says one young man, who recently became a father himself. “Anyone who says they’re not scared is either lying to themselves or stupid. I’m scared. But there’s a choice where you let it rearrange your life or you can say, ‘I’m not going to let it shape me.’”
He says his dad’s legacy, which he plans to share with his own son, goes beyond the story of 9/11.
“The world is scary, not just with terrorism. A lot of things are scary,” he says.
And as his own father taught him, “If you give in to what’s scary, you’re not going to get anywhere.”
Ian now looks back at who he was and who he has become.
“So many people did so many things for me, I find myself a more giving person. I’m drawn to veterans,” he says.
Ian finds that he spends more time with two friends recently returned from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“When they have rough times, I sit there and talk to them,” he says. I wasn’t overseas fighting a war and can’t compare their PTSD to mine.”
There is no reason to compare traumas. Facing his PTSD led Ian to empathy and growth. He sees himself as their big brother.
“I feel terrible that they went through what they went through, but I feel good that I can be there to provide them with some sort of support,” he says, adding that having lost his dad on 9/11, meaningful friendships are even more important.
This was brought home to me one summer afternoon when I stood in the ocean as a young father who had led our baseball mentoring program, where the older kids whose fathers were killed on 9/11 coached the younger boys to get them ready for Little League. As the man carried his two-year-old son into the water, a pod of dolphins surprised us by swimming a few yards away. People had been telling me about the dolphins for years but I had never seen them until now. I couldn’t help but marvel at the perfect timing! If there was ever a message from Spirit about growth, hope, and healing, this one shining moment said it all.
Breaking News
In the year that I have been focused on writing this book, every day brings additional news about how painfully out of control the world around has become. I started this chapter on Sunday, October 29, 2016, the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Two days later, when I wrote about the young men of 9/11, another terrorist attack took place not far from the site of the World Trade Center attacks. (Carl Jung would describe this confluence of events as “synchronicity,” a meaningful coincidence.)
Watching Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria with layers of sadness, I was reminded of why I believe this book is needed.
The face of every mother clutching a child made me wince. As uplifting as the images of people being carried to safety were, I felt sad knowing that so many of those rescued would look back at that moment as the high point of their post-disaster lives. Looking at the moldy debris inside people’s homes, it was hard not to feel empathy for the ordeals they would be going through for the next several years.
One basis for this book was research projections that human and natural disasters would increase in frequency and intensity through the coming decade. At least one of those reports was published in 2010, which means we are at mid-decade, and guess what? These are no longer projections. We are in a turbulent cycle in which disasters of all kinds are happening more often and inflicting more damage.
According to weather.com, “a new record for the number of billion-dollar natural disasters in the United States may be set this year (2017), with 15 such events already confirmed through September.”
The first half of 2017 wrought $12 billion in weather damages.
“Since 1980, there have been 218 weather and climate disasters in the US that have reached at least $1 billion in damage or cost. The total cost of these 218 events exceeds $1.2 trillion. This cost, however, does not include Harvey, Irma and Maria. The current costliest US weather disaster . . . since 1980, adjusted for inflation, is Hurricane Katrina at $161.3 billion.” 78
There has been a 44 percent increase in the number of extreme-weather events since 2000.79
Intentional (human-to-human) disasters are on the rise, as well. Speaking at a press conference after the Halloween terrorist truck attack, former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said that vehicle attacks have been occurring around the world with increasing frequency. Between 2015–2017, there have been six acts of terrorism by vehicle in Europe.
It’s a sobering reminder that life—the ultimate gift—can be taken at any time, but we can choose to live a loving life. The victims of New York City’s Halloween truck attack were loving life at the moment it was taken. Knowing this can inspire us.
Growth Never Fails
With every breath, your body absorbs new atoms, which in turn, become new cells. Researchers say virtually all of your body’s atoms get replaced every year. 80,81
“A human being is not a ‘single’ living entity; we are actually a community of upward of 50 trillion sentient cellular citizens,” says New York Times’ best-selling author, Dr. Bruce Lipton, who notes that “the total number of cells in a human body is equal to the total number of people on 8,000 Earths!” 82
These trillions of cells are continually renewing themselves. Your liver replaces itself approximately every six weeks; red blood cells, every four months; white blood cells, each year; bones, every three months; and your skin, monthly. 83
When you cut your finger, your mind-body knows how to produce precisely the right number of healthy new skin cells and arrange for their transportation and distribution through the bloodstream to the exact location where they are needed. The GPS is preprogrammed into the operating system.
If I were to ask you, “How many healthy new skin cells does it take to heal that paper cut on your left index finger?” you probably would not be able to answer. But you do know your paper cut will heal. There is an operating system for cellular regeneration and healing—in other words—growth.
Waking and sleeping, dancing and sitting, laughing and crying, we are growing. We do not have to be conscious of how, nor do we need to memorize the code. We do not even have to think about whether or not it is going to work or how to fix it. The ability to grow naturally, safely, and organically is a biological birthright, programmed into our DNA.
Post-Traumatic Growth
A new science of post-traumatic growth has come up with some controversial findings. In a 2016 study of 240 individuals with direct exposure to the July 22, 2011, bomb in Oslo, Norway, which killed eight and wounded 209, participants who reported a high level of post-traumatic growth ten months after the bombing reported high levels of PTSD one year later. But those who reported a high level of PTSD ten months after the bombing reported high levels of post-traumatic growth one year later.
The authors of the study concluded that “post-traumatic growth (PTG) may be both a consequence and antecedent of post-traumatic stress.”83
Writing in psychologytoday.com, Anthony Mancini, PhD, observed that “In this framework, post-traumatic growth isn’t growth at all. It’s a ‘motivated positive illusion’ whose purpose is to protect us from the possibility that we may have been damaged.”84
“Post-traumatic injury and post-traumatic healing can be done, but you need to recognize that if you have symptoms of PTSD you have to address it,” says Frank Smyth. “It is by no means a permanent condition.”
Resilience: Bouncing Forward
Growth and resilience are intertwined like strands of a fiber optic cable. Resilience is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as:
1. the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2. an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change85
Resilience also refers to materials, such as memory foam or elastic, which recover their shapes after compression.
When it comes to psychological resilience, we can never bounce back. We can only bounce forward.
Nurse Sarah Cohen was on her way home after a double shift when a delivery truck ran onto a sidewalk. The impact threw her up into the air and across four lanes of traffic. In the ambulance, she slipped into a coma and remained in that state for nearly a month. When she awoke, Cohen could not move her eyes.
“I saw people’s faces in pieces, which made me nauseous,” she says. “My body felt like a sack of potatoes.”
A decade later, she calls herself “the luckiest woman in the world” and says the accident was the most positive thing that ever happened to her.
Dr. Mona Greenfield, founder of Metropolitan Communication Associates in Greenwich Village, has been working with traumatic brain injury patients for more than twenty years. Like Sarah, most of Dr. Greenfield’s patients live on Social Security Disability (SSD). Many were high-functioning professionals before their car accident, physical violence, or fall. Dismissed by doctors because medical opinion believed their conditions were incurable, these traumatized individuals often struggle with PTSD flashbacks, severe anxiety, and hypervigilance.
Programs like Dr. Greenfield’s offer traumatized patients a chance to meet regularly with others like themselves, which is the best antidote for the isolation that develops with long-term PTSD. Not only do her patients receive training in cognitive skills and mind-body relaxation techniques, they receive support for relearning social skills so that they can function more effectively.
“TBI is not a death sentence. Our patients deserve to have hope,” says Dr. Greenfield. “If you work on the skills and strategies while offering support, they will get better. They may not be exactly how they were before, but their skills and feelings about themselves will improve.”
Sarah Cohen agrees.
“You can work it through and see things completely differently, but you cannot avoid pain in the beginning. You have to learn not to share the loss with everyone, but it can make a world of difference to have people who get what you are going through,” she says.
In her case, it meant searching her soul to find strength so that she can now be there for others like herself.
“I want to show my daughter that she doesn’t have to wait until seventy to get where I am,” she says. “If I can serve as an example, this is my mission, and I can tell you, it’s not easy. With the right emotional and mental support, and the right guidance, you cannot be who you were, but you can be the maximum of who you are.”86
Letting Go
It has been more than half a decade since Sandy. I am no longer afraid of hurricanes, and I evacuate well ahead of their arrival. Living on the coast for most of my life, maritime storms never fazed me. Seriously, I enjoyed them. As the “On the Water” reporter for the New York Times Long Island section, I covered the Around Long Island regatta in a nor’easter. Conditions were rough and everyone on board got seasick. I bruised two ribs getting tossed across the cabin, but fear never entered the picture. An avid windsurfer for many years, I loved flying across the water the day after a hurricane passed.
It took time, but after four years, the flashbacks and hypervigilance resolved on their own. Giving up my home of nearly two decades was a survival decision I don’t regret. Had I stayed, I would have been haunted by fears of a more expensive construction project should the house flood again. Leaving home has been complicated, but coming out as a soul in transit has freed me up to focus on balancing work, health, love, and friendship. If I could put the words of the poet Masahide on a bumper sticker, it would read as follows:
“Barn burned down. Now I can see the moon.”
As much as I hate to admit it, the chaos and friction of the first two years made me grow up. No question: I liked myself better as an innocent. Before getting wiped out, I held a tourist visa to the Land of Financial Reality. Now I have a green card. It can only get better.
Were it not for the Five Gifts, I might not see it that way. They continue to inform my life in innumerable contexts. The first gift, humility, opened my eyes to the fact that mine was just one of a million lives that was damaged by that one natural disaster. Now, I am humbled every morning when I wake up to a clean floor—or for that matter, any floor. It might sound over the top, but at least once a day, I stand in awe at the miracle of clean water. I don’t talk about this much because my friends roll their eyes, and at one luncheon, someone asked me if I had been living under a rock. Without humility, I could take offense, but the first gift, coupled with a sense of humor, lets their comments roll off like flowing water.
Patience has never been my strong suit, and it continues to be a challenge. Maybe New Yorkers have impatience in our DNA, but the second gift, unwanted though it is, never fails to take the edge off frustration.
Empathy strengthens the foundation for friendship, support, and ongoing concern for others suffering through the aftermath of climate change and intentional disasters.
Forgiveness? Well, that’s a work in progress, too. It is hard for me to forgive the widespread institutional cruelty toward people suffering through no fault of their own, but Dr. Redelfs keeps reminding me to have compassion for individuals working in a broken, corrupt system. They, too, have been traumatized. It’s going to take some time for me to metabolize that lesson.
Sharing the Five Gifts has accelerated my own growth by giving me a way to help others find their center of gravity as they struggled to get back on their feet.
But when the rug got pulled out from under me again, my own growth stalled.
Darvo’d!
Thanks to Sandy Denicker and his indefatigable crew, the house passed inspection with flying colors. Everything was up to code. But taxes and insurance premiums now made the cost of living there too expensive. With kids no longer running in and out of the house, the neighborhood no longer felt like home. After Sandy, it was impossible to ignore the reality of rising seas as monthly high tides fully covered beaches and marsh. It was time to sell.
Two weeks before we were ready to go on the market, I received a letter stating that FEMA had devalued my property by 50 percent. No one from FEMA had stepped foot on my property since the week after the storm, when I was told to rebuild. According to the letter, FEMA had based its devaluation on the county’s tax assessment. We had been compliant with all regulations and had submitted and resubmitted the same documentation whenever requested. Although I had not wanted to rebuild, I did what I was told despite my reservations.
Now, due to the new “valuation” of my home, the cost of rebuilding as submitted to the building department was now worth more than 50 percent of the new devaluated value of my property. As a result, FEMA declared my brand-new, up-to-code house as “substantially damaged” and demanded that I raise the house in order to get a Certificate of Occupancy. Without a C of O, I couldn’t sell, rent, or legally live in my own home.
Drowning in a flood of bills, I managed to tread water, but I was terrified every second of every day. All that work and more than $100,000—all for nothing? I couldn’t stop thinking about a man in town who, like me, had obtained every permit, rebuilt according to code, and passed inspection—only to receive a letter telling him that the government had devalued his property by 50 percent and now he was required to raise his house. Word around town was that he had attempted suicide but survived. I got it. Every night before heading to bed, I prayed not to wake up.
It seemed like a waste of time trying to find out why my property had been arbitrarily devalued. I didn’t care. My dream cottage had morphed into a financial nightmare, one that was about to vacuum my life’s savings. To encourage myself, I whispered throughout the day, “There has to be another way. There has to be another way.”
Meanwhile, my jaw and gut were in a clenching competition. I tried every mood-boosting strategy I could think of, and the only one that worked was an old joke: “There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
Hopefully, things wouldn’t lead to that. Instead, they led to “The Big Cheese.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I never met the gentleman known as The Big Cheese although I think of him fondly as a Will Ferrell kind of guy. The Big Cheese had the authority to issue a certificate of occupancy by rescinding the substantial damage order and acknowledging that all construction had been preapproved and successfully inspected by the town’s building department.
Getting to The Big Cheese took more than a month. After several attempts, I channeled my inner Olivia Benson and hired a lawyer. It took about five weeks, but after The Big Cheese reviewed the paperwork and found that everything was in order, the FEMA order was rescinded.
It took several months of real estate drama before I am happy to report that the beach cottage became home to a beautiful young family. The night we closed, for the first time in more than a year, I slept through the night.
In the words of Chinese dissident author Ma Jiang: “Everything I was I carry with me. Everything I will be lies waiting in the road ahead.”
The Element of Wood
The element associated with growth, wood embodies the cycle of life—from a tiny sapling to full maturity.
Patrician McCarthy, author of In Your Element: Taoist Psychology: Everything You Want to Know About the Five Element Personalities, writes that “Wood represents the birth of energy, new growth, beginnings, patience, focus, vision, power, decision-making, clear direction, and benevolence.” 87
“Wood symbolizes how we put roots down and how we grow. It is a focused, not random, process,” says McCarthy.
The element of wood is also associated with a strong sense of justice. We can see this connection in the stories of those who through their own loss become committed to helping others get needed services following a tragedy.
But McCarthy notes a potential downside: “The challenge is that you can become very self-focused and too righteous.”
To soften these traits, add water for humility.
Cultivating the fifth gift can be as simple as planting a seed and caring for it as it grows. Bring growth into your environment by adding trees, shrubs, and hedges to your garden. Bring potted trees and tall, strong plants into your home. Use wood furniture and accessories, such as picture frames, throughout your home and on your deck. Incorporate a palette of dark greens and blues into your wardrobe and your living space to further facilitate growth. Become a mentor or coach who motivates others to stand tall. Feed your passion for justice by joining organizations whose missions you support.
Wood is not a static element. Try activities like walking, running, or hiking outdoors. Your story doesn’t end with a flourish of background music or a drumroll. As long as you are alive, you will continue to grow.
Five Minutes a Day to Growth
Choose one to practice for five minutes a day for five days.
What is the most important lesson you learned from the disaster?
How has your life changed for the better?
How has it changed for the worse?
Let’s make it a movement.