3032: Why Growth Requires Struggle by Mark Manson on Psychological Resilience

[00:00:00] J'une par par français! And hop! With the new foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. No matter if it's business talk or vacation, you'll be able to stay up to date with Galaxy AI thanks to integrated Dolmetscher. Just set up the Galaxy Z Flip 6

[00:00:14] in the Flex Mode between you and follow the translation on the main display while you're reading it on the front display. So easy! Galaxy AI is here! Erfare ich jetzt mehr über das neue Galaxy Z Flip 6 auf Samsung.de This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 3032

[00:00:34] Why Growth Requires Struggle by Mark Manson of markmanson.net And I'm Justin Malik, your personal narrator reading to every single day of the year with permission from authors and now always with a bit of commentary at the end. With that let's get right to it

[00:00:50] as we optimize your life. Why Growth Requires Struggle by Mark Manson of markmanson.net I get a lot of reader questions about pain, trauma, challenge and struggle. Most of these questions were some variation of is there such a thing as being exposed to too much pain?

[00:01:15] Or are there situations where pain and struggle aren't helpful but only hurtful? Or what about trauma? Clearly trauma is a thing. These are all great questions and in this article I'm going to knock them all out with a deep dive into the psychology of pain,

[00:01:33] trauma, healing and building resilience. In the words of the great Tom Brady, let's f**king go. This amount of pain is just right. Everyone remembers the children's story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You know, this porridge is too hot, this one is too cold,

[00:01:52] and this one is just right. Well pain kind of works in the same way. Too much pain will lead to trauma and helplessness. Too little pain will lead to entitlement and selfishness. But just the right amount of pain and struggle,

[00:02:08] that's what allows us to feel a sense of accomplishment and meaning in our lives which then builds up our sense of autonomy and self worth, the bedrock of a mentally healthy and happy person. So how do you define the Goldilocks zone of pain?

[00:02:23] How do you know how much pain is just right? Generally, research finds that when we're challenged or struggle in ways that we believe we're capable of overcoming, those struggles eventually invigorate us and lead to a sense of meaning and accomplishment. But when confronted with struggles and challenges

[00:02:41] that we feel powerless to overcome, that's when we get demoralized and in extreme cases experienced trauma. Pumping psychological iron. When it comes to understanding the value of mental and emotional struggle, perhaps the best analogy to understand it is physical exercise.

[00:03:02] If you never move your body or strain your muscles, you'll become soft and weak and fragile. You're more prone to injury. You have less physical power to keep yourself safe and healthy. In the same way, if you never mentally or emotionally challenge yourself,

[00:03:18] you will also become weak and fragile. You'll be more easily upset and emotionally triggered by the world around you. You'll have less psychological strength to keep yourself safe and healthy. If you try to do way too much exercise or move way too much weight, you will injure yourself.

[00:03:37] This injury will lead to chronic pain that is outside of your control and will prevent you from having any agency with that part of your body. Similarly, if you experience psychological struggles that overwhelm you, you'll be traumatized and you'll experience chronic psychological pain

[00:03:53] and feel debilitated in that area or in many areas of your life. The way to grow physically stronger is to progressively challenge your body to do slightly more difficult movements, lifts, and exercises than before. As you do this, your body adapts becoming more resilient,

[00:04:13] more flexible and more durable. This gives you more agency in the world and more ability to protect yourself and others. Similarly, the way to grow psychologically stronger is to progressively challenge yourself to confront experiences that are both challenging but also within your perceived ability to manage.

[00:04:32] As you do this, you will gain psychological strength and resilience, allowing you to have more agency in the world and remain healthy and resilient to whatever life throws at you. Throughout history, people erred on the side of subjecting each other to more pain.

[00:04:49] This is because most of human history, blue, war, famine, plagues, slavery, and tyranny were the norms of the human condition, not the exception. So people were hard on their kids, hard on each other, and had little sympathy. This changed about 100 years ago with the rise of Freud

[00:05:09] and widespread acceptance of psychology. These days you could argue that in some ways you were probably too soft. And the reason I think this happens is a confusion between sympathy and compassion. Sympathy versus compassion. I believe the problem today can be summed up simply.

[00:05:28] People mistake sympathy for compassion. Sympathy is feeling bad for someone and wishing they didn't feel so bad. Sympathy is noble on the surface, people should suffer less but can often end up being subtly self-serving. People should suffer less because I don't wanna feel bad for them anymore.

[00:05:48] When compassion is similar to sympathy but different in an important way. Like sympathy, compassion begins with feeling bad for someone but instead of simply wanting the person's suffering to go away, compassion involves someone who is willing to suffer alongside that person so that they may overcome their challenges.

[00:06:09] Sympathy is sending flowers and a card to a friend when a parent dies. Compassion is driving to their house and holding them as they cry. Sympathy is letting a screaming child have that toy they want so they'll stop screaming. Compassion is letting them cry

[00:06:25] because you know they will be better off once they understand that they can't always get what they want. Sympathy is changing your profile picture on social media for whatever the new cause to jure is. Compassion is actually giving time or money to victims listening to their stories

[00:06:43] and helping them rebuild their lives. Sympathy is a good thing, we need it in the world but it's also easy. It's short term and short sighted. It's an, ah, I feel bad for him. Sympathy is focused on the feeling rather than the person. I hope they feel better.

[00:07:03] Compassion is about the person. I don't just hope they feel better, I hope they become better. Therefore, compassion is more involved. It takes more effort, both mental and emotional. Sympathy is trying to remove as much strain and struggle as possible. Compassion is trying to help a person move

[00:07:23] through a manageable amount of struggle so they can grow into a better person. I believe that as a culture we're over optimized for sympathy and under optimized for compassion. This is probably largely social media's fault but not entirely. Sympathy is easy to communicate online.

[00:07:42] It's also easy to see sympathy communicated between others. Compassion is like sarcasm, it's not communicated well online. It's also harder to recognize between others. We're probably also over optimized for sympathy because it's easier to measure and study. It's relatively easy to measure

[00:08:01] how good or bad a person feels but it's incredibly difficult to measure whether someone has grown or not. Physiotherapy, for the mind. To keep our exercise metaphor going, when we injure our body, how do we heal and become better? With a combination of medicine and physiotherapy,

[00:08:21] body parts are eventually able to heal, regain function and eventually become stronger but it's a long, painful process. When confronting trauma much like physiotherapy, you have to introduce tiny amounts of challenge extremely gradually. As you broke your back, you wouldn't get up and run a marathon.

[00:08:42] The goal is to first get up and take a step, then two steps, then walk down the hall. The marathon is likely not an option without years of consistent effort. The problem is that psychological trauma is much more difficult to diagnose than a physical injury.

[00:09:00] It's difficult to tell the depth and scope of one's emotional pain. Doesn't help that the definition of trauma is pretty much expanded to include anyone who is emotionally triggered by anything no matter how mundane or irrelevant. Therefore, it's often difficult to know exactly

[00:09:16] what is just enough challenge for that person to heal and what is too much. This is why self-awareness is so important. This doesn't even get into managing the emotional side of growth, i.e. how to better handle our emotions after we've been triggered

[00:09:31] and become incredibly hurt and upset. If you're interested in more on these subjects, you can check out chapter seven of my book, Everything is F***ed, A Book About Hope, for an even deeper understanding of pain and struggle and how it operates in the mind.

[00:09:50] You just listened to the post titled, Why Growth Requires Struggle by Mark Manson of Mark Manson, Don Net. Thank you to Mark. I do think finding that Goldilocks zone is difficult. It's not really practical because I don't really think that's in our control,

[00:10:07] but I think it's a good analogy because on one side, when things are a bit too easy, no growth happens, and then when there's real trauma, that's a beast to deal with. And like you said, it can take years of recovery, whether physical or mental and emotional.

[00:10:24] Trauma has to be processed and also like you said, only baby steps work here. But if we can get through it on the other end, we're definitely going to be more resilient, insightful and compassionate. Probably both to others and ourselves. And for more on compassion towards ourselves,

[00:10:42] you can listen to the last few days of this podcast. If you have trauma that hasn't really been worked through, I think one of the most common approaches is working with a professional and using CBT, that's cognitive behavioral therapy. And on your own, some ideas could be mindfulness

[00:10:59] and relaxation techniques like breath work or meditation or journaling, physical activity like vigorous exercise or even something as simple as walking, art, volunteering, having a support network. Well, pretty much all the things we talk about on this show and probably on optimal health daily too.

[00:11:20] But it's certainly not easy. It's one step at a time. And with that, thank you for taking a step with me here. I've only been able to keep doing this with you coming back to listen. Have a great rest of your day

[00:11:32] and I'll be back tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.