Slow Down: The Five Forms of Post Traumatic Growth

Marc Feder
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

My buddy Mat texted me at 5:30 am this morning:

“How you feeling? Want to make sure you’re trending back to normalcy.”

It’s been 55 days since my brother died.

Normalcy? I’m not sure about that. Distracted — definitely. I believe that, subconsciously, in order to avoid the acute grief of his loss, my mind has been bouncing around inside a washing machine of frenzied thought.

The week after Drew died, my mom gave me a copy of Option B, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. In it, they reference the concept of Post Traumatic Growth. According to Grant’s research, “more than half the people who experience a traumatic event report at least one positive change, compared to the less than 15 percent who develop PTSD.”

Grant and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania claim there are five forms of Post Traumatic Growth:

  1. Finding personal strength
  2. Gaining appreciation
  3. Forming deeper relationships
  4. Discovering more meaning in life
  5. Seeing new possibilities

In the last 55 days, I have had thoughts swarming and swirling through my head across all five categories. This past weekend, #2, #3 and #4 really hit home as my wife and I drove 1,000 miles to Madras, Oregon to see the total solar eclipse.

Camping in a crop circle

Like most Americans these days, we both work high-pressure, time-demanding jobs (tech and entertainment, respectively) so it’s rare that we get the opportunity to slow down and appreciate the rarities in life. And I don’t just mean the exceptional astronomical occurrence when the sun and moon perfectly align for a mere two minutes and throw a blanket of cool night over the earth in the middle of the day. I mean appreciating the simple things like a long car ride with no cell reception (and thus no access to email), an oddly-placed Thai restaurant in the middle of the woods where you would expect only a country diner, or simply sitting idle in a field of grass.

Teddy, our Boston Terrier, sitting idle in a field of grass

We drove roughly 2,000 miles over five days to see a two-minute solar eclipse. I’ll admit, before we left, I thought that spending that much time in a car for such a small reward was a little ridiculous (especially because I am prone to “going Rosalie,” an homage to my grandmother who was famous for her road rage). But in hindsight, it was a fantastic escape from our everyday hustle, and a delicious taste of what Post Traumatic Growth can offer.

I now have a deeper appreciation of the cosmos and affinity for the citizens of small towns across the Pacific Northwest. I’ve formed a deeper relationship with my wife, my dog and a friend who lives on the other side of the world (she joined us for the trip). And I realize there is more meaning in life than making the next sale or getting the next promotion.

Of course, that’s not to mean that we shouldn’t work hard in pursuit of our professional dreams. But if there is one lesson I’ve learned in the 55 days since Drew died, it’s that growth doesn’t always come in the form of a class, a phone call or an email. There are opportunities to grow all around us. Sometimes we just need to slow down in order to see them.

This is Crater Lake in Oregon. My brother and his wife visited here just a few weeks before he was diagnosed with AML. It was his favorite place on earth, he said. I love you, brother.

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Marc Feder

Written by

Human; Male; Early-30's; Creative Writer; Founding member @everydae; Lover of dogs, nature and my wife.

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