Good day, Purposeful Hearts! It’s time to allow life’s challenges to transform your leadership! Come inside of my research brain this week to learn what’s possible through pain.
Challenging life events and circumstances of loss offer the opportunity to convert the emotion, grief, or pain into positive energy directed toward personal healing, interpersonal empathy, and meaningful transformation. Recently, researchers have been focusing more attention on this form of transformation in terms of both its psychological sources and its positive external outcomes (Bray, 2013; Bonanno, 2009; Hoehl, 2019; Lancaster & Palframan, 2009; Worden, 2009). Specifically, Bonanno notes that “stressful life events provide significant opportunities to transition between ‘what is and was and what could be’” (p. 142). Worden (2009) created a task-based approach to the mourning process, suggesting that grief should consist of active rather than passive involvement with one’s personal cycle of loss and growth. Bray (2013) states that “Individuals are forced to reconcile themselves to the realities of shattered assumptive worlds, summon up energy to invest in activities of meaning making and narrative reconstruction, and navigate difficult existential and spiritual questions” (p. 899). Such activities and directed energy have the potential to manifest themselves as renewed purpose and desire to positively impact others.
To an extent, one’s ability to actively and purposefully work through difficult life events with a growth-oriented mindset is dependent on his or her psychological qualities that existed before the loss occurred (Grof, 2000). Beyond this psychological readiness, research suggests that teachers, coaches, mentors, and the like can assist followers in the recovery and growth process, guiding them toward using their newfound perspective and wisdom to produce positive change in the lives of others. To accomplish this, Bray suggests that those providing guidance should pay attention to “the individual’s experiential style, his understanding and acceptance of the process, a positive context for the experience, the availability of informed, sympathetic and consistent social support, and respect for the individual’s beliefs and an acceptance of his reality” (p. 899). As a result of this type of attention, the follower can move toward intentional processing of the personal loss and engage more fully with the world (Grof & Grof, 1990). Jang and LaMendola (2007) found that leaders who accommodated the personal qualities, cultural values, and beliefs of those who had suffered a loss were the most effective in supporting recovery and growth.
Leaders, educators, mentors, and consultants can benefit from these research findings as they seek to live more authentic lives and counsel their followers and students to do the same. Turning the attention to creativity research, findings suggest that negativity, frustration, pain, and deep emotion serve as a powerful catalyst for creative activity and transformation (Carson, 2012). In the classroom, students who have selected service-learning projects based on their desire to convert their experiences with grief or loss into impactful change have demonstrated deeper connections to their projects, improved project outcomes, and a higher sense of personal satisfaction with the experience. Additionally, guiding students, followers, or mentees toward this kind of transformational experience allows both leader and follower to more fully engage in authentic leadership.
Is it time for you to convert the emotion surrounding a loss into the energy needed to make a positive difference in the lives of others?
Bray, P. (2013) Bereavement and transformation: A psycho-spiritual and post-traumatic growth
perspective. Journal of Religion & Health, 52, 890-903.
Bonanno, G. A. (2009) The other side of sadness: What the new science of bereavement tells us
about life after loss. New York: Basic Books.
Carson, S. (2012). Your creative brain: Seven steps to maximize imagination, productivity, and
innovation in your life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Grof, S. (2000). Psychology of the future: Lessons from modern consciousness research. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
Grof, S., & Grof, C. (1990). The stormy search for self: A guide to personal growth through
transformational crises. Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher.
Hoehl, S. (2019). Purposeful grieving: Embracing God’s plan in the midst of loss. Milwaukee:
Northwestern Publishing House.
Jang, L., & LaMendola, W. (2007). Social work in natural disasters: The case of spirituality and
post-traumatic growth. Advances in Social Work, 8(2), 305-316.
Lancaster, B. L., & Palframan, J. T. (2009). Coping with major life events: The role of
spirituality and self-transformation. Mental Health, Religion, and Culture, 12(3), 257-276.
Worden, J. W. (2009). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health
practitioner (4th ed.). New York: Springer Publishing.
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