Catastrophizing is a thinking error we work with in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that refers to a tendency to exaggerate experiences and probabilities with a negative tilt. When stuck in strong emotions, we tend to see the problems as global (everything is wrong), personal (it's all my fault), and stable (it'll never get better). But all too often in a crisis, we're too close to the problem to see the full picture. We tell ourselves our perspective is accurate, there is nothing to learn, and the opportunities have already passed us by. However, that is just the mindset that keeps us stuck rather than resilient.
Consider the popular Chinese parable about the farmer:
A farmer saved up his money to buy a new horse, but only a few days afterward, it ran away. His neighbors lamented at his terrible luck, but the farmer calmly replied, "Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
The following day, the horse returned to the farmer’s house, bringing with it a stray horse. “What luck!” the neighbors cried. Yet again, the farmer responded, “Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
Not a week later did the horse throw the farmer's son, breaking the young man's leg in the process. That evening his family groaned, “what a terrible news.” Once again, the farmer replied: "Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
However, before his son's leg could heal, the King of the land announced a war and ordered the able-bodied men of the land to be drafted. As the horse had rendered the farmer's son disabled for the time being, he was spared from the draft that took many young soldiers' lives. As his neighbors mourned their lost children, they again commented on the farmer's luck. Without hesitation, he again retorted, "Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
The parable highlights our tendency to view an event only from its immediate results. We envy those who win the lottery but are surprised by how often these individuals later file for bankruptcy. Research reveals a tendency to return to a baseline level of life satisfaction after negative and positive life events, known as hedonic adaptation. Though more modern research on the subject suggests that not all negative life effects result in a return to baseline, scientists have observed factors that enhance adaptability to misfortune in even the most severe experiences.
For example, Segovia and colleagues (2012) observed in a sample of 224 prisoners of war who returned from the Vietnam War that optimism predicted resilience. Similarly, another two-year study of nearly 2,000 military veterans found that at least moderate levels of post-traumatic growth were experienced by 59%, particularly among those engaging in gratitude, altruism, religion, and active reading (Tsai et al., 2015). So, while we may take a hit from misfortune, our days are not destined for doom if we are willing to actively work on our mindset and interpretation of the events.
Resilience is the process of adapting to life's difficulties such that we are able to move forward with flexibility and recapture our lives from a place of strength. It often involves a mindset that promotes growth in response to hardship. A growth mindset refers to viewing challenges and setbacks from the lens of adaptability. That is, one's skills, abilities, and circumstances are not set in stone, but rather responsive to efforts toward self-improvement.
Within a growth mindset, failure is just an opportunity along the road to success, not an endpoint. Interviews with veterans from the United Kingdom revealed that those experiencing post-traumatic growth often spoke about a broader interpretation of negative events and emotions and the gradual pace of change over time (Palmer, Murphy, Spencer-Harper, 2016). In this regard, healing and growth occur when we actively seek out deeper meaning, benefits, or learned lessons within our struggles, rather than focusing on the discomfort.
The old saying proposes that "time heals all wounds." However, a more apt summary of resilience research suggests that time and mindset can in fact heal the wounds of misfortune.
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