The Astonishing Human Capacity to Grow Through What We Go Through

The power of being human

It’s a curious thing, really — the way a human being can stand at the edge of ruin and still find a way, almost miraculously, to put one foot in front of the other. I’ve sat with men who lost everything, and I’ve watched them blink back into the light. I’ve sat across from women who experienced excruciating loss and grief yet somehow managed, in time, to open their hearts to the world again.

There is a stubborn miracle stitched into the human psyche: we break, yes, but we are also wired to rebuild.

Sometimes I think, half in jest and half in solemn truth, that if resilience were a sport, Nigerians would have won the World Cup of it by now — repeatedly. I say this as an observation from my clinical work and from life itself: the average Nigerian knows how to stare adversity in the face with a grin, a resigned shrug, and an iron will to wake up tomorrow and try again.

Still, I wonder if for Nigerians it is an adaptive, unhealthy coping mechanism or just sheer incredible growth.

But it would be short-sighted — even unjust — to think this is a uniquely Nigerian trait. It is far deeper than nationality. It is an inheritance baked into the marrow of being human.

Yet here’s the paradox: while we are astonishingly resilient, we are also dreadfully inclined to catastrophize. I see it daily in my practice — a client sits across from me, eyes clouded by a tragedy that has recently struck, convinced that this pain is final, all-consuming, irredeemable. They believe, with all the certainty of the moment, that they will never be whole again. And yet, week by week, word by word, something shifts. Their shoulders square up. Their eyes lift. The tragedy doesn’t vanish — but something new emerges alongside it. Growth.

Psychologists call this posttraumatic growth. It’s the flip side of trauma — the less glamorous, less talked-about sibling of PTSD. It’s the phenomenon by which, after experiencing deeply challenging events, people report profound positive changes: stronger relationships, clearer priorities, greater spiritual depth, and a renewed sense of personal strength.

The idea was systematised by psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in the mid-1990s. They noticed a pattern: while many survivors of trauma understandably suffered, a significant proportion also reported feeling that the disaster had, paradoxically, opened them up. A loss forced them to re-evaluate their values. A diagnosis pushed them to truly live. A betrayal clarified the preciousness of loyalty. What doesn’t kill you, as Nietzsche famously declared, can make you stronger — if you shoulder it properly.

The data backs this up. Research suggests that anywhere from 30% to 70% of trauma survivors report some form of posttraumatic growth. That’s not a guarantee — pain can destroy — but it’s an incredible baseline. We should stand in awe of that. Statistically speaking, a good number of us will, in our lifetime, face unspeakable things. And yet, just as statistically, a good number of us will also emerge with new wisdom that could never have come any other way.

A question that puzzles me about this is, can all of us, having gone through incredible defeat, bounce back? Can all humans learn how to go through and recover from tragedy? It is possible! But how?

But here’s where it gets more interesting — and more complicated. Growth is not automatic. Pain is inevitable; growth is optional. The human mind has a default tendency toward what cognitive therapists call catastrophic thinking. This is our ancient survival brain on overdrive — scanning for worst-case scenarios to avoid repeat harm. In the face of loss or tragedy, we’re wired to tell ourselves: This is the end. I am ruined. Nothing good can ever come of this. It’s an understandable reflex — but if left unchecked, it becomes a cage.

So, part of my work as a psychologist — part of the work any of us must do when life cracks us open, having gone through the motions - is to challenge that reflex. To push back against the internal monologue of doom. We must ask ourselves the uncomfortable, liberating question: What else could this mean? What might this make possible? Who could I become now that I could never have become before?

That’s not a romantic sugar-coating of pain. Pain is pain. There is no virtue in pretending otherwise. Some tragedies do not come with a silver lining neatly attached. But often, when people do the excruciating work of standing up in the rubble of their old lives, they find themselves strangely, unexpectedly taller than before.

I’ve watched widows become advocates for others. I’ve seen men who grew up in violence dedicate their lives to breaking that cycle for the next generation. I’ve seen children who endured neglect and unspeakable harm grow into adults who turn their scars into lanterns for others stumbling through similar darkness.

It’s not magic — it’s meaning. Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, wrote: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how.’” The way through tragedy is not to pretend it didn’t happen, nor to deny its cost, but to wrestle out of it a reason to persist — a reason worth more than the sum of what was lost.

This is why community matters so deeply. No one grows alone. Posttraumatic growth is fertilised in conversations, in therapy, in honest friendships, in faith communities, in families willing to hold the unbearable together. We need witnesses to our worst moments. We need people who stand beside us and remind us: You are more than what happened to you.

So, yes — if you are Nigerian, you probably already know something about waking up with an empty wallet in a dysfunctional system, a flicker of hope, and an undaunted will to laugh at misfortune and start again. But you don’t have to be Nigerian to be resilient. You only have to be human — and willing.

If you find yourself today staring at the smouldering remains of what you once called your life, take a breath. Look at the rubble honestly. Mourn what is gone. And then — in time — ask yourself the terrifying, liberating question: What now? Not Why me? But what next? That is how the seed of growth is planted — and that seed is your birthright.

You can grow through what you are going through.