The Surprising Benefit of Going Through Hard Times

Psychologists studying "post-traumatic growth" find that many people come to thrive in the aftermath of adversity. Read on to learn more about the amazing ability of human beings to not only adapt but to grow incredibly after loss.

One of Frida Kahlo’s most famous self-portraits depicts her in a hospital bed connected by a web of red veins to floating objects that include a snail, a flower, bones, and a fetus. Henry Ford Hospital, the 1932 surrealist painting, is a powerful artistic rendering of Kahlo’s second miscarriage.

Kahlo wrote in her diaries that the painting “carries with it the message of pain.” The painter was known for channeling the experience of multiple miscarriages, childhood polio, and a number of other misfortunes into her iconic self-portraits, and a real understanding of her work requires some knowledge of the suffering that motivated it.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1209/the-surprising-benefit-of-going-through-hard-times-carolyn-gregoire/