Rising Above the Ashes

My personal reflection on the raging fires in Southern California and free giveaway of my new book.

TIFFANY ROSE/GETTY IMAGES

The past week has been absolutely insane and heartbreaking, to say the least. Of course, I’m speaking about the Southern California wildfires. Just the fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood alone has consumed more than 20,000 acres — bigger than the entire island of Manhattan. And it only took a few days. A few days for people’s lifetime collection of personal attachments to go up in a puff of smoke. My own place in Santa Monica is fine for now, and I am fine, but so many people I am close to aren’t. I feel so much pain and anguish. But I also have great hope for humanity.

Despite the surrealism and absurdity of the situation, I am seeing a unity like I’ve never seen before in Los Angeles (or really anywhere for that matter). Political signs on the front lawns of houses are decimated by the fire. Those divisions don’t matter right now. None of that matters right now. Instead, people are united against a common enemy: the non-human wildfire. What’s more, people are focusing on what really matters— the health of family and friends, and helping each other as fellow humans.

I am so touched by how many people have contacted me in the past week asking if I’m alright. People I haven’t talked to in years! When things got potentially disastrous, people were definitely there for me. Zooming out, I see an overall pattern of people stepping up to be there for complete strangers as well. I am absolutely seeing the best in humanity right now. It’s as if situations like this cause humans to rise above. This gives me such hope for humanity. Of course, looters, arsonists, and scammers exist. And they are infuriating and disgusting. But they are the extreme minority of humanity and it’s pretty clear that regardless of political affiliation, most people agree they are infuriating and disgusting. They are not the norm. The norm is altruism.

Not just altruism, but also resiliency. I am in awe by how action-oriented and resilient survivors of the fire are being right now. I’m not surprised though, considering the research on this topic. Look: Horrible things happen in life, and chances are something horrible will happen to almost everyone at some point in their lives while they are still alive on this planet. Research shows that the majority of adults are exposed to at least one potentially traumatic event (PTE) in their lifetimes.

However, people react differently to PTEs and while most people experience distress and confusion, only a small percentage of adults actually develop PTSD. People are often a lot more resilient than they think they are— especially in the face of loss and potential trauma.

Consider George Bonnano’s classic paper “Psychological Resilience After Disaster”. The researchers contacted residents of NYC approximately 6 months after the September 11th attacks. Although many people met criteria for PTSD, they still found widespread resilience in the NYC area during the 6 months after the September 11th attacks. In particular, resilience was observed in 65.1% of the sample. Even those with the highest levels of exposure and highest rate of PTSD, the proportion that was resilient never dropped below one third. People who had lost possessions in the attack had a high PTSD prevalence (21.4%) but still showed a high percentage of resilience (42.6%). The point here is that “resilience is prevalent even following the most pernicious and potentially traumatic levels of exposure.”

I would go even further and say that we can expect not just resilience in the next 6 months, but also a heck of a lot of post-traumatic growth. I predict in the next 6 months you will see a greater appreciation of life, greater appreciation and strengthening of close relationships, increased compassion and altruism, increased identification of new possibilities or a purpose in life, greater awareness and utilization of strengths, enhanced spiritual development, and increased creative growth.

But most of us aren’t there yet. As of this writing, there is still a substantial amount of uncontainment of the fires and the full extent of the destruction is still waiting to be revealed. Many are still in full-on survival mode, and that’s OK. If you want to help, please consider donating food and clothes to the American Red Cross. Or look at this great resource by Scott Galloway on ways to help victims of the LA fires.

Remember, being victimized is not the same as having a victim mindset. What fills me up with hope is that while so many people are legitimately being victimized right now, there is so much productive action, helping, and empowerment.

Los Angeles will rise above the ashes. I have no doubt about it.

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GIVEWAYS

I think the psychological strategies for coping and thriving amidst adversity put forward in my forthcoming book Rise Above are urgently needed right now. I wanted to let you know about two opportunities to get an early copy of Rise Above right now. First, my publisher is giving away 25 galleys of the book on Goodreads. You can enter here for your chance to win an advance copy. (FYI, you’ll need a Goodreads account to enter the giveaway, but it’s free to sign up.)

Additionally, we’re giving away another 10 digital galleys to those who’ve been personally affected by the fires in Los Angeles. If that’s you and you’d like a digital copy of Rise Above, please email me at info@centerforhumanpotential.com to let me know you’re interested. This giveaway will be a random drawing, rather than first come first serve. I’ll be closing the giveaway for entries on Monday, January 20, and we’ll select the winners by Wednesday, January 22.

Be well, everyone.

Love,

Scott