Post-Traumatic Growth: Rising Above
Natalie Ola
3 min read · 31.7.2025
What happens when we stop allowing what happened to us to become the definition of who we are?
Hopelessness is our default state. We have to actively learn to have hope. We have to actively learn to transcend and rise above.
Post-traumatic growth is not simply returning to a pre-trauma state, but rather a transformation that occurs as a result of a struggle.
“In humans, our default state is helplessness, and what has to be learned is hope; so it’s actually a learned hopefulness.”
— Scott Barry Kaufman
Flow vs. Victim Mindset
Steven Kotler points out, if you have a victim mindset, you have an external locus of control—the world happens to me. If you have an external locus of control, your brain will not give you the energy to drop into flow; why bother, why expend the energy?
It locks flow.
The victim mindset is a deal breaker. If you lead with trauma, you are blocking peak performance in yourself.
Trust Your Own History
Your own history often says, you are not a victim. In fact, for most of us, our worst tragedies function as teleportation chambers.
It’s like you go into them as one person and you come out the person you actually wanted to be.
Whenever there’s a big triumph, there’s always a “rise above" story; even when there’s a great triumph, it usually starts in some place pretty dark.
The Paramount Set
Some items on the paramount scale:
yes, something happened and it has affected me, and it doesn’t define me.
I have deep reservoirs of resilience within me and can handle difficult situations. I don't want to be reduced to the worst thing that has happened to me.
Instead, I’d like to be seen as a whole person—that includes my strengths as well as what happened to me.
My reactions are within my control, and I can develop strengths because of my adversity.
This is a very “Yes, And” way of thinking about life. It doesn't ignore real suffering. Yet it also acknowledges the empowerment we still have within us.
Ways One May Become a Victim Within Themselves
We become a victim of our emotions when we take our emotions at face value—without questioning or looking for a deeper meaning.
We become a victim to our people-pleasing tendencies when we feel like we have to say yes to everything and please everyone, and forget about our own self, our own needs.
We can become a victim to our past.
"Sooner or later you have to give up all hope for a better past"
—Irvin Yalom
A Higher Potential Within Reach
George Bonnano, Ph.D., of Columbia University is the leading expert on resilience and adaptive flexibility; his work says, 85 percent of the time, you are going to bounce back in a year and a half—that’s the normal human reaction.
A huge portion of that 85 percent will bounce back through the ladder of post-traumatic growth—that’s the most hopeful ladder of all and it leads most directly to more flow.
“Listen. I wish I could tell you it gets better. But, it doesn't get better. You get better.”
― Joan Rivers
Free Agency
Steven Kotler shares on the subject; he says, “One is free to make this decision, yet through a victim mindset one shuts themselves off from all hope; walls themselves off from all life. I can’t get to the compassion part because I’m blown away by this deep choice you are making, and it’s super crippling.”
Scott Barry Kaufman believes there are lots of ways to shine the light within yourself and find the parts that aren’t broken.
Empowerment Mindset
A lot of the items on the empowerment mindset scale have to do with really actively focusing your attention on the light within yourself, and the parts of you that are most growth-oriented. We have counter strengths, we have talents, we have things that light us up―goals that we want to move forward to―and constantly orienting ourselves towards that.
The importance of having both a gratefulness practice and a gratitude practice.
Self-Actualization
When writing Rise Above, Scott Barry Kaufman’s previous thinking on self-actualization was challenged by realizing that this pervasive mindset in life is by far the most important thing that separates the people who succeed from those who don’t succeed.
Yet, one needs to be careful when trying to talk about this topic because not everyone is there yet in their journey to rip off the defense mechanisms, to rise above. There’s certainly a minute we need to give ourselves or others to just stew in it, processing thoroughly, and to be there for them, or us, through that.
This is certainly not to say that the ones who have overcome their traumas and don’t have a victim mindset are somehow better humans, or they somehow get the gold star, whereas those who haven’t overcome yet get into merits.
That is why this is such a sensitive topic. There are so many great examples of people who have gone under the worst circumstances, and acknowledging those great examples gives those of us who aren’t there yet the hope and the inspiration that we could get there someday.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the "father of flow", came out of a concentration camp during the war. Flow in his work dates back to the people he saw thriving under the horrific circumstances versus the people who completely fell apart.
Self-actualization―it’s a ladder, a staircase, or a process;
sounds like at each level there’s another version of this victim mindset―those demons come back.
On the path of self-actualizing, it is a continuous effort to actively learn to transcend, and to actively practice rising above.
References:
Steven Kotler, Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. Flow vs. the Victim Mindset: Trade Blame for Breakthroughs. Flow Radio. Apple Podcast (2025)
Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential (2025)
George A. Bonnano, Ph.D. The End of Trauma: How the New Science of Resilience is Changing How We Think About PTSD (2021)
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990)