A prison, a person, and a path to teaching (hers)

Let's take a mental trip.  Imagine you're in Zimbabwe.  Imagine that your daily meal is half a cup of rice and cabbage leaves.  Imagine that you're beaten daily and tortured frequently.  Imagine that all of this is happening in the infamously brutal Chikurubi prison.  Imagine going through this for 13 years, only to be released because doctors expect the cancer you were diagnosed with while in prison will soon kill you.

The only man that can truly imagine that is the one that lived it, and whose journey led him to a seat next to us on a friend's boat this past weekend.  Inspirational Speaker Reon Schutte, a South African Special Forces veteran and ex-POW in Zimbabwe, endured seven grueling surgeries to survive his cancer, and is now a world-touring symbol of acceptance, forgiveness, and mental strength.  Once Bob and I learned who we were sitting next to, we launched into an hour-long discussion on his story, our story, and his experience of what psychologists call "posttraumatic growth".

(See our previous blog post on post-traumatic growth here.)

While posttraumatic stress disorder may be talked about more often in the media, most people undergo some form of posttraumatic growth after devastating life experiences.  "People think that when something terrible happens, they're going to be devastated for a very long time.  In fact, they are devastated, for a very short time," says Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, in the Happy movie.  After this period of devastation, human beings have the capacity to rebound and grow from these experiences, often to the point that they feel even happier than before.

To say that Reon "rebounded" from his experience would be an understatement.  He soared.  During his time in prison, he cultivated an acceptance for his conditions, a forgiveness towards his torturers, and a sense of peace to which few of us can lay claim.  He experienced posttraumatic growth to a degree most of us can't imagine.

During our conversation, he explained how, even after experiencing tremendous pain on a continual basis while laying naked in a window-less cell for over a decade, he would still choose that prison over the prison of materialism we build for ourselves .  His experiences, like the experiences of Buddhist and Daoist monks, confirmed recent Positive Psychology research on hedonic adaptation and extrinsic goals.

(See our previous blog post on hedonic adaption here.)

We quickly adapt to the technology, fashion, homes, and cars we work so desperately to possess, and they leave us wanting more.  Like food that never fills, we are caught in an endless treadmill of desire as we wonder why our efforts aren't making us happier.  As Reon learned, and as researchers are discovering, intrinsic goals directed at personal growth, relationships, and one's greater purpose are often the core components of both feelings of short-term and long-term happiness.

(See our previous blog post on intrinsic vs. extrinsic goals here.)

We thought back to each of these three previous blog posts while listening to Reon, reminding us of the extraordinary universality of Positive Psychology principles.  Positive Psychology isn't tied to one religion, one culture, or one belief system, and yet it connects with them all.  It is concerned with fundamental human truths that can be experienced, discussed, practiced, and taught anywhere on earth.  We believe that it is only once you teach these truths that you can live a life guided by them.  After 13 years of imprisonment, pain, and suffering, Reon has dedicated the rest of his life to teaching these universal truths.

And that may be the greatest lesson of all.