Unbreakable E-Book

Nico Menzel

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 393

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Life is bizarre. What makes it meaningful is not floating along the smooth seas, but being able to look back and say I weathered the rough ones. Unfortunately, only after people have gone through devastating storms do they realize how tragedy can indeed turn into transformation. When you are caught in major upheaval, though, all hope seems lost, all advice forlorn. In those moments, you yearn for a lifeline that keeps you above water. In this book, Nico Menzel offers an instruction manual for anybody that is experiencing such hardship in their life, outlining practical strategies to get through the storm and prepare for the new course. His insights stem from his own experiences, are rooted in ancient wisdom, and backed up by modern science to show you that there may be a golden sky waiting. Health, the quality of our lives, comes down to our ability to process and deal with pain - and with the right tools, you can even grow from it.

Leseprobe

For Mama,

the strongest anchor

in the roughest of seas.

Nico Menzel is a writer, consultant and athlete. Since facing major adversity in his early life, he found purpose in redirecting science and philosophy into lessons for the modern age. His focus areas include resilience, wellbeing studies and peak performance. Menzel holds a B.S. in Psychology, a B.A. in International Studies and a M.S. in Business Management from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also an international track athlete in the sprint events where we won multiple accolades on the collegiate and national level in Germany. He currently works in consulting where he shares his vision of a resilient workspace and teaches foundations of a life in resilience & wellbeing.

Contents

Introduction

PART I: Ground Zero

Prologue – My Story

All Roads Lead to Tragedy

Random & Inevitable

PART II: Survival

Acceptance

Choice & Control

Meaning-Making

Perception

Release

Openness

Connection

Purpose

Movement

Balance

Reflection

Humor

What NOT To Do

PART III: Transformation

Growth

Gratitude

Perspective

Wisdom

Community

Confidence

Presence & Peace

Epilogue

Appendix

Playlist of Unbreakable

In-Text References

Source Material

Further Reading

Introduction

“How will I ever get through this?” are the seven most frequently spoken words by everybody that was just tormented by major tragedy. It all seems so insurmountable - the shock, the disbelief, the perplexity, the helplessness, the pain, the unfairness, the uncertainty, the despair. The event that changed life forever. Life doesn't make sense, it's gone way off track, to a place one cannot prepare for in the slightest. How in the world can I ever overcome such excruciating chaos?

I don't know you, but if you picked up this book, I know we’re in the same boat. On our path through life, each of us will inevitably be hit by adversity, appearing without warning, yet with full force. For you, the time is now. In the most brutal manner. Life landed a vicious uppercut, it planted a devastating explosion right in front of you and asked you to brace for impact and find a way to survive. But you have no clue how. Life’s lowest moments numb your senses and settle darkness over your head like fog. They suck the air right out of your lungs, leaving you paralyzed, dizzy, overwhelmed.

You're in completely unchartered territory, and have no means of navigating this uncertain terrain. You look around for help, but in this bottomless pit you've been planted, there is none. You're by yourself, left to your own devices. It's scary, outright terrifying, and the worst part is that you cannot fathom what’s ahead for you. You don't know where to turn, where to halt; where to rest, where to accelerate; where to accept, where to push back. You simply don't know what to do.

And how could you? Tragic events hit without any formal notice, in moments when you least expect it. Life changes in an instant, even if it's been a long time coming. When you are in real pain, your brain is useless, your instincts off-balance, and your emotions unreliable. Little can get you out of this predicament. There is no 30-minute recipe out of a life crisis, no step-by-step formula to follow, or a convenient product to buy that relieves all your sorrow. No, this is personal, difficult work that takes every ounce of your being.

It's the hardest fight of your life, but also the most important. If not victorious, you can quickly get caught up in a downward spiral that will tear your life apart. Without the right strategies, the anguish takes over and sticks to you for the rest of your life. What’s temporary turns permanent, and your life will be filled with hopelessness, anger, resentment, cynicism, loneliness, demoralization, and bitterness. Pain. Unhealed wounds, left unchecked, destroy your life.

With the right strategies and guidance, however, the tables turn. Life might knock you out for a second, but with the right tools, you gain back consciousness, reclaim poise and strike back. You will seize back control of your life, and actively shape the course of it. With the help of these following pages, your pain will slowly fade, you will recreate your life, and eventually emerge strengthened from the worst experience of your life. Taken to heart, they will transform your life radically: You shift from consternation to empowerment, apathy to action, powerlessness to competence, from struggle to growth. And most importantly, hope will re-enter your life, blowing a breath of life back into you.

If you let me, I will lead you along the path of healing from tragedy. From the infinite darkness back to the light of life. A life worth living. A return back to laughter and joy, you know, the genuine kind. A state of being that allows you to move onwards again, while also being in awe to see how far you've come. You will have mastered the most distressing phase of your life, and look back with pride, newfound skills and confidence. You will have overcome tragedy and not only handled but transmuted it into valuable lessons and a source of strength. You will have weathered a storm so monstrous that makes you realize that your abilities now match any future disturbances. You will be unbreakable.

To reach that point, I am going to show you precisely how to get there. I will present what strategies and tools you need to move along the path of healing, from initial impact to eventual growth. The book is divided into 3 parts that mirror the chronological timeline of experiencing life-changing events. First, Ground Zero, the deeply disastrous and painful event that devastated your life, the origin of your ordeal, as if a nuclear bomb detonated in your life. Here, I will introduce you to my personal story, highlight that every tragedy is valid, and demonstrate how such experiences appear inevitably and randomly.

Second, Survival, the struggle to stay afloat amidst the chaos erupting around you. Here, I will outline all the strategies at your disposal that are capable to get you through these trying times. More specifically, I will present one strategy at a time, explain its significance for healing, point you to the scientific context of its practical benefits and also discuss my own experience with them so you have a tangible example. The goal of each chapter is to acquaint you with available tools to survive such a difficult event, display a practical way out of it and also make you understand that you can actively shape that process.

And lastly, Transformation, the profound changes that occur in your life as a result of living through extreme adversity. Here, I will show you how overwhelming tragedy can indeed evolve into positive outcomes later on, in the form of heightened awareness, shifted priorities, or elevated perspective on life itself. I will highlight specific domains where my life improved, recount the lessons I learned along the way, and emphasize how you, too, can not only recover from major hardship but potentially grow from it.

Health, the quality of our lives, comes down to our ability to process and deal with pain. Nobody can escape it, and neither could I. I remember it like yesterday, this movie in my mind. At 13, my life changed forever. From one day to another, my life turned upside down, and nothing was the same. Something that had never even crossed my mind before pulled the ground right from under my feet, and I was left to find a way to overcome it.1 I was forcibly enrolled in trauma university, majoring in coping studies. Though overwhelmed and startled, I slowly progressed through the curriculum and carved out my unique path of healing.

Looking back, the advice I would give to my younger self is simple: Walk on. Simply keep moving forward, step by step, day by day. The tests won't be pleasant, the surroundings grim, but it will teach you valuable skills. I would recommend taking every class seriously, being receptive to unorthodox methods or counterintuitive information. Be vulnerable, and develop connections to others as they will give you the strength to persevere. Keep in mind that nobody is remotely prepared for this, but that each of us carries with us the ability to endure. I was once a clueless freshman, too, primed to become a problem-child, a mental wreck, or veer off course. But I didn't, thanks to the contents of this very book, the strategies I lay out right in front of you. These strategies on how to overcome tragedy weren’t handed to me on a silver platter or revealed through divine intervention, but rather acquired through trial and error. I simply learned how to do this, or better, I had to learn. And over time, through reflection and research, I was able to formulate what I learned into one exhaustive piece of advice.

This book serves as my dissertation. It's my legacy to the next generation of people who are thrown into the most arduous and unforeseen circumstances and need to figure out a way to handle them. For years, I lived with all that information in my head, but never found the right medium to express it. I had lived through the worst, and I knew the path out of it. In a way, it's my life’s work, my own journey through tragedy, and my gift to you.

Look, I know I don't boast the resume of someone that is equipped to educate you on these matters. I am without recommendations, a fancy title, a prestigious degree, or a proven product with thousands of customers. I can't sing or rap, I can't act or animate cool YouTube videos.

What I do have is experience. First-hand, real-life experience. I know exactly how it feels to be shattered and I know exactly what it takes to get through it. Not only that, but I also have taken my time to reflect on it all, dive deep into the scientific research, study ancient wisdom, and find purpose in channeling all this accumulated insight. I can pinpoint my thoughts eloquently through writing, and by doing so, transfer all my knowledge from my brain to yours, so that you, too, can get through the hardship. I have a story from which you can draw tremendous inspiration and expertise that you can't just google, but must obtain through experience. I synthesized everything I know into this book with the hope that it will be of service to you.

This book is an instruction manual to overcome tragedy; it is a handbook on how to survive and even grow from it. Think of it as the person pushing the bobsled to create momentum and launch the race: I provide the force to push you onto the path of healing, and you need to follow the race plan.

However, this book is not a magic bullet, no remedy that quickly removes your misery. It also isn't a bunch of pretentious nonsense that has no basis in practical reality, but rather attempts to give a constructive outline on how to deal with major adversity as simple and logical as possible. More importantly, this book isn't about me. It abstains from merely mapping my experiences onto yours; it doesn't assume that what will work for me must work for you, but rather seeks to open your eyes to the whole array of strategies that may guide you out of the darkness.

The words you're about to read might sound outrageous, opaque, or ludicrous to you, but they are my blueprint for you. They show you that you're not alone (Part I), give you guidance on how to survive the onslaught on your life (Part II), and demonstrate the possible transformation that awaits at the end of the tunnel (Part III). The substance of this book stems from my experience, is rooted in ancient wisdom, and backed up by modern science. It's as much educational as it is practical, as I want results (=healing) rather than a bunch of big words or empty promises. Everything that follows I’ve tried myself, on the quest to find what works and what doesn't. I'm not enlightened, simply a trailblazer with the goal to support everybody in a similar predicament that I once was in.

“I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream” wrote Herman Hesse in Demian. This is my motto for this book: Be who you needed when you were younger. And to find out where I'm coming from, you ought to dive into my background, and this is where we turn first.

1 See next chapter (‘Prologue - My Story) for a detailed description.

PART I: Ground Zero

Prologue – My Story

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

- Rumi

Summer in Germany is a wonderful time. The temperature finally settles constantly over 70 degrees, the wind refreshes you and the colors seem fuller. I was dreaming, in my little world. There was Mama, the most hard-working, strong, and caring mother with a heart of a lion. Her kids were everything to her, and she let us feel that every day. Then there was my older brother, Fabian. Organized, responsible, and always having the interests of others in mind; much like Mama. He was the conscientious anchor for his friends, overly meticulous in everything he did and immersed in his two passions: buses and cycling. He knew every single bus route in the city, and saw his career in that field, following what excited him. Cycling was his balance, riding through the hills in the hinterland and competing in professional races.

Then, quite the opposite to him, there was me: High-energy, adventurous and borderline rebellious. I loved being outdoors, exploring places, and sometimes got carried away in my curiosity. We lived in our little home and it was the happiest place on earth for me.

*

Dreaming. The first day of our summer holiday was about to start, and we had planned a trip to the zoo. Full of excitement, I went to bed the night before. I was going to get to see all these beautiful animals, meandering through the continents of the themed zoo.

As my dreams unfolded and before the anticipation for the day could wake me, something else did. It wasn't forceful, but attention-grabbing. I usually slept like a stone, unbothered by any noise, but this pervasive sound alerted my senses instantly. As I awakened to the day more rapidly now, I recognized the sound had an urgent nature, almost as a cry for help.

It was Mama. I noticed forceful sobs. I heard quick footsteps. And the most bone-chilling noise of all, her menacing cries repeating “No, please, Fabi!”, bursting of powerlessness. She was racing around the flat, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. I had never experienced her so hysterically. In fact, I had never seen another human being act with such a sense of urgency and restlessness. I remember feeling uneasy, not grasping the significance of the moment.

What I didn't know at this point is that I was about to encounter the most horrifying day in my life.

Confused, I got out of bed, opening the door slightly. Now I could see her, frantically hastening between my brother's room and the rest of the flat. She kept repeating: “Nooo, Fabiii.” By now, I knew something was wrong. Terribly wrong. This was not the kind of morning I predicted. Mama sometimes rushes around if she's stressed. She would sometimes be concerned about our well-being for no particular reason. But not like that. She barely noticed me coming through my door, whereas usually she would lovingly embrace and remind me to drink my warm mint tea. Not today. As I tried to decipher the situation, a weird feeling upset my stomach. My body realized my life has changed forever, but my mind couldn't process it yet.

I made my way to Fabi’s bedroom since that apparently was the origin of unrest. I stood in front of it for a few seconds, then built the courage to peek through the door crack. What I saw was unfathomable: My own mother was reanimating my brother, pressing his chest rhythmically. I didn't understand. I just stood there speechless, with worry creeping up, not knowing what to make of the whole situation.

What the hell is happening? My 13-year-old mind wasn't able to process.

By now, I slipped in the room, silently watching as Mama pressed her hands to Fabi’s chest over and over again, trying to push life back into him. She was a good crisis manager, used to fighting obstacles that came in her way, tenacious to the core. But this was unchartered territory. What is the recommended procedure when your son is motionlessly lying in his bed?

The final conclusion to what she instinctively knew the moment she entered his room and looked at him was now evident. The unthinkable has happened: He was dead. Her son and my brother Fabian was not alive anymore. He had suffocated in his sleep with his head in the pillow while having an epileptic seizure, with both of us less than 10m away from him.

VOID.

Not long afterward, the paramedics that Mama had called while I was still asleep arrived. Slowly putting the pieces together, both of us were dazed. Fabi was in prime condition, healthy. He did have epileptic seizures before, which are absolutely terrifying, and which he had been in the hospital before. He did also sleep on his stomach. Was that the deadly combination that the doctors ignored, disregarding Mama’s concerns?

The following hours are more of a blur to me, my brain scrambling to protect me from ultra-painful memories. But I have piercing recollections of specific events that have since been branded into my memory.

I remember all the medical devices and the cruel beep sound coming out of my brother’s bedroom.

I remember the instantaneous help of Mama’s friends that dropped everything to come over to care for and support us with their presence, words, and chores.

I remember vividly laying on the couch next to Mama for hours, curled up in the fetus position, grasping the feeling of helplessness and surreality of the moment.

And the most excruciating image enshrined in my mind is standing alone in Fabi’s room, point-blank staring at him. This is the moment it became real for me. Up to this point, all these adults around me acting all crazy and hysteric didn't make any sense to me - I was still expecting for us to carry on with our day and go to the zoo.

But right then and there, when I saw the impassivity of him, the closed eyes that for some reason wouldn't open, I knew what was going on. A little part of me was waiting for him to get up any second, but my mind started to understand that this would never happen again. I realized that I also would never talk to him again. Or go outside chasing each other with our bikes. Or annoy him with my carelessness. Or teach him math. Or drive around the city with perfectly timed bus plans designed by him. Or punch and fight each other mercilessly and act like nothing happened when Mama came in the room. Or go on a trip with just us three again. Or or or…

REALIZATION.

My new life just started. I have had just lost the person I was closest to in the world, my older brother, my role model, my confidante. Forever.

Where do I go from here? At my age, I didn't have to shoulder any of the formal responsibilities, like organizing the funeral, informing family and friends, or tidying up his room and belongings; all that fell back on Mama. I solely needed to get through the next week, adjust to this new normal and cope with all these peculiar emotions. I didn't feel depressed or lonely a day in my life, mostly because of Mama. She was my anchor in this storm. She’d just lost a child, and yet had to comfort her other one in the midst of dealing with the aftermath; it still blows my mind how she managed all this.

The following days, I tried to make sense of what had transpired, processing. Crying uncontrollably. Missing him. I truthfully didn't know how I could be in this world without him. Sometimes I went to sleep and expected (or hoped) that I would wake up the next day and all this had been a dream. That we’d finally go to that damn zoo. But no, this new reality was indeed real.

One week later, the funeral was scheduled. It was my first time at a graveyard. I noticed how peaceful and tranquil it was, and I deemed it an appropriate resting place for Fabi (not that there were any options). The first front row tickets of my life were different from what I’d envisioned, but it gave me comfort to see many familiar faces at the ceremony.

The sweet, tiny chapel was bursting with people. Our part of town must’ve shut down for the morning because people were stacked up outside the building, creating a big swarm of probably 400 people total. I let that sink in. We don't have a big family, so all these people had some kind of relationship with MY brother, they were connected to him in some shape or form. How did he know so many damn people? And all of them were paying respect to Fabi. They were there just for him. This had a lasting impact on me; it showed what a tremendous impact he had on those around him, what he meant to them and how many lives he touched.

The mass was an emotional rollercoaster. It ranged from impenetrable pain with tears to more uplifting moments of pop songs (since it was still a teenager’s funeral)

The real challenge awaited when walking to the actual grave to set him down. Firstly, I had to walk in front of everybody I had ever known seeing me at my lowest point in life. Secondly, it was still absolutely surreal. All of it. I stood there the same way I stood in his room a week earlier, gawking at the coffin of my fucking brother that had just been lowered in the dirt. I was thinking “How am I going to live this life of mine?”.

Inexplicable emotions rose in me. Truthfully, my damn suit felt more like a costume, and all these black clothes around annoyed me. Why are we leaving my brother behind like this? Is there no other, adult way of bringing him back? No magic trick? I didn't want to uncontrollably bawl my eyes out again. I had to come to terms with this being the end of the road, that this was his new home. What the fuck…

But then I realized that this was my last personal moment with him. As I looked at Mama, I got steadier, recognizing the power of this juncture in time. This was the end of my first life, with Fabi, and at the same time the start of my second life, without him. I needed to cherish this moment. I got myself together, thought back to our memories together, threw in a flower, and uttered “I see you soon, Fabi!” to the hole in the ground.

The following weeks didn't get any more pleasant. After the big bang of the day of his passing, you’d expect that you have the worst behind you. But Fabi’s death was all-encompassing: little drips reviving the painful event are sprinkled onto you.

One of those was the farewell mass. A gathering of people giving a final farewell celebrating the life of Fabi, it brought up all the strong emotions once again. And they even had the audacity (or courage) to play ‘Hallelujah’, the most beautiful song in the world, performed live acoustically by one of Fabi’s classmates. Another session of crying uncontrollably in front of hundreds of people was triggered, another failed attempt to stop it. It was heartwarming, legitimately magnificent.

Years later, I thought to myself, that vulnerability is a funny thing: Usually, all a 13-year old cares about are his immediate peers and people he's around, but all that fell to the wayside for me, simply because the pain and grief was so real and overwhelming. I was at my most vulnerable. Ever. In front of everybody I knew. First, I was ashamed of sobbing constantly, but after a while, those released emotions were, well, gone. Every one of my friends at that point has seen me cry like a baby, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. So I started to let it happen. There I realized how little others' perceptions are important when your emotional wellbeing is at stake, there is no glory in withholding emotions. Real strength lies in vulnerability. I had to learn the hard way.

We had to pick a gravestone, which was a pretty big deal, at least for me. That was his ‘monument’, the object we were going to look at every single time we go to his new home. I insisted on including a picture of him, for personal connection. Almost no gravestone has a picture of a person, and I never understood why. I needed to look at him, picture him when I am at his place. It also humanized him. So now his smiling graduation picture shines a light on the gravestone, making everybody that passes the gravestone notice the peaceful radiation of this new home.

*

This movie in my mind still feels bizarre to this day. It still feels like those film scenes where the protagonist is at a breaking point, possibly the lowest point, and his life trajectory is flashing in front of his eyes, while Adele’s ‘Hometown Glory’ adds to the reminiscing effect, asking himself ‘How did this shit happen?’.

My brother was the natural reference point in life, the he-has-got-my-back-and-will-figure-stuff-out person. Losing this meant leaving behind everything I knew and calibrating my whole system anew. I was still pinned down in the current operating system, with him being there, and I knew it’d take a long damn time for the new software to upload.

Like most older brothers, he was the guinea pig and ‘the responsible one’, carving the way and giving me an always intact get-out-of-jail-free card. We were quite opposite in many domains, him being mature, riskaverse, and neat, whereas I was generally unorganized, enterprising, and creative. I loved all sorts of sports, he was only interested in cycling and couldn't get excited for anything else. He was a sturdier body type with curly-ish hair, I was slim and tall. I was strongly opinionated from an early age and did not shy away from confrontation, he was always concerned with the group dynamics and how everybody felt and got along.

Opposites clash, and so did we. We weren't always this perfect duo full of harmony; I sometimes found him overly rigid and too orderly and he definitely got annoyed with my audacious behavior. We would physically fight as brothers do over trivials, like who spilled the milk on the carpet, exchanging fists and chokes. Those brawls taught me a great deal, mainly to stand up for myself even if the adversary is bigger, stronger, and older, not backing down. But, as soon as Mama stepped into the scene, we were like made men in the mob, practicing the oath of Omertà. Not a word about the children’s UFC fight that just happened in the living room. This is the kind of integrity we treated each other with.

No matter how much we annoyed and fought each other at some times, he truly was my protector at all times. He innately embraced the role of watching out for not just me, but Mama as well. He looked after me when I was out and about. We had a special connection.

But when you least expect it, you get punched in the face. This time in the most serious, traumatic ways. My brother was not with me anymore. I had encountered Ground Zero. The lowest point, leaving me in pain, perplexity, and without an answer.

*

Ever since that life-altering summer, staring in the face of my dead brother, my world was replaced by a completely new one. One I didn’t know how to navigate.

Even though I'd never admit when he was still with me, I did look up to him tremendously. I thought he was the master of his universe, the mature guy that had carved his own path. All of this seemed so far away for me, I was still that playful child. Now that had changed instantly; from one day to the other, I had grown up. Better yet, I was forced to grow up. The outside world now was solid and real, not just this big playground that all children so love. No, for me, reality had begun. No more mindless daydreaming or careless exploration. Not everything was a game anymore, this shit was real. And hard. My second life had just begun, the one without Fabi. And my first life, with him, was officially and definitely over.

The best way to illustrate my transformation at that time is - weirdly - Google Earth, the program that shows you every inch of the world from a satellite image in 3D form. You can choose to view the earth from far away, offering you a luminescent perspective of the globe. Or you can zoom in closer and see a detailed version of your region - and I was zoomed in closely to my little world: My view exclusively entailed our neighborhood, along with my school and football club, and my school friends. I went about my daily life, and wasn't aware of much else. Sometimes we took trips to the Alps or even Greece or Spain, but those places did not connect to my simplistic view of the world. For me, this was all there is. When you focus entirely on living your life, scale is irrelevant. You just live.

Yet, after the fateful day that summer, my lens zoomed way out. I went from only cognitively perceiving the hopes and worries of my immediate surroundings, to a much broader scope. A birds-eye view. I noticed things that I didn't before. For example, when I heard an ambulance in the distance, I thought about the fact that somebody else’s life has probably changed forever at that moment. I became aware of the tough, relentless reality of nature, that nothing was guaranteed.

It wasn't enlightenment, just perspective. A whole new reality opened up to me, where I had to grow up. Fast. I got confronted with so many things that no ordinary 13-year old ever thinks about, like what therapist I’d like to see or picking an appropriate coffin, not even mentioning grieving the loss of my damn brother. I was accustomed to thinking about who plays in the Champions League the following week or how I can maneuver myself through those dreadful chemistry classes. It was like being dropped into the ocean and having to learn how to swim at the same time, but fortunately, I had many lifebuoys around me that helped me keep my head above water.

By any standard of measurement, my life hasn't sailed on the smoothest waters, but up to this day I don't perceive it like that. I've realized that suffering - and even trauma and loss - is a fundamental part of the human experience, and I've also internalized the duality of life: You cannot truly appreciate pleasure without enduring pain, you cannot genuinely be happy without having gone through sadness, just as there is no light without darkness, or winning without losing. It is impossible to assume that you can just experience all the ‘good’ emotions and navigate around the ‘bad’ emotions. All your experiences only acquire meaning in retrospect. In the present, they just exist.

And every great thing comes from a bad thing. That's why comeback stories are so inspiring. Or why people have epiphanies after a wake-up call.

Moreover, the sheer amount of suffering in various forms that other people have to endure across the globe shifts my situation in perspective. People have lost their parents in a car accident, lived through war, or battled a serious illness. Others were abused, their life partner suddenly died, or they lived through a natural disaster that destroyed their livelihood. You reading this might be faced with one of those circumstances right now. I recognize that people have lived through much worse than me, without being as lucky to have an immense support system.

When you train in the gym and you lift heavy weights, calluses build around your hands. This is the physical embodiment of building resilience. You become more robust. Next time you train, you will have a higher tolerance for enduring workouts. You have built a higher resilience.

The same is true of your mental resilience. Your mind is just another part of the body, waiting to get trained and conditioned. Each time you overcome obstacles or tragic events, your mind grows stronger. You become more tolerant of negative circumstances, learn how to deal with adversity, and your confidence develops. You become unbreakable.

When you've refined that skill, you have a hardened mind, protected by armored plates. It becomes your source of strength that guards you against any outside circumstance. Growth turns into your principal priority. And you deeply know that nothing - no matter how cruel or abhorrent it may be - has the capability to extinguish your internal flame of life.

This is why the title of the book is as it is, because you develop an inner confidence that is unrivaled to anything else, and that you cannot acquire from pleasant events. As painful as tragic events are in the moment itself, they are valuable lessons in personal development later in life. If you have developed this perception of your tragedy, you have defeated and overcome it. And you are on your way to becoming unbreakable.

Mama always says that what I’ve gone through suffices for a lifetime, but I am certain hardship and struggle are along my future path. And trust me, I am ready for it! My life changed forever on that 26th of July in 2010, and it was my Ground Zero. You certainly have a different one, but they all have the same effect: Suffering. And every individual tragedy, no matter the origin, is justified and real, and this is where we turn first.

All Roads Lead to Tragedy

mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam. (“A thousand roads lead men forever to Rome.”)

-Roman proverb

Before we had interstate highways and soaring airplanes, transportation wasn’t so easy. Roads made up much of the infrastructure, and reigning empires often steered all of them to their capital city. So it was the case in Europe about 2 millennia ago, with the Roman Empire connecting the Mediterranean with its vast network of roads. From their unparalleled construction derives a medieval proverb: “All roads lead to Rome”, as all the roads in the world eventually wind up in the city of Rome.

The Romans boasted their capital as the center of the (European) world, creating a road network that radiated outward. Almost every road you stood on back then would lead you somehow to Rome. No matter your walk of life, somehow you would find your way to the Roman capital. It may have been far away from the provinces geographically, but structurally, all the roads throughout the entire Roman Empire were connected to their major city. They all had a common denominator: Rome.

Applied to us, it means that all the different forms of suffering eventually lead to the same destination: suffering. Each story is unique, you're taking your own road. But inevitably, all those different stories, all the roads of suffering, lead to Rome, the struggle that ensues within your mind. There are many routes to arrive at the point of suffering. No matter where you are, you will end up there.

The truth is that no tragedy is alike, no event can be weighted and compared to another. Some may have experienced a car accident, whereas others lived or went through combat in a full war. This is not a competition. Someone who drowns in 8 feet of water is just as dead as someone who drowns in 80 feet of water.

In a way, rainbows resemble the diversity of tragic experiences. As there are a myriad variety of slightly distinct colors in the rainbow, many more than we can perceive at first glance, there are countless variations of tragedy. Each one of us has our own, unique story, most of them being invisible to the eye. Those experiences are layered within you, sometimes proactively hidden for fear of judgment, sometimes covered inside because it's too personal.

When we are amazed at the lush arc of colors, the human eye can merely perceive a fraction of the total colors within the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet are majestic, but those are simply the ones that fall into our visible spectrum. But where is brown, or pink, or even the variations of the visible colors? Science says that, in fact, rainbows contain upward of 1 million colors, which is a much larger continuum than the seven we can actually observe.

Similarly, you cannot always see the appalling events a person has lived through, just as you cannot see all the colors of the rainbow. But they are there. And they make the person (or rainbow) whole, painting a complete picture of their life experience. Even the reaction to the same event can diverge from person to person, just like two people never see the same rainbow because no two people can ever stand in the same exact spot. The angle always differs, it’s physics.

But suffering can also accumulate over time, like a barrel filling up every time it rains. Stress or minor woeful events pile up, like witnessing constantly fighting parents or being chronically bullied by peers in school. Those stressors mound until they reach a tipping point, where you break down and cannot take it anymore. Maybe you experienced a wake-up call that has left you reexamining your life because you overworked yourself, burning out from exhaustion. Or you are suddenly fired from the job you needed to survive financially.

Tragic events arise in so many colors, and every single one is part of the rainbow. They are valid. Visible or not. Who is anybody to say that your misery doesn't compare to theirs?

Consider this: Would you rather be punched one time by a heavyweight boxer or 10 times by a lightweight boxer? Both probably knock you out! Whatever the cause, the effect is always identical: suffering.

Suffering not in the ancient sense of taking daily beatings and being starved to death, but the modern version, where the pain is much more psychological than physical. Have physical pain, and people will sympathize with you. You break your arm, and everybody around you will offer their support. With psychological pain, the spectrum that is not visible to the eye, people will disregard or even mock you. Are you feeling uninspired and moody lately? Cheer up!

What you see is all there is.

Suffering can be this endless feeling of dread to go to work in the morning or it can be the excruciating pain you bear when losing a limb in an accident. It can come all at once in a Ground Zero event or it can be spread out over a period of time, dripping anguish over your life in carefully rationed doses.

Whatever your circumstance, you've come to a point in your life that is so painful and so distressing that it leaves you petrified. In some aspect of your life, an explosion has detonated and left you shattered. That thunderball is Ground Zero. The very moment you're helpless, angry, debilitated. Where you don't know what's next. Where you think you’ll never feel pure joy again. Where life seems too surreal to be true, shaken you to the core, and made you question your whole existence. The very moment where time stands still.

Whether you experienced one major distressing event or eventually become overwhelmed by the stress in your life, the result is suffering. Life-altering material.

Some may say now, “but Nico, the world is not this horrible place where all these appalling events occur. What is the chance that I will experience something like that?”. Let's get to the bottom of this. I once thought that, too, my microcosms were an infinite playground (for children) and void of major turbulence (for adults), where everything will work out somehow. The funny thing is, it certainly does, just not the way you’d ever imagined.

During my journey, two characteristics of adversity became obvious to me. Two traits that encompass every tragic event. Two brutal truths which we have to come to terms with in order to adjust to adversity, and this is where we turn next.

Random & Inevitable

“We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”

-Winston Churchill

Let's play the Name Game. You know, the game where each player sticks a note containing the name of any famous (or not so famous) person to their forehead and you try to guess the person's identity.

Here we go: You're this wildly successful woman, by any common standard of measurement. You grow up in a healthy household, excel in high school, and eventually are accepted into Harvard, graduating summa cum laude from arguably the most prestigious academic institution in the world. You receive both an undergraduate degree in economics as well as an MBA soon afterward.

Next, you dive right into your promising career, eventually serving as chief of staff in the department of treasury in the Clinton administration. So far, so good.

Following political turnover, you decide to go to Silicon Valley to join the booming tech industry. First, you follow the mission of making “the world’s information freely available”, set forth by this small search-engine company called Google. The company grows tremendously during your time and you are instrumental to that success, earning you the fancy title (and indispensable function) of Vice President for Global Online Sales and Operations.

During your tenure, you marry your best friend and bring to life two children, a boy and a girl.

Pending a need for change, you get courted by a 23-year old tech entrepreneur, who goes by the name of Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook. You eventually agree to become the COO of his company, leading the social media company from a deficit to astronomical profits, thereby skyrocketing your net worth. On top of that, you are also a strong advocate for women's rights in the workplace, and go on to publish your book promoting your ideas.

Wow. Astonishing career, and life. But who am I?

This is the mildly abbreviated and hopefully acceptable (if she ever reads this) synopsis of Sheryl Sandberg’s professional life, who is still serving in her role at Facebook to this day. She is considered to be among the most influential women in the world, with pristine business sense and enthusiastically advocating her ideals.

But then tragedy hit. Out of nowhere, her life would change in an instant when her husband died suddenly in 2015, leaving herself and her children devastated. Her book, Option B, tells the personal and inspiring story of a thriving woman that was punched in the face by life itself but found a way to fight back with resilience to recreate herself.

When you reach a peak in your life, you may think that adversity and hardship can barely touch you and if it does, you can delegate and let someone else deal with it. But personal hardship is different, it sticks with you, and only you can tackle it. It comes into your life like a lightning strike but stays over your head like fog.

Popular beliefs hold that bad things happen to bad people, as the world is divided into black and white, and “everything happens for a reason”. And if that's not entirely true, at least it happens to other people, but not me. We think we are untouchable, at least subconsciously, that fate always strikes somewhere else.

To those people, Nassim Taleb, renowned book author and risk analyst, would blatantly assert that they are fooled by randomness. In his book by the same title, he proposes the idea that we as modern people are unaware of the existence of randomness. We tend to explain random outcomes in the physical world as non-random, thereby fooling ourselves. Human knowledge, he claims, is fallible and we overestimate causality which leads us to make the world more explainable than it actually is.

Oftentimes, there just aren't any rational explanations for certain events. For example, when the clouds above you form into an elephantlike shape, it isn't a mystical sign to take a trip to Thailand, but rather the effect of random meteorological events appearing to your eyes as elephants. Your senses and mind team up to play a trick on you. They try to explain our surroundings and suppress the role of chance.

This is the first characteristic of adversity: Randomness.

The timing and events leading up to a tragic event are mostly random, not orchestrated by a divine plan. You cannot look into the future and prepare. Sorry for the inconvenience. Instead, you have to deal with whatever comes your way, whatever combination of punches life throws at you. For Sheryl Sandberg, it was the death of her beloved husband, for me it was the loss of my dear brother, and for you, it might be something entirely different.

Whatever the case, you cannot choose your crisis. It just appears, out of the blue, like a skyfall. One never knows when a disastrous event is around the corner, we only know it is