Early on in my recovery, when chaos still reigned supreme, I described what had happened to me as a magic trick that didn't work.  "It's like the magician ripped the table cloth off the table, but the dishes went flying everywhere," was what I said.

People often talk about adversity shattering their lives.  The structure, order and meaning that was once so familiar has been reduced to a nondescript pile of broken pieces.  There's a sense of unreality about it.  Just like magic, it seems to defy logic and rational thinking.

Life is perpetual change.  Adversity is unwanted change.  We don't want something to end, but it does.  When this happens, something new is automatically created.  Whatever that something is, somewhere within it lie the seeds of opportunity.

This is the LAST thing you want to hear after adversity sweeps through your life and leaves you staring at the pile of broken pieces.  You don't want silver linings.  You don't want lemonade.  You don't want opportunities.  You want things to be the way they were.

Adversity turns order into chaos.  It makes the familiar unfamiliar.  It makes what was once predictable unpredictable.  Where life was once stable, now it seems precarious.

At first all your energy is used to cope with this confusion and uncertainty.  You can't see opportunity!  Something meaningful and important in your life has been changed or taken away.  Adversity causes loss, and that is what you see. 

No crisis lasts forever, and as you begin to piece things back together again, you do calm the chaos.  You do restore order.   You do come to terms with the losses.  That's what the healing process is.  As it unfolds, hope and possibility begin to grow.

Some people can see and embrace opportunity sooner than others.  That's okay.  Healing isn't a race.  Everybody's different.  Everyone has their own path to follow, their own style and their own pace.

When adversity causes profound change (and profound loss), it can destroy your most basic beliefs and assumptions about life and the world.  Things you once believed to be true seem false.  Things that once were meaningful no longer are.

When this happens, it can make you ask the big questions: Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is my purpose?

Thus, one of the greatest opportunities adversity opens up is the chance to reevaluate your life and the way you are living it.  It can be the catalyst for a change in life direction that sends you on a richer, more fuilfilling life path - one that is more in alignment with who you truly are. 

Many people find great healing in using their experience of adversity to make the world a better place.  They create something good out of something that caused destruction.  They give back where adversity took away. 

Examples of this are easy to find.  Organizations, foundations, scholarships, shelters, books, works of art, community projects, national events (the list goes on and on... websites!) are in some way a legacy of the good that can come from hardship and tragedy.  All of them are testimonies of adversity bringing out the best in people.

Taking action is healing because it helps you take back your power in the most positive way.  In making plans and carrying them out, you take control.  Since you need to be organized to get things done, the activity you're focussing on helps to bring back structure and order.  When you have a vision you want to make real, you have purpose.  When you see it become real you feel accomplished and your self-confidence is restored.

What you choose to do doesn't have to be a large-scale project that wows the world.  Doing something personal is just as effective.  You might decide to go on a challenging wilderness trek for example, or take a training program that you have always feared you would fail.  It's not so much what you do, as it is the act of doing it that is healing.

As well as being able to see opportunity, as time goes on, you will gain an ever-deepening appreciation of the good things that have happened since you met adversity.  There may be important people in your life you would otherwise not have met.  You might have a fulfilling career that you would not otherwise have chosen (maybe you found your life's calling!).  Some people will even tell you that adversity saved their lives. It gave them a wake-up call that got them out of a destructive downward spiral.

Adversity can be a doorway to new perspectives, a richer worldview, a deeper sense of connection and compassion, greater strength and courage, stronger will and determination, and a clearer sense of who you are than you’ve ever had before. 

It can be a catalyst for all these things and more when you choose to open the door and walk through it.  You may not be able to do this in the early days after adversity, but the time will come when you're ready, and you can.