This was Poland, so things were pretty grim.

These people had experienced or witnessed mass starvation, the Holocaust, bombings that turned entire cities to rubble, and deaths of many of their friends and family members.

As Dabrowski studied the survivors, he noticed something both surprising and amazing.

A sizable percentage of them believed that the wartime experiences that they'd suffer had actually caused them to become better, and yes, even happier people.

Many described their lives before the war as if they had been a different person entirely, ungrateful for and unappreciative of their loved ones, lazy and consumed by petty grievances, entitled to all that they'd been given.

After the war, they felt more confident, more sure of themselves, more grateful, and unfazed by life's trivialities and petty annoyances.

Obviously, their experiences had been horrific, and these survivors were not happy about having lived through them.

Many of them still suffered from the emotional scars that the war had left them, but some of them had managed to leverage those scars in powerful and positive ways.

And they aren't alone in that reversal.

For many of us, our proudest achievements come in the face of our greatest adversity.

Many cancer survivors report feeling stronger and more grateful after winning their battle to survive.

Many military personnel report a newfound mental resilience gained from surviving the dangerous environments of being in a war zone.

Dabrowski argued that fear and anxiety and sadness are not necessarily always undesirable or unhelpful.

Rather, they are often representative of the necessary emotional pain of psychological growth.

And to deny that pain is to deny our own potential.

Just as one must suffer physical pain to build stronger bone and muscle, one must suffer emotional pain to develop greater resilience.

And it's only when we feel intense pain that we're willing to look at our values and question why they seem to be failing us.

We need some sort of existential crisis to take an objective look at how we've been deriving meaning in life and how we can change course.

Now let's be clear, this doesn't mean that trauma is something we should seek out or that it's somehow good for us all the time.

But it does mean that even in the midst of our darkest moments, there is always potential for growth.

But how does this growth work?

Well, it's not exactly a straightforward process.

It can be quite messy and unpredictable.

But here are a few key ingredients that can contribute to post-traumatic growth.

The first is to force yourself to see the ways in which this experience can potentially make you better.

What are the lessons?

What are the positive changes that may emerge if you let them?

How are you going to be different because of this experience?

Because the fact is, once we have improved from an experience, it is impossible to regret that experience.

Second is to take all of the pain and hurt and anger and shame that you feel and channel it in a positive direction.

That emotional energy must go somewhere, so find an outlet for it that is constructive, otherwise it will result in destructive practices.

Finally, the last step is to talk about it.

Be open and vulnerable.

Don't bury your experiences.

Don't pretend they never happened.

Own them and share them in a way that you would own and share your physical scars.

Share them with pride, because the past can only hold you down as much as you allow it to.

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