Why did you write "The Power of Adversity"?

I’ve had my share of major adversity. I have been a drunk. I’ve endured failed business ventures… failed marriages… and I’ve suffered the terrors of clinical depression, crippling arthritis and terrifying heart disease.

Eventually I came to see these adversities for what they were: blessings in disguise that I learned to leverage to make me a stronger, wiser, more loving and creative human being. Today, for example, I am a recovered alcoholic. I’m deeply in love with my wife. I have conquered both my depression and my arthritis, and my body now shows no physical evidence of heart disease. In addition, I’ve been able to build a multi-million dollar manufacturing company that provided me with the means to be a major philanthropist, endowing hospitals, universities and charities which offer valuable help to thousands of people.

I had sunk as low as I thought one could go. Then things turned around for me. Why? This question tormented and fascinated me. What was I doing now in my life that I wasn’t doing when adversity was threatening to overwhelm me? How had I changed?

My introspection provided me with a sudden illumination. I came to understand the power of adversity and some of the lessons it can teach us, starting with the all important truth that we are not meant, in the grand scheme of life, to be happy and comfortable. Rather, we are meant to forge our characters on the anvil of adversity.

Since then I’ve been formulating the premises of this book. I’ve come to believe most of us experience monumental periods of adversity and it’s these devastating setbacks which propel us in our quest to become fully and creatively human. Sometimes we get stuck, so stuck, in fact, that only great pain will impel us to move. It’s then that the power of adversity is revealed. But to see it requires a new way of looking at the world, a radical shifting of perspective, which  I share with readers of my book.

How did you deal with heart disease?

My heart attack in 1989 came when – or because – I had learned some wrong lessons from my earlier battle with rheumatoid arthritis. That summer, feeling nearly recovered from RA, I was rowing nearly 40 miles a week in my effort to get my upper body into shape. Thinking myself in top-flight physical condition after that summer of rowing, I then began an intense swimming regimen – never mind that I had taken a six-month layoff from swimming. After several 2,500 yard swims I began experiencing shoulder pains that got worse and worse, radiating down through my arms. Meanwhile, I was eating like a horse, except that horses don’t indulge in a steady diet of the richest, most fat-laden foods imaginable. 

I thought exercise – which had saved me from RA – could and would protect me from everything, but I was wrong. Nearly dead wrong!

What’s important about my heart disease as relates to the matter before us, is that when this latest major adversity felled me I initially panicked, and then I despaired. To find myself laid up in bed again so soon after having put behind me those bedridden years crippled by RA, broke my spiritual heart even as my physical heart was in need of repair. That’s when my sweat equity in confronting adversity derived from my experience with RA came through for me. It provided me the strength to chip away at the walls of my latest labyrinth, so that I could begin to catch glimmers of where I needed to go.

This time, right away I sought help (unlike my behavior during my RA, when I stubbornly tried to overcome it all on my own). First, of course, I reached out to my wife, Celia. Unlike my struggle with RA, I did not push her away. I sought safety in her arms, and as my heart opened up to my wife I think it truly began to heal on every level.

And as the shock abated, I reached out for more help. 

In 1990 I read the book Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease, and wrote to him, offering to fly to San Francisco and enlist in his pioneer study. That highly select group had long been doing the heart disease reversal program and could not accept new participants, but shortly after our exchange, Dr. Ornish offered his first heart reversal retreat in California. I applied and was accepted.

Ornish’s theory was simple. With a combination of lifestyle changes including a healthy diet, stress reduction and exercise, the progression of heart disease could be halted and perhaps reversed. More than anything, Ornish opened the world’s eyes to the notion that heart disease was not just a physical problem but also a holistic one. 

According to him, it is equally as possible to shut down the heart by, say, denying intimacy, as it is by consuming fatty foods. Surgery and drugs are often essential when one is experiencing the heart attack, but they do nothing to resolve the underlying cause. A coronary bypass is just that: a bypass of the problem. 

Dr. Ornish taught that reversing heart disease demands enormous patience, love and understanding... a union of mind, body and spirit… Those words resonated within me as the sweat equity earned through my previous adversity with RA kicked in, and the walls began to come down. I at last began to draw the right conclusions about adversity; how I had been responding to it and how my responses were changing.

What made this particular adversity unique and especially intimidating was that dealing with my heart disease carried with it the risk of death. While all the other adversities in my life had been serious, none before this one was potentially fatal. 

So my heart attack – more than any other problem I’d faced – was a cold shower that woke me to a staggering realization: the adversity we perceive as an exterior problem – like a heart attack – is often really the symptom of a problem deep within ourselves. It is only by tearing down the walls of adversity that those deep-rooted issues will at long last be revealed. 

I learned that my heart condition was not a matter of the “heart attacked” as much as my heart attacking me in retribution for the festering knots and thorns in my life. 

What was your experience of back surgery?

There’s no need to bore you with the medical details of my back surgery. Suffice to say that like any major surgery, it was no day at the beach.

My primary approach to recovering from back surgery is the same approach I used when confronting my RA and my heart disease: positive thinking. As I contemplated the hard work ahead of me – exercises, physical rehabilitation, etc. – to recuperate and regain my health, I did not think, “I have to do it.”  Instead, I thought: “I have it to do.”  

If you’re thinking, “That’s just semantics,” think again. One’s adversity (like my back surgery) is real. It cannot change. But it can be transformed. 

You see, mastering the power of adversity is all about choice. First you choose to do it… and you continue to do it by carrying on your series of choices.  Having this mindset will help you take control of your adversity – and your life.

Why do you swim several times a week?Besides being essential for physical health, exercise has a lot to teach us about confronting adversity. Back before my rheumatoid arthritis, when I was regularly doing 10K runs, I always found the first few minutes before I warmed up to be complete physical torture: a veritable symphony of aches and pains.  

Now I swim. Every day I have to drag myself kicking and screaming to that pool... The water’s so cold when I first get in that the prospect of swimming 50 laps is incredibly daunting.

However, whether it’s running, swimming, weight training or any other form of exercise, once you get passed those first ten minutes or so and warm up, the endorphins begin to surge. It’s the “runner’s high” release of chemicals in the brain that brings such bliss, but that can only be earned by enduring the physical exertion. 

Tackling adversity is like tackling exercise. Once you get over the ‘warm up’ period and the endorphins begin to surge, you’ll take pleasure in tackling your problem. Why? Because it is so much more pleasurable to be the hammer than the nail! When you tackle a problem you’re taking control; i.e., you’re the hammer. When you let adversity fester, you’re the victim... the nail.

What’s more, just as my completing the first 50 laps in the pool provides me with the confidence to know I can meet that challenge the next time, each instance of adversity that I tackle strengthens me that much more in terms of self-confidence that I can solve any problem that I might encounter. 

This spiritual strength builds up day-by-day, just like your physical strength through your exercise routine. I like to think of it as a tempering process: just as a blade remains tempered long after the fire that scorched it has faded away, we grow stronger through the tempering effects of adversity in our lives.

My swimming also helps me to meditate, which I think is an extremely important activity to pursue if one wishes to master adversity. I like to meditate by concentrating on my breathing while swimming laps, scudding through the water like a cloud through the blue sky.

You lay great emphasis upon continuing to work and be socially active – why do you believe this is so important?

At my age, you would probably forgive me if I chose to spend my time reminiscing about the past... But for me, that could never be. I relish the present moment and planning for the future. 

I still revel in going to my office each day at Weatherchem, the best plastics closure company in America, to chat with my employees and feel the surge of human connection. I also look forward to opening letters from the many philanthropic causes I support, experiencing the sweetness of knowing I am making a positive difference in the world and longing to do more.

This kind of enthusiasm buoys me along the river of life with its inevitable daily surprises – good and bad.  All these great old and new joys I owe to my blessed enemy, adversity. My life is not perfect. No life can be. Adversity still haunts and taunts me. But I will never let it suck me back into the shadows.

Instead, I will continue to grow by taking advantage of all the new opportunities presented to me by my own, personal unending stream – and infinite bounty – of adversity.

What are your tips for Health and Age vistors and members for making your later years great?

I’ll begin by stating an absolute truth: age is a state of mind. You may dismiss my declaration as a cliché, but as readers of my book know, the three rules I share on how to stay young at heart and in mind have stood the test of time. 

In fact these three rules have helped me beat Father Time and stay young as I approach my 85th birthday… and they can do the same for you!

Rule #1: Attitude and the Mind – The power of positive imagery:

The number one factor to maintaining your youth is to develop a youthful perspective – by keeping a positive mindset. You will go a long way toward overcoming your adversities that do so much to age you when you avail yourself of the power of positive thinking.

You see, staying young is all about choice. So choose to be young – or restore your youth – by thinking positively with the right imagery. 

Rule #2: Meditation – The art of letting go:

Practicing meditation is the way to create and sustain your positive mindset. Most of the time, our heads are filled with an endless loop of the same thoughts formed over our lives. They drive us to distraction and often plunge us into anxiety. This mental stress and strain becomes physical stress, which greatly contributes to our aging. Meditation helps alleviate mental stress, short-circuiting the aging process. Far from being a mystical art, meditation is as down to earth and results-oriented as physical exercise. There’s lots of information available on different ways to meditate. Do a bit of web surfing or browse the shelves of your local bookstore to find a method that feels right for you. 

Rule #3: Communication -- Articulating the speech of the heart:

The poet W.B. Yeats described prayer as the “inarticulate speech of the heart.” Our youthful goal is to articulate the heart’s thoughts and feelings, to help us revitalize our spirits, reconnect with others, and replenish our youth.

It was my grueling experiences confronting serious, chronic rheumatoid arthritis and then heart disease that shoved me stumbling along the first few steps of the communication path. Before those bouts of suffering, I had barricaded myself from the world. As I struggled with the relentless pain, depression and a lack of certainty about the future, I was granted the gift of a lifetime: the opportunity to relearn how to trust others. 

I also relearned that trying to get through life alone wears away one’s youth, both inside and out.  Reaching out to others and accepting their reaching out to you will go a long way to help you stay young. Each of us can recharge and replenish our body, mind and spirit.  Take the first steps to maximize your life right now by following these powerful and liberating rules to stay forever young!

How can we harness our adversities  -- particularly in health – to live a better life?

Any form of adversity, including health issues, can help us grow and live a better life if we remember that:

• Adversity is all powerful – either it creates misery or destroys it.
• Adversity will always hurt – it is up to us to transform that hurt into limitless freedom and positive transformation
• Adversity is the bridge that can carry us to our future – where we can live fully, bravely and meaningfully in the world. 

                                                               
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Weatherhead is the author of The Power Of Adversity and chairman and CEO of Weatherchem, a private manufacturer of plastic closures for food, spice, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products.  Visit www.powerofadversity.net for more information.