How to get effective personal growth after suffering a serious injury

Author: Jared Pennington
Published: May 13 2013

Serious injuries can lead to emotional and mental pain that is hard to deal with. Whether the injury leads to permanent changes or temporary inconveniences, personal injuries are a struggle. Healthy coping mechanisms should be engaged in to deal with the changes that the injury brings. The best coping mechanisms lead to emotional, intellectual, and social growth.

Strengthen Emotional Ties

Whether you’re a loner or a social butterfly, human interaction is a vital aspect of the recovery process. You should interact with friends, family, and acquaintances in person. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter lack the same capacity for deep social connections.

Family and friends can help the injured deal with the stress and depression caused by dealing with the injury. Stress and depression can lead to physical symptoms that can hinder and prolong recovery. As your family and friends help you heal, you should notice an increase in emotional ties in your social group.

Seek Out New Hobbies

Injuries often result in an inability to perform your favorite activities. This can lead to frustration and boredom and excess time to wallow in self-pity. In order to circumvent the problem, you can start a new hobby that is within your current mental and physical capabilities.

Whether it’s cross stitching or sculpting, new hobbies exercise the mind and teach valuable lessons. While engaging in the same hobbies and activities over and over again has merit, more can be learned when learning a new activity.

- You can choose a hobby that will teach skills to boost your resume and job output.

- Hobbies can teach life skills that allow for self-sufficiency. Sewing a blanket will teach you the skills needed for clothes mending.

- Often skills cannot be accomplished on the first try. If the hobby is mastered patience and perseverance are learned.

Engage Time in Charitable Activities

If you are anything like me, it’s the inability to find the time that has limited your contribution to local charities that you believe in. Injuries could lead to more free time. Volunteering at a local charity can be an ideal way to spend your time.

Charitable activities provide the injured with social interaction time, allows you to give back to the community, and provides a distraction from your healing process. Volunteering teaches compassion, selflessness, and a lot of other traits. For those of you driven to charitable activities through less altruistic means, volunteer time can be used to beef up a resume. Colleges and companies prefer to hire employs that are civic minded and engaged in their communities.

Injuries, although painful, can be coped with in a healthy manner. The injured can seek emotional support from family and friends. Holes in time where old activities used to be can be filled with new hobbies and volunteer opportunities. Filling time prevents wallowing in the physical and emotional pain of the injury.

Jared Pennington is a health and wellness writer who spent the majority of his youth in hospitals after athletic training went horribly wrong. When he's not running, rock climbing, or volunteering at a local animal rescue, he writes for Just Home Medical, a supplier of home aides such as grab bars to assist the injured and disabled.

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