Erica Solove remembers December 30, 2021, like it was yesterday. She was at home in Superior, Colorado, a Boulder suburb at the foot of the Rockies. “It was an extremely windy day,” she says. “Hurricane-force winds. And we quickly realized it’s not just wind coming down the mountain – it’s fire.” She grabbed her napping two-year-old daughter out of her crib while her husband scooped up their five-year-old son. The family got in the car, struggling to open the doors against the wind, and fled without wallets, coats, or even shoes. She remembers how half the sky was black with smoke, while the other half was a bright crystalline blue.

They were fleeing the Marshall Fire, the costliest in Colorado history. Her family lost everything. In the early weeks after the disaster, Solove experienced panic attacks on windy days, and the kids went to trauma therapy. “What an absolute nightmare,” she says.   

But three years later, Solove, an organizational psychologist, says she feels stronger than before, even “triumphant.” She now finds it easier to put little stressors in perspective. Her life has grown richer in some ways: She and her neighbors became as close as extended family.  She is still overwhelmed by gratitude for the many acts of kindness they experienced, like strangers dropping off home-cooked meals and LEGO sets for her son. 

And notably, she has embarked on a new career. Earlier this year Solove started working for a nonprofit called Extreme Weather Survivors. She’s managing an online community for victims of the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles. “The kindness people showed to me, I want to pay it forward. A lot of bad came from this, but what good can come from it?” 

Solove’s Marshall Fire story is an example of what researchers call Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG)–a term first coined in 1995. Studies have consistently found that on average, between half and two-thirds of survivors report positive changes and a new life outlook after a tragedy or crisis.

Resilience can be defined broadly as “bouncing back” from adversity, returning to how you were before the hardship struck. When people experience post-traumatic growth, by contrast, they identify improvements in their lives. Recently, researchers have been finding brain structures that correlate with this kind of growth. And they’ve been unearthing new social and community factors and personal behaviors that contribute to fostering it.

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According to Tedeschi and other researchers, post-traumatic growth can be promoted in several ways:

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Cultivate community:  Ellis’s subjects described finding healing through relationships with partners and “chosen family.” Another study, by Mariah F. Purol and William J. Chopik at Michigan State, also found supportive partners and close friends are important to helping people cope and thrive after a trauma like cancer. And research by Luke Hyde and colleagues at the University of Michigan has found close-knit neighbors can buffer the impact of experiencing difficult childhoods in neighborhoods full of poverty and crime.

Read the full article on National Geographic.