Flourishing After Adversity
If you've experienced grief, illness, loss, or life-altering setbacks—and you're ready to reclaim your joy—this podcast is for you.
Hosted by Laura Mangum Broome, Resilience Coach and author of Flourishing After Adversity, this weekly show is your go-to resource for overcoming life’s toughest challenges with hope, courage, and clarity.
Each episode dives into real-life strategies for emotional healing, building resilience, managing mindset, navigating unexpected change, and rediscovering your strength after adversity.
Whether you're facing the aftermath of divorce, struggling to move forward after loss, or starting over later in life, you’ll find practical tools and encouragement to help you grow—not just go—through what you’ve been through.
If you're searching for inspiration, resilience coaching tips, or mental health support for difficult seasons, hit play and start flourishing after adversity. You've got this!
Flourishing After Adversity
S1:E8 What Your Bad Days Are Teaching You
Turning Bad Days into Resilience: Practical Tools and Insights
In this episode of the Flourishing After Adversity podcast, host Laura Mangum Broome explores how to transform challenging days into opportunities for growth. She introduces the concept that bad days are not failures but valuable feedback, and provides three practical tools to reflect and build resilience.
Laura also shares her free guide, 'Reframe the Spiral,' offering quick coping strategies to shift negative thoughts.
The episode emphasizes the importance of gentle self-questioning, acknowledging invisible efforts, and making small adjustments for a better tomorrow.
00:00 Introduction to Flourishing After Adversity
00:22 Understanding Bad Days
00:51 Reframe the Spiral: Coping Strategies
01:23 Reflecting on Emotional Resilience
02:54 The Importance of Reflection
05:09 Practical Tools for Bad Days
06:50 Rearview Journal Prompts
07:27 Episode Recap and Final Thoughts
Free Resource: Reframe the Spiral: 5 Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day https://www.icope2hope.com/reframe
Website: iCope2Hope: From Hardship to Hope https://www.icope2hope.com
Free Paperback: Flourishing After Adversity (Pay only $4.99 shipping; U.S. Orders Only) https://www.icope2hope.com/freebook
Welcome to the Flourishing After Adversity podcast. I'm your host, Laura Mangum Broome. If you've been knocked down by life--grief, illness loss, or unexpected change-- you're in the right place. This is where we turn setbacks into stepping stones because healing, growth and joy are just the beginning.
Understanding Bad Days
Today's episode is for anyone who's had a day where nothing seemed to go right.
Those heavy, blurry, I'm not myself days. Your toughest days might be telling you something, but are you listening? We're diving into a new perspective, one that shows you how those bad days are more than just hard.
They're honest. And by the end of this episode, you'll walk away knowing how to use those difficult moments as feedback, not failure.
Reframe the Spiral: Coping Strategies
Before we dive in, I want to offer you something that's helped both me and my clients when those bad days spiral. It's called Reframe the Spiral: 5 Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day.
These are real tools I turn to when I feel stuck in self-doubt or overwhelmed by emotion. If that sounds like something you need, head to the link in the show notes or go to iCope2Hope.com/reframe to download your free copy.
Reflecting on Emotional Resilience
Picture this, you've had a hard day. You're driving home. Eyes are heavy. Heart heavier. You glance in the rearview mirror and ask yourself what even happened today. You don't see a timeline of victories. You don't see to-do lists checked off. But if you look closely, you see something more important. You're still here.
The rear view mirror doesn't just reflect the road behind you. It reminds you of how much you've already handled. It's the same with emotional resilience. Sometimes you don't notice your strength in the moment. But when you pause and look back, you realize how much grace you gave others. How much pain you carried.
How many times you chose to show up when you could have shut down? Let's be honest, bad days feel like quicksand. You might feel off balance. Snappy or ashamed. Mentally foggy, like you're barely holding it together. But here's a radical reframe. Bad days are not evidence that you're weak. They're data. They're emotional check-engine lights. They often reveal what still hurts, what truly matters to you, what boundaries need attention, what habits or environments aren't serving you anymore. It's like your soul is handing you a little report card that says, "Hey, something's off. Let's talk." But we don't talk. We shame ourselves.
The Importance of Reflection
Why do we avoid looking back? Most women in midlife were raised to power through. Be grateful. Don't complain. Keep moving. So when we have a rough day, our reflex is to ignore it. But here's what happens When you don't pause and reflect, patterns go unnoticed. Pain gets stuffed down, growth gets stalled.
It's like your GPS keeps rerouting you, and you never stop to ask why. Reflection isn't indulgent. It's intelligent. Looking back with curiosity, not criticism, helps you notice what needs to shift and that shift, that's where resilience builds. What does review resilience really look like?
Let's shatter a myth. Resilience isn't bouncing back into a blaze of glory. It's not perfection. It's not social media worthy. It's quiet, gritty, often invisible. It's crying, but still calling your friend back or forgetting something important, but owning it with grace or choosing rest over running yourself into the ground or saying no when people pleasing would've been easier.
Or brushing your hair, answering one email, taking several deep breaths. These aren't signs you're failing. They're proof that your real world strength is deeper than you give yourself credit for. A few years ago, I had a stretch of days where everything felt like too much. I was caregiving, managing my health issues, working, trying to be everything to everyone.
Then one day, I forgot a meeting with a colleague. A meeting I scheduled. Just flat out missed it. My old pattern? Spiral into shame. "You're slipping, you're losing it. You are not capable." But this time I paused. I looked in my own rear view mirror and I realized, "No wonder I forgot, I've been caring too much."
I called my colleague, owned the mistake, and gave myself the same grace I'd offer a friend. That was a growth moment. A resilient moment. Not perfection, but progress.
3 Practical Tools for Bad Days
I want to share three ways to reflect on a bad day. Here's where we get practical when a hard day hits. Try these three tools. Number one, ask gentle questions, not harsh ones.
Your default questions probably sound a little bit like mind did. "What's wrong with me? Why am I like this? Will I ever get it together?" Let's shift these to grace based ones. What did I need today that I didn't give myself? Where did I show up even when it was hard? If my best friend had this day, what would I tell her?
You're not interrogating yourself, you're understanding yourself. Number two, write down the invisible effort. At the end of the day, jot down moments that cost you emotional energy. I returned a difficult text. I didn't yell when I wanted to. I got out of bed even though I wanted to hide. These aren't small, they're sacred.
This exercise reveals how much you actually did--emotionally, mentally, relationally--without giving yourself credit. Number three, choose one tiny tweak for tomorrow. Don't overhaul your life. Don't make a dramatic vow. Just ask, what's one small adjustment I can make tomorrow that honors what I learned today?
Some examples could be: go to bed 30 minutes earlier. Turn off phone notifications by 8:00 PM Cancel or reschedule that commitment that's draining you. Schedule 10 minutes of quiet alone time. One dial turn. That's all.
Rearview Journal Prompts
Here are a few rearview journal prompts to reflect on. These questions will help you turn any hard day into insight.
- What felt especially hard for me today?
- Where did I show emotional or relational strength?
- What is this state trying to teach me about what I value?
- What's one thing I can let go of moving forward?
- What do I want to remember next time I feel this way?
Write without editing. Let your answers breathe. You're not writing a report. You're witnessing your own strength. You can do this!
Episode Recap and Final Thoughts
Let's take a quick look in the rear view mirror of today's episode. Bad days are not failures. They're feedback. Looking back helps you see how much you've carried and how much strength you've shown.
Resilience often shows up as invisible effort, not obvious triumph. Ask gentle questions. List your emotional efforts, and choose one tiny tweak to implement tomorrow.
If this episode resonated with you and you want a tool to help you move through tough days, instead of getting stuck in them, download my free guide. Reframe the Spiral, five Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day.
You'll find five powerful tools I've personally used to go from stuck to steady. Each one takes a few minutes to use. The link is in the show notes or head to iCope2Hope.com/reframe.
Alright, that's it for this episode of Flourishing After Adversity.
If today's conversation gave you a little hope, it would mean the world to me if you'd rate and review the podcast so others can find it. And please take a moment to subscribe and share this episode with three people who are going through a hard time. And remember, adversity can make you bitter or better, choose better.
You've got this!