Are you able to bounce back after setbacks in life? This includes after experiencing major stressors--like trauma, job loss, divorce, death of someone close? What do you do to bounce back? Were you born with this ability? Or did you hone this ability over time? Read on to learn more about resilience and why's it's really all about your ability to bounce back from whatever impact an experience left.
Research recognizes that many factors come into play regarding how resilient we are, including our personality traits, environmental factors, and a learned capacity to manage life stressors. People can survive the most challenging ordeals—some even thrive. And yet, folks may be unaware or unclear exactly how they got through the challenges they faced. Inner resilience is both the secret to success in the outer world, as well as, the secret to good mental health. So, what is it? And, how do we get it?
What is Resilience?
From Merriam Webster: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Also, in physics, resilience is the ability of an elastic material (such as rubber or animal tissue) to absorb energy (such as from a blow) and release that energy as it springs back to its original shape. The recovery that occurs in this phenomenon can be viewed as analogous to a person's ability to bounce back after a jarring life setback. The word resilience derives from the present participle of the Latin verb resilire, meaning "to jump back" or "to recoil."
Instead of falling into despair or trying to escape from issues by using unhealthy coping strategies, resilient people face life's difficulties head-on, with healthy & effective strategies for getting back to their typical level of functioning.
Resilience Has Many Meanings
It can be and mean different things to different people.
Resilience is a prominent research topic, discussed in seemingly countless studies. Yet, there are often competing theories and ideas. So, the nuances of what it means to be resilient are often individual, even though there is some collective agreement that to some degree to be resilient means to be able to bounce back. Resilience is something that is learned and acquired through action and perception, more so than related to any genetic factors one may possess.
So, what does resilience mean to you? How would you define it?
Well, let's accept there are multiple pathways to resilience. Sometimes there are unexpected pathways to resilience. It's a process. A process of adapting well, despite hard things going on. A process of developing competence and confidence in your own ability to find a path forward. Resilience happens out of necessity, not necessarily because someone has worked hard, in advance of difficult things happening, to achieve it. Resilience, to me, is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of skill. A learn-as-you-go kind of skill. A skill-I-didn't-know-I-needed until it was time to need it kind of skill. We don't always want to be resilient, and we certainly don't set out to be resilient. In a way, resilience is a choice--a decision, a determination, a fortitude, to find a way forward despite overwhelmingly negative odds and difficult circumstances. Resiliency is a skill that can be cultivated. And you can grow in this skill, whether or not you go through, or are going through, some kind of adversity. More on that in a bit!
Resilience is Not...
Just powering through or continuing to fight is not resilience.
Resilience is not...avoiding hard situations, people, or the issue.
Resilience is not...checking out with unhealthy coping strategies, like using drugs or alcohol.
Resilience is not...numbing yourself to the difficult emotions you are experiencing in this difficult circumstance.
Resilience is not...ignoring the difficult issue, or ignoring your uncomfortable emotions.
Resilience is not...being in denial of something, or sweeping it under the rug to keep things moving.
Resilience is not...shutting down and refusing to address the difficulty, the impact from the difficulty.
Resilience is...being able to process and understand your response to stress and other life difficulties and actively work through it.
This last part is key. True resilience is being able to look at the trauma, or difficult issue or circumstance, you have been through; extending compassion for yourself in how you showed up there, how you handled it at the time; take from that experience, and your response to that experience, information for how you can improve, manage stressors differently in the future; then finding a way forward, not a way back to what it was before the thing happened, but instead, a way to move FORWARD onto the next thing, onto the next version of yourself as you adapt with this new knowledge about how you handle difficult things and making adjustments to better equip you for handling the next difficult thing that life throws at you.
Similarly, resilience in the human context has been described as the “capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors when faced by life disruption, or extended periods of pressure, so that we emerge from difficulty stronger, wiser, and more able” (Pemberton, 2015, p. 2).
Essentially, resilience is the ability to grow and change beyond your difficult life circumstances, and somehow, find a way to peace and success again, after working through your emotions, the impact, and the outcomes from a difficult thing occurring. Resilient individuals are better able to handle adversity and rebuild their lives after a struggle. This is it! It's HOW you handle the adverse situation(s), and HOW you rebuild yourself and/or your life afterwards.
Psychological Resilience
Stress can have a negative impact on our psychological, physical and emotional wellness.
Even though we all experience stress at some point in life, chronic stress can have a debilitating impact on our functioning. Without fostering psychological resilience, it's more likely a person will suffer with poor mental health and a lack of a sense of control over things in their life, or a lack of a sense of control over themselves when difficult things happen in their life. When this happens, it's much harder for folks to bounce back from anything, especially big stressors. Another thing to remember is that when facing stress or difficulties, there’s a difference between the event itself and the outcome that follows. And psychologists typically agree that resilience is a multi-fold concept, made up of both the capacity to handle difficult times and our ability to respond flexibly after the fact, i.e. adapt to the newness. How well and effectively we do these things, and get back to typical functioning determines our level of resilience.
Feeling the Feelings
Resilience doesn't exist unless we learn to sit with the uncomfortable emotions a difficult situation brought to us.
Did you plan to be resilient? Did you plan for that shitty event to happen? Probably not. Events or experiences that require resilience tend to occur without warning, lack a structured format, and can be highly unpredictable (i.e. the global pandemic). Typically there are no known timeframes or clues to inform you about what may happen next. Times of uncertainty require some amount of resilience to get through, or find grounding, or find certainty, or find your locus of control again. Let's be clear, folks. People with resilience do not experience less distress, grief, or anxiety than other people do. Instead, they have learned, and use, healthy coping skills to handle such difficulties in ways that foster strength and growth, often emerging stronger, more confident, and more self-assured than they were before. Resilience does not eliminate stress or erase life's difficulties (wouldn't that be nice!). People who possess this quality don't see life through rose-colored glasses. They do, however, understand that setbacks happen and that sometimes life is hard and painful. They still experience the negative emotions that come after a tragedy, but their mental outlook allows them to work through these feelings and recover, and often, really, work through these feelings and then reconfigure (i.e. returning to a different homeostasis and finding new stability according to the change in circumstances). We are designed to experience an array of feelings. If we choose to suppress difficult, or uncomfortable, ones, it becomes harder to feel the positive ones. And feeling positive emotions, flipping us into a more positive mindset, is the outcome of resilience. A key factor to resilience is vulnerability, or in other words, allowing ourselves to feel our emotions, and its best to feel our emotions without judging them, or ourselves for how we feel.
Moving through pain and disappointment without letting them become overwhelming isn’t easy for anyone. Everyone, no matter their background, skillset, or life story, will fail spectacularly at least once in their life. Failure is incredibly human, and yet somehow we get the message that we are not to fail. Experiencing a major loss or setback is not easy or fun, nor is it widely accepted in this winner-takes-all culture that prioritizes success at all costs over here in the West. However, learning to be okay with making mistakes, big or small, is a critical skill—one tied not only to resilience but also, to self-compassion, empathy for self and others, and potentially post-traumatic growth. Even in the face of events that seem utterly unimaginable, resilience allows people to muster the strength to not just survive, but to actually thrive.
Reconfiguration is an essential part of the process of transformation a person experiences when a return to their original path is difficult or unthinkable.
We can't always 'go back to the way things were' before whatever difficulty or hardship we experience. An important piece in understanding resilience is that sometimes we have to forge a path forward, or blaze an entirely new trail to get to moving forward. Reconfiguration is this idea of returning to a different homeostasis and finding new stability according to the change in circumstances. Resilience does not mean maintaining the status quo, and often does not mean returning to the status quo; but instead means allowing and accepting a new status quo.
How to Cultivate Resilience
Some may be more naturally resilient, and, it is a skill that can be cultivated and strengthened over time.
Resilience can be grown over time, with consistent practice of some skills. Some of the most important are curating a balanced/healthy outlook/mindset; setting aside time for reflection; learning to feel your feelings, in the present moment, without judging them (or yourself) or trying to change them. Resilience is the result of a complex series of internal and external things, including genetics, physical wellness, mental health, environment, social determinants, and personal characteristics. Also,
social support is another critical variable that contributes to resilience. Mentally strong people tend to have the support of family and friends to help them in times of uncertainty or difficulty. People are not born with high levels of resilience, instead it has to be grown over time.
Resilience is the psychological quality that allows some people to be knocked down by the adversities of life and come back at least as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties, traumatic events, or failure overcome them and drain their resolve, highly resilient people find a way to change course, emotionally heal, and continue moving toward their goals.
So, HOW-TO actually build your resilience:
Develop a strong sense of self-efficacy, self-trust, and self-esteem (i.e. build up your confidence)
Curate a positive attitude/mindset, optimism
Learn to regulate emotions
Gain ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback
Break out of negative thought cycles
Push back against catastrophizing
Foster healthy habits i.e. getting enough sleep, eating well, regular body movement, hygiene
Regularly think about morals and then choose to actively live according to your values
Nurture safe relationships with others, develop a social support network
Focus on the aspects of any situation that remain under your control
Learn to accept your emotions, learn to be curious about your emotions
Develop problem-solving skills
Complete small tasks from start to finish
Acknowledge what you have already accomplished and navigated
Accept that change is part of life
Practice gratitude regularly to remain hopeful
Try to live with an open mind and open heart
Characteristics resilient people have:
Being a good communicator
Having an internal locus of control
Having high emotional intelligence and managing emotions effectively
Holding positive views of themselves and their abilities
Possessing the capacity to make realistic plans and stick to them
Having self-compassion
Viewing themselves as fighters rather than victims of circumstance
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References
Building your resilience. (2020). https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
Egeland B, et al. (2009). Resilience as process.
Friedberg A, et al. (2018). Resilience, trauma, and coping. https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/pdps.2018.46.1.81
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