Towards
Happiness
Towards Happiness
Resilience
Getting Back in Gear
What is Resilience?
Resilience is the ability to cope with change. Resilient individuals bend, but they do not break. They adapt to stress and deal with adversity.
Resilience can be developed and, like happiness, it’s a process rather than a trait – a progression of psychological and physiological adjustments that can better enable us to cope with trauma.
Basically, resilience is adaptation. It allows us to persevere no matter what, even if we have to change our expectations. Somehow, we find ourselves on the other side of a challenge. That is resilience.
Resilience is the Ability to Recover
If you think about it, human evolution is one long demonstration of resilience. Our race found ways to sustain itself. While most of us do not commonly face such existential challenges, we are still challenged.
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We lose a job
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We strike out romantically
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Harvard rejects us
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A loved one gets sick
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A pandemic locks us indoors
​Okay, now what? Resilience takes over. Through a combination of will, skill, and imagination, we find a way to make a go of life where we are. We get on with things and, ultimately, reconstruct ourselves and/or our environment so that we don't hit a wall and collapse. Maybe we become different in the process, maybe we evolve towards new possibilities that are yet to be tested. But the thing about resilience is that it's the opposite of stasis, of standing still and doing nothing. The resilient person will give new options a shot. They actively seek new options when the old ones have become stale.
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Reinvention = Resilience
During the pandemic, for example, people reinvented themselves. I had to learn how to treat my patients remotely, when possible. We all figured out what to do with the new normal, and sprung into action. In effect, resilience means that you never give up trying, you never give into circumstances. You see around corners (at least theoretically) and envision the desired outcome before you throw yourself at the task ahead. So, resilience requires work. Nobody said it was easy. But you never lose sight of the potential payoff. If, after you've tried, there is still no payoff . . . well, you try again, probably by looking around some other corner. That is resilience.
The Resilient Person is Their Own First Responder
In my practice, I encourage people to imagine their best selves and then set out to become them. If they are resilient, they can envision new possibilities. Regret has its place but, finally, we have to move on. There is a reason we have forward-facing eyes. We cannot dwell on our mistakes and the past. We cannot torment ourselves over what we cannot change. We may need to apologize and, of course, we should take responsibility if we have not performed well. But at some point, we have to emerge and move on. That's when resilience takes over. The resilient person is their own first responder. Subsequent recovery may take time, but it has to start somewhere and continue until -- finally -- we can accept ourselves as a new, better version of ourselves. So, if you need to recover, then ask yourself the tough questions, and give yourself honest answers. It's the first step, because resilience always starts with you.