Resilience - The Courage to Come Back
Listening to President-elect Biden’s victory speech, I am reminded of a phrase I once read that defines resilience as the courage to come back. This is his third presidential race, and it must have taken a lot of courage to run again, especially in the current political climate. As he recalls his own personal losses and professional set-backs, he expresses empathy for those who did not vote for him and now feel disappointment. He moves on to evoke a sense of possibility for a nation to heal and to come back from division and demonization to working together and being united. Did he strike a chord with you?
Listening to his words encouraged me, but I find myself wondering, are we resilient enough to find the courage and compassion, individually and as a nation, to meet those challenges and come back? Diving into some of the recent literature on resilience, I looked for answers.
So what is resilience, and can we develop more of it?
Resilience is generally referred to as the ability of an individual, system or organization to meet challenges and overcome adversity. It can express itself in many different ways and on different scales. First, it refers either to the ability to maintain oneself in spite of challenges, due to an inner strength (for example not getting sick); second, to restore to a prior state after fighting a challenge (the ability to bounce back); and third, to adapt in ways that better fit new circumstances and allow a shift to an improved developmental trajectory (the ability to transform). [1]
This latter aspect points to the importance of resilience as an important element in adult development and transformational growth and resonates with studies of so called ‘supernormals’. Supernormals are individuals who overcome extreme adversity in childhood and become highly successful adults. While their profiles and circumstances vary widely, a common trait among them is a strong sense of self-control, determination and readiness to embrace change [2].
Can we learn to become resilient?
Neuroplasticity shows that that brains retain their ability to form, grow and change their neural networks , enabling us to learn throughout our lives. It also suggests that people are not necessarily innately resilient, but rather they are able to learn how to mobilize available resources to nurture their inner strength.
A first step towards overcoming stress and building resilience is to recognize ones own feelings and needs. Putting feelings into words increases awareness and moves the brain activity from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, from the seat of emotion to the executive functioning center, where our problem-solving capacity resides. This can help to reduce a sense of overwhelming confusion and allow the consideration of choices. Furthermore, control is restored by organizing a response by breaking down large challenges into small achievable steps and focusing on things that we can influence, including attitude and outlook. This can be done by reframing a challenging task as an opportunity, and recalling the skills and the strength that led to previous success.
Also, mindfulness practices are a powerful way to rebalance and overcome trauma. In Liz Stanley’s book Widening the Window she explains that resilience grows when, following a stressful situation, the individual is able to return to a place of (inner) safety and recover, so that the stress is not retained to build up allostatic load [3]. Stanley developed a meditation technique MMFT including sensory based contact point meditation and successfully treats PTSD in high stress military and civilian settings.
Meditation also helps with creating acceptance around our own difficult emotions and of the feelings of others around us. Tara Brach, in her book Radical Compassion [4] points to the importance of our sense of compassion and self-compassion for building resilience and inner strength. She has developed a practice called RAIN that brings a sense of compassion to emotional difficulty and adversity. Her guided mediations on resilience [5] illustrate how compassion allows us to move away from our fight/flight response and reduces stress. One way to make it easier to be around difficult people is to think of them as someone in need or in pain which promotes empathy and reduces anger. And feeling compassion for others becomes much easier if we do not constantly judge and degrade ourselves.
This suggests that it is not only the emotional connection to others that can rewire the brain, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the connection to oneself. Self-acceptance has emerged in numerous studies as a key contributor of the plastic rewiring of the brain that helps us reboot after adversity [6]. Rick Hanson’s book ‘Resilient’ focuses on the role of self-worth, self-love and compassion that are essential to meet our needs of safety, satisfaction and connection. Hanson provides frameworks and practical tools that help to resource oneself through a process he calls HEAL. He provides a step by step approach from creating awareness of challenges and unmet needs to mobilizing an inner sense of calm and safety that helps us to address them.
Building resilience at the individual level ultimately gives back to the community as we are able to have more positive interactions, provide emotional support and form social networks which in turn can buffer the impact of crisis, trauma, loss and other challenging life events. But the opposite is also true. A loss of community and social support can undermine the individual’s capacity to recover and have negative impacts on mental and physical health. [7]
In conclusion, while there is evidence of proven methods that help one grow more resilient, we all still depend on others doing the same if we want to see broader change. And while we might know what to do in order to rebalance our body budgets, such as eat healthy, sleep enough, meditate, spend time in nature and away from our phones, or focus on the positive and seek out people who can ground and nurture us, it is hard and sometimes impossible to muster the energy and discipline to actually do so.
Coaching can be a powerful way to create awareness of where we are falling short, open up options on how to handle ourselves in the face of adversity and provide the accountability that helps to follow through.
If you are interested in tools and methods to build your inner strength in times of uncertainty and change, or if you would like to share your views on this topic, please contact me at verawilhelm@corteacc.com or through my website at www.corteacc.com.
REFERENCES
[1] Journal of Aboriginal Health, Community Resilience, Models, Metaphors and Measures, 2009
[2] Meg Jay, Supernormal, 2017 pp 124, 291.
[3] Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widening the Window, 2019, p 272. A similar idea lies behind Lisa Feldman Barret’s (How Emotions are Made, 2017) concept of ‘body budget’ which refers to our inner resources as a balance sheet to which we continually add or subtract from. If we make too many withdrawals, we become stressed and overwhelmed, unbalanced and less resilient.
[4] Tara Brach, Radical Compassion, 2020
[5] https://www.tarabrach.com/from-self-judgment-to-compassion/
[6] Meg Jay, Supernormal, 2017, p 294
[7] Journal of Aboriginal Health, Community Resilience, Models, Metaphors and Measures, 2009
