Let's Talk Resilience

According to the APA dictionary of psychology resilience is “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.”

Resilience seems to be quite the buz word in wellbeing and education circles the last few years. I came to know about resilience as a super power in 2015 when I was lucky enough to complete my first ever positive psychology training with SAMRI. I have to say the evidence is pretty powerful and difficult to ignore. Resilience can be the difference between success and failure, surviving and thriving, and the best part? You can build your resilience & encourage development of resilient traits in others as well.

Resilience is not necessarily ‘bounce back’, although this is often the best way to imagine it. It is the way in which we adapt to and overcome adversity. We may ‘bounce back’ to our equilibrium but we often also grow after tragedy as well. This is often discussed as post traumatic growth and is such a powerful antidote to the often very real tragedies people face, I want to be clear though that coming out of challenges bigger and better is not the goal. The goal is to overcome them, to be curious and creative, to be patient and problem solve without the lost of hope or self along the way.

Overcoming difficulties, failures and less than optimal outcomes also supports incremental growth along the way. If you consider a child learning to walk, tumbling over and getting back up again, learning to run and skinning their knee but still persisting; this is growing resilience. Over time we take calculated risks, we trust in our ability to overcome hurdles and we want to continue to improve ourselves and our lives.

This is why you will always read or hear me saying to acknowledge the bad, the sad, the anxious and fearful thoughts we have, avoiding them will stop us from taking risks and challenges and therefore will limit our resilience over time.

Check out the slides for some ways to improve/grow your resilience!

Want some more proof?

Building your resilience. (n.d.). Https://Www.Apa.Org. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience/building-your-resilience Cherry, K. (2021). How Resilience Helps When Coping With Challenges. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-resilience-2795059 Hurley, K. (2021). What Is Resilience? Definition, Types, Building Resiliency, Benefits, and Resources. EverydayHealth.Com. https://www.everydayhealth.com/wellness/resilience/ Kral, T. R., Schuyler, B. S., Mumford, J. A., Rosenkranz, M. A., Lutz, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2018). Impact of short- and long-term mindfulness meditation training on amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli. NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.), 181, 301–313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.07.013 The Connection Between Acceptance and Resilience—Flexicrew. (2020, October 26). https://flexicrew.com/connection-between-acceptance-resilience/,