Resilience
If you’re a Saints fan, the last few days following the NFC Championship game have probably been a bit rough for you. I know they have for me. I was there. I sat, stunned in the stands, along with the rest of the Who Dat Nation and wondered what just happened. I felt sad, mad, shocked, cheated, etc. I thought about the players who worked so hard all season, the fans who wanted to see the team go to another Super Bowl, the city of New Orleans that was abuzz with football fever and the genuine spirit that comes even more alive when something so electrifying is going on in town.
All of a sudden the hope was gone, the spirit crushed, the dream ripped away. It was and has been a tough pill to swallow. We are the Big Easy, yes, and we have a laid back attitude, but we have a big heart and things like this affect us communally. However, as I have been going about my routine in the few days since the devastating loss, I’ve really been reflecting on one of the words that strikes me most when I think about New Orleans. RESILIENCE.
What is resilience?
Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. It is also the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. This is where we get the term “bounce back” from when referring to someone’s ability to recover from a tough situation. These types of tough situations could include various traumas, intense stressors, and episodes of adversity. When we think of resilience, we may use phrases like “get back on the horse,” “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” and perhaps even “take it on the chin” and “roll with the punches.”
Resilience brings to mind a sense of spirit or hopefulness, that maybe things are tough right now, but they will get better. Anyone who has been through Hurricane Katrina knows how bleak things felt sitting in hotel rooms across the country watching the devastation. Slowly but surely, though, that spirit came alive and we began to pick up the pieces. In many ways New Orleans is stronger now than before the storm. This capacity for resilience in our community, in our citizens, allowed us to keep moving and rebuild. How were we able to do that?
Why are some people more resilient than others?
When looking at ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), resilience is explained as a dynamic set of interactions between a person’s adverse experiences and their protective factors. No one is born resilient. This dynamic relationship refers to how we interpret these difficult experiences because of the presence or lack of strengths in our lives. These strengths can be genetic, developmental, communal, familial, emotional, educational, etc. The more strengths, or protective factors, we have, the more resilient we are prone to be. A person who grew up in adverse circumstances but had support or watched those around him or her be resilient is more likely to develop resilience than someone who did not.
So can we improve our resilience?
While much of resilience can be developed from an early age, it doesn’t mean that we can’t improve our capacity for resilience as we get older. One of the best ways to improve resilience is changing our “stinking thinking.” So much of how we view our ability to survive challenges is a product of our thoughts about ourselves and about the situation. If we can learn to think positively about our ability to overcome obstacles and believe in ourselves, that can improve resilience. If this seems difficult, start with small ways you can build trust and belief in yourself. Set small goals for the day or week that you can accomplish and feel good about achieving. Over time, you can step up to bigger goals and putting more faith in yourself and your abilities. When a period of time passes and you feel more confident in yourself, you may also be able to have more confidence that you will be able to take care of yourself and get through whatever situations come your way.
In addition, letting go of unhelpful thoughts can be instrumental in getting a different perspective of a situation. At times, we may have a tendency to catastrophize, or view only the worst-case scenario. We also may view things as very black or white, feel hopeless, blame ourselves, etc. These are all tricky ways our thoughts can trip us up and keep us from looking at situations rationally. We may write ourselves off without even getting started. Thinking things like, “I’ll never find another job, so what’s the point of even trying to look” or “No one will ever want to date me again” after a breakup are ways our thinking can stop us before we even get started. Therapists can be very helpful in assisting clients with changing these unhelpful thoughts and building more realistic ways of looking at the world.
Support systems are also important mechanisms to improve resilience. This could mean family, friends, coworkers, therapists, doctors, etc. Just because it takes a village to raise a child doesn’t mean the village goes away once the child is raised. Regardless of whether you are an introvert or extrovert, humans are social animals, and we need community to survive and thrive. Think about ways in which you are supported at work, home, school, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. Are there areas that need more attention and growth? Give some thought to what you can do to improve the support you receive in your life. Are there aspects of your life that are not serving you that you need to let go of in order to best care for yourself? In addition, sometimes the best support we can get is from ourselves. Are you being kind to yourself? Patient with yourself? Accepting of yourself? These are important questions to ask when thinking about how we can improve our resilience.
In conclusion, resilience is both nature and nurture. It’s something you can develop at a young age or later in life. It can be applied in disastrous circumstances as well as when navigating daily life. It is a set of intangible elements like hope, spirit, determination, and will, and it can also be made up of very concrete components like choosing helpful thoughts, having positive self-esteem, setting and meeting goals, and letting go of things outside of our control. It’s the faith that things will get better…like “THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR.” Who Dat!
