Resiliency in Challenging Times
“A good half of the art of living is resilience.” – Alain de Botton
Resilience is the ability to bounce back when things do not go as planned. What we did not plan on was a pandemic, racial strife, USA democracy on trial, European war, a fading stock market and an economic ascent. All of this as a layer on top of our usual life challenges begs the polite term of, “living in interesting times.” It seems important to think about what keeps us stable during these unstable times.
Resilience is necessary now. Trying to be toughly impervious to our serious changes is not rational, as change is the only thing we can really expect in life. With a rigidly resistant attitude, one could become unnaturally inflexible and be unable to adapt to life’s sudden twists and turns. Realistically, we must honor what is taking a real toll on us all. It may be better to think of the tree that bends and flexes with a strong gale so as not to ultimately collapse.
One helpful characteristic a person seeking resilience may want to enhance is optimism when bad things happen. Resilient people view bad experiences as ‘temporary’ rather than permanent. It is unwise to allow one bad event to contaminate impressions about other related incidents. So, for example, if you make a disastrous mess out of your new job, consider that it happened just this once and that not ALL new jobs will turn out badly. A less positive trait of the resilient is that when bad things happen, they do not usually blame themselves as a cause of the bad event. They tend to see the problem as another’s fault and do not usually second-guess themselves.
Hansen (2018) talks about why resiliency is hard to come by. He refers to the ‘negativity bias’ in the brain, which is likened to Velcro for bad and Teflon for good experiences. The tendency for most humans is to notice what is wrong, which is probably an ancient in-born survival instinct. An example may be how someone obsesses on the one question they scored as incorrect despite an otherwise ‘A’ test. Hansen helpfully suggests that we intentionally try to notice the good and stop to reflect on simple, pleasant daily events. I think celebrating our summer tomatoes coming in to be a good example. Marinate in your positive experiences and allow the impressions to soak in. One can rewire the brain towards the positive with this type of effort. And it IS an effort going against negative thought tendencies.
Rest is important to resilience. Create a peaceful space to meditate, pray, drink tea or stare off into space quietly doing nothing. Walk mindfully in the green of nature. To stay calm; slow it down. One can develop hardiness in several ways. But on a practical level, one must first take care to exercise regularly and get enough sleep. It makes sense that being healthy helps you control stress easier. The stronger you feel physically and emotionally, the easier to overcome challenges at this troubled time in our world.
There is one aspect of resiliency that I saved for last… but not least. Resiliency sounds a lot like ‘you are on your own.’ The paradox is that we are ultimately alone yet inextricably bound to others. Build strong relationships with colleagues, friends and family, so that you have a support network to fall back on (for the days you do not feel quite so resilient).
Hanson, R. (2018). Resilient: How to grow an unshakable core of calm, strength, and happiness.
https://www.amazon.com/Resilient-Grow-Unshakable-Strength-Happiness/dp/0451498844