Resilience
What IS RESILIENCE?
How do people deal with difficult events that change their lives? Many people react to such circumstances with a flood of strong emotions and a sense of uncertainty. Yet people generally adapt well over time to life-changing situations and a stressful conditions. What enables them to do so? It involves resilience, an ongoing process that requires time and effort and engages people in taking a number of steps.
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress. It means “bouncing back?from difficult experiences.
Research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary. People commonly demonstrate resilience. One example is the response of many Americans to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and individuals?efforts to rebuild their lives.
Being resilient does not mean that a person doesn’t experience difficulty or distress. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress.
Resilience involves behaviors, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.
Strategies for Building Resilience
Developing resilience is a personal journey. People do not all react the same way to traumatic and stressful life events. An approach to building resilience that works for one person might not work for for another. People use varying strategies.
Some variation may reflect cultural differences. A person’s culture might have an impact on how he or she communicates feelings and deals with adversity ?for example, whether and how a person connects with significant others, including extended family members and community resources. With growing cultural diversity, the public has greater access to a number of different approaches to building resilience.
- Making connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends, and others are important. Accepting help and support from those who care about you and will listen to you strengthens resilience. Being active in groups can help with reclaiming hope. Assisting others in their time of need also can benefit the helper.
- Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems. You can’t change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events.
- Accepting that change is a part of living. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.
- Move toward your goals. Develop some realistic goals. Ask yourself, “What’s one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me move in the direction I want to go?"
- Take decisive actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Take decisive actions, rather than detaching completely from problems and stresses and wishing they would just go away.
- Look for opportunities for self-discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of the struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardships have reported better relationships, great sense of personal strength, and heightened appreciation for life.
- Nurture a positive view of yourself. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience.
- Keep things in perspective. Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective.
- Maintain a hopeful outlook. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.
- Take care of yourself. Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly.
- The key is to identify ways that are likely to work well for you as part of your own personal strategy for fostering resilience.
Learning From Your Past: Some Questions To Ask Yourself
Focusing on past experiences and sources of personal strength can help you learn about what strategies for building resilience might work for you.
Consider the following:
- What kinds of events have been most stressful for me?
- How have those events typically affected me?
- To whom have I reached out for support on working through a traumatic or stressful experience?
- What have I learned about myself and my interactions with others during difficult times?
- Have I been able to overcome obstacles, and if so, how?
Staying Flexible
Resilience involves maintaining flexibility and balance in your life as you deal with stressful circumstances and traumatic events. This happens in several ways, including:
- Letting yourself experience strong emotions, and also realizing when you may need to avoid experiencing them at times in order to continue functioning.
- Stepping forward and taking action to deal with your problems and meet the demands of daily living, and also stepping back to rest and reenergize yourself.
- Spending time with loved ones to gain support and encouragement, and also nurturing yourself.
- Relying on others, and also relying on yourself.
Places To Look For Help
- Getting help when you need it is crucial in building your resilience. Beyond caring family members and friends, people often find it helpful to turn to:
- Self-help and support groups. By sharing information, ideas, and emotions, group participants can assist one another and find comfort in knowing that they are not alone in experiencing difficulty.
- Books and other publications by people who have successfully managed adverse situations. These stories can mtivate readers to find a strategy that might work for them personally.
- Online resources. Information on the web can be a helpful source of ideas, though the quality of information varies among sources.
- The APA Help Center, online at www.helping.apa.orgis a good site to check.
For many people, using their own resources and the kinds of help listed above may be sufficient for building resilience. At times, however, an individual might get stuck or have difficulty making progress on the road to resilience.
A licensed mental health professional can assist people in developing an appropriate strategy for moving forward. It is important to get professional help if you feel like you are unable to function or perform basic activities of daily living as a result of a traumatic or other stressful life experience.
Continuing On Your Journey
Think of resilience as similar to taking a raft trip down a river.
Perseverance and trust in your ability to work your way around boulders and other obstacles are important. You can gain courage and insight by successfully navigating your way through white water. Trusted companions who accompany you on the journey can be especially helpful for dealing with rapids, upstream currents, and other difficult stretches of the river.
You can climb out to rest alongside the river. But to get to the end of your journey, you need to get back in the raft and continue.
*Adapted from American Psychological Association's "The Road to Resilience" - at www.helping.apa.org