Resilience

Let’s talk about resilience.  People tend to think of resilience as this innate, inborn quality that some people have and some people do not, but it’s a capacity that can be built within ourselves and within our communities.

Resilience is the ability to adapt and overcome, to successfully adjust to difficult life experiences, and to be flexible in response to pressure. This is a capacity that we would all benefit from building within ourselves.

And in no way should this absolve us of the need to build healthier communities and societies so that there is not such an overwhelming need for resilience. There are a variety of areas that can be strengthened to enhance our resilience: physical fitness, interpersonal fitness, emotional fitness, cognitive fitness, behavioral fitness, and spiritual fitness. Stay tuned for future posts on how to work on developing and enhancing these different areas of resilience. Much of the above information is taken from Dr. Donald Meichenbaum’s book Roadmap to Resilience: A guide for military, trauma victims and their families.