Resilience

Right now we could all use a bit more resilience. This pandemic has been exhausting and we have no idea when it will end. And this has led to increased sense of hopelessness and despair.

But we are not powerless. We can build resilience within ourselves and within our communities. Resilience is not some rare or extraordinary quality that certain lucky people are born with. We all have varying capacities, but we can all strengthen the resilience that we do have.

Resilience reflects the ability to adapt and overcome, to successfully adjust to difficult life experiences, to be flexible in response to pressure, and to maintain a healthy outcome.

There are a variety of areas that can be strengthened to build this 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.