Hi everyone. For my letter R post in the #AtoZChallenge, I want to talk about resilience. Resilience, basically, is the ability to bounce back when faced with challenges. It is also linked to post-traumatic growth.
First, what characteristics and attitudes make someone resilient? These include optimism, the ability to regulate your emotions, and the ability to see failure as helpful feedback rather than wallowing in self-blame.
Several factors contribute to resilience. Some of these are most likely genetic. Early life experiences play a role too. However, that doesn’t mean that resilience can’t be learned to some extent. For example, you can learn to break out of negative thought patterns, to regulate your emotions, to look for positives during a setback and to see failure as a learning opportunity.
Some people believe that experiencing a traumatic event, makes you less resilient. This isn’t necessarily true though. This is where post-traumatic growth comes in.
Post-traumatic growth is the experience that survivors of trauma are able to develop in a positive way after the traumatic event. For example, they recognize their inner strength for having overcome their trauma, form stronger connections with loved ones as well as other survivors, and find new opportunities for finding meaning in life.
The reason post-traumatic growth happens, is the fact that traumas force a victim to re-evaluate their sense of self and their stance in the world.
Not everyone who experienced trauma, will experience post-traumatic growth, but about half to two-thirds will. Again, whether you will experience post-traumatic growth, is related to how resilient you are in general.
So how do you learn to cultivate resilience? You can learn to reframe challenges as opportunities and, as a result, look at the benefits of stress. After all, viewing stress as solely negative, may lead to an additional stressor, ie. “stress about stress”.
Other ways of cultivating a positive outlook on life, such as practising gratitude and self-care, can help too.
A Multitude of Musings 
Failures are learning opportunities, but it takes a while sometimes before one is ready to receive the lesson. However, practice helps.
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Agree completely. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts.
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Resilience is great. It can be hard to achieve, though.
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I agree. It has definitely been hard for me.
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Generally humans are resilience which is a good thing
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Yes, that’s definitely a good thing.
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I consider myself to be resilient, but it is definitely a learned thing. X
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Thanks for sharing. I’m so glad you’ve learned to be resilient.
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I think I was blessed with some resilient genetic material or maybe some good examples. I watched an aunt survive the death of her husband and three of her four children and still find paths to happiness, mostly in appreciation of the people who remained around her and deserved to have a happy mom, grandma, and aunt.
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Thanks for sharing your perspective. I’m so grateful that your aunt managed to bounce back after these tragic losses.
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Resilience is an admirable trait that can serve you well, but some things are harder to bounce back from than others.
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That’s true indeed. My parents say I was very upbeat as a young child but I now lean towards pessimism. How much of that is my genetic makeup and how much is my early life which to be honest was quite traumatic, we’ll never know.
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Hugs
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Good post, Astrid.
Learning about the trauma, the myths/lies vs. reality of it, is a great way to reevaluating what happened and how what happened shaped your thought process. Trauma, when a child is trying to make sense of it and has nobody to turn to, creates a “crazy logic” that shapes their world. Having support groups with people who have had similar trauma, can be very healing. A trained facilitator is essential.
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I agree. It’s also important that these support groups are founded on the principle of validating each person’s experience. I mean, I was at one point accused of faking my dissociative symptoms by the facilitator of a support group (herself also a survivor). That experience added an extra layer of stress.
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WTH?! I’m so sorry that happened to you. In our support group, we went over a list of guidelines, very specific on how to give feedback (and only if the person wanted it) and we also had a list of things NEVER to say. Not being believed was one. Trying to tell someone how they should be feeling was another.
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Thanks for your kind words. This particular support group was aimed specifically at those formally diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, so in that sense I understood there was some gatekeeping. However, I did have a diagnosis, just not from the right kind of professional according to this leader. She also had me in the group monthly for two years before deciding my diagnosis wasn’t valid, which makes me believe it wasn’t just the fact that I didn’t get diagnosed by Suzette Boon, Onno van der Hart (who by the way had his psychotherapy license revoked because of long-standing boundary violations) or one of the other top-notch specialists. Rathr, she believed I was imitating the other participants (which I wasn’t) and I believe she felt threatened because I knew more about dissociative disorders than she did.
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You are welcome, Astrid.
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I have found I was more resilient than I thought a few times in my life. You never know how you will react until you are in hot water. Great post Astrid!
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Thanks so much for saying that! I agree, even though I don’t generally have a positive attitude, I’m often more resilient than it initially appears I am.
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You’re welcome, Astrid. Have a great day!
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