Life
doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient. -
Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Resilience
is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had
before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost,
or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good. - Elizabeth Edwards
When
encountering a difficult situation, how do you react? Are you strong, determined and push
forward? Or do you get frustrated, sit back
and let life happen?
Developmental
psychologist Emmy Werner published “Risk, resilience, and recovery:
Perspectives from the Kauai Longitudinal Study”, which study six hundred and
ninety-eight (698) children in Hawaii from birth through their 30s. Werner studied various aspects of the
children’s lives including how they responded to stress. Two-thirds of the children came from stable
homes and one-third came from “at risk” homes.
For the “at-risk” children, two-thirds had behavior and learning
issues. The other one-third of the
children were strong, competent, self-assured and positive. The “at risk” one-third group attained
academic success and were always prepared to seize new opportunities. According to the study, these children were not
uncommonly intelligent, but used the skills they had to their full
potential. What set these children apart
was what psychologists called an “internal locus of control”. These children believed they affected their outcomes
and did not let circumstances define them.
The one-third of the “at-risk” children believed they were the creators
of their own fates.
George
Bonanno, a clinical psychologist at Columbia University’s Teachers College, studied
resilience for twenty-five (25) years in adults. In his research, he discovered that how an
individual perceived a stressful situation is key to resilience. Bonanno questioned how people handle stress…did
the individual see a stressful situation as traumatic or as an opportunity to
develop? Any event can be traumatic or
not traumatic to the individual facing it.
It all depended on how the individual decided to perceive it.
Now
the reader might be concerned if they are not currently a resilient
individual. What can they do? Kevin Ochsner at Columbia discovered that
resilience can be taught. He believed that
an individual can learn to find something good out of a negative situation or be
less emotional when a response is emotionally charging.
As
the author was writing this blog post, she thought back to her senior year of
high school. The senior sponsor gave her
the Timex award…” Takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. The author has had very trying times throughout
her life and has often been resilient. After
the last couple of years, she agrees with Bonanno that it is all about how we
perceive the stresses of life.
CHALLENGE: Work on reframing your mindset when negative
circumstances occur to help improve resilience.
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