Our Story

Introductory Story: 

Three girls are born on the same day in different parts of the world.  

One is raised in a wealthy household, given everything to meet external needs but is raised by emotionally remote nannies, given the best education money can buy but little in the way of social emotional learning save the rule that one must never display their emotions.  

Another girl is raised in a low income household, given enough to eat and attend school but is raised by emotionally available parents and family members who pass on skills they’ve learned to walk through tremendous stress and hardship with resourcefulness and helping each other. The dangers of the local environment claim the life of her two brothers though, when she is just 4 years of age. 

Another girl is raised in a moderate-income household, by a hard-working single parent she sees in the mornings, nights and weekends, some extended family, and an experienced caregiver. She received an education at a highly rated public school, lives in a fairly safe neighborhood where people know each other and picks up a few problem-solving and random ideas about getting by in life. A neighbor sexually assaults her at age 7. 

Which one of these girls do you think will be most equipped to face adversity with resilience?  

The answer is, we do not know. Resilience is about what is learned on your journey, not a destination. Each girl had her own mix of advantages and disadvantages from family, trauma, tragedy, or threat.  How each girl makes use of their advantages while honoring their vulnerabilities plays a role in their resilience. Their beliefs about life and how to interact with others will also play a role. 

If you are not sure what resilience is, well…. you’re not alone. You can find any number of definitions on the subject from psychology-based to various skills used to relieve stress.  Assigning meaning to one of the most important life skills and processes, something that at any moment may include our innermost beliefs, emotions, problem solving ability and ultimately … our survival, is not easy. But here goes… 

 

What is Resilience? 

 

Resilience is unique to each individual because our body and minds are uniquely our own. Each of us inherited a unique set of genes from our parents that affects our temperament. We have our own lived experience and have developed patterns based on assumptions we made about life (real or imagined). And each of us is living our own life circumstance with all its challenges and benefits.  

So, resilience is the ability to take a clear look at what is going on, find the best solution to challenges that honor your strengths and vulnerabilities, then returning to calm directly.  It is living, growing, and returning to rest, the cycle of life at its core. 

You can learn to improve resilience.  Resilience involves things you can’t change, your genetics, but also your thoughts and behavior patterns. It is not easy, but you can learn to change attitudes and assumptions that no longer work for you, and you can change how you act.  This involves spending some time getting to know yourself; your core emotional responses, underlying beliefs, and what you do daily in relation to problem solving, stress and stress relief. 

Any number of means to relieve stress produce results for many, breathing exercises, meditation, contemplation, and mindfulness for instance. But none of these methods works for all. The key to your resilience lies in your ability to explore enough to know what works for you, and then actually do it.  

 

What Resilience Isn’t 

Being resilient does not mean that a person will stop experiencing difficult emotions or situations. Resilience is about adaptability rather than perfection. Think about it, if you never experience hardship how would you develop the ability to watch and learn, or adjust based on similar circumstances? 

Resilience can be learned because it involves behavior, thoughts, and actions that you developed or learned. Walking is a behavior you developed and learned. It would be difficult to change the way you walk, but if you discovered a new way to walk that would result in a better life you might find a way to change no matter how hard to do. 

Resilience is about improving your emotional muscle memory, problem solving ability, and your self-care. That takes a deeper level of self-knowledge to do. 

 

Know Yourself 

What if you knew all there was to know about every difficult emotion you would ever feel? And knew exactly what to do or who to ask for help to get back on track as soon as possible? Would this relieve stress, allow you to relax even during tough times, and have a more positive outlook? Would you feel like you had confidence in your ability to adapt to meet about any challenge head on? 

To know and accept yourself is to empower yourself. The more a person understands about key emotions, beliefs, boundaries and needs, the easier it is to make clear decisions; decisions that help keep us on track to achieve our life goals. When a person has a healthy, positively focused balance of knowing and accepting, the likelihood of enjoying life despite challenges is increased. 

Let us consider just the emotional management part of resilience for a moment. Studies show that those who can label their emotions move more quickly from reacting to clear thinking. This means they can improve how fast they act when they perceive a potential problem or threat. You can learn to recognize a wide array of emotions, accept them, and practice any number of appropriate responses… like a student of martial arts learning how to fight.  When you get your black belt in knowing yourself, you can see yourself and act in the world on a whole new level. 

People who recognize needs and strengthen vulnerabilities recover more quickly with less damage to their mind and body. This is particularly important for people who have experienced abuse, neglect, and trauma at any point in their life. Long-term studies conducted by the CDC (Center for Disease Control) show that people exposed to abuse, neglect, trauma, and violence in childhood have a much greater instance of chronic disease, addiction, and mental health conditions that tend to take as many as 20 years off their life. This makes getting help to label emotions and re-balance the mind and body critical. Relieving stress is a quality of life matter for everyone but can be a matter of life and death for trauma survivors. 

The exact process of gaining this kind of self-knowledge/self-care is unique for each person because each person’s life experience is unique. Remember the stories of the three girls at the beginning of this article? Here is an idea of what you might focus your attention on if you were wanting to improve managing emotions: 

• Find difficult emotions, 
• Practice naming emotions, 
• Identify sense, memory, and physically positive triggers, 

• Practice redirecting difficult emotions, 
• Understand personal boundaries and your resilience zone 
• Practice calm and rest techniques, like breathing, meditation, natural contemplation, yoga, etc. 

Some may wish to include careful desensitization of abuse and trauma with an experienced coach or therapist, especially if you have experienced neglect, abuse, violence, or trauma. It is wrong to suggest everyone who experiences trauma should be able to do that by themselves. No one gets to be resilient completely on their own. 

By now you might see why gaining self-knowledge is so key to resilience. You might also see why most human beings could do with a resilience course, a great coach, or a skilled therapist. These skills are not specifically taught or encouraged in most cultures. It is left to each of us to take responsibility for emotional management and self-care. Whether a person is a high powered professional, a student, or a home worker, relearning emotional management and self-care will require some experienced help. In the end, it is well worth the time and energy to improve resilience and relieve stress.  

 

Cultivate Healthier Thinking 

Big picture resilience is healthy resilience. What you give your attention to plays a key role in how you adapt to change and face challenge. Adaptability includes getting creative and seeing an obstacle from points of view you are not used to. Focus on gathering the best information available and put together a balanced solution without getting stuck in irrational or magical thinking. All of us have some emotional patterns born in childhood or following trauma that may be more based in emotion than reality. You cannot change emotions that arise or stressful events that occur, but you can change how you see and respond to them. 

 

Change is Part of Life.  But people like to live according to patterns. We create and repeat familiar patterns that we feel make living more comfortable. Struggle comes when change interrupts, or threatens to interrupt, those patterns. Struggles big and small are inevitable. And change may mean a delay or an end to some dreams and goals. But change also brings opportunity for growth. You can take advantage of opportunity faster when you accept change more quickly. Who knows? Your new patterns may end up providing you more comfort than before. 

 

Do not let yesterday use up too much of today. Everyone one of us is influenced by conscious and pre-conscious beliefs about people, relationships, work, authority figures, society, culture, and even how to solve problems. Some of those beliefs help. Some do not. With a little self-inspection, you can let go of what is not working for you now and focus instead on what does. Then you can spend more time enjoying today. 

People who have goals have something to look forward to. And people who have a strong support system know that there are people there to catch them when they fall. Create a set of achievable goals and track progress daily, weekly, and monthly. Include how you will celebrate at the achievement of each goal and then, make sure you celebrate. Make sure to line up support and mentors; people who can help you achieve success. Goals and a shared investment in success creates hope. You have this! 

Positive Matters. Standing strong in the belief that you will get past your challenge is more than half the battle. People who manage emotions and have a strong support system are more optimistic and resilient. Focus on what you can control, move forward, and know you have support. Help is available if you need help achieving a more positive mindset. 

Everyone has at least some difficult emotions. You cannot keep difficult emotions from arising but you can learn to redirect and see them so you can get to solving problems more quickly. Difficult emotions coming up means your brain is working, signaling you that there is something to worry about. It does not matter whether the threat is real or perceived. It matters what you do. It is not easy, but you can learn to stop and take your time at the first sign of difficult emotions and move to calm more quickly with or without stress relieving tools. Activities like breathing exercises, sensory or physical redirection, meditation, contemplation, mindfulness, and about anything else that does not cause harm. An experienced resilience coach can help you change these sorts of entrenched patterns of behavior. 

 

Connection 

Human connection, even virtual connection, is an important part of self-care. Human beings need connection from before they are born. Studies of young children consistently show that caring human connection helps kids meet social, emotional, and even physical milestones. There is plenty of evidence that this need to not feel alone continues throughout our lifetime.   

Avoiding isolation improves a positive outlook needed to face difficult situations. When you regularly connect with people who care about you, you’re less likely to feel alone when trouble arrives. People who you can trust to meet you with kindness, concern, and an open mind when you need them. 

Finding trusted connections can be difficult for people who have experienced emotional pain or trauma. Reach out. There are people who want to be your friend and those who can help you rebuild trust. Start slow and make rebuilding trust intentional. Talk to at least one friend a day. Having a standing date with your partner or best friends. Consider joining in groups of people with like interests: a book club, neighborhood council, a cycling or bowling team, a gardening or hiking club. Keep looking until you find your people. 

Prioritize relationship and connection for yourself and others. Develop meaningful connections with a few close friends while building social connections with a wider network of friends and acquaintances. Make sure to intentionally reach out to those who tend to isolate or are isolated for reasons beyond their control, like those in senior living homes. A balanced flow of giving to and receiving from others mimics the back-and-forth nature of being and reminds us that we are all in this together. 

Support 

Resilience is made better or worse by the people in our lives. No one gets to be more resilient on their own. As people grow into adulthood, it becomes more important to have a strong safety net of support to help weather the difficulties of life. It takes a village to fully enjoy and experience life, not just raise a child. In most cases, people need to build a safety net that extends beyond family to ensure emotional, social, cognitive, cultural, employment and basic needs are met. 

Build a support structure over time that includes all sorts of helpful friends, mentors, and professionals who you can trust to have your back through good and bad. Include people who share your interests and hobbies to protect those self-care assets. Add people you can call at all hours of the day and night who can handle helping you in through a crisis—your coach, therapist, and everyone else is not available 24/7. Find mentors who inspire you to keep growing a stronger network of friends in your field—people who will help you navigate job related politics and may know of jobs when you need one. And team with coaches and therapists who have direct experience in your area of need. 

 

Get Used to Giving and Receiving 

Resilience is deeply rooted in an understanding that all life moves to a natural rhythm of giving and receiving energy. Everything on earth is in some sort of motion or process of being. Breathing air in and out of your lungs. Life and death. Seasons and sounds come and go. Even emotions come and go. Giving is about energy flowing out and receiving is about energy flowing in. It is true that for every giver there is a receiver, and that giving of oneself has many positive benefits. But it is possible to overdo it. It is possible to give and not feel comfortable receiving.  

Imbalance can occur over time from too much giving or too much receiving. Is it possible you are giving your time to others as a means of avoiding tricky situations, people, or emotions? Is it possible you are receiving more than necessary as a means of avoiding demanding situations, people, or emotions? If so, you can turn this around. 

Practice receiving good energy and giving good energy. Put on your own oxygen mask first then offer support to others. Engage in self-care and give care to those who will receive it. Give all you have at work and ask to receive a proper wage or look elsewhere. Rest and receive energy from your surroundings, then serve those in the community. The better you get at managing an even flow of energy out and in, the more energy you have to enjoy or give it away as you see fit. 

Gratefulness is connected to both giving and receiving. People can feel grateful for the opportunity to give and for the opportunity to receive. Some people are grateful to receive clean water, the sun, and food. Some people are grateful for the opportunity to learn from challenges. Every action of giving and taking holds this opportunity to be grateful. We cannot feel grateful for the difficulty itself, but we can feel grateful for the opportunity to grow and develop resilience. 

 

Making Resilience a Priority 

Given how important resilience is to daily life, health, and future success, what might stand in the way of cultivating resilience and a balanced approach to living? And where would a person who wanted to learn resilience start? 

The myth of rugged individualism—the idea that we are strong when we make all decisions on our own and weak when we do not—is a root problem. It is true that communities may only be as strong as their weakest link, but the answer is not to cast aside or fail to strengthen the vulnerable. Think about it. You can deny that some parts of your mind or body need aid but unless you need an amputation or surgery to remove a tumor, you are going to have to do your best to heal, strengthen or compensate for your liability. No one is an expert in all things. To be resilient, we must accept and learn to heal our own body and mind with the help of trusted others.  

A wonderful place to start is to continue learning about resilience. Look for resources that speak to you and enroll in a free webinar or two. Join or start a Resilience Group. Once you have gathered enough information, create goals and a clear plan, and find an accountability partner who will help you stay on track. One such road map to resilience is offered below as a boilerplate.  

 

Make Mind Body Wellness Routine 

Better to think of resilience as a lifestyle than something you pull out of your pocket when times are tough. When you decide to build your daily patterns around resilience, you make choices that improve your physical, mental, and cognitive health. That affects every area of your life. Make slight changes to your existing routine and track progress over time. You will begin to see substantial changes over the long haul.  

 

Brain Rest. Your brain works hard. It is not a muscle, but it works as hard or harder than one. Like a muscle, it needs rest after working hard and stimulation after rest just as it needs sleep for a full recharge between days. Too much rest dulls and slows thinking. Too much stimulation overwhelms and short circuits. Lack of sleep can destabilize thinking and cause death in extreme cases. 

Studies have shown that the best work-to-rest ratio for productivity is 52/17; 17 minutes of rest for every 52 minutes of work. Productivity in terms of resilience is problem solving. If you train your brain to rest at regular intervals you will build a strong pattern that reinforces resilient concepts like: taking your time, honoring your body, self-care. 

How you rest your brain during the day is up to you. If taking 2 minutes seems like too much, start with one and build from there. If you are someone who feels they must keep busy, make your break something that engages your brain differently, e.g. a world creation game following math and science.  

Work your way toward total brain rest over time though. There is overwhelming evidence that contemplation, meditation, and mindfulness provide considerable brain rest and a number of other important benefits. If the idea of meditation seems daunting, the best place to start may be taking up space and listening to random sounds. The point is to start. 

Lack of sleep is linked to mental health. According to Harvard medical school, sleep problems may increase risk for developing mental illness. Sleep disruption affects levels of neurotransmitters and stress hormones which wreaks havoc in the brain, impairing thinking, and emotional regulation. 65 to 90% of adult patients with major depression, and about 90% of children with this disorder, experience some kind of sleep problem. And sleep problems affect more than 50% of adult patients with generalized anxiety disorder and are common in those with post-traumatic stress disorder.  

Many experts believe that people learn insomnia and can learn how to sleep better. Some tips for supporting a regular sleep and wake schedule, using the bedroom only for sleeping and sex, keeping the bedroom dark and free of distractions like a computer or television. Other suggestions include making changes to bedding or using a weighted blanket and other sensory tools to promote sleep. 

You can work with the health coach to find the right solutions for you. 

  

Eat Well to Relieve Stress. Yes. People do more than lose weight when they eat balancing foods. Any attempt to relieve stress should include a consideration of what you eat. A clean diet is a balancing diet. Keep these three keys to eating clean in mind: 

• Choose natural over processed food in boxes, cans, or bottles 
• Get your sugar from fruit instead of added sugar (if you stop eating processed foods you will be dropping a lot of processed sugar and other chemicals from your body) 

• Make your own meals as often as possible. 

Check out Sugar + Stress = Sick for more information. 

 

Exercise This Much. Exercising 20 minutes per day is the minimum for good health. You can give yourself 20 minutes in 24 hours to move your body. Take your body up and down some stairs. Walk it around the block. Do some yoga. Do a belly dance with an online video. Ride a bike. A little goes a long way. 

Hydrate. Staying hydrated is important to your mental health. It turns out that as heat rises, so do psychiatric admissions. Studies are showing that dehydration can increase fatigue, aggression, and anxiety, and can cause hallucinations and alter mental clarity. Make sure you get about 92 ounces per day if you are female, about 124 ounces if you are male. 

Cultivate a Positive Perspective.  

Make and Track Goals. Goals give you an internal compass and help keep you focused in trying times. Wandering through life without specific goals is linked to depression. Goals give you the means to always look forward. They remind us to learn from the past instead of dwelling there too long. Also, people who make and track goals can look back and notice their accomplishments in addition to missteps. Goals will not prevent depression, but they are part of creating a positive outlook. 

People who had strong goals in place when the pandemic struck got busy creating new pathways to reach those goals taking COVID realities into account. Some steps in their process had to be replaced. Some goals may have had to be temporarily let go in favor of others. But approaching major change in this way is the very definition of resilience.  

Write out your goals and look at them daily for the best outcome. People who write their goals and do not look at them regularly still have an 80% higher chance of achieving their goals. Write them down. Make sure your goals are specific and realistic. Track your goals over time. Finally, make sure you include how you will celebrate once your goal is reached. 

Meditation, Contemplation and Mindfulness. No matter what you call it, focusing attention on an object, a series of calm or prayerful thoughts, or what is going on in the present moment for extended periods of time helps calm and balance the mind. This trains attention and awareness toward calm and stable states of mind necessary for resilience. One name or another may be more appealing depending on your point of view or if you have a religious affiliation but the positive impact on the brain is the same.  

Meditation, contemplation, and mindfulness offer prolonged brain rest in combination with opportunities to observe natural rhythms of life around us in every given moment. People practice various focus techniques to help the brain quiet extraneous information and redirect attention. The skill of redirecting attention is extremely useful when facing significant challenge and change. From the standpoint of resilience, these practices are an excellent means of learning key brain balance skills. Start with moments of brain rest and graduate to meditation, contemplation, and mindfulness to relieve greater stress over time.   

 

Learn to Manage Emotions. Remember, when people label emotions their ability to think and feel more rationally starts to kick in. Labeling emotions is the first step to managing them. People can learn to stop and label emotions, look and describe them, then go and resolve whatever triggered the emotion to begin with. It may only be necessary to return to calm if what triggered the emotion was a traumatic memory rather than a current event. Either way, managing emotions is healthier than denying or eating them. Resilience coaches with a strong background in behavior can support learning and applying these goals in daily life. 

 

Supplements over Medication 

Taking medication to help balance and manage emotions is a personal decision that many Americans make with their doctors. But medications have side effects that may not be desirable and may be addictive. It is best when medications can be used temporarily to calm down extreme mental states. Medications may mask underlying emotions that could be labeled and processed instead to build resilience. Given that, it is heartening to know that some psychiatrists are opting to medicate patients less in favor of natural alternatives like amino acid therapies.  

Emotions are pushed by hormones and activity along your nervous system, specifically your neurotransmitters. Finding the right combination of amino acids can mean managing emotions without the side effects that come from SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) and SNRIs (Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors).  

If you choose medication, be careful. Pharmaceutical companies sometimes use misleading phrases to suggest their products are not addictive, like the phrase “discontinuation syndrome.” Have a conversation with psychiatrists familiar with natural approaches to care in addition to natural health practitioners. It makes good sense to be your own best health advocate. 

 

Getting Experienced Help 

The work of resilience coaches and therapists have similarities and differences. Both aim to help you tackle complex issues and to offer a safe space to communicate. There are differences in types of focus, training, and experience. In fact, coaches and therapists are human beings with unique working styles and personalities.  

 

It is most important to find the right person or people you feel comfortable working with. It can make sense to build a team of professionals if you are healing difficult or complex emotions involving abuse, neglect, and trauma. 

 

Resilience coaches tend to focus on changing habits as a means of improving positive mindset, while therapists tend to focus on changing mindset toward altering habits. It could be that you would benefit from both. Talk therapy can have its limits. People may reach a point where talking needs to transition into developing concrete habits and ways of living that relieve stress beyond what is accomplished in a session with a therapist. That is where a resilience coach is critical.  

 

People who work with both therapists and coaches have a framework for understanding their behavior and a means of developing new behaviors with stronger accountability. Whatever your decision, know that help is available.