10 Ways to Build Resilience (Part 1)

Two people lose their jobs.?One is disappointed, sad, and a bit worried.?The other is depressed, aggressive, and begins drinking too much.?One quickly begins searching for a new job, the other can hardly get out of bed and questions the fairness of life.?The difference??Resilience.

There is no one universally accepted definition of resilience.?The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress.” However, you define it, it is a positive force that makes the valleys of life less deep and helps us to climb the next mountain. These are the factors that lead to resilience.

Optimism

?We are optimistic when we believe that the future is bright and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.?Optimism is associated with good physical and mental health.?Compared to pessimists, optimists tend to be more active in their attempts to solve problems.?They tend to experience life as being more meaningful.?Both these factors are related to resilience.

While we cannot control the realities of what life may hand us, we can control our attitude toward any hardship.?Resilience is most closely associated with optimism that is realistic, rather than simply seeing the world through “rose colored glasses.”?While optimists do not ignore relevant negative information, they tend to disengage rapidly from it and turn their attention to potential solutions.

Facing Fear

Fear has an enormous impact on how people conduct their lives.?While fear is essential for survival, it can also constrict life or even become paralyzing.?Leaning to face fear is an essential skill for enhancing resilience.

When confronted with danger, people respond with an increase in hypothalamic and sympathetic nervous system activity. The survival option becomes fight or flight.?During the fight or flight response, increases in stress hormones and neurotransmitters, such as cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, enhance a person’s capacity to focus on the dangerous situation, respond to the danger, and encode the experience into memory for future reference.?It is this very encoding that prepares us to survive future dangers.

Evolutionary biology teaches us that we are the ancestors of the most fearful of all people.?Their fear protected them from the flying reptiles so that they could reproduce.?Lucky for us! Problem is, we are short on flying reptiles and long on fear.

The solution is facing fear.?The flight from fear, or avoidance, increases anxiety and thus fear.?We need to facing fear through a method know as paradoxical intention.?For example, if a person is afraid of stuttering when giving a speech, they might wish for and intend to stutter as much as possible in an upcoming speech.?When fear is replaced with a wish, the wind is taken out of the sails of the phobia.

Neurologically, the more one faces the encoded danger signals without any resulting danger, the weaker the encoded signals become.?This is how paradoxical intention works.

Values and Resilience

The stoic philosophers placed great value on virtue and moral character, self-control, discipline, endurance, courage, worthy goals, integrity, and dignity in the face of suffering.?These values and virtues are associated with resilience and strength of character.

Perhaps the most admired value of all is moral courage i.e., the courage to stand up for one’s values.?The courage to do the right thing.?The quality of mind and spirit that enables one to face up to ethical challenges firmly and confidently without flinching or retreating.?Many have considered moral courage to be the greatest of all virtues because unless we have this virtue, we may have no ability to preserve any other.

?Viktor Frankl, the creator of logotherapy, proposed three routes to discovering meaning in life, and thus, resilience.?The call them the “Meaning Triangle.”

???????????First, creative values, where the individual gives back to life by using their creativity, unique talents, and strengths. Meaning is realized by fully utilizing one’s unique talents to engage in life.

???????????Second, experiential values are realized from one’s experiences with nature, religion, culture, truth, beauty, and love.?Examples of this would include the intense emotion that one might feel when listening to a moving piece of music, looking at a great work of are, or walking through a forest.

And finally, the third category is attitudinal values.?These values are a person’s attitude toward the limiting factors of life.?Our very response to the restraints upon our potentialities.?Our attitude toward our unalterable fate.?Toward unavoidable suffering.?The dignity that we display in these situations is a measure of our human fulfillment.

Though perhaps out of fashion, the tried-and-true relationship between our values and resilience is as valid today as ever.

Altruism

???????????Altruism, or concern for the welfare of others, leads to positive mental health, wellbeing, and resilience.?Receiving and giving of social support predicts good mental health but giving was an even stronger predictor than receiving.?The association between altruism, social interests, and better health and wellbeing is related to a shift in attention from self to others.?This enhances self-esteem and creates greater meaning and purpose in life.

Altruism represents a move away from self and a reaching out toward a worthy goal, to other people, or a meaning to be fulfilled.

Perhaps a great example of altruism is the relationship between a person and their pet.?We ask nothing from our pets, except the pleasure of their existence.?We give much, and we gain much.?Pet owners are, as a group, more resilient.

Spirituality/Religion

The research shows that engaging in positive religious practices builds resilience and physical wellbeing.?The positive health effects of religious practice appear to be related to attending religious services where people often receive and give support to on another.?They are also encouraged to live a healthy lifestyle.?Often, they have access to resilient role models who are accustomed to responding to tragedy, loss of life, and existential questions about the meaning of life.

It is important to keep in mind that the word “spiritual” does not mean “religious” but instead refers to the specifically human dimension of people.?Religion can serve as a source of strength and resilience when it assists a person to reach their spiritual core.?This is where qualities such as our goal orientation, ideal, creativity, imagination, faith, and love reside.

(Be sure to see part 2 in the next Newsletter)

Author’s Note: Recently we published a Newsletter and detailed the worldwide study showing the need for meaning-centered therapy in the wake of COVID-19.?There is an outcry in the mental health community for information and training in meaning-centered therapy. Mental health professionals want to add this to their practice.?The Therapy Training Institute, who sponsors of this Newsletter, is creating an online, certificate course in Logotherapy to meet this need.?The demand, however, is so great, that we decided to begin providing information immediately. A Newsletter has been launched Logotherapy in Practice.?Since Linkedin only allows one Newsletter per subscriber, Logotherapy in Practice is platformed on Substack.?By clicking link below, you will receive your free subscription and receive the first weekly edition. CLICK THIS LINK

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