Learning Resilience from Practical Life Experience - A True Story

As the world was swept by the COVID –19 pandemic, causing death, destroying economies and posing untold challenges to society, organizations and individuals, I thought of calling up my friend of 20 years, Ritu Bedi, to check out how she was doing. After some general conversation, we got into a discussion on the impact of COVID -19 on mental health and fitness and the lessons that we need to take away from it.

Ritu is an ex-colleague and a successful corporate executive here in India, working for one of the largest Indian IT organizations.

Here is an extract of how our conversation rolled on.

DP: Ritu while I understand the challenges that all of us are facing today, I am also quite positive that with science having made tremendous progress in last one hundred years mankind will triumph over the challenges that COVID-19 has posed to us today.

Ritu: Yes, the world will survive as it has lot of resilient people around who will navigate through this crisis with help of science. The ones who are not resilient, are the ones we need to worry about, as they are ill-equipped to face and handle these unique challenges that we are all facing today.

DP: What do you mean when you talk about resilient people? The dictionary defines resilience as the capacity to withstand and recover when faced with challenges and difficulties. It is about strength and flexibility to adapt and survive. You mean people who will adapt and are flexible will survive?

Ritu: In a limited way you may be correct. Resilience, the way I look at it is the capacity of a person to respond positively to a challenge despite experiencing personal stress. A resilient person is one who keeps the balance, a positive outlook after adversities including experiencing trauma and / or serious life threatening disease either personally or to someone very close to his/her heart and yet moves ahead with life with full gusto. They apply leanings from such situations on how to come out even stronger. It is about perseverance; it is about being mentally fit and dealing with life positively in-spite of the life derailing experiences.

DP: I guess I was being very simplistic in trying to interpret resilience.

Ritu: Resilience is a very important factor in a human being and essential to stay healthy and successful. It will be the new skill for the new world with COVID-19 putting each one of us in various unique challenging situations that many of us have never experienced before.

DP: I read that lack of resilience can lead to depression and studies also indicate that resilience and immune systems are co-dependent. I mean, a strong and resilient person will normally have a better physical immunity as well. If so, then during this pandemic, this aspect of human behavior becomes critical to survival.

Ritu: Who knows this better than me? I have gone through critical illness dealing with my own mortality.

In 2013, I was detected with late stage cancer and given a grim outlook. I was at the peak of my career, travelling extensively and was very particular about health checkups. It was a complete shock that I could have never imagined happening to me in the prime of my life and career. However, after the initial shock, I decided to take this illness head on and deal with the situation with the same gusto and force as I had dealt with other crises in my life, only this time I was fighting FOR my life.

I educated myself about the disease, treatment options, sought and accepted help and put a strategy and a team of caregivers.

The treatment was very challenging, and I had to undergo a major surgery immediately. I was alone and away from home and my comfort zone. In the very first chemo, I had an anaphylactic reaction to the very medicine that was supposed to save me and had a near death experience and was revived. This had a profound impact on me and made me realize the value and importance of life and how much we take it for granted. It took many more trials and chemotherapy treatments to beat the odds. I was very blessed to have a great organization with very supportive HR practices and the backing of some amazing colleagues and managers who always had faith in my strength. My family and friends rallied around me to make sure every need was taken care off. There were days when I would walk the valleys of despair when the physical pain was intolerable, and the uncertainty of survival made me question why.

On completion of my treatment, I was very weak physically and the side effects had left me severely debilitated. Going back to the same career demands was not possible. So, I decided to focus on a complete recovery plan, getting myself physically, mentally and spiritually fit.

Meanwhile professionally, I looked for roles where I could apply my experience without having to travel. My mind was always active, and I could still contribute meaningfully.Once I regained strength, I came back into an active role and there has been no looking back since.

And here I am pursuing my life and business goals for my organization like a normal, healthy person.

DP: You have been an inspiration for many having come out of “jaws of death” and again leading a successful career. So, what is your learning? What made you strong? 

Ritu: Life and career are not simple straight lines; you have to learn to deal with all that comes your way. There are good times and bad times but remember bad times will not last forever. When I look back, my strengths of investing in relationships with people, open communication, discipline, will power and positive thinking became my strongest allies. Having learnt to deal with failure and looking at failures as a learning experience are building blocks to resilience.

Reaching out to professional care groups to learn about healing journeys helped set realistic expectations. it was amazing to see other survivors share their experiences openly with complete strangers. I learnt that you must take ownership and responsibility for your health while you work with doctors and you should make informed decisions. Talking honestly with your manager and setting the right expectation and plan will help the organization support you.

I researched on alternate therapies to help build my immunity and strength and discussed them with my medical team to ensure there was no conflict.

Basically, everything I had learnt in managing crisis situations at work, I applied the same principles to my survival.

Plan and Re-plan

Research and ask the right questions

Build a team of Doctors, caregivers and cheer leaders and make them your strength

Honest and Clear Communication

Focus on the most important

Have regular checkpoints and recognize issues early 

Don’t let small setbacks change your course

Stay HAPPY!!

Life gives you many happy memories; learn to use them as your happiness bank when you feel low and to remember that tough times do not last. 

Most importantly, every day live with gratitude, positivism and try to stay true to your values; this is my mantra of happiness and joy.

When your inner self is aligned to your outer self, happiness will prevail; when happiness prevails immunity and health are stronger as you are more aware of yourself and your habits & surroundings.

DP: Thank you for being so candid. In light of this, fighting back COVID-19 seems possible. One should be mentally strong and be positive and explore all options that could work. I understand from various studies done by Total Brain, a mental health and brain performance self-monitoring and self-care platform powered by the world’s largest standardized neuro scientific database, founded on the notion that our mental health can be measured, improved and managed like our physical health.”

Total brain says that resilience is our capacity to bounce back post stress and we can train ourselves. Their platform offers personalized training material. Total Brain studies confirm that resilience can be acquired.

Ritu, based on your experience and being an advocate who inspire people to fight cancer, will you agree that resilience can be learnt. If so, what is your advice? 

Ritu: Resilience can be easily acquired. We can start with our children by teaching them to play team sports and learn to take both success and failures with the same outlook. You must have the spirit to go beyond your comfort zones, to explore and do stretch assignments.

In doing all of this, you will have many unexpected challenges come on your way. In dealing with these challenges, you will build your strength of resilience.

I remember doing voluntary work in Africa at a glue factory with minimal infrastructure. It was a short assignment but one of my key self-evolving journeys where I had to face my inner fears. Travelling off the beaten track taught me survival skills and enjoying the moment as you never know what comes up next.

Recognizing your weakness or problem is the first step to building yourself. Once you know your issue, seek experts /mentors who can help you. 

Keep an open mind and be inclusive; there is so much to learn from others if only we seek help from their experiences and apply it. Wisdom comes when you embrace life through the cycle of success and failure. By doing all of these, you will realize that the ability to bounce back, lies with oneself only. The tenacity of human spirit is amazing.

One of my favorite quotes. “Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life and you will attain serenity”

DP: It has been an interesting conversation. Will you be open to share your story with other professionals?

 Recently I came across an article titled Psychological Resilience and Immunity, authored by Sílvia Fernanda Lima de Moura Cal, Maria Eugênia Glustak and Santiago Mittermayer Barreto which mentions that depression has been recognized as being of growing importance in public health,and it has been estimated that in 2020 it would be ranked the second disease, falling behind cardiac diseases only. this is of great concern globally as it leads to harm a patients’quality of life. I also read somewhere that depression sets in when we have low resilience. Your story is very inspiring and can offer good learning and may benefit many

Ritu: I live each day with gratitude, and try to give back whenever I can, to those in need and all of this fills me with immense positivism. Please feel free to share.

 DP: Thank you Ritu. Mental Well Being is such a growing challenge and gains significance with the COVID-19 situation. I am also eager to share your story because during our conversation I understood that resilience can go a long way in not letting people go into depression. So, it is important to quickly identify when one is getting into depression. There are various telltale signs and one must quickly seek help. I read another article recently which states that meditation has been used as intervention for improving resilience with satisfactory results in well-being, which was maintained even after two months of meditation intervention (refer to 102.Sahdra BK, MacLean KA, Ferrer E, Shaver PR, Rosenberg EL, et al. Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning. Emotion. 2011; 11: 299-312.)

My message is, that one must train oneself to navigate through difficult setbacks and come out successfully. The journey may call for reaching out for help. One should not hesitate to seek such help and should leverage all available tools, solutions, interventions, medical and alternate therapies but not admit failure. It is okay to fail. It is just a setback. One can come out of it. Just do not give up, our brain has tremendous capacity. We need to know from experts in neurosciences how to leverage our brain and train it to stay mentally healthy and fit. Ritu do you have any final message for the readers of your story?

Ritu: I do want all young and very ambitious corporate executives to know that definition of success is not just more money and bigger title ; instead a wholesome life filled with meaningful relationships and positive impact to your circle of influence whether at work , family or community. Finally stay away from energy vampires who fuel your mind with negativity and politics - live true to your values and happiness is yours to take. Some of the negative feelings are momentary and mostly caused by conflicts & expectation mismatch within you and your surroundings. A team of cheerleaders and sound advisors are the reality check for mental wellbeing. Choose them well :-)

 PS : 1) Ritu Bedi can be approached on linkedin.com/in/ritu-bedi-5274491

2) Share this story with your colleagues and help people seek ways to build resilience COVID-19 can be defeated.