Resilient

RESILIENT

With a strong vision statement that talks about our desire to work with resilient women, and in fact they are more than that, they are resilient mothers, what a testimony they have to share with us as we journey together.

While our pregnant and new moms enter our space because they are in a very difficult transition, they are making the connect because they are resilient. I must remind myself what the definition of resilient is:

·????????Able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

·????????Able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed

With resilient women, we are also looking at resilient children. In fact, our supportive housing provides this very long-term benefit for our children. Research has shown healthy brain development occurs when a child experiences stable and caring interactions during the first three years of life. The description is called, “secure attachment.” Securely attached children grow into emotionally resilient adults.

Reducing the effects of significant adversity on children’s healthy development is essential to the progress and prosperity of any community. There will be some who will do well despite adverse early experiences and develop resilience while others will not. It is good to note these because more effective programs can help more of our children reach their full potential.

Resilience can be measured and is evident when a child’s health and development tips toward positive outcomes – even when a heavy load of factors is stacked on the negative outcome side.

Over time, the cumulative impact of positive life experiences and coping skills can shift the fulcrum’s position, making it easier to achieve positive outcomes.

If there is a most single common factor for children who develop resilience, there is at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult. These relationships provide the personalized responsiveness, scaffolding, and protection that buffer children from development disruption. They also build key capacities – such as the ability to plan, monitor, and regulate behaviour – that enable children to respond adaptively to adversity and thrive. The combination of supportive relationships, adaptive skill-building and positive experiences is the foundation of resilience.

Resilience is the result of a combination of biology and environment that builds a child’s ability to cope with adversity and overcome threats to healthy development.

Demonstrating resilience may take place with one form of adversity and not show up in response in another. All positive influences will add positive weight to the scale and optimize resilience across multiple contexts. These are the counterbalancing factors:

·????????Facilitating supportive adult-child relationships

·????????Building a sense of self-efficacy and perceived control

·????????Providing opportunities to strengthen adaptive skills and self-regulatory capacities

·????????Mobilizing sources of faith, hope and cultural traditions

We work with women, the moms of these children, so they can learn to cope with manageable threats which is critical for the development of resilience. We are left with the idea that not all stress is harmful. With the help of supportive adults this “positive stress” can be growth-promoting. Over time, we become better able to cope with life’s obstacles and hardships, both physically and mentally. ?

We know that it is never too late to build resilience. Regular physical exercise, stress-reduction practices and programs that actively build executive function and self-regulation skills can improve the abilities of women to cope with, adapt to, and even prevent adversity in their lives. Moms who strengthen these skills in themselves can model healthy behaviours for their children, thereby improving the resilience of the next generation. ?

It is so encouraging to see our resilient women not giving up in the face of adversity. They find a way around any obstacle that gets in their way, and they refuse to be stopped when it comes to achieving what they want out of life.

Resiliency is the difference – it is not just the way stress is managed, it is in the ability to find balance and happiness more consistently. It is the ability to bounce back in the face of challenges, losses, and adversity. The resilient woman has demonstrated that she can harness inner strengths and rebounds quickly from setbacks like transitions, illness, trauma, or the death of a loved one. Resilience is also the ability to self-soothe during these difficult times.

Unfortunately, where resilience is lacking, in its place is a “why me” attitude. There is a focus on losses, a feeling of being victimized, looking for excuses and becoming overwhelmed with life circumstances. When this becomes chronic there is a risk for compromised psychological and physical well-being, which can have long term implications. How does one know when there is an absence of resilience? Look for signs like anxiety, depression, chronic pain, isolation, feelings of hopelessness and pessimism. Physically, a compromised immune system, being accident prone and disruptive sleeping and eating patterns.

It is hard for me to note this truth – for some, resiliency comes naturally. The rest must learn and cultivate these skills. Look for the ability to self-nurture and for the development of an inner sense of well-being. For at the heart of resilience is the belief in oneself as well as the belief in something larger than oneself such as faith.

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail.” ―?Helen Keller

I believe women are resilient. Historically, they have had to overcome hurdles and sometimes the same hurdle more than once.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. - Margaret Thatcher?

“I might bend, but I will never break because it is in my nature as a strong woman.” – Angela Merkel

Resilience is not defined as holding strongly to one’s position or opinion but rather the ability to adapt to new circumstances without compromising one’s core beliefs and identity.

Niveen Khashab and Sara Skrabalak interviewed authors from a scientific journal and those authors were asked how they define resilience and the times they were resilient. For sake of time and space, I only drew upon their definitions of resilience.

Lihi Adler-Abramovich, Tel Aviv University, Israel, remarked that, to her, resilience is “the ability to be flexible to be adjusted to new conditions, new circumstances, to change morphology to resist applied force.” ?????

Stacey Bent, Stanford University, U.S.A., defines resilience as “the ability to persevere in the face of adversity.”

Fedwa El-Mellouhi, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar, reflected on the definition of resilience, saying that it is “the ability to stand up stronger and more focused after a loss, rejection, or disappointment. It is also the ability to deal with difficult situations by learning from great minds around you while nurturing your life and others’ lives and professional experiences.” ?

Eugenia Kumacheva, University of Toronto, Canada, said “I think ‘Resilience’ is a combination of several factors or personal qualities that include the ability to see positive outcomes in seemingly horrible situations and use this analysis for next step decision-making. It is the ability to admit and learn from your mistakes. It is persistence in finding a way through problems and failures to achieve the main objective, with a focus on the “big” picture. And of course, creativity and optimism are a strong factor of resilience.” ?

Delia Milliron, The University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A., emphasized adaptation in her definition of resilience. “Adapting to and incorporating unexpected changes and challenges to maintain and even develop our intentional pursuit of what’s meaningful and valuable. Or, more informally, hanging in there when difficulties come and working through it to become even more true to yourself.” ?

Jennifer Neu, Florida State University, U.S.A., defined resilience as “a quality of a person, place, or thing that allows it to maintain its identity by employing internal forces to balance external stresses.” ?

Elham Rezasoltani, a research associate at?Imperial College London, shared that she believes “Resilience is the ability to cope with and overcome sudden and unexpected incidents. Resilience is how effectively we respond to unpleasant situations and is, therefore, linked with emotional intelligence.” ?

On her take on defining resilience,?Qing Shen, The University of Electro-Communications, Japan, said “Resilience represents the ability to adapt well in the face of difficult situations and the strength to not give up under stress.” ??

Sabrina Sicolo, BASF, Germany, also had an interesting take on resilience. “In times of uncertainty, science is a constant: I know for a fact that every day I’ll face frustration, doubt, tedium, and the occasional (or frequent) malfunction. Yet, I keep coming back for more—much like Sisyphus, doomed to push a boulder up a mountain only to see it invariably roll down. The contemporary philosopher Albert Camus puts a different spin on the myth of Sisyphus, which is very close to my heart: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”?

Michael House develops programs to empower women to make choices that invest in their resilience as individuals and thereby, the community at large. The overarching strategy is to build sustainable and inclusive resilient communities through empowering women to practice alternative livelihoods – economic, social, and educational empowerment. Building resilience is most effective when women have integral roles in the process.?