By Shifan Hu-Couble

Counsellor /  Psychotherapist / Parenting Coach

What is resilience?

Resilience is a sought-after trait we all wish to cultivate in ourselves, but what is resilience?

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as both the process and the outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences. It is having the mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and ability to adjust to both internal and external demands, per the APA.

As the definition entails, the two key components of resilience are adversity and positive adaptation.  In another word, without adversity, there is no challenge to the status quo, and therefore no adaptation is required.

Why is resilience important?

In the face of adversity, why does one person push through the dark tunnel and arrive in the light with newly found strength and wisdom, while another crumbles?

The answer might lie in one’s resilience.

We love stories where the protagonist rises above challenge: a process of overcoming and becoming.  Such stories have a strong psychological appeal to us because we humans are wired for growth and self-actualization: both are innate human needs. However, to fulfil such needs, we need resilience to navigate through the twists and turns of life.

Life is hard. Drawing insight from M. Scott Peck, the author of The Road Less Traveled: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths….Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy…Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them?” 

The importance of resilience is three-fold. Firstly, resilience is necessary for growth. Growth is a process of positive change, which essentially is a positive adaptation to adversity. Sounds familiar: adversity and positive adaptation? These are the two key components of resilience. Second, resilience is necessary for a sense of well-being. When we find ourselves consistently overcoming challenges in life, we develop a positive self-image: confident, self-assured, and a strong sense of self-efficacy which is an individual’s belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. We might not know the solution when a problem arises, but we are confident that we will eventually solve it. Thirdly, resilience is necessary for cultivating meaningful and strong relationships: another essential human need. Similar to building one’s physical muscle, relationships are strengthened through a series of ruptures and repairs. When a relationship ruptures, a resilient person embraces the discomfort of conflict, draws insight from the rupture, and works it through with his counterpart. The relational strength lies in the repair, not in the avoidance of a rupture. Resilience is required in this process.

How to build resilience?

The good news is that resilience is not a fixed trait. It is a skill that can be developed and enhanced over time. Use these strategies as a starting point for your resilience-building journey.

1. Identifying your values

Past research findings suggest that connecting to personal values can help people be more resilient in the face of stress. Friedrich Nietzsche echos: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” A sense of purpose provides direction and is a source of motivation.

2.    Enhance brain capacity for change and discomfort

There is a brain region called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex which is responsible for one’s willpower. Studies show that when people do things they do not want to do, this brain area gets bigger. The key action here is to voluntarily subject yourself to discomfort. In my practice, I work with clients to identify actions they can take to put themselves in an uncomfortable position to strengthen this brain region. For example, take the stairs instead of the lift three times a week, try a dish with onion once a week (for someone who does not like onion), or talk to a stranger while waiting for a bus. As we have trained the anterior mid-cingulate cortex with a small dose of discomfort daily, when a real adverse event occurs, we will be equipped with the willpower to change and adapt to the stressor positively.

3. Enhance emotional capacity

Building emotional capacity is similar to training for a marathon. It can not be achieved overnight. It is a deliberate and gradual process. We start small. Whenever we experience a difficult emotion, our natural reaction is to run away from it. For example, when you find out that you didn’t get the promotion you had been working for the whole year, you might want to avoid feeling rejected, ashamed, or sad by distracting yourself. However, if you allow yourself to sit with these difficult emotions, you will increase your emotional capacity and gain insight from such setbacks. If you are underequipped with skills to navigate through an emotional turmoil, you can start to work it through with a psychologist, counsellor, or psychotherapist.

4. Enhance physical strength

Our physical wellbeing significantly impacts our resilience. A healthy body can cope better with stress and recover faster from illness or fatigue. Physical strength is often translated into mental strength. It is also the most straightforward way to start building resilience as the body and the mind are interconnected.

5. Start healing your trauma with a therapist

One of the biggest obstacles that gets in the way of resilience building is one’s unhealed trauma.  A psychological trauma is akin to scar tissue: inflexible and numb. Unhealed trauma manifests in rigid thinking, closedmindedness, dullness, lack of motivation, and disassociative behaviours, such as zoning out and short attention spans. As we start to heal our trauma with a psychologist, counsellor, or a psychotherapist, we are removing the obstacles in our resilience-building journey.

Book in a session with me to start your journey to build resilience now.