How to Build Resilience, Part 1
Being resilient involves more than just jumping up after life knocks you down, brushing yourself off and then going about your day. Resilience involves serious introspection and processing about who and what you are in the wake of a challenge, setback, or traumatic event. It involves assessing where you are and where you want to go. It’s a journey of a million steps.
But every journey starts with one single step, one teeny inch toward something else. Building resilience is no different. You have to start with small actions before you can take big leaps. It’s like learning how to walk.
When something happens to you – a setback, challenge, accident, traumatic event, etc. – you may be feeling myriad emotions in the initial hours, days and weeks afterward. Things may seem blurry or jumbled. You may be in shock or denial. You may be numb. Whatever is happening to you in that moment is to be expected and it is normal. Let me explain a little bit without getting too technical about how the brain and body work when faced with something big and why you react the way you do.
Your brain’s main job is to keep you alive and safe, so it is constantly scanning your environment, registering the people, places and things surrounding you. When something happens, your brain quickly determines within fractions of seconds whether it is a threat or not. If it is, the brain will jump start a series of bodily functions by activating the nervous system that will enable you to fight whatever the threat is, run away from it, stand your ground and hope for the best, or appeal to whatever it is that’s causing the threat. This is known as the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. If you’re familiar with how trauma impacts the body, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. (Note: read Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score)
In a healthy body system, after the threat has been identified and neutralized, the body and brain will return to homeostasis. Everything is right with the world again. You have undergone a cycle of resilience and are now ready for the next event.
What is a healthy body system? One that gets support during and after an event, one that helps your nervous system calm down so it can feel safe again. Many of us have such resources, so when events happen, we can handle them, move on and are not forever impacted by them.
However, if you have a system that doesn’t get support and you have no way to process or explain to yourself what has happened to you, then with each new event, your ability for resilience lowers until eventually, you begin to view the world as 100% unsafe. Your brain begins to see everything as a threat, even when it’s not. Your brain, thinking there’s danger, will put your nervous system into overdrive and there will be no relief. So, you wind up being constantly on guard. You can’t ever relax because your body and brain remember what happened the last time you let your guard down – you got hurt. Being in this state of constant heightened awareness is called hypervigilance, and it is one of the hallmark symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Having overreactive and overactive nervous systems puts you at risk for a host of illnesses, not to mention anxiety and depression. Our nervous systems can only be activated for so long without stop before our bodies start breaking down. If you will, imagine a rubber band that is stretched so far that it eventually snaps.
Children who are abused or are raised in unsafe environments have nervous systems that can never relax. Without intervention, they grow into fearful adults who can never trust their world. This speaks to the point that you can only build resilience if you feel safe to do so and have access to appropriate resources.
So, let’s say that you are recovering from something – it may be a traumatic event, it may be something else. How do you start to build resilience and calm down an overly reactive nervous system?
That is a really open-ended question because I have found that while there are myriad ways to do that, there is no one way that will work for everyone. We are unique individuals with different bodies, experiences and backgrounds. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.
However, I have found some small ways – what I call baby-step suggestions – that may help you. I’ve used them in my own life with much success and I’ve seen them work for others too. Take what you can use and leave the rest.
My Baby-Step Suggestions to Build Resilience
· Start where you are and breathe. As you may know, I deeply admire the starfish because of its resilient qualities. What happens to a starfish when one of its arms gets ripped off – either by its environment or a predator? It goes within itself and takes a pause. It starts where it’s at. So what I’m saying is start wherever you are. It is okay to be where you are at this particular moment and take a pause. You are neither too late or too early. You are in the right place at the right time. I know that kinda sounds cheesy, but it’s true. You have to start somewhere and if that somewhere is under the bed covers, then so be it. In the deepest throes of my depression, I wouldn’t get out of bed for days and wouldn’t shower or eat…or eat too much. One episode I had before I had children lasted for months – all I did was sleep, eat and watch TV. After the kids came, I kept my low moments for weekends – I was what you call a high-functioning depressed person. Refer to my post on High-Functioning Depression and Anxiety.
· Make a decision to try. Again, referring to the starfish, the creature decides how it is going to heal, depending on how bad the injury is. The process may involve replacing arms or even its entire body. We humans are also being asked how to go on after something occurs. There are choices – whether to give up or go on. Giving up does not necessarily mean dying by suicide but rather living a life without any sense of purpose, agency or fulfillment. Living like that puts you out of alignment with what the Universe wants. You may not be ready to do what’s necessary for big actions, but you could decide to try a small action. Just to try. All you’re striving for is taking the smallest of steps. Nothing big or grandiose. You’re just making a small commitment to try.
· Give yourself permission to ask. Maybe you grew up in a place where questions were taboo – it was my way or the highway, no questions asked, or else. That was the home I grew up in. Asking questions usually brought on arguments and sometimes violence, so, over time, you think you can’t ask because that is just plain dangerous. To think that maybe, just maybe, there is room for questioning and another answer is venturing into the unknown. It feels revolutionary. It feels scary. All of that is okay. When you’re in an unsafe place, it is okay not to ask. It is okay to go along to get along. But, when you emerge into a safer place, it may be time to evaluate that survival tactic and ask what if? What if I ask this? What if I do this? What could happen? What could I be and do?
· Gauge your level of readiness. Are you ready to do what it takes to be resilient? Are you ready to go into places that may hurt, that may cause more problems initially but lead to freedom, joy and fulfillment? Are you ready to go inward to grow outward? These are tough questions that are necessary, and they deserve honest answers. The answers may scare you and you may want to run. That’s a normal reaction because change is super hard. If you ask these questions and you find yourself answering no, then honor that response. The no doesn’t have to mean forever. Maybe it just means no for now. Check in with yourself every little while. Someday, that no may become a yes.
What I’ve outlined here are just teeny first steps toward building resilience. Where do you find yourself in this? Take a moment and ponder on that. Wherever you find yourself is okay. This isn’t a contest. We all are on different paths. Some people move faster and some move slower.
In Part Two of this series, I’m going to build on this foundation to discuss the next stage of building resilience. What happens when you’re taking the baby steps and feel ready to move to the next level? Find out in the next post.
