Introducing Resilience
Resilience describes your ability to recover from or adjust easily to all the change and misfortune you experience day by day. Resiliency is about your actual ability to maintain an equilibrium of health. The ability to be resilient, or thrive, in spite of adversity will influence your health and wellness. Anyone interested in natural health should develop Resilience.
Highlights of Resilience:
- Resiliency is a biopsychosocial factor that affects your Health.
- Resiliency is a psychogenic factor of the mind - body connection.
- Psychogenic factors affect both your mind and body.
- Resilience is "a construct connoting the maintenance of positive adaptation by individuals despite experiences of significant adversity."[4]
- Resiliency is about your actual ability to maintain an equilibrium of health.
- Resiliency is how you plan to remain in control in every aspect of your life.
- Resilience is about developing specific strategies for handling specific situations.
- It is up to you to take action, and to live your own life.
"Resilience is the ability of people to 'spring back' in the face of adversity."[1]
This Web page explores resiliency as a process everyone can learn to develop, rather than as a character trait. Resilience is:
"the ability to transform disaster into a growth experience and move forward defines the concept of resilience."[2]
This dynamic concept of thriving in the face of adversity is:
"a value-added construct whereby challenge provides an opportunity for change and growth. ... Knowledge of the factors that promote thriving can provide an important foundation for a paradigm shift away from a focus on illness and pathology toward one that understands, explains, and nurtures health."[3]
Resiliency describes your ability to recover from or adjust easily to all the change, stress, and misfortune you experience day by day. The cognitive coping style, or the characteristic way an individual approaches and solves problems, helps to determine individual vulnerability for stress-related disease. Resiliency is about your actual ability to maintain an equilibrium of health. Are you resilient in mind, body, and spirit?
Resilience is about your cognitive coping style for dealing with the Normal Vicissitude of Life. Resiliency is how you plan to remain in control in every aspect of your life.
"Of critical importance is the fact that these coping skills are learned, not innate; they are processes that are not automatic and may require conscious effort."[5]
The mind is the rational part of your being. You must develop your mind so that it is resilient. Being a slave to external forces is a sign that your mind is not resilient. Boredom is a sign that your mind is not resilient. Not making progress on your goals is a sign that your Mind is not resilient. The world is a battle ground for your Mind. Temptation, media, and people are external forces that battle for control of your Mind. Negative and random thoughts are internal forces that battle for control of your Mind. You already know what you should be doing, but external forces and internal thoughts are constantly tempting you to do otherwise. Pop culture and advertising through the power of suggestion are constantly trying to control your Mind. The people whom you meet each day are constantly trying to walk all over you. If you are not always in control of every situation, your mind is not resilient. How are you planning to keep your mind resilient?
The Body is the physical part of your being. You must develop your Body so that it is resilient. Suffering from a health condition is a sign that your Body lacks resilience. Chronic fatigue is a sign that your Body lacks resiliency. Being physically unfit is a sign that your Body lacks resilience. Being chronically malnourished and/or dehydrated is a sign that your Body lacks resiliency. You must be able to bounce back from illness, if you want to live to 100 and beyond. A resilient body has stamina. You should be able to spring back both from work and over exertion. How are you planning to keep your Body resilient?
The Spirit is the emotional part of your being. Here is where you do battle with the negatives emotions of anger, greed, lust, and so on. You must develop your spirit so that it is resilient. If a negative person can ruin your day, your spirit is not resilient. Being chronically depressed is a sign that your spirit is not resilient. Feeling tension and anxiety is a sign that your spirit lacks resilience. Is greed ruining your life? You should be able to recover quickly from depression or discouragement. If apathy, discontent, and boredom are given room to thrive, your chance of seeing 100 is slim to none. How are you planning to keep your spirit resilient?
You maybe wondering why I have asked so many questions, but have provided no answers? That is because only you can provide the correct answers to these questions. I have pointed out the painful questions that you would rather not think about. Now, it is up to you to take action, and to live your own life. You need to develop strategies that will work for you that will allow you to recover from or adjust easily to change or the misfortune that you can expect to experience in your lifetime.
Keep a log of everything that you find to be both downers and uppers in your life. Prepare a course of action for all the routine stressors in your life. Typically you want a strategy for dealing with depression, the common cold, insomnia, negative or hostile people, boredom, etc. Then the next time that you find yourself depressed, instead of wasting the rest of the day, take control of the situation by doing what will improve your mood. Overtime, you will always remain in control of every situation in life by working on your resiliency.
The objective of resiliency is to develop coping skills that effectively deal with the Normal Vicissitudes of Life. Resilience is about your behavior. There are four key categories of coping skills: knowledge (developing good knowledge of the world you live in), inner resources (developing your set of beliefs, assumptions, and predictions), social support (developing interpersonal relationships) and spiritual beliefs (developing your set of beliefs regarding being part of a bigger picture); are strongly suggested by research on the mind - body connection to affect life, death, health and well-being.[5]
In other words, resilience is about maintaining an equilibrium of health. "The
balance between the individual's coping skills and the environmental demands
determines psychological equilibrium or disequilibrium."[5] And,
that means maintaining an equilibrium of self-control over your destiny.
And, that means taking the actions that will restore your equilibrium of
health whenever an external/internal event throws you out of balance.
In conclusion: from the Natural
Health Perspective natural health is about promoting wellness and
fitness through the natural therapies of eating a healthy diet,
taking nutritional supplements, reaping the benefits
of exercise, and having a healthy attitude and resilience in
your life. Resilience is only one part of the Natural
Health Perspective. Attitude and resiliency are the most difficult and
the most rewarding parts to work on.
References:
- Dyer JG, McGuinness TM. Resilience: analysis of the concept. Arch Psychiatr Nurs. 1996 Oct;10(5):276-82. Review. PMID: 8897710
- Polk LV. Toward a middle-range theory of resilience. ANS Adv Nurs Sci. 1997 Mar;19(3):1-13. Review. PMID: 9055026
- O'Leary VE, Ickovics JR. Resilience and thriving in response to challenge: an opportunity for a paradigm shift in women's health. Womens Health. 1995 Summer;1(2):121-42. Review. PMID: 9373376
- Luthar SS, Cicchetti D, Becker B. The construct of resilience: a critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Dev. 2000 May-Jun;71(3):543-62. Review. PMID: 10953923
- Ray O. How the mind hurts and heals the body. Am Psychol. 2004 Jan; 59(1): 29-40. PMID: 14736318 14736318
