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Finding Your Resilient Qualities

Try charting your life on a graph that goes from your birth to today. Draw a line that shows change in your life; draw another that goes up and down showing happiness and sadness; try marking areas that show events of great success or stress or loss. Now consider -- has your life been fairly calm or turbulent or somewhere in between?

Most people indicated that their lives have been filled with change including lots of ups and downs. Factors mentioned were death, divorce, marriage, children, bankruptcy, loss of job, depression, adapting to a new language and a new culture. Three metaphors: "Life has been smooth, but like a flow of water, not knowing where it will turn next." "Life has been like a roller-coaster." Life has been like a spin-dryer!"

Imagine: You have been banished to a non-English speaking country with no possible contact with your present life.
What country would you choose?
How would you feel?
How would you begin to build a new life?
Do you think you would survive or thrive or somewhere in between?

Countries of choice were Italy and France. People also chose Iceland, Greece, Holland, China, Brazil, Spain, Ireland, Honduras, Austria and Tahiti. People did not seem daunted by this challenge and all thought they could successfully build a new life. Two people in the discussion, who were first generation Americans, said, "It's more difficult than you think!"

Imagine: One child born into acceptance, concern, and care; they are planned for, hoped for, and welcomed and let's add provided with material comfort and opportunity for education. A second child is born into neglect and poverty. Can you make predictions about the emotional health (especially self-esteem) and life-competence of these two children as adults?

Consensus was that there were too many variables to make any predictions; that the puzzle was loaded with the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Considered important: a loving caretaker, resources, values that work, an inner toughness. One woman said, "The three of us little kids had a really tough life, in foster homes and with a step-mother that we drove crazy, but we were really little brats (which she said with a smile!)."

There are certain resilient personality traits (from Resilience: Discovering a New Strength at Times of Stress (by Frederic Flach):
-- Creativity
-- The ability to tolerate pain.
-- Insight into ourselves and what we are going through at any particular phase in our lives.
-- Independence of spirit.
-- Self-respect.
-- The ability to restore self-esteem when it is diminished or temporarily lost.
-- A capacity for learning.
-- The ability to make and keep friends.
-- Freedom to depend on others, with the skill to se proper limits on the depth of our dependency.
-- A perspective on life that offers a vital, evolving philosophy within which we can interpret all that we experience and from which we can discover some measure of personal meaning.

Added to this list were: a sense of humor, faith, patience, dreams, giving to others, positive attitude, adaptability and resources such as education and money.

Resilience is also a physiological issue: how well is your body functioning? Take care of your body!

And Resilience is a social issue: our personal relationships, our family structures, our working conditions, our entire culture, possess characteristics, which can thwart our resilience or enhance it. Cherish and tend to your relationships!

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More E-Question Responses Below:

As far as I'm concerned, there is no one quality. It depends on the circumstances. In times of loss, my relationship to family and friends makes me resilient. In stressful times, it may be sense of humor or the ability to look at the overall picture and take a "what's the worst that could happen" attitude.

The first thing that pops into my head, if I understand the word correctly, is money. Money can help you get through a lot of difficult stuff.

Knowledge -- knowing that it is more important to learn about life than it is to be successful in it turns my ups and downs from an emotional roller coaster into a learning experience. It is just as important to experience the bad things in life as it is to experience the joys. I found this way of thinking about 5 years ago thanks to my oldest daughter and it has changed my life. I feel so relaxed and easy going and think I can accept just about anything.

E-Question: What do you consider your most resilient qualities?
Send your response to Gregg Millett

I feel my most resilient quality is a positive attitude. I can almost always see a 'plus' aspect to any situations. I also enjoy the moment - focus on the good, and offer encouragement to others. These things help get me through some otherwise difficult times.

My resilient qualities:
Pursue truth.
Won't "stay down" if at all possible. Keep bouncing back.
Can use humor to defuse the stress of difficult situations.
Can ask for help.
Realist.
Help others, even in the midst of my own crisis.
Believe that communion with God really is "a bridge over troubled waters".
Despite big setbacks, believe that true love has magnificent healing power, and is possible.
Strong character.
Ethical.

Hope is my most resilient quality. No matter how many times I've been beaten down (too many), I always believe tomorrow is going to be a better day--just call me Scarlett of the North!

I'm not quite sure I have any resilient qualities, but I'm still kickin' so they must be there somewhere!

Staying flexible and knowing that nothing is forever. It is also important to ALWAYS remember to take care of yourself --- after all, in the end, that's all you really have.

I think persistence is my most resilient quality. It's either that or just walking fearlessly down a new life path. Those two characteristics do seem a bit contradictory! -- ???

Instead of seeing things as ending, see opportunities for new beginnings.

My ability to use things as a learning experience and being able to bounce back from a set back. Also seeing a positive in things.

Having a good head on your shoulders and a warm and loving heart, are two of the best tools a person has, in helping them overcome troubled areas, thus allowing for success on whatever front.

Be thankful for what I've had and what I've got. Don't waste time coveting what I don't have.

My whole life has been ups and downs. You just have to keep on trucking for family and new beginnings.

I would say patience, flexibility, a positive attitude, vision and a sense of humor. These have helped me throughout my life during my downfalls and hard times. Dust myself off and keep trucking.

I guess my most resilent quality is my outlook on life. Even though some awful things have happened, I have learned to wake up each day with a smile and it seems to give the day a whole new meaning. I guess I'm not likely to fret over the past and I look toward the future and I try to teach my children the same. I always tell them "if you start every day with a smile, even the bad things won't seem all that awful and that smile should carry you through." I guess if people see you smiling they're more likely to smile back!!

My most resiliant quality is the fact that I don't loose hope. I expect that whatever I am going through will turn out okay in the end. This could also be called faith.

Just call me Miss Resilient! I don't know if I was taught this or I learned it from falling on my rear end so much, but I manage to pick myself up by my boot straps and just keep moving on. I may not do it gracefully, willinging, or happily, but I do it nonetheless. When all is said and done, and the misfortune has passed, I can usually look back on the experience and laugh. My sense of humor may be warped but it has gotten me through much pain in my life.

I have a job where it's feast or famine. I have learned to put money aside for the times when there is nothing coming in. I've learned to do this the hard way by going broke a few times.

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