Resilience: a superpower against adversity

Sara Pezzica
Psychologist psychotherapist PhD in developmental psychology
President of the Italian association of attention disorders and hyperactivity Aidai Toscana
www.aidaiass Associazione.com

Resilience

In this period the use of a very evocative word often recurs: RESILIENCE .
“We must be resilient”, “She is very resilient”, within some sentences it almost assumes the connotation of a heroic power . So let’s try to understand the characteristics of this superpower starting from its etymology: “resilire” Latin verb which means to bounce .
So is our superpower the ability to leap backward like a ball thrown into the wall?

What could be so heroic about this?

At a first analysis we can identify at least two fundamental elements: a ball hitting against an obstacle.

1) Absorbs the blow and transforms it.

2) Keep staying a ball, it doesn’t break.

Resilience can therefore be considered the ability of an individual to come into contact with stressful or traumatic events (the wall), absorb the blow in an elastic way and reorganize themselves in a functional structure that respects their identity.

It is a fundamental superpower because it has within itself the possibility of facing the small / big challenges that life offers us and transforming them into learning opportunities.

How do you become resilient?

Resilience is a multidimensional construct that includes both personal characteristics (personality and temperament) and specific skills such as problem solving but it is common opinion that it can be cultivated throughout one’s life by internalizing meaningful experiences and bonds.

In the course of life we are continually confronted with frustrations and adversities that force us to develop skills to face them by strengthening the awareness of our abilities and self-confidence . A child who manages to overcome an initially frustrating obstacle, builds self-confidence and experiences the possibility of bouncing on adversity feeling fortified. This is one of the reasons why it becomes very important, in the child’s growth path, that the adult stops his natural propensity for protection, allowing the child himself to face difficulties with low levels of frustration. helping him to modulate his emotions and feel a sense of security in what he is doing. The ability to take small risks is an integral part of development and facing them in emotionally stable and attuned relational contexts is an important premise for increasing the sense of security.

The wall. When is an event considered stressful?

An event is experienced as stressful when the individual experiences a discrepancy between the situation he has to face and the resources he feels he has available . In other words, stress levels are related to individual resources rather than to the severity of the event as evidenced by the observation that different people faced with the same event experience different levels of stress.

The fight. The suffering linked to the situation

Be resilient it does not mean not to suffer , even the most resilient people experience feelings of despondency, sadness or fear. However, these emotions do not persist for long or at least return to a level of intensity that allows the person to process the painful condition, understand it, take advantage of it and come out even stronger. Richardson defines “suspension” as the introspective condition linked to suffering that allows us to make contact with our needs, identify our resources and access new ways of thinking.

In the film “Inside Out” (2015), the teenager Riley is forced to move from the Midwest to San Francisco for her father’s job, abandoning her previous life to look out on a new, unknown world. The emotional storm that follows this stressful vital event ( life event ) and the delicate adolescent passage completely deconstruct the girl who sees her way of perceiving herself, her family and the world progressively crumbling. Only when the angry Riley makes contact with her sadness, accepting it and recognizing the regulating role of her emotions , the storm builds the conditions to return to equilibrium .

Bounce: distance yourself and take advantage

What makes me sick?

The first step in handling a stressful situation is to try to understand what it is all about . Focusing on the problem, understanding what happened has in itself a calming power.

Can I change it or do I have to accept it?

If I have to accept it, what more can I do to make it positive?

The second step is to understand what are the elements over which I can have control: divide what I have to accept because it cannot be changed from what I can commit / act on to transform the event into something that I can handle or even get personal growth from it. Every problem can be an opportunity for learning , growth, discovery, so it is worthwhile to take care of the situation thoroughly and with commitment.

In what ways could I make the situation worse? In which ones could I improve it?

The third step is to find strategies starting from the awareness of what could certainly lead to a worsening of the situation.

We live in the present

Let’s set ourselves one goal at a time, trying to live in the here and now of the situation and choosing a first small goal to achieve. Our mind is inclined to anticipate problems but, in situations of particular stress , hyperfocusing on the problem can lead to mental circuits that make the situation even less manageable and paralyze the action. Let’s train ourselves to pay attention to one thing at a time by recognizing that the whirlwind of thoughts in our mind is something that starts with us: it is we who have the thoughts, not the thoughts that hold us hostage . It is a very important step, if we manage to differentiate ourselves from our thoughts , if we return to consider ourselves people who have thoughts, we also allow ourselves the possibility of not getting stuck in them, but maybe letting them go to concentrate on the here and now of life. .
Let’s be committed to nurturing relationships. Man is by nature a social animal and in the relationship he finds comfort, protection and encouragement.

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