Two Essential Components of Building Resilience

Most internet searches for the definition of resilience will read something similar to, “The ability to bounce back from stress”.

Unfortunately, the term “bounce back” isn’t a scientific term and it doesn’t give us a detailed explanation of what it means to be resilient in the face of challenges.

What does “bounce back” really mean? Very literally, it means returning to the original position, as if one was not affected by something at all. But if we apply this concept to ourselves, does bouncing back to our original state after experiencing stress or challenges really help us grow as individuals? Or does that just mean we stagnate every time we hit a challenge instead of growing and moving forward?

In contrast, the definition of resilience that we will discuss here takes this concept further so that you can not only experience stress and challenges in your life, but you can use those challenges to:

1)        Expand your stress tolerance and withstand discomfort

2)        Cultivate your skills (in any area of your life)

3)        Experience clarity and composure even in the most stressful environments

4)        Become a stronger version of yourself

The biggest difference here is the outcome that you experience AFTER your endure a challenge or stressor in your life. In order to be truly resilient, you must GAIN something from this stress or challenge and be able to implement it into your life so that you GROW from it.

The truth is, whenever anyone experiences a challenge in their life (whether that is big or small), you will have an outcome from that experience. This is simply cause and effect, and it is a non-negotiable.

You do, however, have the ability to control whether that outcome helps you or hinders you.

Your ability to control your outcome after experiencing a challenge is based on two essential components:

1)        Cognitive skills

2)        Somatic control

Cognitive skills are skills of the mind that include, but are not limited to, reframing a problem, goal-setting, visualization, attentional control, reappraisal, detachment, self-talk, confidence building and learning appropriate coping strategies.

Somatic control involves using physical practices to change the physiological state that your body is in, in order to regulate your nervous system and gain control over your body and state of mind. Somatic practices include intentional body movement, intentional breathing, and strategic focus.

The key to true resilience is learning how to master both cognitive skills and somatic control BEFORE you experience a significant stressor. Without proper skills and preparation, certain stressors in your life can end up having a severe and long-lasting negative consequence to your mental and physical health. This is because we often resort to survival mechanisms and unhealthy coping methods when we experience stress and pain that we are not equipped to handle.

That’s not to say that small amounts of stress or challenges are a problem even with zero preparation. Small amounts of stress and discomfort will help us expand our tolerance to these sensations, making it easier to experience them again in the future. However, this is only true if you can experience that stress or discomfort without shutting down. The takeaway here is finding experiences that cause you to bend without breaking.

Unfortunately, life will hand you experiences that will be wildly outside of your comfort zone. That could be a job loss, a divorce, the death of a loved one or anything to that degree. Having the ability to implement cognitive skills and somatic control in these situations will not take away from the pain or grief that you experience (in fact, that’s not the point), but it will set you on the trajectory to being able to recover and grow post-traumatic event.

Equipping yourself with skills to control your cognition and somatic responses can be the difference between shutdown and triumph. There will always be things in your life that you do not have control over, but your skills and preparation is something that you do.