The Resilient Mind
Like a sort of psychological structure that can be felt on an experiential level, the resilient mind leaves its evidence of existence in how one lives their life, both internally and externally. The footprints of a resilient mind can be seen in the spaces between stimulus and reaction, left by a conscious decision to control and forego the expression of one’s immediate inclination. Essentially, the resilient mind is a mind that is in control of how it responds. Think of it; you get cut off in traffic, perhaps your first reaction is to go cut them off or to angrily grip the steering wheel and begin to curse them out and assume they did it on purpose. Or your partner tells you how something you’ve enjoyed doing has made them upset; you immediately feel the pull to react with a tirade of defensiveness and aggression. Or you lose a best friend or a pet, and you notice your desire to run home and lock yourself in your room, never to leave. Although certainly not impervious to negative emotions and experiences, the resilient mind is skilled in finding and using the tiny spaces between these negative experiences to make conscious, purposeful decisions that one doesn’t regret moments later.
“A mind that thinks before it acts is a resilient mind”.
Of course, there is an infinite number of examples that fit somewhere between these extremes that can be used as evidence for our own psychological resiliency. It might be worthwhile for you to take a brief moment and recognize the footprints of resiliency that are in your life. Have you moved to a new city before? How about switched career paths? Ended toxic relationships? These are all instances that offer up ample evidence of psychological resilience. And even more so, how did these events, purposeful or not, influence you? Are you proud of the way you handled those situations? Could you have handled them in a better way?
I mentioned it in the previous article, but I believe a refresher on the definition of resilience might help map your life experiences onto this somewhat standardized concept. To have a resilient mind or psychological resilience is to have the ability to withstand negative experiences without huge psychological costs or damage, sometimes even being able to alchemize negative experiences into lessons that one extracts valuable life lessons from. The reason the ability to pause and consciously decide how to react is a sign of resilience is that being able to work with negative experiences in the moment and respond more consciously demonstrates (and develops) your ability to forego the oft damaging emotionally driven response that would otherwise detract from being able to positively adapt, or draw useful lessons, from negative experiences. Essentially, if you remain reactive and emotionally driven, you are less likely to be able to manifest any useful positive adaptations, leaving you stuck and rooted in your reactiveness.
A resilient mind, or psychological resilience as I’ve come to understand it, is an amazingly powerful thing to invest in and develop. In fact, most, but certainly not all, cases of psychopathology that end up requiring forms of psychotherapeutic intervention tend to manifest in part due to untrained resiliency. And before I go any further, if you struggle to find evidence of psychological resilience in your life, I really urge you to not beat yourself up. I believe that most people, especially in North America, tend to have lower resilience than what is optimal. And this is to no fault of the individual. It’s like expecting yourself to be able to bench press 400lbs without ever having tried a bench press before; it’s just not that reasonable to expect yourself to demonstrate high amounts of psychological resilience if you’ve never tried to develop it in the first place.
Although sometimes viewed as an innate quality by some researchers, psychological resilience is more than likely a skill that is expressed and developed following a negative experience and a conscious decision to not let it wreak havoc on your psychology. It is a skill that is preceded by an attitude or decision to ask “what is this experience trying to teach me” as opposed to “why does this have to happen to me”.
As I combed through the literature on this topic, I rarely noticed that authors would mention the initial requirement of “testing” one’s resilience; a negative experience. Marcus Aurelius and many other stoics are often attributed to quotes and phrases that note how unfortunate it is for individuals to live lives under such protection and safety that they never really meet the “real” them; that we can only know who we truly are in the face of difficult experiences that test our metal. The stoics wrote about this at great length; that resilience was only discovered and honed following negative experiences. In fact, many of the great stoics including Marcus Aurelius structured much of their day around voluntarily seeking out strife in which to test and develop their resilience so that in instances of involuntary negative experiences, they would be able to navigate their own psychology in a way that leads to positive, or at least neutral, outcomes.
This knowledge is reflected in other domains of thought, such as many different types of psychotherapy, where the clinician leads the patient through progressively challenging instances that address and strengthen the once-untrained psychological systems that brought them into their office.
Buddhism also holds this fact very close to its main philosophy; life is suffering. Buddhists recognize the value in acknowledging this fact and structure much of their practice around working with suffering in a way that prepares one for deeper, involuntary experiences with suffering. Like a sort of physical training, Buddhists, stoics, psychotherapists, and the like suggest investing time and energy into practices that are aimed at developing something analogous to psychological resilience.
It’s interesting, and also perfectly logical, that the groups that lay their focus so deeply into the inner environment of the human experience have all drawn similar conclusions; develop an inner structure that lessens the blows of life so that you may be free to live a happier, more fulfilling life. From freeing a human mind trapped in the surly bonds of trauma, to teaching one to be less influenced by their emotional mind in the face of life’s obstacles, psychological resilience is a very worthy focus for one to have if one seeks a life of genuine meaning and fulfilment.
Now, how might one begin to develop this resilient mind?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, psychological resilience is entirely relative, thus allowing one to begin right where they are. This might look like getting out of bed to shower following days of being stuck under the safety of sheets and blankets. It may also look like starting a new workout program that gets you moving and focused on a new goal. Or starting therapy. Or learning how to communicate your pains and needs to those around you. Begin with the struggles that come to mind first thing in the morning, or in moments of silence, those are often the most psychologically relevant, evidenced by their frequent resurrection in your thoughts.
I truly believe that you know exactly where you need to begin this journey., it just might need to be made more conscious. It’s the thing you’ve been continuously pushing away, the emotion that is too painful to feel, or the conversation you need to have.
What may be useful for you in beginning this journey, is developing the attitude of psychological resilience. Since everything that is holding us back is viewed as “difficult” to us, cultivating an attitude of “the obstacle is the way” as Ryan Holiday so beautifully puts it is a fantastic place to start. It not only tells you exactly where you can shift your focus to make big positive changes in your life, but it also whispers another fact that will carry you very far in your life; that difficulty is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, believe it or not, it can be positively invigorating to embody, despite how crushing it may feel to you now. Imagine a version of yourself that actually gets excited when you bump into a wall; a version of you that is so unwavering in the face of negative emotionality, both internally and externally, that you actively seek out challenges to test and hone your resilience.
Lastly, in addition to being an excellent attitude towards voluntarily resilience training, I believe this attitude is a potent antidote to the strife that we don’t have a choice in facing as well. We live in a world themed with unrelenting suffering and involuntary challenges; children are born into abusive homes, people are discriminated against, abused, stolen from, emotionally hurt etc. It’s one thing to develop an attitude of resilience amidst a relatively lax life, it’s another thing to decide to respond to genuine chaos with an attitude of “What is this trying to teach me?”, “How can this experience make me stronger?”
So, how are you making yourself stronger this week? Is it taking a day off between your busy schedule to refuel your psyche? Is it starting that workout program you’ve been pushing off? How about sitting down to meditate for a few minutes every morning after you wake up? Start with what you have, and work outwards. There’s no rush.
Have a great week.
