On Adversity and Resilience

Humans are granted a gift when they are born. We have choice; it is a built-in feature of life. With intention, we can move toward a meaningful existence by whatever values and ethics we ascribe to. The choices we make in pursuit of a meaningful life will undoubtedly lead to hardship. Whether it is toiling at a job we find undesirable in the quest for a career or money or in the sacrifices we make for the people we love in our lives, hardship is another built-in feature of life. We strive for something more. In doing so, we must leave the comfort and relative safety of our home and family and interact with the outside world. There will be setbacks, there will be strife, and there will be pain in pursuit of a meaningful life. Being human is just plain stressful at its core. The question that must be answered is how to manage this difficulty with equanimity to live a good life.

Resilience is a necessary trait or behavior to attain in order to refine and navigate our meaningful life pursuit. To define resiliency, we can look to a number of scientific studies, interpretations, and contemplative practices to give us specific meanings, but at its core, resiliency is the ability to bounce back from adverse events and stressors. The word back is a bit of a misnomer; after experiencing a stressor, we do not necessarily return to where we were before. There is an adaptation that takes place as we navigate difficult situations. Therefore, resiliency is our ability to accommodate and adjust appropriately to stress and adversity to live a meaningful and more nuanced life. It is less a singular trait of an individual and more “a process rather than an ability” (Berlin 3). Zautra et al. and Berlin all refer to resilience as being comprised of factors—traits, behaviors, and thought patterns—that an individual possesses. This paper will also use factors as a shorthand to discuss what constitutes resiliency. Another notable fact is that resiliency is not a switch; one does not turn it on or off. Instead, an individual may show resiliency factors in one scenario and devolve into negative behaviors in another. Resiliency “comprises a spectrum of merits that can be possessed to varying degrees” (Sivilli and Pace 3) throughout an individual’s life. An individual is continuously changing, learning, and adapting, sometimes even regressing, which is expected.

If resiliency is composed of factors (remember, factors can be considered traits, behaviors, and even habits), some that have been identified are “laughter, positive affect, and optimism; emotional range, as well as maturity (…); and the capacity for empathy and support for others” (Zautra et al. 11). Berlin goes on to state that there are eight specific factors when speaking specifically of spiritual resiliency: “resistance, spiritual will, acceptance, receptivity, meaning, hope, connection, and unconditional love” (11). Sivilli and Pace share that “confidence, emotional regulation and mental flexibility” (2) are essential factors of resiliency and can be learned and improved upon. This paper will not touch upon group or community resilience. However, it is worthwhile to note that a resilient community greatly aids in an individual’s resiliency quotient, as being a part of a community “provides the meaning structures and supportive resources that enable him or her to meet adaptation challenges” (Zautra et al. 12).

This paper does not have the space to perform any deep dive on the above resiliency factors, nor would the practice be worthwhile. Instead, this paper focuses on improving an individual’s resiliency factors since doing so will have a marked effect on improving that individual’s life. Humans can alter their neural pathways, either for both positive or negative traits; we need not be resigned to only that with which we were born. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and the author of The How of Happiness found that although 50% of an individual’s happiness is a genetic set point, and 10% is one’s life circumstances, a whopping 40% is under our control—our “intentional activity” (20) directly influences the happiness in our life, of which the resilient factors are vital components.

How exactly does one improve resiliency factors that may lead to living a happy life? Again, there are many practices here, some of which include laughter, having a positive affect, fulfilling a purpose in life, empathy, and support for others. However, before any of this occurs, we must have awareness of our predicament and the situation we find ourselves in. Meditation and mindfulness training are crucial to developing the ability to be aware of our situation and giving us the mental clarity to work with difficult stressors while not falling prey to the endless rumination and identification of who we are with our mostly inane and inaccurate default thoughts. Improving concentration and attention “can be trained in as little as six weeks of practice” (Sivilli and Pace 15), so real change can occur in novices relatively quickly. This is important because we must be able to see our situation for what it truly is before we can responsibly and actively pursue improvements.

Once we are aware and can get some distance between thought and reaction, two factors seem essential to fostering resiliency, and they are directly related to each other: metacognition (thinking about thinking) and perception around the stressor. Metacognition, or a human’s unique ability to think about their thoughts without identifying with them (e.g., we are not our thoughts), is the first step to becoming a more resilient individual. Having this ability means we are nurturing awareness and seeing things as they truly are. Seeing things truthfully, without our internal ruminations that are often spurious interpretations of the event in question, allows us to gain objectivity in perceiving the stressor. This perception is a wholly subjective interpretation of the event, and as such, we can choose a different version. This is a human superpower: thinking through our thoughts and deciding how to interpret them.

Metacognition is our ability to think about the contents of our mind without directly associating with that thought. An example would be that an individual made a mistake at work, and an immediate thought that occurs is, “I’m such an idiot!” A mindful individual would recognize that thought as precisely what it is, a thought that does not define them, and be able to put it aside without attachment. This then leads to seeing the situation with more clarity and completeness. Perhaps the mistake was due to external factors or something the individual missed, and not devolving into a thought cyclone of negative ruminations, the mindful individual can now select how to react. To be able to reason about our thinking regarding a stressor often takes place at the moment or close to the stressful event and becomes a “speed bump” between our raw, unadulterated thoughts and the inevitable subsequent reaction.

Metacognition and awareness are two wholly necessary processes before we can move on to the second correlated resiliency factor this paper touches upon. How one perceives the stressor and following events is this second factor and may be the most important factor out of all the given ones. Perception is how an individual understands the stressor in the context of their current life and how they relate to the stressful event. Roughly, how do these interpretations—what Sivilli and Pace term “appraisal” (6)—of the stressor change and shift over the hours, days, weeks, and years following it? How we perceive things can significantly alter the outcome, both mentally and in our physiology. Sivilli and Pace make note in their paper that shortened telomeres (DNA caps on chromosomes) are associated with adverse health ailments, notably heart disease, cancer, depression, and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). When we perceive ourselves negatively, it affects our gene expressions negatively. Our thoughts really do become who we are. Sivilli and Pace’s specific example is how an individual’s perception of loneliness is far more relevant to their well-being than reality. “It matters little whether a person has one friend or 10—the perception of loneliness will initiate pro-inflammatory gene expression and impairment of beneficial gene expression” (18).

Thoughts manifesting into who we are as individuals have always resonated as truthful throughout history, and science is now backing this up. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, wrote in Meditations, “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts” (5.16). The stories we tell ourselves become fundamental to how we think about ourselves in relation to the world and the events that shape and define us. Do we consider ourselves victims, or can we take responsibility for what happened? “Agency—whether the individual feels empowered and in control, or helpless and threatened—will contribute significantly to the psychological consequences of a stressful event” (Sivilli and Pace 6). Reinterpreting a stressor after it has occurred, or perhaps re-enacting the event with a different outcome, allows an individual to take away a more positive, resiliently-focused teaching rather than interpreting it from a negative or helpless viewpoint. Bluglass points to finding “humour in past and present events is perhaps among the most important keys to living positively” (15).

Resiliency gives us power over the unavoidable stressful events that occur in our lives, whether self-imposed or thrust upon us through no doing of our own. Your heart will be broken, a favorite job lost, a loved one will die. These are the prices we must pay to have the opportunity of a joyful and meaningful life. The downsides to life are heavy, and sometimes they outweigh the joy, even strip the joy right out of it. Nevertheless, we can manage this by remaining aware and present in our lives, which comes from purposeful mindfulness practices, whether that is journaling, meditation, or therapy. These practices inevitably lead to us being able to reason about our thinking and thoughts and reinterpreting the events and outcomes in our lives (while maybe laughing about it all). Metacognition and appraisal—the two factors focused on in this paper—are the base on which we can incorporate the stressful bits into a meaningful life. Hardship will occur. How we think about that reality and reinterpret the individual hardships we face are entirely within our power. We can make ourselves resilient individuals. That is the true superpower of being human.

Works Cited

Aurelius, Marcus, and Gregory Hays. Meditations. Modern Library, 2004.

Berlin, Chris. “When Clouds Cover the Sun: Adversity and Supporting Spiritual Resilience.”

Bluglass, Kerry. “Resilience and its narratives.”

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A Practical Guide to Getting the Life You Want. Piatkus, 2013.

Sivilli, Teresa I., and Thaddeus W.W. Pace. “The Human Dimensions of Resilience: A Theory of Contemplative Practices and Resilience.”

Zautra, Alex J., et al. “Resilience: A New Definition of Health for People and Communities.”