Being resilient is not about gritting it out

Before the first significant crisis touches our lives, we tend to either have some idea of how we will respond once hardship strikes, or no idea at all. We might expect ourselves to fight until the bitter end, epic Hollywood style. We might think we'll flee to greener pastures. Or we might feel we wouldn't begin to know where to start, and freeze at the mere thought of action. Or perhaps we start negotiating with whatever or whoever is challenging us, in other words: fawning. Fact is, we can expect and think all we want, but when push comes to shove, you don't know how you'll respond until it happens. And once it happens, it's time to get real about the truth of your nature, and to accept our initial stress response for what it really is.

"When the storm breaks, each man acts in accordance with his own nature. Some are dumb with terror. Some flee. Some hide. And some...spread their wings like eagles and soar in the wind."

—Dr. Dee in 'Elizabeth - The Golden Age'

What was the first shock in 2020 that triggered your initial stress response? Was it Brexit? Was it the corona crisis? The lockdown? Was it something else? And how did you respond?

The chain of plot-twisting 2020 crises have hit many of us, and for some, also on multiple levels. Health, affected loved ones, your wallet, your career. Perhaps you have reacted to this as you expected. Perhaps you're pleasantly surprised. Perhaps, not so much.

You probably already know about the stress responses, or ‘fight, flee or freeze’ response (so I won’t elaborate on that too much). It’s the emergency reaction system of the body. It exists to keep you safe in emergencies. When it’s activated, your body may release adrenaline and cortisol. Your organs are programmed to respond in certain ways to stressful events, or to a direct threat. You cannot choose the response that activates within you. This is a tough truth to swallow for some, but an enormous relief for many. Because after your initial response, you can start regulating your emotions, and make a plan to rise above your old self, above the current situation and the expected scenario, so you can start moving forward.

However you responded, you can take a courageous next step. If you froze, you can start by taking that first courageous step. If you fled, you can peek out of your hiding spot. If you fought, you can take a breath, relax your muscles, re-evaluate your strategy, and optimize your plan. If you instinctively started to fawn (negotiating with whatever or whoever threatens you), you can start nurturing your innate source of courage. Be more brave, and grow into that. Make no mistake, this takes courage. It takes strength. It takes resilience. This, in my opinion, is the trait we must all nurture: resilience. It keeps you safe, sane, courageous, resourceful and strong.

Grit is useful, but not the crucial key to being resilient

Many believe resilience is about gritting it out. I do not believe this to be the core truth of resilience. Grit is a super handy skill, especially combined with determination, it provides you with the power and energy to keep actively engaging in the battle you're facing. But if you're gritting it out while proceeding in the wrong direction, your perseverance won't get you through the challenge you're facing. You'd also be exhausted pretty fast. I believe that the core of resilience consists of a mixture of vulnerability, creativity, resourcefulness, and empathy. And bravery, and the eagerness to learn. It takes vulnerability to get real about the situation you're in. It takes creativity to think of the resources you need, in order to move forward. It takes resourcefulness to find what's currently lacking in your current arsenal, and to find what you need. It takes eagerness to learn to grow your innate qualities, to take on the challenge. And it takes self-care, gut wrenching amounts of vulnerability, and radical empathy for oneself to take good care of your mind, body and soul.

You can only be brave if you know how it feels to be gut wrenchingly vulnerable and fearful. Being resilient means you find and nurture (not overrule) all these qualities within yourself, and to adapt to perpetually changing circumstances, and letting go of the idea you can control everything (because frankly, you can’t). While you learn to lean into discomfort, you will find the depth of your personality as it currently is. Experiencing in which areas you already thrive, helps you find inner validation, to feel proud, thankful and confident of yourself. Being confronted with areas you still have to grow into your potential, helps you take on the adventure of improving yourself.

Inner adversaries

In times like these, you might face some inner adversaries that may sabotage you on your journey. The first one is ego, or blown up pride. In times of hardship, you need to feel the liberty to ask for help if you need it. Reach out if you need help. You don’t have to deal with everything by yourself, although in some cases, it might feel that way.

The second adversary is not one everybody faces, but many people are struggling with this. I'm talking about built up trauma. This, unfortunately, is a tougher nut to crack. However, having lived with traumatic events early on in life, I discovered that dealing with trauma has some rather unexpected blessings in disguise. For instance, you might already know how you respond to crises, in which case you can shift gears a bit more quickly towards inspired action, and healing. You might already have experienced intense grief, defeat, pain, loss, or all of these, in the past. Perhaps you find strength in the notion that 'this too shall pass', and that you already lived to to tell another intense story. You might already have nurtured some, or all, of the necessary inner traits you need in order to not only survive, but thrive. Of course, we live in unprecedented times and there aren't any guarantees for just about anything at this point. Learning to live with this level of uncertainty, and regardless flipping the switch to learning to get comfortable with having no guarantees, and to expect the unexpected, can be downright scary. It takes courage, and it is the way towards being more resilient and feeling more agency, more freedom to choose inspired action and creating radical change, for yourself and for those around you. It sounds simple. This doesn't mean that it's easy.

Blessings in disguise

Oddly enough, having had to deal with multiple traumatic events from an early age, I felt strangely supported by the traits I'd had to grow many years ago. It's a journey that will probably grow with me on my path throughout life. It also brought me on the path of passionate research on just about everything I could find about resilience for years, and discovering more connections with other necessary traits to pave the way onwards.

For example, when I was nine years old, my mother suffered from mental problems, and she put our family in harm's way. When I was eleven, my parents got divorced. When I was twelve, my mother kicked me out of the house just days before my thirteenth birthday, without even telling me why. To this day, I have no idea why she did this. When I was fourteen, both my parents died. My biological family didn't support me when I became an orphan, and they wanted me to remain silent about the neglect.

It was a lonely, challenging, painful time, and I had absolutely no idea how long that chain of events would be, for how long that horror show would go on. There were no guarantees whatsoever that everything would be all right. Around me, the world kept on turning, with people appearing to live normal lives, and it felt as if I was standing within the eye of a storm, waiting for the next storm to hit. There were storms. But there were also lessons that taught me to navigate through crisis.

Brave

I learned to observe and engage and to see the difference. I learned to not only observe others and their responses or lack thereof, but also to empathize with myself, which took me quite a longer time. I learned to accept my shortcomings and to be resourceful in finding solutions. I accepted that every once in a while, I would fail. I learned to make plans without knowing all the facts, to act with no idea whether my approach would work. Most of all, I discovered that having faith in something or in yourself couldn't be summoned in things like affirmations. Some people use affirmations as some sort of wish list, or grocery list, to obtain courage, or instant belief in oneself. This might work for some, which is great, but it doesn't do the trick for me. Because to me, it isn't a trick. Tiny sprouts of faith in myself started to grow, whenever I had acted decisively, while feeling intensely afraid. Feeling the fear was one crucial key. Not pretending that I wasn’t.

Being brave is the willingness to live with fear and acting regardless, and accepting life isn't like being the hero in a Netflix series with happy ending season finales, because your character gave it your all. Sometimes you give it your all, but you fail. Or you just have to face the fact that you were unlucky. Unsuccessful. Or just took the wrong turn. The treasure lies in what you decide to do at that point. That's a whole deeper level of finding identity. Also, life isn’t a Netflix series. It’s very, very real.

The messy middle

I have known many losses, defeats, instances of grief. But also great moments of joy, victory, success, and deep fulfilment. This corona crisis, and all other crises that are shaking up our lives, zoom in on all of our emotions, strong traits, weaknesses, and experiences from times long gone. But this crisis also invites you to focus on a vision for the future. Your future. My future. Paving the way through this strange, challenging time is not about gritting it out. It's about how uncomfortable you are willing to get, how resilient you'll be, and...how much of an adventure you will make it. Step by step, straight through the messy middle. Even when you don’t know if you’ve reached the middle because there is no map.

Still, it is a blessing that you don't have this complete overview of what's happening, or what to expect. In many cases, it is sometimes easier to carry the load piece by piece, brick by brick, and let the process of carrying it be 'the way'. Sometimes it's a good thing that our brains assist us in this, to a certain extent it protects us from overload. It sometimes provides us with a vague vision of what's going on. But our survival mechanism helps us carry it one chunk at a time, as long as 'the messy middle' lasts (and indeed, no one knows how long). It doesn't make it more pleasant - it however does make it somewhat more bearable.

There will be times that this challenging time feels like a horrendous crisis, an sometimes it will feel like an adventure. Seeing and feeling the difference is where the blessing lies, and where you can tap into your own, personal recipe of being resilient.

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Jojanneke van den Bosch (1975) is a creative performance mentor who helps entrepreneurs and organizations ideate and innovate unique and high-profile concepts and realize them in a short time stretch.

Jojanneke became an orphan at the age of 14, without a family safety net, and she discovered many facets of resilience. She became a designer, online communicator, speaker, award winning online course designer, published author, TEDx speaker and information entrepreneur.

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