On Saturday, Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant featured an article about (human) resilience. Wiki: “Psychological resilience is the ability to successfully cope with a crisis and to return to pre-crisis status quickly.” Resilience is quite personal given my 2013 burn-out and my 18 month recovery.
Psychology Today, 2018: “This ability to cope with adversity, often referred to as psychological resilience, has been examined in hundreds of research studies though we still have a limited understanding of what makes some people more resilient than others.”
In my view, resilience is affected by Nature, Nurture and Change. Nature provides the basic protections for resilience at birth (ie, baseline). Nurture and Change may both have a positive or negative impact on our resilience.
In 2013, everything appeared to go wrong in my life: divorce, kids, relationship (Nurture), and finance, health, work (Change). This resulted in a personal melt-down, which is better known as a burn-out. My survival instinct opted for fighting back although at times a flight seemed like a good alternative. Some flights may result in suicide.
PT, 2018: “According to the (LO: 2014) resilience portfolio model proposed by John Grych of Marquette University, resilience has three primary components”, being “self-regulation”, “interpersonal relationships”, and “meaning-making”.
A 2018 study by John Grych identified 5 key protective factors: (1) strong sense of purpose, (2) optimism, (3) emotional regulation, (4) emotional awareness, and (5) psychological endurance (PT).
These 5 key factors indeed applied – and still apply – to me. However, I miss 3 key factors: Faith, solitude and the healing power of nature (eg, Time 2016).
The 2018 study does mention “religious involvement” but Faith and Religion are quite different (my recent blog).
The 2018 PT article does mention loneliness as a negative factor. However, solitude is very different from loneliness (my blogs).
The more I reflect about it, the more I conclude that Faith, solitude and the healing power of nature are one and the same.
Top of the World (1972) by The Carpenters – artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note LO: all markings (bold, italic, underling) by LO unless stated otherwise
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