WHAT IS RESILIENCE?

WHAT DOES "RESILIENCE" MEAN TO YOU?

“Resilience for All” empowers schools to connect both students and teachers with resilience. My definition is very simple, and it goes like this:

"Resilience = a natural capacity that allows us to deal with and learn useful things from whatever happens in life."

By the way, these are just words and they don’t even go halfway to conveying just how amazing humans actually are at handling whatever happens.

One of my favourite examples that points to how natural resilience truly is, is a baby learning to walk. How many times do they fall over and get back up again, without making it mean that they’re not meant to walk or worrying about what others think of them for not getting it right the first time?

Sometimes it’s really hard for that baby when they try and fail. Sometimes they physically hurt themselves when they fall over. Naturally, they sometimes get upset or frustrated. Notice how they just FEEL that upset or frustrated feeling for as long as it lasts, and then it passes and they carry on learning?

If this isn’t an example of beautiful, limitless resilience in action, then I don’t know what is.

So, if we had this sort of resilience at around a year old, where has it gone, and why would we be searching for tools and strategies to “build” it in ourselves or in young people?

What are your thoughts on where it goes? I’ll share mine tomorrow. Really I’ll just highlight something that’s very obvious and yet incredibly easy to miss.

May we all, at all ages, know the brilliance within us.

#mentalhealthawarenessweek #resilience #mentalhealth#schools #education