In my previous post I suggested three resources to increase resilience. I am adding a fourth resource following numerous conversations about how bouncing back has different qualities to it, that is, it is not just about whether we bounce back from setbacks life throws at us or not, but also about how we do it and feeling we are left with. The ‘how’ is important because it offers a learning for the future. We can feel as if we
Author: Gilead Yeffett
→Couples and individual psychotherapist, working in:
6a Bessborough Place, Pimlico, London SW1V 3SG
Longcroft House, 2-8 Victoria Avenue, City, London EC2M 4NS
Resilience is often defined as the ability to bounce back from setbacks. Setbacks can be part of any activity we are involved in and if we can harness anxiety and stress constructively we can make better progress.
The problem starts already with the words setback and progress. I’ll start with progress, it suggests movement towards improvement or the advancement towards a better stage. If the starting point of whatever project is improvement rather than adjustment to a changing reality, we have already labelled our current activity as inadequate and we might be ignoring what we are doing well
…We are strongly attached to the idea that there is a true, single, core self which remains constant throughout life. In reality, we extrapolate a sense of constancy from our memories. We have many subselves which come to the fore depending on the situation we are in. Thus, we have a subself dedicated to friends, another to family, another dedicated to self-protection and yet another dedicated to status and professional success, as many subsleves as the number of settings that modern life requires us to be involved in. We may assume a new identity in each new role
…