A question I was asked recently is whether people can be naturally resilient or whether it’s something that can be learnt, and my answer was both. Resilience is like a muscle. You exercise the muscle to keep it strong and build it up, sometimes you have a bit of time off and the muscle weakens but if you’ve got the right foundations then it builds back up again quickly from that muscle memory.
Where I believe some people are naturally resilient, I don’t think they’re necessarily born that way, although to an extent there are qualities that can support resilience for example if someone is naturally laid back. My belief is that resilience is more nurture than nature, and resilient parents raise resilient children. Think about it. If your parent already role models some of the key foundations of resilience, then you’ll typically follow their lead and do them too. So if a parent eats healthily, chances are they know the importance of that and will pass on both the taste for healthy food, but also the knowledge of what’s good for you and how to make that. Similarly with exercise, if a parent regularly does some form of exercise, whatever that may be, it role models that for the child who sees it as normal and builds it into their daily life.
This isn’t something easily proven, but it’s my opinion, and I’m open to other perspectives here but I think that upbringing can have a strong impact on self esteem too. These are all important when it comes to resilience, and we’ve talked about role modelling the good behaviours, but in some instances growing up those may not have been seen in parents.
Some may instead have had parents who struggled, had mental health issues, addiction, and trauma and maybe they hadn’t seen resilience in action either, didn’t have the experience of their parents dealing with challenges successfully, and so didn’t have the role model behaviour of those foundations. It’s not an excuse for treating anyone badly, but more an explanation about learned behaviour and those lucky enough to have the right examples passed down versus those who might find resilience a bit more challenging as they don’t have the strong foundations in place and instead may have different coping mechanisms and responses.
Often people who have been in those situations can recognise they don’t have the right tools in place but don’t know how to change that. Sometimes those tools work better for the neurotypical brain than the neurodivergent brain, which can be less used to consistency and routine, but done is better than perfect and every little helps, which is work remembering.
So what do you do if you don’t have a resilient parent that role modelled helpful behaviours? The first thing I’d suggest is to find someone else that does. It could be someone you know who always handles challenges calmly for example, or someone who exercises regularly, or someone who has been through struggles and has come through the other side. Or it might be someone you know of rather than know, or maybe a famous person that you admire. The point of this is to look at the behaviours of that person so you can see what they do and reflect on how you can develop similar behaviours to help you. Remember no one is perfect so you might want to take aspects you admire from more than one person. If you haven’t had behaviours role modelled for you it might be something to try.
The second thing I would suggest you do would be to get a pen and paper and write down the challenges you’ve come through in your life so far, and how you’ve dealt with them. Have you leaned on friends and your network during tough times, or did you stop going out and isolate yourself instead? Did you face issues head on or did you avoid them and hope they’d go away? It a tough exercise to do but it’s not about beating yourself up, it’s about trying to recognise how you’ve reacted in the past so you’re aware of that and prepared when things come up in the future. If you understand that this is the approach you’ve taken before, you’re more likely to recognise the warning signs which will enable you to take corrective action. And that might be going along to your girls night and pouring your heart out to them rather than staying at home and keeping it all in, and that just might be the better option for your resilience. Having an understanding of how resilient you are and your past approaches will help you make different and better choices in the future.