Blog Post #3: Resilience

When Reaching Home was published a friend of mine read it and said he thought it was really about resilience and specifically the resilience of persons with a disability. We both agreed that people with a disability have to be resilient in order to survive in our society. He suggested that I do trainings using the novel, trainings that would focus on helping people to develop the skills and the attitudes of resilience. He said his organization would sponsor the trainings. I followed his advice and as of this date we have done over 100 trainings over the last 15 years focused on resilience. I have used the novel as part of this training asking participants to read the novel and look at the behavior and attitudes of the characters in the novel and if they were or were not demonstrating the skills and the attitudes of resilience.

When we did the initial trainings resilience for many people was a new concept. The fact that you could teach people to be resilient was a novel idea for some since many believed that resilience was something you were born with but not something you were taught. Given the tragedies that have befallen our society in the last few years few people do not know the meaning of resilience. It is the process of coping with and managing tragedy and crisis in our lives. It is the ability to bounce back from hard times and God knows we need that ability today.

Take a moment and think about the things that we have had to endear. The pandemic, the division between our people which is only grown deeper in the last few years and now the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine. If there was ever a time we needed resilience it is now. The good news is that we know a lot about the skills and the attitudes that make people resilient; And that these can be learned. We also know that there is a thing called post-traumatic growth which really means that if it doesn't kill you the experience of managing a tragedy can make you stronger.

I had need of these skills recently in dealing with the death of a dear friend, David. Again, I use writing as a way of dealing with this loss. I'll talk more about that and the book the came out of that process Three Summers a Fall & One Winter, in my next blog.

Ron Breazeale, Ph.D.