"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? Not always
People have always been divided into stronger and weaker, more resilient and less mentally resilient, but it wasn't until 20 years ago that we realized this phenomenon was worth studying.
- It's true. Mental resilience in itself is not a new concept. Plato identified "fortitude" (we assume this is how he understood mental toughness) as one of the four cardinal virtues. The Stoics also mentioned fortitude. But it wasn't until after 2002 that researchers began to break down this characteristic. Professor Peter Clough stated that the concept of mental toughness and resilience has four main components: control, commitment, challenge and confidence. And so began the career of this phenomenon.
I say, "resilience," "mental toughness," most recently: "emotional resilience." In general, it's about a personality trait that allows you to recover from even traumatic experiences. For the purposes of the interview, we will use these terms interchangeably, although I know they differ in nuance.
- In short, we can say that resilience or resilience (some say emotional "resilience") is the path to mental resilience, which is the goal to achieve. The spring metaphor is apt in that it is precisely about returning to an optimal state after some change. If we are not bad at picking ourselves up after difficult moments or staying balanced despite what happens to us - we are mentally resilient.
What do we actually call this state of equilibrium we are striving for?
- Professor Peter Clough defines it as "feeling good in our own skin," meaning being satisfied with the state we are in with the work and relationships we have. In this view, our mental resilience is an umbrella that protects us from disruptions to this balance. At the same time allowing us to reach for new areas in our lives. It strengthens our sense of worth, gives us strength and courage. Researchers have concretized the components that make up psychological resilience, describing it with the so-called 4C model. The first component is control understood as a sense of agency. Agility is wildly important because it answers the question: What can I do in a given situation that depends on me?
You can see it now: for example, despite the war, residents of Kiev plant trees and bushes in their city, take care of order and cleanliness, because they have a real impact on it.
"Exactly. But the Poles were also proactive in accepting two million refugees. It is worth remembering that, according to Hans Selye, a Canadian physician who studies the mechanisms of stress, it is not stress that kills us, but our reaction to it. A mentally resilient person can more easily find a solution because the second component of mental resilience is managing emotions, being able to read them and respond appropriately to a crisis situation. Often, inflated emotions cause us to work against ourselves. Success, then, is not getting carried away by emotions. The next component of mental resilience is commitment - people who can be said to be mentally resilient know what they are striving for, plan their actions and carry them out. This skill gives our lives a rhythm, puts reality in order. With this also comes a lack of fear of taking risks, which is understood as trying new things, that is, getting out of your comfort zone and learning from mistakes, failures. Mentally resilient people are more confident than less resilient people because they are used to believing in their abilities. Someone who thinks for themselves: "I'm not good enough", "I don't know enough yet", and this inhibits him from making efforts, weakens his mental resilience.
It all sounds beautiful, even perfect. I understand that there is a but...
- In the early days of immunity research, scientists thought: the more, the better.
And that's not the case.
- No. The point is not that there should be more of it, but that it should be at the right level in people performing various life tasks. It is clear that both the firefighter, and the IT worker, and the journalist, and the accountant need mental toughness, but each at a different level, in different situations. If each person is able to live a good, fulfilling life - it means that the level of mental toughness is optimal. Remember that too much mental toughness makes us miss things, be too "ahead". So hard that we lose some part of our sensitivity.
That's right: is it possible to be sensitive and mentally resilient at the same time? This opposition seems wrong to me.
- One thing we need to clarify. Mental resilience is a trait that just has mental vulnerability on the other side. That is, we move between resilience and psychological vulnerability. I sometimes say that mentally fragile people bounce back from difficult situations. At the same time, such people, because they feel more stimuli from their environment, have access to a wider range of feelings, can better read emotions or respond more empathically. The difficulty, however, is that the word "sensitivity" itself is very capacious. Hence, sometimes the trouble in properly understanding what resilience and psychological vulnerability are all about.
Does the statement: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is true?
- Not really. If we consider mental toughness as a personality trait, then each of us, coming into this world, has more or less of it. Interestingly, mentally resilient parents do not necessarily give birth to mentally resilient children. And vice versa. Our resilience also depends on the conditions we grow up in, how we are strengthened, who surrounds us. We can also consciously work on resilience. This trait is malleable enough that we can work on it by changing habits or ways of thinking. Our resilience is also built by the events and experiences we encounter.
But it's also not like one day I say to myself: "Great, my mental toughness is at a six, I don't need to do anything else"?
- No. It needs to be nurtured and cared for. And taking care of it will be just trying to avoid life events that can leave a strong psychological mark. Even high emotional resilience does not mean that we will emerge unscathed from life's greatest traumas. Sometimes something may not kill us, but it certainly won't make us stronger - on the contrary, it will weaken us, prove threatening. That's when we need to reach out for extra help because we will suffer emotionally, mentally, but also physically. This is because everyone has a certain amount of endurance for life's blows.
But we can't always predict what will happen to us in life. War, for example.
- It's true. We'll get back to her shortly. For now, let's stop at peacetime. If we take on things in the ordinary, "non-war" reality that we can handle, even if they require a strong take on things - it can make us stronger. However, if it turns out that we have "miscalculated" and taken on too much responsibility, it will not be good for us. Prolonged stress lowers mental toughness. And here we return to the situation of war. If a person is placed in a difficult situation for an extended period of time, in a trauma, crisis or relationship that does not support them, mental resilience can weaken. Now many of us are living in the midst of one of the biggest stressors, war. Interestingly, this factor is rarely found in modern psychological research. Usually the most stressful factors such as divorce, loss of a loved one, and job change are mentioned. Right now in this difficult time we need to focus on taking care of our inner strength.
How is it done?
- Above all, good, deep relationships, meetings, exchange of ideas are nurtured. And be warned! Rather than through digital contact - just eye to eye, with hugs, walks together. Research shows that mental resilience also hinges on our physiology. We take care of it just as we take care of sleep, physical activity, all the components of our well-being. A good exercise is to write down positive experiences - this is what most psychologists from the Martin Seligman school advise. Rick Hanson, in his book The Happy Brain, wrote that our brain acts like Velcro for negative things and like Teflon for positive things. And we should be aware of that. Therefore, focusing more on the good things that got done today will work better for our mental resilience than dwelling on failure or wondering why someone looked at me crookedly.
We have people around us who need our help, including in the context of dealing with severe stress. Can someone who is mentally more resilient "lend" or "bestow" some of their strength on someone weaker, more vulnerable? Because there is a risk that by helping - we take away someone's agency, that is, we take away some of the emotional resilience.
- If we want to help - we need to feel at a good point in life, strong, emotionally secure. Only then does our help make more sense. And yes - it is true that by helping in a way that excludes the cooperation of those affected, we take away their power. While helping out at volunteer spots, I saw people outright bailing on refugees who also wanted to do something meaningful. This is a poor way to go. People, even the afflicted, need to have a sense of empowerment. Ripping everything out of their hands teaches them helplessness and makes what they do here meaningless. And that is why every soup and every dumpling made by Ukrainian girls/women makes a huge difference to their resilience. And I'm not even talking about wanting to give back in this way - which is also important.
Soup can build resilience, confidence.
- Of course, cooking soup and other - even very simple - activities add meaning to the reality in which these people now live. They are confronting the fact that they have left home, severed ties that are important to them. Eating this soup together builds new relationships. As I mentioned, good relationships are an important component of mental toughness. What researchers are working on now is a matter of trust and mental toughness. It turns out that emotionally resilient people generally have more confidence in reality because they are less afraid. Whether they encounter a trustworthy person or a total bastard on their path, they know they can handle a threatening situation. For the most part, it will allow you to trust the other person, to take risks under the title: I'm giving you a piece of my reality. Even if it turns out not to have been worth it, this relationship will not ruin the life of an emotionally resilient person.
Author: Krystyna Romanowska
Photo: unsplash.com
The text was published in „Wolna Sobota” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 7 May 2022
