Principles of Resilience

My daughter said to me the other day "Mom, how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?"  I smiled and said "how many?"  She responded "one, but the light bulb has to really want to change."
My chosen profession is therapy.  I am a therapist.  I specialize in working with addictions...specifically with sex addiction.  On a daily basis, I hear stories of pain, agony and loss.  My job is to help individuals transform their pain, agony and loss into something meaningful.  This is the essence of resiliency.
A couple of years ago I decided to become certified as a sex addiction therapist (CSAT).  It took me a year to complete this certification and was one of the best decisions I have made in my career thus far. Becoming a CSAT changed me as a person and therefore as a therapist.  I trained under Dr. Patrick Carnes, who is a pioneer in the field of sexual addiction recovery, as well as other remarkable professionals who I feel blessed to count as colleagues.  There are so many things I learned in my year of certification.  One that I want to focus on today are the principles of resilience.
Our society often teaches that when bad things happen it's best to grit your teeth and push through.  Some might add just don't talk about it or don't think about it.  It turns out, however, it doesn't work like that.  And there is much more to recovery and resilience than just getting through.  When something bad happens, people fall apart.  Not just weak people, but strong people too.  Our initial response is to despair.  That despair can lead us into addictions or numbing behaviors as a means of escape.  It can lead us to denial as a way to protect ourselves from seeing the pain of reality.  (There's a reason it's called the "sweet voice of denial").  Or after our initial despair, we can pick ourselves up off the floor and start down the road of resiliency.
The first principle of resilience is Acceptance.  Putting off dealing with adversity and sorrow actually delays healing and recovery.  M. Scott Peck made an interesting statement, he said "mental health is the pursuit of reality at all costs." Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to acknowledge what is real.  However, when we acknowledge reality, only then are we able to do something about it.
The second principle is Predictability. There is a large body of research stating that adverse stress is less likely when a challenging event is predictable.  Life is hard....and that is predictable.  We will always have stressors and challenges.  One of the things that I learned from Dr. Carnes is that recovery or resilience is much like training for athletes.  Olympic competitors or professional athletes know that to succeed, they will experience great stress.  Therefore, what they do is train for it.  They work every day to prepare for the stressful event, be it a game or tournament.  Each day, they build their strength, push themselves to improve their skills and practice strategies for winning.  Athletes also "cross train" so that the demands on one muscle set doesn't become too much.  They also find regular patterns of rest.  They take care of themselves. Training every day for the stressors or challenges that will come to us helps us cultivate resilience.
The third principle of resilience is Controllability.  Nobody can control every aspect of a challenging event.  However, we also know that having a sense of control generally leads to more positive results.  This is where knowing and respecting what our limits are as well as knowing what choices we do have becomes important.  The serenity prayer that is recited so often in recovery God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference helps us in our ability to adapt and be resilient. When we recognize what it is that we can change and act on a plan the result is a life of our own creating.   Otherwise, our life would be based on the expectations of others or the result of a life lived with blinders on. Integrity often comes down to taking responsibility for what we can do and having an awareness of our impact on others.
The fourth principle of resilience is Trust. Trust plays a critical role in withstanding adversity.  Trust provides a positive expectation from the people, systems or organizations in which we interact with and includes integrity, dependability, responsibility and competency. Trust is built through experience and includes certain expectations like families will be faithful, the parachute will open, I will make it through etc. Trust also includes allowing others to meet our needs and accepting more than what is needed in order to build reserves.
The fifth principle of resilience is Relationship. Relationships are critical for cultivating resilience.  With strong, healthy relationships individuals and groups can thrive despite profound challenges.  I have three daughters that play on competitive soccer teams.  The coach of my 15yo has worked for years on teaching them to play as a team.  He has talked to them over and over about the importance of talking to each other while they are out on the field and of letting the team member with the ball know what it is that they see.  The team member with the ball is focused on the task at hand and therefore may not see the larger picture of what is happening on the field.  If nobody on the team tells her "man on" or "you've got time" he would often ask the team "Why don't you like her?  Why aren't you helping her? Why are you expecting her to do this on her own?"  Resilient people surround themselves with people who believe in them.  They also surround themselves with people who are often more competent than they are and they give those individuals credit for their accomplishments.  This allows for growth and creates an atmosphere where success is encouraged and supported.
The last principle of resilience is Meaning.  People fare better when they know why they are doing what they are doing. The ability to take anything and pull purpose, meaning and growth from it is a critical skill in resilience.  There is a saying in the big book from 12 steps that says "nothing is wasted". I love this concept. I love the idea that whatever I go through, whatever comes my way, whatever amount of time is spent on the journey through, it need not be wasted.  If it adds to my life experience, if I learn  a lesson from it, if I grow stronger as a result, if I am wiser moving forward, if I become softer and more compassionate then it holds valuable meaning for me.  In this way, every challenge encountered holds untold potential and that is exciting!

Journey On!

Keep Your Inner Circle Sacred

After writing my post last week, it should have been no surprise that life gave me several opportunities to practice what I had just written about. I say it shouldn't have been a surprise and yet, I have to admit, it seems to always catch me a bit off guard.  This week I have found myself in several situations where defaulting to contempt or resentment was pretty tempting and perhaps, would have been justified. As is also the case, I didn't handle things perfectly.  Nobody will ever write movie scripts based on my handling of situations because frankly, it's just not that pretty.  My victory, however, is that it also wasn't ugly. It just was.  In the end, I did hold myself to my own personal truths and I feel good about that. 
One of the experiences I had this past week made me realize how important it is, no how sacred it is, to have an inner circle of people in my life who have earned the right to be in my inner circle.  I haven't always felt this way.  There was a time in my life when the Simon & Garfunkel lyrics "I've built walls... a fortress deep and mighty... that none may penetrate.  I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.  It's laughter and it's loving I disdain" became a sort of mantra for me.  And who hasn't found themselves belting out the lyrics to Whitesnake's ballad "And here I go again on my own...like a drifter I was born to walk alone..."?  Well, as much as I love the idea of going it alone down a "lonely street of dreams", I've learned that the journey is meant to be made with company.  We need support.  We need friends who will let us try on new ways of being in the world. We need a hand to pull us up when we fall, or get pushed down.
If you're like me, there came a point when I understood I needed company on my journey, but I didn't know where to find these people.  I had a lot of questions, like: How do I know if I can trust someone?  How can I tell who's really got my back?  How do I build trust with people?  How can I know if they will ever betray me?  Unfortunately there is no trust test. No scoring system that tells us it's safe to let another person in, to be vulnerable and to let ourselves be open.  Instead it's a slow-building process that happens over time.  Moving slow and being selective in bringing other people in to this layer of intimacy is important.  Too quickly trusting someone or choosing to see only the good in another and minimizing the red flags that are also there is highly risky.
When I think of the characteristics of those who are in my inner circle I see a common thread.  They keep my confidences, they share their confidences with me. They remember my birthday. They know who the important people in my life are. They make sure I'm included. They know what is really happening in my life and how I feel about it....not just what I post on FB. They allow me the space to be imperfect and to make mistakes. They will be honest with me and call me out if they think I'm not being true to myself. These are the people I know I can go to if I've dug myself into a hole I can't seem to get out of and they will respond with "let's do this".  I also know that I can show the darker, unrefined parts of myself to them and they will go there with me without judging. 
Rarely do phrases on bumper stickers or refrigerator magnets change our lives.  Affirmations of self-worth often don't change how we feel about ourselves if all we are doing is quoting them over and over again.  These things don't work mostly because we don't believe simplified statements of feelings. We instinctively know that emotions and relationships aren't simple.  What I really want to know in my relationships are these questions: Can I be most myself in your presence? Can I be creative, funny, vulnerable, shy, outgoing, and smart?  Can I be tough, forgiving, generous, spiritual, graceful, lazy, self-indulgent, unrefined?  Do I feel equal, successful, attractive, encouraged, important and trusted?Can I be fully competent and not have you disappear? Do I feel challenged?  Can I be accountable?  Is it OK to make a mistake? (questions from Mending a Shattered Heart by Dr. Stefanie Carnes) Being in my inner circle doesn't require that you fix anything for me, but rather witness the strength and courage it takes to be a human being. 
One thing I believe is important to clarify is that we often think we should have a whole slew of these people in our lives.  That our inner circle should be bursting at the seams, after all that's what we see in commercials, movies and social media.  The truth is if you have two...you are blessed.  If you've got five....well now we are talking lottery! If you haven't found others who qualify for a spot in your inner circle....focus on becoming the kind of person who could be in another's inner circle and see what happens.  Without darkness, light has no meaning.  Likewise, friendship has little meaning when you haven't experienced loneliness.