Resilience, a term widely used and loved today to indicate the positive attitude to face hostile situations. But resilience is much more: that’s what it means in all its different contexts.
In your life it will surely have happened to draw on all your personal resources to overcome a moment of difficulty that never seemed to end. What looked like a misadventure of a few weeks has turned into an infinite challenge to survival. But after so much suffering you came out stronger than ever thanks to your resilience .
It is probable that in order to get out of that endless tunnel you have in fact put a strain on your physical and mental balance and have hired all the goodwill you had left to overcome adversity. Experiencing a long period of uncertainty has led you to develop something greater than your normal endurance, has led you to practice resilience and turn obstacles in your favor . But what exactly does having resilience mean?
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- 1Let’s study the meaning of resilience together
- 2The best synonyms for resilience
- 3Three sentences about resilience to look beyond the obstacle
- 4The value of resilience in the world of work
Let’s explore the meaning of resilience together
Resilience derives from the verb resilire, which literally means bouncing or jumping backwards and indicates the ability of a human being to pass positively the tests that life could reserve for him in a totally unexpected way. In reality, the word resilience is far more sophisticated than it may seem; depending on the context, it can in fact have different meanings.
In physics, for example, the meaning of resilience is found in the ability of a body to resist shocks and to resume its initial structure. In biology and ecology it means the ability of an organism to regain the balance of the ecosystem following a sudden change that is not functional to the environment and to those who populated it. In the field of psychology we have precisely seen how much the meaning of resilience sinks into an individual’s ability to overcome the painful moments of existence and to evolve, despite adversity.
In an existential sense , the meaning of resilience therefore consists in acknowledging the trauma, which can also be represented by mourning, abandonment or illness, learning to live with it, recovering and looking at things from another perspective.
The best synonyms for resilience
Resilience is synonymous with strong solidity and a recovery process that is triggered following the decision to overcome the initial trauma of a sudden event.
The robustness is another synonym of resiliency so that experts assert that a resilient person to bulk up following several useful steps to counter the negative evolutionary trajectories.
In fact, the resilient person goes through a first phase of refusal to feel destined to suffer. In a second step, the desire arises to get out of the moment of impasse by assigning a goal . Thirdly, thanks to solidity, an attitude of revenge occurs in which it is very easy to create an image of a strong individual in order to defend oneself from the compassion of others.
Finally, the fourth phase is usually experienced with a strong sense of humor : a resilient person tends to develop a form of self-derision towards circumstances. This phase can also be experienced as a creative transition thanks to painting or writing activities, useful for exorcising pain and taking new paths, indirectly showing one’s uniqueness . Even resistance to the nth degree is therefore synonymous with resilience.
Three sentences about resilience to look beyond the obstacle
There are three phrases on resilience that can alleviate the sense of helplessness in difficult times, Marina Osnaghi , the first Master Certified Coach in Italy , describes them .
The first phrase about resilience to consider is: Accept things as they are .
In fact, the resilient person accepts reality as it is and learns to manage it daily. He knows how to deal with difficulties and overcome his negative reaction in less time than those who indulge in regret and activate faster to move the energy onto the solution, generating strength and renewing the hope that even that negative moment will pass.
The second phrase about resilience is: Forgive yourself and learn to forgive .
Resilience is nourished by the ability to use each experience as useful learning for the future, to continue to progress without being victims of circumstances. The resilient attitude useful to forgive and forgive is to ask yourself powerful questions: What did I learn from what happened to me? What did I do that I would do again? What wouldn’t I do again? How do I go further? How long do I need to learn to forgive?
Finally, the third sentence on resilience is: Trust and trust .
An invitation to regain trust, first of all and towards life at a later time. The resilient person knows well that existence includes a part of unpredictability that cannot be controlled and also knows that the person he can rely on most is himself. Developing greater esteem in one’s ability to ‘help oneself’ and enhancing the activity of ‘observing the clues’ to anticipate solutions, both mental and psychophysical recovery are speeded up, contributing to the optimal use of personal energies.
Marina Osnaghi. Photo credits: Marco Sacchi Photographer
The value of resilience in the world of work
The attitude to react positively to challenging experiences and to live difficulties as tools for growth and improvement represents the essence of resilience and is a highly valuable skill not only in the private sphere, but also in the work and professional sphere.
The equivalent in the business environment is the ability to identify a crisis as an opportunity and to transform critical issues into stimuli to find a new structure and improve performance through the implementation of leadership, the development of motivation and the definition and introduction of best practices.
Owners, managers and employees can find important support in this path in specific training activities dedicated to small, medium and large companies in the public and private sector such as the Resilience Program of the Professional Coaching School of Marina Osnaghi.
In the specific case, the courses are provided by real “task forces” made up of some of the best professionals in the field of business coaching, psychology and work consultancy and can be used on site or in virtual mode.
