The document discusses the concept of resilience, emphasizing how individuals can develop emotional strength to overcome adversity and change. It highlights the psychological and physiological effects of uncertainty, resilience-building practices, and traits of resilient individuals, such as adaptability and optimism. Ultimately, the content reiterates that resilience is a skill that can be cultivated through various strategies and support systems.

1. Uncertainty and Change:
Getting Through By Getting Better
Lifestage, Inc
www.lifestage.org

2. The Uses of Adversity
Sweet are the uses of
adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly
and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in
his head;
And this our life, exempt
from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees,
books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good
in everything.”
Duke Senior, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1
“The struggle to bounce back and
recover from setbacks can lead to
developing strengths and abilities
that you didn't know were
possible.” Dr. Alan Siebert, “The Five Levels of
Resilience” www.resiliencycenter.com

3. “Life is full of change and uncertainty. We know
this. We experience it on a daily basis.” Carre Otis
“Your mind and
habits will
create either
barriers or
bridges to a
better future.”
Dr. Alan Siebert, “The Five Levels of
Resilience” www.resiliencycenter.com

4. Uncertainty triggers a sense of threat
in the brain and body
Threats to safety produce
a cocktail of chemicals and
hormones that are
designed for survival:
The fight, flight
or freeze
response

5. The Survival Response is a rapid
release of adrenaline & cortisol
What goes up: Adrenaline
• heart rate
• muscle tone/tension
• breath intake
• Sensory awareness
Cortisol:
• energy
• muscle strength
What goes down:
• Activity in the pre-
frontal cortex, or
“thinking brain”
• Cognitive/reasoning
functions
• Sensitivity to pain

6. When the threat passes, the body can
relax and restore itself
The biochemical surge of
the survival response is
necessary for survival.
Relief from the
biochemical surge is
necessary for health.

7. Prolonged uncertainty can take a
psychological and a physical toll
During times of great uncertainty the stress
response can easily be triggered over and over
again, with no clear sign from the environment
that the threat has passed. This kind of
psychological threat is emotionally draining and
more damaging to the body than clear physical
dangers.

8. The science of
resilience offers help for
the stress of
uncertainty

9. What is emotional resilience?
• Having the ability to endure and come to
terms with adversity;
• The capacity to experience and process the
emotions arising from difficult life experiences;
• The psychological strength to rebuild one’s life
after loss, tragedy or unexpected change;
• The capacity to problem-solve in the face of
high-stress circumstances;
Diane Coutu, “How Resilience Works” Harvard Business Review, May 2002

10. Resilient people:
• Report greater life
satisfaction than people
who score lower in the
capacity for emotional
resilience;
• Believe they are able to
manage their emotions;
• Believe they are
responsible for and able
to control their state of
mind;
“Resilient People More Satisfied With Life” Behavioral
Psychology, Vol.20, Nº1, 2012, pp.183-196

11. “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also
full of the overcoming of it.” Helen Keller
“Resilience is not a trait
that people either have or
do not have. It involves
behaviors, thoughts, and
actions that can be
learned and developed in
anyone.”
•The Road To Resilience American Psychological Association,
http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx#
“The characteristics of
being resilient can be
worked on and improved,
such as self-esteem and
being able to regulate
one's emotions.” Dr Joaquín T
Limonero, UAB Research Group on Stress and Health in
“Resilient People More Satisfied With Life” Behavioral
Psychology, Vol.20, Nº1, 2012, pp.183-196

12. Developing Resilience:
evidence-based practices
• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
• Affirming One’s Values
• Practicing the techniques of improvisation
• Telling and re-telling your story in ways that
reframe obstacles and problems
• Engagement with social networks that offer
support and elevate the conversation

13. Essential traits for resiliency
• Adaptability – the
capacity to adjust in
response to shifts and
changes;
• Purpose & passion – a
compelling sense of
mission or goals for one’s
life;
• Strong, loving emotional
bonds
Alan Siebert, The Resiliency Advantage. Master Change,
Thrive Under Pressure, and Bounce Back from Setbacks.
CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005)
• Empathy – studies show
that the people most
likely to survive disasters
tend of think immediately
about and respond to the
needs of others;
• Improvisational thinking –
the ability to make
creative use of whatever
we have to work with;

14. More traits for resiliency
• High tolerance for
ambiguity;
• Playfulness and sense of
humor;
• Invested in the search
for meaning in life
experiences;
• Ability to recognize the
growth, expansion and
strengths developed
through enduring
through adversity;
• Willingness to face and
deal with dark
emotions;
Alan Siebert, The Resiliency Advantage. Master
Change, Thrive Under Pressure, and Bounce Back
from Setbacks. CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005)

15. Resilient people have
“an uncanny ability to improvise.”
• Staunch acceptance of
reality;
• Deep belief, often
buttressed by strongly held
values, that life is
meaningful;
Diane Coutu, “How Resilience Works” Harvard Business Review,
May 2002

16. “Resilient people have very sober and
down-to-earth views of those parts of
reality that matter for survival.”
Diane Coutu, “How Resilience Works” Harvard Business Review, May 2002
•Admiral Jim Stockdale believes that
he survived 8 years as a POW in part
because he accepted he could be
held for a long time. Those who
didn’t make it out of the camps kept
optimistically assuming when they
would released: “I’ll be out by
Christmas” or “I’ll see my wife by
the 4th of July.”
•“I think they all died of broken
hearts,” Stockdale said.
•“Resilient people have
• parts of reality that
matter for survival.”
•
Magellan Health Services, Inc.
| 16

17. During tough times it is natural to question
“why.” Dr. Viktor Frankl-who survived 5
years in German concentration camps and
lost his entire family in the Holocaust,
has an answer
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life
expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and
instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—
daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in
right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the
responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks
which it constantly sets for each individual.”
Dr. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning (Pocket Books, 1946)

18. “your anger and damage and grief
are the way to the truth..”
“Even if you believe that
God is everywhere and we
are all where we’re
supposed to be and more
will be revealed one day,
you can’t get to any of these
truths by sitting in a field
smiling beatifically, avoiding
your anger and damage and
grief.
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing
and Life (New York: Doubleday, 1994): 201bleday, 1994):
201
.

19. Dark feelings come.
With help, they pass
WRITING FOR YOUR LIFE
One study found that writers who
focused on thoughts and emotions about
stressful events developed a greater
awareness of the positive benefits of the
stressful event than the control groups.
This effect was apparently mediated by
greater cognitive processing during
writing.
“Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing
and emotional expression “ Philip M Ullrich & Susan Lutgendorf,
Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Vol. 24 No. 3 244-250

20. There is
light and
dark in
all of us
Resilient people
have learned to
integrate those
opposite qualities
and draw on them
for strength when
needed.

21. Resilience evolves through the choices we make
handling daily stresses and inconveniences
A study funded by the
National Institutes of
Health showed that the
way people experience
daily negative emotional
reactions and respond to
the negative events in
their lives is important to
future well-being. • S. T. Charles, J. R. Piazza, J. Mogle, M. J. Sliwinski, D. M.
Almeida. The Wear and Tear of Daily Stressors on
Mental Health. Psychological Science, 2013;

22. Creative experiences
strengthen resilience
“When you’re doing something
that’s creative, you’re engaging all
aspects of your brain. During
improvisation, the prefrontal
cortex of the brain undergoes an
interesting shift in activity, in
which a broad area called the
lateral prefrontal region shuts
down, essentially so you have a
significant inhibition of your
prefrontal cortex.”
“Improvising and The Brain “ Douglas Eby,
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/creative-
mind/2011/05/improvising-and-the-brain/#more-628

23. The story we tell about an experience
determines its meaning
Longitudinal research
with the chronically ill
found that participants
realized enhanced
resilience through telling
and re-telling their story in
ways that reconciled new
realities brought on by
illness, reconstructed their
identity, and connected
with others.
Kralik, Debbie, et al “Resilience in the chronic illness
experience” Educational Action Research Vol. 14 (2)
2006

24. It helps to focus on what matters
Several studies show that affirmation of one’s values –
through storytelling, writing, or other forms of self-
expression - improves self-control by promoting higher
levels of mental self-understanding and the capacity to
control emotional reactiveness.
A study done at the University of Chicago found that a
values-affirmation exercise allowed subjects to objectively
evaluate information that would otherwise evoke a
defensive reaction.
J. David Creswell, et al “Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses” Psychological Science, 2005

25. Writing about important values has
direct positive psychological benefits
Using self-affirmation as
an intervention tactic
produces measurable
neurophysiological
effects. Even a simple
reminder of one’s core
values reduces
defensiveness against
threatening
information.threatening
information.“
A study published in
Psychological Science
measured the effects of
identifying and writing
about important values.
People who had affirmed
their values were more
receptive to negative
feedback, recognizing
mistakes and taking steps
to correct them. Legault, L et al
"Preserving Integrity in the Face of Performance
Threat: Self-Affirmation Enhances Neurophysiological
Responsiveness to Errors" Psychological Science, 2012
Dec;23(12):1455-60.

26. Improv situations with creative
problem-solving
Accept situations and
people for what they are. In
improv, what is beyond our
control is called “the offer.”
Accept all offers. There may
be hidden gifts in a difficult
or highly stressful situation
which can only be
discovered through entering
into it.
Build on the offer. Simple
and strategic can be just as
powerful as big and bold.
Just try things.
See what happens.
Take another step.
Connection is key. Connect
ideas, concepts, things or
people.

27. Neuroplasticity:
we can change our response to life
through cultivating new mental habits
An 8-week program of
Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction results in
structural changes in the
parts of the brain that
control emotional arousal.
Britta K. Holzel et al “Mindfulness practice leads
to increases in regional brain gray matter density”
Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 191 (2011)
36–43

28. “In Boston, we fight like we train.”
About the extraordinary response
of medical teams after the Boston
Marathon bombing:
“In these extraordinary
circumstances, successful care
came from colleagues working
alongside familiar teammates,
performing familiar tasks. When
challenged, each team performed
as if the situation were routine.”
Eric Goralnick, MD & Jonathan Gates, MD “We Fight Like
We Train” New England Journal of Medicine, May 1, 2013

29. The best outcomes result from
training for the worst
“Over the past 8 years, Brigham and Women's
Hospital (BWH) has activated the emergency
response team on 78 occasions. We have activated
it for both real-world events and drills based on a
wide array of scenarios — chemical attacks, oil
spills, train crashes, blizzards, and building
evacuations. These drills have been departmental,
hospital-wide, citywide, and statewide. They taught
us familiarity, comfort, trust, and routines. On April
15, these routines saved lives.” Eric Goralnick, MD & Jonathan Gates, MD
“We Fight Like We Train” New England Journal of Medicine, May 1, 2013

30. Other factors that contribute to
resilience
• Close relationships with family and friends
• A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths
and abilities
• The ability to manage strong feelings and impulses
• Good problem-solving and communication skills
• Seeking help and resources
• Helping others
• Finding positive meaning in the difficult or traumatic events
• This Emotional Life, http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/resilience/what-
resilience

31. Contact Jude Treder-Wolff to discuss
an onsite experiential version of this
training for your staff, organization or
conference
Lifestage, Inc
496 Smithtown Bypass
Suite 202
Smithtown, NY 11787
www.lifestage.org