Resilience has been cast in the glow of the heroic comeback: the cancer survivor turned bestselling author, the amputee who runs a marathon, the refugee who becomes a congresswoman, the penniless single mother who becomes an environmental lawyer and saves her polluted hometown. But most resilience doesn’t make the headlines. It doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet decision to just keep going – to get out of bed, to show up, to begin again.
As spring concludes with a fanfare of flowers, reminding us of fresh starts, second chances and hope, let us remember that even the smallest acts of resilience matter, and through them, we rise.
Common Misconceptions About Resilience
Resilience vs Recovery
“One way to think about resilience is the ability to recover from or successfully manage obstacles, challenges, adversity – in some case trauma,” says professor Eranda Jayawickreme, a psychologist at Wake Forest University. “Being resilient doesn’t always mean bouncing back quickly. It can also mean recovering gradually.”
Psychologists often distinguish between resilience and recovery, he explains.
“Resilience means maintaining your level of functioning despite a major life challenge. It feels a bit like hardiness. You can power through without much change in your day-to-day function.”
“Resilience means maintaining your level of functioning despite a major life challenge. It feels a bit like hardiness. You can power through without much change in your day-to-day function.”
Recovery, by contrast, is when, after a challenging life event, you’re thrown off at first, reacting, trying to figure out the best coping strategies, but over time, recover and return to baseline. “Hardiness and recovery are variances of resilience,” says Jayawickreme. “The outcome is that you successfully manage or navigate that adverse experience and get back to living your life.”
You don’t have to be a superhero to be resilient
“Resilience is probably more ubiquitous than we think but it’s also more complex,” says Jayawickreme. He points to post-traumatic growth research showing that some people can experience positive changes through adversity.” Yet, he cautions, this taps into a powerful superhero myth: “The idea that bad things often transform you into someone significantly and qualitatively different and better than before; a phoenix from the ashes.”
Domains of post-traumatic growth include appreciation of life, improved relationships, personal strength, spiritual change, and discovering new possibilities. “But actual post-traumatic growth, improving beyond your original baseline, is rare. We often idealize growth,” says Jayawickreme. “Some people may develop virtues like compassion after adversity, but most either endure and return or struggle to get back to where they were.”
Psychologist George Bonanno, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, outlines four typical responses to major stressors: resilience (sustained functioning), recovery (a dip then return), delayed distress, and chronic dysfunction.
Resilience & Culture
“All cultures have narratives to explain suffering, particularly unearned suffering,” says Jayawickreme. “They help address the question: Why do bad things happen to good people?”
In Buddhist contexts, karma offers one explanation. In Western cultures, a Christ-inspired idea of redemptive suffering often prevails. In Islam, suffering can be seen as a path to patience and virtue.
“Cultural narratives can help us cope with trauma in the immediate aftermath,” says Jayawickreme. They help us make meaning and minimize the impact of what happened.
Chronic vs Acute Stressors
Resilience looks different depending on type of stress. The death of a parent versus losing a promotion are very different experiences. “But we could also talk about chronic versus acute stressors,” says Dr. Kendra Thomas, a psychology of psychology at Hope College.
“Acute stressors seem so much worse, but in the long run, they might be easier to recover from,” says Thomas. “Chronic stressors, like never getting a good night’s sleep, means the body never activates its regenerative mechanisms.”
Sleep, laughter, rest, relationships, “really, really matter for resilience,” she says.
Chronic inflammation from sustained stress erodes the body’s natural mechanisms of healing and resilience.
Thomas shares an example: A child grieving a parent’s death might receive community support, rest, meals, and hugs. But a child being chronically bullied through a phone they sleep beside has no escape. Acute trauma might activate the community. Chronic stress often doesn’t and can be more damaging in the long-term.
When ‘I’m fine’ isn’t fine
“Managing stress is effortful. There’s always a cost to navigate it,” says Jayawickreme. You might be resilient in terms of life satisfaction, spirituality, depressive symptoms but not in other domains.”
People often power through the post-crises to-do lists (paperwork, funeral planning, flood clean-up), but then find themselves compulsively overeating, overspending, drinking, smoking, or numbing out zombie-scrolling online. The takeaway? For resilience, lean into constructive, nourishing tools that support healing.
Tools for Resilience: What Actually Does (And Doesn’t) Help
Having A Stiff Upper Lip
“That’s a great emergency strategy. It’s not a great life motto or a mantra,” says Thomas. Don’t let things bother you” might be a great immediate line of defense but can suppress real pain. Longterm it may resurface as resentment.
Going Through the Five Stages Of Grief
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief are well known: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. “The data has finally caught up to those ideas,” says Thomas. “Those emotions happen simultaneously. Those aren’t distinct stages…and they don’t lay out linearly.”
Experiencing someone passing away suddenly is different than coping with several years of a diagnosed, drawn-out illness. “Sometimes Christmas is going to be so much worse than October,” says Thomas. “Sometimes year two is harder than year one.”
Expecting a linear recovery can make people feel like something’s wrong with them, even when they’re having a common experience.
Finding Someone to Blame and Pursuing Vengeance
From “John Wick” to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” pop culture often portrays vengeance as a powerful response to trauma. “It’s so gratifying to watch those movies because it puts the victim in a position of power,” says Thomas. “But it’s shortsighted…It doesn’t include forgiveness.”
“When that person actually does gain vengeance,” she adds, “it’s usually a much emptier feeling than expected. Maybe the movie ends right before the emptiness.”
Vengeance, she says, is a human expression of the desire for justice. But it steers toward anger, not healing. “It’s not a virtue. True healing comes through justice, mercy, and forgiveness together.”
Taking Care Of Your Body
“One way we can nurture resilience is to activate the body’s regenerative mechanisms,” says Thomas. “By strengthening the body, you also strengthen the mind.” Laughter, good sleep, nutrition, exercise, even reading, these all help. Supportive relationships and emotional support, she adds, are powerful tools of resilience.
Going To Therapy
Therapy can be long-term or brief. What matters most is helping people name, reframe, make meaning of what hurts, and plan a path forward. “In our studies, we see that some people with family histories are much more likely to have problems and depression,” says Dr. Myrna Weissman, a professor at Columbia University and former World Health Organization consultant.
A strong network of people you can rely on is vital (spouse, parents, trusted friends, clergy). “People who will just let you be and talk honestly, that’s very, very important,” says Weissman.
She says that people suffering from despair often don’t really understand what’s going on. They go to the doctor for a headache or stomach pain, but what’s really keeping them up is trouble at home or work. “You need to name succinctly what’s really troubling you, and that takes practice,” she says. Therapy can offer that clarity. And sometimes, so can adversity. “You come to understand your values more deeply.”
For many around the world, therapy is a luxury. In conflict zones, Jayawickreme says, people don’t have time to process trauma. They have to move on quickly survive. In those contexts, “healing may come through community, rituals, or spiritual practice.”
Social Infrastructure and Shared Resilience
“In low-income countries, the best thing you can do to improve mental health is to give people resources,” says Jayawickreme, referencing his co-authored American Psychologist article “Rethinking Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth.”
He argues resilience is systemic as well as personal. Food, housing, education, institutions, community status, and compassionate leadership all shape our ability to recover.“It’s really important to think about how people function in a context that either promotes or inhibits resilience.”
The Power of Community Support and Interpersonal Relationships
Every expert returned to one theme: we heal in connection and community.“Sharing what you’re going through with others who’ve experienced it, too, can be helpful,” says Weissman. Churches, civic groups, and neighborhoods can offer vital support, so long as blame and bitterness don’t take over. That’s why veterans often turn to other veterans, or why 12-step programs are built on shared experience.
Community-based recovery doesn’t have to be formal. It might be a chess club, a grandparent, a trusted friend. “People thrive when they have a purpose and feel they belong,” says Thomas.
Children, she notes, need adults to help build resilience. They lack the power to change their world.
“Too often we demand resilience without offering support…We say, ‘Toughen up,’ when what builds resilience is sleep, being heard, and truly being listened to.”
Interpersonal relationships are a cornerstone of post-traumatic growth. Jayawickreme’s research also shows that values like helpfulness and respect for authority often correlate with stronger resilience, perhaps because those individuals are better at coordinating efforts and receiving support.
“Things do get better under the right circumstances,” says Thomas. “And the right circumstances are almost always community-based recovery.”
Hope: A Practice and a Virtue
Thomas led a study on hope and resilience in South Africa. The most hopeful people had faced profound loss and grief. “They told stories of adversity and pain and what they chose to do with it. That’s hope. That’s resilience.”
The Zulu word for hope is ithemba. “We translated it as virtuous hope,” says Thomas. Not just optimism, but a moral commitment to hope that shows up in action: A grandmother saving for a grandchild’s education. A parent who sacrifices. “Hope is often rooted in community.”
Jayawickreme agrees,“Being able to cultivate hope, an expectation that the future will be good or better than today is critical to resilience.”
Alene Dawson is a Southern California-based writer known for her intelligent and popular features, cover stories, interviews, and award-winning publications. She’s a regular contributor to the LA Times.
