At first, I wanted to define resilience as the ability to bend without breaking. However, in this particular series of working definitions, I would define resilience as a person’s capacity to heal from injury. While human beings are incapable of being fully restored from an injury, our capacity to return as close as possible to a previous norm of being varies and can be improved upon. In terms of physical injury, a healthy lifestyle, including exercise, diet, and general self-care makes the body more flexible and resilient to breakage. This resilience also carries over to the healing process when something is broken greatly impacting recovery from the damage. To me, resilience is not just a preventative but also part of the cure. Resilient people are able to heal in ways that bring them closer to their previous norm than those who are less resilient.

            I believe that the first steps in professionally assisted healing are to identify the level of resilience of a person and then to strengthen it. As someone who frequently engages in trauma therapy with their clients, I tell them we do not start digging into the past until they are able to demonstrate an acceptable level of stability in the present. What qualifies as an “acceptable level” would be a paper in itself for each client but, I would define it as their level of resilience. I do not believe in engaging an out-patient client with their past trauma if they are struggling to get through daily life. The first thing a good therapist teaches are coping skills. They then make sure a client can use them before they need them. You don’t start teaching someone how to box by throwing them into a professional competitive ring. You first teach them how to throw and take a punch. I decided judo wasn’t for me when I went to a trial class and the instructor immediately tossed me in with students practicing choke holds without teaching me either how to best prevent injury to myself or how to get out of one.

            While some are born with much resilience to a great many things, resiliency can be taught and it can be learned. We can improve our resiliency toward physical, spiritual, moral and emotional injury with training and practice. We can improve our ability to both bend without breaking and the degree to which we are capable of healing from all types of injuries.