"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking." That old slogan for Timex watches described resilience, back when watches ticked! But it is relevant for us because many things can deter us from realizing our vision. This task will help you understand resilience and how to find it within yourself. 

Here we divide resilience into personal and community because they differ in the ways to build and maintain them. However, they actually are inseparable because individuals live in communities and communities are composed of individuals. 

Psychologists define personal resilience as ...the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors. As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth.

The organization Resilience.org defines resilience as ...the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.

We define resilience as evolution toward a life abundant in wisdom, spirit, faith, hope, and love. 

In this task you will look at ways to develop both personal and community resilience. Consider those and use them to help find the resilience that is within you already, plus how you might strengthen your resilience. 

The Mayo Clinic offers six tips to improve personal resilience:

1. Get connected. Building strong, healthy relationships with loved ones and friends can give you needed support and help guide you in good and bad times. Connect with others by volunteering or joining a faith or spiritual group.

2. Make every day have meaning. Do something that gives you a sense of success and purpose every day. Set clear goals that you can reach to help you look toward the future with meaning.

3. Learn from the past. Think of how you've coped with troubles in the past. Think about what has helped you through tough times. You can even write about past events in a journal to help you see the patterns of how you behave and to help guide you in the future.

4. Stay hopeful. You can't change the past, but you can always look toward the future. Being open to change makes it easier to adapt and view new challenges with less worry.

5. Take care of yourself. Tend to your own needs and feelings. Do activities and hobbies you enjoy. Include physical activity in your daily routine. Get plenty of sleep and make bedtime rituals. Eat a healthy diet. Practice how to manage stress. Try ways to relax, such as yoga, meditation, guided imagery, deep breathing or prayer.

6. Take action. Don't ignore your problems. Instead, figure out what you need to do, make a plan and take action. It can take time to recover from a major setback, trauma or loss. But know that your life can improve if you work at it.

See more from the American Psychological Association and Psychology Today 

Well-being

Personal well-being is an important component of resilience. "Well-being is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity. It includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, a sense of meaning or purpose, and the ability to manage stress." (Psychology Today)

Our well-being is affected by conditions and other people, but it is largely a personal responsibility. We as individuals have to value our well-being and make conscious decisions to maintain and enhance it. Consequently, how you care for your well-being is a personal matter. Do you run, walk, or ride a bike? Do you practice yoga, tai chi, or Centering Prayer? 

It is far beyond the scope of this program to help you develop your well-being process, but it is within the scope of this program to emphasize that you need to!

"What Is Well-Being? Definition, Types, and Well-Being Skills" in Psychology Today is a useful introduction to conscious wellbeing. 

In your journal write about how you would assess your personal resilience. Think how you have responded to times of stress and how long it took you to recover. You might want to do the Resilience Self Assessment from the University of Denver. However, don't think of any of this as judgmental. It is only for your use to try to determine if you think you should consider ways to increase your personal resilience. 

The concept of community resilience is derived from systems thinking. Please watch the short video about Systems Thought.

The organization Resilience.org offers a large and diverse amount of information, concepts, strategies, and educational programs on its website. Resilience.org describes itself as ...a community library with space to read and think, but also as a vibrant café in which to meet people, discuss ideas and projects, and pick up and share tips on how to build the resilience of your community, your household, or yourself.

Resilience.org offers the following Foundations for Community Resilience:

1. People. The power to envision the future of the community and build its resilience resides with community members.

2. Systems thinking. Systems thinking is essential for understanding the complex, interrelated crises now unfolding and what they mean for our similarly complex communities.

3. Adaptability. A community that adapts to change is resilient. But because communities and the challenges we face are dynamic, adaptation is an ongoing process.

4. Transformability. Some challenges are so big that it’s not possible for the community to simply adapt; fundamental, transformative changes may be necessary.

5. Sustainability. Community resilience is not sustainable if it serves only us, and only now; it needs to work for other communities, future generations, and the ecosystems on which we all depend.

6. Courage. As individuals and as a community, we need courage to confront challenging issues and take responsibility for our collective future.

After watching the two videos below, reflect in your journal on the role of Spirit in community resilience. How might a consciousness of Spirit assist in developing community resilience?

In his book We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope, Bishop Charleston wrote the following passage, which strongly echoes the messages above from Thunder Valley:

We have listened to wisdom from a part of the human family that has weathered the end of the world many times and lived to tell about it. Native American nations have endured war, genocide, pandemics, concentration camps, re-education centers, death marches, religious persecution, environmental disaster, language loss, imprisonment, political oppression, sanctioned murder, kidnapping, slavery, sexual abuse, and endemic racism. And yet, sovereign Native nations are still here. They have not only survived; they have grown stronger. And the remarkable thing about this remarkable story is that Native people did so not as superbeings, but as everyday people. What they discovered, we can all discover. What they learned, we can all learn. Explaining its resilience does not require that the history of Native America be clothed in mysticism, like Rousseau’s noble savage, or manipulated to fit an agenda, like Marx’s perfect utopia. The endurance of Native America comes from sources within every culture. It is the hope of all humanity.

Charleston's challenge to modern America is:

If we are willing to turn our worldview upside down to bring balance to our behavior—we can meet the challenges of our apocalypse and preserve the values we cherish for the next generation. We can turn from individualism to individuality, preserve our personal liberties, and at the same time evolve into a functioning community. We can follow the lead of Indigenous societies that worked together for the common good, provided for the least of their citizens, and survived the American Apocalypse. It will require a new humility inspired by an old faith, but together we can do it if we are willing to restore balance and work together.

These are major challenges and the stakes are very high. In your journal, reflect on whether we as individuals and a society are able to make the necessary changes. What may happen if we don't? How might we make the changes?

In your journal, write how your problem/opportunity would be affected by substantial change, either external or internal. For example, if you chose to work on the problem of consumerism in your family, what would happen if you inherited $1,000,000? Or if the cost of living increased by 20% in one year? What would happen if your household income were reduced by 40%?