The Three Secrets of Resilient People TEDx Talk

To some extent, survival of distressing and traumatic events into the longer term will depend upon the degree of resilience of the individuals (and groups) having to deal with the suffering that often accompanies trauma...this video, and associated content explores the ways in which we can prepare our selves and deal with trauma and suffering in our lives, when it occurs...





https://nziwr.co.nz/wp-content/uplo...l-time_Resilience_Coping_with_Coronavirus.pdf

http://fnaustralasia.com.au/Lucy Hone.pdf

The US military has recognised the importance of resilience training for its personnel to prepare them for, and sustain them through operational service, and beyond; and has incorporated it into its comprehensive training policy.

Master Resilience Training (MRT) in the US Army: PowerPoint & Interview

 

Chell, that is one approach to the problem with coping with the problems in life. In my humble opinion it is a good crutch for those that have thrown the baby out with the bath water and are bragging how neat and clean the nursery is now. I find it interesting that the real "experts" on grief consoling, handling life problems, etc, tend to be either very smart middle aged women or very smart men who are either in the business of religion or mental health. They wish to have both the financial rewards and the "respect" of the community for the privilege of sharing their secrets to the good life.

In the past we had the support network of both the extended family and the faith in religion and these ways of coping were part of your every day life. The key note speaker in the first video explains how the crisis of losing her daughter changed her whole life. I am certain it did, but up until some time in the late 1800's, the average American family expected to lose half their children before they reached the age of 20 and to die before the age of 60. We have became a society that expects to have its safe spaces and to be told that it is OK to do this or that. The wisdom of our elders, who have been thru this many times before and over many generations has been thrown out as superstitions and meaningless religious faith and out dated concepts. Instead we are all supposed to study at the feet of those who have found the "real" truth and somehow that will allow us to cope with the worlds real problems.
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We now have a military that has to hire grief experts and do studies on why we have so much PTSD in our new soldiers who have no faith in anything. That is a slight change from the old custom of carrying a special knife to be used to give you the comfort of death if you were injured and were going to die a horrible death in a few hours or days. But then they also had the concept, right or wrong depending on the modern views of life, that they were going to a better place and that this life that we now know is fleeting at best.

While a true faith in something beyond science may be false, it can be very comforting, and if you don't find that comfort in faith, then you have to try to find some other "rational" belief system. If the system they supply works for you, use it as it really is, a crutch to get you thru some of life's problems and still maintain your sanity and a joy of life. How ever I find my system, based on faith, works for me, and at 83 years of age and with cancer, I am not really looking for a new system at the moment. The old story, truth is a shattered mirror strown and each believes the piece he owns to be the whole mirror is now being used to justify that belief and reject the truth that each of us may in fact hold our own truth.

Interesting that the attempts to change the nature of MAN, going back to at least the dawn of civilization and making them part of your tribe, still continues. Christian, Moslem, Communist, the French attempts for a rational society in the 1700's, the Sun God in Egypt, the woke culture in the US educational system and its new love of socialism, why do we think that there is any final solution beyond that use by all the great dictators in the past, kill or absorb anyone that disagrees with you. But we now have a leadership that thinks that with the new snake oil made from genetically modified snakes, they can solve all the worlds problems.

 

The thing is @duane, the observations about resilient people made in the TEDx address, and in the referenced articles that I have added to the OP, generally hold true, regardless of whether or not those people also have 'true faith ™". It does not follow that a commitment to a particular religious / spiritual faith will necessarily make one more resilient: much depends upon what particular faith practices and beliefs one holds and enacts.

I don't propose to critique your response to the OP in detail...at least not in this thread. As you have raised a number of issues tangential to the thread topic, and though as interesting as they may be, they are arguably better discussed in a different forum thread, perhaps in the Politics, or Faith and Religion Forums.

 

What we now call resilient used to called coping with life. In our modern life we are spared a lot of lessons that were all to common to most people in the past at an early age, birth, death, the processes in which animals are transformed into food, sickness, hunger,, war, racial frictions or in many cases actual use of other races as slaves or destroying their culture and language.

I am 83, in our one room schoolhouse in 1949, 2 out 16 got polio, one walked with braces and crutches all his life, the other spent the rest of her life in an iron lung. My grand father died in the bed room while I was in the living room and I thus was exposed to the "death rattle" and the need to clean up afterwards. We visited people at home who were dying, they were not isolated to a hospital or a nursing home and an attempt was made to allow them to have last visits with friends and family.

The real question in being able to handle the normal flow of life has now for what ever reason become one of being lead by experts and using some external teaching tools to handle things. I don't know, with the extent of the drug crisis, PTSD, the apparent inability of couples to establish life long relationships and raise a family, criminal behavior and other rejections of cultural norms, we may well need to try to establish some form of coping that the new "modern" person can use to get thru life's problems. Don't mean to belittle their comments nor to state that it is not usable, just isn't my cup of tea.

 

Our parents teach us how to handle things. IMO.
Dad was born in 1916 a stepson among many of a farmer in Wisconsin.
He ran away from home several times as a kid and eventually made his home as far away as possible. In the service he ran the crash truck at Cold bay Alaska and been through many skirmishes during that stay.
After the service, he worked a fire truck and ambulance/herse several years in the company of death every day. So when His third son passed of pneumonia he was able to deal with it and provide mother with the support she needed.
When their second son died having been hit by a car, again they dealt with it and several other deaths in the family and friends through the years, these events taught me how to deal and though there is pain it shouldn't be wallowed in, but like deep snow worked through for as long as it takes, No life is permanent, nor do all things remain the same forever. You adjust.
Change is "The Constant" in the universe.
We have seen the result of people that take one event and make it the focal point of their lives, and literally destroy their own future for this pity party. The mother that over reacts to a lightning storm teaches her kids this fear as well. It is not healthy. I have been in lightning less than 100' away. I respect it, but am not terrified by it.
How are you going to deal with death when it is all around you as in a war that apparently may occur in our lifetime here in this country? Most of us have not seen a domestic war, but it's possible. The thought of war is repulsive to me, never the less it is a reality I am forced to think about.
Hiding one's head in the sand does not make it better.