Resilience Building: Lessons Learned from Master Resiliency Training and Positive Psychology

Shoba Sreenivasan, Ph.D.



Lolly Vegas, the co-founder of the Native American rock band Redbone, said after having suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side that he was wounded but not slain. Though his left arm lay limp and he could no longer play the guitar or tour with the band, he was not slain. Instead of playing music he kept writing songs and developed a new skill: painting. His visual art was filled with the same creative energy as his music.  How did Lolly Vegas do this? Though he may not have framed it in this way, he was using the building blocks of resilience: not catastrophizing and being adaptable by channeling his creative energy in new ways.



What is resilience? Resilience is often defined as the ability to bounce back from stress or traumatic events.   In 2009 the U.S. Army launched the Comprehensive Soldiers Fitness (CSF) program. The goal was to reach over one million soldiers and provide them with a  “tool box” of ways to build resilience during and after adverse situations during war-zone deployments. The tools in that box came from psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman’s work in positive psychology developed in the Penn Resilience Program at the University of Pennsylvania.



Building resilience. How is resilience built? Deploying positive emotions can counteract the impact of traumatic events.  The traumatic events can trigger negative emotions such as anxiety and helplessness.  Dr. Seligman and colleagues cited research repeatedly demonstrating that building resilience required self-awareness of counterproductive thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It also required the ability to self-regulate emotions: that is, to control one’s emotions rather than be controlled by them.  These concepts drawn from CSF and the Master Resiliency program are part of the tool box to build (or re-build) resilience that can be of value in civilian life.



Resilience means re-tooling your thinking. Many of the CSF resilience skills involve promoting emotional health by becoming aware of automatic negative thoughts. Interestingly, a building block in the ability to bounce back from adversity, i.e., resilience, comes from being able to remember “signature strength” stories. These are the stories of those times when you had a “win” experience. Purposefully recalling those great stories- big or small (e.g., the time in Little League where you hit the homerun;  when you drove that elderly neighbor to their medical appointment) helps drop the negative and pivot to the positive.  These stories help build up a habit of positive self-affirmation and remind one of character strengths (i.e., the good things about you).



Resilience requires gut checks. Resilience requires self-introspection and honesty (“gut checks”).  Unconscious thinking traps may lead one to grievance thinking and grudge-holding. A gut check may involve having to go back over an experience and one’s reaction. Many times these “out of proportion” and counterproductive thoughts may be related to what Dr. Seligman and colleagues called “icebergs.”  The icebergs are the tip of a large body of deeply held negative beliefs that become obstacles to changing one’s thinking as they are deeply held. A gut check of one’s “icebergs” means an awareness of “knee-jerk” reactions that may be rooted in negative childhood experiences, e.g., that you are unwanted; therefore a friend cancelling lunch means that you are not worthy of their time.



Resilience means flexibility and adaptability. Those who are rigid in their responses and expectations have difficulty bouncing back from a stressor. Resilience building involves identifying the thinking ruts that trap you in helplessness, anger, depression, and can spiral out of out of control. These are some examples of thinking trap: “ I’ll never get well” in response to a medical illness; or “I’m too stupid for college” in response to failing a test. A gut check involves paying attention to when automatic catastrophic thinking occurs.  “Real-time” resilience is the practice of immediately recognizing the counterproductive thought and shutting it down. A three-step model offered by Dr. Seligman and colleagues: 1: capture the catastrophic thinking (i.e., identify it); 2. Identify best-case scenarios; 3. Identify most likely outcomes. This process forwards a sense of control over the circumstance and deflects helplessness.



Resilience means tolerating uncertainty. All of us like certainty; routines are comforting and forward the belief that you can control events. Yet life is full of change and the unexpected. Change is difficult; particularly so when it is driven by loss. In the military routines are structured by others. In civilian life work may be that structure. A sudden change in circumstances: discharging from military service, losing one’s job, a romantic break-up, the death of a loved one - is unsettling and creates uncertainty. Uncertainty fuels anxiety. Anxiety in turn can lead to negative thinking: “I’ll never find another job” “I’ll never get over this broken heart” “I didn’t appreciate my mother and now it’s too late.” That in turn can risk maladaptive ways to cope with the uncomfortable feelings: eating too much, drinking too much, using drugs, or withdrawing from others. Putting things in perspective is the antidote. Bouncing back means mentally reframing the event and not catastrophizing (“Everyone loses a job. I’ll get another one.”). It also means having adaptive coping mechanisms in the tool box that work for you, e.g., a friend you can talk to, exercise,  meditation, prayer.



Resilience means control over emotions. Out-of-proportion emotions (anger) may become such a habit that even small stressors trigger it (e.g., becoming furious over a long grocery checkout line).  Psychologists have found that having an internal locus of control (i.e., you can have control over your life) can promote a sense of self-efficacy; while lack an external locus of control (i.e., you don’t have control over your life) is associated with helplessness.  Those who are resilient are not felled by a negative circumstance; they find what they can control in their circumstance and orient towards it. Lolly Vegas did this by reframing his circumstance (wounded but not slain) and continued to be an artist in new ways.



Hunt the good stuff.  Ultimately, none of us are immune from bad things happening in our lives. While we can’t control external events; we can control our mindset. This journey begins one thought at a time: replacing the negative with the positive, even if you don’t feel like it.   It means adopting a policy of gratefulness reviewing all that you have: such as feeling the sunshine on your skin, the ability to walk, to think, to talk, to see- these are enormous gifts if you have them all.  Dr. Seligman and colleagues called this “hunt the good stuff” as a means to cultivate gratitude.  It also means a policy of kindness both to yourself and others: human beings are frail creatures; we are prone to mistakes; forgive yourself and others.  Then slowly, after a while, this shift in perspective will uplift you and open up all sorts of possibilities.

Reference: Reivich, K.J. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Master Resilience Training in the U.S. Army. American Psychologist, 66(1):25-34. DOI: 10.1037/a0021897