The R word Rewriting the misconceptions of Resilience

Caroline Thain

Good afternoon everyone, my name is Caroline Thain and I'm the acting Clinical Manager of headspace schools and communities. Today I have the pleasure and absolute privilege to be talking to you about resilience, and more specifically we're going to be rewriting some misconceptions of this word and finding helpful ways to talk re-conceptualize that ‘R’ word that we've heard so much about - particularly since the global pandemic.

Before we begin, I’d like to start with an Acknowledgement of Country. I come to you today from the Lands of the Kulin Nation and I Acknowledge the Wurundjeri People as the First People on this Land. I pay my deep respect and give thanks to their ongoing care of our land, waterways, and skies. I pay my respect to those Elders both past, present, and those future leaders. I also pay my deep respect to those First Nations People who are dialling in and watching this presentation today. I encourage you all to write in the chat box what Lands you are joining us from today. And whilst I’m on the Kulin Nation I also want to Acknowledge the Lands I was born on. I was born and raised on Lands of the Stony Creek Nation in Launceston Lutruwita Tasmania and not only was I born on those Lands I continue to work from those Lands and raise my own family.

So today we're going to be looking at language - these are the things were going to cover today - we're going to start with language. We’ll discuss how our perceptions of words can impact upon our understanding and how we engage with them. And in this discussion, we’ll come back to remembering what resilience actually is by discussing its definition. And then I'm going to introduce you to an occupational therapy model; as an occupational therapist I found it really helpful in re-conceptualizing resilience. And we’ll finish off the session by really thinking about practical ways we build resilience in our communities and for ourselves. Before we move on to the next slide I do want to acknowledge that I'm a parent, and I have children at home and some of the most important people in their lives outside, of our immediate family, are educators - and I want to first of all say thank you for everything that you all do on a day-to-day job, but also I want to acknowledge that there will be a lot of experience and knowledge sitting with you, wherever you’re dialling in from today, and I really encourage you to participate and lean into this session. And certainly, although I'm here talking to you about resilience, you all have so much knowledge and I'd love you to participate as much as you can in the chat box and in the other functionality today.

So, what is resilience? And before we dive into the formal definition it's worth us thinking about how our brains respond to words and how this can actually impact on our working definition of a word like resilience. It's really normal for a brains to judge quickly, and not just situations but also how we respond to words that others use. I think when life is so fast paced, we often don’t have a chance to stop and think about how we are judging words as so not just situations and potentially people, and relationships but actually how we engage with words like resilience. So, when we judge things quickly, we box them into categories in our minds and it frees up space for us to concentrate on other things. But sometimes our quick judgements can be unhelpful and can affect how we respond to circumstances that are often more reactive than responsive. So, for example when I was writing this presentation I was thinking about what words I probably engage with in an unhelpful way, and one of the words that popped up for me was the word ‘journey’. And I sometimes find, full disclosure, that when people talk about the word journey I can have a bit of an irritation with that word and actually I have to be really careful because sometimes it can be distracting and it can flood me with lots and lots of thoughts that are that are particularly unhelpful and stop my focus on what's happening for me in the present moment.

So, let's do a little experiment: what I want you to do for the next 30 seconds is I want you to enter into the word cloud all the words that your brain associates with the word ‘resilience’. The words don't need to make sense by the way, it's just a free flow of words that pop-up when you say the word ‘resilience’ to yourself. So, for example, when I was first learning about this technique, it actually comes from acceptance and commitment therapy which is a psychological framework, it actually helps us to slow down as I said before and actually step back from words and language and allows us to realise what our brain is doing. When I first did this, I did it with the word ‘milk’, which I know might sound a bit strange. And I had, I did the exercise and I actually wrote down all the words that popped up when I said that word and so for example I had the word ‘farm’, ‘Carrick’, ‘David’, ‘Ute’, ‘hay’, ‘birthdays’, ‘cake’, ‘ice cream maker’ - I had a whole flood of things so it's really interesting to do, and I think it's really helpful because it allows us to pull up the narratives and the associations we have with particular words. So I'm hoping that you can all use that word cloud and start to fill it with the words that pop up for you when you hear the word ‘resilience’. So, let's give it a go.

I am also happy for you to pop in any words that pop up for you and you can pop it into the chat box if the word cloud’s not working for you. So, we can see here we've got all sorts of things, we’ve got: ‘bouncing back’, ah what else have we got there? ‘Giving anything a go’. It was interesting, I did this exercise with my two kids at home, I have a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old, and my 12-year-old had lots of words like ‘mountain’, ‘rock’, ‘strength’, ‘road’ he had all sorts of things, and my daughter had other things associated with her dancing I think. So, you've got ‘strength’, ‘coping’, ‘grit’, ‘bouncing back’, ‘coping’, ‘managing’, ‘strength’, lots of ‘bouncing back’ - I think that's a really interesting word, I think we've heard it quite a lot. I actually was listening to a podcast just recently about the word bouncing back and this particular lady was talking about how she didn't like the ‘bounce back’ part of it because it implied that when you go through something you're going back to where you were. And she was talking about how she likes the idea of actually, when you go through hardship that you're actually moving forward, and she was talking about how her association with bouncing back wasn't a positive one and she was using a slightly different definition which was interesting. So thank you for participating in that.

As we can see, as humans we have different stories from our past and present that can drive those layers and perceptions that we place onto our words. So our stories are like books in our minds that can play out sometimes with or without our conscious awareness. And if we think about words, really what they are: are letters joined together to form words, but it's actually the meaning we place over the top of them that drive how we respond to them. And I think a lot of people through our global pandemic actually had some really negative associations with the word ‘resilience’ and I think it's because we lost in lots of ways our understanding of what that word really means.

So now we've got a bit of an idea about what we’re talking about today, so resilience as I said earlier is actually quite broad but what I'm talking about today is more of a psychological resilience and that's what I'm referring to today. And I just want to be aware that as we've just done that exercise you might have some old stories that pop up when I say the ‘R’ word and it's not about changing those stories that you associate with the word resilience but it's about bringing them into your conscious awareness, which can be helpful. So, there are many definitions of resilience and it goes without saying that since, as I said the global pandemic, it's a word that we've heard many, many times a day and it’s certainly impacted on my engagement of the word. What I will say is that it's just incredibly important that you find a definition that works for you and helps you to engage in the concept because we know it is incredibly important in our learning communities and for ourselves. So, generally speaking, resiliency describes our ability to cope with difficult situations. The degree to which a person may be resilient varies greatly depending on their unique circumstance including the environment they're in and the challenges they're facing. We'll unpack that a little bit further when we discuss that particular occupational therapy model, the Person-Environment-Occupation model, or the ‘PEO’ model a little bit later. The first two definitions you can see on that slide refer to resilience as part of a person's capacity to cope and the third one is still from an individual's perspective but it acknowledges the environment and community responsibility in feeling resilient; which is what I really like. It speaks to a more holistic way of thinking about resilience.

So now I want to talk about ‘how’, now we’ve got a bit of an idea about what resilience is and what I'm referring to. I want to talk about how I've heard it used more unhelpfully and the reason I want to do that is I think it has impacted on some people's working definition and how they actually engage in the word. So firstly, for a while they're I felt like resilience was used as a catch cry in the media to be honest. I felt like it was talked about as if it was going to solve all our mental health problems. I felt like I heard it everywhere and I felt like a lot of people were saying it like, “just build resilience and you'll be fine” and in that messaging for me, I felt like it was quite dismissive and it didn't feel particularly validating of enduring hardships. And I certainly understand that those messages build hope and resilience and reassurance and often in some of those media articles they would also talk about real practical strategies of how to build resilience. The reality is that building resilience in our communities and at individual level is of course important, but like that old hair commercial, and I know I might be showing my age, but it doesn't happen overnight. And actually it's really complicated and it's tricky and has multiple parts and systems and that you can build resilience up and you can tear it down. And I think it's certainly more helpful to acknowledge that you can feel resilient and be resilient but still experience stress. And finally that resiliency can be part of the solution but it's not the whole solution.

The other things that I also heard used and continue to hear used is that resilience is used to describe someone's character and personality as though it's a static state that we can't work on, or that it can't be influenced by other environmental or variables. And I just wonder how often have you heard someone say, “that person over there they're not resilient”, “that person is not a resilient person” and the problem I have with that statement is there's nowhere for growth in that sentence, and I just hear blame. And in those moments it's painted as a static trait that can't be improved on and I think the truth is that we can actually help foster and grow a person's resilience, and we’ll unpack that a little bit more when we talk about that PEO model that I was referring to earlier.

And we also all have varying times where we can feel more or less resilient in our lives. And it's quite dependant on a multitude of other variables not just our own intrinsic state. Unfortunately, another common misuse of the word is to think about resilience as something where somebody doesn't feel emotional discomfort. So, resilience in this way would mean that one does not feel emotional pain: not anxiety, not fear, not sadness - no uncomfortable emotion. But again we know that resilience is how we manage those things and those experiences and, and of course all those feelings that I mentioned before are not necessarily good or bad but they are part of being a human being. If you have ever heard someone say, “gosh that person is so resilient”, I'd love you to be more curious about that and to actually think “Oh I wonder why they're saying that?” Because sometimes we use that when we see somebody who is not overtly emotional and I've definitely seen it used in children where someone will say, “Oh that child is so resilient, look at them, look how strong are”. And actually it's really unhelpful because it's often been used, in my experience, when a child might not be overly emotional in a really tough circumstance. And so along this same misconception is the idea that if one can harness resilience that they won't ever experience hardship or trauma in anyway because they're resilient. And as we mentioned earlier again we know that actually stress or trauma and resilience can and do co-occur.

So I wanted to introduce you today to a model that I love, I trained as an occupational therapist at Latrobe University in Melbourne many moons ago and I've held many roles since then but this is a model that's really stayed with me and so I just wanted to briefly touch on what occupational therapy is and talk to you about this particular model and the way that I use it to conceptualize resilience.

So many of you will know that occupational therapists are allied health professionals who support people of all abilities across their lifespan to engage in occupations they find meaningful. We defined occupations in three categories, so: leisure, self-care, and productivity. And an occupation is anything that occupies your time, from personal care things like showering and eating, through to play, through to engaging in your profession or your hobbies.

I think occupational therapists, if there are any that are tuned in, will understand that sometimes our title’s a little bit misleading, people think that as occupational therapists we just talk about professional occupations, but a more helpful definition is to remember that an occupation is anything that occupies your time. So occupational performance which is talked about in the model is your ability to choose, organise, and satisfactorily perform or complete an occupational activity. The PEO model is a model that emphasises occupational performance as being shaped by the interaction, as it suggests, between person, environment, and occupation - so let's take a closer look.

So occupational therapists, as I said before, work with people across the lifespan. And this model looks at occupational performance as being shaped by these three interactions: person, environment, and occupation. And it talks about how these three circles, or these three domains, how they fit to actually improve what we do. Or I sometimes think of occupational performance as ‘getting things done’, so it talks about different factors in those three domains as influencing our ability to actually get things done.

So, when we think about each domain, one by one, which we’re going to do now, if we think about ‘person’ this is often where we see resilience being discussed. Because if we think about what a person actually is, of course, as a human being we have qualities, attributes, abilities, and skills which allow us to partake in many roles. And of course a person is ever-changing developmentally, and interacts with the environment to be able to perform those occupations; but in this domain, this is often where we see resilience being discussed. As something that is intrinsic to a person and I think the issue we have is that often people think about resilience as if only sitting in this one domain.

Of course, when we look at environment in this model, environment is made up of the physical, social, cultural, institutional and socio-economic domains. And this model was developed by Mary Law in 1996 which I didn't mention earlier, and environment is actually quite broad. So it's not just the physical classroom or home, we also think about those other parts which is who are the other people in our environment which make up those social contexts? And also we look at those institutional things such as the school environment and our learning environment.

Our occupation of course, an occupation is a group of activities or tasks that are meaningful and purposeful to the person and meet their needs. So, occupations are essential for living and are considered to be a person's needs within their roles and environment. So, when we sort of breakdown an occupation we, as an OT, I look at things like: routine, the frequency and duration of tasks, flexibility, variety and of course meaning. Occupational therapists often talk about how it's a human right to be engaged in meaningful occupation. So, as I said to you earlier, each domain is actually dependant on one another. So, when we think about getting things done we think about what all those variables are in all of those three domains. And if we consider resilience as a personal quality in isolation it's actually really unhelpful and I think that's where, as I said before, that idea that a person's, an individual's, resilience just sits with them that's often when we get that unhelpful definition which becomes and can sound like blame.

So, to build resilience and improve occupational performance we surely must consider all parts of this circle and not just an individual person's quality, skills, and abilities. So how do we build resilience in our learning communities? Now we have a more helpful lens I think to conceptualize resilience, I want us to think about how we build resilience in our communities. So I've used the PEO model to just use some examples of how we build resilience in our communities, remembering that these three domains overlap so you'll see in those columns that the things I put in there actually intersect with one another and they're not static columns. So there are many things in your learning communities that you do already to promote and encourage resilience in your young people, in your children, and in your staff and here are just a few examples on the slide. And if you’ve got an example of the things your learning community do already to build resilience, and you'd like to share, please put it in the chat box.

So and I think it's really helpful when we think about personal attributes, I know there's a lot of research about resilience and about how if we can foster gratitude, compassion, empathy, self-regulation - they're all personal attributes that we know actually build and work towards a person's resilience and being more resilient. Then again, if we think about those qualities they are very much quite, um, just sitting in that one domain - in that personal domain. And I think it's important to lean into environment and to occupations themselves and think about what is it that we're doing in our environment, what are we doing in our lives that actually help build those personal qualities. So that's why I think it's really helpful to think about particularly environment and occupations as also having a huge role in building our communities’ resilience.

In this slide we’re really talking about how you contribute to setting up and laying the foundation for others - that's what we were talking about in our last slide. So we missed one though, if you can't -you can't pour from an empty cup and you certainly can't give what you don't have. So while I was just focusing before about building resilience in your community and in your learning communities, it's so important that we think about building resilience in ourselves. And I know we just had a really fantastic panel on talking about self-care and we know that actually self-care can help build resilience.

And what I want to say, this slide might look a little bit funny but we're all little bit different. Um, and I think we all need different things in our self-care that build our resilience and it's really important that we identify what are our taps - what fill us up? We all have different names and I think sometimes we can get quite judgemental with each other when we think about our needs and we compare our needs with each other. And I think what is more helpful is if you think about accepting the things, and the strengths that you have and working out where your taps need to be. So for example how do you build resilience in the occupations that you do? What helps in your environment to build your resilience? What are the personal skills or qualities that you have and call upon that actually help build your resilience? An example for me is that I am very aware that I'm a talker – I’m really, really verbal and I know that is just something that comes quite innately to me so I know that that is a strength I have. And it actually - I've used it to actually build my resilience through processing difficult things for me. So that is also through, I do that through supervision but I also have colleagues that I know that I can talk to and help - it helps me process the things in my day-to-day life that I really need to get out. But I am also acutely aware that is not for everybody, so it's just an example of understanding that we're all different and it's really important that you stop to think about what are your strengths and what are your needs as a person and how can you harness those things to actually build resilience? And as I said before we had that lovely talk, panel talk before about self-care and I think all those things build into our occupational domain and what are the things that we do that actually help us with our self-care, that actually build our resilience. And again, feel free to use the chat box to pop in there what are the things that you do, that you know, help with your resilience.

So, knowing what fills you up and builds your resilience is of course helpful but filling your cup up before you’re dry is incredibly important. So, if you use an analogy of a car: if you run out of petrol on the highway then it's and you need to sort of call people and you totally conk out it's actually going to stop you in your tracks and it’s actually going to take you a long time to get back on the road. So, it's actually really, really important if you know when to fill up. If you learn how to read a petrol light, for example, so it's like tuning into yourself and knowing actually I need- my cup is running out I'm nearly dry I need to stop, I need to do some things that actually build my resilience.

So, I really like that idea of your petrol light or your battery, I’ve hear people use that phone battery as an idea around you know, ‘what percentage of battery are you on?’ I mean whatever metaphor you use, I think it's really helpful to understand that none of us want to get to the point where we’re really burnt out and our resilience is low and depleted and it's so, so important that we understand where our warning signs are. I certainly have found that it's helpful for me to understand that in my life there are certain things in my environment, in that environmental domain that I find more frustrating when I am running low. Things like, it might sound ridiculous, if I see a wet towel in my house that is on the floor and I am acutely irritated by that, I know that's my warning sign that I am running low. It's often, I think those things in our environment that can be our warning signs because sometimes it can be tricky to tune in and think about how we’re feeling and so often it can be those externalising things that actually allow us to realise - they're a bit like our, our thermostat or like a temperature check to know how we’re travelling.

So, I think you know whatever you warning signs are try and actually articulate them to yourself or to the people you live with because that can be a really helpful way as a little bit of a like red light on your dashboard that you might need some things to actually top you up. So, for me of course in my role supervision is, is really, really important and I know that if I've got some of those red flags for me supervision is also another example of how I can build my resilience and top up my cup.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with a little bit of a call to action. I'd love you all to think about what you're doing well in your community and what you might need to improve on for yourself or your learning community in order to improve your resilience. And I’d really love you to think a bit more about your relationship with that word ‘resilience’ and actually stop and slow down and think about what it actually is, what definition works for you, and perhaps what are some stories that are unhelpful that you need to bring into your conscious awareness, and hold a little bite more lightly.

I’d like you to do those things and, and also I would just like to acknowledge that - remind yourself that you have so much knowledge already and we all have experience with resilience. We’ve all been through a global pandemic and as educators you call upon resilience in your day-to-day work and I would like to just say thank you very, very much for listening and thank you for your patience in understanding that our streaming went on and off for a little bit there, and I really hope you enjoy the rest of the conference. Thank you.

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