How to cultivate resilience and get through tough times (with Lucy Hone) (re-release)
Dec 23, 2024
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Dr. Lucy Hone, a resilience researcher and co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, shares her powerful journey after the tragic loss of her daughter. She discusses the essential role of community support in overcoming challenges and the importance of confronting grief openly. Hone emphasizes resilience as a learning process through adversity, encouraging the integration of personal storytelling in healing. With practical strategies for acceptance and reflection, she illustrates how connections with loved ones can aid in cultivating resilience.
Resilience is a dynamic process that can be cultivated through intentional practices and conscious choices to adapt and recover from adversity.
Open discussions about grief help foster healing, allowing individuals to simultaneously honor lost loved ones while continuing to live their lives.
Deep dives
Understanding Resilience
Resilience is defined as the ability of individuals or organizations to adapt and recover from adversity while continuing to function reasonably well. It involves not just enduring hardship, but also learning and growing from it. This perspective shifts the understanding of resilience from a fixed trait to a process that can be cultivated through intentional practices and choices. By acknowledging that suffering is an inevitable part of life, individuals can better prepare themselves for the challenges they will inevitably face.
Coping with Grief and Loss
The experience of grief can be overwhelming, yet it is vital to recognize that one can simultaneously grieve and live their life. Conversations around grief often become uncomfortable, but openly discussing loss fosters healing and connection. Moreover, engaging in meaningful activities that honor lost loved ones helps integrate their memory into daily life, allowing for the construction of a new narrative that includes the deceased. Establishing ongoing relationships with those who have passed can provide comfort and a sense of purpose in navigating life after loss.
Practical Strategies for Resilience
Resilient individuals adopt practical approaches to manage challenges, including evaluating whether their actions and thoughts help or hinder their well-being. Questions like 'Is what I am doing helping or harming me?' encourage reflective decision-making and self-care. This active engagement allows individuals to take control of their reactions to challenges while fostering a supportive environment for their mental health. It emphasizes that resilience can be strengthened through a series of conscious choices and supportive relationships.
Cultural Context and Adaptation
The impact of cultural background and community support plays a crucial role in cultivating resilience. When individuals face trauma, factors such as their social environment can significantly influence their ability to cope and recover. In addressing grief or loss, creating spaces for dialogue and support within diverse communities enhances collective resilience. Continuous learning about cultural competencies, especially regarding indigenous practices, fosters understanding and adaptation in participants' approaches to personal and communal challenges.
Life can throw curveballs that you feel wholly unprepared for-- just ask Dr. Lucy Hone, a resilience researcher, who tragically lost her 12-year-old daughter in a road accident. While all of us may experience tragedy in our lives, not everyone knows how to manage it. In this episode, Dr. Hone shares the strategies that got her through unimaginable adversity and—in doing so—helped her find meaning through loss. Co-director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, Hone's research is published internationally and her PhD was acknowledged for its outstanding contribution to wellbeing science at the World Congress of Positive Psychology in 2019. Her grief work now encompasses the best-selling book, Resilient Grieving, alongside other engaging online content.