Perhaps you have heard of resilience...which is increasingly being discussed in psychological circles, but comes from physics...as in the ability of a metal to bounce back to its original shape after it has been bent or put under a heavy load. The concept of resilience in people is that it is an internal process in which an individual is able to adapt positively to particularly adverse circumstances and be able to cope with stress.

People who have a strong resilience tend to have strong positive concepts and optimism. In fact, per Colman's rant, I'd say our survival is a matter of having resilience...

Here's a piece of an article I wrote that was published in the ,,International Platform on Sports and Development" in January of this year on resilience and kids. But it is just as applicable for adults too.

Trauma, Sport & Resilience

Based on the findings of various research endeavours, four key protective factors which serve to support and promote resilience in all youth have been discerned. These are:

1. the presence of healthy, supportive relationships between adults and youth;
   
2. healthy peer to peer relationships;
   
3. the ability of youth to develop and utilize internal and external problem-solving strategies, in order to affectively mediate adversity (including developing cognitive skills and understandings in order to better deal with stressful and uncertain situations); and
   
4. healthy involvement with and commitment to a broader community, which includes the encouragement to contribute to the common good of that community.

The existence of these over-arching protective factors are believed to help shield youth from such risk factors as trauma or severe stress experienced in catastrophes, as well as to help them "bounce back" after such experiences.

Maybe I should do a diary on this at some point...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia