Do you consider yourself a badass? When you get knocked down, do you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again? Or at least, try to?

Resilient people, A.K.A. badasses who take adversity in stride and carry on, tend to lead the pack when it comes to living long, awesome lives. I love this, because I’ve recently been challenged by a series of stressful events that had me looking up from the bottom of the well wondering, “What the Hell just happened?”

So, I had a closer look at the recent science on the concept of resiliency and just what makes a person resilient.

These are challenging times. If you’re struggling with illness, job loss, or family stress - or any number of negative events that seem to be bombarding us in 2020 - and find yourself on a slippery slope or at the bottom of a well like I was, take heart! Whatever it is, it isn’t permanent and there is much you can do to get back to your badass self. 

Let’s dive in!

What is Resilience?

Resilience - (n.) The ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.

- Miriam Webster Dictionary

“...we define resilience as the ability to withstand, recover, and grow in the face of stressors and changing demands.” - Duester & Silverman            

It’s the capacity to bounce back from adversity. That adversity may come in the form of a physical illness or injury or an emotional trauma, such as the loss of a loved one, divorce or being uprooted by a move. Sometimes, everything seems to go wrong at the same time, challenging even those of us who considered ourselves hardy! 

We are no strangers to adversity in 2020! I don’t have to list the many stressors we’re all living with - the pandemic, losses of lives and of jobs, the uncertainty, the recent US election...as well as our individual circumstances added into the mix.

How are you doing? Are you able to stay optimistic that we’ll get through this and be better for it? Or do you find yourself awash in a sea of doom and gloom? 

How well we handle major life stressors, survive them, learn from them, and thrive after affects our ability to live a long and happy, healthy life. The more resilient you are, the more flexible and able to bounce back and learn from your experiences, the more likely you are to stay vibrant and enjoy healthy longevity.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.  

- Freidrich Nietzsche

Resilient people have been shown to live better, longer

Longevity and resilience are closely related concepts. A 2010 study found that centenarians - people who live into their 100’s around the world - share characteristics such as a robust personality, preserved cognitive functioning (the ability to think, reason and problem-solve), social support and perceived economic status, and that these characteristics are important components to maintaining a good quality of life in later years. 

Specific dimensions of successful longevity (staying vibrant) are physical, emotional and brain health as well as one’s family history of longevity, support systems, coping, personality, and lifestyles. Multiple factors contribute to longevity and resilience; there is no magic bullet here. 

But take heart! Women are wired for resilience and are the “champion survivors”  in all age ranges in the papers reviewed in this study. 

A separate, more recent study reiterated that women live longer than men when faced with famine, epidemics (take note!), and other threats. 

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

- Kahlil Gibran

What makes someone resilient?

These characteristics were present in the resilient populations studied:

A robust personality and good coping behaviours  - in other words, a can-do attitude and a positive, optimistic mindset. Studies describe tenaciousness, shrewdness (ability to problem-solve) and “low levels of neuroticism,” as well as an openness to change, implying flexibility. 

Preserved cognitive functioning - simply means keeping our marbles for as long as we are alive - being able to think, reason, remember, calculate, gather information and make good decisions.

Social support - is pretty much self-explanatory: friends, family, and government resources, an active social life and a feeling of connectedness. 

Economic resources - this is a biggie for many women over 50 as we face our retirement years. Satisfaction with finances is a major contributor to healthy longevity, and if we truly want to stay vibrant forever - money, wealth and abundance must enter the discussion.

Physical fitness - As most of you know, I’m a big fan of exercise and physical fitness. Studies of the effects of fitness on physical and emotional resilience, often done by the military, have shown that physical fitness helps us withstand stressful events, optimizes both physical and emotional well-being, protects against chronic disease, and serves as a buffer against stress-related disorders.

True physical fitness implies work in three main areas: aerobic endurance, muscular strength and power, and flexibility/agility. It’s much more than walking the dog every morning.

Lifting heavy things is an important part of physical fitness and a key element of the Primal Blueprint program, which you’ll know if you follow me is the basis for my own lifestyle.

Benefits of strength training for women over 50 include building muscle, enhancing bone density, recharging metabolism, reducing fat, boosting mental health and outlook, and improving positive measures of aging and longevity. 

Plus, it makes you feel like a badass...and badasses are, as you know by now, resilient!

Spirituality - Spirituality implies faith. I believe faith is extremely important to the concept of resilience. Faith in the goodness of people and things, faith that things will be okay. Whatever you believe is your Higher Power, faith that it has your back is, for me, an underpinning factor in resilience and the ability to bounce back. 

Mark Sisson, founder of the Primal Blueprint movement, writes that genuine resilience demands a deep level of acceptance. I consider this another aspect of spirituality. Acceptance as opposed to resistance is Grace. It implies a sense of trust that things are going to plan, and you are able to breathe, relax, let go, and accept.

According to a 2017 study published by Cambridge University Press on healthy aging and resilience, high functioning across all domains of life, physical, social, and psychological define the modern resilient person. 

The Primal Blueprint, lays out a perfect program for optimizing resilience. This blueprint for living was developed from research on the ways our genes have evolved to thrive, and it brings together all of the above components of resilience. 

But sometimes, despite our best efforts, our resilience can hit a breaking point.

My recent resiliency challenge

Over the past few months, I’ve been knocked completely off the rails by overwhelming stress. I retired from a 20 year medical practice at the end of August, which necessitated a move from my island home of Bermuda to my adopted home - France. And I was taking my much loved, very spoiled and totally helicoptered cat with me.

COVID added a whole other dimension to the stress - as the “second wave” was ramping up in Europe over the summer, and I kept a nervous eye on what was happening in the UK and at the French border. 

At the same time, hurricane season came in with a bang, and as the storms lined up to our south, my grip on the situation was fast dissolving.

It had been a long time since I’d felt this kind of stress in my body, and for such a protracted period of time. Night after night, I would wake up after two hours of fitful sleep with my heart pounding and a nauseating feeling of dread in my gut, and that was it for the night. No more sleep for me.

I was terrified that I wouldn’t be ready in time to leave, that the cat wouldn’t survive the trip, that the numbers of new cases of COVID, climbing daily in Europe and the UK, would cause the governments of France and Britain to slam their borders shut again. And the hurricanes…

I lost a lot of sleep. I lost a lot of weight and not in a good way.  I’m supposed to be a health coach, and I was losing my grip on my own health. This physician could not heal herself.

Here’s a snippet of what was going on in my head over those summer months…

“OMG, I’m retiring from 40 years in healthcare.”

“OMG, I won’t have a pay check.”

“OMG, I’m leaving Bermuda.”

“OMG, I have to pack and empty this house in just a few weeks.”

“OMG, I have to get this application for a French visa completed now.”

“OMG, I have to travel to New York to submit it, but I can’t because the French Embassy is closed because of the pandemic.”

“OMG, I might not be able to get into France, at all.”

“OMG, the cat needs so much paperwork to travel!.”

“OMG, I have to take him on a 7 hour flight - in the cargo hold!"

“OMG, it might kill him.”

“OMG, there’s a hurricane coming, a direct hit.”

“OMG, there’s ANOTHER hurricane coming and we’re booked to fly the day after.”

“OMG, my flight was cancelled once, then rebooked, then delayed a further 24 hours.”

“OMG, the cat’s sick...he’s super stressed (cystitis) and might not be allowed to fly.”

“OMG, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in 6 weeks, and we all know how BAD that is for us.”

“OMG, I’m completely falling apart! I'm a nervous wreck and lousy role model for the Primal Blueprint and vibrant aging right now. I’m such a fraud.”

“OMG,  is happening to me???”

If you’re interested in the back story, check out the details here. It’s a bit of a saga...so grab a cup of tea or save it for later when you have time to chill out and read. 

“She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails.”       - Elizabeth Edwards

Cut to November 10, 2020. We’ve been in our village home on this mountainside in Provence for just over a month. We survived the journey and all the pitfalls and challenges, and tah-dah … we’re both bouncing back!

Lots of good food, hiking, resting, sleeping (YES!), meditating, reading inspiring works, getting back into the Primal Health Coaching program, working with my own coach, and being in touch with family, friends and colleagues (thanks to the Internet) has helped in every way. 

You probably know that France went back into le confinement (lockdown) on Thursday, October 29. We just made it! I can still shop for food, work on my blog and studies, and hike for an hour a day on the trails right outside my door, so all is well. 

I’m grateful to be here, to be in my own home, and have a healthy, happy cat getting used to the French village life. (Lockdown doesn’t seem to be concerning him too much!)

This too shall pass, and fingers crossed it will have the desired effect on the rates of COVID transmission, illness and deaths. 

How resilient are you?

Testing your own resilience may be a bit of a challenge. I have not found a comprehensive test that checks all of the parameters of resilience.

If you’re strong in all of the resiliency components listed above, and you’ve bounced back from major struggles in the past AND you’re a feisty badass…well, you’re probably good to go!

If there are gaps in your program, then you have a nice starting point for resiliency work that may need to be done.

Use the following categories as a self-assessment of your ability to bounce back, then combine it with your intimate knowledge of your personality and past history with life’s struggles:

Physical resilience

We aren’t the best judges of our own fitness level. You might think you’re fighting fit because you walk the dog every day, but that’s not necessarily the case. It would be best to work with a personal trainer who can assess your strength, endurance, and flexibility and give you honest advice on areas that need work.

I asked my trainer, Ross Caesar (@ross_caesar), how he would assess someone’s resilience based on their physical fitness. He suggested that it’s not so much the endurance someone has for any one particular activity that results in resilience. Because the human body is an adaptive organism, it quickly adapts to repetitive activities, and they are then no longer a stressor. 

To become adept at adapting, it’s best to have surprises thrown at you from time to time. That’s what makes us resilient. And that’s why it’s advisable to work with a trainer or take a class that changes up your routine from session to session.

Nothing hones resilience like having to adapt to change on the fly!

Immune resilience

Here are some of the questions you might ask yourself as a test of your immune function:

How do you rate your ability to fight infection and disease? Do you enjoy good energy? Do you get frequent infections? Do you heal quickly? Do you catch everything on the go? Do you get enough restorative sleep? Do you have pain, stiffness, headaches, brain fog, chronic fatigue? Allergies and rashes? Do you suffer from digestive problems, reflux or constipation? Have you been diagnosed with a chronic disease, especially an autoimmune disorder? Are you taking regular medications? Do you smoke, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or use street drugs?

If you have problems or concerns about your immune system, please discuss them with your primary care physician or provider.

Emotional resilience

Here’s a quick test of emotional resilience that I found quite helpful.

Financial Resilience

This is an area that we, as badass women over 50, must have a really good handle on at this time in our lives.

Do you know exactly how much income you have on a monthly basis? Exactly what your expenses are? Is your book-keeping up to date, check book balanced, credit card paid off? Do you have a comfortable ‘cushion’ account to take care of...you got it!...surprises. Remember, to be resilient, we have to be able to handle unforeseen events, and that counts for our financial health, too. 

Resilience - like everything in life - is a fluid concept.

Depending on our stress levels and how we react, our ability to bounce back may wax and wane. There will be times in our lives when we cope better than others, for myriad reasons.

But take heart! Resilience can be learned and strengthened! We can make a practice of working on it on a continuing basis, to hone and optimize it so it’s there when we need it most.

“Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.” 

– Joseph Campbell

SO? How do we optimize our resilience? 

In my next post, I’ll lay out a plan for maximizing resilience and detail the personal strategies I’ve used to successfully overcome the extreme stress of retirement combined with an international move in hurricane season during a pandemic with a sick cat.

In the meantime, consider your own resilience based on your personal history and your score on the short test. How resilient are YOU?

Watch this space and I’ll talk to you soon!

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Cover photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann at Unsplash