Traydio | Bristol Happiness Lectures 2009 pt 2: Resilience in a time of Recession

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Chris Johnstone wrote at 02:26:24 PM on May 31, 2009

Here's a summary of the seven strategies, which can be applied on a personal level, at the level of a community or organisation, or at a bigger picture level when facing issues like climate change and peak oil. They're described in more detail, and with examples, in the talk.

1) Remember the pearl in the oyster - pearls develop out of the oyster's response to discomfort and challenge. When we're facing hardship, hold in our minds the possibility that our response could help generate something really precious. One type of pearl is afterglow, the warm feeling of satisfaction we get after having done something we feel good about, particularly when this hasn't been easy.
Research has shown that afterglow like this is more important than pleasure in cultivating positive mood and life satisfaction. The strengths of resilience are another type of pearl - they grow through facing and responding to challenging situations. Without resilience, happiness is a fair-weather phenomenon that is only present when things are going well. Another way of finding pearls is to remember that crisis can become a turning point. If we think this way when we're in a crisis, we're more likely to look for ways we can help such a turning take place.

2) Say thank you - gratitude is a social emotion. It points us outwards towards our network of support. If we're going through a difficult time, just asking "who am I grateful to?" brings into mind those who've supported us in the past. Remembering their support can leave us feeling less alone. By thinking of them as being alongside us, we can, at least in our minds, import a collection of allies into any situation we face.

3) When it hurts, say ouch! - while gratitude builds the smile inside, if we only focus on the positive there's a danger that we blank out awareness of disturbing realities. Remaining so calm that we carry on with business as usual is not an effective survival strategy when facing threats like fire or our ecological crisis. Pain or distress grab our attention and rouse our response. Making room for the ouch! and giving ourselves permission to express it can be an important stage in become awake to disturbing realities. Painful feelings can be the call to adventure that starts the journey of our creative response. This leads into the next strategy.

4) Draw inspiration from adventure stories - adventure stories usually begin by introducing some ominous threat that seems far beyond what we can deal with. What makes the story is rising to the challenge through seeking out allies and giving it our best shot. By about chapter seven, whatever response we had planned has usually gone wrong. We will have chapter seven moments in our lives where things have gone pear shaped and seem hopeless. Seeing these times as just part of the story makes them easier to live through; the plot-line of adventure stories can also help sustain us in continuing to do what we can to bring about a turning.

5) Seek out protective factors - things going wrong is a risk factor for depression. But not everyone gets depressed during difficult times. Research into what makes the difference identifies the importance of protective factors such as emotional intelligence, problem solving abilities and relationships of support. Many of these protective factors are things we can learn to develop, and teaching resiliency skills has been shown to help reduce the risk of depression. A good way to identify the protective factors we already have is to think back to a difficult time we've got through in the past, and to identify the strengths, strategies and resources that helped us do this.

6) See ourselves as in training - with normal education, first we have the learning, then we take the test. But with resiliency training, it is often the other way round, where first we feel tested by a situation, and then afterwards we draw out the learning from this. This is a helpful frame to have when experiencing difficulty - we're going through a testing time, and this is how we learn. Resilience is a pearl that comes from this type of training; we don't get it if our lives are completely easy and without challenge.

7) Address the risk factors - while some risk factors, like family history with depression, may be beyond our power to change, there will also be some risk factors that we can address. Tackling risk factors strengthens resilience by making a problem less likely to recur, or by reducing its intensity when it does. For example, learning to change a pessimistic thinking style can reduce the risk of depression. When looking specifically at what helps us through a time of recession, a risk factor for misery is being too dependent on money. The belief that we can only be happy or secure if we have enough money increases the risk that a recession will be difficult for us. Some cultures, like that in Ladakh described in Helena Norberg Hodge's book Ancient Futures, have developed lives rich in happiness and security with very little money. They based their security much more on relationships and a community of mutual support. Reducing materialism, by cultivating non-material wealth like purpose, good relationships, inner strengths and social capital, is a way of making our society more resilient to economic uncertainty. In a similar way, being too dependent on a declining resource like oil puts us at high risk of disturbance when production starts to fall. Transition initiatives strengthen community resilience through tackling the risk factor of our oil dependence.

Chris Johnstone is an addictions specialist, teacher of positive psychology and author of the self-help book Find Your Power. He organises the annual Bristol Happiness Lectures and has worked closely with the transition network in applying insights from addictions treatment to promoting recovery from oil dependence. He produces the free email newsletter The Great Turning Times (see www.GreatTurningTimes.org ) and has a website at www.chrisjohnstone.info

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