Why ‘resilience’ makes me uncomfortable.

"We are often told to be resilient in the face of situations that push us so far out of our comfort zone that we are left in a permanent state of fear and often feeling unsafe, unregulated and ultimately unsupported."

Resilience seems to be having a moment. In schools, in workplaces, in ‘wellbeing’ conversations, it comes up again and again.

We are told that the secret to a better life, to being a more successful employee, to doing well in school and studies, to just generally ‘being better’ is to be more resilient. Build our resilience and we will flourish in life, and all problems and issues will simply bounce off of our prefect shiny resilient armour.

Now, I’m not trying to say that I don’t believe we can build up strength and our ability to handle hard things. We absolutely can, and should, to a degree. In much the same way young children build up their immune system after being exposed to coughs and colds and general germs, we can gradually get more comfortable with things that are tricky for us. It’s how we learn a lot of the time, how we grow and how we can push, gently outside of our comfort zone.

The key here though is the degree of discomfort, as well as the duration. We can grow and develop and learn, but these things don’t happen, at least for the majority of us, when we are thrown into the fire. Kids don’t build immunity in the face of a life-threatening illness, they get sick, and are often left weaker (excuse the potential flaws in my medical metaphor, it’s not my area of expertise!) When the ‘discomfort’ is actually trauma, repeated again and again, we weaken and often we break. And it is this part where my concern with the myth of ‘resilience’ really comes in. Because this is often the reality.

We aren’t being asked to be resilient in the face of minor inconveniences, or to build our tolerance to tricky but overall acceptable situations. We are often told to be resilient in the face of situations that push us so far out of our comfort zone that we are left in a permanent state of fear and often feeling unsafe, unregulated and ultimately unsupported.

This could look like children in schools being asked to ‘just get on with it’ in environments that present true sensory hell, leaving their nervous systems constantly fried. This could look like employees being expected to tolerate toxic cultures and constant fear of harassment or potential job loss. This could look like students being told to get by without required accommodations because ‘the real world won’t give you those’ and crashing out of study as a result of overwhelm.

Resilience in these instances actually becomes an ask to push yourself beyond your limits, for the comfort of others. To drive yourself into burnout rather than address the underlying issue that is creating the problem.

Because, handily, in these cases, suddenly the problem is not, in fact, the problem. The problem is your response to the problem. You are the issue, the one who needs to change, to toughen up, to put up and shut up. With no support.

This reframe moves the impetus of change from ‘them’ (the organisation, the system, the adult in charge), to ‘you’ (the staff member, the student, the child), and absolves them of any guilt or responsibility to address a toxic situation. Suddenly the focus is not on changing a bad situation, but making those who cannot tolerate it feel guilty, faulty and less than.

Consistently pushing yourself way past your limits doesn’t make you stronger- it breaks you.

Burnout doesn’t leave you stronger, it leaves you broken, exhausted, and often more prone to further bouts of burnout at an earlier stage in the cycle.

Traumatic experiences don’t make us stronger. They make us traumatised.

To be clear, resilience is not a badge of honour, and not being resilient enough to tolerate intolerable situations and toxic circumstances does not make you broken.

We need to turn the tables here are ask – what is this need for resilience covering up, and how could we instead address the true underlying problems, so that no one has to push themselves to breaking point as a distraction from it?

Look after yourselves and each other.