d every aspect of his recovery was a big help, it was not the determining factor. He had played Superman, and that identity suited Reeves. He did accomplish the impossible — through great resilience, an unstoppable will, the support of his wife (in particular), and the ability to reach out anywhere for assistance. Reeves was able to let go of a major part of his life and personality. He’d been an athlete. After the accident, he could not walk, talk, move, or breathe. But he maintained the core essence of his identity. I think that his wife’s love and support was a huge part of his success.
Who in your life reminds you of Vinny or Christopher? If you have a role model, simply by thinking about and visualizing that person, you begin to bring their resilience into your life. If you cannot think of anybody, look for a role model who is a fictional character in a book or movie. If you’ve never seen someone handle stress easily and gracefully, you will find it difficult to summon up an image of resilience. Whether, at this moment in time, you are resilient or not, you do have the inner resources to survive and thrive anything life sends you.
Lessons from War
A strong sense of purpose and meaning in life makes you a resilient person. If life is meaningful, then you perceive life’s stresses as events that you can grow from . . . or shrink from. The issue of meaning and resilience was illustrated in an amazing way through the writings of holocaust survivor, Dr. Victor Frankl, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Frankl was trained in the early years of psychoanalysis. He was a survivor of 4 concentration camps including Auschwitz in which he saw how some people had incredible resilience, and others lost their will rather quickly. Frankl observed that one particular, tight-knit religious group did very well. I’m not positive of the particular religious group but it was one that mainstream psychiatry (and society) might consider “religious fanatics.” The power of their shared religious belief and deep sense of meaning helped the members of that group remain healthier, happier, and more resilient in the face of impossible odds.
There is an important lesson to learn from former POW’s. When a military man or woman is captured, what they are facing is the enemy’s desire to break their will. Almost everyone in the military, when captured, has believed that they can out-last what they have to endure . . . even though military SERE training (survival resistance evasion escape) provides a reality check. Everybody has a breaking point.
A POW endures sleep deprivation, pain, hunger, thirst, and disorientation to day or night. A point comes when something breaks, and the POW falls back on inner resources, perhaps untapped, to develop a long-term survival strategy.
Resilience does not mean that a soldier won’t break, but it does mean s/he is able to mentally regroup, after some period of time, in order to develop an internal “fall-back position” to mentally and physically survive an uncertain future. In the Vietnam War’s POW camps, our POW’s developed complex ways of communicating with each other, even when totally isolated. They developed patterns of tapping on bars and pipes. They found ways of coping, through their social ties. They relied on resilience.
Boredom is a painful part of being a POW. There were two men (Joe and Tom) who shared a cell in North Vietnam for years. Joe decided to build his future dream home in his head. Over the span of several years, he had laid out every single inch of his two-story dream home. This survival mechanism was so powerful that both men had a very clear image of the dream house.
A number of years after they were released from prison, had returned to the United States, and built a new life, Tom got a phone call from Joe, inviting him to his dream home in the Midwest. Tom was rather in awe when he walked into the dream home. Every inch of the house was identical to what Joe had worked out in his head . . . as a POW. That’s Resilience. The only tool Joe or Tom had was the c