By Cindy Ruble
What does it mean to be resilient? Are some people more resilient than others? Or is resilience something that can be nurtured and learned? In my work as an advocate for women and children, I have seen women survive horrendous things, rise and go forward with their lives. I’ve seen others crippled by the memories and paralyzed by ongoing fears.
I was fortunate to grow up with a father who modeled resilience every day. In his later years, his hands were contorted by rheumatoid arthritis, but he never gave up. I remember going with him to look for a storage building for the backyard. He wanted a workshop. He could not find what he wanted — “too small’, he said, “shoddy workmanship.” Finally, “I can do better than that.” And so off we went to buy building plans and lumber. Looking at his hands contorted into fists, I said, “Are you sure, Daddy?” Arthritis gave him pain every day of his life for over thirty years, but it never stopped him. Resilience seemed to be in his DNA, and mine too.
How did it get there? My father never talked to me about resilience, but I watched him live it out. He built an amazing workshop with an attic, complete with windows and lighting. He painted it to look like our house, all with hands that looked like fists. To this day that workshop remains a picture of resilience to me. Resilience is finding new ways to do what you need to do when your old ways no longer work. Resilience means not giving up. Resilience is the ability to bounce back during difficult times.
A woman coming out of a trafficking situation may be beaten down, but not defeated. A woman who has been sexually assaulted may be forever changed, but fighting back and moving forward towards a new way of being as she owns her story and puts the blame where it rightfully belongs – on the perpetrator. I once sat in court with a trafficking survivor who was being followed and yelled at by her perpetrator. I told her she did not have to listen to him. She looked at me and said, “We listen so we do not become like them.” I will never forget her. That’s resilience.
No matter what he took from her, he could not take her dignity or her way of being. She remained authentic to herself, perpetually kind, resilient to her core. Resilience is maintaining your kindness after life has treated you badly. Resilience is remaining who you are in the face of great adversity. Resilience is holding on to life and hope when times are hard.
Resilience can be practiced and nurtured by the choices we make. Resilience is saying, “I can” instead of “I can’t.” Our self-talk can build resilience or tear it down. I once had a trafficking survivor tell me as she was preparing to return to her home country after many months in our shelter that when she got to the airport, she was going to sing, “I Will Survive.” What an image. That’s resilience!