A cruel irony of grief is that at a time when a person most needs their strengths and skills to face this immense challenge, they so often feel at their most vulnerable and helpless. Even more frustrating, most grief education and resources around the world still rely on outdated and debunked theories of grief that cast the griever in a passive role, able only to endure and wait for things to get better (Avis, Stroebe, & Schut, H. (2021).
Here are three foundational truths about resilience and the tools and techniques to help clients adopt them. I’ve seen these important resilience findings change a person’s outlook - building confidence and hope.
Human beings are wired to cope with adversity and loss. In fact resilience is the most common response to bereavement. As resilience psychologists, we want to get this information into the hands of every coach, therapist, educator, leader, and mental health practitioner around the world.
“Decades of research have consistently shown that the most common outcome following potential trauma is a stable trajectory of healthy functioning, or resilience.” (Bonanno, 2021)
This research is clear - and it bears repeating because we don’t seem to take it on board easily. Resilience is how most people respond to bereavement and all kinds of potentially traumatic events. Most people cope successfully with grief with the support of family and friends and do not require clinical attention by mental health professionals (Aoun et al., 2018; Jordan & Neimeyer, 2003; Stroebe et al., 2007).
When we share this evidence in our resilient grieving work we see it provide enormous reassurance to so many of our clients. We literally see their heads lift - many tell us “knowing this makes me believe I will get through it. If it’s possible for most people, then I can do it too”.
Clients in our live grief and loss training courses get to experience this truth in person . They meet others who are further along on their grief journey. They hear stories of terrible loss and see for themselves that these people are surviving.
All sorts of unhelpful myths and untruths are bandied about to bereaved people - warning them of the risks they now face. If you provide grief support, coaching or counselling, or if you’re involved in grief counselling training, please be part of spreading the more hopeful truth that resilience is the most common response and that the grieving can and do survive their loss and grief.
Resilience researcher Anne Masten is responsible for one of my favourite descriptions of resilience. She describes resilience as ‘ordinary magic’. The skills and tools that help us cope with the adversities life throws at us are not extraordinary. They are ways of thinking, acting and being that are available to us all.
Resilience is built in the choices we make in the micro-moments of our days. As we regularly remind people in our resilience classes, there’s no need to be a superhero - just practising some ordinary skills will help. There are many internal resources that build resilience - for instance, you can start by helping your clients build their self-awareness, self-compassion, hope, and mental agility, knowing and using their personal strengths, and practising grounded or realistic optimism.
Let’s focus on mental agility. No, far from requiring any gymnastic skill, it’s the ability to focus your attention where you choose to. Resilient people are able to focus their attention on the things that matter, that they can control. Easily said, but for most people, it can take a lot of practice to stop your mind wandering back to a particular worry.
As a coach, you can help your clients get clarity on what it is that most matters to them now, and what they can do about it. For many of our clients making a list of the things that matter and then circling the ones that they can control is a helpful first step. If it matters, and they can control it, they can make a plan and take action.
Another aspect of mental agility is flexible thinking - which is all about not getting locked into one explanation of events and being able to see other possibilities. One of our clients, John, was convinced his relatives were going to abandon him after the death of his wife. When we asked, “What’s the evidence for that belief?”John realised his fear was based solely on the fact he had no visits from them for the past week. When we asked him “what’s an alternative explanation ?” he came up with five alternative explanations which he said were far more likely - including the six-hour drive they had done the week before, just to see him.
Encourage your clients to explore their views and develop their flexible thinking with questions such as:
Another option is to encourage them to use sentence starters such as:
The ability to identify other possibilities can prevent us from falling victim to the false certainty that comes from jumping to conclusions with little or no evidence, or mindreading what others are thinking.
These are among the ordinary, everyday practices that build the resilience skills that will help your clients navigate adversity.
The old myth of the indomitable hero, alone against the world is just that. A myth. The truth is that connection is the core resilience competency that will see us through our darkest times. A more reliable check on your resilience is how you can answer this question: “Faced with a major adversity, is there someone you could call at 3am for support?”
Connection is the bedrock of resilience. Human beings are social creatures and we are wired to connect with others. All of us need understanding, validation, and caring - to have people in our lives whose words and actions tell us “I see you, I get you, You’re OK”.
Chris Peterson, renowned psychology researcher and teacher, once summed up the entire field of positive psychology in three words: ‘Other people matter’. When Chris, a hugely popular figure, sadly passed away in 2012 the outpouring of grief from all around the world was testament to the huge number of connections he had made across the field.
You don’t build your connection resilience at 3am when tragedy strikes. Resilience is built everyday, when those relationships were valued and nurtured through small, everyday moments of give and take, where trust and support were created.
Isolation is a risk factor in grief. It can help to remind your grieving clients of the importance of social connection - even if it’s frustrating or hard. We ask people to map the important people in their life on a web of relationships and to rate their relationship satisfaction with each of them.
Taking a strengths-based approach, we encourage them to notice what they enjoy most in the most satisfying relationships, how they behave, and what they contribute. Clients are then asked if there’s anything they do in those good relationships that they could bring to some of the less satisfying ones.
Even with the least satisfying relationships we ask people to notice what this person does well, what their strengths are, what they are good at… One of the important insights from this work is that most people have some good to offer, and very few people are capable of providing all the support that a person might need.
Grief researcher, Ken Doka, notes that people have different grieving styles. Some are emotional grievers who need to talk and express their feelings. Others are action oriented and grieve by doing - literally working on projects or making things. He points out that much of the challenge in giving and receiving support in grief comes when ‘we expect doers to listen, and listeners to do.”
For one client in our live grief and loss training course this was a huge ‘aha moment’. She realised she was irritated with her mother who wouldn’t sit still and listen to her, and was missing the fact that she was the perfect person to ask for help with organising the house and writing thank you letters. Suddenly she saw her mother in a new and more appreciative light.
Relationships can be challenging in grief. Helping your clients to navigate these difficulties while maintaining social contact is important and valuable work.
Grief is hard. Let’s not make it any harder than it already is. Let’s remind the grieving that resilience is the most common response to loss and other adversities. Just knowing that human beings are wired to cope with adversity and loss can inspire hope and confidence in your clients.
Resilience is deeply human, steeped in connection, and built in ordinary, everyday, learnable skills and strategies. It is available to all of us if we choose to get curious about the ways we think and act and how they affect us. Resilience is what equips you to navigate the ups and downs of living. These are skills that every person needs. Why not help your clients build them now so that when adversity strikes, they are better prepared to respond?
If you’re a coach, therapist, or mental health practitioner of any kind who wants to support clients with up to date, evidence-based information from both resilience psychology and contemporary grief theory, head to our website to find out more about the self-paced Introduction to the Science and Practice of Resilient Grieving.
Accredited at 9 points for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) by the Health Coaches Association of New Zealand and Australia (HCANZA), the course provides valuable coaching skills and tools you’ll want to add to your toolkit! You can also explore the free resources and other courses on our website to share with clients or for yourself. We hope you enjoy them!
You will learn practical tools and techniques to ensure you are as empowered and prepared as possible to get your life back on track, and work towards a greater sense of control and calm.
