The Quality of Resilience

by Shauna Hahn

Sometime in 2019, in the weekly “Healing and Recovery” therapy group I lead, we discussed the topic of the quality of “resilience.” When it came time for a patient to contribute, he said, “I don’t want to be resilient. I get tired of being resilient all the f**king time.” And I heard him. We all heard him. Life can be so tough, just at baseline.

We live hard modern lives: traffic, fluorescent lights, 9-5’s, bureaucracy, appointments, tough finances, you name it. When we live hard lives and then something bad happens, like an injury to our brains, we now have an altered world view, sensory limitations, physical limitations, cognitive limitations, and the same difficult modern life! No wonder folks get tired of being resilient! I understand completely.

So one might ask, what are the benefits of resilience? Many different researchers (like Martin Seligman, in the field of “positive psychology”) demonstrated that happy people are not people who just don’t experience misfortune, difficulty, or shortcomings. They are folks who develop more values and character strength to help them manage life’s problems. I am going to help describe one such model I share in my practice utilizing such an approach; a model called “Healing Power” developed by my mentor, Dr. Phil Shapiro.

Healing Power offers much in the way of resilience development. It tells us any painful problem can be reduced through the combination of a spiritual quality or value and the application of that value through spiritual methods. For spiritual qualities or values, think: love, compassion, forgiveness, intuition, empathy, creativity, beauty, wisdom, acceptance, etc—there are one million and eight gorgeous qualities. Spiritual methods to apply the value include affirmations, yoga, reading spiritual or self-help literature, deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, etc.

Healing Power does not deceive us into believing every problem can be practically solved. For example, just because we want our brains to be spontaneously healed, our brains may not immediately reach that point. But, the framework does let us know that despite what life throws our way, we have everything within us to solve our own problems and promote our own healing. Innately wise and knowledgeable, we grow in all spiritual qualities, resilient every time we apply ourselves to our highest virtues.

Shauna Hahn specializes in the treatment of post-brain injury psychiatric disorders and often lectures on this topic. Shauna is excited to bring her expertise to TMS at her beautiful destination clinic, Framework Functional Psychiatry and TMS, in Lake Oswego, Oregon. www.frameworktms.com