Cultivating resilience with psychologist Jessica Munafo

Jessica is by no means a stranger to the Zetteler family. Quite literally in fact – she’s the sister of founder Sabine. A while back when the pair were chatting about the stresses of running an expanding company, being responsible for a whole gang of humans, and keeping morale levels up at a passionate 11 despite all life’s knocks, Jessica mentioned the dual ideas of resilience and vibrancy as ways of dealing with the tricky bits life throws at you. Her words were so insightful, and so useful, we couldn’t keep them to ourselves. So whether you’re trying to keep a small company afloat, desperately trying to turn your passion into business or simply awash with deadlines, we hope you find some helpful strategies in Jessica’s wise words below.

A return to vibrancy

Coping with adversity feels, well, aversive… We all know that ‘life is a thousand joys and a thousand sorrows’ – at least intellectually – but when the shit hits the fan, it’s hard to be our best selves in those moments. There has been a lot of talk in mental health circles, and in popular psychology more generally, about the concepts of resilience and grit. Possibly this is a logical consequence of recession and austerity. Linking in with another common trend (for all things Scandi), even the term ‘sisu’ (the Finnish word for stoic determination) is gradually becoming more widely known. Not sure it’s going to replace ‘hygge’ but hey, would we even want it to?

For me, grit and resilience are slightly different. And maybe they relate to varying degrees of adversity in a way. When life is really tough, you need grit. When life is tough, you need resilience. And when you are facing ordinary human unhappiness, you need spaciousness (but we’ll come to that later). When trying to unpick these things, it might help to imagine what happens to someone’s body posture in these different conditions. Grit: head down, grim facial expression, physical tension, closed fists. When was the last time you remember having to face the day or a situation in this way? You can almost feel your jaw clench when you make contact with the thought of it. Grit feels like a survival mechanism for chronic threat. Forget ‘fight or flight’, this is ‘just keep swimming’, but less Dory and more Finnish farmer trying to look after animals in a blizzard.

Resilience feels like a slightly more nuanced idea. Resilient posture could be: head forward, determined facial expression, shoulders back, hands ready. There is a springiness and agility to the form. The ability to bend without breaking, to bounce back without lashing out. But this doesn’t quite capture it all in my mind. Recently, I was reading a book about the emotional journey that parents go through when their child spends time on a neonatal intensive care unit. At one point something jumped out at me and hugely encapsulated what I unconsciously feel about resilience. It described how resilience is not only about the capacity to bear strain … but to eventually return to a state of VIBRANCY afterwards. I liked it a lot and it has been on my mind daily since.

But how to return to vibrancy? There is no way I am going to answer this in a paragraph or begin to address the myriad ways that power imbalances and inequalities can profoundly disturb our capacity for equilibrium. And before I say anything else, physical self-care is a must (nourish yourself, exercise yourself, rest yourself and care about yourself). As with so many other struggles, there are also three key psychological gifts that we can cultivate in ourselves which give us the inner strength to continue. These are: insight (the clear vision to see what is going on internally and externally), flexibility (the ability to adapt to changing circumstances) and hope (the capacity to see that there might be a different tomorrow).

Sometimes we need help to develop these skills and other times we need to be completely alone. Either way, the process requires some discipline. However, when maximised, these attributes can come together to create a spacious mindset – ideal for solving problems, experiencing joy and making fertile soil for resilience. Spacious posture: eyes upwards, half-smile, shoulders down, palms open and facing forward. Try it on for size. Let your body settle into this posture and see what happens. And may you be vibrant in your next adventures.