An animal that is injured can often repair itself, whereas a rock cannot; an individual animal will ultimately die, but its species may survive for much longer than a rock can. – Chiara Marletto, The Science of Can and Can’t, pg. 11
Ever work or play after taking a bump to the nose? Ever patch yourself up with bit of Kleenex to staunch the bleeding? Even if you haven’t, we can probably agree that anything that helps a person keep playing or working while they are bleeding is a Grade-A tool to be learned and respected. So, sorry for the grossness, but I’m sure you’re tough enough to keep reading.
I’m not a huge fan of physical pain.
In fact, I do my level best to avoid it. And I encourage you to avoid needless pain, too. But don’t avoid life. Life avoidance—the killing of time, the numbing of the soul, the working for the weekend—is making billions of humans miserable. And why? Well, we have too frequently forgotten that we are resilient. When we are resilient we live, and problem-solve, and we jump and we play—and sometimes we fight—alongside reality. When we deny our resilience, we doom scroll or lap up fake news or focus on the trivial failings of those around us rather than our moral and spiritual liberation.
In short, resilience helps us stay upright within the real world as it actually is.
And before you think I’ve lost my mind and am making a big deal out of nothing, I’m not claiming anything hoity-toity. You don’t have to think big thoughts or write sonnets or pray with the dying, meditate on a raft on the Ganges to be free (though I absolutely think those are amazing things). I assure you, playing flag football or soccer or building with Lego (or pipe cleaners!) or even giving your spouse a hug instead of a scolding can be a part of our moral and spiritual liberation from fear and too much screen time.
Your happiness depends on whether you are avoiding reality or embracing it.
The Metaphor
I’ve had players on my basketball teams come to the bench for a twist of tissue, apply it as needed, and head back out on the floor. That’s living life. At a much higher level of awesomeness, Lionel Messi played with a Kleenex twist bunched in his mouth in the 2017 El Clásico (that’s an annual match between Barcelona and Real Madrid). Both are simple acts of resilience. A good read on the situation, an individual’s strengths in the moment, and leaning into them.
On the human interaction front, resilience can be even more vital. Resilience in communication happens when a person feels that something isn’t quite right or clear and seeks to work it out. When my tallest player got called for standing in the key, he didn’t complain to the ref. When I brought it up later as a teaching moment, he corrected me and told me that he had just cycled in. I’d leaned on something he thought was unfair. He told me so, clearly. That’s a small, potent act of resilience.
Some kids find it easy to argue with the coach. Many do not. A month prior to that, this particular twelve-year-old would have never told me his sense of things. Because he is generally thoughtful, it was easy to hear his point of view. Because I am also generally thoughtful, I accepted his feedback, thanked him for it, and promised that though I would continue to let the referees ref the game, I would maybe make sure I asked clarifying questions before making a teaching moment out of something I had only partially witnessed.
Like that basketball player, I’m sure you have your own example of a moment when you quietly stood your ground or spoke up for what was true.
Your Resilience Report (Field Notes From Your Own Life)
(For Human Use Only — No Robots or Perfect People Allowed)
Let’s take a moment to note these little victories. It’ll make the next challenge that much easier.
1. Date of the event:
2. The thing that happened:
(nosebleed during game; didn’t get the job; was insulted; bike chain snapped; toddler detonated…)
3. My knee-jerk reaction was to:
(quit / blame / doom-scroll / mutter / hide / catastrophize…)
4. What I actually did:
(twisted a Kleenex and kept playing; sent one more job application; answered with dignity; took a breath; asked for help…)
5. What this tiny act proved:
(check any that apply)
☐ I’m more resilient than I thought
☐ I didn’t collapse into my worst habit
☐ I chose reality over avoidance
☐ I remembered what matters
☐ I showed up for myself
☐ I lived through it (surprisingly)
Signature of the resilient human:
Now put that note somewhere you’ll see it.
A sticky note. Or on your phone. Feel free to inscribe it into your dog’s collar, if you like. Anywhere is fine. But please take a moment to note at least one of your acts of resilience.
It’s worth doing because something or someone is going to tell you that you are weak at some point in the near future. This note (or collar inscription) can help you remember that you are not and make better decisions in the moment.
You might not be Lionel Messi trying to score two goals against your staunchest rival in the game of the year (he did), but I’m sure you can face honest challenges with the best of them.
The Nature of Resilience
We’ve survived plagues and floods and famine. Many of us even survived riding our bicycles without helmets and entire decades without the internet (Whoa!). Thus, we are resilient. And even if you think we’ve lost some of it, that as a culture we’re becoming a lot less hearty, we can get it back. We don’t face greater challenges than our forebears; we face different ones. I mean, try surviving a prairie winter in a sod hut, or living on the tundra with only your hands, your community, and your heritage to keep you alive—people did that long before Manitoba even existed.
The Lock, Not the Dam
Let’s take a minute to talk about pain. And why good people suffer. Let’s embrace the fact that all of your happiest moments came eventually because you turned onto the reality road rather than veering off of it. You gave up a bit of immediate gratification in favour of something more long term.
Those small decisions help us face true tragedy and hardship.
As a young man I lost someone important to me. It was painful and, to be honest, still is decades later. And though things got worse before they got better, I was lucky to know this: the only way to survive the grief and to truly honour who he was to me was by moving through the pain. Not avoiding it.
In facing my grief, I asked for a lot of help. I did not do it alone. Family, my wife, friends—even colleagues and fellow students, as fit.
In counselling I learned how to relate to the loss of my loved one as the locks at Lockport relate to ships. I learned to lower the lock to let the pain in when it was safe to do so. I would raise the lock to protect myself from the pain when other things needed my attention. This involved a lot more than Kleenex twists, but it did require me to continue working through the pain in many small ways when doing so was necessary. Those small bits of resilience, taken together, added up to something much greater: acceptance, love, and clarity in the face of loss.
More recently, I’ve achieved years of sobriety using essentially the same method. In the past, when I flooded with pain or that feeling of not quite belonging, I wanted to drink. However, learning I was resilient and could respond to pain—raise or lower the lock—the numbing crutch of alcohol lost its appeal.
With a lot of help and support from my people, my resilience and I have created a virtuous cycle: I choose to stand tall and not to drink. I feel the reward of not drinking. The reward makes me not want to drink any longer, which makes it easier not to drink. And so it goes. Three and a half years of sobriety.
Sadly, temptation is like Whack-a-Mole. Another one is always bound to pop up. A smaller, more recent one is YouTube at lunch. I don’t need to watch soccer or baseball while I’m eating. I can just eat lunch.
What Good Work Cultivates
Long story short: good therapy doesn’t fix you. Good therapy (or anything, really) helps you see what sucks, what is great, and the meaningful stuff in between. Knowing that, we can figure out what stance we want to take, and what we want to focus our energies on. Good interactions with ourselves and others help us see clearly those things that desperately need elbow grease or simply acceptance. Or TLC. In any good interaction, each human’s capacity and resilience gets noticed. Cultivated.
Coaching, parenting, and therapy, after all, are meant to help people live on their own terms without denying reality or avoiding harm to others. The blessing is that this applies to both coach and athlete; parent and child; therapist and client. The responsibilities are different, but the call is the same.
One Last Story
When I found out that one of my nieces was playing football, I initially felt worried (she’s tough as nails, so the worry was more for her opponents than herself, but still). When I found out she was playing flag football and not tackle football, I was thrilled. Getting hurt while running, jumping, catching, and playing is inevitable. Getting hurt because someone uses their body as a projectile against you (or you against them) is entirely avoidable.
Flag football is a great example of the sort of middle-ground thinking we practice. (Imagine! All the fun without the concussions!) And we know that, at some point, this brilliant, buoyant child will run and jump her way into a nosebleed. At that point I’m sure the Kleenex Twist of Resilience will be in full use—both the real Kleenex and also the emotional stuff that lets her know when to play through and when she needs to rest and recuperate.
Closing Reflection
Most of resilience is unremarkable: twist the Kleenex, take the breath, tell the truth, correct the coach, keep playing. It’s not glamorous. It just works.