Resilience: a skill we can learn

I always tell clients that resilience is less like a fixed trait and more like a muscle: it can be quiet, it can be rusty, and most importantly — it can be trained. Over years of working with people in moments of change, I’ve come to believe deeply that resilience is not only for the “naturally strong.” It is a set of ways of responding to life that anyone can develop, practice and refine.

What do I mean by resilience? For me, it’s the capacity to hold discomfort and to continue moving — not by avoiding pain, but by learning how to respond to it so it doesn’t define or break you. It’s the ability to come back to clarity after being overwhelmed; to soften around difficulty instead of hardening into fear. That is a practice, not an identity.

Science supports this hopeful view. Large reviews of resilience programmes show that structured training — using practical exercises, role play, psychoeducation and homework — can increase people’s ability to cope with stress and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. The evidence isn’t magic: effects are often modest and depend on the quality and duration of the training — but the message is clear: resilience can be taught. 

Why is that possible? Two short reasons I often share with clients:

1. Our brains change. Neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to rewire itself in response to experience — means that when we practice new ways of noticing, choosing and acting, neural patterns supporting those choices strengthen over time. In other words: new habits of responding physically and mentally become more available the more we practise them. 

2. Practical skills matter. Many resilience programmes borrow from approaches you may already know: cognitive-behavioural techniques (to notice and reframe unhelpful thoughts), emotion-regulation skills (to calm body and mind), and behavioural experiments (to test new ways of acting in safe steps). Meta-analyses show small but meaningful benefits from CBT-based resilience interventions — they help people experience less distress and more capacity to act.

Sounds nice... but, what does it "learning resilience" look like in practice?

Here are three small, practical practices I often teach and encourage people to try between sessions:

• Notice and name. Pause and name what you’re feeling and thinking. Labeling distress reduces its intensity and helps you gain a bit of distance. Try: “I notice I am overwhelmed; my thought is ‘I can’t do this.’”

• Move the body. Short, intentional physical actions — a few deep breaths, a brisk walk, pressing the feet into the ground — shift the stress system and create space for a different response.

• Small experiments. Do one thing you wouldn’t normally do in a low-risk situation — ask for help, set a tiny boundary, try a different response in a familiar conflict — and observe what happens. Learning through experience is at the heart of building new capacities.

If you’re curious about building resilience in a supported way, the best place to start is with connection. Resilience flourishes in relationships where you feel seen and held: with an attentive practitioner, a trusted friend, or a family member who will practice new ways of responding with you.

Tinke Mijalkovic - Deckers