We Are Resilient

By Albert Zaid

In engineering, material resilience is tis capacity to absorb an impact and to store that energy without deforming. In neuroscience, is the potential to face an adverse situation, overcome it and come out of it empowered. 
In psychology, it is said it is the capacity some people have to experience traumatic situations and recover from them. Overcoming and recovery together, hand by hand. 
This book is expositions of the experiences of some of the people consider being real resilient people, and who had been role models and examples of overcoming for millions of people around the World. Such as: 
Silvia Válori, Stephen Hawking, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Ismael Santos, Ana Frank, Ángel Sanz, Helen Keller, Kyle Maynard, Albert Llovera, The Hoyt Team, Kalpana Saroj, Pablo Pineda, Sean Maloney, Sara Navarro, Steve Jobs, Teresa Silva, Tim Guénard and Carlota Ruiz de Dulanto. 
It includes an important list of recommended books with their explaining summaries.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Franklin Díaz
• Release date: Mar 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215346082

Albert Zaid

Psicólogo especializado en Neurociencia y Programación Neurolingüística.Escritor por vocación y por afición.Trabajando para lograr un Mundo más justo.Libros publicados:** La Eyaculación Precoz** Somos Resilientes** Relax al alcance de todos - Ejercicios de respiración, relajación y visualización** Quiero, puedo y voy a ser rico** ÉXITO - El falso mito del fracaso** EL ARTE AMATORIO SEXUAL - Lecciones de sexo para principiantes

Book preview

In engineering, material resilience is the capacity to absorb an impact and to store that energy without deforming. In neuroscience, is the potential to face an adverse situation, overcome it and come out of it empowered.

In psychology, it is said it is the capacity some people have to experience traumatic situations and recover from them. Overcoming and recovery together, hand by hand.

An interview by Spanish Television with Rafaela Santos, president of the Spanish Institute of Resilience and the Spanish Society of Post-traumatic Stress, can be useful to understand this concept. Let’s see.

Interviewer:

- Sometimes, things happen in our lives that tests us. Some people overcome faster than others, some are more resistant, or, in another word, more resilient. What makes them special? These and other questions are the ones that Dr. Rafaela Santos has tried to answer. She is a psychiatrist, doctor in neuroscience and president of the Spanish Institute of Resilience. On her book Get up and fight, she describes the keys to learn how to overcome any life issue. Dr. Santos, you mention on your book that resilience is the ability to bend without breaking. Do you really think this is possible for everyone?

Rafaela Santos:

- Yes, of course. The brain is prepared for survival, which means that whatever happens, we have the ability within ourselves to face it. But we have to learn. Learn to do that. There are a lot of people who say if my son dies or another tragedy happens to me, I’ll die. And I say no. Nobody dies. We all have the ability to adapt, overcome and get empowered by traumatic events.

Interviewer:

- Like they always say, you learn from pain. Then, life kicks you and you react. But, the truth is when something bad happens; people sink… what is missing?

Rafaela Santos:

- I think they’re missing the learning part. We live with too many fears. We fear what may happen, thinking we’ll not be able to overcome it, when, in reality, we have the strength, the force within ourselves. But we have to learn that. I always say that life will not ask for more than we can take, because it’s really strong. I mean, we have more capacity on our brains than we think.

Interviewer:

- You say people don’t answer well to those hits life gives us because we either have a poor social net or we are isolated.

Rafaela Santos:

- Sooner or later, we all will go through great adversities, so, we must be ready. At the face of adversity, we have 2 options, 2 possible attitudes; to rebel, not wanting to receiving it, which is bad because we can’t avoid it; I mean, we have to accept it and turn it around like breaking destiny, facing adversity, we are supposed to be able to receive it and turn it around. But not receiving adversity is absurd because we can’t change it. On the other hand, the alternative is to be ready, be able to solve things as they happen, are what we call adaptation, and overcome and grow. Usually, people who are resilient say because that thing that happen to me, I’m a better person now or thanks to what happened to me, I have achieved this or other challenges in life. I mean, suffering the traumatic event itself does not what hurts us, what hurts us is not know how to face it.

Interviewer:

- Is resilience inherited? Does it come with us?

Rafaela Santos:

- We all have the ability. But it is true some people have that potential instinctively. Is like a genetic protection. It’s gene 5HT2. Is the gene that has the highest amount of serotonin. There’s one third of the population with more capacity, but we all can learn it.

Interviewer:

- So, that gene is in the blood?

Rafaela Santos:

- Yes, that is correct. It’s in the blood. What happens is that if you have it, doesn’t mean you are resilient. And the one who doesn’t have it cannot be resilient. Same as with intelligence. There are some people with a higher intellectual capacity; however, it may happen that the one with lower intellectual capacity will be the one who goes further, because he has developed it more. So, there is an immanent genetic part, but we all can be resilient, we are all vulnerable and we all can learn. I think intelligence is the ability to adapt to circumstances no matter how hard they are, as fast as possible. Now a day, intelligence is not what it was before; math, numbers, but the global intelligence, all those multiple intelligences we have, those high or low abilities to adapt fast to tough events to come out empowered.

Interviewer:

- Like you told us before, about the gene that has been studied, it is said that adaptation has four stages. Which are those stages?

Rafaela Santos:

- First stage is to acknowledge reality, not to do this is to take a bad, wrong path. When people say why did this had to happen to me? or why me? These questions have no answer. What we have to do is to ask why not? Imagine a cancer. There’re a lot of people with cancer. Then, we should ask ourselves why it wouldn’t happen to me? When you stand in that place of non-acceptance, you have