My Thoughts on Resilience

 To be resilient is to be able to face adversity with a capacity to cope, readjust, and move forward.  This definition is one that suits my personal outlook on life.  According to research, there are multiple definitions of resilience, “there is no single, agreed upon definition...in the clinical or scientific literature” (Southwick, et al, xi).  Another significant understanding of resilience that researchers provide is that the social contexts in which our lives are embedded provide a wealth of additional resources for adaptation in times of crisis. Examples of social contexts include, among others, contact and interaction with family, religion and community.  One fact we need to know is that we all are resilient; that is what gets us through the events of daily living that may cause anger or frustration, and also major events like losing a job, divorce, or death of a loved one.  Another interesting aspect of resilience is that it is not limited to facing and resolving adversities, we also need it “to reach out to connect with others and to take on challenges and opportunities” (Reivich & Shatté, 325-326).

Family unity and care has always been important in my family.  Mother is the oldest of fourteen children my grandparents brought into this world.  Not only that, when Papá married Mita he was a widower with three small children; you do the math.  Typical of Puerto Rican agricultural families back in the early 1900’s, the Roman family lived on a farm in Hatillo and later San Sebastian, and they were very close.  Perhaps the fact that the farm was isolated contributed to their closeness, but according to mother that is the way they were raised, to look to their parents and each other for guidance and support. The concept of family unity and solidarity went with them all the way to Brooklyn, NY.  When the Roman clan married and moved away, they chose to live close to their parents and always strived to meet their needs. My grandparents’ home was the central meeting place for everyone during holidays and whenever they wanted to just visit and talk.  That is what my generation grew up with and learned to love.  We shared our beliefs and values, practices and purpose.  The Roman family has a shared pride and confidence that allowed them to overcome the multiple barriers of a new country and language and even allowed many of them to establish businesses.  As children we learned all of this from our family, not because they sat down and told us, but because we lived it and observed them in action.  We can call their strengths and attitudes family resilience.

My dad was an only child.  The family we knew on my father’s side consisted of his father and stepmother.  Dad’s biological mother died when he was a little child.  My grandfather remarried and his second wife raised my father; she was a gentle, loving woman and my Dad loved her greatly.  From Dad we learned about resilience too. We learned how he lived and survived the post-depression years in New York.  He had to leave high school before graduating to find a job and help his parents.  When he married mother he was a merchant marine.  After he had fathered the first two children he decided to obtain his high school equivalency diploma.  He studied nutrition and worked as a short order cook in a restaurant.  Later he collected insurance payments on a weekly basis from clients of the John Hancock Insurance Co.  That job prompted him to become an insurance agent and later an insurance broker. He went to college during his late forties and obtained a BA.  During the latter years of life he became a minister of the word of God.  From childhood throughout his entire life, religion was central in my father’s life, which was the way his father raised him.  When I think about him I feel proud because he faced the difficulties of life and had courage to overcome barriers and forge a different life for himself and his family.  He did not have to tell us how we should face life, he was a living example.

Researchers claim that another key element in the resilience framework is religion.  Both my parents were active members of Latino Pentecostal churches in Brooklyn when they met and married.  My father had been brought up very strictly by his own father and religion played a central role in their lives.  My mother joined the Pentecostal church when she was a young woman still living in the countryside of  Puerto Rico  I grew up going to Sunday school and an evening worship service, plus worship services at times during the week too.  We learned about the Bible and the basic tenets of our church from classes and from the sermons.  Over the years, the Bible became a principal source of comfort, guidance, and strength for our daily living experiences. I recall that Dad read the Bible to us every weekday before we left for school.

We also learned a lot when we heard other members of the church share their testimonies about how they were able to face adversity through the grace of God.  As a family, we shared and were connected to a large congregation of people who believed the same religious teachings; they were our strongest community of support and caring outside the family.  This belief system encourages people to view crisis as a “meaningful, comprehensible, manageable challenge” (Walsh, 154).  Importantly, we learn how to master the possible, accept what cannot be changed, and live with uncertainty.  The congregations we belonged to not only shared religious beliefs, but also their culture; the majority of the members were Puerto Ricans who had either come from the island or were first generation stateside born.

My resilience was strengthened during the years I was with my family.  Family unity, love, and support are the foundation of resilience; added to that is the religious framework that was central in our family structure.  The values and Bible-based beliefs can be considered the building blocks on the foundation.  In church I was taught that in this world we will have afflictions but if we believe in God and his son, Jesus, we can overcome and go on with life.  There is a verse in 2 Corinthians 4:8 that came to my mind often during my times of deep pain and sorrow: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”  That is what I learned from my Dad, my extended family, and my religious community. That is why I do not consider myself a victim. 

A direct outcome of my life experience is that I re-examined my beliefs and redefined them to “reflect and promote more mature spirituality, reaching beyond narrow constraints dictated by a faith community” (Foy, Drescher & Watson, p. 91).  This does not mean that I am angry or reject the faith community and its leaders; it means that now I question some of their teachings and techniques.  It took years of religious positive coping on my part to get to this point in life.  I still do not understand why things happened the way they did in Eddie’s and my life; what is different is that I have placed that mystery aside and have gone on with my life.  I rest on what the Bible says to me: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”   (I Corinthians 13:12).

All of this makes me wonder about those persons who did not have a stable family life and had to face extreme poverty, drug addicted parents, hunger, abuse, and homelessness, yet were able to overcome those seemingly insurmountable negative circumstances and triumph.  I believe that they are the exceptions to the rule.  I will share some examples of people of resilience in my next blog.

Works Cited

Foy, D. W., Drescher, K. D., & Watson, P. J. Religious and spiritual factors in    

resilience. In Southwick, S. M., Litz, B. T., Charney, D., & Friedman, M J.   (Eds.). (2011). Resilience and Mental Health (pp. 90-101). New York: Cambridge University Press.  

Reivich, K., & Shatté, A. (2003). The Resilience Factor. New York: Broadway Books.

Southwick, S. M., Litz, B. T., Charney, D., & Friedman, M. J. (Eds.). (2011).  Resilience

            and Mental Health.  New York: Cambridge University Press.

The Holy Bible. (1992). New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Walsh, F. Family resilience: a collaborative approach in response to stressful life

challenges. In Southwick, S. M., Litz, B. T., Charney, D., & Friedman, M. J.      (Eds.). (2011).  Resilience and Mental Health (pp. 149-161). New York:

Cambridge University Press.