Presentation on the importance of resilience, be it emotional, physical or spiritual. Aimed at health and social care professionals but relevant to everyone

1. Resilience – the Jedi Path
Jen Gash
OT, Coach, Artist
jen@otcoach.com
23rd November 2016
The OT Show

2. What is resilience?

3. “a group of positive characteristics, abilities and
resources that support the achievement of positive
outcomes despite adversity, threat and stress…
Resilience helps to overcome adversity, cope with
stress and bounce back from setbacks so that you can
achieve your goals” (Reivich, 2009)
“Where you fall on the resilience curve – your natural
reserves of resilience – affects your performance in
school and at work, your physical health, your mental
health and the quality of your relationships. It is the
basic ingredient to happiness and success”
The Resilience Factor (Reivich & Shatte, 2002)

4. Who around you, family, friends
and famous people do you think
are resilient and why?
• Discuss with your neighbour.... NB
confidentiality and safety of sharing 

5. What works? What do the experts
say? What does research say?
Actually that feels a little bit boring and
predictable....
Let’s pretend we are Jedi Knights instead....
(need to thank Karen Henderson from Combat Stress for the
outfit inspiration....and she knows a lot about resilience too!)

6. I’m an Occupational Therapist...
• So whilst I get the whole psychology thing, I believe in
the power of participation, doing stuff, being included
and looking beyond the “I” of “Illness” to the “we” of
“wellness”
• And I also believe that Star Wars can help us with most
life issues....
(so cheesy that last bit but I love it and trully believe it!)

7. Jedi
• “The Jedi Path” 33 traits apparently, but I am
mentioning these main ones as 33 is quite a
big list! http://nzjedi.org/33-jedi-traits.php

8. 5. Jedi live in the present moment.
Jedi live in the here and
now, and don't have stress
about the future or the
past. We need to control
the mind, and not let the
mind control us.
• Mindfulness Based Stress
Reduction MBSR – secular
application of ancient
techniques...
• Many scholarly articles here:
http://bit.ly/2fILwBJ
• Nice project here:
http://bit.ly/20lYgNO

9. • 8. Jedi practice
meditation to achieve a
calm mind.
• 9. Jedi practice awareness
and are mindful of their
thoughts.
• 10. Jedi have patience.
Jedi choose to act with
patience, and not to
react with anger.
• Penn Resiliency Program
(PRP)
18 hours of structured
taught sessions
Key elements from CBT,
Optimism & Positive
Psychology

10. Learning your ABC’s Antecedent, Behaviour, Consequence
• How do you usually respond to situations? Could you react differently? Do
you make unhelpful assumptions about the situation. Do you assume
what others are thinking? What makes you react quickly, without thinking
first?
Avoiding Thinking Traps
• When things go wrong do you automatically blame yourself? Do you
blame others? Do you jump to conclusions? Do you assume that you know
what the other person is thinking?
Detecting Icebergs
• Everyone has deeply held beliefs about people, themselves and the world
– what is should be like, how they want it to be like, how they themselves
ought to be. These beliefs often float underneath our consciousness and
we are not aware of them. Sometimes these beliefs guide us helpfully but
sometimes they interfere with the life we want and help explain why we
overreact to situations or have trouble making decisions. Need to identify
your personal beliefs and see how they work for and against you.

11. Challenging beliefs
• A key component to resilience is figuring out how we problem
solve and whether we pursue things that won’t work or tire us
out in trying. Need to recognise the power we do have in
situations – much of poor resilience comes from a feeling of
helplessness. Often we try to manipulate the outcome and
control it to turn out the way we want, when we can’t actually
control the outcome.
Putting it in perspective
• Do you spend energy and time on things that are perhaps less
important than they originally seem? Do you excel in
catastrophic thinking? Do you take things too seriously? Often
we look back over time and think “oh, that thing turned out
alright” or “actually it wasn’t that important”
Calming and Focussing
• Do you get distracted by panicky or stressful thoughts and
situations. Do you get overwhelmed and freeze or panic in
response? In these states its difficult to remember to recruit a
calm, focussed and resourceful state. (Reivich & Shatte 2002)

12. • 11. Jedi protect and
defend the helpless.
• 22. Jedi believe in service
to others, and are
selfless.
• Volunteering benefits all
ages...
http://bit.ly/2axO2fe
• Volunteering only
beneficial for over 40’s
http://bit.ly/2bfgCSH
• All of you here protect,
defend and help people
• All of you are in service to
others.
There is a Dark Side to this...
• Burnout, over-work,
worry (taking it home).
Boundaries which need
constant checking for our
own mental health.

13. You could send kids to scouts or guides...
• http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2016/scouts-and-guides-have-better-mental-
health-in-la

14. 1. Jedi believe in an invisible
universal energy called ‘the
Force’. The Force is a living
spiritual presence that surrounds
us, penetrates us, and binds all
the matter in the universe
together. The Force is the soul of
all living things; it exists
everywhere.
7. Jedi trust their feelings or
intuitions.
Jedi are a 'feeling people' and
believe in using and trusting their
feelings and intuition. Jedi are
intuitive and are in touch with the
core of their being.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/resea
rch_reports/RR100/RR100/RAND_RR100.pdf
• “Spiritual Fitness” correlates
with greater resilience (RAND
research)
• A sense of meaning & purpose
in life is strongly positively
related to quality of life.
• Personal religious & spiritual
practices are linked to
improved health & functioning
• Converging evidence that
support from a spiritual
community is generally
beneficial to health and well-
being.

15. 13. Jedi stay physically fit for many
reasons.
Jedi stay physically fit in
order to accomplish their
mission in life. Fitness
effects your mental health
and over-all wellbeing.
• There is heaps of research
showing the impact of
exercise/fitness on
mental wellbeing....nice
summary here:
http://www.apa.org/monito
r/2011/12/exercise.aspx
And exercise doesn’t
necessarily mean Lycra and
the gym...does it.

16. 33. Jedi have a keen sense of humour.
https://www.europeanjournalofhumour.org/index.p
hp/ejhr/article/view/38
The impact of laughter yoga on
subjective wellbeing: a pilot study
Melissa Kate Weinberg, Thomas G. Hammond, Robert A. Cummins
“Following the LY session, significant
improvements in positive emotions and
reductions in the severity of symptoms of
anxiety and stress were reported.
Importantly, the change in wellbeing was
greatest for participants who were
experiencing lower wellbeing prior to the
class.”
33. Jedi are serious people, but they
don't take themselves too seriously. Jedi
like to make people smile and laugh,
especially in bad situations.
27. Jedi believe in democracy, but
usually don’t trust politicians.
(Ieft in for purposes of humour, given the
current climate....)

17. The Dark Side
If we put a Karl Marx hat for a moment
we might think:
“Resilience, alongside creativity, are capitalist tools
for wealth creation and the suppression of the
working classes...”
Teaching our workers to be more resilient = get
more work out of them/make them tougher as we
reduce services and streamline jobs

18. The Problem with the Heroic Paradigm
• It asks us to look for a Hero, perhaps to rescue us ...not
necessarily asking what we can do ourselves
• It kinda says you need to be fitter, faster, stronger and that
failure is due to weakness of body or mind
• You have to man up, do it alone
• It rewards big, exciting actions, not the small ones
• It doesn’t value sensitivity, flow, yielding, choosing battles
carefully, compassion etc
• It’s only one paradigm (if you want to know some others they could
include other universal stories such as: ‘Overcoming the Monster’, ‘Rags
to Riches’, ‘The Quest’, ‘Voyage and Return’, ‘Comedy’, ‘Tragedy’ and
‘Rebirth’ (Booker 2005)

19. What factors lower your
resilience? Eg. tiredness
What factors raise your resilience? eg.
talking about the problem, good sleep,
exercise
Resilience is like the water level. We’re more likely
to crash into the rocks of life’s tough times, when
the level is low.
ThankstoMiriamAkhtarfortheslide!

20. “It is through this
process of
struggling with
adversity that
changes may
arise that propel
the individual to a
higher level of
functioning than
which existed
prior to the
event” (Linley & Joseph,
2004)
Post-traumatic Growth (PTG)
Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004
ThankstoMiriamAkhtarfortheslide!

21. Being
Doing
Becoming
Learning your ABC’s
Reactivity & Icebergs
Avoiding Thinking Traps
Challenging beliefs
Putting it in perspective
Calming and Focussing
Meditation/Mindfulness
Activities that give you
joy, flow, exercise,
connection with
others, meaning and
purpose.
Being of service
Helpful daily habits
and routines
Choosing helpful
environments
What do you want
to become?
What seed of an
idea wants to be
given room &
energy to grow?

22. I recently had a
choice to
continue having
some
psychotherapy...
or join a Morris
Dancing side....
Small actions
count and are
often to
solutions to
big problems

23. Thank you for listening 
jen@otcoach.com
Twitter @jenngash or @OTCoachUK
Facebook/OTCoach
www.jengash.co.uk
www.otcoach.com
07772267004