Resilience: Remaining flexible when life is uncontrollable

Relieving tension around change can help us adapt

Part four in a series about the Phases of Disaster and Resilience

I think we all deserve applause for the ways we adapted over the last year, especially when we didn’t want to.

Many of us cancelled important plans, became teachers, started working from home, celebrated milestones from a distance, held virtual happy hours and game nights, picked up a new hobby, learned more about our neighbors, relied on grocery stores and restaurants for delivery and pick-up, postponed funerals, started wearing masks, sat in parking lots waiting for doctor appointments, and answered a lot of questions about our health.

Whew! That’s a lot.

Things continue to evolve swiftly as vaccines are distributed and virus cases drop, and we’ll soon find ourselves adapting again. Maybe the changes will be more welcome this time, but if we can learn to flex and adapt when we don’t want to, we’ll be better off in the future, no matter what happens next.

I tried to think of several ways to write about flexibility and adaptability, which are the next of the key elements of resilience that can help us through disasters and big, life-altering events, according to Kira Mauseth of the Washington State Department of Health. 

I tried researching how the brain adapts to change and there is some interesting research from 2020 on the small number of brain cells that handle cognitive flexibility. I couldn’t fully wrap my mind around it though, and didn’t know if it was relatable. Too science-y, I guess.

I also found articles on how researchers use algorithms to learn more about human ability to adapt, but I didn’t understand. Calculations and computers seem so absolute when humans are anything but.

After that, I wanted to dive into how Taylor Swift wrote, recorded, and released two surprise albums during the pandemic and figured out how to collaborate with artists who worked remotely in isolation. I figured she must be a queen at flexibility and adapting, in addition to creativity. However, when I started writing that version of this post, it seemed too pop culture, a bit cheesy and possibly out of reach. While I love Taylor Swift, I recognize that she has access to money, people and privilege that we don’t, especially in times of crisis.

What made the most sense to me in terms of human ability to adapt to change is what’s written on this site, and it’s actually more business-y than psychological. Yet, in my limited research, it resonated. The overall premise is that mental capacity and resources relate to how much disruption individuals can handle before displaying dysfunctional behaviors and mindsets. According to the website, both capacity and resources are assets needed to address transitions.

Mental capacity resides within us while resources are external. Both are limited and difficult to change, but individually, we have more control over our mental capacity than our external resources, even though the two may seem inseparable at times. Because both take work to improve and are hard to adjust, I understand why Mauseth said that flexibility and adaptability are the most difficult elements of resilience to embrace and develop. 

Recognizing tension and evaluating its importance

If we’re able to process the past year with grace, that may help us see why and how we adapted in the ways we did during the pandemic. Someone already experiencing anxiety or depression had a different mental capacity starting point when the world shut down last March than someone else who didn’t. Those who had comfortable homes and financial situations may have fared better due to their resources than those living from paycheck to paycheck, and others who were furloughed or lost employment.

Within our varied situations, we had the ability to make choices and see life from our individual points of view, and that will always be the case no matter what future crisis happens. 

In order to become more flexible and adaptable, Mauseth suggests noticing when we feel tense and then questioning how much the situation matters. For many of us, it was hard to put on a mask the first time when we ventured into the public, but it also turned out to be relatively easy in relation to other changes that disrupted our lives. The tense feeling was normal because the change was uncomfortable, but in the long run, maybe wearing a mask didn’t matter as much as we thought, especially if we could trust that the pandemic would be temporary.

When we can let go of things that matter less, it helps us better focus on what is crucial. Some tension arises because of truly important issues, and those are the things we can spend more energy on, even if it still means being flexible.

I’m impressed with many ways our society as a whole adapted - how scientists switched up what they were working on to research vaccines and ventilators; how artists and instructors offered services online; how teachers re-wrote plans and curriculums so they could better serve children online; how doctors and nurses in crowded hospitals worked long hours attending to some of the sickest patients they’d seen. 

Steering away from ‘why’ may increase some control

Humans thirst for ways to explain why terrible things happen because we want to make meaning of everything. The intention may be sincere, but life is hard and unexplainable at times. When we try to figure out “why,” we risk wasting energy when we could be focusing on adjusting and finding meaning in other ways - such as the good things that happen following disaster.

I don’t like the phrase “everything happens for a reason” because it simplifies too many hardships and can disempower those who suffer. People sometimes say that phrase to make meaning out of things we can’t understand - such as why COVID-19 spread around the world, and why more than half a million people in America have died. “Everything happens for a reason” justifies adversity with divine purpose, even when we can’t explain what’s divine about suffering, and it can potentially silence those who grieve. I believe it also takes away some of the control we have.

Instead, I prefer “control what you can control.” It allows those who are stricken with grief, disbelief, confusion, anxiety, or depression the ability to take a next step. It also removes blame or justification away from a higher power or other source.

Over the last year, when we were able to better control our situations, we probably felt more empowered. Adapting could have meant creating the most comfortable home office space within our means, figuring out how to connect with our families in new ways, having a smaller wedding rather than waiting for the perfect day, or attending a virtual funeral so you could be there in some way.

Remember impermanence

If I could go back a year from now and tell myself a secret, I’d say, “The pandemic will last longer than you think, but it will still come to an end.”

There have been times over the last year when it seemed like social distancing and isolation would remain indefinite because the finish line kept moving. Now suddenly it seems like there is light at the end of the tunnel due to escalated vaccine production, virus cases dropping, and an increase in re-openings.

It’s often hard to see past the moment, the day, or week. The last year felt like one problem compiled on another. Things kept shifting, and we kept adapting - often begrudgingly. In the meantime, while many of us struggled, vaccines were under development and now they’re being deployed. That was one of the good things that happened following disaster.

We can’t always see what’s happening somewhere else outside our hardships while we’re trying to adapt. But life promises impermanence, and whatever we’re going through won’t stay exactly as it is. Ideally, opportunities will arise, and what seems to be a huge problem today, may not be a problem tomorrow, next month, or next year. Remembering that can help keep us flexible, adaptable, and will get us to the next phase of life.