Six Simple Resilience Practices

Newly updated

We are offering a sneak peek at the newly updated Six Simple Resilience Practices to you, our beloved PBC Alumni!

Once you sign up below, you will receive the first of six weekly emails, entitled Six Simple Resilience Practices. Each of these is a simple and brief practice that you can do to shift your inner state and to become more resilient. The Six Resilience Practices series is a quick pass through the Presence-Based Resilience model developed by Doug Silsbee in collaboration with his wonderful colleague, Bev Wann. Some of this material has been updated by Bebe Hansen. May these practices can support you in cultivating your own resilience, especially during these complex times, for the sake of your own, and for those you serve.

Each of these is a simple and brief practice that you can do to shift your inner state and to become more resilient.

We live in extraordinary times. New dynamics, accelerating exponentially in complexity and consequence, are challenging the basic structures that shaped our lives. We need leaders that can make bold commitments, stay centered and calm in the midst of intensity, and lead the way toward a more sustainable, harmonious and just world.

You and I are those leaders. We are called to be, and contribute, something greater. Yet, the cumulative effect of global and local stress, reduced resources and general uncertainty can erode our optimism, energy, and effectiveness.

The good news is that resilience, or the capacity to make choices and respond effectively no matter what our situation, can be developed as a leadership capacity in itself.

Six messages are housed in this series. Together, the messages provide a repertoire of simple resilience “practices.” Each practice is an internal means to direct your attention and focus and is therefore not subject to veto power by others. Organizing yourself around possibilities that build resilience, rather than focusing on the evidence that you have no control, is a fundamental principle that can benefit anyone. These practices make this pragmatic. Repeating these practices over time can quickly build your capacity for effective leadership, fulfillment, and ultimately self-mastery.

The practices operationalize a set of core assumptions:

  • Resilience is a capacity inherent in our nature as a biological being.
  • Our aliveness can be squeezed out of us by circumstances if we allow it.
  • And, resilience can absolutely be developed through repeated directing of our attention in specific ways.

Don’t take this on faith. Please “try on” the practice described in this series, a new one for each week, that build on each other over time.  As you practice each one, see for yourself how it is helpful or not. If it is useful, pass it along. If not, you’ve spent a few minutes of your time on a simple experiment that eliminated one means for you to build resilience, allowing you to focus your attention on another!