
How People Learn to Become Resilient - saeranv
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-secret-formula-for-resilience
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jycool
There is a dark side to the idea of an 'internal locus of control.' It creates
a sense that the individual can and should manage the situation, even when the
situation is totally unmanageable. I think it's a common problem among high
achievers (particularly entrepreneurs), and conversely some 'resilient' people
need to accept that there sometimes really IS an external locus of control
before their efforts to control the situation break them. Hence the serenity
prayer
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer))
and major parts of eastern spiritual traditions...

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swillis16
Good point, it's very important to have balance and be able to adhere to the
"And wisdom to know the difference." part. I do think that it is important to
have the experience of having too much 'internal locus of control' in order to
get a good feel for that.

~~~
jib
Or to think that it doesn't matter what happens externally.

Aurelius says something like "How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised
by anything that happens in life." As in, why would external events matter or
be a surprise? Things happen. The only thing you can control is how you react
to them and what you choose to do about them. That helps me at least. It's all
about process, not outcomes. Outcome is a roll of the die, so all you can do
is make sure your internal processes are sound.

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bonniemuffin
The idea that resilience can be learned also implies that resilience can be
spread through social groups -- if you spend more time around resilient people
who view potentially traumatic events in a more positive light, it may lead
you to do the same.

I certainly found this to be true after hurricane katrina; talking to people
who had been through other large-scale disasters helped me re-frame the events
as a learning experience, and I've subsequently found myself more resilient in
the face of other (unrelated) negative events in my life.

~~~
bobbles
You can even see it in babies/toddlers when they fall over or something and
look straight to the parents to see what their reaction should be.

Fretting leads to bawling and encouragement to get back up helps them just get
one with whatever

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hosh
I like the article and where it is going, though I think the specific
recommendations they make only scratches the surface. There are much better
techniques that can be learned from some traditional wisdom lineages, shamanic
initiations, and esoteric martial art lineages.

From my own experiences with Vipassana and other practices, it isn't enough to
turn something negative into a positive. If you are not careful, that turns
into clinging (wishful thinking). Rather, we're talking about being able to
look at _everything_ with clarity, with neither aversion or clinging. To be in
equanimity with existential anguish.

This is something I am deeply interested in. Resiliency, drawing from all the
different traditions and disciplines I had picked up, is something I want to
instill in my step-daughter, and any other children I might raise. None of the
things we know as "formulas of success" will apply by the time my kid(s) or
your's reach adulthood. Our tech is moving too fast for that.

I want my step-daughter to learn how to Choose in face of uncertainty; to act
with impeccable intent; to see the world with clarity. To be equally at home
lost in the woods as in the middle of the urban jungle; to speak and
communicate well with people of high status and the humblest of the homeless,
both intimate friends and strangers from exotic culture. Resiliency is the
basis to _thrive_.

~~~
saeranv
That is a damn good point.

How did you pursue equanimity? Are referring to the Vipassana meditation
10-day course, and if so, how much did it contribute to your overall
equanimity?

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hosh
Hmmm. The word "equanimity" is a noun, so it makes it sound like it's some
treasure you can possess and somehow, everything will be magically in
equanimity. It's not like that because you enter a state of present moment
awareness, which can start surfacing up a lot of crap. It's being OK with the
crap -- being OK with being disturbed and uncertain and in anguish and in
bliss and a lot of things. For me, it's more that ... things arise and passes,
and whatever they are, I see them for what it is. And don't get me wrong,
there's still a lot of crap I am working through. Sometimes, I feel like a
sewage worker mucking out the endless sewage.

Vipassana is one path to work with this. If you are familiar with it, and you
have some combination of curiosity and doubt about it, I highly suggest going
with it. For others, their path to this will be different.

From a Taoist alchemy point of view, there is an excessive, energetic toxin
directed related to existential misery. It results from our tech. I say this
as a person who makes a living writing software tech. So on the side, I've
been exploring that to figure out how to reduce the the anguish specifically
related to excessive, toxic tech. From a Vipassana perspective, it doesn't
matter if it is out of balance. It's seeing that dukkha (existential anguish)
Just Is.

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0xcde4c3db
The thing I've found most frustrating about the framing and discussion around
these things in a clinical setting (in my limited experience, with people who
were probably not trained specifically in these concepts) is that it's
basically not allowed to say that your understanding doesn't fit on the "locus
of control" spectrum (for example, if you reject mind-body dualism, without
which the assumed concepts of "internal" and "external" are somewhat absurd).
According to the worksheet, I _must_ have some kind of one-dimensional "core
belief" about the power of self versus environment. Some of the concepts and
research around this seem promising, but in my experience as a patient/client,
the practice leaves a lot to be desired.

More broadly, I've been frustrated by a lot of the clinical psychology that
focuses on highly stereotyped _beliefs_. Too much of it reads like just-so
stories; Alice looks at Bob's behavior and then treats her own speculations
about Bob's beliefs as though they're actual observations.

~~~
deciplex
> _for example, if you reject mind-body dualism, without which the assumed
> concepts of "internal" and "external" are somewhat absurd_

How are they absurd? You don't have to believe that "your mind" is a separate
ontological thing, in order to have a concept of internal and external
control. Even if you think your physical brain is your mind (which I would
agree is a very reasonable thing to think), you can still have opinions about
how much you can influence your environment, and you can form beliefs which
affect how your brain responds to stimulus.

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wisty
> The good news is that positive construal can be taught. “We can make
> ourselves more or less vulnerable by how we think about things,” Bonanno
> said. In research at Columbia, the neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner has shown
> that teaching people to think of stimuli in different ways—to reframe them
> in positive terms when the initial response is negative, or in a less
> emotional way when the initial response is emotionally “hot”—changes how
> they experience and react to the stimulus. You can train people to better
> regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects.

Sounds like the complete opposite of what some people seem to promote.

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sytelus
The idea is to practice variations of the skill you want to master instead of
practicing same repetitions over and over. Actual paper is unfortunately
behind paywall:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982215015146)

~~~
brbsix
[http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc...](http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2045379445/2056784269/mmc2.pdf)

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riemannzeta
Most of this was known to the likes of Diogenes, Rufus, Epictetus, and
Aurelius. All that is required to have a good guess at this at least is close
observation of our fellows.

~~~
airza
a lot of the subject of this article - "why do some children from awful
backgrounds succeed and why do others fail?" is still a very open problem.

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notthegov
Same can be said about children from good backgrounds. What makes Donald
Trump's kids 'successful'? I know some extremely privileged people in the
early 20s that could do anything, are very attractive, have no worries but
live a life of complete chaos. I know others who were smart and super wealthy,
but stumbled and couldn't recover emotionally/mentally.

I personally think it has a lot to do with stoicism and those who look for
solutions vs those who just try to cope.

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ktRolster
Good point. Money doesn't guarantee your success. You can still mess up a good
thing.

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norea-armozel
I like this article because it makes me wonder what becomes of people with a
similarly bad background like myself (abusive parents and such). I won't say
that I think I'm resilient; I don't think I am but for some odd reason my
therapist does. Go figure.

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jasim
What are some recommended books on this topic?

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jmnicolas
As I said earlier I don't think you can learn it in a book.

A short read :
[http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/01/grit/](http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/01/grit/)
( A Navy SEAL Explains 8 Secrets To Grit And Resilience)

A previous ask HN on this topic but it didn't get many comments :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10048402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10048402)

