Resilience. It’s a word that has been used a lot when discussing effects of the events of the past year. But when we describe a person or community as “resilient”, what are we saying about them? Many times resilience is used to mean that a person is “tough” or “handles adversity well”. This may be true but there is much more to resilience.

Resilience is defined by the American Psychological Association as, “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of threat”. One of the aspects of resilience that is discussed often is, whether resilience is something we are born with or is something we develop throughout our lives. The answer is both! There are some genetic factors that can contribute to resilience and there are environmental effects as well.