Let’s be real: Resilience is not the same as endurance.
by Amber Wheatley.
Resilience, for me, has meant an ability to endure an unfavourable circumstance for a prolonged period of time.
This means that for me to be resilient I have to:
Absolutely hate what I’m doing.
Really want to not be doing it.
Force myself to do it anyway.
Do this for significantly longer than I can tolerate.
Spoiler alert, that’s not resilience. My definition of resilience is actually the definition of endurance.
So I looked it up. Endurance can be defined as the ability to endure an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way or the capacity of something to last or to withstand wear and tear.
Resilience on the other hand is actually the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties i.e. toughness or the ability for an objected to return to its original shape after stress i.e. elasticity.
What is important about these definitions is that they are usually related to the physical properties of materials or inanimate objects. These descriptions are constantly applied to humans because they perfectly suit the idea of humans as stock. It fits the idea of the human body being a machine.
We are designed to work and work we shall.
An inability for us to work means that there is a fault with the machine.
We are human capital not human beings.
Right? Wrong.
I came to this realisation during a moment of existential crisis on my day off. I had spent a significant part of my life and parents’ money to become a doctor. I had prayed to be on my current training program. Yet, every time I got half way through the week I wanted nothing more than to get out. After years of working extra shifts, being chastised for not working enough extra shifts, being afraid of being seen as lazy, worrying about not being able to match my competition, and trying to surviving the emotional turmoil of being a newly qualified doctor, I am no longer tolerant of the things I put my mind and body through. Yet, on my day off, I was overcome with guilt and shame for not working‘hard enough’. I didn’t feel like I deserved this day off.
In fact, I often feel that the reason it takes me a full 24 hours to even be able to lift my head is because I am weak. That I don’t have what it takes. That i’m not resilient. That i’m m not strong enough to fight my “laziness”. Sound familiar?
I now know this is a lie my anxiety tells me. As I bring more awareness to this, I have tried to dig this narrative out of the mud that has settled in the bottom of brain. Who told me I was lazy? Why do I struggle to feel like my work is enough? Where did I get my definitions of resilience and endurance crossed?
Why do I struggle to feel like my work is enough?
Although I’m still unpacking these false stories, I’ve come up with a few ideas of where the story got twisted.
I was conditioned to believe that I had to follow the “right” way of working/living/being andthat the only way to know I was on the right path was through external validation. External validation was always right, always good, and always safe. From this false narrative came the belief that I am always inherently wrong and flawed. From this, I became a natural people pleaser; my answer is always ‘yes’ even if internally it’s a ‘hell no’.
My identity as a black woman is rooted in enduring pain. Black women are strong and this strength comes from ‘enduring,’ from demonstrating (what I thought was) resilience – to be able to carry the burdens of the world for ever, even if we did not ask for or want it. Until this moment, I could not identify with that aspect of my identity without the enduring part. I was not really black if my life was not marked by having to carry some sort of suffering. My strength and thus my blackness and my woman-ness seemed only acceptable and measurable by how well I was able to carry suffering and still be able to create joy. My mother’s life was suffering for my joy, her mother’s life was suffering for my mother’s joy and so would I suffer for the joy of my daughter.
This thinking stopped when I realised that I had, and still have, the power and freedom to curate my own life. I can say no when I want to and yes when I want to and I can really mean that shit.
My mother’s life was suffering for my joy, her mother’s life was suffering for my mother’s joy and so would I suffer for the joy of my daughter.
I don’t have to endure anything or even put myself in an unpleasant circumstance. I was not put on this earth for people to like me.
In light of yet another black life being used for traumatic click-bait, I suggested to a friend that rather than forcing themselves to watch the traumatic content of black lives being threatened and murdered, or deciding which social media account to follow/unfollow/support/cancel, they could focus on themselves. They could follow the content that nourishes them.
This thinking stopped when I realised that I had, and still have, the power and freedom to curate my own life.
Humans are complex and there is no straightforward “right” way of being. If we decided to be active on social media or not, we would still be black women. We don’t need to carry the world’s burdens, especially if we don’t want to.
Furthermore, the content put on social media is a well curated snapshot and not that whole person or organisation.
This was met with some resistance but I couldn’t blame her. When you’re conditioned to believe that it is your duty to endure and mistake endurance for resilience, curating your life i.e. keeping the bits you like and chucking the stuff you don’t want, is seen as; weak, defiant, rebellious, childish, immature, avoidant.
Part of my own false narrative was that this ugly traumatic part of life was “the real world” and the part where I could be happy was a daydream.
At my highest points my parents would bring me down with criticisms that they viewed as necessary to prepare me for the disappointments of life. This would create resilience, they felt. What actually happened was that I learned joy made you vulnerable, being vulnerable meant you were weak, feeling weak felt like rejection. I learned that I was not good enough. I learned that if I wanted joy, I would have to suffer and that was resilience.
We are made to believe that if we cannot endure, we cannot be resilient and thus we cannot survive. Life is difficult and unpleasant work and if it isn’t, you’re not doing it right.
In reality our existence doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be “work”. Resilience alsoinvolves recognising when we need rest and protecting ourselves by setting personal and professional boundaries. Yes, there will be things you don’t like in the world. You will have the power to change them. You will have to learn when to use your power to change them.
You don’t have to do shit you hate, talk to people you don’t like, work a job you don’t enjoy, study a subject that doesn’t excite you. In fact, you’ll do much better in life by learning to live a life
consistent with what you want for yourself, putting the necessary boundaries in place and developing a nurturing support network.
During this pandemic I’ve spent my free time investing in the stuff that I care about most and it has made my home and my mind a cosy sanctuary from all the bullshit. Creative women, books, yoga plants, my partner and me. This is what makes me resilient.
I am strong enough to take my day off.
I am strong enough to say yes to my relationships even when that means saying no to work opportunities.
I am strong enough to switch off. To say no. To withstand when I want to.
This isn’t the new resilience. This is true resilience.
Dr. Amber Wheatley is currently a GP trainee. In her words: The word resilience gets thrown around a lot when coping with the stress of being a healthcare professional. I found myself reflecting on how part of my identity ( doctor, woman, black) all seemed to intersect around this idea of "resilience". When I looked up the word resilience I realised that I was actually confusing resilience with endurance. I had actually attached much of my identity around enduring and this was having a significant impact on what 'Resting', 'good enough', and 'hard working' looked like for me. In discussing this with other women in my social circle, I realised I wasn't the only one who got the wires crossed and created a barrier to effective self-care.