How can you build resilience

By Barbara Gutierrez [email protected] 09-05-2025

The definition of resilience is the capacity to withstand and recover quickly from difficulties. It denotes toughness.

Life can provide us with countless challenges: loss of a loved one, loss of a job, marital problems, an unfavorable health diagnosis, bankruptcy. These are just a few.

It takes a well of resilience to face these difficulties and continue to function effectively in our everyday lives.

Several University of Miami experts shared their thoughts on how we can build resiliency. Here is what they said:

Isaac Prilleltensky, professor of educational and psychological studies, School of Education and Human Development

We build resilience through a combination of emotional regulation, interpersonal skills, coping competencies, and social support. It is extremely difficult to overcome hardships without psychosocial support from family, colleagues, or friends. Robust, trusting, and caring relationships are essential to overcome adversity in life.

Alex R. Piquero, professor and chair, Department of Sociology and Criminology, College of Arts and Sciences

Oftentimes in our lives, external things happen to us. We can build resilience by not letting the highs get too high or the lows get too low. By maintaining a positive outlook that "this too shall pass" is an important feature of not just staying grounded but also by building and rebuilding resilience. This is important because resilience is like a muscle; it can get taxed and overused. Some ways that I have found in my research-and that other scholars have reported-is to ensure you have outlets to deal with stress, but to ensure the outlets are positive ones. These include things like exercise, meditation, and social support.

Here is what happened to me this past summer during a trip to Spain. My wife, Nicky, and I visited the Rock of Gibraltar. As you ascend to the top of the Rock (in a cable car), you are in a nature preserve that has monkeys on it, specifically Barbary macaques. Two of them got on top of me and took my backpack that had a bag of chips and a sandwich in it. They opened the bag, took out the food, and started to eat it. I was watching them when another monkey came from behind me and bit me with sharp teeth on my left forearm, causing blood to spew in the air and all over me and the ground. I immediately covered my arm and held it up above my heart while I sought medical attention. Nothing like this has ever happened in my life, but I tried to stay grounded, rational, and focused on getting what I needed-first aid, tetanus shots, and other medications to help ward off any infection. Seven hours later when I got back to the hotel, I needed to clear my head and re-center. So, I went for a 10k run on the beach in Malaga. It helped me focus on recovery.

Scott L. Rogers, lecturer in law and director, Mindfulness in Law Program, School of Law; co-director, University of Miami's Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative

We are all resilient. The number of challenges and uncertainties that come our way is literally endless-and yet, here we are. This speaks to the human condition and our inherent capacity to meet and respond to life's challenges. Along the way, each of us has gathered lessons that have shaped and strengthened our resilience-some hard-earned, others arriving as gifts, through good fortune, wise mentors, and learning from the experiences of others.

Resilience is deeply tied to how we see and relate to what's happening. Often, the true obstacle isn't the challenge itself but the unexamined stories we tell about it-our beliefs, interpretations, and assumptions. At such times, a 20-pound weight can feel as if it weighs 100; what is, in fact, manageable can seem overwhelming and unbearable. Mindfulness means seeing things clearly, and as we strengthen it, life's challenges persist, but our perception of their weight recalibrates. This clarity can be cultivated through meditation, pausing to reset intentions, and recalling simple truths like, "this too shall pass" and "don't believe everything you think." Mindfulness teacher Sylvia Boorstein offers a helpful phrase to guide us through difficult moments: "May I meet this moment fully; may I meet it as a friend."

Jill Ehrenreich-May, professor and Cooper Fellow, associate chair of Graduate Studies, Department of Psychology at College of Arts and Sciences

Many persons have experienced what we might consider Adverse Childhood Experiences (often referred to as ACEs) or potentially traumatic experiences that occur before reaching adulthood (e.g. experiencing violence, witnessing a traumatic event, the death of a close family member, etc.) and other traumatic events later in life. In the face of such events, it is often said that some people appear to recover and may even thrive moving forward, whereas others struggle to recover. We might define "resilience" in light of traumatic events as the ability to cope with challenges, often with the aid of personal strengths and support systems.

As somebody who studies cognitive behavior therapy in children and adolescents, the coping tools that help individuals build resilience in the face of challenges and tragedies are quite similar to our approach to supporting youth experiencing fear, anxiety, and sadness. Some resilience-building skills might include knowing when to take personal space, how to be more assertive, solve problems, or manage strong emotions more effectively.

We might also build resilience through learning relaxation or mindfulness strategies and when to apply them. Or working on increasing our social network and friendship building. For many, these resilience-building strategies can be personalized. For example, connecting with nature might be an important aspect of coping and resilience building for one person, whereas exercise and movement might be an important facet for another person.