A Resilient New Year!

Posted by jessicakilham on January 8th, 2021 Posted in: All of Us

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The New Year is a celebration of new beginnings.  This may be especially true as we welcome 2021, which we hope will be a resilient New Year. Resilience sustains us through adversity by cultivating practices that help us cope … and 2020 was nothing if not full of adversity.

How can we practice resilience in the New Year? Psychologists define resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors.”¹ This doesn’t mean we deny reality but instead we develop the strong coping skills needed to deal with harsh realities. Fortunately, resilience is something we can cultivate and grow. These featured books offer helpful tips for your resiliency garden.

In Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson provides a roadmap to develop resilience. In a society that is so often toxic and unwelcoming, Dr. Anneliese A. Singh, Tulane University’s first Associate Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development and a prolific author, offers skills to gain resilience in The Queer and Transgender Resilience Workbook. Noted Black mental health expert, Dr. Rheeda Walker, illuminates how to attain what she describes as “psychological fortitude” in The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve.

Each of us can benefit from cultivating resilience, so let’s make 2021 a resilient New Year! To learn more about these books and their authors – and to find related helpful information from the National Library of Medicine and other authoritative sources – visit NNLM Reading Club’s Mental Health Resilience page.

¹American Psychological Association. (2020, February 1). Building your resilience. http://www.apa.org/topics/resilience