Personal & Community Resilience in Times of Change

Resilience has become a prolific concept over the last years, as an attainable “goal” to strive towards in many areas of life. With resilience being at the core of Mana’s pillars and mission we’d like to breathe more life into this ideal in hopes of providing a wider understanding of how it can apply to each of us as well.

So, what is Resilience?

PERSONAL RESILIENCE

Personal resilience is defined as a person’s ability to successfully bounce back from stress. Psychologists define resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress”. Further, resilience involves adapting to change through being proactive vs reactive, learning and then innovating to help sustain through and then recover from life’s difficult experiences.

What opportunity do we have right now, in these – trying times, to cultivate our personal resilience and create positive outcomes for ourselves, our family and community? The answer lies in doing simple things that can be learned and practiced by anyone.

Here are some suggestions that science has proven can help…

Be Open-Minded and Be Nimble

Right now is an unprecedented moment in time to reflect on our lives and the world we live in. Stay open as you listen and learn to have a better understanding of situations, yourself and those close to you to help provide a sense of ease. Go deep, stay present and be willing to adjust how you think, feel and move.

Invest in Yourself

Many of us have an opportunity right now to anchor those self-care practices we know make us feel better in life. Exercise, eating well, being in nature, meditation, supplementing with CBD and other immunity building nutrients are all tools to stay healthy.

Release Tension and Invite Humor

When you feel the tension mounting, take a few deep belly breaths and switch gears. Take a walk. Talk to a good friend. Take a cold shower. Soak in a hot bath. Watch or listen to something funny as laughter releases endorphins, the brain’s “feel-good” chemicals.Do anything that works for you to relieve your stress in the moment.

Be Creative and Find a Purpose

Innovation lifts our energy and literally pulls us out of suffering and into a more resilient state of being. When we activate the creative centers of the brain our whole biochemistry shifts. When we have a sense of purpose, even of the smallest kind, we feel better about life and our place within it.

Orient toward the Positive and Serve

The more you can orient yourself toward positive, solutionary mental states the better you and the people around you will feel. One of the simplest ways to do that is to perform acts of kindness. Anytime you can be of genuine service to another person or cause, you uplift yourself and those you serve.

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

According to Wikipedia, “community resilience is the sustained ability of a community to use available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations. This allows for the adaptation and growth of a community after disaster strikes.” According to the Post Carbon Institute, the foundations for cultivating community resilience lies in people, systems thinking, adaptability, transformability, sustainability, and courage. These foundations were determined after a survey of the academic literature on resilience and direct communication with scholars, activists, and local leaders around the country.

At Mana, we support these integral elements for cultivating community resilience. Within those foundations, we find many aspects of our mission including supporting regenerative agriculture, local economy, and community wellness.

Regenerative Agriculture

Supports sustainability and adaptability of the land and the people it serves by continually building the quality of food growing systems to provide more fertility over generations.

Local Economy

Investing in local farmers, suppliers, and other businesses help build a resilient local economy while reinvesting continually in the community.

Community Wellness

Wellness education and products empower people to stay healthy, adaptable and able to courageously face adversity. This supports innovation for positive change on a personal level and in a community setting.

We believe in contributing to resilience by empowering the people, advocating for sustainability and supporting our local economy. Our hope is that together we can encourage each other to do what we can today and every day to strengthen our personal and community resilience. Now more than any other time in our history we have seen the kind of impact that can be made with intentional choices to support one another. Let’s continue this and create the next levels of resilience collectively.

Interested in learning more about resilience? Resilient.org has an online course that is free until Earthday 2020.