Welcome to Joy Lab!: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach
Aimee: Well, hey everyone, it is just me today, Aimee. Henry will be back. Next episode. I am really happy to be here, to just kinda welcome you to our month of resilience.
That is our element of joy this month, and I wanna set us up for what's to come this month. Some really great episodes. I wanna give us a good ground to stand on and to really reinforce the truth that like all of our elements of joy, resilience is [00:01:00] hardwired into us.it is built into our biology, but like all of our elements, here's the thing, just because resilience
is built in doesn't mean it's limitless and it doesn't mean that it can't, sort of get buried or kind of dry up. And so we're gonna dig into that a lot in this episode. Now we are living in a time where I think we can pretty much agree that our collective resilience is being tested, is being taxed by stress,
uncertainty, um, chaos, exhaustion, too many expectations, responsibilities. We've gotten into a lot of this in past episodes. And so it just means that we need to be even more intentional about protecting our resilience, about replenishing it, and even growing it [00:02:00] beyond what we might think is possible.
So that's really what we're doing this month. Our episodes here at the podcast, in our program, Joy Lab Program, we will work on protecting our resilience, replenishing it, and then filling it up even more than where it was before. So, let's talk about what resilience is. There's a lot sort of buzzy about it in wellness, psychology, leadership, you name it.
But I wanna be clear about what we mean when we say resilience here. Resilience is really our ability to face challenges, to adapt, and to keep moving forward. It doesn't mean that we never struggle. It doesn't mean that we don't get knocked down. It means that when we do, when we struggle, when we get knocked down, we can also find a way to get back up again.
So Henry likes to describe [00:03:00] resilience as a reservoir, or like a big water cooler inside of us. I think this is really helpful. And this reservoir cooler is filled with this resilience elixir that helps us bounce back. It's there in us. We need to keep it full enough. And here's the thing about the metaphor that I think is also really helpful to remember.
We are not given the same size container. Um.So there are three big factors we like to bring to the front when we talk about the size of our resilience container. the first is genetics. So some people are just lucky. They inherit strong mental health, adaptability, emotional regulation skills.
If you are not in this camp, don't worry, I'm not either. Um, there's more to the story of our genetics. We talk a lot about that here and we'll do some more about that as well in our next few, months, [00:04:00] elements of joy coming up. So stay tuned.The second one that we like to focus on as well when we're talking about the size of this container are early childhood experiences.
So if you grew up in a stable, supportive environment, you likely have a bigger reservoir. If you had a more chaotic, or chaotic home life or experienced trauma or lacked nurturing, your container may be smaller. The last one we like to address is current stress levels. So even the most naturally resilient person with a huge reservoir size of container
can be overwhelmed by too much stress happening all at once. You know, maybe work relationships, financial struggles, global crises, whatever this kind of current high stress or chronic stress can really squeeze our tanks so much that it can kind of change shape temporarily in many cases, but it can make that tank smaller.[00:05:00]
I wanna say more about this tank later as well, because even if you were given a smaller tank, it is not permanent. It can grow. We can grow our tank. So, but looking at these three factors,genetics, childhood experiences and current stress, it can help explain why we might crash at some point, even if it seemed like up until that point we were steady.
Too much depletion of our tank, whether over time or overnight, can overwhelm anybody. None of us are immune. Here's the good news. Resilience isn't just about the size of the container, it's about how we refill it and protect it from leaking in the future. So let's talk about how to do that. I really like Dr. Ann Masten's work here and how she describes resilience as ordinary magic. So her research has really found that resilience doesn't come from [00:06:00] rare super human qualities. It comes from everyday factors that are already available to us. That's our ordinary magic. One of Masten's research projects called the Competence Longitudinal Study followed kids for over 20 years to understand what made some of them thrive despite hardship and
what they found wasn't some like secret sauce or extraordinary trait, instead, again, resilience for these kids as they moved into adulthood came from basic accessible things, things we can all cultivate.
So I wanna share these things. These are the factors that she found in these kids, but these, these are not limited to whether or not we experience them in childhood. These extend beyond into adulthood. So we're gonna, we're gonna embrace 'em as factors that we can look at right now and that we can build [00:07:00] on.
So the first was caring relationships. So looking at family, friends, connections, community support around us. Second, emotional regulation, so the ability to manage emotions rather than being overwhelmed by them. A skill we work on a lot here. Self-efficacy, so believing that we can handle what life throws at us.
Fourth one was a sense of meaning or purpose. Whether through work or spirituality or personal values stretches a lot of domains. Fifth, having hope and optimism so that we can see a path forward even in, in dark times. Hope is one of our elements of joy that we'll be digging into next month. Six was engaging in healthy routines and rituals.
So I, I like this because it suggests a very practical kind of stability in daily [00:08:00] practices and that we need to have a routine that nourishes us. And the last one I wanna highlight is problem solving skills. So the ability to think flexibly and to adapt to challenges. Again, these are really basic factors that we can all build throughout our lives, even if they were not factors present in your home life growing up.
And these are not always easy things to work on. We have to do the work, we have to take care of ourselves in these basic ways to keep our resilience up. So I noted at the beginning that I don't have the genetic dice roll in my favor for resilience.
And there are some key factors in that shortlist that I just named that I didn't grow up with. And I feel really resilient in my life at this point. So my tank was probably smaller early on compared to someone who maybe had a better [00:09:00] roll of the dice and better supports. So if you resonate here that you didn't get the dice roll or supports, trust that that is not the end of the story.
Know that your resilience has not been taken away from you. It can get dried up. Your tank might be a bit smaller early on, but nobody can take away this natural state, this instinct, this quality that you have to be resilient. I think one of the most exciting maybe findings from Masten's research was the idea of something she called late bloomers.
So these were people in the study who seemed to struggle early on, but later, quite later, developed really strong resilience. So it was a, a clear piece of evidence that it is never, never too late to strengthen our ability to adapt, to recover, to thrive, to be resilient. We can. work on these factors that we [00:10:00] have control over.
We can't change our genetics. We can't change what happened in our childhood, but we can make choices today that build on our resilience. And so I name those factors, additionally, we can work on these Elements of Joy. Each and every one will help boost, will help support your resilience, will help fill that tank.
We can strengthen relationships. Our connections, we can prioritize our emotional wellbeing, our resilience, our joy. I think when the world seems upside down or messed up, or chaotic or unfair, these are like the first line solutions. Give attention to what will fill you up so that you can be present and engaged in more effective ways
when it's time. And those things. back to, you know, working on those elements of joy strengthening relationships, that effort offers us this kind of more deep [00:11:00] inner work that doesn't just fill our tank, but it can expand our tank. It can grow our tank. So I noted at the beginning that just because whatever the dice roll early supports were, whatever the size of your tank early on does not mean that it cannot grow.
So let's get back to that metaphor, right? You are a vessel carrying within you this powerful, yet ordinary magic of resilience. It's not infinite, but it can be replenished and you can even grow that tank to hold more. That's what we're gonna do this month here at the podcast. Lots of tools and strategies and in the program really laser focused experiments to help you do that.
Put 'em together and it's like a powerful, one two punch. So I wanna leave you with a passage from Mary Oliver's poem Evidence. I think it speaks to this ordinary magic [00:12:00] within us.
" As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious, and full of detail. It wants to polish itself. It wants to love another body. It is the only vessel in the world that can hold in a mix of power and sweetness. Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable."
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