WEllness & Resilience

Resilience is your ability to rebound from life challenges—not by avoiding them—but by facing them head on like the buffalo. 

The American Bison, also known as the Buffalo, serves well as a metaphor for resilience. While domesticated cattle try to outrun a storm, buffalo instinctually know that to outrun a storm is impossible. They face the storm head on and are rewarded for their strength and ability to rebound: Buffalo suffer less, conserve energy, and spend far less time in the freezing rain, drizzle, high winds, snow, and more. In contrast, domesticated cattle suffer longer, exert more energy, and spend more time in the chaotic rise and fall of a storm.

#BeThe Buffalo

Human storms can arise from myriad wells: Infidelity or mistrust in a marriage, the death of a loved one, panic attacks of unknown origins, depression, existential angst, or a major life transition. Yet, there is purpose and meaning beyond ourselves in such storms; it is that which can be understood.

Carl Jung noted that :

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order, in all caprice a fixed order, for everything that works is grounded on its opposite.” [Jung, CW, 9i, 32:66]

#BeTheBuffalo is a reminder that heading into a storm is a far better option than suppressing emotions and feelings that may arise in difficulty (read: painful or uncomfortable). Suppression occurs consciously and is a defense mechanism that “relieves” one of uncomfortable emotions or feelings such as anger or jealousy. Even though the emotion may be "absent" from expression, it does not mean that it does not exist. Emotions are a part of the human experience that long to be felt, seen, heard, understood, and resolved. Suppressing them can lead to depression, emotional numbness, passive-aggressiveness, relational distress, and somatic symptoms such as headaches, irritable bowel, lower back pain, and more ...

Leaning into the Five Pillars of Resilience—Self-Awareness, Self-Care, Mindfulness, Supportive Relationships, and Meaning and Purpose—can help us lead authentic lives that face challenges head on, like the buffalo.

How Can I Be More Like the Buffalo?

Psychotherapy can help you develop greater self-awareness—which is deeply connected to your sense of security (attachments), sense of efficacy (empowerment), and sense of self-worth (mattering). This self-awareness is key to eight areas of life depicted in the Wheel of Wellbeing: Physical, emotional, spiritual, vocational, intellectual, financial, environmental, and relational. I liken this wheel to the first bicycle we learned to ride: When all the spokes are even and the air in the inner tube properly inflated, moving forward, with or without training wheels come quite naturally and provides little resistance. It’s when one or more spokes are bent/missing and/or the tire is deflated that moving forward is more difficult or comes to a halt.

When working with clients seeking balance and harmony in life, I first invite them to identify the areas that provide them strengths. We then look at the areas that would benefit from a realignment to one’s values and goals. Individuals and couples find this work enlightening, rewarding, and inspirational!

Where are Your Strengths on the Wheel of WellBeing?

Relational Wellbeing

Relational wellbeing is the ability to navigate interactions with other humans through the establishment of trust, understanding, reliance, and intimacy. Being vulnerable with others signifies your ability to risk rejection, share your needs, and engage in respectful conflict when your needs are not met.

Spiritual Wellbeing

Spiritual wellbeing is the interiority of the self’s engagement with the universal. It may be your beliefs and faith based upon philosophical and/or religious ethics codified by treatises, historical texts, and experiences. It may be your connectivity to a higher power and your practice in letting go—giving over to the universal human potential, the collective unconscious’s calling, or the archetypal shadow. Or it may be your exploration of freedom, responsibility, isolation, and meaninglessness (i.e., existential concerns) while boxing on occasion with your shadow.

Emotional Wellbeing

Emotional wellbeing is an “awareness, understanding and acceptance of our feelings and our ability to manage effectively through challenges and change,” according to the National Center for Emotional Wellness. As discussed above, the suppression and/or repression of our emotions can be detrimental to our emotional wellbeing. Being aware of the the seven primal emotions can open up the door to understanding of feelings and responses to challenges and change: Happiness, surprise, contempt, sadness, fear, disgust, and anger.

Intellectual Wellbeing

Intellectual wellbeing is the active engagement with the world through curiosity, creativity, and learning. The neuroplasticity of the brain demands ongoing “exercise.” Such exercise invigorates the mind​, enhances memory, improves concentration, and contributes to greater ability to face challenges (i.e., #BeTheBuffalo).

Environmental Wellbeing

Environmental wellbeing describes how you move in and out and around your spaces, inside and outside your home, community, and society-at-large. Clutter and disarray in a personal space can lead to similar emotional feelings about self and life. As climate change continues to impact populations across the globe, our wellbeing can be impacted by how we and others (ab)use earth’s limited resources.

Physical Wellbeing

Physical wellbeing is the behaviors based on movement, nutrition, and sexuality. Activities promoting physical wellness enhance one’s ability to engage in life through structural integrity of the body, including muscular, skeletal, and cardiovascular. Nutrition and diet are an important component of physical wellbeing and can be measured by whole foods and a reduction in processed foods. Sexual wellbeing is a cornerstone of this three-legged stool, and described by Dr. Dmitry Loktionov as “state of body and mind that enables [one] to enjoy and explore sex on [one’s] own terms and in [one’s] own time. "

Vocational Wellbeing

Vocational wellbeing can be viewed as one’s tethered self. One’s vocation ties one to a community, a profession, personal goals, and collective achievements. Practicing vocational wellbeing can help one identify purpose and meaning in life, practice old interests and excavate new ones, and maintain work-life balance.

Financial Wellbeing

Financial wellbeing impacts one daily—from paying living expenses to budgeting for savings and retirement—how one spends and saves financial resources is a key aspect of wellbeing. It is the one that many, unfortunately, fear and, thus, ignore or compartmentalize. Engaging with a financial planner, a bank representative, or another knowledgeable professional can help one benefit from active financial wellbeing.

In future posts, I will home in on each area of wellbeing. I encourage you to begin to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Doesn’t your bicycle deserve a healthy wheel?

Lisa A. Rainwater, PhD, MA (couns), LCMHC, CCMHC, CGP, CT is the owner of Rainwater Counseling in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she provides depth psychotherapy and relational attachment and grief counseling to individuals and couples. She earned a master’s in German Studies from the University of Oregon; a master’s in Counseling from Wake Forest University; and a doctorate in German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lisa is a Certified Thanatologist through the Association of Death Education and Counseling and is seeking certification in Grief Therapy as Meaning Reconstruction at the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. She has training in Young-Eisendorf’s Dialogue Therapy for Couples and will be participating in the Jung Discovery Group’s The Last Frontier: LOVING our Opposite Retreat in October. She is currently enrolled in a year-long program, Jungian and Post-Jungian Clinical Concepts, at the Centre of Applied Jungian Studies.