"When we think of resilience, images of grit, stoicism, or "bouncing back" often come to mind. Resilience is popularly framed as toughness, a refusal to bend under life's pressures. Yet this definition leaves something out. Real resilience is not just about enduring hardship but about adapting, reimagining, and even transforming through it. In this broader view, creativity emerges as one of resilience's most potent forms."
"Creativity is not limited to painting masterpieces or composing symphonies. I've written previously about how it includes everyday acts of imagination, like journaling, cooking, telling stories, arranging flowers, or even doodling in the margins of a notebook. These creative gestures can be subtle but powerful ways of reorganizing our inner lives. When the world shifts beneath us through trauma, illness, or loss, creativity provides more than distraction; it helps us make meaning."
A phone call reveals that a mother has malignant brain lesions; the respondent experiences numbness and then impulsively rearranges bedroom furniture to process adrenaline and emotion. Physical labor burns off adrenaline while changing the environment serves to reorganize internal states. Resilience is reframed beyond grit or stoicism to include adapting, reimagining, and transforming through hardship. Creativity functions as a form of resilience embodied in everyday acts—journaling, cooking, storytelling, arranging flowers, doodling—that reorganize inner life. Creative acts combine familiar elements in new ways and help restore coherence and meaning after trauma, illness, or loss.
Read at Psychology Today
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