Bounce:Use The Power Of Resilience To Live The Life You Want 9780273729945, 0273729942

Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Bounce......Page 2
Contents......Page 6
About the authors......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
Part 1 Themeaning of bounce......Page 14
What is bounce?......Page 16
The bounce effect......Page 28
Have you got bounce?......Page 46
Part 2 The rules of bounce......Page 64
Be flexible......Page 66
Change your thinking......Page 80
Change your behaviour......Page 94
Connect......Page 106
Respect your body......Page 120
Part 3 Bouncing......Page 138
Bounce out of stress and fear......Page 140
Bounce when you are out of work......Page 150
Bounce in the family......Page 158
Bounce out of rejection......Page 166
Bounce out of disaster......Page 176
Conclusion......Page 184
Notes......Page 188

Citation preview

What would if you knew What would youyou do do if you knew you could never fail? you could never fail?

  That no matter what life threw at you, whatever challenges you faced, you could keep moving forward to build a happy and successful life. With Bounce you can. Nobody goes through life without ups and downs. We all suffer similar misfortunes – bereavement, accident, illness, rejection, redundancy, debt. The key to living the life you want is how you react to the things that happen to you.

With Bounce you are ready to face any adversity, nothing is frightening, no problem is insurmountable, every experience makes you stronger – you can keep on bouncing towards your dreams and goals. Bounce is your resilience bible. Full of powerful techniques and inspirational stories, it will help you build an invincible armour of courage and strength to change your life for the better.  

Bounce is enjoyable and uplifting. It uses real life experiences to enlighten and inspire, and is full of practical exercises to boost resilience ready for whatever lies ahead. Nicky Conlan, Counsellor and Trainer with Relate  I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a practical and positive guide to building resilience and achieving life goals. Donna Butler, Psychotherapist (UKCP)

Gill Hasson and Sue Hadfield

Whatever the future holds, Whatever the future holds, whateverhappens happenstotoyou, you,with with whatever Bounce,you youcan canovercome overcomeand and Bounce achieve anything anything you you want. want. achieve

Use the power of resilience to live the life you want

£10.99 PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT I S B N 978-0-273-72994-5

Visit us on the web www.pearson-books.com

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Bounce

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Prentice Hall LIFE If life is what you make it, then making it better starts here. What we learn today can change our lives tomorrow. It can change our goals or change our minds; open up new opportunities or simply inspire us to make a difference. That’s why we have created a new breed of books that do more to help you make more of your life. Whether you want more confidence or less stress, a new skill or a different perspective, we’ve designed Prentice Hall Life books to help you to make a change for the better. Together with our authors we share a commitment to bring you the brightest ideas and best ways to manage your life, work and wealth. In these pages we hope you’ll find the ideas you need for the life you want. Go on, help yourself. It’s what you make it ***

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Bounce How to bounce back from just about anything

Gill Hasson and Sue Hadfield

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PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED Edinburgh Gate Harlow CM20 2JE Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Fax: +44 (0)1279 431059 Website: www.pearsoned.co.uk First published in Great Britain in 2009 © Pearson Education 2009 The rights of Gill Hasson and Sue Hadfield to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN: 978-0-273-72994-5 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hasson, Gill. Bounce : how to bounce back from just about anything / Gill Hasson and Sue Hadfield. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-273-72994-5 (pbk.) 1. Success 2. Failure (Psychology) I. Hadfield, Sue. II.Title. BF637.S8H195 2009 155.2'4--dc22 2009033198 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior consent of the publisher. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 13 12 11 10 09 Typeset in 10/14 Plantin by 30 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Henry Ling Ltd, Dorchester, Dorset The publisher’s policy is to use paper manufactured from sustainable forests.

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Contents

About the authors Acknowledgements Introduction

Part 1

The meaning of bounce 1 2 3

What is bounce? The bounce effect Have you got bounce?

Part 2 The rules of bounce 4 5 6 7 8

Be flexible Change your thinking Change your behaviour Connect Respect your body

vi vii ix

1 3 15 33

51 53 67 81 93 107

Part 3 Bouncing

125

9 10 11 12 13

127 137 145 153 163

Bounce out of stress and fear Bounce when you are out of work Bounce in the family Bounce out of rejection Bounce out of disaster

Conclusion Notes

171 175

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About the authors

Gill Hasson and Sue Hadfield are both teachers who believe it is possible to achieve what you want in life. Gill works with people from diverse backgrounds and situations. She works at the University of Sussex teaching community development, career and personal development, critical thinking and academic skills. Gill also runs training sessions for social workers, youth workers, teachers and parents on a range of issues, such as the psychology of teenagers. She has written for Psychologies magazine and for the Open University. Sue Hadfield taught English in comprehensive schools for 20 years and also ran the school libraries. She has spent the past ten years teaching adults creative writing, study skills, assertiveness, and career and personal development at the University of Sussex and for community groups. Sue also delivers workshops for foster carers on how to encourage children’s resilience in schools. She teaches their children on a one-to-one basis and believes that these are some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our society. Their company Making Sense delivers workshops in schools, workplaces and community centres. For more information, or to contact the authors, please visit www.makingsenseof.com.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our families and friends for their interest and support. Thanks to all our students, past and present, for their inspirational stories. Special thanks to Allison Perkin and Arlene Watters for their comments and enthusiasm. Many thanks to Greg for his practical help and to Sam Jackson for giving us the opportunity to write this book.

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As we wrote this book, Sue’s father was admitted to hospital for an operation and died a few weeks later; her daughter was told her research contract would not be renewed, because of cutbacks, and her husband was quarantined for two weeks with suspected swine flu; her son, who lives in America, turned down a coveted place at business school; his wife resigned from her job ... and her cat went missing. And then her husband rang late one evening from Brussels, as he was about to board the Eurostar home, to say he had lost his passport and was not allowed on the train. Does this sound like a series of disasters to you? What if you had to summarise the things that have happened in your life in the past few months? It’s likely they would be very different, but nobody goes through life without catastrophes and traumas happening at some point. When a number of calamities happen in quick succession, it’s easy to see yourself as a victim of circumstances – a person to whom bad things happen over which you have no control.

You are unique Everyone we have ever met, both children and adults, has a unique story to tell. You are the only person who has experienced the events in your life as they happened to you.Yet we all suffer similar misfortunes: bereavement, accident, illness, rejection, redundancy and debt. What makes our lives so different is the way we react to the things that happen to us.

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Many of the things in life are unavoidable: it is not your fault the train crashed, or that your child was born with a disability, or that there is a recession that has cost you your job. We cannot prevent disasters, but what we can do is learn how to prevent them ruining our lives.

Resilience The key to a successful life is resilience – the ability to bounce back from misfortune. We hear daily stories about musicians, politicians, actors and celebrities who seem to have it all, throw it all away, and then, often surprisingly, bounce back. Then there are those, such as explorers and mountaineers, who seem deliberately to go out of their way to face challenges and risk their lives in a way that leaves us gasping at their courage. Mostly, though, we admire people who face tragedy and trauma without seeking it – through illness, disaster, rejection or accident. They show amazing powers of resilience in the way they manage not only to survive, but also to move on with their lives. People demonstrate resilience in their lives in different ways and in different circumstances. What most of us don’t realise is that all of us can be just as resilient, if not more, and bounce back from whatever life throws at us.

Self-esteem Resilience is very much connected to our self-esteem – self-esteem provides the fuel, if you like, for bounce. We are not born with higher or lower self-esteem than anyone else, but self-esteem is something that increases or decreases depending on the experiences that we’ve had. Developing resilience and selfesteem is cumulative: the more you are successful at overcoming

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something, the easier it is to bounce back the next time around – and so your self-esteem grows. It’s also down to your perception – if you are able to see something positive in a difficult situation, then you are likely to see yourself as a survivor rather than a victim. And because you see yourself as a survivor, you develop good levels of self-esteem. Being able to reach out to others for help is also key here – those with higher self-esteem do this, and in turn offer their help to others. Being able to help someone else is probably one of the biggest self-esteem boosters around, and having a group of trusted friends provides the perfect bounce armour.

A new way forward The good news is that it is possible to break past habits and develop the ability to face all life’s challenges with equanimity and courage – bounce. A word of warning, though: nothing happens overnight, and you’ll need to put in the effort to get something back. In this book, you will find written exercises. It’s important for your development that you complete these. Before you start reading, make sure you have a pen and notebook to hand and be ready to take control – this is your journey to bounce.

A little bit of background This book was inspired by students we have met by teaching courses in career and personal development. We have used their inspiring stories, and those of our own families and friends, to show you how to bounce back from life’s challenges. Resilience has been a topic of research for more than 50 years, although the subject itself has always fascinated people and is the

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basis of most religious philosophies. We have combined our research on resilience and our experience as teachers and coaches to bring you a guide for life – to help you survive both the ups and the downs and, most importantly, to enjoy yourself along the way.

Ready to start? Bounce is divided into three parts. In the first part, we examine what it means to have bounce and look at the lives of some people who clearly have it. There is a fun quiz to see how resilient you already are, and lots of exercises for you to complete. In the second part, we look at ‘the rules of bounce’ – the specific personal and social attributes that contribute towards a resilient mindset and body. People with bounce have personal skills, such as being open-minded and being able to think positively.They also have good social skills and are able to turn to family, friends, colleagues, support groups and professionals. Because resilience is a dynamic process, you can choose to work on any one of the resilience factors: a small change will make a big difference and you will start a positive chain reaction. Having identified the factors that contribute towards resilience, we will look in the third part at different true stories, showing how people have coped with their lives in different circumstances and managed to ‘bounce’. You will see that nothing happens to order and that life can be complicated and messy. However, life need not be a reaction to things that happen to you – it really can be what you make it.

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Part 1 The meaning of bounce

Courage can be just as infectious as fear. Alice Miller

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Chapter 1 What is bounce?

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A

t Sleeping Beauty’s christening, the fairy godmothers circled her cot and each gave a wish for the baby’s future life. One wished she would be beautiful, the next that she would be virtuous, the next wished for musical talent, and the next for wit. What quality would you wish for a baby that would help them through life today? What quality do you wish for yourself? The problem with the qualities and abilities that you would like is that there is no guarantee they will last or that they will, ultimately, help you in life. Whatever your beauty or your talent, nothing can stop problems, pain and stress happening to you; they are part of life. Adversity and difficulties are inevitable, but the level of stress and suffering you feel is up to you. If we could make a wish for a newborn baby, it would be to develop resilience: to have the ability to bounce back from any misfortunes in life. With resilience, you are prepared for any adversity. It will with this ability to guide you through the bad times, help bounce, every you to recover your confidence and experience makes good spirits, and enable you to move you stronger forward in your life. With this ability to bounce, nothing is frightening, no problem is insurmountable, every experience makes you stronger. Being able to bounce is an attitude of mind that gets mirrored in the body, which you can develop through experience and through teaching yourself. Whatever has happened to you in your life so

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far, you have the ability to become a person who can bounce from any misfortune. First, however, you have to understand what you have to do – and then you have to be willing to do it. If you have bounce, you can: G

manage your own stress;

G

ask others for help;

G

recover quickly from misfortune;

G

set realistic goals.

If you have bounce, you know: G

you will survive;

G

you are responsible for your actions;

G

you can successfully adapt to change;

G

strong relationships are the key to success.

If you have bounce, you believe: G

something positive will emerge from adversity;

G

helping others is part of the process;

G

looking after your own health is vitally important;

G

in spirituality or have faith in humanity.

Above all, if you have bounce you have the resilience to cope with adversity, the confidence to know that you will always have the skills to deal with anything in the future, and you don’t waste time worrying about what might happen – because you know that, whatever happens, you have the inner strength to recover. This knowledge makes you fearless and enables you to seek out new experiences and take on new challenges.

Written exercise 1

What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you?

2 How old were you?

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3 Who did you tell? 4 Does it still upset you now? 5 How did you deal with it? 6 What would you do differently if it happened now?

Have you bounced before? Life will already have dealt you a number of blows. Perhaps you didn’t get the grades you wanted at school; the person you fell in love with didn’t fall in love with you; someone else beat you to that flat; and England hasn’t won the World Cup since 1966. It is the nature of human beings to want things that are difficult to attain and to beat ourselves up when we perceive that we have failed. Mostly, we soldier on, becoming a little less self-confident, a little more cynical and disappointed. Disasters and tragedies can happen to us all: some happen when we are young, such as parents’ divorce or death; some are catastrophic events, such as plane crashes or car accidents; some are self-inflicted, such as a dependence on alcohol or drugs; and some may be caused by financial hardship, because of unemployment, low pay or profligate spending. Most of these events affect the rich and the poor equally. There is nothing about having money that stops you being the victim of family tragedies, illness or accidents. When a crisis happens, such as an accident or illness, our resilience is challenged and we may become helpless, resigned to our fate, or bitter and depressed.What we admire in others and seek to acquire for ourselves is the ability to get over traumas and thrive. Realising that bad things can and do happen to good people can stop you asking ‘Why me?’ and enable you to face up to your problems. What we all want is the ability to cope without becoming negative and surrendering to self-pity.

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Written Writtenexercise exercise 1

Think of someone you admire. It can be someone known to you personally or someone in the public eye. Admiring someone is different from wanting to be them – or wanting what they have. Make sure that it is someone you really admire for what they have done with their life, not for what they have acquired. Write down their name.

2 Now think about what it is about them that you admire. What have they achieved that has inspired you? What qualities do they have that have enabled them to do this? Has life always run smoothly for them? Write down what it is about them that you admire. Almost without exception, the people we admire demonstrate remarkable resilience. The person you have chosen may have suffered illness or overcome hardships, but they will have dealt with some kind of trauma and may still be doing so. Having resilience does not protect you from dreadful things happening to you – it gives you the keys to dealing with them. 3 Finally, if the person you chose was someone you know, tell them that you admire them and why. Write a letter if you are no longer in touch. One of the personal attributes of resilient people is that they acknowledge the part that other people have played in their lives. Telling someone that you admire them does not diminish you in any way; it makes the other person feel special and strangely makes you feel good about yourself as well.

‘Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.’ Voltaire

Attracted to resilience Over recent years, we seem to have developed an appetite for human-interest stories about people who have suffered great misfortune and then bounced back. Increasingly, newspapers (broadsheet as well as tabloid) fill their pages with accounts of

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celebrities who have strayed from the straight and narrow. They have ruined their careers and relationships with drink, drugs and infidelity, but then successfully emerged from rehab, put their past behind them and begun to launch new careers. We follow the downfall of celebrities such as Britney Spears, Robbie Williams, Owen Wilson and Amy Winehouse. Most appear to realise the consequences of their actions and yet still, perversely, continue as if they believe there is as much importance in being a victim as there is in being a celebrity. If, however, they do manage to bounce back, we are glad for them and read with fascination about how they have picked themselves up and reinvented themselves. We admire those who refuse to let their mistakes ruin their lives; we are in awe of those who suffer great traumas and yet manage to emerge as complete human beings with the capacity to enjoy life once again. More than 20 years after his release from prison in South Africa, Nelson Mandela continues to inspire. We revere him because he refused to become a bitter broken man, as he could so easily have done, after decades of wrongful imprisonment under apartheid. For similar reasons, books that top the non-fiction bestseller lists are predominantly autobiographies written by people in the public eye, almost all of whom portray themselves as individuals who have overcome adversity in their lives and still managed to survive. They have suffered and fought their way back, enabling us to share their pride in doing so when we read their books. Nobody wants to read stories about someone who is born with a silver spoon in their mouth we can triumph over and continues to feed from it adversity and bounce throughout their lives. We want to forward know that everything is possible, that no matter what our start in life, no matter what happens to us, we can triumph over adversity and bounce forward. History and historical fiction have many accounts of survival and triumph over adversity – and these are the ones we enjoy reading

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the most – from escaping Alcatraz to heroic rescue stories; and accounts where the human spirit endures and remains positive despite inhuman conditions and deprivation. It is not that we believe these horrors will happen to us – or that we are reading them as a kind of talisman to stop it happening to our families. It is because we admire their heroism and hope that we will learn something from the courage and fortitude of others. Similar books were read by the Victorians. Charles Dickens wrote tales of equal horror and depravity, such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and Little Dorrit, all of which share similar uplifting endings. The heroes, having suffered unimaginable indignities, humiliations and persecution, manage to persevere and emerge, as whole, happy and fulfilled human beings. It may be that we take comfort in the fact that these dreadful misfortunes have not happened to us. They make our own worries and preoccupations seem trivial in contrast. But it is also as if we want to discover the secret: ‘How did they do it?’ We want to unlock the truth, uncover the strategies and apply them to our own lives. They inspire us to deal with the less serious setbacks in our own lives in a similarly courageous way. We feel that if they could get through their appalling maltreatment, then surely we could deal with being sacked, rejected or bereaved.

Written exercise 1

Think about the books/films that you have read or seen recently.

2 Which are your favourite books/films? (Write them down.) 3 Do they have anything in common? 4 Examine what it is that you enjoy about a book, or a film or a TV programme. 5 What are the qualities that you admire about the main character? (Write them down.) 6 Are any of them really stories of resilience?

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Attraction to bounce In 2008, on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent, George Sampson, a 14-yearold boy, won the competition with his remarkable break-dancing routine. This involved him spinning on his head and shoulders, and contorting his body in seemingly impossible ways. The spectacle and awe of this was heightened by the fact that we knew he had a rare spinal disease causing curvature of the spine and dancing in such a way could hasten the process. What is significant about TV talent shows is that the audience at home shows immense enthusiasm about the acts. Nothing delights us more than to witness someone overcoming personal tragedy to succeed. Carrie Grant, a vocal coach for talent shows, when asked by students for help in getting them through the auditions, says: ‘The first thing we ask isn’t “Let’s hear your song” but “What’s your story?”.’1 We all love a rags-to-riches story, and the fact that a refuse collector or a middle-aged woman with learning difficulties can sing pulls at our heartstrings in a way that someone who has had a privileged upbringing never can. These people have shown bounce in that their start in life has not given them any advantage to enable them to fulfil their dreams and yet they have still persevered with their ambition. As soon as they have seen a small window of opportunity, they have made the most of it and have not let fear of failure hold them back.

Towards resilience In learning to become resilient, we have to change our mindset so that we see failure not as something that stops us, but rather as something that takes us nearer to our goal. Before you can do this, though, you need to establish that your goals and expectations in life are realistic. This does not mean lowering your sights or

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believing that you are not good enough to try for your dream. It does mean realistically assessing your talents and getting others you trust to help you do so. We admire and respect those people whom we recognise as having shown resilience in their lives. A good way to establish what factors promote resilience is by looking more closely at the personal qualities of inspirational people and how these qualities helped them bounce forward in their lives. In the next chapter, we’ll do just this, starting with the lives of individuals in the public eye. Many of our heroes and heroines have written about their lives and we’ve given you a list of books at the end of the next chapter if you would like to find out more about them.We hope that you will never have to face such extreme challenges in life as the ones we’re about to describe, but all resilient people display some of the traits that we wish to acquire. Taking a closer look at those we admire, and the evidence of their resilience, is the easiest and clearest way for you to start developing your own qualities of bounce.

Children’s books For children – and adults – reading gives a different perception of a world we may never know. It increases our emotional intelligence and helps us to understand people in circumstances different from our own. As well as providing great enjoyment, reading fiction is one way of preparing for life: experiencing other people’s problems and the way they cope with them. Below is a short list of ‘children’s’ books. Many adults delight in, and gain new insights, when revisiting books they first read as children. Why not try some of them? Coolidge, S. (1994) What Katy Did, London: Puffin Defoe, D. (2004) Robinson Crusoe, London: Penguin Golding, W. (1954) Lord of the Flies, London: Faber & Faber

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Lee, H. (1989) To Kill a Mockingbird, London: Arrow Magorian, M. (1982) Goodnight Mr Tom, London: HarperCollins Porter, E.H. (1969) Pollyanna, London: Puffin Rowling, J.K. (1997) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, London: Bloomsbury Sachar, L. (2000) Holes, London: Bloomsbury Stevenson, R.L. (2007) Treasure Island, London: Penguin Twain, M. (2007) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, London: Penguin; and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, London: Penguin

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Chapter 2 The bounce effect

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Thinking positively Emmanuel Jal was taken from his village in Sudan after his family had been murdered. By the age of seven, he was a boy soldier in the Sudanese army. He was trained as a soldier to use a rifle and to kill the enemy. In the middle of one chaotic battle, he and some friends managed to escape. Then their lives became even worse: one by one they died of starvation and Emmanuel says his lowest point was sitting next to his friend, who had recently died, and being tempted to eat him. At the age of 11, he was rescued along with 150 other young boys, by a British aid worker called Emma McCune, and smuggled into Kenya. Emma adopted him and he attended school in Nairobi for the first time. When he was 13, Emma was killed in a car accident. Emmanuel was alone again. While in Kenya, he became active in the community and began raising money for local street children and refugees. Although he lacked any musical training, he began singing and developed his unique style of hip hop. He began to write songs that tell the story of his life. Through his lyrics, he campaigns for peace in Sudan, with the clear message that children have no place in wars. He performed at the concert for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday in Hyde Park in 2008 and has released his third album, War Child. He spends much of his time touring schools and telling his story to teenagers, as well as encouraging them to sing and dance along

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with him. He is raising money for an orphanage to be called Emma’s Place for other boy soldiers. He has pledged to eat only one meal a day until he has raised £100,000. When I met him at a local school, where he was giving a performance, I asked him why it was that Emma chose to adopt him out of 150 other boys. He grinned at me and said, ‘I just got lucky’. I did wonder if he was being ironic, but he genuinely believes he is lucky. He is not at all bitter about what has happened to him. Emmanuel is determined to use his experiences and channel his energy into making people aware of what is happening, and to use his talents as a musician and performer to raise money for the charity. By raising money for the orphanage, he is helping others who are still there. But it is also his way of making sense of what has happened to him and finding something constructive from his terrible experiences. This is one of the most common characteristics of all resilient people – the desire to make something positive out of a trauma. When someone dies unexpectedly or tragically, the immediate reaction of people with bounce is to do something to help others. Every year, many participants in the London Marathon raise sponsorship money on behalf of someone dear to them who has died or has a terminal illness. Many charities have indeed been formed because of this need to make sense of a tragedy and to turn it into something constructive and helpful to others.

There is a universal human need to see something good come out of disasters. The miners’ strike failed and yet there is still admiration and respect for the way the miners and their families pulled together and found new ways to survive. Many events in history have, with the passage of time, been remembered as triumphs rather than disasters. For example, the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 was the result of a disastrous mistake, resulting in more than 100 deaths. Today, however, it is remembered as an act of heroism.

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The Battle of Dunkirk in the Second World War was a defeat – a retreat from the enemy. Now, it is commemorated as a valiant, successful operation where everyone pulled together to save lives.

Taking responsibility Eric Cantona, the former Manchester United footballer and now a film star, was banned from playing for nine months, at the height of his career, for using a kung-fu kick on a Crystal Palace fan. When asked if he got bored during this time of enforced retirement, he said: ‘When I was banned I wanted to focus on something else.’ Did the nine months drive him mad? ‘No, I am never bored. I always find something to occupy me, to love. I didn’t watch many games when I was banned. I tried to improve myself.’ He learned to play the trumpet. Did he regret it? ‘No, I don’t like it when people say: “I had a bad time”. I endured. So I learned a lot and now I am a man. Every experience makes you a man.’ 2 When things go wrong in your life, it is easy to blame others and to feel bitter about your bad luck. One of the characteristics of people with bounce is that they take personal responsibility for what has happened to them and learn from the experience. Eric Cantona could have taken to drink, as other footballers have done in similar situations, and spent the nine months fuming about the injustice of his ban. Instead, he used the time to do something completely different, something that he would probably never have done if not for the ban. People with bounce have the ability to see opportunity in what others might call failure; they regard rejection as a chance to do something useful and positive with their lives.You can do this only if you are not filled with bitterness and negativity. It means you must take responsibility for things that happen to you.

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Knowing that you can cope Terry Waite was the special envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury when he was taken hostage in Lebanon in 1987 after trying to negotiate on behalf of western hostages already held there. He was not freed until almost five years later. For four years, he was kept in solitary confinement and was always blindfolded if anyone came into the room. He was chained to a wall throughout, with only five minutes a day to go to the bathroom. He has since spoken out against the inhuman treatment of the prisoners in the US camp at Guantánamo Bay, saying: ‘I was determined that my five years in captivity would not break me, and they didn’t. But I cannot say that it was easy. The hardest thing for a prisoner in those conditions is the uncertainty. You don’t know what will happen to you next: you have no rights, no one to speak to, no one to advise you, no one to fall back on.You only have your own resources.’ 3 When fellow hostage John McCarthy asked Terry Waite, on Radio Four’s The Reunion, how he managed his four years of solitary confinement, he said that when he was first captured three things came to his mind: ‘For goodness sake, don’t regret what you have done because you will become demoralised. Don’t feel sorry for yourself – no self-pity. Don’t be over-sentimental.’ 4 Terry Waite has a strong sense of self: he knew that he would be able to manage his feelings as long as he did not allow himself to slide into self-pity. We all have a choice about what we decide to let ourselves it is not misfortune think. We can reject the negative that causes suffering, thoughts that crowd our minds and but our reaction to it replace them with positive ones – however dire the circumstances. It is not misfortune that causes suffering, but our reaction to it.

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Terry Waite and the other hostages, by writing and speaking about their experiences and campaigning for the rights of others, have, like Emmanuel Jal, managed to find something positive from their trauma that would help others in the future.

A survivor, not a victim Simon Weston, a Welsh Guardsman, suffered 46 per cent burns on board RFA Sir Galahad when the warship was destroyed during the Falklands War. His face was barely recognisable and he endured years of reconstructive surgery. He began to drink heavily and admits he felt suicidal. His mother played a large part in helping him to recover; she reunited him with his old regiment, which forced him to ‘face up to the unavoidable and to be positive about everything including and especially my future’.5 Since then, Weston has become the patron of many charities that support people with disfigurements and has campaigned about the lack of support and compensation given to veterans. He set up a youth charity in Liverpool called The Weston Spirit, and this is where he met his wife. They became engaged in 1989, seven years after the attack on the Sir Galahad.They now have three children. Weston sees himself as a survivor, and he has become friends with the pilot of the plane who dropped the bomb on his ship. In Weston’s position, many of us would have allowed ourselves to dwell on our bad luck and to feel sorry for ourselves as a victim. He illustrates resilience perfectly in that he does not harbour anger or any sense of injustice. His sense of survival has enabled him to make friends with the person that others might see as the cause of his suffering.

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Reflecting and learning Alastair Campbell was a young journalist on the Daily Mirror when he was offered the job as news editor on a new newspaper called Sunday Today. The stress of editing a failing newspaper led to alcohol abuse and, ultimately, a nervous breakdown. He was in Glasgow covering Neil Kinnock’s visit when he was reported to the police for behaving oddly and then taken to hospital. It was here that he first realised he had an alcohol problem and he said that from that day he ‘counted each one’ that he did not drink alcohol. Many people believe it was this decision that gave him the discipline that he would need years later as adviser and spokesperson for first Neil Kinnock and then Tony Blair. With the help of his wife, and treatment for depression, Alastair Campbell returned to the Daily Mirror in 1987, after the birth of his first son. He had to start again from the bottom and work nightshifts, gradually rebuilding his career to become political editor. He became the prime minister’s chief press secretary after Labour won the general election in 1997 and then director of communications after the next landslide election victory. Campbell resigned in 2003 and has become a sought-after public speaker around the world. He has also run the London Marathon, the Great North Run, the Great Ethiopian Run and several triathlons to raise money for the Leukaemia Research Fund, after his best friend died from the disease. In 2008, he broadcast a onehour documentary, ‘Cracking Up’, on BBC Two about his breakdown and wrote a novel, All in the Mind, which also draws on his own experience of depression and mental illness. Both of these have helped to break down the taboo surrounding people with mental health issues and have won praise from campaigning groups and mental health charities. In common with many others, Alastair Campbell demonstrates a whole range of personal attributes that exemplify a person with

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resilience: not only did he reflect on his experiences, but also he survived trauma in his life by sharing it with others. He has turned it into something positive from which others have benefited.

Having good problem-solving skills In 1983, during the miners’ strike, many of the women whose husbands were on strike quickly realised they would get no help to feed their families during the dispute. Ann Richards is one of the many women whose lives were turned upside down by the strike and discovered in herself good problem-solving skills that she had not known she had: ‘The hard-heartedness of a government that would see children starve in pursuit of its policies made women angry and frustrated – and from that anger and frustration was born the first miners’ support groups.’ By the end of the strike, Ann Richards says, she had, ‘realised that there was more to life than the kitchen sink’. She went to university and ended up a registrar; she retired a couple of years ago.6 Her friend, Margaret Handforth, calls the strike a crash course in ‘the University of Life’. Amid the campaigning and the 12-hour soup-kitchen shifts, she says, ‘The thing that slipped was the housework.’ After the strike, she raised money by selling memorabilia and set up the women’s resource centre in Castleford, which is still thriving.7 Edith Woolley, whose husband, father and brother all worked at Frickley Colliery, formed a support group with other women from her village. ‘When the strike started, I could not read or write.’ After a year of campaigning, she went on to study for a social work degree and managed a children’s home. ‘That year was hard, but we had a good time being in it together.’8

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The women involved in the miners’ strike could have settled for complaining and feeling sorry for themselves. Instead, they decided they were not prepared to let their children suffer any more than they had to. They worked together for the good of the community and managed to turn a time of great suffering and stress into something constructive, with lasting benefit for themselves and their families.

Connecting to and drawing support from others Since the 1980s, people who get to the top of their careers have generally been viewed as powerful, single-minded and determined. Men often seem to lose all sense of morality on their way up the ladder (think of the Gordon Gekko character played by Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street); power-suited women are often terrifying, belittling others in order to dominate (a fairly recent example is the character played by Glenn Close in the television series Damages). Such characters believe they should forge their career at the expense of their personal lives and that family and friends are expendable. In fact, the truth is the reverse: to be truly successful in life, you need to have close family and friends about whom you care and who care about you. It is probably the single most important factor that resilient people have in common. This may be more difficult to achieve if you have not been fortunate enough to be born into a warm, close, loving family. It is not, however, impossible. With the dispersal of the conventional family and a widening variety of family groupings, more people are creating their own families and support networks from friends and extended family. Sir Michael Caine had a tough childhood in south-east London, but he attributes his success to the support of a close and happy family. He was the son of a charlady and fish-market porter. He has made dozens of great and not-so-great films and has been

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nominated for an Oscar six times. Now, in his late seventies, an age when most successful actors have long since retired, in the film Harry Brown he plays an ex-marine driven by the local delinquents to vigilantism. It was shot at night in the middle of winter – and he was hosed down with freezing water for the rain sequences. The location was an estate only a few streets away from his childhood home in Southwark: ‘The young guys I met there were fascinated by my success. They asked how I got out of there. I told them the truth – I had a happy family. My mum and dad were together all the time. I won a scholarship to grammar school. And there was drink but not drugs.’ When asked if he believed in God he said, ‘Yes, I do. When you’ve had a life like mine, you have to.’9 The willingness to attribute success to the help and support of family and friends is also a factor of people with bounce. They do not try to pretend that they have done it all on their own – unlike those thrusting executives who like to say they reached the top by their own endeavours, as if admitting to support from family and friends was an admission of weakness and that being successful meant taking everything on your own shoulders, never acknowledging that other people might have played a part. Sir Michael Caine and some of the other people we have looked at have chosen to be in the public eye, but many others are thrust into the spotlight because of what happens to them. One of the people I most admire is Kate McCann, mother of the missing toddler Madeleine McCann. There can be few worse fates for a mother than to have a child disappear, to feel guilty that it may have been an unwise decision, to have public opinion turn against you, to be investigated by the local police as a suspect, and still not to know the fate of your child. Throughout all this, Kate McCann remained dignified, heartbroken, but strong and courageous. One thought kept her

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going: her child may still be alive. She has repeatedly thanked the public for their support – not only their financial support but also their messages of sympathy. The social support the family has received around the world has boosted their spirits. When we see the photographs of Madeleine on posters in far-off airports and in foreign newspapers, it has also made us all feel, at times, as if we are one world – in this together, to protect our children. Having the support of others is a common factor in people with bounce. Quite often, however, it is difficult to disclose the trauma. Hala Jaber is a Lebanese-born British journalist and an awardwinning foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. She was instructed by the newspaper to find a child who had been severely affected by the war, in order to raise money for the victims. In search of the child – ‘preferably female and over one year old’ (because, by then, they have more appealing facial expressions) – she visited orphanages and came across children severely wounded and disfigured. At the same time, she was trying to have a child of her own and this is a theme that runs through her book, The Flying Carpet to Baghdad. She considered adopting the little girl she found to front the Sunday Times campaign. But, on her return, she discovered the little girl had died. In a radio interview with Libby Purves, Hala Jaber was asked how she coped with this double trauma. She replied, ‘It’s how much you accept in life and come to terms with it… No, you don’t come to terms with it; you just get used to it and learn how to live with it. You just learn how to be better about it and feel less about it and learn how not to break down totally about it.’10 What is brave about the book is her openness about her desire to have a child. Disclosing highly personal anguish is often taboo. It stops children from talking about their abuse. It stops people admitting to their debts. Lack of self-disclosure is what stops people from healing the scars caused by trauma and secrecy.

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There is something particularly poignant about the way children manage to bounce back from difficult times. I teach looked-after children in their foster homes two hours a week after school. Some have endured many years of neglectful or abusive parenting before being taken into care. Sometimes, the stories they write are thinly disguised autobiography and it is clear from their eagerness to get the detail right that this really happened. Usually, this does not happen until they are settled with their foster carers. The transformation that takes place when a child finds the security and happiness in a foster home, that they have never had before, is remarkable to observe. Good foster parents can, and do, transform children’s lives. It is clear to me that, given the right circumstances, it is possible to overcome the worst start in life and still emerge a whole and healthy human being. Teaching has given me a unique insight into what is possible with even the most damaged and traumatised child. Even without a loving family people can go on to have happy and successful lives, but usually there is another adult who has given them a sense that they are important and that they care. Children who initially can hardly speak to me and are unable even to make eye contact gradually – very gradually – begin to emerge from the shadows, to laugh and even to tell jokes. For some children, it takes longer than for others. But the change is remarkable for them all. These children are reminders that anything is possible – that whatever cards you have been dealt in life, you still have the same potential as the next person. Often the children have tried to tell someone about their problems, but they have been ignored and are too afraid to persist because of the consequences. One girl wrote a story for GCSE coursework about when she ran away from home when she was 10. She survived for three days, sleeping in bus shelters and buying sweets. Two old ladies found her and took her to the nearby fire station, where she refused to tell them never have to go back home.

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anything or allow them to ring the police unless they promised she would

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She had been in care for five years when I met her and, although she had remained in contact with her mother, she had never been back home. One day, when I turned up to teach her, she burst into tears and said her mother had been waiting for her after school to say that she had left her father and that now she finally believed what her daughter had been trying to tell her all along.

Children in particular have problems asking for help. Sometimes it is because they think they will not be believed. There is also a sense, however, that it is somehow shameful, an admission of defeat, to ask for help. People with bounce know that asking for help is a sign of self-confidence. All problems in life can be addressed with asking for help is a sign of self-confidence confidence, if you have bounce – but they will not necessarily be solved by you alone. Relying on other people to help you out is not a sign of weakness. It means you have sufficient self-esteem to recognise that you cannot manage on your own – but that you will be able to do so if you have the help of others. For example, Nicky Jecks, the Adult Learner of the Year in 2009, left school at 16 with few GCSEs and no interest in a career. Some 13 years later, she has four children and a place to study medicine at Cambridge University. She scored 100 per cent in four of her Alevel papers, despite delivering her fourth son alone, at home, in the middle of her studies. When asked how she managed she said, ‘I had the support of my mother and the father of my other three sons often helped out with them. I wouldn’t recommend the way that I did it – if you do it at a younger age you’ve got longer to pursue your career. But don’t lose hope if you’re not ready to do it at that age – there are lots of opportunities for you out there – you just have to take them.’11 You have to take the opportunities that are there, but you also have to ask for help and find out what opportunities there are. People with bounce do not feel it is shameful to ask other people for help. They know it is essential.

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Helping others Sir Brian Rix, actor and manager, was made famous by his appearances in the Whitehall farces of the 1950s and 1960s; he was a regular on both stage and television screen. In 1951, his wife gave birth to their first child, a baby with Down’s syndrome, whom they named Shelley. They were advised to put the baby in a home. When they visited such a place, they found an enormous institution with 3000 children and adults – all of them kept away from society but given no education or love. In a radio interview, Sir Brian told how the doctor asked him if he was drunk at the time of conception or if he had a venereal disease. He and his wife were both horrified by this reaction and determined to do the best for their daughter. Since then, he has used his fame and the admiration of the public to promote awareness and understanding of the condition. In 1980, he retired from acting to devote his time to fundraising for MENCAP (Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults) and in 1987 became its chairman and later its president. He has made programmes for the BBC specifically for people with learning disabilities. Shelley died in 2005, but her life, and the efforts of her parents, has helped to change public opinion and highlight the stigma facing people with Down’s syndrome. In fact, helping others is a recurring theme among people with bounce. It is as if pain and suffering help us to feel more connected with each other and to open our eyes to what other people are experiencing. Small acts of kindness can mean just as much as grand gestures. And being kind to others has the by-product of helping you feel good about yourself. Simple things such as picking up something that someone has dropped or letting someone go in front of you in traffic may improve their day and lift yours too.

‘The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.’ Anon

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People who are secure in themselves do not treat others unkindly, either in actions or by saying mean things, whatever situation they find themselves in.

Spirituality The responses to the Hillsborough Disaster, Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, and the 9/11 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers demonstrate the compassion of humanity and show that out of tragedy can come redemption, a sense of faith that good can triumph over evil. When disasters occur, it seems to make people realise that they are part of something much bigger than themselves and their everyday problems. Often, after catastrophic disasters – whether natural or manmade – people have a need to be in touch with others and to feel a sense of universal spirituality with peace and mutual cooperation. This is perhaps why so many felt the need to express their grief with others when Princess Diana died and why for a long time after 9/11 many NewYorkers said they felt there was a change in the air: people spoke to each other and there was a sense of bonding over their shared grief and shock. When famines, earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis happen, people all over the world seem to be touched and inspired to do something to help. They give generously of their time and money. Often, such disasters enable us to see that we are all part of one world that needs harmony, compassion and spirituality if we are to survive. It is this vision and belief – this connectedness to something other than the self – that is integral to bounce.

Coping with stress Michael J. Fox was only 30 when he discovered he had Parkinson’s disease, which causes rigidity, tremors, instability and slowness – and for which there is no cure. At the time of his diagnosis, he was

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at the height of his career, having just finished the third Back to the Future feature film and starring in another film, Doc Hollywood. Despite the possible effect on his career, he told the press and public about his condition and became a strong advocate for Parkinson’s disease research. Of his diagnosis, he said, ‘People always ask me if I say to myself “Why me?” and I tell them, “Why not me?” ’.12 He has created The Michael J. Fox Foundation to help advance research into a cure for Parkinson’s disease and is a strong advocate for stem cell research. His first autobiography is entitled Lucky Man: A Memoir and the follow-up Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. The titles of these two books demonstrate how people with bounce continue to see themselves as lucky and to have an optimistic view of the world despite many setbacks. They cope with the stress of illness and trauma by remaining consistently upbeat and positive without any sign of self-pity. People with bounce: G

think positively;

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take responsibility for their actions;

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believe they can cope;

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see themselves as survivors – not as victims;

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reflect and learn;

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form realistic goals and expectations;

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have good problem-solving and decision-making skills;

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reach out to others for support;

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form strong ties with family and friends;

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help others;

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develop their own spirituality;

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manage stress.

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Have you got what it takes? We know we admire people with bounce, but can we be like them too? Can we learn to be resilient? The answer is most definitely yes and, even better, you already have all the relevant skills you need – all you need to know is how to use them.The next chapter shows you how.

Further reading You may want to find out more about some of the people whose lives we have looked at in this chapter. Fortunately, many of them have written autobiographies or memoirs, itself a technique in helping to reflect and grow in strength and resilience. Below is a list of books written by some of the people mentioned in this chapter: Auclair, P. (2009) The RebelWhoWould Be King:The Turbulent Life of Eric Cantona, London: Macmillan Caine, M. (1993) What’s it all About?, London: Arrow Campbell, A. (2009) All in the Mind, London: Arrow Fox, M. J. (2002) Lucky Man: A Memoir, New York: Hyperion Books; and (2009) Always Looking Up, New York: Hyperion Books Jaber, H. (2009) The Flying Carpet to Baghdad: One Woman’s Fight for Two Orphans of War, London: Macmillan Jal, E. and Lloyd Davies, M. (2009) War Child: A Child Soldier’s Story, London: St. Martin’s Press Keenan, B. (1993) An Evil Cradling, London:Vintage Rix, B. (1990) Farce about Face, London: Fontana Waite,T. (2004) Taken on Trust, London: Coronet Weston, S. (1989) Walking Tall, London: Bloomsbury

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Chapter 3 Have you got bounce?

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hat if you had been born with the potential to become a musician, a teacher, an architect, a mountaineer, a mathematician, a chef, a dancer, a politician, an artist or an explorer? Imagine what life could be like. You were, of course, born with the potential to become any of these. It is the life-experiences that you have had that have put you on the path that you now tread. Similarly, although we are born with a certain amount of resilience, it is the personal characteristics that we acquire that give us the capacity to deal with life’s predicaments. There is a common belief that people become resilient because of the hardships they suffer. In fact, the reverse is true: having certain features in place right from the start – such as a warm, loving family and a secure home background – give a person an advantage in the resilience stakes. People are able to withstand hardship and bounce back more quickly if they have a close family, a strong support system, genuine belief in themselves and a deeprooted faith. You often hear adults say about children, ‘Oh, they’ll be all right. Children are very resilient.’ What they actually mean is that children have no choice: they have no power to decide whether or not their parents should split up, move house or drink too much. Adults often confuse resilience with endurance. Just experiencing hardship does not make you resilient; it can break your spirit and

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ruin your life. Many children do not bounce back from the experiences that they have as a child, and it is only when they are older that the effects are realised. But it’s not all doom and gloom: even if you feel you don’t have any bounce at all right now, it is possible for you to create and control the factors that give you bounce.

‘I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.’ Mark Twain

What’s worrying you? Is there something that is worrying you at this moment? Perhaps there is more than one thing? Write down your worries. Do they keep you awake at night? How would you rate your current worries on a scale of one to ten? What would the number have been this time last year? And what will it be next year? Do you think you will remember next year the things that are worrying you now? Being anxious is the most prevalent mental health problem in almost every country in the world. Most people do not worry about nuclear war, or climate change, or the effects of technology, or declining standards in public life.They worry about the minutiae of life: the damp in the bedroom wardrobe; forgetting to put the rubbish out on the right day; whether to apologise for saying something mean; wondering why the wedding invitation hasn’t arrived. Think back to last year about this time. What were you worrying about then? It is almost certain that you cannot remember. We waste a great deal of our lives worrying about things that never actually happen: G

40 per cent of the things that we worry about never happen.

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30 per cent of our worries cannot be addressed.

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12 per cent of our worries are about health.

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10 per cent of our worries cannot easily be categorised.

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8 per cent of our worries are legitimate.

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Do you play the ‘worst-case scenario’ game? Some people seem to live their lives always thinking ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen?’ They spend their lives expecting terrible things: playing out the ‘worst-case scenario’ in their minds before making any decisions.This is self-limiting and usually arises out of fear and lack of confidence that they will be able to cope. Many people dwell on their worries and allow their imagination to predict many people allow the worst until they are unable to their imagination to confront their problems in a realistic predict the worst way. They remain in unhappy relationships or unsatisfying jobs because they can see only a gloomier alternative. This kind of thinking holds you back and prevents you from following your dreams. If you recognise that many of your worries in the past never actually happened, perhaps now is the time to deal with them in a different way.

How have you done so far? You want to become the sort of person that you admire: a person who can cope with a crisis; who can move on with their life after a trauma – a person who has bounce. So how have you managed in your life so far? Sometimes, we are reluctant to recognise the times when we have succeeded in bouncing back. We tend to remember the pain and not give ourselves any credit for emerging at the other side, a bit battered and bruised, but still fighting and perhaps even smiling. The next exercise will take some time to complete. Find yourself a quiet place where you will not be disturbed, some pens and a large piece of paper. It is a good idea to get someone else to do this exercise at the same time, so that you can share your life stories at the end.

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Written exercise Road map of your life 1

Make a list of all the major events and important experiences in your life. Put the year they happened next to them. Try hard to think of good things that have happened to you, those times when you felt pleased with yourself (it is usually easier to recall bad times). Think about turning points in your life: starting school, moving house, birth of sibling, illness, achievements, exams, learning to drive, friendships, first job, playing for a team, significant relationships, birth of children, bereavement, opportunities and memorable holidays.

2 Now tick the ones that were positive experiences; put a cross or a line next to negative ones. 3 Take a large piece of paper and draw a line representing the path you have taken in life. It can go up and down according to your experiences. Think about where on the page you are going to start. If you had a warm and secure start in life, you may want to start near the top of the page. Draw symbols or pictures to represent the important events in your life. 4 When you have reached the present day, look at how far you have come and how many changes you have dealt with in your life so far. 5 Which of these events just happened to you and which ones were deliberate decisions? Did you have any help with any of the decisions or anyone to turn to when things went wrong? Has anything positive emerged from the difficult times in your life? 6 Where do you think the road will go next? Do you expect it to be a straight line? Discuss this with someone you trust and share what it has made you think about yourself.

When we do this exercise with university students and in adult education classes, it is always a moving experience. Interestingly, although everyone seems to have had their fair share of trauma and

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disaster, those who have clearly managed to move on tend to be able to draw something positive from even the darkest times. A typical comment is, ‘Well, I thought it was the worst thing ever when I was going through it, but looking back I’m glad that it happened because if that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be here now.’ What most people realise is that they have already faced many trials and tribulations, and that they have coped. What they have failed to do is recognise how they managed to do so or to pat themselves on the back for having survived. One of the characteristics of a person with bounce is the ability to reflect and learn from past experiences. This does not mean dwelling on them and wishing you had done something different. But it does mean feeling proud of yourself for what you have achieved and dealt with in your life so far. Remember that it doesn’t matter when or where you started from. There is nothing you can do to change that. What matters is what you are doing with your life now. Where are you going? What are you what matters is what going to do next in your life? How are you are doing with you planning to do that? your life now

How much bounce have you got? Answer the questions below to help you identify situations where you are already resilient and to highlight and understand areas that you may need to develop. Try to be honest, even though you may be able to guess what the ‘correct’ answer is. What is your genuine response? It is a good idea to discuss the questions with someone else. Use the questions to help you to analyse the ways you usually react and behave. In some cases, alternatives may seem equally good or equally appalling. The purpose is to help you see that you have a choice about how to behave.

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Put a tick next to the action that you would most likely do:

Bouncing with health 1 You realise you have not been looking after yourself and decide to get fit. Do you: (a) take out gym membership for a year; (b) buy new trainers and sportswear; (c)

employ a personal trainer;

(d) build extra exercise into your daily routine; (e) immediately go for a run but then give up; (f)

buy an exercise DVD.

2 Looking back over the past year, you realise you feel you have not achieved much or moved on in your life. You are thinking about setting some personal goals or making some New Year’s resolutions. Do you: (a) decide there’s no point– you never keep them anyway; (b) make at least two but then do nothing; (c)

keep it up for only a matter of days;

(d) keep it up for only a matter of weeks; (e) achieve what you intended; (f)

make a plan of how you are going to achieve your goals.

3 You feel lacking in energy and wonder whether your diet and alcohol consumption might be the cause. Looking back over the past year, do you: (a) eat fast food at least twice a week; (b) usually cook meals from scratch; (c)

eat chocolate or snack bars most days;

(d) always have at least five vegetables a day; (e) drink alcohol most days; (f)

drink alcohol only occasionally.

4 You realise there is a connection between the stress you are feeling and not having enough sleep. Do you: (a) find it difficult to get to sleep; (b) always get at least seven hours’ sleep;

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wake up in the middle of the night;

(d) regularly take sleeping pills; (e) lie in bed until midday when you can; (f)

switch off completely on holiday.

5 You have been working very hard and you and a friend or partner decide that you both need a holiday. Do you: (a) decide where you would like to go, and then go there; (b) let your friend or partner decide, and then go there; (c)

discuss it first, both state your choices and then compromise;

(d) decide how much you can afford to spend; (e) choose somewhere you have never been before; (f)

choose somewhere familiar.

Bounce into work 6 At work you find that you are frequently upset by the personal remarks of a colleague. Do you: (a) confront them; (b) tell someone else and ask them to say something; (c)

do nothing;

(d) complain to your boss; (e) take odd days off work and hope that things will have changed; (f)

start looking for another job.

7 You feel dissatisfied and bored at work, and you are beginning to dread going in. Do you: (a) resign; (b) stick it out and hope that things will improve; (c)

go home every day and moan about it;

(d) ask advice from people you trust; (e) start looking for other jobs; analyse what it is that you do not like.

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(f)

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8 Nothing improves so you’ve decided to tell your boss that you are not happy. Do you: (a) discuss what you are going to say with a friend or partner; (b) write down what you are going to say; (c)

rationally explain the problem;

(d) tell your boss what is wrong and then get angry; (e) blurt out what is wrong and then burst into tears; (f)

get cold feet and do nothing.

9 You are interviewed for a job that you think you would like, but you fail to get it. Do you: (a) blame the interviewer; (b) decide you did not want the job anyway; (c)

ask for feedback;

(d) feel depressed and hopeless; (e) start looking for another job; (f)

learn from the experience.

10 There are a lot of cutbacks at work and you are one of the people who is made redundant. Do you: (a) stay in touch with people from work; (b) make a list of people you know who might be able to help; (c)

look for a retraining course;

(d) avoid meeting people and stay in; (e) volunteer for something you are interested in; (f)

rant about your employers on your blog.

Bounce in relationships 11 You have been living together for several years, but you are having an increasing number of rows with your partner. Do you: (a) avoid your partner by staying out as much as possible; (b) discuss the situation with someone you can trust; (c)

decide to leave;

(d) ask your partner to leave;

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(e) persuade your partner to go to counselling with you; (f)

go away on holiday together.

12 Your partner or flatmate suddenly announces they are leaving. Do you: (a) realise that you are secretly glad; (b) beg them not to; (c)

ask for an explanation;

(d) shout and scream and then tell them to go; (e) tell your friends; (f)

start looking for somebody else.

13 You have moved with your family to a different area, but you are finding it difficult to settle and think you have made a mistake. Do you: (a) discuss it with your partner or family; (b) keep it to yourself, as you do not want to admit that you have made a mistake; (c)

analyse why you are not happy;

(d) decide to join a local club or society; (e) give yourself more time; (f)

draw up a plan of action in case things do not improve.

14 You have stayed close to your family even though you no longer live near them. Recently, however, you feel your sister has let you down by disclosing to the rest of the family things that you told her in private. Do you: (a) wait for her to apologise; (b) tell a close friend what has happened; (c)

just ignore it and carry on as before;

(d) arrange to see her to discuss it; (e) have sleepless nights worrying about what you should do; feel depressed and angry, but do not say anything.

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(f)

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15 You discover that an old friend has lied to you on many occasions. Do you: (a) stop all contact; (b) confront your friend and have a furious row; (c)

write a letter to your friend explaining how hurt you are;

(d) ignore the behaviour and continue the friendship without saying anything; (e) discuss it with other friends; (f)

ask your friend, calmly, for an explanation.

Bounce out of disasters 16 Everything you own (car, television set, washing machine, computer, etc.) seems to be breaking down at the same time. Do you: (a) sort out an order of priority; (b) find it all too much and do nothing; (c)

complain to everyone how stressful your life is;

(d) have a list of emergency numbers that you can call; (e) panic about how much it is all going to cost; (f)

have an emergency fund to pay for breakdowns.

17 You find yourself getting increasingly into debt. Do you: (a) cut up your credit cards; (b) take on extra work; (c)

cancel your gym membership;

(d) draw up a spreadsheet of your expenditure and earnings; (e) refuse all invitations to go out, with no explanation; (f)

ignore the problem, tell nobody and hope something happens.

18 You decide you do not want to be paying rent for the rest of your life, but you are finding it difficult to save the deposit to be able to buy a flat or a house. Do you: (a) borrow the money from your parents; (b) take on an extra job;

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stop drinking alcohol and take packed lunches to work;

(d) sell everything you can on eBay; (e) moan about it a lot, but not actually do anything; (f)

raise the money on credit cards and loans.

19 You have decided to return to college to improve your qualifications, but it is years since you last wrote an essay and you are finding the workload too much. Do you: (a) ask for help at the college; (b) finish the course; (c)

go to your doctor for antidepressants;

(d) work out a study plan; (e) form a study group with other students; (f)

buy a book on how to study.

20 Lots of things are going wrong in your life: things are breaking down, you find it difficult to sleep, you think your friends are avoiding you, and work is tedious. Do you: (a) deal with each problem one at a time; (b) phone in sick and take to your bed; (c)

drink copious amounts of alcohol;

(d) tell everyone you meet how unlucky you are; (e) know that you will be able to cope, because you always have in the past; (f)

discuss your problems with close family and friends.

How did you score? It may be that you have bounce in some areas of your life and not in others. Find your total score for each section to see where you are strong and which areas need attention.

Health

2 (a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2; (d) 3; (e) 5; (f) 4

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1 (a) 3; (b) 1; (c) 4; (d) 5; (e) 0; (f) 2

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3 (a) 1; (b) 3; (c) 2; (d) 5; (e) 0; (f) 4 4 (a) 3; (b) 5; (c) 2; (d) 0; (e) 1; (f) 4 5 (a) 1; (b) 0; (c) 4; (d) 5; (e) 3; (f) 2 Total:

Work 6 (a) 0; (b) 2; (c) 1; (d) 4; (e) 3; (f) 5 7 (a) 5; (b) 4; (c) 3; (d) 2; (e) 1; (f) 0 8 (a) 1; (b) 2; (c) 4; (d) 0; (e) 3; (f) 5 9 (a) 2; (b) 3; (c) 4; (d) 1; (e) 5; (f) 0 10 (a) 5; (b) 4; (c) 2; (d) 3; (e)1; (f) 0 Total:

Relationships 11 (a) 2; (b) 3; (c) 0; (d) 1; (e) 5; (f) 4 12 (a) 4; (b) 0; (c) 5; (d) 1; (e) 3; (f) 2 13 (a) 3; (b) 0; (c) 4; (d) 1; (e) 5; (f) 2 14 (a) 1; (b) 4; (c) 3; (d) 5; (e) 2; (f) 0 15 (a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 4; (d) 2; (e) 3; (f) 5 Total:

Disasters 16 (a) 4; (b) 0; (c) 2; (d) 3; (e) 1; (f) 5 17 (a) 4; (b) 5; (c) 2; (d) 3; (e) 1; (f) 0 18 (a) 2; (b) 5; (c) 4; (d) 3; (e) 1; (f) 0 19 (a) 5; (b) 0; (c) 1; (d) 4; (e) 3; (f) 2 20 (a) 3; (b) 2; (c) 0; (d) 1; (e) 5; (f) 4 Total:

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Health If you scored: 20–25 you are bouncing with good health and vitality; 15–20 you are on the right track, but there is room for improvement; 10–15 examine your lifestyle and nutrition: your body needs fuel to function well; 5–10 urgent action is required to develop a resilient body: give yourself a chance; 0–5 you need help to get yourself back on track. Chapter 8 will help you to understand how to use the rules of bounce in your lifestyle.

Work If you scored: 20–25 you adapt quickly to change and you are professional about your work; 15–20 you are able to anticipate problems and to avoid difficulties at work; 10–15 you may need to be more assertive and learn to say no to your colleagues; 5–10 you tend to take the easy way out and may be stuck in a rut; 0–5 you are almost definitely in the wrong job and need some career advice; the scenarios in Chapters 9 and 10 may be useful to you.

Relationships If you scored: 20–25 you are happy with your relationships with others and when you are by yourself; 15–20 you are able to analyse your problems and discuss them with others; for yourself;

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10–15 you tend to avoid confrontations and find it difficult to stick up

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5–10 you tend to worry about your relationships, but you never take any action; 0–5 if you are in a relationship it is probably time to move on; see Chapters 11 and 12 for some ideas.

Disasters If you scored: 20–25 you expect difficult situations to work out well and you know that you can cope; 15–20 you constantly learn from your experiences and you are open to new ideas; 10–15 you sometimes allow yourself to be overwhelmed by your problems; 5–10 you spend a lot of time worrying and feeling anxious about things that might never happen; 0–5 you need to read this book carefully and make sure that you complete all the exercises.

Add all your scores together Your total score = If you scored: 80–100 you are a person with bounce; you have high self-esteem; you recover quickly from misfortune; you take good care of yourself and adapt quickly to changes. Read this book to build on the skills you already have; 60–80 you are able to bounce, but sometimes, when things go wrong, you fail to look after yourself and you may suffer from stress; 40–60 you need to develop your self-esteem and believe in yourself; life may have dealt you some blows, but it is possible to bounce back and enjoy it to the full;

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20–40 you sometimes struggle with your problems and feel the world is against you; it is possible to learn to think positively and to develop resilience. You can do it! 0–20 don’t worry if you are here – there’s no better place to start than at the very beginning. You’ll find lots in this book to help you – get ready to create a successful happy life.

Now you know your bounce score, in the next part of the book we’ll look more closely at the rules of bounce and how to apply them to your own life. Remember to keep a pen and notebook handy.

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Part 2 The rules of bounce

Be the change that you want to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi

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Chapter 4 Be flexible

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E

scalators are wonderful because they can never break: they just become stairs. It’s an old joke, but it’s true.

We all like to think that we are open to new ideas and ways of doing things – that we are flexible and can adapt to changing circumstances.Yet when we’re faced with day-to-day difficulties or a major crisis that interrupts our flow, we often feel unable to cope. When faced with difficulties, we tend to cling on to usual patterns of thinking and behaviour. Even though these ways of thinking and behaving are not always effective, it’s difficult to change how we respond to adversity, but there are steps we can take to snap out of this – and the first is acceptance.

Acceptance Acceptance means understanding that what has happened cannot be changed. It sounds simple enough, but acceptance is not always an easy concept to understand.

Understanding acceptance Imagine this: you lose your keys and your mobile phone. They must be somewhere in the house, so you start searching. No luck. So you try the car; perhaps they fell out of your bag and fell under the seat. They are not there. have mislaid them.

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You are getting more and more frustrated. You cannot believe you could

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You telephone the person you live with. Have they seen your keys and mobile phone? No. You set off for work, in a state of disbelief. You cannot concentrate. You telephone your friend who was over for dinner the night before. Have they played a trick on you? No. You just cannot accept that you could have lost both your keys and your phone. How? Where? Maybe they were stolen? To make matters worse, this is the second mobile phone you’ve lost in the space of a few months. Later that evening you search endlessly but to no avail. Finally, the next day, you accept it. You go and get new keys cut and order a new phone, thinking ‘Well, if there’s one good thing: I got an upgrade on a new phone!’

Whether it takes a day or two to get over losing your keys and phone, or months to get over something more serious, acceptance cannot be rushed. It is part of a process that may involve feelings such as denial, refusal, opposition, fear, regret and guilt. Acceptance is also very difficult for some people because of its connection with identity – when something negative happens and turns your world upside down, the way you see the world and yourself – your identity – is dramatically altered. If you go through a difficult period in your life, you may feel that you do not quite know who you are any more. You may have to reassess your longheld beliefs about yourself.

‘The most important thing to remember is this: To be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.’ W.E.B. Du Bois

Getting to a stage of acceptance means no longer analysing what, how and why something has happened. It means simply understanding that it has happened, whatever the reason. Whether you are struggling, for example, to accept that a relationship did not work out, or that having children has made it difficult to have the

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career you had planned, when you stop giving the situation any more of your negative emotions, when you can accept what happened, you will have taken the first step towards moving ahead.

Case study When Megan was made redundant from her job, the bottom dropped out of her world. ‘I’d gone from being a well-paid professional person, with an interesting job, to being unemployed, worrying about how I was going to pay the mortgage on my small but lovely flat or have the money for new clothes, a social life and the holidays I’d become accustomed to. To cap it all, I changed from being a carefree, jolly, confident person to an angry, resentful and bitter one. Yet time passes and you move on. I think that what helped me accept what had happened was establishing myself as a freelance. I was able to see myself as a survivor and, in fact, I love my new life and the person I’ve become!’

Acceptance is the very first step in the process of bouncing back. When you begin to accept the way things are right now, you can open up new possibilities that didn’t accept the situation appear to exist before. Acceptance and your circumstances requires a sense of realism, an ability to as they are right now acknowledge the situation and your circumstances as they actually are right now, rather than how you wish they would be.

Accepting the new you Remember a time when you experienced a change in circumstances. Maybe you lost your job or your home, maybe a relationship ended, or maybe you contracted an illness or disability. How did it change the way you had previously thought about yourself? Did you come to terms with the loss of who you used to be? Have you been able to move on with your new identity?

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Certainly, acceptance can be difficult if you are constantly dwelling on the past or worrying about how you are going to cope in the future. But the past is gone; the future is not yet here. What exists between past and future is the present moment and it is in the present that acceptance occurs. Mindfulness is a way to bring yourself into the present.

Mindfulness Mindfulness allows you to break the cycle of negative thoughts and accept things as they are, right now. Although mindfulness has its origins in Buddhism, it has its exponents in the West. In fact, research has shown that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brain. Brain scans have revealed that people who practise mindfulness regularly show increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input. In one area of grey matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. ‘Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and wellbeing,’ says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. ‘The structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice.’ In other words, you can grow your own brain!13 So, we can all benefit from mindfulness, whether we have a specific problem or not. Mindfulness is remarkably easy, an activity that can be done at any time. The hard part is keeping it up over time. Here are two techniques to help you:

Mindful breathing A good way to bring yourself back in the moment is to use your breath to guide you. Start by being aware that, like the ocean waves, your breaths

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come and go. Each time you breathe out, you can let go and release your thoughts about the past and future. Just focus on breathing in … then breathing out. Certainly, you will notice thoughts arising as you breathe, thoughts about what you have to do tomorrow, or something that happened last week. The thoughts might be pleasant or unpleasant, but whatever form they take, just allow them to come and go, without judgement, without feeling you have to give them any attention. If your thoughts do get the better of you, simply continue to come back to your breath, which always occurs in the here and now; it will draw you into the present. You will get the best from meditation if you do it regularly. Aim to spend two minutes doing this, then build up to five minutes, and then ten minutes a day.

Empty your head; write it down Writing down thoughts, fears and worries about future and past events is a good way to externalise your thoughts and let them go so that you are free to focus on the present. Keep a notepad handy. Then, if you have a specific thought bothering you, you can jot it down and free yourself for the present.

Values Understanding and identifying your values helps you through the process of acceptance. Values are beliefs and attitudes about the way things should be. They involve what is important to you and what has some worth to you. If you are like most people, you probably have not given much thought to what your values are. But that does not mean you do not have values. Values can relate to your own strengths and abilities, such as a belief in hard work, self-reliance and tidiness. Others concern the way you relate to others, such as compassion, courtesy and cooperation. At one extreme, values are positive and help you grow, such as achievement, continuity and excellence; at the other

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extreme, negative values are defensive and a protection against pain, fear and loss. Such negative values include distrust, control and frugality.

Other people’s behaviour Write down two lists.The first is the sort of behaviour you disapprove of in other people, such as lying or bad manners.Then write down a list of behaviour that you approve of; for example, integrity, honesty and enthusiasm. Compare the two lists. What you approve or disapprove of in others is a reflection of your values, what you think of as important and has some worth to you.

To help you identify your values, here is a table of some common core values.Tick the 10 values that apply most to you:

Accountability

Certainty

Defensiveness

Fairness

Achievement

Clarity

Dependability

Family

Adventure

Commitment

Determination

Fidelity

Affection

Compassion

Dignity

Altruism

Concentration

Directness

Freedom of speech

Ambition

Confidence

Discipline

Frugality

Amusement

Consistency

Discretion

Generosity

Appreciation

Continuity

Distrust

Gratitude

Approachability

Control

Duty

Harmony

Balance

Cooperation

Empathy

Honesty

Beauty

Courage

Enjoyment

Humility

Belonging

Courtesy

Entertainment

Independence

Calmness

Curiosity

Excellence

Integrity

Care

Decisiveness

Excitement

Intimacy

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Justice

Peace

Respect

Stability

Kindness

Perfection

Security

Structure

Loyalty

Persistence

Self-control

Success

Modesty

Popularity

Self-reliance

Support

Obedience

Privacy

Simplicity

Trust

Openmindedness

Professionalism

Sincerity

Truth

Punctuality

Spirituality

Understanding

Optimism

Reliability

Spontaneity

Unity

Resilient people place greater emphasis on the positive values. If we look at the lives of very successful people, we often see how personal values have guided them, propelling them to the top of their fields. Anita Roddick, businesswoman and environmentalist, said, ‘I have never been able to separate Body Shop values from my own personal values.’14 She harnessed her personal values of optimism, fun, caring, family and community to a business that grew from a single shop opening in Brighton in 1976 to hundreds of franchises throughout the world. Herb Kelleher is the former chief executive officer of Southwest Airlines in the USA. From the beginning, including prolonged legal challenges from competitors seeking to stop the airline getting off the ground, Kelleher and his colleagues have been motivated by values that have supported a company that has been profitable for much of its history: fun, empathy, creativity, motivation, love, supportive, outrageous and playful. For both Roddick and Kelleher, the emphasis is on positive growth values. Although values are entirely personal and are based on your own experiences and emotions, they are influenced by aspects of your upbringing, education and culture. In turn, your values influence your thoughts, feelings and actions.

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Flexible values ‘Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.’ Tom Robbins

Your values provide guidance and structure.This structure, however, must not be too rigid.You must be prepared to modify your values. Our values are not absolute; they are continually evolving. Resilient people recognise that their values may not be the same as – and may even conflict with – those of other people. They may have to be flexible in order to accommodate different situations and circumstances.

Josie is a university tutor. Last year, she discovered that two of her students whose work she had marked down as ‘fail’ each received a pass. When Josie made enquiries, she was told her students had resubmitted their essays and passed. ‘I knew’, said Josie, ‘that wasn’t possible. There’s a resubmission process that has to be gone through.’ When she investigated further, Josie discovered that the marks and written feedback she had given the students had been removed and that her manager had given the students a higher mark. Josie reported this to her department head. Although she agreed that wrongdoing had occurred, the departmental head pointed out that Josie’s line manager had already left her post; therefore, it was better to forget about the matter. ‘My values of integrity and accountability were compromised if I agreed not to insist on a full enquiry,’ said Josie. ‘But the students didn’t know that their marks had been altered; it would have been devastating for them to find this out and have their degrees withdrawn. Although I have other teaching work, it’s an advantage for me, professionally, to continue teaching at the university. I also realised I couldn’t take any more stress from the situation; it would’ve taken up too much energy. So, all things considered, I decided to let it go and take responsibility for compromising my values.’

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Your values are a set of guidelines, not rules. And it is up to you how and when you choose to apply them in different situations.

Change ‘It is the supple tree which bends in the gale while the one that is stiff and rigid either snaps or is pulled up by the roots.’ Ursula Markham, Living with Change

Being flexible about your principles and values will help you go a long way. It can actually take more energy and be harder to stand hard and fast, resisting any change of approach. Resilient people identify what their values are, what’s important to them. They decide just how flexible they are prepared to be, considering carefully how they can change their thinking and behaviour in order to move ahead. Learning how to change the way you resilient people decide think and behave is one of the most how flexible they are beneficial skills for becoming more prepared to be resilient, and yet many people resist it in order to move ahead because it’s fraught with uncertainty. Be prepared to change and you are prepared to be resilient!

The pros and cons of change Write down all the negative things, such as uncertainty, that change brings. Now write down all the positive things, such as new opportunities, that change brings.

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You can choose to focus on the positive aspects of change. Change is not as difficult as you might think. It is letting go that is hard. Doing something new makes it easier to let go of old ways, provided the new behaviour is constantly repeated. We’ve already seen that the repeated practice of meditation can affect the structure of your brain. But what is the science behind this? Brain plasticity – or neuroplasticity, as it is also known – is the lifelong ability of the brain to change itself based on new experiences. The core components of the brain are neurons, cells in the nervous system that process and transmit information. The interconnections between neurons mean that when you do something new, you create new connections or pathways. It is a little like walking through a field of wheat, with each step helping to create a new path. If we change how we think or what we do, then new pathways are formed. When you continue using these new pathways, they become stronger and deeper. Eventually, they replace the old ways of thinking and behaving. Intriguingly, the capacity of the brain to change does not diminish with age or with the duration of the problems you have. It does take effort to change the way you think, but it is not impossible. Your brain is only an organ sitting between your ears. Your mind, however, is what you use to make sense of something, what decisions you make, and what perceptions you have about yourself. It has been shown that your mind, your conscious behaviours and thoughts, can change the structure of your brain so that you establish a new way of thinking and behaving. So much for the science. But there is no new knowledge that has to be grasped before you can start to change the way you think.

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If you want to prove that to yourself, try the following test: move the clock or the wastepaper bin to a different place in the room. See how long it takes you to stop looking in the wrong place for the time or throw rubbish on the floor. I bet it is less than two weeks. Only two weeks to establish, with practice, a new way of thinking and behaving. Only two weeks to reshape your brain! Choosing to break a routine way of doing things on a regular basis can be a powerful tactic in coping with inevitable crises. Making even small changes builds courage. Some people make a conscious effort to maintain flexibility and adapt to change. They walk a new route to work or they drive a different route to visit friends in another part of the country. Some people simply choose to cook a new recipe or eat a different type of food. Others enter into the spirit of change by accepting invitations to things that they would not normally do. You have to decide to do things differently in order to experience different results.What new things could you do? Start today: create new pathways in your brain. Get used to being flexible and able to change. This will help you to cope when a major change happens in your life. Changes happen around us every day and usually we can take these in our stride. Sometimes, however, we are faced with a change that is so sudden or so big that we feel overwhelmed and unable to cope – whether it is a change at home – moving, relationship breakup, children leaving home or being burgled – or at work – new job, redundancy or retirement. We cannot predict all the changes that will happen as a result of the challenges and adversity in our lives. But we can equip ourselves to be more flexible when they occur.

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Bounce rule 1 – be flexible G

When all around you is in flux, you need to be fluid too.

G

Remain open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.

G

Acceptance is a process – be patient.

G

Live in the present – the past has gone and the future has not yet happened.

G

Identify your values and use them as a guide, but be prepared to be flexible and responsible for compromise.

G

Enter into the spirit of change – break your routine – even small changes build courage.

G

Create new pathways in your brain – do things differently.

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Chapter 5 Change your thinking

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ou are not what you think you are. But what you think, you are! Read those sentences again. Make sure you pause at the full-stop and the comma.

Now, which of these statements do you think are true? G

I should know what I want from life by now.

G

I take responsibility for my own feelings and actions and hold others responsible for theirs.

G

One mistake and I feel like a total failure.

G

Other people should be trusted completely or not at all.

G

It’s all right to be good at some things and not so good at others.

G

Once a cheater, always a cheater.

G

If I feel stupid and boring, then I must be stupid and boring.

Whichever statements you believe to be true, where and when did you learn to think like this? You were certainly not born with your beliefs and attitudes. Many of your patterns of thinking and behaving, however, do originate in childhood and have developed over the years as a result of your upbringing, environment, education, religion, class and culture. Unfortunately, for most of us, parents, teachers and other adults discourage us from questioning what we are told. From an early

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age, we are taught that questioning other people’s beliefs and actions is rude and intrusive. ‘Why do I have to visit Granny?’ might be met with ‘Because she’s old and I said so.’ Or ‘What does it matter if I don’t pass my exams?’ might get the reply ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’ Because we are discouraged from questioning what we are told, we suppress the instinct to question our own thinking. Instead, to a greater or lesser extent, we simply accept the beliefs and ways of thinking of other people, even if this produces feelings and behaviours that are self-defeating or even destructive. Your ability to cope with and bounce back from adversity depends largely on your attitude to events as well as your beliefs about your ability to cope. Think positively, and you will feel able to manage. Think negatively, and you are likely to feel overwhelmed and powerless. Negative thinking patterns can be seen as ‘thinking traps’. Like all traps, they catch you unawares and are difficult to escape from. But once you see thinking traps for the deceptive devices they are, you will also see that they are not impossible to escape from. Consider a situation in which six people are interviewed for a place on a degree course. At the end of the interview process, only one student is offered a place. The other five all have different interpretations of what happened. Look at the thinking traps they fell into and the escapes they could use:

Jumping to a conclusion The trap: come to a conclusion too quickly without considering the evidence. The thinking: ‘The interviewer clearly didn’t like me.’ The escape: be aware that jumping to conclusions stops you from considering other, more helpful possibilities.

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Catastrophising The trap: you over-react. The thinking: ‘That’s it! Now I’ll never get a good job and have the career I want.’ The escape: look at your options. Focus on evidence that the worst did not happen, that there are other paths to follow.

Over-generalisation The trap: believing that if something is true in one case, then it is always going to be true. The thinking: ‘No point me going for interviews at the other two universities I applied to. They haven’t offered me a place here, so the other two universities are going to turn me down too.’ The escape: look at the evidence or proof. How can you be absolutely sure that the same thing will happen every time?

Mind-reading The trap: you believe you know what the other person was thinking. The thinking: ‘She thought I didn’t know enough about the subject.’ The escape: ask the person what they were thinking, in this case by telephoning and asking for feedback.

Tunnel vision The trap: paying too much attention to one or more negative details, instead of seeing the whole picture. The thinking: ‘I know it’s an over-subscribed course and that they felt I had the relevant academic and practical experience. But all I can think about is that I was so nervous and inarticulate.’ The escape: take time to remember your successes and recognise your abilities. Ask yourself whether you are ignoring some aspects of the situation.

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Why do we fall into thinking traps? Because when something happens to us, we look for an explanation that makes sense to us, one that fits our usual way of interpreting events. If we have developed a habit of negative thinking, then it is our default setting. So not only will we continue to return to this way of thinking, but also each time we do we strengthen that habit. Some people think that having a negative outlook can protect them from disappointment. Certainly, it would be foolish to suggest that you should ignore negative feelings and thoughts; feelings such as bitterness, guilt and regret should not be ignored. Thinking positively does not mean denying the difficulties or emotions you are facing. But the more you are aware of the emotions and feelings that influence your behaviour, the more successfully you can engage in the process of replacing selfdefeating thinking with thoughts and beliefs that will facilitate the development of a resilient mindset.

Write a ‘thinking diary’ It is so easy to fall into the traps of negative thinking. More often than not, you will not even notice you are doing it. One way to become aware of your thoughts is to write them down. Reflect on what you think about situations and how your thoughts make you feel and behave. The more you are aware, the more likely you will be to avoid falling into thinking traps. Writing it all down might seem onerous, but the process of writing makes the exercise more effective. This is because you have to think twice: before you write and while you are writing. Paul kept a thinking diary for a week. ‘I wrote down both the small and big events that happened each day – things like the train being delayed for 20 minutes, being told by a colleague that she liked the work I’d done, having to work through my lunch hour, running out of milk after the shop had shut, and backing my car into a tree at the weekend.

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‘I was amazed at just how often I attached only negative thoughts to all these events, even when my colleague, Nina, congratulated me on the success of a project I’d worked on. I found myself thinking “Ha! I bet she thinks if she’s nice to me, I’ll help her with that backlog of work she’s trying to deal with this week.” Keeping a track of my thoughts helped me identify patterns in my thinking, to understand how I see myself and others.’

Learned helplessness Negative thinking relates to the concept of ‘learned helplessness’. To make sense of the events and experiences in our lives, learnedhelplessness pioneer Martin Seligman suggests that we each have an ‘explanatory style’.15 He says that negative thinkers explain the problems and difficulties they experience as permanent, their own fault, and affecting all areas of their life. Even when good things happen, negative thinkers tend to interpret a positive event as being temporary, down to someone else’s powers, and not spreading to other parts of their life. As a result of the negative outcome of past experiences, these pessimists have, Seligman argues, learned to become helpless, hopeless and resigned and perceive (rightly or wrongly) that they have no control over current and future events, so they are unwilling even to try. Positive thinkers, on the other hand, see difficulties as a temporary setback, not their fault and affecting only their current situation. Good things are also explained positively: that the effect will be longlasting, was down to them and will positively affect other situations. This tendency to put the most favourable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome is, of

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course, optimism. Optimism allows you to feel in control of your life and believe that there is something you can do to manage your feelings and cope. Martin Seligman suggests we can overcome negative thinking by learning new explanatory styles. Even though your beliefs and attitudes may be rooted in childhood, your outlook is not fixed. Your beliefs and attitude are not permanent; you can learn to think in a more positive way.

‘The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.’ William James

We have already seen that by keeping a diary of events, and of associated thoughts and feelings, you can begin to identify your own ‘explanatory style’. The next step is to change your way of thinking. But just how do you replace inaccurate, unhelpful and disempowering beliefs with more realistic, useful and empowering ones? There are techniques for challenging unhelpful beliefs and we’ll be looking at a number of strategies to do this in the next chapters. The first major hurdle you’ll come across is your inner voice, so let’s start with this.

Influencing your inner voice We all have an inner voice: experts call it self-talk. It provides us with a running commentary rather like the constant text at the bottom of 24-hour news channels. It is this inner voice that directs your your beliefs and thinking and shapes your beliefs and attitude are not actions. It can be critical, resigned permanent and negative, or it can be positive,

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encouraging and empowering. If you consciously change your selftalk, you can change how you think about yourself and the world. Look at the thinking diary you have kept. Highlight all the negative thinking and then write out alternative, more positive ways of thinking. For example, ‘Trust me to get the train that’s 20 minutes delayed. Now my whole day will be put out.’ This can be changed to ‘I’m not the only passenger this is happening to. I can make some calls to reschedule my day.’

To change your negative thinking, try to do the following: Remember your successes Identify and write down situations where you have coped in the past. Memorise them. When your confidence is shaky, remind yourself of these times as a way of helping you to have positive thoughts and images.

Use words that evoke strength and success Collect positive words. Make an effort to focus on words such as ‘good’, ‘worthy’, ‘special’ and ‘kind’, rather than those that make you feel you are failing or incompetent, such as ‘suspicious’, ‘miserable’, ‘bad’ and ‘unimportant’.

Positive visualisation It’s not just what you say. What you see can also help you to think in a more positive, optimistic way. How come? Well, fear, worry and doubt are negative thoughts and they create negative images in our minds. Life is full of obstacle illusions. If your mental landscape contains boundaries, walls and obstacles, then you have created structures that will block you. In contrast, courage, determination and

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resolve are made up of positive thoughts and create positive images that allow you to move forward. Frank Ochberg, a psychiatrist and mental health expert, is a leading authority on post-traumatic stress disorder. He interviewed two employees of the US Information Agency six months after they were released from 18 months of isolated captivity by Palestinian terrorists near Lebanon. ‘The one who coped well, occupied his mind in captivity by visualising the designs for a house, down to the last detail. He categorised favourite restaurants … anticipating future menus.’The second man had not fared so well: ‘During captivity, he counted bricks in his cell and paced. He had no way of occupying his mind.’The terrorists treated both men equally and released them in the same week. One celebrated his freedom. The other still felt chained by his memories and fears.16 The odds are low that you will find yourself taken hostage. But, whatever your situation, how can you see yourself as a survivor and not as a victim?

Visualisation technique Think of a time when, despite the odds, you coped with – and successfully came through – a difficult or challenging situation. Picture what happened, where you were, what you did and what other people’s reactions were. Now remember a time when a situation did not work out, a time when you struggled and the outcome was disappointing. How do these images feel to you? Does one make you feel warm and positive and remind you that you have coped in the past? Does the other make you feel low and discouraged? The future you see is the future you get. The more you imagine yourself coping and coming out the other side, the more likely it is to happen.

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If you think that visualisation is difficult, try looking at a picture or photograph. Close your eyes and imagine what was in that picture. It is that simple. Then imagine what else could be in the picture. Now you are imagining new possibilities. Creating new images for yourself – pictures where you are coping and achieving successful outcomes – will uncover new possibilities. It is like one of those startlingly impressive wildlife documentaries on create new images for television, presented by Sir David yourself – new Attenborough. The sight of unusual pictures will uncover plants and creatures, of the type you new possibilities had never imagined before, completely changes your assumptions and broadens your ideas of what exists on our planet.You have a new perspective. Similarly, you can open up your own world by visualising new possibilities. Instead of playing out the worst scenario in your mind, play out the happiest. Visualisation is important because seeing yourself coping and bouncing back makes your brain believe that it is indeed possible. In Chapter 6 we look at ways to turn visualisation into action. But for now, take a lesson from the artist Tracey Emin as she anticipates critical reviews of a new exhibition: ‘I usually go and have a few boxing classes before the opening of a new show, to get ready for the attack. It makes me feel more robust, I can take the blows. Oh, but it hurts!’17

Express gratitude Gratitude crystallises positive thinking, because when you focus your attention on the positive events and people in your life you raise your awareness and levels of happiness. Studies show that grateful people have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life.18 They are more likely to accept support from other people and even sleep better, probably because they think fewer negative thoughts – and more positive ones – just before going to sleep.

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The smallest things can make the biggest difference. However small and seemingly insignificant – gratitude happens best when we notice the small pleasures around us – it helps put everything in the right perspective. You may perhaps get to the end of the day feeling nothing has appeared to go right. But instead of focusing on the negative, get in the habit of identifying and reflecting on the small pleasures instead. Just make an effort for a couple of weeks to identify the good things in your day. You will soon find yourself actively looking for things to appreciate and, after a while, it will become second nature.

Increasing your gratitude Here is a simple but powerful technique for raising your gratitude levels and developing your sense of optimism. Before you go to bed each night, identify three good things that have happened during the day. You may wish to write them down in a notebook, or you may simply reflect on what those things are while you are brushing your teeth. Appreciate just knowing that you had good in your day so that, whatever the other difficulties, you did in fact have things that made it all worthwhile. Three seems to be just the right number of positive events to think of. With just three things, you can reflect on each one more.

Acknowledging the positive Vicky was happily getting on with her life as a supermarket manager and mother of three teenagers. When she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she had to give up her job and her favourite activities: going to the gym, golf and sailing. Despite fears of an uncertain future, she met a new partner with whom she now shares a home. Together, they have set up a business, and Vicky has embarked on a whole new career. She says: ‘I still

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have bad times when I feel tearful and anxious, but I really do make the most of every day and feel constantly grateful that I have so much to enjoy in life.’

Remind yourself of your blessings Whether you feel blessed by your family, your friends, or even that you just have food to eat each day, remind yourself of these things, however small you feel they may be.

Find the positive in those you love In my work with parents, after listening to them describe the difficulties and challenges they are dealing with, I ask them to write down what they like about their child. Many parents are surprised to realise that they never stop to reflect on the good in their child. Simply thinking about a person for whom you are grateful will raise your feel-good factor.

Say thank you Most of us have a lot to feel grateful for, so much that we simply take for granted. Thank those in your life who make it better and happier to get a positivity boost for yourself as well.

Bounce rule 2 – change your thinking G

Remember that negative thinking patterns can be changed.

G

Identify thinking traps and your escape route.

G

Replace negative thinking and self-talk with positive messages.

G

Reflect on your thoughts and feelings – the more you are aware of yourself, the less likely you are to fall into thinking traps.

G

Imagine yourself coping and bouncing back – the future you see is the future you get.

G

Be grateful – whatever your difficulties, you always have things that make it all worthwhile.

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Chapter 6 Change your behaviour

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J

ust as thinking in a positive flexible way is essential for you to bounce, so the way you behave, the things you actually do every day, are key to you developing resilience.

Your values are the guiding principles that will help support your change in behaviour – they will give you strength and confidence. Your vision is a broad picture of what your life could be like in the future.Together, your values and visualisation can help you change your behaviour through the specific framework of setting goals and give you solid, positive foundations from which to bounce back and then forward.

Case study Sir Paul Smith, fashion designer, left school at 15, intent on becoming a professional racing cyclist. But, at 17, he was involved in a serious accident and was in hospital for several months. During his recovery, he made some new friends, who introduced him to art, design and photography. He was inspired and visualised a new direction for his life. He enrolled in evening classes for tailoring. With the help of his thengirlfriend (now wife) and a small amount of savings, he was able to open his first shop in Nottingham in 1970. He was still only 24. By 1976, Sir Paul was showing his first menswear collection in Paris. He has since gone on to open shops in London and New York and showrooms in Milan, Paris and Tokyo.

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Anyone can be thrown off course by the loss of a job, a breakup, defeats in sports or work, or any of the disappointments – big and small – that we face throughout life. Having a goal or purpose beyond the present crisis equips you with bounce – you can always come back to it – no matter what.The goal can be as big as starting a charity or as simple as growing plants for your garden. The idea is that you have something to look forward to that gets you out of bed every morning and back into life. Setting goals is the start of you getting back in control. If a goal, however, does not improve your present reality, then why have it? If you feel that it is going to create too much sacrifice and stress, if you are worrying about the risks you will face and other discouraging thoughts, then it is not a realistic goal. Therefore, abandon it, and consider a different goal to help you realise your vision.

setting goals is the start of you getting back in control

Of course, there will be some anxiety and unease. After all, you are changing your way of thinking and behaving. But do not wait until you feel completely certain about something before you take action. Get to work on your goals and you will soon start to feel more confident about what you are doing.

‘Respond to the unknown by moving forward instead of holding back.’ Paul McKenna

How to identify your goals Visualise a newly decorated room in your house: the kitchen, for example.Your vision of how the room will look once it is decorated can inspire you to make plans and take action. Your vision should not be a fixed plan.You will need to be flexible and open to the fact that problems might arise: the kitchen units you really want are too

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expensive, or you did not expect to have to get a builder in to remove a wall. The important thing is to visualise what, at this point, might be possible.

Goal-setting 1

Start by visualising what you want to happen, where you want to be in a year. If you are currently facing a challenge, a difficulty or even a crisis, what is your long-term goal for what your life will be like at some point in the future? Do not worry if your ambitions are not specific. It is fine to have a generalised vision of, for example, simply being happier. We will get to the specifics shortly.

2 Write down all the possible ways you could realise your goal. However big or small your ideas, be they realistic or idealistic, let your imagination run wild. If your vision, your long-term goal, is to have bounced back from redundancy and be happy and successful a year from now, then imagine all the ways that could happen. There may be several options. For example, you could look for similar employment, work freelance, work abroad or change career direction. 3 For each option, list the ways that you think that could happen. Brainstorm all your ideas: who could help, where you could work, what further research and information you need. This process cannot be rushed. It could take days or weeks to get all the information you need to make an informed choice. 4 Then, ask yourself which options currently appeal to you the most. These are your goals; they are specific goals. Get that piece of paper right now and start writing down all your options.

Is it really that simple?Yes. And no.The process of identifying goals is that simple. But now you have to put those ideas into action.

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How to set goals you will achieve The concept might not be new, but today’s techniques for effective goal-setting have been refined and clarified. Although setting and reaching goals means you need to take action, the way you think about goal-setting can make a big difference. You will have heard about the importance of setting realistic goals and having realistic expectations; you might be worried about the time it is going to take to achieve your goals: ‘If I start working freelance now, it could take months to build up enough clients to make it worthwhile.’ Or, ‘If I leave him, it might be a long time before I meet someone else.’ Thinking like this can paralyse you and prevent you from taking action to achieve your goals. But whether you put your plan into action over the next year or not, that year will pass anyway. Remember: in reality, you are never in the past or future. You are only ever in the present moment. So if the only thing that exists is the present moment, you might ask what the point is of having goals when goals are for the future? The point is that thinking about and setting goals improves how you feel right now. Think of a goal and then ask yourself: ‘How does setting this goal make me feel right now?’ If the goal brings hope, focus and motivation to your life, if it helps to feel you have some control, then it is realistic. If it provides purpose and meaning, if it inspires you right here, right now, then stick with it.

Case studies Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, as well as a Holocaust survivor, who found the will to live in the midst of horror by pledging himself to future goals. Throughout his ordeal in a series of concentration camps, he asked himself why, given the chance, some prisoners survived and others did not. He determined that the survivors

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comprised those who had developed reasons to live, who had goals that helped them retain hope for the future. Finding a purpose in life can help people survive traumatic loss. In 1986, Diana Lamplugh founded the Suzy Lamplugh Trust to promote personal safety, following the disappearance and presumed murder of her 25-yearold daughter Suzy. In 2008, Andrew Foster’s brother, Christopher, shot dead his wife, daughter and pets, before setting fire to his home and killing himself. Andrew has set up a trust fund in his niece’s name for Riding for the Disabled. ‘We’re trying to get something good out of this,’ he told The Times.19

A lot of what you hear about goal-setting suggests that you create SMART goals. There are several variations on this approach, but generally SMART means Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and Time-bound. This sounds good in theory, but there are drawbacks: with the SMART approach, the emphasis is on defining the amount of time needed to achieve each goal. But instead of thinking of your goals as needing time limits, you should consider each goal in the context of how it makes you feel right now.When you set goals that improve how you currently feel, if those goals give you hope and help you to think positively, then what does it matter how long it takes to achieve them? Whether it takes a month or a year, the journey is positive and enjoyable. Once you become aware of how your goals improve your life right now, you will feel inspired and want to take action.You will feel in control, and the more you feel in control the more likely you can steer through difficulties and bounce back.

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Options Remember: you have options. Once you have identified a goal, you need to consider all the options before you decide the way forward. This involves research: think who else could help; talk to others who have faced the same challenges; listen to how they coped. All this will give you some ideas. What else could you do? Write a list of answers on how you can accomplish one of your goals. Be sure to write down your ideas, so that you can actually see them. Do not let your ideas simply stay stuck in your head. The process of identifying your options will stretch you beyond your usual way of thinking and behaving. On the career development courses that I teach, the more research that students do, the more information they get, the more empowered and confident they become. With support from me and fellow students, they discover all sorts of possibilities to help them reach their goals and realise their ambitions. They weigh up the pros and cons of each option and are encouraged to think about how a particular option or idea makes them feel in the present. If they feel inspired, they know it is the right option and they take action. Without exception, the people on my courses who have bounced back and moved forwards with their lives are the ones who have got themselves informed by talking to people, collecting information, identifying your researching on the Internet and so on. It options will stretch is these students who become you beyond your usual resourceful, inventive and creative way of thinking and people who are capable of acting on behaving their own initiative. Knowing they have options gives them the power or liberty to choose their way forward.

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Case study A few years ago, Cassie’s finances were a complete mess. ‘I landed a great freelance job in the film industry. It was a fantastic opportunity; it was exciting and glamorous. Everyone was really cool and fun. I started shopping for new clothes on the Internet and soon got sucked in. The designer outfits were, of course, expensive. In a further effort to fit in, I constantly went out to clubs and restaurants with my new colleagues. I was renting a flat on my own and the bills started mounting up. I just tried to ignore my bank balance. I wanted to keep up with everyone else at work and so when my cards reached their limit, I signed up for more. Before I knew it, I was £20,000 in debt. ‘I clearly remember the way my friends thought I had lost the plot; feelings of fear and isolation swept over me as I realised how bad things had become. I just wanted to be debt-free and start over, but I also knew there was no quick fix. ‘I sat down and wrote out what my options were. They were to: G

fix my debts with one big consolidation loan, with a five-year repayment term;

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get a salaried job again to have regular wages, and work a couple of shifts in a public house at the weekend;

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get a lodger;

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prioritise what I wanted to spend money on. I knew I had to buy some clothes, so I put aside a small amount for that each month, but nothing for hairstyling or shoes. Taxis and the gym were no longer an option; I bought a secondhand bike and rode it everywhere. I could swap eating out for inviting friends round to my place for pasta and cheap plonk. I still wanted to have holidays, so I could visit friends in Devon and Scotland; work out my budget in a way that required me to be a financial juggler: a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul approach. I paid only cash and learned the value of money the hard way.

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‘Once I had written down my goals and options, I felt a huge sense of relief. I also felt I had regained some control. Even if there were setbacks, I still felt it was going to be possible to be debt-free at some point in the future. Identifying my goals and options gave me the belief that things could improve for the better. I felt hopeful and was on my way to bouncing back!’

Staying on course and achieving goals Write down your goals Write, email or text your goals to yourself. If they are not written down, they are just dreams. I am a firm believer in writing things down. Why? First, writing them down forces you to define more clearly what your goals are. Second, writing them down externalises your ideas. Rather than trying to keep them in your head, writing down your goals frees up your mind to think about the next stage. People who never write down their goals always have them stuck in their head and they have no room to think of ideas on how to act on them.

State each goal as a positive statement Set yourself a negative goal such as ‘stop getting so anxious’ and your mind focuses on the negative words ‘stop’ and ‘anxious’.You end up becoming more anxious. Goals that contain the words ‘don’t’, ‘mustn’t’ or ‘stop’ are self-defeating. Instead of thinking ‘I must stop getting so anxious’, think ‘I want to be more confident’. Positive goals direct what to do rather than what not to do. Negative goals direct your attention to the errors you want to eliminate. You are more likely to achieve goals that get you what you want, rather than goals that help you to avoid something. Remember: goals should inspire you and give you hope. Positive goals do this. In contrast, negative goals that are framed in terms of

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‘mustn’t’, ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t’ create doom and gloom and do not serve to motivate you. To increase your chances for achieving any goal, you must think of a positive goal with a positive outcome. Your mind will be more willing to accept and move towards a positive goal.

Make them your goals, not other people’s A mistake that some people make is to describe their goals in terms of how they want other people to change. ‘I want my partner to show me more sympathy and understanding for what I’m going through’ isn’t a goal; it is more like wishful thinking.This sort of thinking has to change. Reframe the aspiration to be ‘My goal is to explain how I feel and ask for support’. Then, you are in control and you can decide what options are available to you to achieve that goal.

Think about what you want All sorts of other people – parents, friends, colleagues, columnists in the media – can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this without knowing what your desires and ambitions are. Be assertive. Let other people know what it is that you want, not them.

Share your goals You are not in this alone. In the next chapter, we look at the importance of getting support from other people, such as friends, family, colleagues and professionals. Sharing your goals with other people helps to provide clarity and perspective; other people can give you information, encouragement and support. Although some people will support you, others will appear not to care, and others will be sceptical, making comments such as ‘You’ll never pull that off!’ Talking about your goals is a useful way to see who is on your side and who might hold you back. Telling others about your goals helps you identify who your true supporters are.

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Remain flexible Regularly review and modify your goals. Your goals will change as time goes on, so adjust them regularly to reflect new knowledge and experience. If a specific goal no longer feels appropriate, then let it go.

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Identify your goals – the more you feel in control, the more likely you are to be able to bounce back.

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Get a long-term vision and short-term motivation. If the goal brings hope, focus and motivation to your life; if it provides purpose and meaning; if it inspires you right here, right now – then go with it!

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Be prepared to be flexible and adapt your thinking and your goals.

As you make this technique part of your life, you will find your ability to cope and bounce back accelerating. You will wonder how you did without it.

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esilient people like to reach out to other people. They recognise that, in times of trouble, other people can provide empathy, support, information, advice, perspective, fun and enjoyment. Share your concerns, goals and successes with other people. Seek out others who can support you. Who are the positive, supportive people in your life?

Positive people Which people come to mind from the questions below? Be creative in your thinking. The positive people on your list do not only have to be friends and family; they could be colleagues or neighbours. Maybe one is the person who works behind the counter at your local shop; perhaps someone on television is the person who makes you laugh. The positive person could be someone you have read about who has overcome adversity or someone who inspires you. G

Someone I can call on in a crisis

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Someone who makes me feel good about myself

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Someone I can totally be myself with

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Someone who values my opinion

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Someone who tells me how well I am doing

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Someone I can talk to if I am worried

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Someone who really makes me stop and think about what I am doing

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Someone who makes me laugh

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Someone who introduces me to new ideas, interests or new people.

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The exercise above may have shown that you have a different person or a number of people for each situation, or the same one or two people might feature on the list. Research has shown that having even just one positive person in your life can make all the difference to your ability to cope with and bounce back from adversity. For every positive person out there, however, there is at least one negative person. It has been said that other people can be ‘radiators’ or ‘drains’: radiators spread warmth and positivity, while drains take away your energy and resources, their negativity making you feel irritated and depressed. You need radiators in your life, particularly when you are trying to get through difficult times or are struggling to bounce back. Just by being around radiators – their positivity is catching – makes you feel inspired and motivated. Positive people are more likely to respond to you in a positive way and so make you feel good about yourself and your abilities. In contrast, negative people are more likely to sap your energy and discourage you. It is not always possible or practical to remove negative people from your life. What you can do, however, is reduce the amount of time you spend around drains and increase the amount of time you spend with radiators, the positive people in your list. Backing away from negative people includes cutting out time spent reading about other people who are portrayed as victims. In this book, we have included numerous examples of positive people who have coped with and bounced back from adversity. They have identified increase the amount of time you spend with themselves as survivors, not victims. Try to avoid stories of people who are the positive people in portrayed as victims, where the focus your list is on the unfairness and suffering of their situation and problems appear never to get resolved. Instead, look for stories about people that inspire you.You need positive role models in your life.

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‘Without doubt, the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of others.’ Napoleon Hill

Get in the habit of reading about people – ordinary people or famous people – who have coped with adversity. What was it that helped them cope and bounce back?Was it their ability to find the positive in adversity, their flexible approach, the support of other people? But do not just read about positive people. Search them out. As we saw in the previous chapter, other people are sources of information and support. They can help you increase your options, so you can reach your goals and realise your vision. True, you can wait until a crisis happens and it is obvious you need more positive people in your life. Or, preferably, you can start to meet new people right now.

Case study When the last of her three children had grown up and left home, Maria was surprised at what a big gap there was in her life. ‘I saw the local library was running a book group so I signed up. It was a large, informal group; everyone was from diverse backgrounds and ages so we had very different ideas and opinions. Meetings were lively and fun; we also ate chocolate cake and laughed a lot. ‘I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people so when a neighbour suggested I join her rock and gospel choir, I jumped at the chance. It’s been marvellous. I never knew I could sing like this. We’ve put on shows and even, would you believe it, performed at Glastonbury. ‘I have been amazed at the variety of interest groups out there. I’ve stayed with the choir, but I’ve also tried calligraphy, belly-dancing and Asian cooking. Some of these groups meet weekly. Others are just one-off sessions. Being a “groupie” has given me the chance to learn new skills, have some interesting experiences, and meet such a variety of other people.’

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Other people can stretch you beyond your usual way of thinking and behaving in good times.They can also make a difference when times are hard.They can prop you up until you are able to support yourself again. If you are going through a really difficult time, it has never been easier, thanks to new technologies, to find others who are facing the same challenges.

Support groups Many people have benefited from support groups. When you are struggling with a tough situation, a support group can help develop your coping skills and reduce negative feelings such as fear, resentment and hopelessness. Some people might view support groups as an opportunity for a ‘pity fest’, with members trapped in a cycle of negativity, unable to accept and cope with their situation. Certainly, some support groups are more beneficial than others in providing the information, advice and skills that empower members and enable them to cope or to move on. Support groups may be organised by their members or be facilitated by professionals. They may be groups that meet on a regular basis, or they may be an online community; they may be both. Some support groups provide ongoing support for a past trauma, such as divorce or miscarriage, where the focus is on helping those involved to overcome or move beyond their experience. Others address persistent, long-lasting difficulties, such as arthritis or an eating disorder, with an emphasis on helping people to manage and cope with their condition. In all cases, good support groups provide members with various forms of help, providing opportunities to share experiences and sensitive personal details, explaining how to find and use informa-

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tion, sharing or evaluating relevant research and information, providing empathy and developing social networks. Knowing you are not alone can be a real source of strength – and, most importantly, bounce.

Case study Juliette Teague is a member of Pebbles, a Brighton-based support group for parents of children with special needs. ‘The most helpful thing about Pebbles is knowing that you are not alone, sharing experiences, information and strategies and trying to do something about the dire lack of activities on offer for disabled children by pooling our energies and making something happen. ‘Crucially, everyone in Pebbles has a sense of humour and can laugh at the truly ridiculous situations and experiences that having a learning disabled child exposes you to. It makes it less of a lonely path to tread and other parents generally hold the most useful and comprehensive information.’

If there is no support group in your area for your particular situation, why not start your own? Here are some tips for how to get started: G

Contact the organisers of two or three other support groups. Ask them how they got started: what ideas and advice can they give you? Go to a few meetings (even if the needs that they are supporting are not related to yours) to see exactly what happens at meetings.

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Ask friends, colleagues, neighbours and relatives for help to start with, in order to get a small core group of people that will work with you in setting up and running your support group.

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Publicise it well. Start creating your network by promoting your group through advertisements in the local newspaper, and putting fliers through letterboxes, posters and postcards in

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shop windows, on community noticeboards and in community newsletters, and leaflets in places where the people you want to reach are likely to go. G

Find a place to meet. It might be at your house, a local pub or a community hall.

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In the beginning, members may come and go. But if you keep at it, you will eventually have a small core group that is always there. In a successful support group, some members will remain long after they have received the support they were seeking.They stay because they want to give others what they themselves found in the group; they have a lot to offer.

Other types of group formed to support causes, including causes outside of themselves, are more often called interest groups, advocacy groups, lobby groups, pressure groups and promotional groups. There are many different reasons why you may want to set up a group. For example, you may want to form a pressure group to oppose a proposed development in your neighbourhood, about which many people feel strongly.You may simply have had a good idea and need some more people to help make it happen, such as running an arts project in the community. Whether you are struggling to cope with a problem in your life or simply want to get together with like-minded people to develop an interest or promote a cause, being involved with others will give you the connections for good times and bad.

‘It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can seriously help another without helping himself.’ Charles Dudley Warner

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Helping others For many people, the most basic of all values is altruism: a concern for the welfare of others. Although, when faced with adversity, we can feel overwhelmed with our own concerns, it is possible that the highest form of selfishness is selflessness. Help other people and, in the process, you help yourself.

Case studies TV presenter Gloria Hunniford’s daughter, Caron Keating, died in 2004 aged 41, after a seven-year struggle with cancer. ‘Five years down the line there are still desperate days when all you want to do is weep. On those days I force myself out to do something for someone else, an antidote to the negativity that threatens to engulf you.’20 During the 1990s, David Rowntree was the drummer in Blur, a hugely successful band. By 2003, his marriage had ended and Blur had stopped recording and playing live together. Rowntree enrolled on an Open University course and went on to study to become a barrister, motivated by an urge to help some of society’s most blighted people. Now, he spends one night a week working as a police station representative, interviewing and advising people who have been arrested. ‘The more I do it, the more important I think it is. By and large, nobody is speaking up for these people. Nobody’s on their side. Probably 80 per cent are either drug addicts or have other mental health problems. And society has branded them as evil so there is no one on their side.’ Rowntree is opposed to the death penalty and is a patron of Amicus, an organisation that provides legal representation for those on Death Row in the USA.21

It is not necessary to wait until you have the skills to save lives before experiencing the good feelings that come from connecting with – and helping – other people. Studies show that helping even just one person can create feelings and attitudes that can lead to better physical health, better mental health and overall happiness.

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Helping others makes you more resilient because it creates a positive mindset. It gets you into a cycle of positive thinking and behaviour. Helping other people to manage their difficulties requires you to be more open-minded and flexible in your thinking. You may be forced to confront and change your own attitudes. Doing something to benefit someone else can make you and the person you are helping feel good. This can create a bond between you, help you to develop empathy, and bring a fresh perspective to your own life and circumstances. Certainly, you can organise your own way of helping other people: help a neighbour in need by picking up some shopping once a week or offer to cut their grass. If you would prefer some support and company, you can volunteer your time and help with a local community group. Volunteers can do almost anything, whether stewarding at a festival, supporting adults to learn to read or volunteering your professional skills. As a volunteer, you can make a vital contribution to any number of aspects of community life.

Voluntary work Try to find an activity that offers: G

a role relevant to your interests – it may be related to the environment and conservation, arts and music, or perhaps families and children;

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an opportunity to use the skills you already have or will commit to train you to do;

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personal contact with the person you help, or at least a strong emotional connection, such as by telephone on a telephone hotline. Studies show that people involved in face-to-face support benefit more than those people who help in, for example, administrative work. Personal contact increases our understanding and sympathy for the situation of others. Aim to meet the people you help, see their lives and connect with them;

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the opportunity for regular helping – aim for a couple of hours a week. Frequency of helping is important, because it enables you to build support and empathy with others.

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Volunteer centres act as a volunteers’ ‘job centre’. They can tell you the voluntary work that is available locally and put you in touch with local organisations. You can also discuss with them what you want to do and get advice. Find out about volunteering opportunities near to you by visiting your local volunteer centre or logging on to www.volunteering.org.uk. For many would-be helpers, the most difficult thing is getting started. One way to ease that initial nervousness is simply to take a deep breath and plunge right in. An easier way is to take a friend or family member with you as a fellow helper. Feel free to give up on a particular effort when you get into a situation that is not right for you, but do not quit helping somewhere simply because of one rejection or bad experience.Try something else.

Spirituality The positivity and sense of connection that can be gained from helping other people are also central characteristics of spirituality. Spirituality: the word creates visions of a bunch of barefoot hippies chanting in unison. Or perhaps you associate spirituality with an image of a soft-spoken guru living a simple life on a mountain far away. We all have some sort of vision in mind when we talk about spirituality. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines spirituality as ‘the nonphysical part of a person’. Put simply, spirituality indicates a sense of being part of something bigger, more eternal. Some people define their spirituality by seeing themselves as part of a divine plan. Others look outward and ask: ‘How can my life, my experiences, have a positive impact in the world?’ Still others have personal goals that steer them through setbacks. They forge ahead because they want to serve a cause or express themselves through action.

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Being part of something big Amnesty International is a movement of ordinary people from around the world standing up for humanity and human rights. Its achievements have a huge impact on the lives of individual people. In late 1961, while travelling on the London Underground, Peter Benenson was horrified to read reports of two Portuguese students who were sentenced to seven years in prison for drinking a toast to freedom. In a famous front-page article in The Observer newspaper headlined ‘The Forgotten Prisoners’, Benenson made an appeal: ‘Open your newspaper any day of the week and you will find a story from somewhere of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government. The newspaper reader feels a sickening sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, something effective could be done.’ The response was overwhelming. In the years that followed, Amnesty International was to grow into the largest human rights organisation in the world. Benenson later wrote: ‘I went in to see what could really be done effectively, to mobilise world opinion. It was necessary to think of a larger group which would harness the enthusiasm of people all over the world who were anxious to see a wider respect for human rights. Those who today still feel a sense of impotence can do something: they can support Amnesty International. They can help it stand up for freedom and justice.’ 22

Spirituality can connect you to a reality greater than the physical world and yourself. Although spirituality can be part of a particular religion, it can also be seen as being distinct from religion. Different world religions have put forward a variety of doctrines about the nature of a god and humanity’s relationship with it. Spirituality refers to the common experience behind these various belief systems, an experience involving an awareness of – and relationship with – something that connects you to a purpose in life larger than yourself.

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You can choose to define what that means for yourself, in whatever way feels most appropriate.Your own sense of spirituality can be as abstract as ‘cosmic consciousness’ or as simple as the beauty of the ocean or the enormity of a star-filled sky. Even if you regard yourself as an agnostic or atheist, you may get a sense of connection from contemplating a beautiful sunset or the power of the sea. Or from being part of an organisation such as Amnesty International.

Spirituality in our everyday lives Learn to appreciate the beauty of nature that we are part of. Cherish beauty, music and creativity, imagination, peace and the miracles of nature. Spirituality is about exploring all of these, enriching our lives, and using what we learn to become better people for spirituality can ourselves and each other. connect you to a

reality greater than Associate with spiritual people you the physical world admire. Their attitude will inspire you. and yourself Who do you know who is spiritual? Someone who has balance and a sense of perspective, a sense of wonder, someone who seeks out beauty and peace, who is not self-centred and has a calm concern for other people. Spirituality can provide an experience of inspiration, peace of mind and guidance that goes beyond what appears to be possible. Bounce rule 4 – connect G

Take comfort in the people around you who have positive attitudes and can make you feel better about the problems you are facing. Develop a support system. Seek out family or friends who you trust. Find a counsellor or therapist to help you cope with your problems or issues.

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Reach out to other people. See yourself making a positive difference.

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Develop spirituality. Even if you regard yourself an agnostic or atheist, you may get a sense of connection from contemplating a beautiful sunset or the power of the sea.

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earning to develop a resilient mindset goes hand in hand with developing a resilient body and lifestyle.

The human body has simple needs in order to function effectively: restful sleep, a healthy diet, fresh air and exercise. Unfortunately, many of us fail to provide our bodies with these minimum requirements. We eat and drink food that we know to be harmful and fail to eat a diet that we know will be beneficial; we take little outdoor exercise and consequently sleep badly. Most of the time we are aware that we are not looking after ourselves, but we often choose to ignore the facts until we become ill or suffer from stress. To be a person with bounce, you have to be aware of your body and its needs. It’s an obvious point, and yet one so many of us miss, but if you are a healthy person with an active lifestyle, you will be much more likely to cope with life’s problems than someone who is tired, lethargic and under-nourished. We all know deep down whether we are taking care of ourselves, but often we get stuck and can’t make the leap to do something about it, even if we know how unhealthy we are. Setting goals and making resolutions are great first steps towards a resilient body. In this chapter we will focus on diet to show how you can use the factors of bounce to move towards health and a resilient body. Equally, though, you can apply what we say to other areas of health such as giving up cigarettes and starting an exercise regime.

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Goals and resolutions Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year? Have you stuck to it? If you didn’t make one, what would it be if you made one now? Many people give up making a resolution because they know, from past experience, that they are unlikely to stick to it. Research, however, shows that people who make resolutions are far more likely to achieve in life than people who do not set themselves specific goals.23 Make a list of all the resolutions and goals that you have ever made and set yourself in the past. How many can you think of? What are they? Lose weight? Get more exercise? Stop smoking? Drink less alcohol? Get more sleep? If your resolution is among these, it is because these are the most common resolutions and over the years they have remained remarkably similar. Some people make the same resolutions every year, but very few examine why they are unable to keep them. By deciding you want to improve something in your life and then doing very little to ensure that it happens, you perceive you have failed, your self-esteem takes a battering, and you believe you are not in control of your life. Literally, you are hopeless and feel there is no point in trying again.

Get rid of the secrecy and guilt Resolutions are nearly always about self-improvement: they differ from the things that people want to achieve in life in that they are usually about making the person feel better about themselves, often physically. People rarely make New Year’s resolutions to help others or to do something about the environment. Resolutions are, almost exclusively, selfish. And for this reason, many people keep them as a guilty secret – even though their resolutions are probably exactly the same as those of vast numbers of others. By keeping your resolution secret, you are much less likely to stick to it. If you make a resolution, share it with people you trust – get their backing, support and even a little pressure.

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Understand your body It is obvious to all parents that children become irritable and overwrought if they are tired; when they are hungry, they get angry; if they stay in and watch too much television, they become listless and lethargic. The same, of course, is true for adults: you know that too many late nights can make you feel extra sensitive, even weepy, when something goes wrong or someone speaks sharply to you. Irregular eating patterns and poor diet lead to a feeling of sluggishness and apathy. Lack of exercise strangely makes you feel lazy and seems eventually to cause you to develop an apathetic attitude to life. If you have read all this and can see that it is true, but you also know that you have failed to look after yourself, the good news is that you don’t have to wait until the New Year to do something about it.The amazing thing about the human body is that it can be repaired and improved whatever your age and however much you have allowed it to deteriorate. You can apply the same principles that you have learned to develop a resilient mindset to help you to bounce back from previous perceptions of failure and learn how to bounce with good health in the future. Have you ever tried to lose weight? Have you ever used a ‘miracle’ diet after hearing of someone else’s success: Atkins, Food Combining, High Protein, South Beach, Mediterranean, GI , Eat Right for your Blood Type? (If you type ‘Diet Books’ into Amazon, there are more than 42,000 books to choose from.) You may have lost some weight and then later it has crept back on; or you may be a serial dieter and have ended up weighing more than when you first started. Try to calculate how often you have tried to diet in your life. How much time do you think you have spent thinking about dieting in the past month? Write it down. Now multiply that by 12 and then by how many years you things if only you could rid yourself of the tyranny of dieting.

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have been trying to diet. Think how much time you would have to do other

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Amanda Ursell, a nutritionist and columnist in The Times, writes: ‘Apparently women think about their unwanted bulges at least 15 times a day. According to research from Tufts University, Boston, the average woman tries 104 different weight-loss diets between the ages of 18 and 70 – each lasting an average of five weeks – that’s equivalent to spending 10 years of your life trying to lose weight’.24

‘Every year I make the same resolutions: I decide that I am going to stop smoking, lose a bit of weight, stop drinking so much and watch less television. I’m always absolutely determined that I’m going to do it this year. Quite often I start out well for the first few weeks – then something happens and it all goes out of the window. I’m hopeless: I just don’t seem to have any willpower’ (Yvonne, 33, social worker).

Break the cycle How can we stop this cycle of resolution, attempt, failure and despair? Instead of seeing yourself as a ‘failure’ – as someone who finds it impossible to stick to a resolution – view your past attempts as a learning experience. You have to do something at least 28 times before it becomes a habit. All the old habits that you may want to discard (smoking a cigarette, having a bar of chocolate in your coffee break) are just patterns of behaviour that have become routine because of constant practice. Every time you have tried to do something but then given up, you have learned something about yourself. Each attempt that you have made can be useful in the future, if you look at it as a way of learning how to succeed the next time. Learn to view each past ‘failure’ as part of the process, a step bringing you nearer to success.

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If you have been a confirmed smoker for 10 years, it would be miraculous if you succeeded in stopping smoking at the first attempt. Similarly, if you have been regularly eating the same thing, such as a biscuit with your coffee or a bar of chocolate each time you buy fuel at a petrol station, then just deciding to stop, thinking that willpower alone is sufficient, is a recipe for disaster.

Don’t give up As a resilient person, you need to look at all your previous attempts as practice; they have all prepared you for success. Believing that you have ‘failed’ to do something is only a state of mind. look at your previous Resilient people bounce back from attempts as practice; things that have not worked and learn they have prepared from them. Every time you have you for success ‘failed’ in the past has brought you one step closer to success. In fact, the more times you have tried and not succeeded in the past to achieve your resolution, the more chance you will have of succeeding the next time. Once you are able to interpret past attempts in this positive state of mind, you are one step nearer to your goal.

Establish positive goals If you examined your own resolutions and found that you regularly make more than one – and they are the same ones every time – then it may be best to start with the one that you think about most frequently.Yvonne, in the example quoted above, is typical in that she wants to ‘stop smoking, lose a bit of weight, stop drinking so much and watch less television’. All these are admirable aims, and it is possible to achieve them. But not all at the same time.

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It is not because people do not want to stick to their resolutions; most people realise that their lives would be vastly improved if they did, and usually they are quite determined ‘this time’ to persevere.

Reward your success So what is the answer? The trouble with nearly all resolutions is that they are negative goals: ‘to stop’, ‘to quit’ or ‘to lose’. They reflect the fact that you have made them out of fear for your health or anger at yourself for lapsing into bad habits. To increase your chances of success, the goals you make need to be reworded in a positive way.

If you think about why you want to do something, then it is easier to establish your goals. It is better to think of your goals in a positive way – ‘cigarette-free’, ‘saving money’ or ‘healthy eating’ rather than ‘giving up cigarettes’ or ‘going on a diet’. Similarly, if you want to lose weight, think about why you want to lose weight. Do you really want to look thinner for only one day at a wedding or one week on the beach? People who lose weight for their holidays or a special event often put it straight back on when the event is over. If you want to lose weight, make sure that you understand your real reason. It is too slow and painful a process simply to want ‘to look thinner’. If you would like to be able to maintain a healthy weight and body for the rest of your life, then a realistic goal is one where you feel happy about yourself – not a set of figures that you see when you step on to the scales.

You cannot hope to become a resilient person if you are starving yourself of good nutritious food. A restricted diet will not help you to cope with difficult times, because it is based on depriving your body of what it requires to function normally. If, instead of concentrating on restricting what you eat, you focus on eating good, nutritious, fresh food, then you are much more likely to develop a healthy, lean body. If the reason for making changes to

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your diet or stopping smoking is to have more energy, or better health, or a fitter body, then you have more chance of succeeding. Keep looking at your reasons when your motivation wavers.

Analyse with fresh eyes Being able to examine what is working well in your life, and what is not, is all part of becoming a resilient person. Up to 90 per cent of the way most people behave every day is based on habit and routine. This is not to say that having an ordered life with predictable routines is a bad thing. In fact, creating positive habits is the best way to balance any chaos that may occur in your life. When traumas happen, you need a safe haven to retreat to as well as some familiar routines, so that you know you still have control over most areas of your life. If you learn to prioritise your basic needs – a good night’s sleep, a healthy diet, fresh air, exercise – so that these become part of your daily routine, you are making a commitment to yourself to becoming a healthy and resilient person.

Measure your success If you have decided that you need to lose weight to feel healthy, then it is a good idea to record your weight or measurements at the start of your journey and then again every two weeks. At the rate of a pound a week, you would see a two-stone weight loss in six months. If you have previously tried to do it more quickly than this, then learn from your experience: rapid weight loss usually results in a plateau followed by weight gain. And then you give up. Do not expect to lose a pound every week. Remember that your aim is to eat healthily. If you use graph paper to chart your progress, do not expect it to be a straight line from the top to the bottom. There will be dips and plateaus on the way. People’s weight fluctuates naturally and it is unrealistic to expect quick

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results. The only reliable way to lose weight more quickly is to introduce at least 30 minutes of exercise most days. If you concentrate on eating well, rather than on depriving yourself, you will feel happy and safe in the knowledge that you are able to achieve your ultimate goal. Planning and recording your progress helps you to feel in control and to see clearly that you are working towards your intended goal.

Accept that you are human Remember: if you have been doing something for most of your adult life and decide to stop (such as eating biscuits) or if you make a decision to develop a good habit (such as exercise), it will take a lot of conscious thought and effort before it becomes automatic. Under conditions of stress or extreme tiredness, all our good intentions seem to go out of the window. Sometimes, it seems almost as if we want to sabotage our own efforts, as if it is proof of how much stress we are under, or to confirm a feeling of low self-worth. Sometimes, it is as if all we want to say is: ‘I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it.’ Decide before you embark on your new regime what you will do if you slip. There is no such thing as failure: just giving up trying. Decide in advance that if you do falter, it will not cause you to give up. Just learn from your mistake and determine to get back on track. Having one slice of cake does not mean that you have to eat the whole cake. Examine what the trigger was that tempted you and learn from the experience. If you do this, you can turn failure into something positive, because you will know in future that you have been able to accommodate relapses without giving up. ‘My mother is an excellent cook. She gives me huge portions at meal times and always bakes my favourite cakes and puddings when we go to stay. I’ve always felt it was rude to refuse (and I must admit I do enjoy them), but after a few days staying with her

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I start to feel bad about myself and wished I hadn’t’ (Keith, 46, office worker). Eating a healthy diet is different from fighting an addiction. It does not matter if you do not stick to a healthy eating plan 100 per cent of the there is no such thing time – whereas having the ‘odd’ as failure: just giving cigarette – or glass of whisky if you are up trying an alcoholic – is not a good idea.You are much more likely to keep eating healthily throughout your life if you allow yourself the odd glass of wine, a couple of squares of chocolate or a slice of cake – just not all at the same time and not every day.

Be realistic People on diets are often guilty of this: they set themselves unrealistic goals of weight loss each week, or a too-low daily calorific allowance, and then when, inevitably, they relapse and eat that slice of chocolate cake, they give up and say, ‘I’m hopeless. I’ve got no willpower at all. I’ll never lose any weight. I might as well have another slice of chocolate cake.’ This kind of mentality leads to feelings of low self-worth and can affect other parts of your life. If you have been eating healthily but then have a huge three-course meal, or a box of chocolates, or a bottle of wine, you will not have consumed more than an extra 3000 calories and so will simply remain the same weight that week. It will sabotage your diet only if you allow it to become the reason for giving up.

Self-belief It is definitely possible for you to begin new patterns of behaviour, which you have thought about and chosen to do, by committing yourself to a plan of action.You must hold a strong belief that you are capable of doing this; if your inner voice is telling you that you will not be able to, then you won’t.

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‘I realise now that in the past I always had the attitude of “Well, I’ll give it a go” ... But deep down I knew I’d never be able to lose weight and get fit. Now that I’ve managed to break down my goals into short-term aims and to see my past attempts as a practice, I’ve totally changed my mindset. I’m now at a healthy weight and I can honestly say I’ve never felt fitter’ (Gary, 34, telesales operator).

Be kind to yourself It can be traumatic to stop doing something that you have done for a long time; it can be equally difficult to take up something that is new to you. A bad habit is something that you do that has unfortunate consequences. It does not make you a bad person. It just means that you have slipped into a pattern of behaviour without thinking about it. Nobody ever deliberately decides to become alcohol-dependent, or to overeat, or to become a smoker. We usually start out doing these things because they are pleasurable and we want immediate gratification (or, in the case of young people, ‘because everyone else is doing it’).

‘If you keep doing what you have always done, then you’ll keep getting the same result.’ W.L. Bateman

Don’t be in such a hurry All weight-loss diets are based on the same simple premise: you need to cut back on the calories. An average woman needs about 2000 calories a day and the average man about 2500. It is obviously better if you cut back on the ‘empty’ calories, those that are of no use to your body in terms of keeping it healthy. If your body is not as fit and lean as you would like it to be, then it has probably been like this for some time. Many diets fail because people are unrealistic about how long it will take them to achieve

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their goal. They set unrealistic targets to lose weight that they have probably been carrying around for years. If you are trying to lose weight, then, depending on your starting weight, one to two pounds is the maximum you should aim for each week. A pound in weight is equal to 3500 calories, so to lose a pound in a week you would have to eat 500 fewer calories than your body needs every day. You must previously have been eating more calories than your body needs to put on weight and therefore it is quite a feat to begin to eat fewer calories than it needs – and then to keep going for weeks and probably months. It is quite possible to eat a normal healthy diet and lose weight. If, however, you are eating 500 fewer calories but you drink alcohol at the same time, then your precious 1500 calories (for women) or 2000 calories (for men) will be severely depleted.You will actually be malnourished if you try to lose weight and continue to drink alcohol or other sugary drinks at the same time. If you concentrate on eating healthy, freshly prepared food, rather than pre-prepared food, it is much easier to give your body what it requires and – if you need to – to lose weight at the same time. Most ready-prepared food has hidden calories and, even though the portions are small and probably unsatisfying, you will be eating more calories than in a freshly prepared meal with protein, plenty of vegetables and some carbohydrate. (Calorie-controlled diets advise limiting carbohydrates to two portions a day: for example, two slices of wholemeal bread, a small bowl of porridge or muesli, one baked potato, or a small portion of wholewheat pasta or brown rice.)

Feeding the family If you live as a family, persuading your family to eat healthily is the easiest way for you to eat healthily. It seems illogical to understand the consequences of what too many fats and sugars can do to your body and yet continue to give them to your loved ones. Most

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people quickly realise the benefits of eating healthily, even when they do not need to lose weight. A good diet gives you more energy, increases your libido, and makes your eyes bright, your hair shine and your bones strong. ‘When I decided I was going to eat more healthily, I stopped buying crisps and biscuits and fizzy drinks. The kids moaned a lot at first, but now I can see the difference in them and they have begun to enjoy different and unusual fruits and vegetables. I just wish I had started when they were younger, so that it wasn’t such a battle to get them out of their old habits’ (Sandra, 38, works from home).

Use the support of others You need the help of family and friends if you are going to alter lifelong habits and introduce new routines. If you plan to take up exercise, then you will need the support of your partner and friends to make sure you are not tempted back into your old ways. Some people think they can manage things on their own. This is often because they feel almost ashamed of their wish to improve themselves. Others have such low self-esteem that they do not want to burden other people with their secret desire to improve themselves. Many people think that by telling people that they are going on a diet, then it will draw attention to the fact that they are overweight – as if nobody notices until they point it out. Others are afraid that their efforts will be sabotaged if they tell friends or family. Usually there is someone within your family or among your friends or work colleagues whom you can trust and ask for support. If you explain to family and friends what it is that you specifically need their help with, then they are likely to be more understanding. Remember Keith and his mother the good cook? ‘In the end I just had to tell my mother that I was trying to get into

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shape. The irony is that she told me that she’d been worried about all the weight I had put on. She still cooks fabulous meals, but she is using healthier recipes and finally letting me help myself – so that I can take smaller portions. I still have the odd slice of cake but now that she knows I’m not worried about offending her’ (Keith, 46, office worker).

Join an organisation As well as telling your family, friends or work colleagues, when trying to improve your lifestyle it is a good idea to get support from people who are going through a similar process. If you do not have the time to go to meetings, there are online support groups and forums that you can join without having to leave the house. Telling your partner or family is usually a good idea, but telling just one individual is not enough. Remember everyone has their own problems that they may be dealing with at the same time. It can be wearing, even for a good friend, to hear you talking endlessly about your diet or fitness programme. Organisations such as Slimming World have helped thousands of people to lose weight and consequently to have a healthier body. They encourage people to lose weight in a healthy and steady way, and most people who go to their meetings find that the support of other people, attending for the same reason, is both encouraging and surprisingly good fun. Some people prefer to join such organisations because they need to have the public acknowledgement of their struggle. Your weight will be recorded and you will be applauded for successes and encouraged when your weight loss plateaus. There are built-in rewards for every seven pounds lost, and members are encouraged to set their own goal weight. Achieving this goal brings free lifelong membership, and continuing to attend ensures the weight is not regained.

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You are not a victim: you are a survivor – celebrate! Although we are always ready to berate ourselves and often have an inner voice that says, ‘You’re hopeless. Why did you have that chocolate cake/cigarette/glass of wine?’, we rarely reward ourselves or give ourselves praise for succeeding. Part of planning to improve your lifestyle is the decision about how you are going to reward yourself for success. If you have set yourself small goals, with dates, as suggested, then make sure you have also decided how you are going to reward yourself. Treat yourself to something that you would usually consider an indulgence: use the expensive toiletries that you have been given for Christmas, or make a longdistance telephone call to a dear friend. Often, as adults, we seem to feel that someone else should notice – that someone else should give us the praise that we are due. You are lucky if you have someone as involved in your journey as you are, someone who shares your pain and your successes. But if you do not have such a person, then you have to be your own best friend. Buy yourself some flowers, put on your favourite music, and pat yourself on the back that you have looked after yourself.

Learn from past stress and ‘failures’ Sometimes, the reason people do not succeed with their plans for self-improvement is because they choose the wrong time. If you agree that giving up old habits and developing new ones can be stressful, then it is not logical to choose a time in your life when you are already under pressure. Perhaps the reason so many New Year’s resolutions last only a few days is because it is the wrong time of year and people are feeling low after Christmas. Reflect on the past and the reasons that you have become stressed or found some things difficult to achieve.

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The longer that you have been doing something, the more ingrained the habit will be. Willpower alone is often not sufficient to overcome the habit of a lifetime. Research has shown, however, that if you give up something, then your cravings will decrease.25 Cravings are just the result of always giving in to temptation – which is what caused the habit in the first place.

‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’ Benjamin Franklin

Give yourself a chance to succeed by avoiding situations where you know you are most likely to be tempted. If you are going out for a meal when you are dieting, then do some research and decide beforehand what you are going to order. Since alcohol weakens resolve (and is full of empty calories), it is also a good idea not to drink alcohol at least for a while. And remember that if you do succumb, don’t beat yourself up.You have failed only if you give up. Just start again the next day. This is not failure; it is progress. It is learning from your mistakes. Ask yourself what the alternative is to this technique: giving up and resigning yourself to being unhealthy? Introducing new healthy habits to your lifestyle means that, for a short time, you will have to prioritise yourself and your needs above those even of your family. This is not about being selfish; it is about self-care. Once these habits become established, they will become as routine as the bad ones that you had before.

‘One definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.’ Albert Einstein

If you find yourself resistant to the ideas outlined in this chapter, it may be because you have become so set in your ways that you find it difficult to take up new ideas. You may read this chapter and then continue trying to give up by willpower alone. If, however,

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willpower alone has failed you previously, then now may be the time to give something else a chance. Being resilient does not mean continuing as you have always done; it means being flexible and being willing to try new things.

Bounce rule 5 – look after your body G

Set positive goals such as ‘eat three different fruits everyday’.

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Share your resolutions with people you trust and ask for their help.

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Build extra exercise into your daily routine.

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Make sure that you get enough sleep – go to bed earlier.

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Your diet decisions are made ‘at the point of purchase’ – you will eat what you buy or order at a restaurant.

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If you are trying to lose weight, be realistic – one pound a week is nearly four stone in a year.

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Don’t worry about relapses – you can’t fail if you keep on trying – only if you give up.

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Feel proud of your achievements – reward yourself.

This next and final part of Bounce uses real case studies to illustrate how other people have faced challenges and used the rules of bounce. We focus on how to manage major challenges in key areas of life – work, families and relationships. These case studies will help you to see how individual people apply several aspects of resilience to any one situation in their life, to help them bounce back and move on with their lives. By reading about which aspects of resilience helped other people, you will be able to see how you too can bounce through challenges.

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Part 3 Bouncing

Experience is not what happens to us, it is what we do with what happens to us. Aldous Huxley

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Chapter 9 Bounce out of stress and fear

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any of life’s challenges cause us to feel stressed and fearful.To show how you can apply the rules of bounce to move through stress and fear, this chapter focuses on one of the biggest problem areas in this respect – work. Our sense of identity is bound up with our work – ‘What do you do?’ is one of the first things people tend to ask when they meet a new person. Work takes up so much of our time, and yet often our jobs are the result of decisions we made when we were much younger. Many people labour on in jobs that are ill suited to them and that they do not enjoy. For others, work becomes all consuming and getting the balance between work and leisure is a priority.

She made me feel inferior as though I was stupid for not knowing these things. She was very secretive and I’m sure that she intentionally misled me sometimes about things like staff meetings and the exam timetable.

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‘I’d started a new job in a school teaching French. It was very different to my old school – which was in a better area. When I first got the job, I was very pleased as it was a promotion and I was looking forward to more responsibility. However, I found the other teachers in my team difficult to get on with. There was one person in particular who seemed to be deliberately making life awkward for me. For example, I had to ask for all kinds of simple information – like where the stationery was kept or whether we were supposed to lock our classroom doors when we left.

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Whenever we had a meeting of all the language teachers, I felt as though she was being dismissive about anything I said. No one else seemed to have a problem with her so I didn’t like to say anything. I just can’t understand why she behaved the way she did. On top of that, I was having discipline problems with some of the children. I’d had problems at my previous school – but this was much worse. The children tended to shout out and constantly chatter and misbehave. I was reluctant to tell anyone because I was supposed to be assistant head of department and should have been able to cope. At my first parents’ evening, one of the parents became verbally abusive towards me because I criticised her son. I had a long queue of parents waiting to see me but I felt like walking out and never going back. I’m exhausted all the time because I’m not sleeping very well. I find myself just counting down the days to the holidays, but I know I’ll spend half the holiday feeling stressed about going back to school. I live on my own and my life seems to revolve around work. I always seem to have so much work to do on an evening, and at the weekends I am usually just too exhausted and tend to stay in and watch television as I can’t face going out and socialising. Sometimes I just feel like packing it all in.’ Bernard, 32, French teacher at a large comprehensive school

What would someone with bounce do? There are over half a million school teachers in Britain, and it is generally considered to be an asset for a teacher to have experience of different kinds of school. This means that at any one time there are thousands of people crossing the country, starting new jobs in new areas, often with partners and children in tow. In fact most people nowadays, whatever their jobs, expect to have changes in their working lives: the same job for life is a thing of the past. Many people have short-term contracts or work on a selfemployed basis for some of their working life. Although for some people this can mean personal fulfilment, it can also create a great

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deal of uncertainty as starting a new job is recognised as being a major reason for stress. Starting at a new place, particularly in a position of authority over people already there, can often be tricky.

Realistic goals In the case study, Bernard assumed that everything would be the same as at his old school. It is not realistic to expect to start a new job and to settle in immediately. If you are starting a new job in a position of authority, then it is very likely that someone else already there also went for the same job. Probably Bernard’s colleague did apply for his job – but it makes little difference why someone acts the way they do – Bernard should understand why she reacts the way she does. One person being awkward does not mean that the whole world is against you. No one can make you feel inferior – your feelings are your own.

Disclosing the problem When there are lots of things going on in your life it is easy to let things get on top of you and to believe that your problems are insurmountable. Bernard makes the common mistake of believing that his problems are a shameful secret. By covering up and pretending that no one can make you everything is all right, he is increasing ‘feel inferior’ – your his own anxiety and stress. Remember feelings are your own that disclosing the trauma and asking for help are not signs of weakness – they are essential to resilience.

Thinking positively Despite his previous experience and promotion, instead of feeling positive about his successful career move Bernard is anxious and full of self-doubt. A person with bounce in Bernard’s position would be proud that he had achieved a position of authority at such a young age and celebrate their achievements. Too often we

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dismiss the things we have achieved but dwell on our problems. In fact there is only one person on the staff with whom Bernard doesn’t get on and only one parent who behaved badly.That leaves the majority of his relationships at work as at least satisfactory.

Problem-solving and decision-making Once Bernard begins to take responsibility for his own life and stops feeling like a victim, he will be able to tackle his problems – with the help of others. If he is brave enough to admit that he is having problems in the classroom, then he will be able to look at the solutions. He could discuss his colleague’s behaviour and mention the parent who was abusive to his line manager.

What is stress? One of the reasons that people feel unable to cope when traumas happen to them in their lives is because they are already under a great deal of stress. Some stress in your life is inevitable and can be good for you: it is when there is stress overload that it takes a toll on your health and causes you to have poor sleeping and eating patterns. Stress is emotional pressure that causes a physical change in the body: it releases adrenaline into the bloodstream to speed up our reactions. Blood is sent from the skin towards our muscles to give them more power and to help us to move quickly. In the past, this was very useful: when there was danger, that shot of adrenaline helped us with our flight or to stay and fight. Nowadays we cannot fight and there is nowhere to run. Our nervous system has no way of knowing the difference between a threat to our self-esteem and a threat to our physical self, and so the body gets all fired up (when, for example, someone criticises you), but there is nowhere for it to let off steam. A common cause of stress is the feeling that you are not in control of your life. Things build up and suddenly you can’t sleep and you are getting repeated colds or other ailments because high stress levels affect your immune system. A change in your circumstance – such as starting a new

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job – can cause extra anxiety. Working long hours increases stress because there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything else, and there is a tendency to neglect friends and family.

Being able to manage stress Bernard doesn’t seem to have much fun or relaxation in his life.We suspect that he takes little exercise and his social life seems nonexistent. Watching TV is not the same as relaxing: it is possible to do this and even fall asleep and still to feel stressed. Bernard could learn some relaxation techniques or take up some sort of physical exercise such as cycling or jogging. A job is more than just a way to pay the bills: work for most people provides a sense of identity, friendship with other people and some structure and goals in our lives.

‘In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.’ John Ruskin

At the moment Bernard does not seem to be meeting any of these criteria. Unless he confronts his problems, his stress levels will just rise until he becomes ill.

Develop a resilient lifestyle When we are stressed about work, it always feels as though there isn’t enough time to look after yourself. In fact, this is the time you must look after yourself. Not only would this put Bernard’s problems into perspective but also he would feel healthier and stronger at work. Just as developing a resilient mindset is cumulative, so developing a resilient body means eating a healthy diet, getting lots of fresh air and exercise, and having a good night’s

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sleep. Each one of these is dependent upon the other: it is like a chain reaction and if any one of them is missing it eventually results in irritability, lethargy, depression and stress. When things go wrong in your life you need to be physically healthy to be able to cope. At times of great stress it is up to you to look after yourself – no one is going to tell you to go to bed early or to go out for a walk. People who take care of themselves are able to do their jobs more efficiently and to enjoy themselves more. It is not egotistical to make sure that you eat well and enjoy your leisure time – it is a necessity for everyone. At least Bernard did not turn to drink, drugs or cigarettes, which would only have added to his problems. Remember: what happens to us is not nearly so important as how we react to what happens. Many people would think that Bernard’s problems are small ones – but to Bernard they are not. When we become so obsessed with work, everything gets out of proportion and it seems as though the only solution is to become ill and be off sick or to resign. What is healthy stress for one person can be debilitating for another. Taking responsibility for your own life means looking after yourself and not just thinking that something will happen or that someone will come along and sort things out for you.

Once you take responsibility, you are able to make changes It may well be that Bernard has made a mistake.The school might not be right for him; teaching might not be right for him. Once he has addressed his problems in an open and honest way, he will be able to reflect and learn from the experience and perhaps he will decide to make some changes in his life. It is not failure to do something that does not turn out as you hoped – it is the way that we learn.

‘All failures take you one step nearer to discovering what works.’

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What happened next? Bernard did in fact ask for help at work. He was given support in the classroom and also offered counselling. Once he felt better about himself, he admitted that he had opted for teaching after university because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. His dream was actually to work for Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in Africa and, since he was still young and unattached, with some teaching experience, he decided that this was the right time in his life to do it.

Bounce out of stress and fear G

Analyse problems separately, one at a time.

G

Disclose the problem to someone you trust.

G

Find out what help is available – and ask for it.

G

Make sure you look after yourself – fresh air, exercise and a healthy diet help you to sleep better.

G

Have some fun in your life.

G

Reflect on your achievements rather than your difficulties.

G

If things don’t get any better, consider whether the job is right for you.

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Chapter 10 Bounce when you are out of work

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our job is more than something that gives you money to pay the bills. It can also provide structure, status and social contact.Whether you enjoy your work or not, losing a job for whatever reason can leave you shattered by uncertainty, with your whole life upended. You need to act fast. It may seem daunting at first, but many people discover that losing their job frees them up to try something that they really want to do. This chapter focuses on Ali’s redundancy story and shows you how, through resilience, he was able to rise above this challenge. Over the past five years, Ali had suffered with mental health problems. He experienced severe anxiety and when things got on top of him he increased his drinking. This, he felt, helped him cope with unbearable feelings that he couldn’t deal with in any other way. When he drank, his three teenage daughters, who usually lived with him, moved back into the tiny flat that their mother shared with her partner. The result of all of this was that there would be long periods when Ali felt completely unable to cope and would have weeks if not months off from his job as press and publicity officer with the local county council. Going to work often became a nightmare. ‘I was so wound up that my stomach was in knots the whole time,’ explained Ali. ‘The job was so stressful – I just became more anxious about everything I had to do. Many times I would drive to work and sit in the car outside my office, unable to open the door and go into the building.’ Ali eventually left his job.

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The mental health charity MIND suggests that ‘Those who lose their jobs through mental distress face a hostile world when they try to return to work. Having a job to go to can positively help recovery. Yet, while being employed may be good for our mental health, work stress is now more of an issue than ever. Two million people experience illnesses caused or made worse by their work.’26

Realistic goals and expectations Apart from anything else, how did Ali cope with being out of work? ‘My goal was to get a new job as soon as possible so that I could get back to what I can do and am good at. Even though my work at the council had been stressful, I have always been aware that work is more than a way of earning a living. It provides status and identity, social contact and friendship. Having a job to go to has, in the past, provided structure in my life and an opportunity to be creative and contribute.’ However, finding a new job and returning to work wasn’t a realistic goal. Ali needed time to recover; although he wanted to get another job, the thought of coping in the workplace just made him feel anxious. Although Ali would eventually return to work, for now he soon discovered that a more realistic, short-term goal was to sort out his finances.

Disclosure to others, seeking help and support Ali was worried about how he was going to pay the bills. ‘My colleague Tracey was the union rep at my old job with the council – she’s been so supportive; caring and kind’ says Ali. ‘She suggested that I find out what benefits I might be entitled to and she helped me to make a claim. Tracey also put me on to the Citizens Advice. They were able to provide me with information

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about other organisations who could advise me on dealing with my debts and mortgage repayments. ‘My daughters were great – they said there was no shame in unemployment and claiming benefits. Their attitude was, “You’ve been paying into the system all these years, and you will be paying into it again when you land a new job!” Even my ex wife came up with ideas for how I could reduce expenses.’ If you become unemployed, for whatever reason, talk to your family and friends about how you are feeling and the problems you are facing while you are unemployed. Their concern and support can help you cope during this time. You will, no doubt, find that they care about you and that you are important to them, whether or not you have a job.

Helping, supporting and encouraging others: being a compassionate and contributing member of society Although his daughters were sympathetic, Ali dreaded having to tell other relatives, friends and acquaintances that he was unemployed. He found it embarrassing. ‘In fact, when I did tell other people about my situation, they were great. One friend, Alex, worked for an organisation that provided residential, outdoor activity courses for disadvantaged young people. He asked me to come and help out one morning a week. I helped to supervise some of the activities. This had such a profound effect on me: it’s pretty hard to sit around feeling sorry for yourself when you’re involved with others who may have it even tougher than you do. With this organisation, I saw that every young person, whatever their background, is valued and challenged to become the best they can be.’

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Flexible, positive thinking Although unemployment can hardly be seen as a positive thing, it does free up time to use in ways that you couldn’t while employed. Voluntary work can increase your knowledge and experience, expand your CV and provide you with valuable networking opportunities. A period of unemployment is also a chance to go back to school. Job loss can be the perfect opportunity to upgrade your skills or make a total career change. Ali describes what happened to him next: ‘The organisation I volunteered for sent me on a couple of one-day training courses for working with young people. I really enjoyed being in an adult learning environment and decided to job loss can be the find out about a career in youth work. It perfect opportunity to meant studying for a degree, which I upgrade your skills or didn’t feel up to straight away. make a total career Someone at the young peoples activities change centre told me about Access courses. They’re a way to get the study skills, knowledge and confidence to go on to study for a degree. I signed up at my local college and am nearly at the end of the one-year course. It’s been challenging but I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve been offered a place to study youth work at my nearest university, but I don’t feel mentally strong enough to take on the degree just yet. I have accepted a place though and I’m going to defer for a year. In the meantime, I’m continuing to volunteer, not just at the activity centre, but also as an “appropriate adult” with theYouth Offending Team. I’ve come to see myself as a survivor, not a victim.’ Of course, unemployment wasn’t the only issue that Ali was dealing with at this time. ‘Gradually, with the help of cognitive behavioural therapy, I learnt that I could take control of what was happening. In the past, I was seeing everything as either good or bad, but mostly bad.’ If, for whatever reason, you become

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unemployed, in order to bounce back you will need to come to terms with your situation. Remember: it takes time to reach a stage of acceptance – to be able to acknowledge that what has happened can’t be changed. Amongst other things, you need to keep your stress level down, your confidence up, and your health and relationships strong.

Bouncing when you are out of work G

Set short-term and long-term goals.

G

Be flexible and positive in your thinking.

G

Maintain contact with friends and family.

G

Seek out help, information and support.

G

Volunteer to help someone else.

G

See yourself as a survivor, not a victim.

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Chapter 11 Bounce in the family

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ll families, including single parents, blended families, working couples and older families, can survive stress and grow closer. There are a number of ways to develop strength in the family to create a sense of togetherness and belonging, and to use bounce to meet everyday ups and downs and manage major changes in family life – the case study in this chapter shows you how.

Ten years ago, when Nadine agreed to move in with and marry Josh, they each had children from previous relationships. Just before the wedding, Nadine became pregnant. ‘We sat the kids down and explained our plans. They seemed OK with it, until the reality set in. It’s one thing to try to prepare children but quite another to expect it to go smoothly!’ Josh’s sons were older than Nadine’s two daughters and not willing to accept two females ‘invading’ their space. Nadine’s daughters were reluctant to move to a new house. Josh and Nadine had to work out how to live together as one big happy family.

Acknowledge the negative but focus on the positive Although they all hit the ground running, Nadine and Josh knew that relationships in blended families took time to develop; they have to be worked out in ways that are often not necessary in the

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original family where relationships can evolve. ‘We agreed not to try and persuade the kids that everything would be great once we’d all moved in together’ said Nadine. ‘It wasn’t going to be easy.’ However, they did emphasise the positive aspects of blending the two families – a bigger house and a new baby for them all to look forward to.

Being flexible Everyone had different expectations of how to relate to each other. It took some time to adjust. Both Nadine and Josh had different approaches to, for example, discipline. As her two daughters were only eight and ten years old, Nadine had no experience of teenagers. Nadine was more used to an authoritarian approach, which was not OK for Josh’s boys; with them, everything had to be negotiated. Josh was not used to girls and had to work out how to relate to Nadine’s daughters in terms of affection. In turn, Nadine’s daughters had their own ideas of what they wanted from Josh. Their expectations were influenced by their experience with their own father. A new, more complicated set of relationships needed to be worked out between the extended family: how to involve Josh’s parents with their new step-grandchildren? What about the parents of Nadine’s first husband? Everyone had to learn to let go of some of their old ways of doing things and to make compromises and allowances.

Communication Unsurprisingly, there was conflict. Sometimes the children would try to pit Josh and Nadine against each other. It rarely worked because Josh and Nadine could see the signs and stuck together as a couple.

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If they disagreed on discipline or a decision concerning the children, they took that discussion to another room or outside. They wouldn’t let the ‘Mum-against-Dad’ game work. Rather than let hurts and resentments build up, Nadine and Josh established an open-door method for expressing concerns, hurt and anger. Josh explains: ‘The problem was laid out on the table; then we sat down and talked about how to sort out the situation. Often, the fix was simple, but other times it wasn’t so easy. For blended families, especially in our case, with five children under one roof, privacy issues were frequent. We all learnt quickly to get beyond arguing to negotiation. An agreement was reached when the discussion was summarised and acknowledged by everyone concerned, and everyone agreed to share the changes. Before long, we had established effective family communication.’

Shared goals Of course, in all families, individual family members may have their own personal goals, but families need shared goals too. ‘When Daniel was born, he immediately became a shared focal point and delight’, said Josh. ‘It soon became apparent that we all loved him equally and were concerned for his development, wellbeing and happiness. ‘Having Daniel resulted in interactions that helped us all to bond; Nadine encouraged all four children to share in his care, which gave us a shared sense of purpose. The kids developed skills and strengths by learning to meet Daniel’s needs.’ ‘We all gained by having him in our family’, said Charlie, Josh’s oldest son, ‘and he’s adored by all of us’. All families can benefit from shared goals – and it doesn’t have to be another baby! It could be something more short-term, such as working towards and saving up for a family holiday – something that everyone can work together on to make happen.

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Time together Shared family time is important for any family. It’s important that all members of the family have at least one designated night together to eat dinner, watch a film or play games. Strong families spend meaningful time together, and they do this regularly. ‘It wasn’t easy, because as well as interests outside the family both sets of children spent two nights a week with their other parent, but Josh and I agreed that we would make a conscious effort to spend some time together as a family’, said Nadine. ‘We all had to eat, so making time to share a meal together wasn’t going to cost any extra. There was always one night a week that everyone joined in for a meal and often the kids would invite a friend to join us. It was an opportunity to talk about what was happening in our lives. We also shared outside activities together – I’m not keen on football and neither is one of the boys, but we all got involved in supporting the team that Josh’s eldest boy played for.’ Time together gives the family an identity and a sense of unity. Strong families also celebrate celebrate any traditions that enrich family life and significant moment in build memories for the future. a family member’s life Celebrate special occasions beyond birthdays and holidays. Celebrate any significant moment in a family member’s life, such as a job promotion or exam results.

Support and gratitude When one of the boys developed an eating disorder, Nadine says ‘Of course we tried to look for a simple explanation but it was very hard to understand. He didn’t want to accept that he had a problem and became secretive and obstructive.We thought it must be to do with his feeling of anger, guilt and loss over Josh breaking

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up with his mum. We sought help from a support group for families with a young person with an eating disorder.We learnt not to try and impose some sort of explanation on Josh’s son without really listening to him as it could add to his feeling of being out of control and make him more likely to withdraw from us. However, we were also reassured that it was OK to let him know about how his eating behaviour made the rest of us feel. ‘We were able to support Josh’s son by making it clear that we still cared for him and would be there if and when he wanted to talk. ‘We were also advised to show we cared by acknowledging his skills and giving him a hug or touch, or other gestures such as leaving notes of encouragement or love.’ Although Josh’s son didn’t find it easy to accept appreciation, he wasn’t made to feel any different in this respect: ‘We showed gratitude and appreciation towards all the children in this way.’ When a family experiences a situation like this, it’s important to recognise that you all need support.You could also encourage the family member who is suffering a crisis to access professional help and, if they’re worried about doing this, then offer to go along with them. All families, including single parents, blended families, foster families and nuclear families, can survive stress, difficulties and trauma and then grow closer. Resilient families are diverse, complex, alive and changing with the times; they are able to build on and develop strengths that will enable them to meet the challenges in life, balancing family stability with flexibility. A stronger family requires the commitment, cooperation and hard work of all its members. The payoff is a close, more vibrant family that functions well during normal times and good times and during the difficult times.

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Bounce in the family G

Acknowledge problems and difficulties, but focus on strengths and the good things about family life.

G

Be flexible. Learn to negotiate and compromise with each other.

G

Communicate. Make time to talk to and listen to each other.

G

Identify a goal for the whole family to focus on, for example an outing or holiday.

G

Spend time together. It could be dinner once a week, finding a DVD you can all watch together or involvement in a sport.

G

Be nice. Show your appreciation and gratitude to one another. Simply saying thank you can make a big difference.

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Chapter 12 Bounce out of rejection

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e invest a lot of time and energy in our relationships and when they don’t work out there is an inevitable feeling of failure and loss. We all react differently but usually there is a feeling of anger or depression. There is no point in ignoring these feelings – they have to be acknowledged. But it is possible to face your negative feelings and bounce back, as you’ll see from the case study below. Annette was happily married to Martin. He had been visiting England from New Zealand when they first met. For the first four years of their marriage they worked full time and bought, furnished and decorated a three-storey terrace house. They talked about starting a family and the possibility of living in New Zealand at some point. Annette felt guilty because, by meeting her, Martin never got to see his widowed mother in New Zealand. Annette, on the other hand, was very close to her family and saw them regularly. At 29, she was desperate to have a baby but wanted to wait until they were financially secure and until they had decided what to do about New Zealand.

Compromise In the end the compromise was that they move to New Zealand; if Annette liked it they would stay there and start a family, and if she didn’t settle after two years they would move back to England and have a baby here. Annette was fairly certain that she would want to

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move back and have the support of her own family if she had a baby, but she was excited at the prospect of spending two years in New Zealand. Martin obtained employment as a structural engineer in New Zealand. Annette, who was a nurse, knew that she would be able to find work easily once they got there. They planned to stay with old friends of Martin’s to begin with. They resigned from their jobs, sold their car and rented out their house through an agency.

Rejection Two weeks before they were due to fly out they spent a weekend in a large hotel in the Lake District – a leaving present from Annette’s parents. As Annette sat waiting for dinner to be served in the grand dining room, she looked across the table at her husband said, ‘So, how do you feel?’ ‘Not at all certain,’ he replied. Annette tried to hide her dismay. ‘Well, that’s understandable: it’s a big move. It’s just last-minute nerves.’ She smiled at him. ‘No, I don’t mean about moving to New Zealand. I mean about staying married to you.’ Annette said later that she felt as though the room had fallen silent; as though all around her the world had stopped and she knew instantly that nothing would ever be the same again. In a state of shock she asked him to explain what he meant – what had she done wrong? He said that she hadn’t done anything wrong – he had realised for some time that he didn’t love her any more and that it would be a mistake for her to move to New Zealand with him. He vehemently denied that he had met someone else – and somehow she knew this was true. Was there someone back in New Zealand? He denied this too and said that he felt terrible but that he couldn’t go on pretending any longer. Annette realised that she

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was crying, loudly, and becoming the focus of attention in the dining room. ‘But how could you let me leave a job I loved, sell my car and rent out our home when you knew it was never going to happen?’ ‘I just kept hoping that things would change and that it would all work out but now I realise it never will,’ he said without meeting her eye. Annette got up from the table and ran to their hotel room where she spent the rest of the weekend sobbing alone on the bed.

Disclosing the trauma At first Annette didn’t tell her family. She wanted to shield her parents from the upset and knew that they would feel outraged and angry on her behalf. If she told them, but then she and Martin had a reconciliation, they would never be able to forget or forgive him. She did, however, tell her friends.They were sympathetic and supportive (mainly with offers of castration and mutilation). Annette still had ten more days in the house with Martin. She spent most of that time crying and going over and over her marriage, looking for clues. He was cold and distant towards her. She felt unloved, unattractive and rejected, but she made a decision: she was going to go with him to New Zealand. When her friends tried to dissuade her, she said she had to do it – that he must have had a breakdown and that she couldn’t give up on her marriage at the first hurdle.

Give it one last chance So she went to New Zealand. She stayed for two months, which she now says were the worst two months of her life. Martin slotted back into his old life. His friends were polite towards her but obviously confused by the situation. She became so depressed that she couldn’t think of looking for a job. The savings she had taken with her were being gradually eroded and she had no way of

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paying her air fare back home. In the end she wrote to her parents and told them what happened: they sent the money for the fare by return of post.

Reflecting and learning For the next few months, living with her parents, Annette was in mourning for her marriage and what might have been. It is difficult to separate the loss of love from the loss of your dreams. Annette had thought that she was safe and secure in her marriage, that they would have children and be happy together for life.When relationships break up it is for different reasons and in very different circumstances, but in every case at least one person will have had their dreams for the future shattered. The person who has initiated the breakup has often been thinking about it for a long time and has had time to adapt. For the other person it can come as a complete shock and is very like bereavement.

Grief The five recognised stages of grief when someone suffers enormous personal loss are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Not everyone goes through each stage, and the stages don’t happen neatly in order for a certain length of time. What is important is to recognise the pain and loss that you are experiencing and to be kind to yourself.You also need to know that ‘all things will pass’ and to believe that you are a strong person who will survive.

‘Whying is dying’ Being in a close relationship makes you feel protected from the world outside: it makes you feel optimistic and as though you can make plans for the future. When the relationship ends and you are on your own again, it can lead to feelings of isolation and hopeless-

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ness.You spend a great deal of time blaming the other person and asking ‘Why?’ The phrase ‘whying is dying’ is one of the 12 steps used by Alcoholics Anonymous, meaning that as long as we keep asking ‘Why?’, we are stuck and can’t move on. Saying ‘Why did this happen to me?’ means ‘I see myself as a helpless victim who has no control over my own life.’ People with bounce know that they will survive: that they are strong and that they have support. Annette had maintained contact with Martin, writing him long tearful letters people with bounce about how much he had hurt her and know that they will how she needed an explanation. For a survive long time she believed that he would come to his senses and walk back into her life. She felt obscurely ashamed – as though what had happened was her fault and that she was now less of a person than she was when they were together.

Once you take responsibility, you are empowered to make changes In the end, through the support of her family and friends, Annette slowly pieced her life back together. She discovered that the person who had taken her old job had now left and, with the encouragement of her best friend, she reapplied and got it back. At first she was embarrassed about returning to her old job and thought that everyone would consider her a failure, but she began to realise that she would be able to cope. She couldn’t get her house back because she had let it for a year, but she asked around her nursing friends and found someone who wanted to let out a room in her house.

Getting professional help Annette embarked on a course of counselling sessions. These helped her to see that she had faced a terrible loss and that this must be acknowledged. Taking care of yourself is not the same as

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indulgent self-pity. When some dreadful trauma has happened, it must be recognised and processed – ignoring the feelings doesn’t make them go away but leads to depression and negativity. Getting professional help after a trauma is often the only way to make progress and stop the spiral of negativity that may happen. It is not a sign of weakness to ask for professional help: it is a sign that you value yourself and believe that your mental health is important.

when some dreadful trauma has happened it must be recognised and processed

Helping others When Annette walked into the ward on her first day back at work, she discovered that people were kind to her. Most of her old colleagues were either delighted to see her or were so wrapped up in their own lives and problems that they didn’t even ask or wonder what had happened. Within a few days, it was as though she had never left. Annette discovered that turning her attention to the care of other people helped her to put her own problems in perspective.

Having fun Annette began to go out with her flatmate to the cinema and theatre and to see stand-up comedians. She found herself laughing again. She took on a new role at work that was more challenging and rediscovered her passion for nursing. She thought about all the things that she wanted to do that there never seemed time for when she was married. She tried tap dancing and rediscovered her childhood love of horse riding. She considered joining her flatmate’s amateur dramatic group.

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Acceptance One day she realised that she was happy. Everything had changed but she was actually happy – happier than she had been when she was married. Her counsellor encouraged her to write to Martin. She wrote to him and thanked him. She said that she now realised that he was right and that he had done her an enormous favour. She said she had thought that she was happy when she was married to him but she now realised that she had just been searching for security and was much happier without him. She wished him well and said she was getting on with her life. By return of post she received a letter from Martin saying he realised he had made the biggest mistake of his life and wondered whether she could find it in her heart to forgive him and start all over again. She wrote back, firmly but kindly explaining that she had moved on: he had left it too late. They maintained a longdistance friendship as they had to sort out the sale of the house and eventually a divorce, but for Annette what started as an inconceivable horror turned out to be a whole new chapter in her life.

Bounce out of rejection G

Tell people you trust what has happened.

G

Be kind and compassionate to yourself.

G

Accept that a relationship ending is a form of bereavement.

G

Get professional help if you need it.

G

Connect to and help others .

G

Know that you will recover.

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Chapter 13 Bounce out of disaster

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atastrophes and accidents happen when we are least expecting them. When they do happen there is a tendency to want to blame someone else or to think that it is your own fault. By adopting a bounce mindset and realising there is no undoing what has happened, but that you can do something about the way that you react, then you can overcome it. This is the story of what happened to Sue two years ago.

The last thing I remember hearing was running footsteps behind us; then a strong arm grip encircled my neck and everything went black. I was still conscious and remember being totally bewildered. What does he want? Why isn’t my husband doing anything? There was total silence. His other arm was pinning my arms to my sides and I was totally paralysed – helpless. I had the strap of my shoulder bag crossing my body, as we know we should – to deter bag snatchers. This almost proved to be a fatal mistake as my assailant was unable to snatch the bag without releasing me. Instead he increased the pressure on my neck until I could no longer breathe. As I passed out I remember thinking, ‘How sad. This isn’t how it was supposed to end.’ When I came round I was sitting on the pavement: I tried to shout but no sound at all came out of my mouth. I could not see my husband anywhere. at the top of the street looking down towards me. I waved and gestured

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My glasses were lying nearby – smashed – but I could vaguely see people

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for help but no one came. I staggered to my feet and saw my husband lying in the gutter, his body half hidden by the parked cars. I was convinced that he was dead and knelt next to him, cradling his head in my lap. This was the worst moment of my life.

Survivor or victim? When, a few minutes later, he opened his eyes and looked at me it was the best moment in my life. He had a huge lump on the back of his head and no memory at all of what had happened. We hugged each other and at that moment nothing in the world seemed more important than the fact that we were both alive. I was still unable to speak, probably from shock, but also because of the damage to my throat. We picked up my shattered glasses, and the bottle of water that we had just bought, but everything else we were carrying was stolen: my bag with purse, cards, money, camera and the house and car keys; my husband’s wallet with tickets, money, credit cards. We didn’t know what to do but decided to go back up the street to the little corner shop that we had just visited to buy the water. We tried to explain what had happened but they spoke no English and we spoke little Spanish. They seemed reluctant to telephone the police so we walked back down the same street to our small hotel – looking around us all the time. The man on reception was horrified and so kind to us. The police arrived and took us to the central Madrid police station. The place was packed with foreign tourists, all of whom had been pickpocketed or had their bags snatched: some had only just arrived in Spain (we had arrived the previous day). We had to queue for an appointment to dictate our story to a translator, who wrote it down in Spanish. There was an old fashioned coin-box-type telephone on the wall with eight buttons with different national flags next to them. We pressed the button next to the Union Jack and a weary voice asked us to detail exactly what had been stolen: this was for any insurance claim.

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Asking for help By this time it was ten o’clock and dark. The attack had happened at six o’clock on a warm October evening but we were faced with the prospect of walking through Madrid late at night, without any money, to try to find our way back to our hotel. The police were arriving and leaving the station in rapid succession, but few of them could speak or understand English. Eventually, when things became quieter, my husband managed to persuade someone on the desk to ask one of the police to drop us back at our hotel: which they did. The same man was on reception and, although he spoke little English, he was solicitous and apologetic. It was as though he felt personally responsible for an attack that had happened in his country. He had to let us into our rooms – as the key had been stolen – and we fell on to the bed with relief and exhaustion. However, we couldn’t sleep: we stayed awake all night going over and over what happened and trying to decide what we should do next. I was able to speak in a very quiet croaky voice but I was afraid that the damage would be permanent and that I would never be able to teach again. My husband’s head hurt but he didn’t have the same terrifying flashbacks that I had. He had obviously been hit hard on the back of the head before he had a chance to realise anything was happening. Our first reaction was to fly home the next day, but by morning we had decided to stay.

Thinking positively We discovered in another bag that I had brought another purse with a few English coins and my debit card. This was good news as it meant we could draw out some cash. I hadn’t done this on purpose and had in fact thought it was stolen. We couldn’t believe our luck. We also felt lucky that we had decided earlier in the day to book the hotel for another night: usually we only book the first night and then move on once we have time to look

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around. If we hadn’t done that we would have had nowhere to go. We also

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remarked constantly on the kindness of the police and the man on reception – their humanity somehow made the ordeal less traumatic. Mainly we decided to stay because it was my birthday – I wanted to celebrate the fact that we were alive – not go home defeated by the actions of two men. We stayed, at the same place, for another three days and enjoyed every moment. Madrid is a beautiful city and although no one we met knew what had happened to us it seemed to us as if they did. Everyone seemed extra friendly and attentive. We visited the historic town of Toledo and found ourselves walking late at night through the cobbled streets to the railway station because the town has no taxis. We decided that we were not going to live our lives in fear and let one incident dominate our future happiness.

Feeling lucky By the time we arrived in England my voice had almost recovered but we waited a few days before telling our parents and our children what had happened (we’d had to tell them that we had lost the house keys so that they could leave us a spare). We’d had to leave our car in the car park at Gatwick, because the car keys were stolen, and by the time we returned to collect it we were expecting a lot of hassle because we had no ticket and had gone over the time. When we explained to the attendant he just shrugged and let us through and said, ‘Happens all the time, mate. You were lucky.’ We felt lucky. We had survived with no lasting ill effects. We learned many practical things about travelling abroad from the experience, but it did not make us believe that the world is a dreadful and dangerous place and that we would be better off in future staying at home. When something terrible happens and you ask yourself ‘Why me?’, you can decide to blame someone else, or yourself, or you can decide it was just chance. Once you realise there is no point blaming anyone at all, you can get on with your life and realise how lucky you are.

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Playing the ‘Glad Game’ In the children’s book Pollyanna, written almost 100 years ago, the little girl developed the habit of turning anything negative that happened into something positive. She is given a set of crutches for Christmas instead of the doll she was expecting and says, ‘Well, I’m glad that I don’t need them.’ In the book her consistently optimistic attitude infuriated many of the people she met. Nowadays, people use the phrase ‘a bit of a Pollyanna’ in a derogatory sense – partly because to be unremittingly cheerful can be a bit wearing, but mainly because some people seem to like being grumpy and miserable. I was reminded of the book for the first time since my childhood during that long sleepless night in the Madrid hotel. Every sentence we spoke seemed to begin with ‘I’m glad that …’ We were mostly glad that our (grown-up) children, or our elderly parents, weren’t with us. We felt lucky that we had left a debit card behind and that we had already booked the hotel. We were grateful for the kindness of the police and the man at the hotel. I had a strange feeling of gratitude towards my assailant that he hadn’t touched me sexually. We spent quite a long time talking about the nature of our attackers. How did they know to exert just the right amount of pressure to make me pass out? How did they know exactly how and where to hit my husband so that he was knocked out but not dead? How do you practise these skills? It would have been just as easy, silent and quick to have knifed us both in the back and we wouldn’t be here now. ‘We were so lucky that …’ alternated with ‘I’m glad that … ‘

Reflecting and learning We have no photographs of our long weekend in Madrid: the camera was stolen. In fact every day of that holiday remains clearly imprinted on my mind. It was as though having such a near-death experience heightens your awareness and you see and appreciate everything with a clarity that can’t be erased. I have learned that surviving your worst nightmare can make you stronger and that dreadful experiences only destroy you if you let them.’

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Bounce out of disaster G

See yourself as a survivor and be grateful.

G

Assertively ask for help.

G

Think positively.

G

Play the ‘Glad Game’.

G

Reflect and learn from the experience.

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hile you have been reading this book, misfortunes may have happened to you – your car may have broken down, you or your loved ones may have been ill, you may have had a row at work.That’s life. In the introduction to this book, Sue wrote about a series of catastrophes that she was experiencing at the time of writing. Her husband was eventually allowed to travel home without a passport; her son-in-law didn’t have swine flu; her daughter is still cheerfully looking for another job; and her son and his wife are moving to Paris. But the cat never did come back, and she still misses and mourns her father. Life goes on and it never really turns out the way you expect it to. Most importantly, things often don’t get resolved – Sue can’t bring her father back to life and she can’t retrieve the time spent sorting out her husband’s passport problems. But this is what life’s about – and to make the most of it, we have to accept it – warts and all. We hope that by the end of this book you’ll feel you have the confidence and the knowledge to start developing the bounce you need to make the most of your life. Don’t forget that reading the book is just the start – now it’s over to you: think, reflect and put into practice the things that you have read. We’d like to leave you with an excerpt from one of our favourite children’s books, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. In the

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book, the Rabbit asks the Skin Horse whether it is possible for the toys to become ‘real’. We think this is a useful and inspiring way to see your own development. From now on, be determined to take on all that life offers you and bounce your way into a happy and successful future.

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’ ‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’ Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

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Notes

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1

Taken from an interview in Woman magazine, 18 May 2009.

2

Interviewed in the Guardian Weekend magazine, 9 May 2009, by Simon Hattenstone.

3

Terry Waite, CounterPunch, Justice or Revenge, 23 January 2002.

4

The Reunion, BBC Radio 4, 3 May 2009.

5

Simon Weston, ‘To see ourselves as others see us’, keynote speech to the Association of Directors of Social Work, 21 May 2003.

6

Mike Hume, ‘Miners’ strike: it was like a civil war’, The Times, 5 March 2009.

7

Ibid.

8

Ibid.

9

Interviewed in the Sunday Times Culture magazine, 19 April 2009, by Lesley White.

10

Midweek, BBC Radio 4, 13 May 2009.

11

Interviewed on Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, 25 May 2009.

12

Michael J. Fox, Lucky Man:A Memoir, Ebury Press, 2002.

13

Research on the brain taken from www.harvardscience. har vard.edu/medicine-health/articles/meditation-foundincrease-brain-size.

14

www.mission-coach.co.uk/pages/belief_model_leadership _anita_roddick.asp.

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15

Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Life, Free Press, 1998.

16

Frank Ochberg, in A Guide to Ethical Reporting AboutVictims and Trauma by William Cote and Roger Simpson, p. 34, Columbia University Press, 2000.

17

Kathy Brewin, ‘I’m more interested in ideas than sex’, Sunday Times magazine, 17 May 2009.

18

A. Wood, S. Joseph and P. Linley, Coping style as a psychological resource of grateful people. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2007, 26, 1108–1125.

19

Penny Wark, ‘My brother the murderer’, The Times, 7 April 2009.

20

Interviewed by Alan Jackson, Times Magazine, 6 June 2009.

21

Interviewed by John Harris, Guardian Weekend magazine, 13 June 2009.

22

www.amnesty.org.uk.

23

John C. Norcross, Marci S. Mrykalo and Matthew D. Blagys, Auld Lang Syne: success predictors, change processes, and self reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2002, 58, 4.

24

Amanda Ursell, The Times, 2 May 2009.

25

E.L. Gibson and J.M. Brunstrom, Learned influences on appetite and food intake: evidence in human beings. In S.J. Cooper and T.C. Kirkhem (eds) Appetite and Body Weight: Integrative Systems and the Development of Anti-Obesity Drugs, pp. 271–300, Academic Press, 2007.

26

Alison Cobb, Mind Guide to SurvivingWork Life, Mind, 2006.