Transcript - You’re More Resilient Than You Realize with Dr. Sherry Hamby

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: You’re More Resilient Than You Realize with Dr. Sherry Hamby

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:03] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 572 of Live Happy Now. In a time when so many of us are carrying heavy emotional loads, understanding how we heal and what resilience really looks like has never been more important. This week’s guest brings a fresh perspective to that conversation. I’m your host, Paula Felps, and today, I’m joined by Dr. Sherry Hamby, a leading researcher on trauma and resilience, and author of the new book, Stronger Than You Think. Drawing for more than 30 years of studying violence, trauma, and healing, Sherry explains why we need a multi-dimensional approach that she calls The Resilience Portfolio. She also shares how nature, relationships, and meaning can support recovery, and why even those with high trauma loads can still move toward thriving. Let’s have a listen.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:56] PF: Sherry, thank you so much for sitting down with me today for Live Happy Now.

[0:00:59] SH: Oh, well, thanks so much for having me.

[0:01:01] PF: I love the topic that your book is taking on. You give us a little bit different perspective on the whole idea of resilience. You’ve spent more than 30 years studying violence, trauma, and healing, and I’d love to know, you spelled this out great in your book, but I’d love to hear from you what you say is the biggest misconception that people have about recovering from trauma.

[0:01:24] SH: Sure. The biggest misconception is that we still try to think about this and push through this as if it’s something we have to do by ourselves, and that it’s just all about our own toughness and our own grit, or anything like that. Fits in with our individualistic society we have here in the US and a lot of the global north. But that does turn out to be the completely wrong way to think about how people actually heal from trauma.

[0:01:56] PF: You also talk about resilience differently. That is a word we hear with increasing frequency, but really looking at your book and your research, it appears we may not fully understand what resilience is and what it’s not. What do you mean when we say resilience?

[0:02:14] SH: I do want to reclaim the idea of resilience. I don’t want to just throw that concept out altogether. Yeah, sometimes you hear people say that, but I’m not in that camp, because I think we still do need a word to describe the process of overcoming trauma. The great news about it is that almost everybody does manage to overcome their trauma sooner or later. This is something I think we can be very hopeful about. What we need is a multi-dimensional approach, what I call a resilience portfolio, where we’re bringing a whole range of different kinds of assets and resources and where we’re not afraid to get help from other people in this healing process.

[0:02:58] PF: Yeah. I want to get into your resilience portfolio a little bit. But I know that you talk about, we often think that resilience is just bouncing back. That is not what it is. It’s more of a journey than just an action, isn’t it?

[0:03:12] SH: Yeah, exactly. Journey is a wonderful word to use to describe that. I’m on my own resilience journey, probably you are and probably almost everyone listening to this podcast is. There are lots of different aspects and elements of that journey. The great thing that that means, too, is that we can all get better at resilience, that we’re not stuck with whatever circumstances we find ourselves in now, that we can get more assets and resources and we can keep moving forward towards true thriving and well-being.

[0:03:47] PF: Are some people born more resilient than others?

[0:03:51] SH: I don’t think that that’s a helpful way to think about it. Some of the early research, back in the 1970s and 80s, there were some resilience researchers who talked about certain people being invulnerable, or invincible, almost like they were superheroes walking amongst us. As much as I love a good superhero movie, we do need to hang on to the idea that those people are not real and that there are. So, I don’t think that it really – it’s very helpful. It’s much more – all of my work is focused on the changeable aspects of resilience and how we can, like I said, all get better at it. It does turn out that there are just tons of different ways where we can all get better at resilience. I think it’s more useful from a intervention, or therapy, or healing type of approach to think about all the different ways that we have under our control, both individually and as communities and societies.

[0:04:56] PF: Sure. Because if someone thinks, “Well, I’m just not that resilient,” then that whole journey is going to be affected by their mindset that, “I’m just not strong enough, or I’m not good enough at this.”

[0:05:09] SH: Yeah. What I have found is that most of the people who think that, that the real difference between them is what their total lifetime dosage of trauma has been. Because one of the mistakes that we made in a lot of the early work on resilience is that we would just tend to look at one bad thing. We talk to people after a flood, or a terrorist attack, or we talk to them, find people who’d all been abused as kids, or something like that. Then we assume that everything that was going on was related to that flood, or whatever it was. Some of the people who went through that flood had had a whole bunch of other bad things happen to them before that, and some of them less so. The people who seem less resilient are, I think, are often just the ones who are dealing with a lot bigger cumulative dosage of trauma.

[0:06:00] PF: That makes perfect sense. I want to talk about, you brought it up already, the resilience portfolio. That has four strength domains. I was so interested in your approach with this. First of all, walk through those four strengths that you introduced to us.

[0:06:17] SH: Sure. We have been trying to answer the question of which strengths matter the most, because there are lots of different strengths out there. There’s lots of different things to be good at. I’m particularly interested in the question of which ones really help people overcome trauma. It’s a little different from the question of just general positive psychology. We have found that there are, as you said, four domains. There’s meaning making, which is connecting to something larger than yourself. There’s regulation, which is managing your emotions and thoughts and behaviors, where we’ve often focused on our resilience work historically, but we’re trying to shift people to not just think about that domain.

Then our interpersonal relationships, like I’ve already mentioned. Then, also, our physical environment, because I think sometimes we forget how much of a healing force being in nature, or at the ocean, other aspects of the built environment around us can help people get into better spaces as well.

[0:07:28] PF: I was really glad to see that you brought up the environmental strength, because that’s often overlooked. But you also say that that’s a great entry point for someone who maybe has trouble with the regulatory aspect of things. We recently had Leidy Klotz on, who was a book called The Good Place. He was talking about how where you are can really affect your mindset, your mood, your emotions. Can you talk a little bit about how in the terms of resilience and trauma recovery, how nature and physical spaces can benefit us?

[0:07:58] SH: Sure. I mean, this is actually one of the strongest evidence-based links that we’ve got out there about how, especially access to what people call green spaces, or blue spaces, so that’s just forest, or parks, or oceans, or lakes. It’s not just a matter of making you feel better, although if you do ask people their self-report about their mood, it will for most people go up when they’re in those kinds of spaces, but there’s a lot of fascinating work being done on trying to understand some of these mechanisms. We are benefiting from just getting into spaces.

I mean, I think one way to think about it is that we just co-evolved in spaces that are much greener and bluer than the ones that many of us live in now. And so, we get back in those spaces and we are putting ourselves in places where there are these compounds called fight-and-sides, or the things that make rosemary, or pine trees smell, but they’re good for us. There’s bacteria out there that’s healthy for us to have interactions with. We’re all starting to understand the importance of a healthy gut biome in our own bodies. The way you get a healthy gut biome is to not be in an environment that’s too sterile, but that actually exposes you to good bacteria, and a lot of times we think about that in terms of eating yogurt, or whatever, which is good too, but you can do that by getting into environments where those bacteria are around, access to what they call pink noise, like the sound of waves, or wind blowing through the trees. There’s all these different elements of it. It’s not just about being a nice place that changes our mood, that these types of things are having physiological effects on us, too.

They’re boosting our immune systems, they’re boosting our digestion, they’re reducing our blood pressure, and all of these kinds of things are also the same types of symptoms that can be exacerbated by a lot of exposure to stress and trauma, so they do have healing forces in a very broad range of ways that they’re having healing impacts on us.

[0:10:20] PF: If someone is saying, “Well, that’s great, I could see myself using that as a way of recovering from trauma and building this resilience muscle,” then what do they do? Do they just go spend time in those spaces? Are there actions they need to take house? I think that’s the big question that people have like, “Do I just go sit by the ocean?”

[0:10:38] SH: Yeah. Well, the funny thing is, is the answer to your question is, yes, that a lot of these nature interventions. I mean, probably the one that has received the most research is something that in English, we call forest bathing, which is a loose translation from Shinrin-yoku, the Japanese term, which is where the intervention was developed back in the 80s. That does just involve immersing yourself in green spaces. It doesn’t involve, I get asked all the time, if it involves getting naked in the forest. No, this is not. If you want to, you’re certainly welcome to. But the bathing part is just this immersion stuff. Just getting far enough into the woods, where you can’t really see anything except trees and forest around you. In a lot of parks, that could even just be a few hundred feet.

There have been a number of studies that have tried to tease out the benefits of forest bathing, or other types of nature interventions, versus exercise, for example, because it usually involves a little exercise. They have found that it’s not just the exercise that it is truly being in these forest spaces. The other great thing about it is that makes it so accessible, too. Even if you have mobility issues, you can go to a park where there’s paved pathways for using a chair, or a walker, or something, and it’s just getting into those green, or blue spaces that is probably where most of the benefit is coming from.

[0:12:15] PF: We’ll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

[BREAK]

[0:12:23] PF: Now, let’s hear more from Dr. Sherry Hamby.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:12:28] PF: With the other strengths, so we have meaning-making strengths, which are the purpose, hope, and connection to something larger, regulatory strengths, which you can explain far better than I can, and then the interpersonal with the social support and communication. How do we practice those other three types of strengths?

[0:12:49] SH: Sure. Well, I think one of the most important things about the resilience portfolio approach is that you don’t have to be good at everything. I mean, nobody is good at everything, right? I’m not good at everything. You’re not good at everything, if you don’t mind my saying so.

[0:13:06] PF: I’ve proven that so many times.

[0:13:08] SH: Yeah, and exactly. What we need is a little bit in each one of these different domains. But I think it’s also helpful, because it can provide some guidance to people of where they might want to focus their energies on working, or where they might want to leverage what they’re already really good at. If you have a strong sense of purpose, if you really have a role, or a mission that you’re dedicated to, then that might help provide motivation for you to do more regulation in your life and to try to get some of your routine better under control, or the other way around. If you’re feeling a little alienated and aimless and lost, then you don’t have to just beat yourself up about that, or just spin in circles about that. You can try using some of your relationships, or some of your regulatory skills, or some of these nature-based interventions to help boost those types of things.

A lot of the advice that’s out there, it’s not that I think that it’s bad advice, but a lot of it is one-size-fits-all advice. Like, everybody needs to go meditate, or everybody needs to go exercise, or whatever. I’m a big fan of all that stuff. I mean, all that stuff is great. But if you already jog five miles a day, then you’re probably not going to get that much extra bang for your buck by adding mindfulness to your schedule, because you are already doing a lot of breath and body work is what I call that general thing. You might really benefit more from working on your social networks and your relationships and connecting with other people if you’re feeling a little isolated, or you might benefit more from focusing on narrative and exploring what’s happened to you and where you are in your story and where you want to be in five years, or 10 years.

The idea behind the resilience portfolio model is to take a lot all of these evidence-based programs out there. We have so many evidence-based interventions now, and really tailor them to your own situation and what you need to add to get further down in your own resilience journey, which of course, is all going to look a little different for each of us.

[0:15:27] PF: Right. It’s really leaning into what’s an existing strength and using that as leverage to develop more resilience and recovery.

[0:15:37] SH: Yeah, exactly.

[0:15:38] PF: Okay. Because, I know, it’s interesting. I had a conversation this weekend with some women who were talking about their character strengths and they were talking about being low on these certain strengths. They were working on those. In my mind, that’s their journey, that’s cool. I’m like, I just work on my top five. It’s like, if that’s what I’m already good at, that’s what I’m going to put my time and effort into and not worry about the things that maybe don’t come as naturally to me.

[0:16:04] SH: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we’re all going to have something at the bottom. I mean, there’s always going to be something that we’re less good at. Yeah, like I said, we don’t have to be good at everything. The other thing that I see a lot is that everybody just wants to jump right to regulation.

[0:16:21] PF: Oh, really?

[0:16:22] SH: Work harder, exercise more, eat better, and all of that stuff is good. But that also, those are often some of the hardest things to work on, because for one thing, a lot of them aren’t very much fun. Unlike reconnecting with some of your friends, or inviting some people over for dinner, or to watch a movie together, or spending time getting in touch with your purpose and your mission, all of those things can be really fulfilling and wonderful and getting better at doing the laundry, or whatever, may not sound – that’s not that much fun.

I think, sometimes we’re harder than we need to be on ourselves, because we try to start with the hardest thing, instead of, as you suggested at the very beginning, just going out and spending more time in nature. There was a large meta-analysis from a team in Scotland that came out not too long ago, and they found that people should be spending at least two hours a week in some kind of blue, or green space to sustain their well-being. If any of your listeners out there aren’t at the two-hour mark, that’s one thing they can do. Then it’s not that hard, because like we were talking about, you can just go hang out at the park, or hang out at the beach and you don’t have to do very much else. That’s way more fun and nicer than trying to start some really rigorous exercise habit, or a new diet, or something like that.

[0:17:57] PF: It could also play into the whole meaning-making angle, if you’re in a space that produces awe, or produces that sense of connection to the universe and things like that. You can maybe stack it a little bit and get two for one.

[0:18:11] SH: Yeah. You absolutely can do that. A lot of the domains can boost each other, as we’ve been talking. Then I’ll walk some of the stuff that’s coming out of Dr. Keltner’s work. Those types of things are really great for boosting both meaning-making and also, often, environmental domain. There are lots of other things, like mindfulness can also help with both your regulatory domain and your meaning-making domain. A lot of the interventions, you will get multiple boost in multiple areas for, which is also a great thing about it.

[0:18:50] PF: Absolutely. As I mentioned, you’ve been doing this work for three decades. How did you discover the strengths aspect as they play into resilience?

[0:19:01] SH: That was a long journey for me, because I started off, I went to graduate school back in the 80s and 90s, and that was the era when the big thing that was happening in trauma research and intervention was just recognizing how much trauma was out there. People were doing some of the first really big studies on domestic violence, on child abuse, on sexual assault, on bullying, on historical trauma, on all different kinds of phenomena. All of the times, we were just finding over and over again that all these different types of trauma were much more common than we had ever thought and much more harmful than we had ever envisioned.

I came up in that era, so a lot of my early work, too, was very much focused on documenting what the rates of problems were, documenting all the negative consequences. What I found over time is that my clients, my students, the loved ones in my own social network, that they were interested in all of that. At the end, that wasn’t what they really wanted to know. What they really wanted to know it was out of field better, of course.

[0:20:19] PF: Right.

[0:20:19] SH: Right. Well, we all want to know. For a long time, the field really didn’t spend that much energy on that. I mean, even now, there’s so much energy that it really comes from a deficit-based lens of still documenting how horrible all of this stuff is, and it is horrible. I mean, I don’t mean to –

[0:20:40] PF: Right. We’re not denying any of that. Right.

[0:20:42] SH: Right. It’s really horrible. At the same time, people want to know how they can feel better anyway, and what’s the future for them? That was how I finally started listening to my clients, and like I said, my students and my loved ones and trying to get better at answering those questions. I think I’ve just finally got to a place in my career where I felt secure enough to not just answer the questions that I was getting incentivized to answer. You can get a lot of brownie points in the research world for just keeping on showing how horrible all of this stuff is.

[0:21:24] PF: Exactly. Yeah.

[0:21:25] SH: It was a slow transition for me. But I did finally make the switch around 2012. I was really made a much harder switch to just focusing on healing and resilience and trying to understand that. That has been a great, great personal process for me. It has really given me a second wind. It has meant a lot to me personally. It has made me realize that in some ways, I think that – I mean, it’s hard to say why maybe, but in some ways, guess it took me a long time to move from that being a grad student and a junior researcher and all of that sort of thing and trying to understand the system and trying to show that I belong there, and then I could do this work, and the way we can all be when we’re just starting out in our careers. Then finally, getting to where, you know what? Hey, some of this actually could be better. I’m not sure why everyone is stuck in this place, but they need to get out of this place, and feeling like I had enough professional capital and credentials to push back against that a little bit and really try to get to a more strength-based perspective and drawing from some of the positive psychology work and stuff that, of course, was really taking off at that time, too. Trying to put those two worlds together a little bit, I guess, is what I would say.

[0:22:52] PF: The book does a great job with that. I think it’s such a valuable addition to the library that’s already out there that looks at resilience. It really does give us a fresh lens that we look at it through. If someone’s listening, well, obviously they’re listening to this, if they’re listening and they’re saying, “Okay. Well, how do I start developing those strengths?” What’s a great starting point for them? Obviously, you’ve written a whole book, so you can’t tell us everything in 30 seconds, but where do they start?

[0:23:20] SH: I think a good starting point is just taking a minute to think about where you are in each of those four domains and where you might be strongest and where you might most like to work. Of course, if you haven’t ever told your story in a safe space to somebody, I do think that is a very important part of everyone’s healing journey. It doesn’t have to be a therapist, although it certainly can be a therapist, but it can be a friend, a loved one. I mean, for me, it was really, I mean, it was before we were married, but it was my husband who I really told my whole entire story to for the first time, and without pulling any punches or skipping over things that I found hard to talk about.

It could be an AA meeting. I mean, there are just so many different places that you can find those safe spaces. I know sometimes that there are people out there, and I guess, I would just want to say to anybody who has tried that and didn’t get a positive response, because I do meet a lot of people like that. Like, they tried to talk about it to a partner, or a therapist, or a teacher, and weren’t able to feel safe enough, or felt rejected in some way that I am, of course, so sorry that that has happened. But I still think you have to keep trying and have to keep looking for those safe spaces. In the book, I go into a little bit about what to look for, so that you know that a space is truly safe to tell your story. I do think that’s essential for everyone to fit into their journey at some point.

[0:25:02] PF: That’s wonderful advice. We are going to tell our listeners where they can find you, where they can find the book. We’ll give them a little bit more information about you, and some links to your different resources on our landing page. You’ve already done so much work in the trauma and recovery space. How do you hope that this book furthers that work?

[0:25:23] SH: The main reason I wrote the book was to try to get some of this information out of the “ivory tower of academia.” There’s been so much progress that we’ve made in the last 10 or 15 years in understanding all these healing pathways and understanding how important strengths are to these healing pathways. I know so many people that when they seek help, they basically end up getting what I was taught to do back in the 80s and 90s, this very symptom focused therapy that’s all about hashing and rehashing what happened to you in the past and is not so forward looking. Just trying to make this this new information more available to people, so that more people can heal, even if they don’t have access to cutting-edge therapy out there.

[0:26:15] PF: Well, it’s very well done. I think it has a lot to offer and I’m excited for our listeners to find out about it. Thank you for sitting down with me today and the book comes out today, the day that the podcast is released.

[0:26:28] SH: Well, thank you so much, Paula, for having me here today. I really enjoyed our conversation.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:26:36] PF: That was Dr. Sherry Hamby, talking about resilience. If you’d like to learn more about Sherry, follow her on social media, or discover her latest book, Stronger Than You Think, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode.

That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.

[END]

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why resilience isn’t about toughness but about building a diverse portfolio of strengths.
The four domains that shape your resilience — and how to use the ones you already have.
How nature, meaning-making, and connection can support healing just as powerfully as regulation strategies.

Visit Sherry’s website.

Discover her latest book, Stronger Than You Think: Building Lifelong Resilience.

Follow Sherry on social media:

Substack: @sherryhamby
LinkedIn: @sherry-hamby/

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