Resilience -- even the resilience Chemaly champions, and which I largely agree with -- has limits. People can't recover from everything, either individually or collectively. Some things kill you. Some things leave you with long-term damage you can't ever recover from, no matter the therapy or treatment.

What a powerful read. Chemaly makes connections that requires deep thought and reflection.

I certainly will be thinking about this excerpt a lot

Resilience means surviving, but it also means celebrating when we see each other survive. We goes by the name resilience today doesn’t recognize this fact. Instead, it easily turns into narcissistic maladaptation that tacitly relies on carelessness and exploitative behaviors towards others. That an inclusive resilience of care, connection, and kindness might seem naive or impossible stems directly from our deepest and most corrosive cultural beliefs: that some of us are special and chosen; that you can only rely on yourself; that we must suffer to be saved, must work for our rewards, have to compete to the death to survive. Teaching that love and tenderness must be earned and that we have to continuously prove our worth leads to isolation, competition, and despair— widespread ills we are now all too sadly familiar with.

Oh my goodness, what a refreshing take on this topic! I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discussion on resilience like this. And it was so validating because it highlighted everything that’s always felt off about the advice of powering through things.

The Resilience Myth presents different schools of thoughts around resilience then points out what’s almost always missing from the mainstream message - interdependence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of The Resilience Myth! This is my honest review.

The Resilience Myth was an excellent read. I appreciated the author's insight into how "grit" and "resilience" are (*surprise surprise*) rooted in privilege, racism, and sexism. I liked the scientific review of various studies (including on children), without the information being too tedious.

The indomitable Soraya Chemaly deconstructs the myth of individual resilience in her robust follow-up to Rage Becomes Her. While we are fed narratives of bootstraps and rugged individualism, Chemaly reminds us through research and real life that true resilience is actually based on collective care, interdependence, shared vulnerability, dynamic flexibility and love.

Favorite Quote: The key to using optimism to enhance resilience is in rejecting black-and-white, either/or thinking. Resilient people use both optimism and pessimism strategically to gain the critical insights and information they need to adjust to change.

Synopsis: Resilience is something we hear far too often. Workplaces want resilient employees, the media wants resilient citizens - able to weather the ups and downs of systems over which they have no control. Employees and citizens want resilient systems, able to stand up to the temporal societal demands that confuse and control us.

But resilience is not what we need.

Throughout this book, Chemaly (author of Rage Becomes Her), explores why dismantling oppressive thinking and systems and building supportive community structures will make us more resilient. Taking the focus off individual resilience will increase both individual and community resilience if these systems are acknowledged and adjusted.

Why does this book beguile? Soraya Chemaly explores why our systems are set up to encourage us to fail. Systems of grit, tenacity, and perseverance perpetuate ableism and isolation. As we evolve into a global organism with microcosms, we must all figure out how to support one another, how to help ease the burdens of others (and let them help us), while tackling the oppressive and patriarchal systems that have gotten us where we are.

It’s not easy, but through The Resilience Myth, Chemaly breaks down some of the issues into manageable chunks, allowing readers to digest the information and apply it to their direct communities. I love this book because it gives me hope for the future!

"The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma" by Soraya Chemaly challenges conventional ideas of resilience and asks us to reconsider the individualistic approach to overcoming life's challenges. Drawing from a wealth of research and real-life examples, Chemaly advocates for a shift towards interdependence and nurturing relationships as the true pillars of what helps us adapt and cope.

In this insightful manifesto, Chemaly dismantles the myth of solitary strength, as reinforced by our society, and arguesinstead for a model of communal resilience rooted in care for others and our environments. She skillfully critiques the prevailing narrative that champions self-reliance above all else, demonstrating how this mindset often overlooks the vital role of interconnectedness in keeping us alive and thriving well.

Through her exploration of societal, familial, and personal contributors to character and moral development, Chemaly highlights the importance of nurturing connections in coping through life. She presents a compelling case for embracing a community-centric approach to resilience, one that celebrates mutual support and she provides examples of why this mindset shift is important rooted in data from the covid-19 pandemic, recent increase in school shootings, and more.

What sets "The Resilience Myth" apart is its invitation to readers to rethink our understanding of resilience and to embrace a more holistic perspective that emphasizes the power of community and village. Chemaly's work offers a refreshing alternative to the prevailing narrative of rugged individualism and the pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. Thank you to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read!