EP 117: Rethinking Resilience: Moving from Bouncing Back to Relational Resilience with Soraya Chemaly

The Unburdened Leader

When you think about resilience, what comes to mind?

Our culture loves narratives about triumphing over hardship. And overcoming pain, heartbreak, and even abuse can make us stronger.

However, uplifting “overcoming” too often comes at the expense of actually examining and addressing the lack of care, protection, and support people had to navigate on their path to resilience. We valorize grit and perseverance at the cost of people’s health and wellbeing, encouraging them to just keep pushing past the point of burnout.

My guest today pulls back the curtain on these narratives of overcoming adversity and building resilience to find that so much of the adversity people face is rooted in how we fail to care for ourselves and each other in our society. Real resilience, she says, isn’t about your own personal toughness; it’s about how we relate to and support each other.

Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning author and activist. She writes and speaks frequently on topics related to gender norms, inclusivity, social justice, free speech, sexualized violence, and technology. She is the author of The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth after Trauma and Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, which was recognized as a Best Book of 2018 by the Washington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and NPR. She has contributed to several anthologies, most recently Free Speech in the Digital Age and Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change The World. Soraya is also a co-producer of a WMC #NameItChangeIt PSA highlighting the effects of online harassment on women in politics in America.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Soraya made the connection between our toxic ideology of resilience and how we devalue community support and care
• How the idea of “bouncing back” can actually impede change, both personal and social
• How resilience narratives flatten, decontextualize, and depoliticize trauma and recovery
• Why we need to shift our concept of resilience from individual to communal, cultural, and relational
• How “soldiering on” can perpetuate a lack of options within the system
• The false binaries we have to confront to dismantle the resilience of the status quo
• How telling someone they are or need to be resilient shuts down opportunities for real care and support

Learn more about Soraya Chemaly:

• Website
• Instagram: @sorayachemaly
• The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma
• ​​Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger
• Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World
• Free Speech in the Digital Age

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

Resources:

• EP 72: Identifying and Addressing the Burdens of Individualism with Deran Young & Dick Schwartz
• EP 113: Curiosity as a Bridge: Uncovering Fears and Building Connections with Scott Shigeoka
• Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World
• Nicked, M. T. Anderson
• The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, Zoë Schlanger
• Kneecap
• Challengers
• Succession
• The White Lotus