Resilience Isn’t Always Bouncing Back. Sometimes It’s Becoming Someone Different.
Updated: Sep 20
We often describe resilience as the ability to bounce back. Something difficult happens. We struggle. We recover. Eventually, we return to normal. There's comfort in that idea — it suggests that whatever disrupted our lives doesn't have to define what comes next.
But I've increasingly wondered whether bouncing back is always the right goal.
Back to what, exactly? Back to the person we were before the experience? Back to the priorities we had before something changed them? Back to a version of life that may no longer fit who we're becoming?
Sometimes returning is possible, and sometimes it's exactly what we need. But there are experiences that change us too deeply for going back to make sense. And perhaps resilience isn't always about restoring who we were. Sometimes it's about learning how to become who we are now.
Resilience Is More Than Returning to Normal
Psychologists have spent decades studying resilience, and there's no single simple definition. Increasingly, it's understood not as a fixed personality trait but as a dynamic process of adaptation in the face of adversity. Research has identified different trajectories after difficult experiences — some people maintain relatively stable functioning, some struggle and recover, some experience prolonged difficulty, and others adapt in ways that leave them functioning differently than they did before.
A major 2024 review in the Annual Review of Psychology emphasizes flexible adaptation rather than a single expected path back to a previous state. That matters because after certain experiences, the old normal may no longer exist. A relationship ends. A career disappears. A diagnosis changes how we think about the future. Someone we love dies. A role that once defined us no longer does. We discover something about ourselves that we can no longer ignore.
In those moments, telling ourselves to get back to normal may be asking the wrong thing of us. Perhaps the more useful question is: what does moving forward look like now?
Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason
For many years, I believed the familiar saying that everything happens for a reason. It can be comforting — when something painful or unexpected happens, the phrase suggests there's a purpose behind it, that somehow the experience was meant to happen and that eventually we'll understand why.
Writing The Twelve Intentions changed the way I think about that. As I went back through my own experiences, relived memories, and tried to understand what those moments had actually taught me, I came to a different conclusion. I don't believe everything happens for a reason anymore.
Things happen. Some of them are wonderful. Some are painful. Some are unfair. Some change the course of our lives in ways we never would have chosen. And there's no avoiding the reality that life will continue to bring experiences we can't predict or control.
What I've come to believe instead is that when something happens, there may be something within the experience that we can learn from — if and when we're ready to look for it. That's why one question became so important to me: What is this experience teaching me?
Notice the difference. It's not asking why this was supposed to happen, or what good thing you must find in it. It certainly doesn't require pretending that something painful was somehow wonderful in disguise. It simply begins with reality — this happened — and then asks: what can I understand from it?
Meaning Isn't the Same as Justification
Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun developed the concept of post-traumatic growth to describe positive psychological changes that some people report after struggling with major adversity. Research has identified several areas where that growth may occur: a deeper appreciation of life, changed relationships, recognition of new possibilities, increased awareness of personal strength, and spiritual or existential change.
But this idea is easy to misunderstand. Post-traumatic growth doesn't mean trauma is good. It doesn't mean suffering automatically makes us stronger. And it certainly doesn't mean that someone experiencing grief, illness, loss, or trauma should feel responsible for turning that experience into an inspirational lesson. Sometimes surviving is enough. Sometimes healing takes years. Sometimes the impact remains painful even while growth occurs in another part of life.
Meaning doesn't require us to justify what happened. It only asks whether, over time, we can understand something about ourselves because we lived through it.
Some Experiences Are Wonderful. Others Are Not.
Sometimes the teaching moment is obvious. Something wonderful happens and we realize we want more of it in our lives — a relationship brings us joy and reminds us to invest more deeply in connection, an opportunity reveals a talent we didn't know we had, a moment of peace shows us how badly we needed to slow down. Those experiences are easy to carry forward.
Others aren't. Cancer wasn't something I needed to happen to me so I could learn a lesson. I'd never describe years of treatment and the changes it brought to my body as some hidden gift. It was difficult. It was frightening. And it changed me.
But once I'd lived through those experiences, I still had some choice in how I related to them. I could spend all of my energy wishing they'd never happened — or, without denying what they cost me, I could look back and ask: what did I learn about myself? What became more important? What became less important? How did this change the way I think about time, about my body, about fear, about the people I love, about how I want to live whatever life remains in front of me?
That doesn't turn cancer into something good. It allows me to make meaning from something that happened. And I think that distinction matters.
Resilience Is Sometimes a New Normal
One review of resilience research notes that adaptation doesn't always mean returning to the same baseline that existed before the stressful experience — sometimes people settle into a different baseline, a new normal. That makes intuitive sense.
Some experiences permanently alter the circumstances around us. Others permanently alter the way we understand ourselves. We may become more cautious or more courageous. More protective of our time, more aware of what matters. Less willing to tolerate certain situations. More willing to ask for help. More appreciative of relationships. More willing to change direction. That's not necessarily evidence that we failed to recover — it may be evidence that we adapted.
Transformation Isn't Erasing Who You Were
Becoming different doesn't mean rejecting the person you used to be. I think transformation is sometimes misunderstood that way. We talk about reinventing ourselves as though the goal is to discard the past and replace ourselves with an improved version.
But meaningful transformation is much more about integration. We carry forward the experiences that shaped us — the things we got right, the mistakes, the relationships, the disappointments, the courage we discovered, the ways we failed, the times we began again. They all become part of us. Your earlier self doesn't disappear simply because you've grown. You bring that person with you. You're just no longer limited to being that person.
A recent longitudinal study involving frontline nurses even found that post-traumatic growth predicted later increases in resilience — suggesting that meaning and growth developed through one difficult experience can become resources we carry into future challenges. We don't simply remember what happened. We remember what we learned about ourselves while it was happening.
Sometimes Resilience Is Adaptation
Resilience sometimes gets confused with toughness — keep going, push through, don't let it affect you, get back on your feet. But adaptation can look very different. Sometimes resilience means continuing. Sometimes it means changing direction. Sometimes it means accepting help, letting something go, or establishing a boundary you've never had before. Sometimes it means recognizing that the life you were trying so hard to restore isn't actually the life you want anymore.
There's tremendous strength in saying: this changed me — and then asking: what do I want to do with that change?
Intentional Living Gives Us a Role in What Comes Next
We don't get to choose everything that happens to us. That may be one of life's hardest realities. We can't control every diagnosis, relationship, loss, economic change, career disruption, disappointment, or unexpected turn.
But there's an important difference between controlling our circumstances and participating in what comes after them. Intentional living gives us that opportunity — not immediately, and not according to someone else's timeline, but eventually we may find ourselves standing somewhere we never expected to be.
At that point, we can begin asking: what can I take from this? What do I want to carry forward? What am I ready to leave behind? What still reflects who I am, and what no longer does? What deserves another chance, and what deserves to end? And perhaps the most important question: who do I want to become from here?
We may not know the answer immediately. Becoming takes time. Research on resilience reminds us that adaptation is dynamic — it unfolds rather than arriving all at once. The same is true of intentional living. There's rarely one dramatic decision that transforms everything. More often, we become through the accumulation of smaller choices: a conversation, a boundary, a new direction, an apology, a decision to try again, a decision not to. One step followed by another.
Don't Dwell Only on What Was Lost
Looking back doesn't have to mean dwelling. Reflection and rumination aren't the same thing. We can acknowledge that something was terrible without allowing the terrible part to become the only thing we continue to carry.
We can say: that happened, it hurt, it changed me — and then ask: what now? What can I glean from it? What deserves to become part of my future? What no longer deserves that much space? How do I chart my path from here? That's not denial. It's movement. And sometimes movement itself is resilience.
Maybe We Don't Need to Bounce Back
There'll always be situations where bouncing back is a useful description of resilience — we stumble, we recover, we return. But there are other seasons when life asks something different of us. We can't go back because too much has changed. Or because we have.
In those moments, perhaps resilience isn't measured by how successfully we recreate who we were before. Perhaps it's found in our ability to stand honestly in what has happened, recognize what it's taught us, and begin moving toward whatever comes next. Not because adversity automatically made us better. Not because the difficult thing needed to happen. But because it did happen — and once it becomes part of our story, we still have some say in what we carry forward from it.
Maybe resilience isn't always about bouncing back. Sometimes it's becoming someone different. And perhaps intentional living begins when we give ourselves permission to ask who that person might be.
A Question to Carry With You
Think about an experience that changed you. You don't need to label it good or bad. You don't need to find a lesson that isn't there. Simply ask: what is this experience teaching me?
And then perhaps: am I still trying to return to the person I was before this happened — or is this experience asking me to think differently about who I want to become?
Pay attention to what comes up. You don't have to solve it today. Sometimes the first intentional step is simply becoming willing to look.
Continue the Journey
If you're navigating a season of change, adversity, or reinvention, you don't have to have everything figured out before taking the next step. The Twelve Intentions grew from my own effort to understand the lessons contained within experiences I never expected to have — and to explore how greater awareness can help us decide what we intentionally carry forward.
Explore The Twelve Intentions and consider what the experiences in your own life may be teaching you about who you are becoming.
References
American Psychological Association. Growth After Trauma.An accessible overview of post-traumatic growth, including the work of psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun and the commonly studied areas of growth following adversity. Read the article
American Psychological Association. Rethinking Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth: The Promise of Multidisciplinary Perspectives in Understanding Adaptive Responses to Adversity. American Psychologist, 2024.A special issue examining contemporary research on resilience, post-traumatic growth, and the different ways people adapt following adversity. View the APA special issue
Bonanno, George A., Shuquan Chen, Rohini Bagrodia, and Isaac R. Galatzer-Levy. Resilience and Disaster: Flexible Adaptation in the Face of Uncertain Threat. Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 75, 2024, pp. 573–599.This review emphasizes that resilience does not follow one universal path and highlights flexible adaptation following adversity. Read the article
Denckla, Christy A., et al. Psychological Resilience: An Update on Definitions, a Critical Appraisal, and Research Recommendations. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 2020.A multidisciplinary review describing resilience as a dynamic and complex process rather than simply an individual trait or an automatic return to a previous state. Read the full article through NIH/PubMed Central
Bhatnagar, Seema. Rethinking Stress Resilience. Trends in Neurosciences, Vol. 44, No. 12, 2021, pp. 936–945.A review examining different ways resilience is defined and how adaptation after stress can involve outcomes other than simply returning to a previous baseline. Read the full article through NIH/PubMed Central
Li, Siyuan, et al. Post-Traumatic Growth Promotes Resilience Development: A Longitudinal Mediation Model. Journal of Affective Disorders, Vol. 368, 2025, pp. 727–733.A longitudinal study of frontline nurses finding that post-traumatic growth predicted later resilience, supporting the idea that growth from one experience may become a resource when facing future challenges. Read the study abstract and article information
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