The little book of resilience - Matthew Johnstone

The Little Book of Resilience is about how we can fortify our lives mentally, emotionally and physically. It is not about what happens when we get knocked down but more about what happens when we get up again. It is a book about what resilience is and how we grow and maintain it.


The first step in understanding resilience is accepting what you can and cannot change. You can't change the weather but you can certainly change the way you interact with it; using an umbrella, a jacket or sunscreen. Just as you can't change your history, family, race, or past hurts and events but with the right direction and understanding you can certainly change how you look and feel about them moving forward.


Life doesn't always turn out as we'd expected. It can be complex, harsh, joyful, mean, hilarious and utterly perplexing. The sooner we understand this, the sooner we will be able to cope with whatever life throws our way.


For the majority of life's adversities, there is no magic pill or silver bullet - to get over anything we generally have to go through it - but if we're prepared to learn from that experience, good can certainly come from bad. We can grow to be wiser, more empathetic and understanding and from that we can create greater purpose in our lives.