Mastering the nine pillars of resilience
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Dr Stephen Sideroff started his career as a research looking at a learning and memory. He then moved into clinical work where he quickly realised stress was a major modulator of how people felt. They could be feeling really good but as soon as the amount of stress in their life increased, their coping abilities become strained and they began to develop different kinds of symptoms. He realised that if he helped people deal with stress it would help in all areas of their lives.
Dr Sideroff feels that people have a lot of ambivalence about managing stress because not all stress is bad and also because many of our successes are accompanied by stress. Because of this he switched to a more positive concept of resilience that he finds people are more attuned to. As a result he developed his own nine pillar model of resilience. Stephen’s nine pillars encompass three different areas:
1. Relationships
a. Relationship with self. This is the foundation of all the other pillars. How you relate to yourself. Do you come from a place of love, acceptance and compassion or from a place of judgement, criticism and negativity.
b. Relationship with others. Do you have good boundaries. Can you make good choices in who you choose as people to relate to. If you have no choice eg a boss or colleague can you maintain good boundaries so you don't absorb negative or conflictual energy.
c. Relationship with something greater. This includes spirituality and having meaning in life. Having purpose or giving service, something that connects you to the larger community.
2. Balance and Mastery
a. Physical balance and mastery. This is usually what people refer to when they talk about stress management. Being able to relax readily, getting a good night’s sleep and being able to keep your nervous system in a place of balance.
b. Cognitive balance and mastery. This is about having a positive outlook and expectations. It doesn't mean you ignore dangers but once you've planned for them and handled them you switch into a more positive frame of reference.
c. Emotional balance and mastery. Are you able to notice feelings that arise in your body and do you handle them appropriately so that you can let them move through and out of your body and not carry any excess emotional baggage
3. How we engage in the world
a. Presence. People usually refer to being aware of your surroundings and being present in the moment. Stephen looks at two directions of presence. One is what I’m receiving and being aware of my environment and the second is my presence. What is the energy I project out to the world and that includes facial expression, posture etc.
b. Flexibility. Am I able to make adjustments based on current circumstances. This has been very important over the last couple of years as paths of success have been blocked because of the pandemic. Are we able to make adjustments so that we can still get satisfied. Are we able to have different perspectives and also see those of other people. It’s about flexibility on many levels.
c. The ability to get things done. We’re able to go out into the world. We have courage, persistence and perseverance so we can be successful in life. When we are successful it increases our sense of agency and self-confidence and then we experience stresses less impactfully.
One of the things about resilience is that it takes challenges to become more resilience. Challenges are resilience fuel. Dr Sideroff found his challenges in relationships, moves to different locations and jobs as well as challenges in the jobs forced him to challenge himself and become more resilient. He worked for fifteen years as an apprentice to a shaman which showed him a whole different way of viewing the world. It was in those years that he broke through some of his own defenses. He feels we can’t stay just on the surface of life. The wounding is what breaks us open and causes us to reach deeply inside ourselves. All of this was what shaped him and how he approaches resilience.
Dr Sideroff has used biofeedback in and research biofeedback for many years. Biofeedback is a way of monitoring some aspects of your physiology and feeding that back to the person you’re working with or yourself. When you make an adjustment physiologically you get immediate feedback letting you know of your success so its an optimum conditioning or learning model that helps us tune in better to our bodies so we get into a better place of physiological balance.
Neurofeedback monitors brainwave patterns so you are able to get more directfully to the origins of physiological control For example, Dr Sideroff participated in a research study where they went into a drug treatment facility where they did a series of neurofeedback sessions. The first stage was to help people become more present by enhancing their access to prefrontal cortex and the cortex in general so it helped with attentional issues and being able to focus. They then shifted into another neurofeedback approach called Alfa Beta. This creates a deep state, a beta state in which memories can come up. Trauma can also come up but in the context of a very calm state so it’s a way of helping someone move through their trauma and be able to let go of it. It had tremendous success in the research study where there was twice as much abstinence two years post treatment as in the control group and 77% after three years. This helped to put this kind of neurofeedback model into a number of drip drug treatment centres.
Resilience is a lens that brings together many schools of thoughts into a more tangible set of circumstances. Right now Dr Sideroff feels it is very important for people to learn resilience. We are all faced with huge challenges in the world. The complexity of life right now and with the pandemic and war in Ukraine makes it really challenging people all over the world. Resilience is a fluid kind of concept because it’s always about the best way of being in the present moment.
The future is evolving so quickly in comparison to the last twenty years. We are moving to adaptability and the reinvention of the future for ourselves. There are some factors that interfere with our adaptability. If we adapt very well to our childhood environment that adaption can get locked so we carry the same type of adaption into adulthood. If we have difficulty adapting to the adult environment it may be because we carry the lessons of our childhood into adulthood. If we grow up in a very dangerous childhood environment where we are always on the lookout for danger as an adult we keep our stress response activated much more that it needs to be. The lessons of childhood very frequently get in the way of fully adapting as an adult.
You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
You can find out more or take Dr Sideroff’s resilience challenge or download a relaxation visulisation exercise at drstephensideroff.com
A resilience assessment booklet is available by emailing sideroff@ucla.edu