What is the Secret of Mental Resilience?

There are people with incredible inner strength, emotional resilience, and a spine made of steel. Nothing can shake them. They are always happy, always joyful, and always content. When they encounter a problem, they see it as a “challenge” or an “opportunity,” and they somehow manage to overcome it.

Others, by contrast, when faced with a problem that feels too big or beyond their capacity, immediately begin to retreat. They step back, hide in their shell, and resign themselves to loss and deficiency.

Are those with vision or emotional resilience truly stronger and healthier? This depends on what fuels their strength.

If their resilience stems purely from self-reliance- "With my own two hands I have built, and with my own two hands I will succeed", it may be rooted in arrogance or delusion and could ultimately lead to disaster (if they don't succeed).

On the other hand, if their strength comes from faith in the Creator, and the recognition that, “Everything I have until now is thanks to Him, and everything I will have from now on will also be by His grace. And if He places a challenge or even a trap before me and I fall, it is still by His will, and I trust that He knows exactly what He is doing,” that is a different kind of strength.

Resilience without faith is not true resilience.

True inner strength is rooted in faith. Its firm foundation is trust in G-d, and the understanding that Hashem knows exactly what He’s doing. If He brings me to a challenge, it’s because it’s one I can handle. If I couldn’t, He wouldn’t have brought me to it.

What happens when we succeed in facing a challenge? We thank the Creator of the world.

What if, Heaven forbid, we fail? Even then, we thank Hashem, and we tell Him that we know He was with us even in that failure. We did our best, and together with Him, we rise again from the pit and begin anew- stronger, better, and with renewed hope.