What if resilience isn't always a good thing?

"You're so resilient."

It's meant as a compliment. We live in a society that admires people who keep going after loss, who hold everything together, who somehow manage to carry on despite everything life throws at them.

But as a therapist, the word resilience frustrates me, and I feel it is a word that is used too easily.

As a therapist, I often meet people who could be described as incredibly resilient. They have successful careers, they're dependable friends, they're the person everyone turns to when things fall apart. From the outside, they look like they're coping beautifully.

Inside, it's often a different story.

Many describe feeling exhausted, disconnected or unsure who they really are underneath all the responsibility.

Sometimes resilience isn't simply a strength. Sometimes it's a survival strategy.

As children, we adapt to the environments we're raised in. If expressing sadness wasn't welcomed, perhaps you learnt to hide your feelings. If love felt conditional, maybe you became the high achiever. If the adults around you couldn't cope with your needs, perhaps you learnt not to have any.

These adaptations are incredibly clever. They help us survive.

The difficulty is that our nervous systems don't always get the memo that we're no longer children.

The part of you that learnt to keep everyone happy, work harder or never ask for help may still be working overtime, even though your circumstances have changed.

Therapy isn't about taking those survival strategies away. They're there for a reason, and often they've helped you build a life that others admire.

Instead, therapy offers the chance to ask a different question.

Not "How can I become even more resilient?"

But "What parts of me have been working so hard for so long?"

Sometimes healing isn't about becoming stronger.

Sometimes it's about discovering that you no longer have to survive in quite the same way.

A question to leave you with:

What did you have to become in order to feel safe as a child? And does that version of you still need to work quite so hard today?

If you're looking for therapy in London, or online therapy across the UK, I'd be honoured to walk alongside you as we explore these questions together.