The Self-Advocacy Group within Living Resources is still going strong thanks to the leadership of our current interns who are Nicole Bell and Jordan Healy. We are going to deeply miss them when they finish their internships at the end of 2021, but we are confident the next interns will manage to fill their shoes. This was the second-to-last group the interns are going to facilitate before moving on to other stepping stones within their career.

This week’s topic was all about Resilience and how to face situations that test our ability to be optimistic about the future. Sometimes we must contend with overwhelming grief and those in our lives who hurt us for no reason. Things appear to be the end of the world in the moment, but the skills of resilience allow us to eventually take a deep breath and look toward the future. In a 2000 movie called, Here on Earth one of the main characters said, “As long as we are all still alive, it is nothing more than a bad day!” Such quotes truly make us think about what really matters and what is most important.

One of the slides defined Resiliency as:

  • Toughness
  • Adapting from Trauma
  • The Ability to Recover from Difficulties
  • Bouncing Back

What is your personal definition of resiliency?

Sometimes being resilient comes with age and maturity. Catastrophes that seemed like the end of the world maybe ten years ago such as a romance abruptly ending on Valentine’s Day are now things that we know will dissolve in their brutal anguish sooner rather than later. We also must reach out to resources that are meant to help us because it is impossible to handle mounting problems all by ourselves. The individuals within Living Resources and the College Experience have a plethora of staff members who are on hand to help them iron out some of their difficulties. We cannot possibly make things perfect, although we could try to make it a little closer to perfection by working with the individuals to strengthen their resiliency.

Attached are some slides that will give you an idea of what this lesson was about as well as some of the values that we hope the participants took away from this particular lesson. The Self-Advocacy Group features our 2014 College Experience alumnus, Andrew Maggio as a regular participant who has served as vice-president for a past group in addition to our Media and Activities Liaison, Jesse Saperstein serving as a consultant.