From Regulation to Resilience: Finding the Will to Stay in the Fight
*This post includes the Forbes article of the same name, followed by a list of regulation tools and other resilience-building resources.
The 2024 United States’ election results left a lot of people grappling with a big question: “How do I find the resilience to face my fears and continue fighting for a better world?” Fortunately, my work as an applied neuroscience practitioner, coach, and trainer offers research-based guidance on the subject.
If you are simultaneously struggling to bear the weight of your fear and unwilling to give up on something as vital as preserving human rights - here are some concrete steps you can take to build the resilience needed to stay in this fight.
1. Experience your fear-based emotions - then regulate them.
When our sympathetic nervous system is activated, it triggers a physical threat response (our “fight, freeze, or flight” mechanism). To fuel this response, our brain redirects biological resources (like glucose and oxygen) to the limbic system. As a result, our prefrontal cortex (PFC) - the seat of critical Executive Functions like impulse control, and decision-making - is left with the dregs.
We now face a conundrum: our threat response has triggered a surge of hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, that push us to FIX IT NOW! Meanwhile, that same threat response is stealing the resources our PFC - the “fix it” part of our brain - needs to do so.
“Like a distracting alarm, psychological threat can consume mental resources that could otherwise be marshaled for better performance and problem solving.” (Cohen and Sherman, 2014)
Our job is to notice that response - sit with it, and make room for your emotional experience. Grieve, rage, commiserate. Approach these emotions with curiosity, acknowledgement, and compassion.. Then engage your regulation tools to dial down the alarm - allowing your PFC to help you figure out next steps.
To be clear, I am not advising you to give up your anger, ignore your fears, or otherwise suppress your emotions. Your fears and emotions are valid. Suppressing emotions is strongly correlated with negative mental and physiological health outcomes, including the development of unhealthy coping behaviors, higher levels of autonomic reactivity to stress, increased risk of cardiovascular events, neuroendocrine (brain hormone) dysregulation, and early mortality (Chapman, et al, 2014).
I am saying that constructive action stems from effective decision-making, and that requires a regulated nervous system. Consequently, learning and practicing emotion modulation offers you the best chance of making logical, values-aligned decisions that position you to make an impact.
2. Set yourself up for accessible, sustainable regulation.
The cultural and political sources of our fear aren’t going anywhere. Whether your specific threat cocktail is one part “Will I be able to feed my family?”, or two parts “How do I find common ground with colleagues who voted for him/her?” - it’s clear that we’ll be navigating these challenges for years.
The human stress response evolved primarily to address immediate, physical dangers—such as evading predators—instead of prolonged psychological threats. This evolutionary background renders us less adept at managing the sustained physiological effects of chronic stress, including elevated levels of cortisol and adrenaline, and other related responses.
In order to develop the resilience needed to stay in the fight, we need to support our brains and bodies by developing sustainable regulation practices.
This means being proactive about:
Expanding your regulation toolkit by practicing self-awareness and experimenting with modulation tools, to figure out which work best for you in different contexts;
Designing your environments to support regulation. You’ll find it much easier to regulate if your senses aren’t overstimulated;
Identifying and proactively making time to connect with “Safe Others” - people you can be vulnerable and unmasked with. Secure connection is a critical to processing challenging emotions and building resilience;
Cultivating a network of emotionally-intelligent, values-aligned people; and
Where that isn’t possible, upleveling your nonviolent communication skills and setting/holding clear boundaries.
Scroll down for a complete set of regulation tools and other resilience-building resources!
3. Prioritize connection and community.
Social safety is a fundamental need intrinsically tied to both our cognitive functionality and our ability to access resilience. This connection is supported by a body of evidence; one 2014 study from Stanford University concluded that:
“When people were put in a stressful situation, such as receiving mild electric shocks, those who felt they had social support in their lives, or those who simply had the chance to see a picture of a loved one, experienced less fear, threat, and pain” (Cohen and Sherman, 2014).
Another reports that “Both the presence of social support and the behavior of seeking social support have been associated with psychological hardiness and flourishing in the face of major adverse life events” (Ozbay et al, 2008).
We are wired for social connection, and there is no better time to lean into this biological imperative. For “There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about” (Margaret Wheatley).
4. Last, but not least - connect to your purpose.
Between 1942 and 1945, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl endured imprisonment in four different Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, during which he lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife. Frankl’s memoir, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, offers profound insights into the nature and source of resilience:
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose…Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
A growing body of research supports Frankl’s assertions. According to Kendall Cotton Bronk, Ph.D., a Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, “Individuals with a purpose in life tend to be more resilient. Being inspired by a personally meaningful goal that is larger than the self serves to keep individuals committed to long-term aims, despite challenges and setbacks.”
If your purpose, like mine, includes fighting for a just, compassionate, and equitable world - a world in which differences are nurtured and celebrated, rights are inalienable, and the truth of our diversity is reflected in our power structures - then uniting around this shared purpose is not only our clearest path to resilience; it’s our only viable path forward.
Resilience-Building Resources:
In order to develop the resilience needed to stay in the fight, we need to support our brains and bodies by developing sustainable regulation practices.
Expand your regulation toolkit.
If you really want to understand how the brain works, learn the biological purpose of emotions, and improve your Emotional Intelligence (your ability to notice, identify, and regulate your own emotions as well as to recognize and influence the emotions of others), check out Lab 1: Unleash Your Mind.
This course includes a full set of neuro-accessible tools to grow your self-awareness, regulate challenging emotions, and improve your social skills. I’m including some of those tools here, to serve the folks who are most likely to be negatively impacted in the next four years.
Design your environment(s) to support regulation.
Designing an environment that supports regulation starts with getting to know yourself better - what works for you, what doesn’t, and what helps you access regulation? Even better - how can you cultivate spaces that make it less likely you’ll get overstimulated and dysregulated to begin with?
Christine Miserandino’s spoon theory helps us understand why this approach works. Here’s a quick overview of the concept:
“People with chronic [stress], she says, start each day with a set number of proverbial spoons, each one representing the physical and mental energy it takes to complete a daily task or activity. Smaller tasks, like showering or getting dressed, may cost only one spoon, while larger tasks, like cooking or vacuuming, may take three or four spoons. On days with increased [stress], even smaller tasks may require multiple spoons.”
Take this concept and add the fact that environments themselves, as much as the tasks and interactions we have in those environments, can deplete the available ‘spoons’ we have on any given day.
For example, some people function better in spaces with less visual clutter; others get rapidly depleted in overly loud spaces. Some people do fine with loud noises generally, but not when they need to focus or engage in a difficult conversation.
Emotional regulation is a complete cognitive function that requires a lot of resources. This is why, for example, kids often find it harder to regulate after school - their brains are already burnt out from a full day of employing resource-intensive Executive Functions.
Understanding your sensory needs and preferences, and (where possible) cultivating spaces that honor those needs, helps ensure you’ll have enough spoons to regulate when you need to.
To kickstart your environmental/sensory self-awareness, I’m including a worksheet from Lab 2: Thriving Thru Change - How Building a Secure Relationship with Self Supports You to Confidently Navigate Change:
Identify and proactively make time to connect with “Safe Others” + cultivate a network of emotionally-intelligent, values-aligned people.
Connecting with people we love and trust is one of the single most effective ways to both regulate and grow your resilience - especially in the face of physical and psychological threats. Below are a few pages from both Lab 1 and Lab 2 that explain why connection matters, and offer several ways to feel more connected.
Uplevel your nonviolent communication skills.
Nonviolent communication is communication that allows you to express yourself clearly and honestly without doing (or furthering) harm to yourself or others.
I recommend Positive Psychology’s super comprehensive guide to nonviolent communication, which includes:
3 Real-Life Examples of NonViolent Communication (NVP)
and more!
Setting + holding clear boundaries.
Boundary-setting is all about cultivating a less-depleting life, so that you have the structure and spoons to respond (not react) to threats in a healthy way when needed. Here are three helpful articles to get you started on your path to creating a functionally-boundaried life that preserves critical bandwidth we need to stay in the fight!
How to approach the holidays with people you deeply disagree with - Note: I recommend this article in particular, because it doesn’t advise you to ‘take the higher ground’ or ‘keep the peace’ when facing people whose voting choices endanger your literal human rights. Remember - it’s more than ok to choose self-protection over family obligation!
How to Set Healthy Boundaries + Build Positive Relationships
I hope this was helpful! If you have any thoughts or questions, please don’t hesitate to share them in the comments or to reach out to me directly at colleen@neurokind.com. We’re in this together!
