Strengths Must Contain Multitudes
One idea that keeps coming up in my social work coursework lately is the importance of noticing strengths without using them to minimize struggle.
I think we sometimes get resilience wrong.
We tend to talk about resilience as if it means bouncing back quickly, handling things gracefully, or eventually becoming so strong that the difficult thing no longer seems to matter. “Just have more grit.” We celebrate people for being independent, determined, productive, optimistic, or capable, oftentimes without asking what it has cost them to keep functioning that way.
But strength and struggle are not opposites.
Someone can be entirely capable and also too exhausted to follow through. They can have an incredible support system and still feel lonely sometimes. They can know exactly what coping skills work for them and still have days when using those skills feels almost impossible. They can have survived something, learned from it, built a beautiful life afterward, and still wish it had never happened.
Resilience rarely comes from one thing alone. The dunes hold because the grasses help. The shoreline recovers because people protect it. Strength is often collective, layered, and steadily built over time.
In one of my Rutgers MSW courses, we have been talking about polystrengths: the idea that resilience does not usually come from one magical quality a person possesses. Strength exists across different areas of life. It can come from relationships, community, emotional awareness, problem-solving skills, spirituality, creativity, advocacy, humor, boundaries, or simply the ability to keep trying.
I really like this way of thinking because it makes strength feel much more human.
You do not have to become endlessly self-sufficient to be resilient.
Sometimes resilience looks like knowing when to ask for help. Sometimes it is deciding that something you tolerated before is no longer acceptable. Sometimes it is resting. Sometimes it is trying again. Sometimes it is recognizing that the version of you who got through a difficult season developed certain survival strategies, and gently deciding which of those strategies you still need.
Growth does not always require us to reject who we used to be. Often, that version of ourselves was doing an extraordinary job with the information, safety, resources, and support available at the time.
We can appreciate what those strategies did for us while also asking whether they still fit the life we are building now.
That is something I find myself exploring often in coaching.
At Rewoven Life Coaching, I am much less interested in asking, “How do we fix this part of you?” and much more interested in questions like: What has helped you get this far? What feels supportive now? What are you carrying because it is meaningful, and what are you carrying because you learned you had to? What might life look like if strength did not always mean pushing through?
Sometimes the next step is ambitious.
Sometimes it is surprisingly gentle.
Both count.
Maybe resilience is not becoming untouched by everything that has happened to us: maybe it is developing enough support, self-knowledge, flexibility, and compassion that difficult experiences no longer get to make every decision for us.
And maybe one of the strongest things we can do is allow ourselves to be both our most capable selves and our most human selves.
Looking for support on your own journey?
You don't have to figure it all out alone. At Rewoven Life Coaching, I offer a compassionate, judgment-free space to explore where you are, where you want to be, and how to move forward in a way that feels authentic to you.
Book a free consultation to see if we're a good fit. I'd love to connect!
