Flashback Girl: Cultivating Resiliency with Dr. Lise Deguire
In This Episode…
Lise's story as a burn survivor
Steps to build resilience (7:14)
The importance of self-reflection (19:07)
Success clues and closing advice (23:17)
Key Points
All of us can use some resilience-building skills in these tough times. Lise created a mnemonic you can use: GOALS + M&M
G - Gratitude
O - Optimism
A - Active coping
L - Love
S - Social skills
M&M - Meaning making
Gratitude: people who are able to be grateful tend to be happier. Focusing on what's good in your life improves your mood.
Optimism: Resilient people tend to be optimistic. Optimism is the capacity to notice that something good can happen, or will happen, or even that something good is happening now.
Active coping: A person who is actively coping is not passive with their problems. They don't wait for a negative circumstance to be over before they take action. Active copers can be in a bad situation, look at it and assess what they can do about the problem, and then they take action.
Love: In order to make it through terrible circumstances, you have to have support and love, whether it's from your family, friend, neighbor, or even a teacher/mentor. As long as you have somebody who sees you and cares for you, you can make it through tough times.
Social skills: Resilient people tend to be really good with others. Maintaining healthy relationships is shown to be the thing that that builds a happy life.
Meaning making: When you have been through something really difficult. At some point, is really important to be able to look back on it and ask yourself, "What have I learned from this? How has this changed me for the better?"
What You Can Do
In addition to the GOALS + M&M method described above, do some self-reflection. Get into a quiet place and think about what's important to you, where you are in your life right now. What makes you happy, and what do you need to change?
Take responsibility for your life. If you recognize an issue but do nothing about it, nothing will change. And that thing that may be just a whisper at the moment, will eventually become a scream. Peace is priceless.
Connect
Dr. Lise Deguire is a clinical psychologist in private practice for over twenty years. The lone surviving child of unsettled and iconoclastic parents, she grew up all over New Jersey and Long Island. Following a horrific fire where she suffered burns on two-thirds of her body, she spent much of her childhood alone in a Boston hospital, undergoing countless surgical procedures, which she shares in her newly released book, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor.
