Building resilience

Te whakamanawaroa

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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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so I'd like to start if I may by asking
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you some questions if you've ever lost
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someone you truly love ever had your
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heart broken ever struggled through an
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acrimonious divorce or being the victim
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of infidelity please stand up if
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standing up isn't accessible to you you
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can put your hand up
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please stay standing and keep your hand
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up there if you've ever lived through a
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natural disaster being bullied or me
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made redundant stand on up if you've
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ever had a miscarriage if you've ever
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had an abortion or struggle through
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infertility please stand up finally if
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you or anyone you love has had to cope
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with mental illness dementia some form
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of physical impairment or cope with
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suicide please stand up
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look around you adversity doesn't
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discriminate if you are alive you are
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going to have to or you've already had
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to deal with some tough times
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thank you everyone take a seat I started
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studying resilience research a decade
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ago at the University of Pennsylvania in
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Philadelphia it was an amazing time to
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be there because the professors who
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trained me had just picked up the
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contract to train all 1.1 million
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American soldiers to be as mentally fit
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as they always have been physically fit
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as you can imagine you don't get a much
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more skeptical discerning audience than
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the American drill sergeants returning
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from Afghanistan so for someone like me
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whose main quest in life is trying to
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work out how we take
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the best of scientific findings out of
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academia and bring them to people in
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their everyday lives it was a pretty
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inspiring place to be I finished my
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studies in America and I returned home
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here to Christchurch to start my
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doctoral research I just begun that
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study when the Christchurch earthquakes
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hit so I put my research on hold and I
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started working with my home community
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to help them through that terrible
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post-quake period I work with all sorts
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of organizations from government
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departments to building companies and
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all sorts of community groups teaching
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them the ways of thinking and acting
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that we know boost resilience I thought
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that was my calling my moment to put all
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of that research to good use but sadly I
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was wrong for my own true test came in
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2014 on queen's birthday weekend we and
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two other families had decided to go
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down to Lake ohel and bike the outs to
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ocean at the last minute my beautiful
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twelve-year-old daughter Abby decided to
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hop in the car with her best friend Ella
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also 12 and Ella's mom Sally a dear dear
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friend of mine on the way down as they
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traveled through require on Thompson's
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track a car sped through a stop sign
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crashing into them and killing all three
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of them instantly in the blink of an eye
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I find myself flung to the other side of
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the equation waking up with a whole new
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identity instead of being the resilience
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expert suddenly I'm the grieving mother
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waking up not knowing who I am
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trying to wrap my head around
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unthinkable news my world smashed to
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smithereens
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suddenly I'm the one on the end of all
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this expert advice and I can tell you I
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didn't like what I heard
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little bit in the days after Abby died
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we were told we were now prime
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candidates for family estrangement that
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we were likely to get divorced and we
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were at high risk of mental illness Wow
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I remember thinking thanks for that I
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thought my life was already pretty [ __ ]
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leaflets described the five stages of
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grief
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anger bargaining denial depression
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acceptance victim support arrived at our
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door and told us that we could expect to
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write off the next five years to grief I
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know the leaflets and the resources
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meant well but in all of that advice
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they left us feeling like victims
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totally overwhelmed by the journey ahead
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and powerless to exert any influence
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over our grieving whatsoever I didn't
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need to be told how bad things were
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believe me I already knew things were
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truly terrible what I needed most
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was hope I needed a journey through all
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that anguish pain and longing most of
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all I wanted to be an active participant
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in my grief process so I decided to turn
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my back on their advice and decided
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instead to conduct something of a self
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experiment I'd done the research I had
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the tools I wanted to know how useful
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they were beating me now in the face of
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such an enormous mountain to climb now I
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have to confess at this point I didn't
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really know any of this was going to
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work
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parental bereavement is widely
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acknowledged as the hardest of losses to
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bear but I can tell you now five years
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on what I already knew from the research
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that you can rise up from adversity that
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there are strategies that work that it
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is utterly possible to make yourself
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think and act in certain ways that help
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you navigate
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tough times there is a monumental body
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of research on how to do this stuff
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today I'm just going to share with you
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three strategies these are my go-to
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strategies that I relied upon and saved
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me in my darkest days there are three
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strategies that underpin all of my work
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and they're pretty readily available to
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us all anyone can learn them you can
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learn them right here today so number
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one resilient people get that [ __ ]
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happens they know that suffering is part
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of life this doesn't mean they actually
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welcome it in they're not actually
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delusional just that when the tough
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times come they seem to know that
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suffering is part of every human
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existence and knowing this stops you
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from feeling discriminated against when
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the tough times come never once did I
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find myself thinking why me in fact I
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remember thinking why not me terrible
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things happen to you just like they do
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everybody else that's your life now time
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to sink or swim the real tragedy is that
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not enough of us seem to know this any
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longer we seem to live in an age where
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we're entitled to a perfect life we're
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shiny happy photos on Instagram are the
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norm when actually as you all
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demonstrated at the start of my talk the
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very opposite is true
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number two resilient people are really
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good at choosing carefully where they
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select their attention they have a habit
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of realistically appraising situations
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and typically managing to focus on the
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things that they can change and somehow
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accept the things that they can't this
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is a vital learn herbal skill for
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resilience as humans we are really
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good at noticing threats and weaknesses
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we are hard-wired for that negative
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we're really really good at noticing
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them negative emotions stick to us like
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velcro whereas positive emotions and
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experiences seem to bounce off like
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Teflon being wired in this way is
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actually really good for us and served
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us well from an evolutionary perspective
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so imagine for a moment I'm a cave woman
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and I'm coming out of a cave in the
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morning and there's a saber-toothed
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tiger on one side and a beautiful
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rainbow on the other it kind of pays for
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my survival for me to notice this tiger
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the problem is we now live in an era
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where we are constantly bombarded by
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threats all day long and our poor brains
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treat every single one of those threats
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as though they were a tiger our threat
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focus our stress response is permanently
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dialed up resilient people don't
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diminish the negative but they also have
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worked out a way of tuning in to the
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good one day when doubts were
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threatening to overwhelm me I distinctly
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remember thinking no you do not get to
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get swallowed up by this you have to
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survive you've got so much to live for
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choose life not death don't lose what
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you have to what you have lost in
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psychology we call this benefit finding
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in my brave new world it involved trying
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to find things to be grateful for at
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least our week girl hadn't died of some
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terrible long drawn-out illness she died
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suddenly instantly sparing us and her
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that pain we had a huge amount of social
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support from family and friends to help
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us through and most of all we still had
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two beautiful boys to live for who
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needed us now and
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deserve to have as normal a life as we
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could possibly give them being able to
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switch the focus of your attention to
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also include the good has been shown by
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science to be a really powerful strategy
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so in 2005 Marty Seligman and collies
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conducted an experiment and they asked
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people all they ask people to do was
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think of three good things that had
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happened to them
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each day what they found over the six
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months course of this study was that
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those people showed higher levels of
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gratitude higher levels of happiness and
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less depression over the course of the
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six months study when you're going
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through grief you might need a reminder
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or you might need permission to feel
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grateful in our kitchen we've got a
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bright pink neon poster that reminds us
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to accept the good in the American army
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they framed it a little bit differently
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they talked to the army about hunting
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the good stuff find the language that
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works for you but whatever you do make
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an intentional deliberate ongoing effort
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to tune in to what's good in your world
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number three resilient people ask
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themselves is what I'm doing helping or
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harming me this is a question that's
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used a lot in good therapy and boy is it
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powerful this was my go-to question in
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the days after the girls died I would
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ask it again and again should I go to
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the trial and see the driver would that
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help me or would it harm me well that
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was a no-brainer for me I chose to stay
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away but Trevor my husband decided to
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meet with the driver at a later time
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late at night I'd find myself sometimes
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poring over old photos of a be getting
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more and more upset I'd ask myself
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really is this helping you or is it
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harming you put away the photos go to
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bed for the night be kind to yourself
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this question can be applied to so many
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different context is the way I'm
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thinking and acting helping or harming
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you in your bid to get that promotion to
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pass that exam to recover from a heart
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attack so many different ways I write a
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lot about resilience and over the years
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this one strategy has prompted more
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positive feedback than any other I get
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scores of letters and emails and things
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from all over the place of people saying
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what a huge impact it's had on their
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lives whether it is forgiving family
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ancient transgressions arguments from
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Christmases past on whether it is just
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trolling through social media whether it
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is asking yourself whether you really
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need that extra glass of wine asking
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yourself whether what you're doing the
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way you're thinking the way you're
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acting is helping or harming you puts
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you back in the driver's seat it gives
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you some control over your
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decision-making three strategies pretty
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simple they're readily available to us
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all Anytime Anywhere
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they don't require rocket science
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resilience isn't some fixed trait it's
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not elusive that some people have and
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some people don't
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it's actually requires very ordinary
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processes just the willingness to give
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them a go I think we all have moments in
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life where our life path splits and the
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journey we thought we were going down
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takes some terrible veers off to some
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terrible direction that we never
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anticipated and we certainly didn't want
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it happened to me it was awful beyond
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imagining if you ever find yourself in a
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situation where you think there's no way
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I'm coming back from this I urge you to
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lean into these strategies and
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again I won't pretend that thinking this
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way is easy and it doesn't remove all
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the pain but if I've learned anything
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over the last five years it is that
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thinking this way really does help more
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than anything it has shown me that it is
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possible to live and grieve at the same
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time and for that I will be always
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grateful thank you
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[Applause]
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[Music]