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Bounce Living the Resilient Life
Stephen King
Liberty University
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Bounce Living the Resilient Life
What a great title and overall summary of a journey. From the introduction the way the author
presents and the importance of resilience he captures your attention. The Author’s optimism is
captured throughout the pages and he is not afraid to tell his own personal stories to assist in
helping others. Providing a variety of definitions along the way from various psychologists.
Then providing his insight into that particular definition. This stresses the authors intent to help
us understand what resilience is. He then goes on to show in different languages how resilience
is captured. One particular word “visvas” a Sanskrit word which he defines as having trust,
breathing freely and to be fearless, (Wicks, 2010).
According to Indian Astrology it means faith. His explanation of the significance of
this word and its inner psychological space to others helps you with a new perspective. The
emphasis on taking care of oneself and its importance to relationships. The stories he shared to
help us understand his personal journey are also extremely helpful. His overall presentation of
the importance of resilience as a balance of compassion, self-care and learning from your
experience is very well received. The journey the author takes us through with self-care,
mindfulness and the importance of compassion towards others are so easy to understand.
Personal reflection
Perspective is personified in the saying bounce don’t break. I still remember the first
time I heard this and gained a new way of looking at things. The next thing I see is a plethora of
tennis balls falling from the ceiling demonstrating that they bounce. Hearing the word bounce
and in this manner has been very positive for me. I have been on a quest to be more resilient in
my life ever since I had the opportunity to attend the master resilience course at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. Immediately after my first course I was selected for the facilitator course. so
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Honestly, resilience training has changed not only my life, but it helped me in the
relationships of both my wife and son. We soon would test this as we were on our way to the
North Country of Central New York. I had the opportunity to be a part of the Comprehensive
Soldier and Family Fitness as the program manager. Being stationed at Fort Drum, New York
we have a Soldiers, Family members and civilian personnel who arrive with the preconceived
notion that it is al bad at Fort Drum. Myself along with my staff came up with a plan to present
a positive infused training using optimism. We were lucky to have this occur at the beginning of
their arrival, in-processing, to assist in their resilience.
Fun fact training in the Army is not usually positive. When we were coming up with our
presentation, we made sure to bring optimism for the 5-day training protocol. This we crucial
in our presentation due to the time it required. Wicks mentions a helpful book Authentic
Happiness by Dr. Marin Seligman and his ideas on signature strengths. We used signature
strengths to help our students in their resilience more specifically we used the website from
University of Pennsylvania https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/ as a part of our
training and to help in building connections with not only your class but significant others. I
used to tell my students to take time breath be resilient and take the survey there are 240
questions. “I believe that the highest success in living and the deepest emotional satisfaction
comes from building and using your signature strengths,” Martin Seligman
The author’s description of the word tacking in the book and the definition that followed
was a new way of looking at resilience. Being a sailor, it resonated with me as soon as I read it.
The way he was able to intertwine the word and the appreciation of levels of stress is presented
well. I will be using it in the future when I am trying to explain to a Soldier or family member
the importance of their own personal journey.
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I also thoroughly enjoyed his description of the levels of burnout and the fact that we
sometimes ignore the signs. The summarizing of conducting a daily debrief with yourself was
enlightening. In the chapter addressing your own self-care protocol his self-reflection on not
making time for things shows we are all a work in progress. The fact he had the self-awareness
to realize he needed to make time for things. “All of us seem to understand physical resilience,
and what goes into maintaining it. But psychological resilience is still not well understood, and
most of us don’t realize how important it is to our well-being, (Wicks, 2011).
He also stresses the importance of self-care and gives examples of a protocol that if you
read the things, he includes are simple things in life. When he introduces the necessity of self-
care and the reason to step back from work or family and take time to regain your perspective.
Application
When helping military members and their family the importance of optimism must be
stresses. We are just scratching the surface of the importance of signature strengths and how
they can help with optimism and resilience. Wicks takes time to mention how important it is to
learn our signature strengths as stress by Dr. Seligman. Using one’s character strengths as a
bridge to assist in connection will assist the counselor in helping identify problems in
relationships.
Often times when teaching or presenting positive psychology to an individual we must
first help with their counterproductive thoughts and show them that optimism will assist in their
relationships and connections. Introducing the service member to the concept of gratitude as a
beginning, hunting the good stuff, can help with these counterproductive thoughts. Finally,
showing the service member and example from your own life and presenting them your own
personal story can be crucial to their accepting the training.
Self-Application
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The author presented numerous ways for an individual to self-care the ideas he used in
the concept of stress management will be valuable for me. In Particular, sleep, food, exercise,
leisure and pacing. I feel these basic things will be very helpful in my own stress management.
Sleep has been a struggle and I need to try to get more. Food and its importance are essential
however not in abundance. Exercise I have been a firm proponent of a sound body and mind. I
realize that you can over exercise and have to be more specific in my goals to not cause burn
out. Leisure and time with my spouse need s to be enhanced to help in my resilience. Finally,
pacing I found this to be something I didn’t realize was needed but looking further into the
meaning taking breaks also serves as a positive in productivity. I see these as a routine that
needs to be established to help with stress and daily grind. Just thinking about these more
specifically will assist in my potential burnout.
Secondly, psychological stability, as he stated laughter is the best medicine and I tend to
take life to seriously so I will make more time to laugh out loud. Knowing what matters to you
is very important what you value. Also, knowing that not everyone has the same values as you.
The concept of control I have been a student of control. Understanding that I control my
thoughts which drive my emotions (what I feel) and reactions (what I do).
Being more grateful for what I have or accomplished in the day will also help in my
stress management. Involvement being active helping others. Having a support group or a
person you can confide in. Being able to just escape from it all my particular escape is going to
the gym. Remembering to be spontaneous or surprise yourself. Listening to your thoughts and
being aware of the negativity. Balance of these along with self-care will be very helpful to me as
a learn to be more resilient. Lastly, throughout this book my quest for mindfulness has been
reinforced and I plan to continue my personal journey of being more resilient and mindful which
I see going together more than ever. Taking time to focus on my breath, a picture or a sound at
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least one time a day has been beneficial to my resilience. Discovering the emptiness and
peaceful surroundings of mindfulness has been not only good for me but also the connections in
my life.
Conclusion
The overall outlook of the book was very well presented and a fast read. As mentioned, I
particularly enjoyed the use of different definitions of resilience. I also enjoyed early in the
book when Wicks point becoming the most resilient person, we can be will present new positive
realities and perspectives helping us to flourish in the most surprising ways. His personally
stories throughout help paint a picture of his journey. Specifically, the word tacking and the
story that followed assisted in my new perspective of resilience. Implementing the new
techniques, he laid out to assist with self-care will be beneficial to someone looking to build
resilience. His definition of resilience as the ability to meet, learn from, and not be crushed by
challenges and stresses of life personifies this book. The elements of self-care and the protocol
renewal program presents basic things for someone to do to help replenish and reinforce our
using these to help regain perspective can be helpful in one’s resilient life.
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Reference
Wicks, R. J. (2010). Bounce: Living the resilient life. New York, NY: Oxford University
Press.
