Resilience vs. Survival – How Do They Differ?
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 hours ago
- 11 min read
Fabio da Silva Fernandes knows what it's like to stumble. In 2021, he left his long career in the fintech industry to start his own wellness practice focused on mindfulness and Reiki, and now he explores the complex topic of resilience on his inspiring podcast called, The Stumbling Spirit.
Resilience and survival are terms that are often used interchangeably and although they are similar and overlap, they are distinct in terms of what motivates our decision-making and ultimate response to life’s adversities. I was inspired to unpack the relationship between these two concepts on my podcast, The Stumbling Spirit, after a visit to a Buddhist temple. This is what I learned.
What is resilience?
At this time, my definition of resilience is the following:
Resilience results from a synthesis of specific qualities (i.e., adaptability, courage, humility, curiosity, compassion etc.) and actions (i.e. self-care, mindfulness, truth-seeking, time and effort etc.) that support our well-being and desire to overcome undesirable circumstances and/or achieve favourable outcomes, and it’s the will and drive to keep on trying when we fall short/don’t succeed.
There’s also a dimension of surrender or acceptance versus resistance to the truth of what’s happening in our lives that’s an important ingredient of resilience.
As my late friend and Season 1 guest, Connie Lee, once said about her life with stage 4 cancer:
“My life is constantly changing. My health is constantly changing. There’s a lot of instability and I have felt the more I have tried to control different variables then something else comes up and so resilience for me is being able to make some level of peace with navigating how my life is, and still doing it in a way where I have some faith or belief or confidence that I’ll still be okay…”
To learn more about resilience, read my related Brainz article: What We've Gotten Wrong About Resilience
What is survival?
I am not an expert on survival. I am merely asking questions and exploring this topic in relation to resilience to understand the connection and divergence between these two concepts. I want to gain greater clarity of what these two words mean and why it matters.
According to Oxford Learning, Survival is: “the state of continuing to live or exist, often despite difficulty or danger.”
There’s this quality of continuing to live or exist regardless of the situation or circumstance. In other words, it doesn’t necessarily mean that our survival actions will serve our greatest good.
For example, if I live in a crime-ridden neighbourhood, I might choose to join a gang to satisfy my need to survive because of a false-sense of safety and protection.
Also, if someone is battling addiction, their ability to survive or continue to live is contingent on their next drug fix, which isn’t beneficial for their well-being but offers them immediate relief from their craving.
As Brand Strategist, Mike Power, said in Season 2 of my podcast about his experience through addiction, “I think my life's journey has just been ironic from the start. My last name is Power and I think the whole thing has been this search for power. That’s what I've been looking for and my mistake, and I still make it, is to think that I have to have it, that I do it all, that I'm the person that has to wield, and make, and control, and manifest, and make things happen all based on my own strength and ability and intelligence or whatever, or sometimes just the willfulness of my brain, and then to find, well no, in fact all that stuff is completely useless and it might have been the reason you ended up here… I actually read, “addiction is the doomed effort to control every aspect of life,” and I could totally relate to that because it was like that's what I was doing.”
According to Mike, his grasping or attachment to control the outcome of any given situation (perhaps through fear) was the source of his addiction and suffering. Ironically, it was this desperation for control that brought on his loss of control.
What is the difference between them?
In Season 3 of my podcast, Psychotherapist and Sound Bath Practitioner, Nicole Manes, shared her thoughts on the relationship between survival and resilience. She said, “…survival to me feels more that you're in urgency, you are in potential fight or flight…whereas resilience, you’ve been able to foster a certain equilibrium of being able to continue to move forward with things, within, I guess, the concept of the window of tolerance… the more we can stay within a window that the stress doesn't get too one way or too the other way. So we're not raging and we're not also just flat and… burnt out. So that to me is resilience. It's an ongoing process to maintain that balance.”
There are attributes of acceptance, release of control, and balance that feed into resiliency, as well as what Business Coach, Niiamah Ashong, calls “playing the long game.” These all seem to be essential components which contribute to being in a state of resilience versus survival.
A couple of years ago, I went with a friend to the Paramita Centre (a Buddhist temple) in Toronto to attend the third and final day of a special weekend of dharma talks and meditations (I’m not Buddhist, but I like going to various holy places). Over the course of three days, a group of Tibetan monks dressed in their red robes carefully constructed a mandala out of colourful sand. French Canadian monk, Tenzin Gawa, delivered a dharma talk on impermanence, which essentially means that our states of being are ever-changing. In other words, nothing lasts forever. During this talk, he said something really profound that stuck with me (and I’m paraphrasing): “Our perception of reality influences our happiness and our suffering.”
When I heard this, I understood a dimension of survival and resilience that I had not fully processed before. Our perception of reality is what ultimately dictates our state of being. And, although resilience and survival overlap, they differ based on our point of view. So on the extreme ends of the spectrum, survival in and of itself can perpetuate suffering, and on the other end, resilience can promote happiness, and closer to the centre of that spectrum we oscillate between the two. I suspect that most people alternate between survival mode and resiliency mode most of the time. There's this continual tension, or this push and pull, between these states of being because our perception of reality is ever-changing or impermanent.
It’s important to note that from a Buddhist perspective, happiness is underpinned by compassion and does not only include our own happiness but the happiness of everyone and everything.
According to Portland State University’s paper, “Happiness: The Empirical Science of Happiness and the Philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama (2020) states, “happiness is found through love, affection, closeness and compassion,” and “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Buddhists place emphasis on and draw a direct connection between happiness and the practice of compassion.
Study Buddhism by Berzin Archives explains that compassion itself is a desire for oneself and others to be free from suffering and to take actions that support this quality. Understanding our interconnectedness is key to living with compassion. To Buddhists, all of this encompasses happiness ,and there is great attention placed upon it.
It’s important to note that happiness in the Buddhist context does not mean toxic positivity.
According to Psychology Today, “Toxic positivity is the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying your own emotions or someone else denying your emotions, insisting on positive thinking instead.”
Contrary to the concept of toxic positivity, an essential aspect of mindfulness is noticing the present moment and being aware of all of our emotions, amongst other things.
Buddhists call suffering dukkha. According to Tricycle - Buddhism for Beginners, “The Buddha taught there are three kinds of dukkha. The first kind is physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life, like old age, sickness, and death. The second is the distress we feel as a result of impermanence and change, such as the pain of failing to get what we want and of losing what we hold dear. The third kind of dukkha is a kind of existential suffering, the angst of being human, of living a conditioned existence, and being subject to rebirth. At the root of all kinds of dukkha is craving, or attachment.”
The article goes on to say that attachment, also known as grasping or avoidance, is at the root of suffering because “what we desire is never enough and never lasts.”
To be clear, survival is necessary. We all do it, and it’s important for our very existence. That being said, survival tends to focus more on our attachment to meeting our immediate basic needs (i.e., food, shelter, safety, security, etc.). And, going back to what Nicole Manes said, there’s an immediacy piece which is central to survival (How am I going to satisfy my craving right now? How am I going to placate my fears right now? How am I going to continue to live right now?)
Survival in of itself just cares about surviving at any cost, and that’s where the distinction is drawn with resilience. Survival is not destructive when it is being supported by resilience. In other words, you can be resilient and survive in ways that serve your greatest good, but you can’t survive alone and guarantee that your actions will benefit your well-being. Part of the reason is the attitude that we bring to situations. For example, when we approach problems with an attitude of introspection or reflection prior to taking action, we embody more resilient ways of being, whereas survival is often reactive. When we make knee-jerk choices from a place of fear, desperation, anxiety, addiction, etc., it might deliver us immediate comfort and help us survive in the moment, but these decisions might not benefit our greatest good in the long run.
Going back to what Niiamah Ashong said, there is something about playing the long game that is very present with resilience, since one can argue that we never truly arrive at being 100% resilient in every facet of our lives. The idea being that we grow our capacity of resilience over our entire lifetime even if we don’t overcome a specific adversity.
Causal factors
Tenzin Gawa’s dharma talk on impermanence inspired me to represent this concept as a diagram, which I call the Eye of Impermanence. As you can see in the illustration below, survival and resilience are separate yet overlap, and to a certain extent, they coexist. As I said, both of them are influenced by our perception of reality. If we embody qualities of happiness (which is underpinned by compassion), then we can, through this lens of awareness and acceptance, achieve more balance, calmness, vitality, hope, and clarity. We are also more reflective instead of reactive, which allows us to connect with our core values and live life from a place of integrity.
On the other hand, when we are in a state of survival, there is more instability due to our resistance and reactiveness to life’s situations. Perhaps there is more anxiety and depression because of our attachments or grasping. In some situations, we might arrive at a place of absolute despair because of our inability to think our way out of a difficult situation. This is where the acceptance and surrender piece comes in.
The illusion is resisting the truth of what is and craving that which we don’t have instead of accepting what is and working towards improving our existing situation. We might acquire quite a few skills in the survival state, but it’s more about patching up problems than arriving at resolutions. Resilience allows us to accept what is from a reflective stance and take conscious steps towards bettering our lives. Survival is often about tackling problems from a reactive standpoint.
Of course, what influences our survival and resiliency is our perception of reality in relation to the events, circumstances, stresses, and traumas in our lives.
As I alluded to at the very top of this piece, our perception of reality motivates our decision-making, our response to life’s adversities, and ultimately our ability to be happy and resilient, or suffer and survive.
The following is what can challenge and influence our decision-making to act from a place of resilience versus survival:
1. Event: i.e,. losing a job, car crash, death of a loved one
2. Circumstance: i.e., cancer, financial hardship, addiction
3. Stress: i.e., triggers, external and internal pressures, etc.
4. Trauma: i.e., emotional, physical, psychological injury
Tips on how to shift your perception of reality
Below are some tips on how we can become more resilient and happy.
1. Acceptance
Allowing yourself to let go of any resistance to your existing situation, accept what is, see things through the lens of awareness, and make choices from a place of compassion and courage as opposed to fear and despair.
2. Balance
Instilling more equilibrium in your life, i.e., balancing work with play (hobbies), socializing with friends and family, talking to a therapist, addressing unhealthy situations (partner/job), etc.
3. Calmness
Calmness allows you to experience the present moment from a place of equanimity. A great way to reach a state of calmness is to incorporate grounding practices into your life, i.e., connecting with nature, mindfulness exercises, etc.
4. Vitality
A key element of experiencing vitality is connecting with your body. Physical activity is a great pathway to tap into your vitality, i.e., walking, running, riding a bike, yoga, etc.
5. Hope
In a similar way that acceptance helps to promote a state of resilience, being hopeful supports resilience as well. There’s a direct link between hope, faith, and trust. Trusting in oneself and believing that the things that you are doing to progress yourself forward is fundamental. Equally as important is having hope or faith that somehow you are moving in the right direction.
6. Clarity
Clarity emerges when we accept things as they are. It’s the source of wisdom. Going back to my definition of resilience, there are qualities such as humility that allow us to look within and examine the truth of our existing situation and take actions that support our well-being and desire to overcome undesirable circumstances.
7. Reflection
Taking time to think things through and process problems before acting upon them, as opposed to reacting to situations, is critical in making wiser choices that can help foster a better future. Instead of aimlessly and recklessly throwing darts, when we are in a reflective state, we are thoughtful and strategic in our decision-making. This is an essential part of being mindful and creating a healthier perception of reality, one that is happier and more resilient.
8. Values
Making choices that are rooted in good values, such as honesty and integrity, is so important in living an authentic life that is not motivated by fear and trying to conform to what we believe our friends, family, and society want us to be or meet an artificial ideal that we have for ourselves. We can have all the skills in the world, but if they are not backed up by good values, we end becoming everything to everyone else and we don’t have anything left for ourselves.
Related article: One Mindset Shift That Could Change Your Life in a Polarizing World
Recap and learn more about resilience and survival
Resilience and survival are different, but they overlap based on our perception of reality and our motivations behind our actions in dealing with a given adversity or life circumstance. Whether we operate from a place of resilience or survival really depends on our viewpoint and response to life’s problems or challenges. In other words, do we actively try to embody states of happiness, or do we default to states of suffering, which don’t necessarily serve our greatest good?
On that final day at the Buddhist template, the monks ceremonially dismantled their mandala and separated the mixed sand pile into small sachets and handed them out to everyone present - a reminder of the impermanence of life and a keepsake that we are each responsible for our state of being despite its ever changing nature.
To learn more, book me for a talk and consultation today. To listen to The Stumbling Spirit Podcast, click here or find it on your favourite podcast streaming platform.
Read more from Fabio da Silva Fernandes
Fabio da Silva Fernandes, Resilience, Mindfulness, and Reiki Enthusiast
For most of his professional career, Fabio da Silva Fernandes worked in the tech industry as a customer support leader. About a decade ago, Fabio began his mindfulness journey incorporating the practice of presence into his life on a regular basis. In his pursuit of personal wellness, Fabio attained several mindfulness certifications and in 2018, delved into the world of energy work and started his Reiki training. Fabio is now a certified Reiki Master and Reiki Master Teacher. In 2021, Fabio left his career in fintech to launch his own wellness business called, Resting Bell Wellness Inc., which is now branded under the name of his resilience podcast, The Stumbling Spirit.
