This is NPR's LifeKit, I'm TKJTess.

When people would call me resilient, I would say thank you,

but it didn't feel like a compliment.

I couldn't put my finger on it.

It's one of the weirdest compliments one could get.

It's the only one where a person makes a pity face when they say,

you're so resilient, and then that face.

So, in addition to thinking up witty retorts, I wondered,

what it really means to be resilient?

Well, the American Psychological Association defined it as,

quote, the process and outcome of successfully adapting to

difficult or changing life experiences,

especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility,

and adjustment to external and internal demands.

To put it another way.

When we're talking about resilience, it's a psychological term.

So, we're talking about a process that involves adapting positively

in the context of significant adversity.

That's Lord's Dolores Follens.

She's a psychotherapist and a licensed clinical social worker.

She says resiliency isn't something that you have.

It's something that you work at developing, like muscles.

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