Resilience training

I went on a resilience training session this week.

I’m going to preface this by saying that I am very lucky that where I work allows us access to “soft skill” and managemental CPD – it’s not all advanced ultrasound and cattle lameness, you know!

I’ve made peace with the fact I suffer sporadically with anxiety and depression, and am in a really good place to be able to notice the aura of doom before they really hit hard – and I’m fortunate to have more than enough avenues to go down to cope with it.

Fortification

I’m coming out of what is probably quite a chronic, but low-grade, dip, during which I decided fortifying myself with some resilience training was a good idea – even if I am not terribly keen on the term itself. To me, saying a person needs to “improve resilience” implies an inherent weakness.

If we have to keep increasing the resilience of people in veterinary sectors, is that not indicative of a broken system?

If I keep on going to training, will I eventually just become bulletproof? Why are we trying to make people on the ground stronger when it is likely the crushing realities of a very difficult job making us this way? Is this the same in other professions? I genuinely want to know.

Weathering the storm

So, to resilience training: Why did I give up an afternoon to learn how to be tougher? And is that what resilience even means?

Turns out I wasn’t roundly patronised for half a day – which was nice. I learned resilience is the ability to cope despite an onslaught of external pressures.

But I don’t want to cope. I do cope. I want to thrive, and this is something the companies that deliver resilience training need to better focus on.

Others like you

Often the best things to come out of well-being focused CPD like this are the knowledge there are other people who share your struggles, and that, by getting together, you can all share strategies that have helped others get out of their respective ruts.

So, I guess the lesson I learned is that we need to talk, talk and talk some more about the pressures facing us as veterinary professionals. Talk until those who feel alone in their worries know their concerns aren’t so unique. Talk until those in a position to alter the structural pressures understand. Then talk some more until we fix it.

It’s nice to be resilient, but it’s also nice to not have to be.