RESILIENCE: LEARNING FROM THE WOUNDED OYSTER
“When we admire the splendor of a pearl, we never think that it is born from the disease of a shell. (Karl Jaspers)
Resilience from Latin "to resist" which means to bounce, to jump back.
Resilience is a term whose meaning is borrowed from materials science, which has identified the property of some elements to retain their original shape after being deformed and crushed.
In psychology, the term resilience is currently used to define people's ability to deal with traumatic and stressful events, actively reorganizing their lives in the face of difficulties.
Even from traumatic situations, if experienced and actively addressed, it is possible to produce something new and precious, like a pearl.
Do you know how a pearl is born from an oyster?
The pearl is the product of pain, caused by the entry into the oyster of a foreign substance, such as a parasite or a grain of sand.
When a grain of sand enters the oyster, the nacre cells inside the oyster cover the grain with several layers to protect the oyster's defenseless body.
The result of this whole process is the formation of the pearl.
The pearl, therefore, is a healed wound.
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