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The Resilience Wiki project was curated by Jonny Miller (Curious Humans) and Jan Chipchase (Studio D) as part of the Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report.
🎓 Join the Nervous System Mastery Training here
📝 Read the Emotional Resilience in Leadership Report here
★ This is a crowdsourced wiki—we invite readers to use the form below + add suggestions.
*most recently updated on 9th August, 2023
⌘/ctrl + P to pull up a search bar and find precisely what you're looking for or jump to a section using the table of contents below:🙋♂️ I Might Be On the Edge of Burnout...
🔥 If you are currently in fire-fighting mode and concerned that some degree of emotional debt has already accumulated—the first order of operations is to acknowledge that there is a problem and that the default path is unsustainable. With so much going on we all lose sight of the broader perspective at times, so it’s vital that we have regular check-ins.
❓ Three Questions to Ask Yourself
Q1. How do I genuinely feel? How does my body feel? Am I tense? How is my quality of sleep? When was the last time I felt deeply relaxed and rejuvenated? (this requires some degree of interoception)
Q2. Have I accumulated significant emotional debt? Does this way of living and working feel sustainable? Do I have tendencies to numb and distract myself? Am I prone to emotional outbursts?
Q3. What is my immediate recovery strategy? What are the non-essential tasks that I can delegate or eliminate to free up time for recovery and self-care? How could I set clear boundaries with my time and energy? What are the activities that nourish me and restore my vitality? Can I use bottom-up protocols to shift my state?
🕵️♂️ Have the Courage to be Curious
Burnout symptoms vary significantly depending on the individual and their respective levels of mental and emotional exhaustion.
Self-care practices are essential for returning to baseline, but it is vital to note that these are ultimately insufficient if not paired with self-inquiry to bring awareness to the underlying internal stressors.
Remember that no matter how much in each moment you are suffering, there are always two choices:
- Numb the pain. Distract, ignore + push down. Close down and carry on.
- Get curious. Have the courage to enquire + feel into the discomfort.
This might sound simple but it is not easy. It takes courage to choose the latter and engage with discomfort. One of the great ironies of walking the path of resilience is that in the moment it feels like weakness.
In the short term, it will be tempting to stay in autopilot, to continue to numb by working longer hours or pretending that the problem will go away, at least until some version of rock-bottom is reached.
😨 Identify & Address Shadow Stressors
For those ready and willing to engage with practices for self-enquiry, a powerful starting point is the following question whom the executive coach Jerry Colonna is fond of asking: ‘In what ways are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?’
The word complicit is chosen deliberately since it implies that you are neither fully responsible nor a victim of the circumstances. The question invites honest conversation and self-reflection.
Don’t go down this path alone. Having a coach, therapist or trusted group of fellow leaders on the same path will increase the odds of staying on track when it gets challenging. Below is a sampling of internal stressors with suggestions for countermeasures:
| Internal stressor | Description | Countermeasures |
|---|---|---|
Recovery guilt. | Believing that we have to seek permission from others or ourselves to switch off and recharge. | Permission. Grant yourself permission slip to take time for mental rejuvenation, creative play and physical recovery. |
Excessive pride. | A belief that as leaders we need to be self-reliant and capable of navigating all challenges without outside assistance. | Ask for support. Be willing to ask for emotional support and guidance from trusted peers, family members, therapists, coaches or mentors. |
Foolish grit. | Mistaking commitment for workaholism, stubbornly forging ahead and not listening to physical or emotional warning signs | Self-enquiry. Asking what story or belief might be underneath a perpetual desire to forge ahead, lose sleep or keep your nose to the grindstone at all costs. |
Fixed mindset. | Believing that ‘this is just the way it is’—not appreciating that nervous systems and brains are neuroplastic and thus have the capacity to learn and rewire. | Growth mindset. Viewing certain stressors as an opportunity for growth and reframing their context with personal values e.g. “I’m stressed about [XXX] because I deeply care about [YYY]” |
Lack of perspective. | Catastrophizing, projecting into the future and imagining current challenges to be insurmountable. | Equanimity. Can be trained through mindfulness practice, untangling identity from work and remembering that ‘this too shall pass’. |
Imposter syndrome. | Leaders often report experiencing a harsh ‘inner-critic’ which gets in the way of self-care practices. | Kind words. Start collecting ‘kind words’ in a note file on your computer as a reminder of how you have helped others. |
📆 Schedule Emotional Regulation Activities in the Calendar
Emotional regulation and self-inquiry practices are the missing piece from many leaders’ toolkits. We define these as self-guided or facilitated practices designed to relieve the burden of accumulated emotional debt.
Gathering information and resources is the first step, but without committed and consistent routines and rituals, meaningful progress will be limited. As a proverb from a Papua New Guinean tribe goes ‘Knowledge is only a rumour until it lives in the muscle’.
As with climbing out of financial debt, they may need to be front-loaded in the beginning and then scheduled on a less frequent basis once the majority of the debt has cleared.
To be clear, strong emotions like anger or frustration will still arise—what will change with practice, is the efficiency with which they are processed and integrated, often resulting in greater self-awareness.
This work is not easy and there is no silver-bullet solution. What matters is a commitment to the process. We recommend diving in and keeping track of your resilience experiments and the insights that emerge. The list below is by no means exhaustive but aims to share some techniques we believe to be effective.
⛑️ Emotional Debt Relief
👪 Community Contributed Resources
🧘 Metta Meditation // "It's a form of meditation that focuses on loving kindness and compassion for yourself and others around you. Little has been as effective for lower my blood pressure and change my mindset. It's especially helpful when in conflict with others"—shared by @jkleske
👪 CTO Craft // "Peer mentoring community for CTOs and other tech leaders, with Mentoring Circles and Coaching. I began the community in response to a lack of support for startup CTOs and a growing rate of burnout and failure among first-timers"—shared by @andyskipper
🧰 Additional Recovery Tools
🧘 Guided Meditation Introductions
- Waking Up App // In-depth 30 day course for beginners by Sam Harris
- Headspace // In particular their series on relieving anxiety
- Responsive Meditation // A guide that unbundles various meditation techniques.
- Oak Meditation // Breathing App (simple and delightfully designed by Kevin Rose)
🌬️ Breathing Techniques + Breathwork
- Othership App // Guided breathwork practices for nervous system regulation
👨💻 Wearable Technology + Health Tracking
- Parasym // Vagus Nerve Stimulation Device
- Oura Ring // minimal HRV and sleep tracker that gives helpful biofeedback.
🙅♂️ Setting Boundaries
- How to Say No // Templates to help you say no in any situation.
📝 Journaling Courses + Apps
- Reflection.App // beautifully designed journaling app via Holstee
📚 Deeper Reading Guide
📝 Articles & Guides
- Recovering from Burnout by Kieran Tie
- How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt via Every
- The Art and Science of Interoception via Every
- The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional via Every
- How Micro-stressors can lead to burnout via HBR
- The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System via Every
- How to take personal development off the backburner via FirstRound
- How to build social connections on a remote team via KnowYourTeam
- The 7 Things the Most Successful People I Know Struggle to Be Happy via Leo Widrich
🎙️ Podcast Episodes
📚 Books to Educate Yourself
1 // ‘Anchored’ by Deb Dana – one of the most accessible and well-written books on the science of Polyvagal Theory & how to apply it to your everyday life with field-tested techniques.
2 // 'The Breathing Cure' by Patrick McKeown — an in-depth collection of breathing protocols backed by 20+ years of field research. You’ll never mouth breathe again after reading this.
3 // 'Widen the Window' by Elizabeth Stanley – a superb introduction to the science of trauma, what it means to increase resilience & research-backed tools for increasing your capacity in life.
4 // ‘Nurturing Resilience’ by Kathy Kain – a superb read, although more of a book for clinical practitioners or those who are looking for a deep dive into the world of somatic therapy & working through developmental trauma.
5 // ‘The Practice of Embodying Emotions’ by Raja Selvam, PhD ~ this is a book containing a treasure trove of research + practices for building greater embodied capacity to be with intense emotions. Highly recommended for those wishing to dive deeper.
6 // ‘The Myth of Normal’ by Gabor Maté - Fresh off the press is Gabor’s attempt to distill over 4 decades of his clinical experience, making the case that the common definition of 'normal' is false & painting a compelling picture of what a saner society might look like.
🙋♂️ Recommended Executive Coaches
We aim to populate this list with vetted and world-class coaches who are nominated and highly recommended by those we trust…
