Resiliency is the answer – Dr. Karen Reivich is our Captain Kirk.
CSM’s Blog day 8,
Instructor training day 2. Finding it hard to think…too much stuff in brain…must focus now… I imagine the original Star Trek series with CPT James T Kirk pushing the crew through some out-of-body experience in order to save the Starship Enterprise and the federation of planets from sure destruction.
The task at hand is as large and of no less importance than the scenes played out on the 70’s Sci-fi series only it’s not TV. The reality in fact is much more significant than we could ever dramatize in a fictional television show. It can’t be fixed in a sixty minute time slot. Resiliency is the answer – Dr. Karen Reivich is our Captain Kirk.
Setting the scene:
Our Soldiers spend time in preparation for a very real war, they go to a place that puts them at risk to witness loss of life and real danger. We bring them home and try to patch them up mentally and physically then pat them on the fourth point of contact, (non-airborne personnel see parachute landing fall,) and get them back to their families. Very quickly each Soldier is expected to rebound and refit for the next operation. What tools are we using to ensure that they are able to bounce back? Why do we have to wait until they need patching up to start giving them the read-ahead necessary to ensure they do bounce back? Big questions senior leaders are asking and this course is the answer to those questions. The wheel is not being reinvented here, it’s being shaped in order to roll through the terrain it’s expected to perform on.
“We’re giving her all we got Captain.”
We teach problem solving skills by learning the key issues involved in the process including biases or preconceived ideas about what went wrong to begin with. I got it, you know the Army’s problem solving model. Do your Soldiers understand it? Can they quickly implement it in order to avoid consistent patterns? Most probably can, but we’re talking about every Soldier in your ranks and just as important, every family member. What are we doing to tune it up before it breaks?
“She’s (ship) not built to handle this.”
We teach a little tool called “Put It In Perspective.” Worst case, best case and most likely case scenarios to give Soldiers practice in real time keeping them from falling into destructive thought patterns. We practice the skills relentlessly to hone them into tools we can share with who weren’t built to handle it. Even those we take for granted who were “built to handle it,” have issues that sometimes cause these destructive patterns to arise. We learn to teach in order that all may have shared knowledge.
“We’re not miracle workers.”
We teach “Real Time Resilience” (RTR) because everyone has thoughts that at some point, in spite of every known method of preparation, there are inadequacies just prior to executing the mission. RTR is a mental thought process that allows you to argue with yourself in order to remove doubt and fear in order to accomplish the mission. The best of the best have thoughts about preparedness prior to the mission, checking and rechecking all systems to ensure they’re ready at H hour. We may not have time for perfection, but three statements in RTR allow us to beat back the clouds of personal doubt. 1. That’s not completely true… (evidence) 2. A more optimistic way of seeing this is… (optimism) 3. The most likely implication is…(perspective.)
Practical application:
Argument: “We’re giving her all we got Captain.”
Use no 1. That’s not completely true, Scotty. If we tweak the Xbox and shut down IPod support for thirty seconds we will have enough resilience to bump past the outer limits of gravity in the black hole of doubt.
Argument: “She’s not built to handle this.”
Use no 2. A more optimistic way of seeing this Scotty is that she’s all we got Scotty, and she’s pulled through a lot of tight spots – we prepared for this and we’re going to ensure we make it through… we’re all going to make it.
Argument: “We’re not miracle workers.”
Use no 3. The most likely implication Scotty, is that we don’t have to be. We just have to be able to complete what we’ve been trained to do, our piece of the mission. Others are involved in the process and as we depend on them, they depend on us. Together we can…
Our Captain Kirk guides us through this process as any good Captain does, ensuring we understand the importance of the mission and the complications of dealing with the unknown before we actually have to face it. The crew ensures we get it right.
P.S. Talked to wife tonight. She’s working on these skills without knowing it. Last night her mother told her she may have to take a traveling nurse job. She’s recently retired and figured out it aint easy living on retirement pay. She’s also our sitter. What will we do with the kids? Who’s going to work with son on his homework after school? Who’s going to pick the kids up from school? (Wife plays both parents as I am 1500 miles away. She also works full time). As she worked through the problem solving model, putting it in perspective and RTR, she demonstrated the strategies taught in this course – 1500 miles away – without even knowing what she was doing. She’s resilient, and I am thankful.
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness 
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