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Amid rising rates of anxiety and depression, being ‘more resilient’ has become a popular catch cry of podcasters, influencers and life coaches. But have we lost sight of what it actually means to be resilient? This episode of Insight asks, is resilience all it’s made out to be? Watch Challenging Resilience on Tuesday 8th April at 8.30pm (AEST) on SBS or .
To say Milena Cifali has had a tough few years would be an understatement.
In the summer of 2019 she was in Brisbane with her partner, deciding how to see in the new year when the pair received a phone call that upended their lives.
“A friend of ours in Mallacoota, said ‘I’ve just driven past your house. There’s nothing left. It’s all burned down’,” Milena told Insight.
Later they saw their home on national television.
“We saw the rubble. We saw the ash. We knew that our pets were gone, that they’d died.

“In that moment, you can’t possibly process what you’ve lost because there’s too much to comprehend.”

A house flattened and blackened by a bushfire.

Milena and her partner were in Brisbane during the summer of 2019 when their home in Mallacoota, Victoria, was destroyed in a bushfire. Source: Supplied

Two years later, after eventually resettling in Brisbane, Milena returned to the coastal town she once called home to seek closure from the fires. But what was meant to be a journey to heal culminated in another tragedy.

“I parked in a friend’s driveway, got out to get my luggage out of the boot, and the car started rolling,” Milena said.
“I was trapped under it for about 20 minutes.”
She broke her hip, degloved the muscles in her leg and was hospitalised for three weeks. She came home in a wheelchair and even now, relies on a crutch.

“Strange closure.”

A woman using crutches stands on the footpath by the beach. She's wearing a billowy blue and white dress.

Milena was run over by a car, under which she was trapped her for 20 minutes. Source: Supplied

Milena experienced what she describes as compounded trauma — when one adverse life event piles on top of another.

“If you go through one particular trauma or moment of adversity and then something else gets stacked on top of that and something else, it becomes rather more difficult to navigate.”
For her, resilience is a positive and important quality — one she describes as central to moving forward with her life after enduring so much loss on a financial, emotional and physical level.

“I think the central theme is hope. If you’ve got hope, you’re going to be able to bounce back from trauma and adversity and find a way through.”

People ‘forced to be an inspiration’

Milena’s experience of living through compounded traumatic events resonates with Natasha Sholl, though Natasha sees the term ‘resilience’ differently.

Like Milena, Natasha’s life has been layered by difficult experiences — or as she describes it, “a depressing CV”.

A woman in a black top leans back against the wall with a serious expression on her face.

Natasha believes the term ‘resilience’ has been weaponised. Source: Supplied

In her 20s, her boyfriend died suddenly while they were sleeping. As she was rebuilding her life, her brother also died without warning. Then in 2022, her 12-year-old son Ezra was diagnosed with cancer and severe Guillain-Barre syndrome, which has left him paralysed.

She believes the term resilience can be unhelpful, placing the burden of responsibility on the individual rather than the community.
“It’s almost been weaponised now to force people to be an inspiration when in a lot of cases, there’s no choice,” she said.

“The term resilience doesn’t show the sacrifices made … and the things that really go underneath the surface.”

A mother lies next to her sick son on a hospital bed.

Natasha’s 12-year-old son Ezra was diagnosed with cancer and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which has left him paralysed. Source: Supplied

Natasha, now 42, resents the way our culture shapes a life tragedy as a learning experience.

“It tries to repackage trauma to make it palatable for the general public to say: ‘this terrible thing happened, but it’s okay because you’ve learned from it’.

“I’m not necessarily a stronger version of myself. I’m just a different version of myself.”

I’m not necessarily a stronger version of myself. I’m just a different version of myself.

Natasha Sholl

Honouring our emotions

A quick search on TikTok or YouTube yields no shortage of influencers, self-help gurus and motivational speakers selling quick fixes to becoming more ‘resilient’ — a phenomenon that has some experts alarmed.
“I think we have to understand that people don’t necessarily choose to be resilient,” Helen Street, social psychologist and associate professor at the University of Western Australia, told Insight.
“The tougher the times that people experience, the more resilient they need to be. So it’s problematic if we start talking about resilience as some sort of desirable trait.”
She says we need to be careful not to judge people on how they react to challenging situations, which can lead to “people being upset about being upset or panicking that they’re not getting through something in a socially acceptable way fast enough”.

“We need to honour people’s experience.”

That ‘grin-and-bear-it’ or ‘just-keep-swimming’ approach to resilience may be popularised online, but Street says wearing that psychological armour or trying to be “relentlessly cheery” is not realistic.
“This idea of just pushing on through is shutting you down from the opportunity to embrace and deeply connect and take the risk of forming meaningful relationships around you.”
For Street, resilience is about our ability to navigate change. If we’re accepting of change, we’re less likely to feel resentment or that life is unfair, she adds.

“[It’s being able to] honour those negative emotions, and then be able to find new ways to connect with the world that help you move forward.”

Choosing our reaction

Alex Noble agrees resilience is about “adaptation”.
His life changed in October 2018 when he was pulled down during a rugby game, smashing his head into the dirt.
“All of a sudden, in that split second, I couldn’t feel anything; I couldn’t move anything, and I was literally lying there in the middle of the paddock, as a pair of eyes.”

Alex is now a C4 quadriplegic with very limited movement from the neck down.

“Everything I cared about and my whole life’s purpose got stripped away from me, just like that.”
In hospital, unable to move anything but his eyes, he knew he had two choices: give up and feel sorry for himself or fight. The answer was obvious.
“From then on, I haven’t looked back,” he told Insight.
Alex says he’s been forced to adapt to his new circumstances — and he’s proud of what he’s achieved.

“I may not have had the ability to control what happened to me. But I had and I always will have the power to control the way I respond to what happens to me.”
A young man in his wheelchair on a stage smiles with his arms in the air. Behind him, members of the audience also have their hands raised.

Alex says he’s been forced to adapt to his new reality since becoming a paraplegic — and he’s proud of what he’s achieved. Source: Supplied

He believes that before his spinal cord injury, he wasn’t that resilient.

“If something small went the wrong way, then I would … blow up, get angry … and not have control over my emotions.”
Now 22, Alex is studying a business and law degree and working in a law firm. He’s also founded his own boat rental company, he travels the world delivering keynotes and has published a book.
For him, resilience has come to mean getting back up when life knocks you down.

“[It’s] confronting it, adapting to it, overcoming it. But even more than that, growing from it and being better than you were before.”

The power of community
Milena says she’s also made the choice to “move through and beyond, rather than to be stuck”.
While many people see adverse events as making them tougher, she feels like they’ve made her “softer”.
“More compassionate, more understanding of what other people might be going through,” she said.
“My feeling now is: ‘how can I help others that are going through things?’ Because I can relate better to that sense of trauma.”
She believes a community can make an individual more resilient.

“Just with the sharing of togetherness and supporting and listening and talking. That’s all it boils down to — communication.”

Natasha says she’s also learned how important community and a collective approach is to fostering resilience.
“My social media is flooded with, you know, raising resilient children. I just scoff because [my son] and his siblings had no sort of exposure to what would be required of them.”

When tragedy strikes, people instinctively come together, she says.

A young child hugs their sick sibling who is intubated in a hospital bed.

Natasha says people naturally come together to support each other in tough times. Source: Supplied

“[My other children] naturally knew how to nurture each other; how to put their own needs second.

She says Ezra’s siblings spent every weekend in the ICU so they could spend as much time as possible with their brother.
“They weren’t trained for that — that just came from love.”
Readers seeking support with mental health can contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. More information is available at. supports people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
And for more stories on sex, relationships, health, wealth, grief and more, head to hosted by Kumi Taguchi. Follow us on the , , , or wherever you get your podcasts.
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