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Build your resilience

Resilience is like a muscle you can build. It’s just a matter of knowing how. Whether you’re facing adversity yourself or supporting someone else who is, these resources can help. We’re always adding to our library of materials, so check back in from time to time.

Explore resources by category

  • Grief & Loss
  • Health, Illness & Injury
  • Abuse & Sexual Assault
  • Divorce & Family Challenges
  • Incarceration
  • Raising Resilient Kids
  • Resilience

Lessons from the book

Listen to Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant share key findings from Option B about how you can build resilience.

The Importance of Resilience with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity. It’s a skillset we develop over the course of our lives, and there are concrete steps we can take to build resilience long before we face any kind of difficulty.

The Elephant in the Room: Talking About Loss and Hardship with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

We often have a hard time talking about adversity—but staying silent can make our loved ones feel even more isolated after loss or hardship. This video offers simple ways to speak with empathy and honesty when our friends are suffering.

Fight Permanence to Build Resillience with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

One way we build resilience is by fighting permanence, which is the belief that our grief or pain will last forever. Watch Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant explain how taking steps to remind ourselves that even the most painful feelings won’t always be so intense can help us find the strength to heal.

Self-Confidence and Self-Compassion with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

When you treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you’d show a friend, that’s self-compassion. When you believe in your abilities, that’s self-confidence. We can practice self-compassion and develop our self-confidence on a daily basis to build resilience.

How to Support Your Loved One with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

We’ve all heard of the Golden Rule: treat others how you want to be treated. But the way you want to be treated when facing adversity may be completely different from how others want to be treated. To truly support your loved ones, use the Platinum Rule instead: treat others how they want to be treated.

Raising Resillient Kids with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant discuss how kids are often more resilient than we think. There are concrete things we can do to help them build that resilience, including making sure they know they aren’t facing adversity alone. They discuss the concept of mattering, which is knowing that others notice you, care about you, and rely on you.

How to Find Meaning After Loss or Trauma with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

After loss or trauma, we all hope to bounce back. Some of us manage to bounce forward. Learn how helping others gives our suffering meaning, allowing us to grow from the most difficult experiences of our lives.

Taking Back Joy After Loss or Trauma with Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

The guilt we feel after loss or trauma can prevent us from enjoying the things we love. But when we give ourselves permission to do what we love, we allow ourselves to reclaim joy in our lives.

Conversations with experts

Read Q&As with experts on how to build resilience in yourself, your family, and your community.

Raising Resilient Kids

Julie Lythcott-Haims on Raising Resilient Kids

A former Stanford dean—and a parent herself—shares why failure is an important part of growing into a successful adult.

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Grief & Loss

Coping With Loss and Finding Meaning with Chris Davis

A psychology professor has made it his goal to understand how people respond to illness and death. He shares ways that we can help ourselves, our friends, and our families grieve.

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Resilience

Jack Saul on Overcoming Trauma and Building Resilience

A leading trauma expert and clinical psychologist explains why talking about trauma helps the healing process.

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Divorce & Family Challenges

Building Resilient Families with Tamara Afifi

A professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an expert on family communication discusses how families can find opportunity in adversity.

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Abuse & Sexual Assault

Regaining Hope After Sexual Assault with Michelle Palmer

The executive director of the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing talks about how survivors of sexual assault have coped and regained hope after trauma.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Dr. Adrienne Boissy on Showing Empathy

The Cleveland Clinic's chief experience officer shares what she's learned from her patients about the power of empathy and acceptance.

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Grief & Loss

Joe Primo on Supporting Grieving Children

The CEO of Good Grief—and a former hospice chaplain—shares strategies to help children cope with the death of a loved one and make sense of tragedy.

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Resilience

Gautam Raghavan on Resilience in LGBTQ Communities

The Obama administration's liaison to the LGBTQ and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities shares insights about how we can take a stand against bullying and build resilience in LGBTQ communities.

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Grief & Loss

Julia Samuel on Changing How We Think About Grief

The UK’s leading grief expert discusses why we fear grief and pain—and shares ideas for how we can talk about them more openly.

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Expert talks and advice

Check out these recommendations and insights on how to face adversity in your life.

Resilience

How to Care for Yourself and Your Kids When Acts of Violence Are in the News

Mass tragedies—like school shootings and subway bombings— can take an emotional toll even when you aren’t directly affected. Learn how to care for yourself—and how to talk to kids—when the unthinkable happens.

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Resilience

How to Care for Yourself and Your Kids When Natural Disasters Are in the News

Understanding how you or your children might react can help you feel more prepared when the unthinkable happens.

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Divorce & Family Challenges

Practical Advice on Coping and Finding Happiness After Divorce

Author Wendy Paris shares key behaviors that help people bounce back after going through a divorce.

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Raising Resilient Kids

The 7 C's: Practical Ways to Build Resilience in Kids

Pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg identifies the qualities that help kids build strength and provides advice for parents to cultivate resilience.

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Resilience

Facing Adversity Through Building Resilience: A Guide to Grounded Hope

Writer and counseling psychologist Lee Daniel Kravetz describes five steps we can take to find realistic hope in the face of adversity.

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Grief & Loss

Being There: What to Say and Do in the Aftermath of Loss

This guide provides specific ways to help a grieving friend based on insights from members of The Dinner Party, a community focused on life after loss.

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Grief & Loss

Tips for Parenting After a Family Loss

Psychology professors Dr. Irwin Sandler and Dr. Sharlene Wolchik share strategies that parents and caregivers can use to help support children after the loss of a parent.

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Resilience

How to Cope During Hard Anniversaries, Birthdays, and Holidays

Some days can be harder than others. Use these strategies from Option B to find strength on hard days like holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays.

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Abuse & Sexual Assault

How to Support a Friend After Sexual Assault

Friends and family who want to be there for a loved one dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault sometimes don’t know what to say or do. The Joyful Heart Foundation helps survivors heal—and they shared these tips on how you can help a loved one cope with trauma with empathy and compassion.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Care for the Caregivers in Your Life

Experts from Hidden Heroes, a program that raises awareness about the challenges facing military caregiving families, share four steps you can take to help a caregiver recharge and feel supported.

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Resilience

How to start a conversation—and why it matters

If your friend is hurting, starting a real conversation about what they’re going through may be the most helpful thing you can do. Here are some tips on how to start one.

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Resilience

Help your loved one plan for significant days

Significant days like a birthday, holiday, or anniversary can be stressful for people dealing with grief, divorce, or illness. You can help them make plan for how to spend the day.

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Resilience

Building Resilience: How to Make Stress Your Friend

Psychologist Kelly McGonigal outlines how we can build resilience by connecting with and caring for other people during times of stress.

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Raising Resilient Kids

The Power of Believing that You Can Improve

Developmental psychologist Carol Dweck explains how kids who embrace effort and difficulty learn to take on challenges. They use a growth mindset—the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. Learn about this influential field of psychology, and the power of believing that you can improve.

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Raising Resilient Kids

Factors that Prepare Kids to Build Resilience

Resilience expert Ann Masten shares the factors that prepare kids to be resilient when faced with adversity.

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Grief & Loss

How to Heal By Carrying Your Grief

Grief expert Nancy Berns explains why we don't need closure to heal from loss. Rather, we can find freedom by carrying our joy and our grief together.

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Health, Illness & Injury

What to Say to Help Our Loved Ones After Tragedy

Boston Marathon bombing survivor Adrianne Haslet-Davis recommends small steps we can take to help our loved ones in the face of tragedy.

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Abuse & Sexual Assault

How We Talk About Sexual Assault Online

Writer and activist Ione Wells says we need a better approach to use social media for social justice. After she was the victim of an assault in London, Wells published a letter to her attacker in a student newspaper that went viral and sparked the #NotGuilty campaign against sexual violence and victim-blaming. In this moving talk, she describes how sharing her personal story gave hope to others and delivers a powerful message against the culture of online shaming.

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Resilience

How to Find Meaning In Our Challenges

Writer and psychologist Andrew Solomon encourages us to forge meaning from our struggles and build a new identity that incorporates even the worst events in our lives.

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Incarceration

How to Bounce Back After Incarceration

Lawyer Christopher Poulos describes how his past in prison has barred him from many opportunities. But he made a decision to follow positive direction, accept help, and live a life of recovery. Now, he’s a practicing lawyer and advocates for a combined approach to prison reform and dealing with addiction. He gives tips and advice for how to overcome life’s challenges and what he’s learned through his journey.

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Grief & Loss

Family Toolkit: Talking About Grief

Sesame Street developed this bilingual multimedia toolkit to help families communicate openly and effectively about grief and begin healing together.

Go to toolkit
Incarceration

Family Toolkit: Coping with a Loved One’s Incarceration

These resources from Sesame Street provide caregivers with advice for coping as a family and talking with children about the incarceration of a loved one.

Go to toolkit
Divorce & Family Challenges

Family Toolkit: Supporting One Another Through Divorce

Help kids find learning opportunities and make sense of separation and divorce with these videos, stories, activities, and more from Sesame Street.

Go to toolkit
Resilience

The Surprising Science of Happiness

Dan Gilbert, author of “Stumbling on Happiness” and social psychologist challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Gilbert describes how our “psychological immune system” can help us find happiness—synthetic or natural—when things don’t go as planned.

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Resilience

Why We Need to Change Our Response to Failure

Psychologist and author Guy Winch describes how changing our responses to failure can build resilience.

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Health, Illness & Injury

A Student's Philosophy for a Happy Life: Focusing on Joy

Student Sam Berns shares his four secrets to living a happy life, including focusing on what he can do rather than on what he can’t.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Yes, I Survived Cancer. But That Doesn’t Define Me.

Author Debra Jarvis explains how she claimed her experience with cancer by letting go of her old self and allowing a new self to emerge.

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Health, Illness & Injury

How to Fight for People With Disabilities

Activist Judith Heumann explains steps we can take toward a more inclusive world for people with disabilities.

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Raising Resilient Kids

How to Raise Successful Kids Without Overparenting

Former Stanford dean Julie Lythcott-Haims encourages parents to stop defining their children's success via grades and test scores and instead focus on developing self-efficacy.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Build Meaningful Connections and Empathy to Heal

Dr. Adrienne Boissy encourages us to build meaningful connections and develop empathy to help ourselves—and others—heal. She shares stories from her own life, and those of her patients, to show the importance of using language intentionally to show true compassion and to listen to and value others and their suffering.

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Abuse & Sexual Assault

From Victim to Survivor: Regain Power and Create Change

Advocate and sexual abuse survivor Lauren Book encourages us to dig into our pain to regain power and create change.

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Incarceration

The Importance of Compassion in Creating a Just Society

Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson emphasizes the importance of humanity and compassion in creating a just society.

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Divorce & Family Challenges

How to Recover After Divorce: Breakups Don't Have to Leave You Broken

Psychologist Gary Lewandowski shares how activities that help you rediscover yourself can also help you recover from divorce.

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Grief & Loss

How to Help Kids Grieve: Embrace the Process

Good Grief's Joe Primo, a former hospice chaplain and an expert on how to help children grieve, explains why we should embrace the process of grieving—and how the experience can lead to a richer life.

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Resilience

Build Resilience & Social Change in Conflict Affected Areas

Youth advocate Limabenla Jamir describes how resilience develops from social support in conflict-affected communities and how it can help young people drive changes in their societies.

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Resilience

Cheryl Strayed and Sheryl Sandberg on Being There

In a conversation with Cheryl Strayed, Sheryl Sandberg and the bestselling author talk about finding resilience in shared experiences and the enduring power of a mother’s love.

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Resilience

Sheryl Sandberg and Lee Woodruff: A Conversation on Recovery and Resilience

Lee Woodruff joins Sheryl Sandberg to talk about the experience her family went through after her husband, Bob, was critically injured on assignment for ABC News in Iraq.

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Inspiration

Explore inspirational articles and videos from across the web.

Health, Illness & Injury

My Life with Paralysis, It’s a Workout

Harvard student Valerie Piro explains how talking honestly and openly about her daily routine allows her to take control of her life’s narrative.

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Divorce & Family Challenges

How to Talk About Miscarriages

Roberta Thomson shares a powerful story about the secret grief of miscarriage in the hopes of letting others know they are not alone.

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Abuse & Sexual Assault

The View From the Victim Room

After speaking out against her attacker, a survivor of domestic abuse discovers that joy can be found even in great distress.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Living Beyond Limits: Growing from Life-Changing Events

World champion snowboarder Amy Purdy, who lost her legs at age 19, describes how facing an obstacle can ignite our imagination.

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Raising Resilient Kids

Sheryl Sandberg on How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss

Sheryl Sandberg shares what she has learned about the factors that help kids persevere through adversity.

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Grief & Loss

Lucy Kalanithi on What Makes Life Worth Living in the Face of Death

When Lucy Kalanithi's husband Paul was 36 years old, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. In his final months, he wrote “When Breath Becomes Air,” a reflection on facing death and finding meaning in the experience. Paul asked Lucy to publish his book after his death—she fulfilled that promise, and their family's story has moved millions of people around the world. Dr. Lucy Kalanithi shares what she learned about life through her husband's illness and death—that ‘being human doesn’t happen despite suffering—it happens within it.’

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Grief & Loss

You May Want to Marry My Husband

A moving tribute from a woman with terminal cancer to her husband—and an earnest wish that he finds love again.

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Grief & Loss

My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me

One year after his late wife gave him public permission to move on and find happiness, Jason B. Rosenthal shares what he has learned about grief and loss.

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Grief & Loss

The Journey Through Loss and Grief

Jason B. Rosenthal, the husband from the viral New York Times article “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” offers candid insights and wisdom for anyone experiencing life-changing grief.

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Health, Illness & Injury

Joan Barnes on the Importance of Vulnerability in Her Recovery from Bulimia

Gymboree founder Joan Barnes, who struggled with bulimia and an exercise addiction, shares how her recovery led to a more fulfilling career and life.

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