Welcome to Resilience: The Very Stuff of Life. My name is Cathy Hartt and you can learn more about my personal path to resilience at this link.
The “Stuff of Life” and How Resilience Can Help
This website and blog were born out of my desire to find the intersection between nurse-midwifery and positive psychology.
In her well-known quote from Call the Midwife, Jennifer Worth states, “Midwifery is the very stuff of life. Every child is conceived in love, or lust, and born in pain followed by joy, or by tragedy and anguish. Every birth is attended by a midwife. She is in the thick of it. She sees it all.”
Positive psychology is not about always being happy or not feeling negative emotions. That’s a common misconception. Positive psychology is not the same as the positive thinking. Here are 3 distinctions, as outlined by the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Positive psychology is evidence-based, researched science.
- Positive psychology does NOT advocate for always being in a good mood, negative emotions serve a purpose.
- Positive psychology is a recognized supplement to traditional psychology, taking a step towards helping people lead more authentically lives.
If nurse-midwifery is about helping people through joy, tragedy and anguish (“stuff”) and resilience is about learning strategies to help people bounce back using evidence-base strategies, the match seems obvious. (Nurse-midwifery is broader than birth – in the US, Certified Nurse Midwives care for women throughout the lifespan. Certainly, Call The Midwife exemplifies this through their work in district nursing practice in the UK.)
I used words from Worth’s quote to highlight that midwifery and resilience are both about dealing with a wide set of life circumstances. It is NOT my intention to focus on birth with my blogs. My reason for bringing in the midwifery quote is to stress that positive psychology resilience can help anyone through life’s challenging “stuff.”
Short Term Plans For The Blog:
Short term plans are to create blog posts about positive psychology and resilience. I envision blog posts focused mainly on evidence-based resilience-building strategies. But, as I was deciding on my domain name it occurred to me that resilient stuff also suggests things in nature – things that bounce back based on physical traits. That ranges from snow to rescue dogs to plant life. The list goes on! It’s going to be fun to see what resonates with blog readers.
Long-Term Plans: Community and Online Education
Long-term plans include offering classes on various aspects of resilience. My initial vision is to offer both local and online classes. I feel the natural niche is to offer classes through existing community organizations. Globally, I plan to design educational offerings for those working in the healthcare workplace.
It’s early – plans often change. I wanted to hop on and get a little website going to keep me inspired!. I welcome reader input. Please feel free to email me with suggestions!
Resilience - The Very Stuff Of Life 