CORE PREEEMPTIVE RESILIENCY

When we think of someone tough as stone, we most often first think of their physical durability; yet the best research on human survival with relation to resiliency reveals people who overcame tremendous threats to their life and yet were physically weaker than others who could not. What we found was a common thread of mental resiliency that resulted from the cognitive way they processed their circumstances. The most profound demonstration of this to us were studies done with Nazi concentration camp survivors on what they believed made the difference in their survival. The data revealed that the common principles they relied upon were made effective by way of Neuroplasticity--a concept mostly rejected and only theorized in the neurological world, until it was confirmed by highly advanced brain scans in the early 2000s.

If whatever resiliency you are operating with right now is what comes natural to you, then you will likely reach a place where it is not enough. What comes natural to a first responder, after all, will eventually be tested by what is unnatural. 

No one becomes tough as stone physically without physical conditioning, and in the same way muscles grow and become stronger through physical conditioning, our minds become stronger through mental conditioning.

But not just any conditioning. It must be preemptive in its nature; after all, athletes don't wait to train on the day they compete.

The past 30+ years of mental health provisions for first responders have mostly involved damage control, rather than any preemptive measure to avoid a mental health crisis in the first place. Measures like incident debriefings and peer support  teams are most often post-conflict resolution services, meaning a mental health likely already exists.