We’ve all used the word ‘resilient’ at one time or another to refer to family members, friends, colleagues, acquaintances or public figures who have experienced their share of life's hard knocks. This might include those who have had very difficult upbringings. Those who may be battling with personal illness. Those who have lost loved ones. Been laid off. Struggled career-wise or financially. Endured a series of bad relationships or unfortunate, even catastrophic, events.

Think of the following comment made by a work colleague in casual conversation over lunch: ‘My friend Amelia is so resilient. Despite being made redundant more than once and experiencing other personal setbacks, she's managed to run a business and raise three great kids all on her own.’ But what does it really mean to warrant this label, to be resilient like Amelia, or like Sofia, Marie, Robert, Anne, Chloe and Jacob, whose stories I captured in part at the start?

What is resilience?

George Bonanno, a leading psychologist on the topic of resilience, defines resilience as our ability as individuals, when we are experiencing a highly disruptive event, ‘to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning’ across time, despite transient perturbations (or in simpler terms, the occasional uneasiness), and our ‘capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions’. Resilience, therefore, is about recovering quickly and easily from stress.