What I appreciate most about Clear isn’t that he tells people to build better habits. It’s that he refuses to sell the fantasy that transformation happens in giant leaps. His work speaks to something I’ve seen over and over again in implementation science, in criminal justice, and in my own life, but didn’t always have the words for: meaningful change is usually small, repetitive, and not very sexy.

Clear has reminded me that resilient optimism isn’t an innate personality trait or a fleeting mood. Resilient optimism is an identity built through small, daily habits. Every time you choose to see a setback as a stepping stone, you aren’t just trying to “think positive.” You are casting a micro-vote for the identity of a resilient optimist.

Here are two atomic, as in very small, behavioral changes you can make to help build that identity.

1. Interrupt the Doom Loop with a Habit of Curiosity

One of the first small changes a resilient optimist can tackle is to choose curiosity over certainty, over and over again, even when it is really hard.

Your brain is wired to seek certainty, and that serves you well most of the time. But when you want to create change or continue on a specific path without becoming EFFD, you need to question your brain’s tendency to assume it knows all the facts.

To do this, look at curiosity through Clear’s framework of the Habit Loop: Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward.

The Cue: A setback happens (e.g., a project fails, a conversation goes sideways, etc.).

The Craving: Your brain experiences discomfort and craves a sense of control, safety, and immediate relief.

The Response: By default, your brain tries to satisfy that craving by jumping to the toxic certainty of blame, catastrophic thinking, or assumptions. To build resilient optimism, you have to consciously rewrite this step by acknowledging the assumption and choosing to always ask one more question. This is your new response.

The Reward: Instead of the fleeting relief of being angry or defensive, the reward of curiosity gives you new insights, a sense of agency, and a path forward that is likely better.

Here’s What You Can Try

Every day for three weeks, when you are engaging with another person, practice asking one more question. Do this every day for a time, and soon your new automatic response will be to ask questions instead of letting assumptions run unchecked. Curiosity becomes the atomic tool that disrupts the negative feedback loop before it takes over.

Like Clear said in his 3-2-1 newsletter in January 2021: “There are nearly endless opportunities to improve each day and finding them largely boils down to being curious.”

2. Engineer ‘Glimmers’ to Make Resilient Optimism Satisfying

Just as your brain wants certainty, it also wants safety. To keep you safe, your brain is constantly scanning for danger. It wants to catalog everything that’s wrong, broken, and absolutely not your fault. Your job as a resilient optimist is to disrupt that negative scanning pattern.

This is where you can weaponize Clear’s 4th Law of Behavior Change: Make it Satisfying.

Clear explains that your brain experiences a massive spike in dopamine during the anticipation of a reward, not just when you achieve it. If you only let yourself feel good when you reach a life goal, your brain starves for motivation during the daily grind.

Resilient optimists don’t wait for the big win. They look for small wins along the journey. As a dear colleague once told me, “If you want more joy in your life, you have to look for the glimmers of it.”

How to Stack Your Glimmers

Use Clear’s formula for Habit Stacking: pairing a difficult, necessary action with an immediate, joyful reward. By anticipating the glimmer, your brain finds the energy to push through the challenge.

Try stacking your day like this:

• Immediately after you finish a tedious project, I will take a quick walk with the dog.

• Immediately after I make that hard phone call, I will pour a second cup of coffee.

• While I clean the toilet, I will blast my favorite 90s jam.

When you intentionally anchor these little bits of joy to your daily routines, you disrupt your brain’s default cynicism. You learn to find satisfaction in the mundane, which ultimately protects you from the frustration of the setbacks that inevitably arise when you are trying to achieve something big.

Wrapping Up

Neither of these two atomic changes—asking more questions and looking for glimmers of joy—probably feels that remarkable. On their own, they aren’t dramatic, save-the-world kind of changes that give you a high on life that is hard to match. Nope. They are simple and small. But over time, they will help to shape your future self. They will shape what could be.

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A few people in the room, who I had been working with for years at that point, looked at me strangely, almost as if they were trying to figure out where the old Alex had gone. And then I noticed one of the most cynical people in the room nodding in agreement. He looked satisfied.

Ugh. That moment hit me like a good old-fashioned cold plunge. I remember leaving that meeting wondering, “Is this who I am now? Have I become the cynical person working the criminal/legal system who doesn’t believe people can change?”

At the time, I didn’t have language for what was happening. I just knew it was an all-around heavy feeling that I was carrying around. I felt less hopeful. I still cared about my work, maybe too much, but where I used to instinctively look for pathways forward, I found myself focusing on obstacles. Where I once saw possibility in people, I started predicting outcomes. Perhaps the most unsettling part was that it all felt justified, as if I had seen and experienced enough to know the future.

I Was Still the Same Ol’ Alex, But I was EFFD

Now, with some distance and a much deeper understanding of stress, burnout, and mindset, I have language for what was happening to me back then. I was still the same person. I hadn’t turned into a disgruntled government worker. My mindset needed a reset because it was EFFD:

• Exhausted,

• Frustrated,

• Fearful, and

• Defeated

In my experience, if you stay in an EFFD state long enough without interrupting it, you end up burned out and, frankly, f*cked.1

What I’ve come to understand is that EFFD is not burnout itself. It is the mindset that comes before burnout. It’s the slow narrowing that happens long before you are on the verge of quitting your job or relationship or whatever commitment is on your plate. It’s the place where your mind starts changing before your body forces you to pay attention.

People are walking around EFFD without even realizing it, especially those working in human-serving fields like healthcare, education, transportation, and government, among others. I’d argue that all this EFFDness is at the root of many system failures, too.

To be clear, all of us experience feelings of exhaustion, frustration, fear, and defeat sometimes. Feeling those emotions does not automatically mean you’re EFFD. True EFFD is a combination of those feelings layered on top of each other for a meaningful period of time that results in a pessimistic mindset. Once those states begin to reinforce each other, something deeper starts to happen.

Your Mindset Narrows

When you notice you aren’t open to new, different ideas and can only see things one particular way, that narrowing is one of the biggest warning signs. When I’m EFFD, I can feel it in my thinking before I feel it anywhere else. I stop seeing possibilities. I become attached to problems. I mentally rehearse worst-case scenarios as though they are inevitable outcomes. I become more rigid, more reactive, and far less curious. When you lose curiosity, along with it goes openness, flexibility, experimentation, and connection, attributes that are critical for maintaining resilient optimism.

EFFD convinces you there is no point in exploring because you already know how the story ends. The tricky part is that this mindset masquerades as realism. In fact, when you are deeply EFFD, your perspective feels rational. You start hearing yourself say things like, “That’s never going to change,” “We already tried that,” or “I know how this goes.” Because those thoughts are grounded in real disappointments and real experiences, they feel absolutely true.

But what I’ve come to realize is that EFFD doesn’t only shape how you feel. It shapes what you are capable of seeing. That’s one of the reasons I have become so passionate about resilient optimism as a form of mindset care. Because when you are deeply EFFD, traditional self-care isn’t enough to restore you on its own. You can benefit from a hike, a massage, a yoga class, or a weekend away. I still believe those things matter. But when I am EFFD, those activities feel more like temporary relief than meaningful and sustainable restoration.

For more long-term relief, you have to work on how you think, the narratives you reinforce, and the perspective you choose to practice. That is where resilient optimism enters the picture, not as toxic positivity or pretending hard things are not hard, but as an intentional practice of interrupting the narrowing before it calcifies into burnout. It is the ongoing discipline of staying open, curious, and connected to possibility even when life, systems, and people give you plenty of reasons not to.

Being EFFD, or a combination of feeling exhausted, frustrated, fearful, and defeated, is the precursor to burnout. If you can support your mindset by expanding your point of view, you might avoid the fallout.

We’re All EFFD Sometimes. Here’s What You Can Do About It.

I don’t think the goal is to never become EFFD. I think the goal is to recognize it faster, to notice when your thinking is shrinking and your pessimism is turning into futility. It’s also the goal to remember that your mindset is not fixed, even when it feels convincing. There is a lot you can do to change your mindset for the better.

That realization changed my life because once I understood EFFD as a mindset state instead of an identity, I stopped treating myself like I was broken and unfixable. I started treating my mindset like something I needed to actively care for.

Take the EFFD Assessment

I’ve developed a number of mindset care practices to help you work on your own mindset, whether you are EFFD or not. They’ll be outlined in my forthcoming resilient optimism book and workbooks, but for now, you can take my EFFD quiz to see where you land on the EFFD to Burnout Scale.

Follow this link to take the 5-minute assessment on my website. Once you’ve completed the questions, I’ll send you a mindset care practice that will help you reduce feelings of EFFD and hopefully avoid burnout, too.

Take the EFFD Quiz

I often hear, “Just wait it out,” because leadership or legislative changes are destined to make any progress futile. Another common phrase is, “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid,” which allows people to do absolutely nothing and then say, “I told you so,” when things fail. These folks love to point out all the things that could go wrong, which, in the justice system, usually involve budget money, the headlines, more crime, or all three.

When that perspective is challenged by people like me, someone who is trying her damndest to be an optimist in the hopes of creating some tangible change in a broken system, the response is usually something like, “I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.” Other people in the room will nod, because that sounds logical and mature, and I’ll be left standing in the corner with the other misfits who are labeled as naive.

The book on resilient optimism is coming soon! Sign up for the pre-order list on my website here.

I’ve been accused of being naive for most of my life. For the longest time, I believed it. My formative years were in Canada, and my parents were strict. I didn’t have the same schooling or experiences as my high school and college peers in America. When I didn’t understand what the other kids were saying, I chalked it up to my upbringing, but once I was well into my 30s, I began to see that it was more than that. It wasn’t that I was Canadian (eh!) or naive. I came to learn that I was resiliently optimistic™. I started to see realism for what it really was, too: Resignation.

About that Glass of Water…

I recently read this analogy: An optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The realist sees the glass with water to drink.

What I like about this age-old analogy, with a twist, is how it frames pessimism, optimism, and realism as mindsets. You aren’t a pessimist. You have a pessimistic point of view. You aren’t a realist. You have a realistic point of view. You aren’t even an optimist. You have an optimistic point of view. Right?

But the trouble with the glass-of-water analogy and the generally accepted thinking around realism is that it assumes pessimism and optimism are somehow wrong and that the realistic point of view is objective and correct. And that’s a problem, seeing how objectivity is an illusion.

Naive Realism

You likely believe you see the world exactly as it is, but research into naive realism suggests otherwise. Social psychologists argue that your personal perspective accounts for only about 10% of what is actually happening in any given situation, even though you might feel like you have 100% of the information2. This cognitive bias leads you to assume that anyone who disagrees with you is uninformed or irrational.

When you adopt the resiliently optimistic mindset, you acknowledge that you see reality as you are, shaped by your own biases, emotions, and past traumas, rather than seeing the world exactly as it is in its entirety. You take a pause and consider the other possibilities.

In the corrections system where I have worked for almost 30 years (gawd, I’m getting old), the realistic (and predominant) “it is what it is” mindset has led to little or no meaningful change, because those working in the system assume they know how the story ends. The program won’t get funded. The guy will only end up back in prison. The drunk driver will never get sober.

To me, that’s not realism. That’s pessimism. Leaning on this approach doesn’t offer a path forward. It doesn’t expand the conversation or invite new thinking. It simply reinforces what already exists.

And if what already exists isn’t working, then what exactly are you protecting?

Why Your Brain Wants You to Be Pessimistic

The human brain is designed to seek certainty, efficiency, and energy conservation. It does this through heuristics, or mental shortcuts, to reduce the cognitive effort required to make decisions and react. Heuristics are a gift because they help us avoid car accidents and conserve energy so we have enough mental space at the end of the day to play Block Blast. (My co-author is at 350,159 points, people!)

The trouble is, all this quick thinking leans on cognitive biases that can lead to irrational judgments and missteps. All this quick thinking is by design to keep you safe and sound, which means staying home and avoiding risks.

Who changes the world that way?

In a future Substack, I’ll talk about how understanding and counteracting cognitive biases is fundamental to becoming a resilient optimist. But for now, just know that you always need to take a pause, ask more questions, consider other points of view, and accept that you only know 10% of the facts, not anywhere near the 100% you assume you know.

I’m Part of the Problem

Pessimism, especially the kind that hides behind realism, has a narrowing effect. It scans for everything that could go wrong. It builds a case for why change is unlikely. It simplifies complex problems into fixed truths. And then, without much effort, it shuts things down.

There’s no room left for curiosity or space to explore. Just a convincing argument for staying exactly where you are. And here’s the part that’s uncomfortable for me to admit: I do this too.

There are moments, especially when I’m deep in exhaustion, frustration, fear, and defeat (what I refer to as EFFD), where I can feel myself slipping into that mindset. When I’m EFFD, I know it because I have a recurring set of limiting beliefs that show up:

• The criminal legal system is too big and too powerful to change

• The system and its people are too broken

• Some people are simply unmovable

• Politics and personal agendas are too powerful

• There are a million things that would have to change before this one thing ever could

In the moments when these thoughts or versions of them show up, it feels like clarity. Like I’m finally seeing things for what they are, and that the only way forward is to give up and move on. But if I slow down and really look at it, I can see that something else is happening. I’m not being realistic. I’m choosing pessimism.

I’m choosing the comfort of being right about why something won’t work over the discomfort of trying something different that might. This thinking becomes a self-fulfilling loop, too. I decide nothing will change, so I disengage from the project, committee, or whatever it is that I have on my plate. Then, when things inevitably stay the same, it reinforces my original belief. See? Nothing works.

And that resignation feels good. I get to go to my work buddies and talk trash about the people and plan that I had disengaged from. Now, not only have I succumbed to the realist trap, but I’ve also chosen to get my dopamine hit from gossip and whining instead of doing the hard work.

Logically, I know my biases and heuristics are at play, but still, when I resign myself, I have to own something I don’t particularly like to admit…I am part of the problem.

Are you?

How Resilient Optimism Fills the Glass of Water to the Brim

Resilient optimism operates differently than the traditional optimism we are all familiar with. It is more than half a glass of water.

Resilient optimists are grateful for that water, but they want more than that little bit. They want a well filled with water, big enough to offer water to everyone involved. They aren’t going to be persuaded from the effort to get it, either. Even by setbacks that would cause others to quit.

Remember, resilient optimism doesn’t deny reality. It’s not naive. It doesn’t ignore constraints or pretend things are easier than they are.

Here’s what resilient optimism does:

• Refuses to let constraints be the final word

• Zooms out and makes room for questions like, “What else might be true?”

• Seeks understanding from people and places that offer different perspectives

• Gets up and tries again tomorrow

Resilient optimism helps you to be more creative and see more possibilities. Learn more about it here.

The Invitation

Whatever you call it—pessimism, realism, practicality—it eliminates your agency. With it at the wheel, outcomes will remain the same. Systems stay broken. People struggle with their work to the point of burnout. Vulnerable populations are stuck in unhealthy cycles.

That’s why resilient optimism matters.

If you want to stay engaged in shaping what could be in systems like government, healthcare, education, or even in your office or home, I invite you to let go of realism.

Can you instead choose, again and again, to stay open, even when it is unrealistic?

Instead, I wrestle with nonstop thoughts. I try to focus on my breath, and then my thoughts multiply. I replay conversations, draft emails in my head, reorganize tomorrow’s schedule, or mentally solve problems that do not need solving in that moment.

I usually try for a few weeks, grow frustrated, give up, and then return again when life feels overwhelming enough to justify another attempt. Several years back, someone suggested I try yoga nidra, or yogic sleep, a guided meditation practice. I was told it promotes deep relaxation while your mind remains active. Sign me up, I thought! I was drawn to the structure of it and the idea that I wouldn’t have to generate the calm on my own, that someone’s voice would guide me there. I really wanted it to work.

What Happened Instead Terrified Me

I was lying in a dark yoga studio, following the teacher’s voice through a slow body scan. My awareness moved from my toes to my legs to my torso while my breathing continued to slow. Brooke, who happens to be one of my favorite teachers, then invited us all to notice when thoughts and images arose and let them float by.

Almost immediately, my mind filled with violent scenes like a child with a noose around her neck and dead birds littering the side of a road. These images came quickly and vividly, as though a door had opened inside me without permission. I remember thinking, with a kind of cold clarity, that something is deeply wrong with me. I left that session shaken, convinced that yoga nidra had unlocked something dangerous inside my psyche.

Then I did what most of us do when something scares us. I avoided it and judged it. I constructed a narrative about yoga nidra and told myself I simply wasn’t built for it. I did not think it was a safe place for me to go, and I swore I would never do a nidra again.

For a long time, I carried that experience privately. I did not want to say it out loud because doing so would confirm my fear that those images were evidence of something dark and ugly inside of me. The story I created leaned heavily toward shame. It suggested that the problem was not the practice but the person lying on the yoga mat who was capable of thinking horrible thoughts such as those. I mentioned it to Brooke over coffee once, but I felt so uncomfortable that I simplified the explanation: “I just don’t like nidra.”

Then, years later, on a retreat led by her in Taos, I took a look at the agenda and saw there was a planned nidra every single day. My stomach dropped when I saw it. I planned to quietly excuse myself, hoping to slip away unnoticed, but when I prepared to do so, she noticed, of course, and gently asked why. There was no graceful exit, so I quickly explained what had happened years before.

What Was Really Happening in My Brain During Yoga Nidra

As we were talking, Brooke’s brother, Ashton, overheard. He had been getting to know me throughout the day and knew about my work in the criminal legal system. He knew about the years I had spent inside prisons, in courtrooms, in spaces where people told stories of violence, loss, trauma, and harm. He listened carefully as I described the images that had surfaced during that first nidra. When I finished, he paused and asked one simple question: “Do you think those thoughts belong to you, or to the people whose stories you’ve heard and carried for decades?”

The question landed, and everything shifted for me. The images that had once felt like proof of something broken inside me suddenly made sense in a different way. They were not evidence of personal darkness. They were residues of stored, unprocessed traumas that I bore witness to. My nervous system had been doing exactly what nervous systems do when exposed to repeated trauma, even the vicarious kind: absorbing, filing, and holding material that had never been fully metabolized.

About vicarious trauma. It is when someone else’s trauma or traumatic story becomes part of your own worldview. Common in personal relationships and therapeutic relationships.

Those thoughts were not mine in the way I had assumed. They were echoes of stories I had held with compassion but perhaps never fully released. On my own, I would never have seen that. Left to my own interpretation, I had narrowed the meaning down to one painful explanation: something is wrong with me. It took another’s kindness to widen the frame. It took someone else reflecting back a possibility I had not considered.

I Needed Another Perspective

The fourth Resilient Optimism practice is Explore, and it’s all about seeking different perspectives and getting curious. My experience with yoga nidra is an example of what exploring looks like in the practice of resilient optimism. It is rarely comfortable. It requires honesty about what is happening internally. It requires the humility to admit that the story forming in your mind might not be the whole story. And it often requires other trusted, thoughtful people to help you see what you cannot see on your own. That’s what Ashton was able to do for me.

Without him, I would have stayed in avoidance and simply added yoga nidra to the growing list of meditative practices that “don’t work for me.” I would have missed the deeper truth that I had been carrying more vicarious trauma from my work than I realized. I would not have done the work to process that trauma and release its weight.

But simply knowing that those images weren’t really mine wasn’t enough to make them disappear. What that realization did do, however, was soften the fear enough for me to try again. The anxiety that something was fundamentally wrong with me began to loosen its grip. Instead of seeing yoga nidra as dangerous, I began to see it as a way to uncover what is buried.

I became deeply bothered by the idea that I was walking around holding other people’s trauma inside my nervous system. I had listened to those stories with care. I had witnessed them with compassion. But I had never intentionally processed or released them, and I had come to understand that my mind and body had simply stored them.

I wanted them out. Not because I wanted to forget the people whose stories I had heard, but because I knew carrying their pain indefinitely was not the same thing as honoring it. And strangely, the only place those memories seemed to surface was in yoga nidra. I had never experienced flashbacks during the day. I didn’t walk around haunted by the details of other people’s lives. It was only during nidra, in that in-between space, that images surfaced.

So instead of avoiding it as I did before, I leaned into it. If that was where the stored material surfaced, then that was where the work needed to happen.

Brooke later explained that yoga nidra mimics aspects of REM sleep, the state where our brains naturally process and integrate experience. In other words, the practice was not creating the images. It was simply creating the conditions where my brain could finally process what had been sitting in storage for years.

Ashton helped me understand something equally important: the brain doesn’t neatly distinguish between our experiences and the stories we absorb from others. When we bear witness to trauma repeatedly, especially in emotionally charged environments, our nervous systems can carry those experiences as if they are our own. They can imprint on us without us ever realizing it. For those of us who are empathic by nature, that imprinting can be even stronger.

The body, however, has an incredible capacity to heal. As Brooke reminded me, there is an innate healing intelligence within us that knows how to process difficult material when given the space to do so.

The Role of the Yoga Nidra Facilitator

The role of a skilled yoga nidra facilitator is not to fix or control that process, but to hold the energetic and relational container where it can unfold safely. I think the same is true for any program facilitator or even a mental or behavioral health practitioner. In fact, Ashton shared that research suggests as much as 85 percent of the effectiveness of a therapeutic experience comes down to the quality of the relationship itself. The sense that someone is holding space for you while you do the work your system already knows how to do.

That’s exactly what Brooke was doing in those nidras. Her calm presence, steady voice, and the trust I had in her created the conditions where my nervous system could finally begin to metabolize what it had been holding.

Through my time with Brooke and yoga, she has also introduced me to the concept of chitta chatter, the constant stream of mental activity that moves through our minds each day. Some research suggests we may have as many as seventy thousand thoughts daily, most of which pass through unnoticed and unremembered. But when trauma, whether our own or borrowed from others, lives in that stream, it can shape our internal landscape in ways we don’t fully understand.

What surfaced in those early nidras was not evidence of something broken in me. It was evidence that my mind had been trying to process something for a very long time.

So I kept going.

I returned to nidra again and again, not out of fear but out of curiosity. Each time an image surfaced, I practiced letting it move through without attaching meaning or shame. Slowly, the intensity softened. The images came less frequently. The chatter quieted. And eventually something unexpected happened. The practice that once terrified me became a place of deep peace.

Here I am in a supported savasana at one of Brooke’s retreats in Costa Rica. You know how I love my self-care!

How Yoga Nidra and Resilient Optimism Tie Together

When we are left alone with our interpretations, our brains tend to offer us the smallest possible version of the truth. A version shaped by fear, loyalty, experience, and unconscious bias. The brain is efficient. It fills in gaps quickly. It generates explanations to keep us safe. But those explanations are often incomplete, and without expansion, they calcify.

Resilient optimism interrupts that narrowing. It invites us to ask what else might be true. It encourages us to seek voices that can help us reframe what feels frightening or fixed. In my case, what I initially interpreted as evidence of danger was actually evidence that bearing witness has weight. Exploring what I was experiencing with others helped me step through the fear and begin a journey of deeper restoration.

Gratitude

This experience, and the reflections in this article, were shaped by conversations and experiences with two people who have profoundly influenced my understanding of yoga nidra, trauma, and healing.

Brooke Page-Thompson

• Yoga teacher, RYT-500 and I AM Yoga Nidra Advanced Facilitator

• IG: @bukayoga | @finding_the_pause

• Email: brooke@bukayoga.com

Brooke has an incredible ability to hold calm, thoughtful space for deep internal work. Her guidance through yoga nidra helped create the conditions where my nervous system could finally begin processing years of stored material. Her studio, Buka Yoga, is overflowing with opportunities for healing, growth, and restoration. Over the last four years, she has hosted regular sound baths for a community of women that I adore, and we are ever so grateful.

Ashton Page

• Artist and Clinical Social Worker (Omaha, NE)

• IG: @boy_in_rainbows

• Email: hello.ashtonjpage@gmail.com

Ashton asked the simple question that reframed my entire experience and helped me understand the role of vicarious trauma in what surfaced during nidra. His calm and inquisitive demeanor is such a gift for so many.

I’m deeply grateful to you both.

Raise your hand if someone has said this to you. Now keep it raised if they said it in the last week. In the criminal/legal system where I have worked for the last three decades, it’s said so much that it has become cliché. And if I’m being honest, I think it’s bullshit.

Not because self-care, as most of us currently understand it, doesn’t matter or that I don’t enjoy it. I think it’s BS because there have been times in my life and career when no amount of massage, journaling, bubble baths, or Netflix could help me navigate what was happening in my mind, nervous system, or my environment. When you’re burnt out or struggling with a traumatic experience, you can’t downward dog your way out of it. The suggestion that you could is insulting to me.

I didn’t always feel this way. When my kids were still itty bitty, I went to great lengths to squeeze in workouts and massages and self-help books. (Who with a newborn has the headspace to read?!?!?!?) I was determined to do self-care “right” even if it was really hard. But I was still stressed, short on time, and couldn’t get through two pages of the book without falling asleep. I judged myself for not feeling better. Why didn’t I feel restored? What was I doing wrong? I didn’t know.

But I Kept Trying…

In the mid-2010s, especially in leadership and professional development spaces, I began hearing more about meditation and gratitude journaling, two practices with strong data to support their efficacy in reducing stress and calming the nervous system. In fact, in this Mayo Clinic article, you’ll see how meditation and mindfulness reduce cortisol levels in our bodies, and that practicing gratitude for 10-15 minutes once a week can increase long-term satisfaction with life.1 In more recent years, breathwork, an ancient practice, began gaining traction in the Western world. There are dozens of approaches, and wow, does box breathing help me to create a pause in the chaos and bring clarity to my mind and calm in my body. But, like with all things, it must be done regularly to experience sustained results. I’d listen to guided meditations before sleep and had sticky notes on my dashboard reminding me to breathe deeply, but my dad still had a heart attack, and the people I met in those parole board hearings had still committed some horrendous crimes that stayed with me long after the hearings were over.

None of the self-care I employed was enough to keep me out of burnout. That tension is what eventually pushed me to rethink the entire concept of self-care.

Common Types of Self-Care

As I see it, most of what is called self-care falls into four categories:

1. Body

2. Pause

3. Service

4. Community

Body-Based Self-Care

Body-based self-care includes activities you instinctively reach for, like exercise, sleep, massages, dinner with friends, hobbies, and so on. These activities release endorphins and reconnect you to joy and to parts of yourself that don’t often get to come out to play in this chaotic, modern life of ours. All of that is real.

But if your mind is spiraling about a court case tomorrow, your rebellious teenager, or a decision that blindsided you, the body-based exercises are only a temporary fix.

Pause-Based Self-Care

Pause-based self-care includes meditation, journaling, gratitude lists, breathwork, therapy, and coaching. These activities help to interrupt thinking patterns and quiet “head trash,” those insidious stories taking up space in your mind about people and events based on incomplete information and your biases. You make assumptions about what others are thinking and catastrophize about what might happen next. This internal commentary is hard to control and, I mean, ugh. It is so exhausting.

Pause practices create space between stimulus and response. They help you notice your thinking instead of being swallowed by it. They invite the quieter, truer self to come forward from under ingrained expectations and habits.

There are so, so many benefits, supported by research, to pause practices:

• Reduced stress reactivity

• Improved emotional regulation

• Increased open-mindedness

I will always include pause-based self-care in my routine, and would never tell someone not to, but here’s the thing: not everyone benefits from all types of it, and it can be hard to do. If you are agitated or in physical pain, sitting for 20 minutes with your eyes closed can make things worse.

When Pause Practices Go Awry

My co-writer, Sara, spent years struggling with a journaling habit that actually fueled her depressive tendencies. As a writer, she felt this practice was central to her identity. She knew journaling was helpful for processing emotions. But when she read back through years of journals, she saw the pattern. She saw how she was only ruminating on unhelpful thoughts that reinforced her distress for a very long time. By letting go of the pressure to journal, she felt lighter.

For me, I had some very scary experiences doing a special kind of meditation called yoga nidra. I’ll cover that experience in another Substack, but let’s just say, I’d start to fall into a meditative state with a yoga nidra guide, and some horrible images would show up in my mind. It got so bad once that I swore it off altogether. It wasn’t until I spoke with an expert about it that I understood these images were a consequence of the vicarious trauma I experienced on the parole board.

I give you these examples to illustrate that some forms of pause practices have limits, shaped by your mental and physical health and life experiences. Take care to know that if pause practices, or any specific type of self-care practice, are difficult for you, it doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong. And you’re not alone!

Acts of Service as Self-Care

When you give to others, you invite a shift in yourself. You step out of your own looping narratives and connect to meaning. Whether it’s mentoring a colleague, volunteering for a community organization, or holding a door open for an elderly neighbor, it’s an opportunity to be part of something larger than your current situation or frustration. Research consistently shows that acts of service not only benefit the receiver but also the giver, increasing well-being and reducing depressive symptoms.2

And yet, when you are exhausted or frustrated, service might feel like the last thing you have capacity for. It can feel counterintuitive to give when you feel depleted. But trust me. More often than not, your outward focus will recalibrate you in powerful ways, especially if your mindset is in check.

Community as Self-Care

Community, or spaces with people where you are known in your vulnerability and don’t fear rejection, helps to fill a fundamental human need for connection. When you are struggling, it’s tempting to withdraw from your communities. You tell yourself that you will re-engage once you have more to offer and are less messy. But the paradox is that community is what helps us become less messy. We are social beings, and our perspective expands with dialogue. Being witnessed in our vulnerability reduces shame and increases resilience.3

I’ve heard from many people that they don’t know where to find community. As someone who lives in a rural area, I get it. The trick is to get creative. Start hosting regular game nights and ask your guests to bring a friend. Join a yoga studio or fitness club and commit to going regularly to the same classes. Find an online support group for what ails you. Think outside the ordinary and make yourself uncomfortable. It takes time to have an authentic connection, so try to have patience, too.

The 5th Type of Self-Care, Mindset Care Practices

All those years of trying different self-care strategies, and I still struggled with difficult relationships and navigating a high-stress career. Over and over again, my real question came down to this: How do I show up more regulated and more myself in the moment when adversity spikes?

This is where the mainstream self-care conversation fell apart for me. Prevention is one thing, and acute adversity is another. And if you work in prisons, hospitals, courtrooms, classrooms, any kind of human-service setting, or just exist within a family system, adversity is not the exception. It is the constant.

Enter: resilient optimism™

Resilient optimism is not positive thinking or the belief that everything happens for a reason. It is an intentional, long-term mindset care practice that I’ve developed to help me, and now you, build a mindset you can rely on when traditional self-care is not immediately accessible. In other words, when a conversation goes sideways, and you are tempted to overreact or shut down, with practice, you will have the words at the ready to navigate the difficult conversation. You will come to know yourself well enough to anticipate that you’re likely to lose your temper or check out, so you say, “I don’t want to be defensive. I want to work through this with you.” No harm, no foul. It’s a practice that doesn’t allow adversity to ruin your day or send you spiraling.

You still go for a walk to reset your nervous system, and you still write in your journal to process your feelings about the argument, but because of the mindset practice you’ve developed, you more readily see a way forward without more unnecessary stress and discomfort. You don’t get stuck in the problem. You move toward what is possible. That’s what being a resilient optimist looks like.

Too much stress and discomfort without the proper means of navigating will push you down the slide of what I call EFFD, the precursor to burnout. It’s called EFFD for two reasons. One, it stands for exhaustion, frustration, fear, and defeat. Two, if you let it take hold and you fall into burnout, you will be f*&#ed. In my opinion, burnout is greatly underappreciated. It costs big business millions of dollars, and the cost to individuals is unquantifiable, given the time it gobbles up, the relationships it affects, and the physical and mental health consequences. What little we do talk about burnout mostly focuses on what to do when you are actively in it, not preventing it. If we want more people to enjoy their lives and stay passionate throughout the ups and downs of their careers, there needs to be conversation BEFORE burnout is a problem. We need to recognize symptoms of EFFD when they start. But that’s a topic for another Substack.

With resilient optimism, which I talk about more explicitly in this earlier article, you learn how to adapt, bounce back quicker after adversity, get an energy boost, and gain a healthy sense of control so you can regulate your body before reactivity takes over. This helps you to recognize EFFD symptoms and stay clear of burnout. It also helps you achieve big dreams and goals because it centers you around shaping what could be, not getting stuck in what is.

The Full Self-Care Picture

1. Body practices give you a biochemical lift

2. Pause practices create space between stimulus and response

3. Acts of service shift your focus outside of yourself and expand your perspective

4. Community creates belonging and increases vulnerability, which reduces feelings of shame and loneliness

5. Mindset care, or the six intentional practices of resilient optimism, creates a disciplined shift from feeling defeated to finding where you still have the power to act

Resilient optimism is the deliberate cultivation of a mindset that can navigate complexity without collapsing. It is what gets you through daily challenges, so that when you have the space to engage in traditional self-care, you have more room to do so and can get more out of it, too. The benefits of exercise, meditation, service, and community last longer when they land in a grounded mindset, where all self-care practices can reinforce one another rather than operate as isolated interventions.

For me, all those years when I was practicing self-care and still feeling so close to burnout, the problem wasn’t that self-care wasn’t working. The problem was that I was asking self-care to do a job it was never designed to do on its own.

For an inside look at the six specific resilient optimism practices, sign up to be notified when my forthcoming book on Resilient Optimism is available. I’ll also be posting more here on Substack and on Instagram. I’m just getting started and can’t wait to share with you all of the things I have learned in my studies and experiences working in the criminal justice system.

That’s what resilient optimism is about. Doing what you set out to do, even when it’d be easier to give up. Here on my Substack, this space is about sharing those stories. They won’t be polished successes or inspirational soundbites, but rather, honest accounts of what it looks like to keep showing up, imperfectly, courageously, and with care.

Meet Hillary

If you work in the pretrial or community supervision world, chances are you’ve heard her name, and for good reason. Hillary Hartoin has spent more than a decade shaping the criminal justice landscape in Indiana and beyond. She’s served in clerk and court administration, probation, pretrial supervision, community corrections, and grant management.

From the outside, Hillary’s life looks like a success story. She is advancing in her career, speaking nationally, and mentoring others. What most people don’t see is the second life she leads.

But Hillary is far more than her résumé. She is a loving friend, devoted dog mom, someone who feels most at home outdoors, an avid reader who devours books and shares what she learns, a giver of knowledge (not a hoarder of it), a developer of people, bringing out their strengths with intention and care, and an innovator who sees possibilities long before others do. She is someone who pours into others, into her staff, into her field, into her community.

And now, she’s doing something that takes a different kind of courage. She’s allowing us into a part of her story she has never before shared publicly. A story about navigating a major medical condition while working in a system that rarely makes space for vulnerability, nuance, or humanity.

I have the honor of helping her to share her story, one that she has not spoken publicly about before. It’s a story about what it is like to live with a challenging medical condition, especially as it becomes something you can no longer hide. I feel that this is a topic we rarely discuss, especially in the criminal justice and human-service worlds.

In these fields, we show up like gladiators, bracing for whatever the day throws at us. What I see again and again is people sidelining their own needs, health, wellbeing, or family responsibilities for the job. We tend to valorize the martyrs. And those who are navigating medical conditions, mental health needs, or caregiving roles often stay silent… and suffer quietly.

So before we begin, I want to ask something of this community. When I share this story, please show up with care, with empathy, and with your absolute best behavior.

I say this because I’ve seen how people don’t always respond in the kindest of ways to things they can’t see and don’t understand. They aren’t always quick to be supportive and accepting, and that makes sharing even scarier.

I know this community is better than that. Let’s model what support can look like.
Let’s listen with an open heart and engage thoughtfully as we explore the unspoken together.

Ableism

I’d like to start by talking about something called Ableism. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as: Discrimination in favor of nondisabled people.

But that definition doesn’t go far enough. Ableism shows up in endless ways, including

• Assuming people with medical conditions or disabilities are less capable, less reliable, or have lives that are limited or unhappy.

• Designing workplaces, programs, or environments where accessibility isn’t even considered.

• Refusing reasonable accommodations or quietly excluding disabled individuals from opportunities, hiring, or advancement.

• Leaving people out of social, professional, or training spaces because adapting would be “too hard.”

• Using outdated, demeaning, or intrusive language about someone’s body, ability, or health.

Ableism also shows up in friendships:

• Accusing people with invisible or fluctuating disabilities of faking symptoms on “good” days.

• Avoiding someone because their disability makes you uncomfortable.

• Dismissing their stated needs as overreacting or being high-maintenance.

• Telling them to “get over it” without acknowledging the grief of chronic illness or disability.

• Assuming they’re lazy or unmotivated, not trying hard enough to get better.

As I’ve been learning more about what it’s actually like to navigate a major medical disability (yes, this is considered a disability), I’ve been shocked at how pervasive the language piece is. So many comments, assumptions, and hurtful things are said casually in hallways or meetings.

My hope is that by sharing Hillary’s story with you, you’ll connect with someone who is living this experience right now, and that together we can learn, grow, and build a culture rooted in dignity, understanding, and resilient optimism.

The Physical Reality

Hillary has been living with severe Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Lupus) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) privately for nearly two decades. Many of the people close to her knew she was dealing with “health issues,” but the truth is far more complex, and far more serious, than even I realized.

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks healthy tissue and major organs. While some people experience milder forms, hers has required intensive treatments over the years, including chemotherapy and ongoing infusion therapy to slow inflammation and prevent organ damage.

POTS is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system that affects her heart rate, blood flow, blood pressure, energy, and even her ability to stay conscious when she stands or overexerts herself.

Together, these two conditions mean navigating a set of illnesses that have no cure, only management, unpredictability, and lifelong treatment.

So what does her day-to-day look like?

Hillary shared that her symptoms vary, but most days bring crushing fatigue, anemia, pain in her bones and nerves, swollen joints, kidney complications, neuropathy, hair loss, and stomach damage from years of treatment. Managing her weight and getting adequate nutrition is an ongoing fight.

POTS adds another layer with heart palpitations, blood pressure drops, dizziness, and fainting. Even bending down to pet her dog can trigger symptoms.

And, for Hillary, this season has been especially difficult. Her current treatment protocol includes:

• multiple four-hour infusions every week

• injections every 72 hours

• a long list of medications

She told me, Being an overachiever with a chronic illness is brutal. Your ambition doesn’t disappear just because your body slows down. You feel trapped inside a body that can’t keep up with who you are.

After nearly 20 years of fighting illness while building a career, the exhaustion isn’t just physical. It’s bone-deep. It’s the kind that comes from two decades of pushing, working, crashing, recovering, and pushing again.

The turning point came this fall when Hillary made the difficult decision to get a port implanted, which is a visible sign of everything she’s been fighting in silence. It requires at least two infusion center visits every week, and often more. And as her symptoms have become more visible (e.g., tremors, mobility challenges, sometimes needing crutches), hiding simply isn’t an option anymore.

The Emotional and Social Reality

While the physical parts of her illness can be obvious, there are parts that are often hidden beyond what the eyes can see, especially the social and emotional cost of chronic illness, especially in a field that expects strength without softness.

When I asked Hillary how this journey has affected her emotionally, she said,
It’s harder than I ever admit out loud.

She worries about being a burden, even though she is fighting every single day. She manages more than ten infusions a month, injections every 72 hours, a complex medication regimen, and a full-time leadership role. And yet she still wonders whether she’s enough.

But she’s trying to lean into resilient optimism and has learned a few things from that.

She told me she has been surprised to learn that people value her not just for what she does, but for who she is. That her identity, impact, and kindness are not erased by illness, they coexist with it. Chronic illness isn’t your identity, it’s something you live with, not who you are. It doesn’t replace your talents, your passions, or the person you’ve worked hard to become. You carry unique strengths because of what you’ve been through. You’ve built a resilience that most people never have to develop, and empathy that makes you understand others on a deeper level. You’re capable, talented, and powerful in ways your illness could never define. You can still do great things, and nothing about your diagnosis takes that away. It took me years to fully embrace that truth, and some days I still need to be reminded.

She also carries fears people never see:

• the fear of being judged

• the fear of looking less capable

• the fear of being misunderstood

• the fear of being dismissed because she looks fine

And that part, the invisibility of chronic illness, is one of the most painful. Hillary told me that People assume if I look fine, I must feel fine. They don’t see the mornings when getting out of bed feels impossible, or the nights when pain keeps me awake, only to turn around and go to work the next day.

She has mastered the art of smiling through discomfort. But invisibility comes with a cost.

What she wishes people knew is simple, but profound. Chronic illness…

• Is not an identity

• Does not erase capability

• Does not diminish talent

• Does not define worth

She said, beautifully, You carry unique strengths because of what you’ve been through, resilience most people never have to develop.

And when I asked what support actually looks like, she told me how important it is to walk with her, not try to fix her. She doesn’t need solutions or platitudes, only your presence, compassion, and consistency.

Because the truth is, there is still no cure.

What finally pushed her to start sharing more openly wasn’t a single moment. It was a combination of things. The port, of course, forced visibility. But more importantly, she said new relationships in her life gave her the confidence to believe she could be seen for all of who she is, illness and all.

When the Symptoms Won’t Stay Quiet

For years, Hillary has felt she had to keep this part of her life private, worried that if she shared openly, she might not be taken seriously as a leader. The weight of showing up strong while silently managing symptoms quickly became part of her daily reality.

Here is what Hillary shared with me…

Early in my career, I was fighting invisible battles—undergoing chemotherapy and monthly biologic infusions while forcing myself to look “normal.” I’d work long hours, drive to the infusion center, then return the next day as if nothing had happened.

I hid my illness because vulnerability felt dangerous. I believed strength meant silence and that excelling required pretending everything was fine. On the inside, I was unraveling; on the outside, I made sure no one could tell.

Keeping it secret was exhausting. I was driving in two lanes at once. I feared being pitied, judged, or seen differently at work. Worse, I worried people would not accept this new version of me personally and professionally , so I pushed myself even harder to prove my worth. I told myself I couldn’t have a career if my condition were public. I hadn’t yet realized that my illness didn’t define who I am, and that just because my body’s capabilities were changing, it didn’t mean my skills, talents, or potential were any less.

People often equate strength with pushing through pain, but chronic illness redefines what strength really looks like.With lupus and POTs, ignoring symptoms and pushing through pain can result in days or weeks of recovery, sometimes irreversible damage. But real resilience isn’t about pretending these realities don’t exist. It’s about acknowledging them, working with them, and still finding ways to show up not only for others, but for ourselves.

Her story reminds me of something we don’t talk about enough. The unspoken burdens leaders carry, and how often we feel pressure to “power through” rather than invite support. Lately, Hillary’s symptoms have been getting worse. What was once “manageable in silence” has now demanded her attention in a louder, unavoidable way.

I was sad to learn that Hillary found safety in silence, comfort in keeping things to herself. Here is what she told me:

I’ve come to understand that hiding my condition never kept me safe; it only kept me isolated from the support and love I deserved. The world, and the people in it, are far from perfect, sometimes cruel. Some friendships I thought would last have quietly faded away, while others—though miles apart—have become my greatest sources of strength. I’ve encountered bias I never saw coming, and my circle has grown smaller, but also more real and strong. Yes, it hurts to lose people you care about or to feel sidelined by those who refuse to understand, but I’ve learned that this isn’t a reflection of me or my value—it’s a reflection of their bias. It’s my choice not to adopt their views as my truth about who I am or my capacity to love and care for those around me.

Instead of hiding, she’s learning to lean resilient optimism. She says that looks like:

• Focusing her limited energy on what matters most.

• Finding new avenues for joy.

• Letting others come alongside her and help.

• Choosing hope, even when the path feels uncertain.

The truth is, resilient optimism isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. It’s about the courage to reframe, reconnect, and find strength in both resilience and softness.

Strength in Letting Go

When I asked Hillary what she’s learning in this season of her life, she told me: Strength isn’t always about going it alone or pretending everything’s fine. Sometimes, it’s in letting others help carry the weight. Resilient optimism is taking the next step, working toward an unseen future, and valuing authenticity over the persona others expect.

You learn what matters, who matters, what pace works for you, and what expectations you don’t need to carry anymore. Letting go isn’t defeat.

Resilience grows in connection. For many living with chronic illness, sharing our diagnosis and asking for help is terrifying, tied to fears of being seen as “less than” or a “burden”. But keeping struggles to ourselves robs us of the strength and connection that come from facing challenges together. We’re denying others the privilege of loving someone with a grit and grace that is only found in overcoming difficulty. Asking for help doesn’t make you a burden—it’s one of the bravest, most vulnerable acts we can take. You don’t have to be strong alone. No one should be.

Trust and vulnerability have never come easily for me. Some say I’m stubbornly independent. A turning point came when I met someone with remarkable empathy and resilience, someone who saw past my mask and recognized the internal struggles I was facing—a path he had already walked himself. He figured out my secret. What’s extraordinary is that I didn’t have to ask for help; he simply offered it, asking if we could face these challenges together. At that moment, I had a choice: accept his friendship or keep hiding, alone.

Over time, I’ve learned that living with severe lupus and POTs means constantly adapting. It means facing uncertainty with courage you may not even realize you have. It means learning to be gentle with myself in a world that rewards speed and stamina.

My resilience isn’t measured by how much I accomplish. It’s measured by how I continue to show up, imperfectly, bravely, authentically, even on the days my body feels like a storm I can’t control.

Hillary’s journey is a living example of what it means to step into possibility even when life feels heavy. To ground yourself in what matters. To stay hopeful, not in spite of challenges, but through them.

If you’d like to keep learning about living with chronic illness, Hillary recommends the books featured in this image.

Resilient Optimism and Chronic Illness

Hillary showed me that resilient optimism goes beyond your mind. It encompasses your body and spirit, too. There are an estimated 130 million Americans who suffer from multiple chronic conditions like Hillary. My hope is that by sharing stories like Hillary’s, we can build a community of resilient optimism together.

If you suffer from a chronic disease or know someone who does, share this story with them. None of us is alone on the journey. If you’re walking through something hard right now, maybe Hillary’s story can serve as a reminder that you don’t have to carry it alone. Lean on your people, focus your energy, and hold onto hope.

Hillary says, As of today, I no longer hide my diagnosis. I refuse to let it define me. My health journey has shifted, not diminished my spirit. My achievements are a testament to the perspective, resilience, and empathy I’ve gained while navigating this path.

Though the road ahead is still uncertain, I’m embracing it with a hopeful heart. A challenging diagnosis doesn’t mean I’ve hit a dead end; it’s a chance to adapt and innovate.”

Because resilience doesn’t mean never breaking. It means finding the courage to keep shaping what could be, even when life cracks the surface.

How Did Resilient Optimism Come to Be?

In my first Substack post, I introduced you to Jerry and how his preventable gang-related death led me to become what I call “EFFD,” a precursor to burnout.

I was:

- Exhausted

- Frustrated

- Fearful

- Defeated

And I was EFFD for a while. I’m talking months. After Jerry died, I was ready to quit my job and find a new career outside the criminal/legal system, where the people I knew wouldn’t needlessly be shot and killed. But with time and the help of a mentor, I simmered down. I began to see that I could only control what was in my purview, which was the 40 or so men on parole in the facility where I worked as a reentry specialist. I also saw that if I wanted to make systemwide changes and help people stay alive, safe, and thriving, I’d have to find my way to the decision-making table, and I wasn’t going to do that with all that EFFDness clouding my vision.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was developing my philosophy for resilient optimism, a practice for breaking out of being EFFD through intentional mindset shifts that propel you toward creating bold and lasting opportunities.

It’s only been in the last three or so years that I’ve been talking about resilient optimism. Before that, I was collecting my thoughts about working to resist burnout, something I saw MANY of my colleagues suffer from. I took notes about what worked and what didn’t work to create change in organizations and to reach big, hairy personal goals. I dug deep into implementation science, something my partners at the Alliance of Community and Justice Innovation (ACJI) and I have specialized in since 2017.

The catalyst for resilient optimism came when, in 2022, I was asked to give a keynote talk about fighting burnout to my colleagues in the corrections system. I immediately knew the quote I’d reference to set the tone. It was this one, from John Gardner, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He wrote these words in his 1965 book, Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society.

“All too often, on the long road up, young leaders become ‘servants of what is’ rather than ‘shapers of what might be’. In the long process of learning how the system works, they are rewarded within the intricate structure of existing rules. By the time they reach the top, they are very likely to be trained prisoners of the structure. This is not all bad; every vital system reaffirms itself. But no system can remain vital for long unless some of its leaders remain sufficiently independent to help it change and grow.”

Gardner’s quote is 60 years old and still so relevant. For me, it hits hard. I want to be “sufficiently independent to help [the criminal/legal system] change and grow.” I want all cultures, systems, organizations, teams, and people to change and grow, and I believe resilient optimism can help do that.

How to Become a Resilient Optimist

Resilient optimism is a skill, and that means it is learned. It is supported by science, too, which I outline in the book I’m working on, making it an even more potent antidote to burnout. To become a resilient optimist, you have to work at it every day, even when it feels hard. I’ve developed five practices to help you with that, which I’ll outline in future posts in more detail, but here they are at a glance.

The 5 resilient optimism practices:

- Embrace failure

- Focus relentlessly on what matters most

- Seek different perspectives

- Look for opportunities

- Keep going

Practicing resilient optimism doesn’t erase pain or disappointment. It didn’t bring Jerry back. But it will transform how you stay connected to your work or passion without becoming EFFD and burnt out. It creates opportunity and hope for the future. It shapes what could be.

A practiced resilient optimism will:

• Bounce back from setbacks faster

• Adapt more easily

• Lead naturally

• Feel more in control when challenges inevitably arise

• Gain energy, not lose it

• Grow more empathetic and connected to those you work with and care about

Thank you for reading and for following along. I’ll continue to share what I’ve learned about resilient optimism and share tips on how you can become a true resilient optimist, too.

CRCFs were supposed to be a bridge, a last chance for people on parole to stabilize before being sent back to prison. But the system was rigid. Time limits were set, and everyone had to go home once they completed the program, typically to somewhere else in the state where there were fewer opportunities. That was Jerry’s situation.

He was indifferent to the CRCF programming at first, certain that a GED and a job would never be as satisfying as his gang lifestyle. But he made strides. He was eligible to take the GED, a huge feat for someone who initially tested at a sixth-grade level. He got a job at a construction company and was promoted to team lead after only a few weeks. He was making more money than he thought possible.

I saw Jerry come alive. It is one of my favorite looks among those who are justice-involved, the way their body language and speech become more confident after a few small wins. When Jerry told me he didn’t want to go home when his time at the facility ended, I knew the company line was, “nope.” Go home. But Jerry was a special case. He really appeared ready for a change.

So, together, we made his case with a portfolio of sorts that included letters of recommendation, savings records, and proof of GED progress and employment. He presented it all to his parole officer, who said, “It’s the law to return to where you were paroled from.”

I pleaded with his PO. Then I reached out to his PO’s boss, then my boss, and then anyone else who would listen. They all said “no.” Then Jerry went home.

I looked Jerry up in the computer system to see if he had reported to his new PO. What I read changed everything: Deceased. Gunshot wound. Gang altercation.

I Was EFFD

Jerry’s death broke something in me. I didn’t just grieve for him. I grieved for every person crushed by a system too rigid to recognize people’s humanity. My colleagues used it as proof that I had been manipulated by Jerry, a “gang banger.” One person said that his death was proof that he was lying to me the whole time.

I fell into what I now call an EFFD state:

- Exhausted

- Frustrated

- Fearful

- Defeated

If you’ve ever cared deeply about your work with a student, a patient, a project, a dream, and then something happens that leads you to feel like your efforts don’t matter, you’ve probably been EFFD, too.

For a while, I wanted to quit my job and walk away from work in the criminal/legal system. But with time and the help of my mentor, Gregg, I worked through my EFFDness. I resolved to focus on what I could influence, which was the men walking in the door of the CRCF. Around this time, I also got clearer about my career trajectory. I saw that if I wanted to help more justice-involved people, not just the 40 or so men in my case load, I would need to put myself in a position to influence system-wide changes, maybe even change laws, like the one that required Jerry to return home, which, by the way, turned out not to be a law at all.

I started to build a vision that included me sitting at the decision-making table, and I could see that being EFFD would only cloud my path forward. Without realizing it, I was becoming resiliently optimistic™. I accepted Jerry’s death and committed to keeping his memory alive by sharing his story as often and as loudly as I could. I focused on what I wanted to grow. I looked for opportunities with the help of people who thought differently from me, and I pictured what I wanted for my future. I made a vow that if I had the opportunity to make systemic change, I would take every opportunity.

That led me to develop a keynote talk about resilient optimism and Jerry, then a book, and now a Substack! Thank you for coming with me on this journey.