Resilience training, stories, and health

This article is derived from my participation in, and experiences at, the fifth annual War Horse Symposium in Alberta in September 2015. The creative arts offer tools for self-awareness and self-care to military personnel, their families, and other first responders. Resilience training engages participants in interpersonal and organizational reconnaissance through the language of theatre – the language of bodies analyzing experiences and stories. This work addresses physical flexibility, energy flow and mindfulness, peer support, action-based role-play, and the things people say to each other while witnessing what can't be put into words. It also describes an environment that activates pleasure, laughter, and play. Four elements promote self-knowledge, community connection, and healing in creative resilience training: witnessing and being witnessed, discovering narrative options for re-storying one's life, experiencing oneself beyond the definition of one's injury, and connecting with others in ways that build healthier brains. When we experience being respected, not shamed; listened to, not ignored; safe, not at risk; our neurological pathways change. Inter-subjectively, both participant and witness become changed neurologically and psychologically. War Horse Awareness Foundation founder Deanna Lennox says, “Creative resiliency training gets connected to their bodies and spirits.”