From Toughness to Tenderness: Redefining What It Means to Be Resilient

This week I have been reflecting on resilience — what it truly is, and what it is not. We admire it so much that it almost feels sacred: the capacity to stand strong, keep going, push through, and rise above. But what if that version of resilience, the one we’ve been taught to admire, is sometimes the very thing that keeps us from flourishing?

Over the past year, my understanding of resilience has evolved profoundly, influenced by Salma Shah’s book Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in Coaching (2022). Her words have given me language for something I had felt for a long time but couldn’t name — that there is a form of “unhealthy resilience” we often glorify, one that protects us in the short term but slowly erodes our inner world.

What resilience truly is

When I look back at my younger self — the ambitious young woman determined to make it in a technical field dominated by men — I see resilience everywhere. I see myself as a twenty-something engineer working long hours in project offices, navigating cultures from North Africa to the Middle East, determined to prove I belonged.

Later, as an international executive travelling across continents, I was the “strong one.” Always adapting, always performing, always ready to take on more. When I became a mother of three while still chasing professional excellence, I perfected the art of juggling — or at least of appearing to juggle — with elegance.

But behind the poise, I was often stumbling, trying to figure out who I truly was. My self-worth was tied to how much I could achieve and how gracefully I could do it. I believed that rest, joy, or softness had to be earned. I thought if I gave enough — time, energy, care — others would reciprocate with recognition, love, and validation.

They rarely did. And I grew frustrated, feeling like a bottomless well, always giving, rarely replenished.

The good news, as I discovered later, is that everything I had been looking for was within me all along. The resilience I needed wasn’t the one that helped me endure external storms, but the one that allowed me to sit still and listen to the quiet inside. Once I created the space to observe — my thoughts, my emotions, my beliefs — I began building an entirely new kind of resilience. One that started not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

The “dark side” of resilience

Shah describes how for many of us, resilience can become an armour — a survival strategy learned in environments where vulnerability was unsafe or undervalued. I recognise that in myself. For years, I equated resilience with resistance: the refusal to fall, to show weakness, to slow down.

But when resilience turns into endurance, it risks hardening into something brittle. I see this so often now in my coaching practice — especially among women leaders, caregivers, and high achievers. They have learned to survive brilliantly, yet they rarely feel alive.

True resilience, as Shah reminds us, is not about pretending we do not need help. It is about acknowledging our humanity — our limits, our fears, our longing for connection. It is about finding strength in the softness we were once taught to suppress.

Reframing resilience: from resistance to renewal

For me, the turning point was learning to pause and reflect. To stop equating value with output. To notice the patterns of thought that whispered, “You must do more,” or “You don’t deserve rest yet.”

Through the work of self-awareness and thought inquiry, I began to rewrite my story. I learned that resilience and self-compassion are not opposites. In fact, they feed each other.

Now, when I speak of resilience with clients, I see it as a living practice:

• Self-awareness — noticing when we are pushing through rather than growing through.
• Thought work — gently challenging the beliefs that keep us trapped in overperformance.
• Emotional intelligence — naming what we feel before it owns us.
• Self-compassion — recognising that pausing, asking for help, or setting boundaries is also strength.

When we shift from performance to presence, resilience becomes regenerative. It nourishes rather than drains us.

Thriving versus surviving

Mental toughness and resilience are not the same. Mental toughness can help us endure storms; resilience allows us to grow after them. One keeps us standing; the other helps us expand.

The kind of resilience that sustains us is kind, flexible, and honest. It allows us to bend without breaking, to rest without guilt, to lead with heart rather than fear.

To thrive is to know when to act, when to pause, and when to let go.

An invitation to reflect

How does resilience show up in your life today?
Are there moments when your strength might actually be self-protection?
Where could you invite more softness, more space, or more trust — in yourself and others?

If this topic resonates with you, perhaps it is time to explore what your own balance between thriving and surviving looks like. Coaching can help you uncover the beliefs and habits that have kept you in survival mode, and guide you toward a gentler, stronger kind of resilience — one that starts from within.

Sincerely yours,

Dr Sophie

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References

Shah, S. (2022). Chapter 7 – Resilience. In Diversity, inclusion and belonging in coaching: A practical guide. Kogan Page Limited.