Foundations for Growth #2: Unpacking Resilience for the Healthcare Worker

As-salamu alaykum,

Today, I wanted to go back to the series that we kicked off at the start of the Hijri calendar year 1446A.H.

In the first installment of the series, we unpacked the essential foundations for a resilient healthcare worker’s integrated work-life and the key players that are beneficiaries of your resilience and your capacity to perform at your peak from day-to-day and especially when the going gets tough.

That list begins and ends with you.

It is therefore pivotal to embrace the opportunity to optimize how you manage yourself with respect to the following;

1. The choices you make with the things that impact your body and your mind, 

2. How you show up with others from patients to colleagues and others outside of work starting with your family and most importantly, 

3. How you incorporate your spiritual identity and your relationship with Allah, the Most High into your integrated work-life.

These are the core streams that feed the 4 key dimensions that define all of us - Physical, Mental, Social/Emotional and Spiritual. 

The 3rd stream when done well can upgrade your niyyah (intentions) and drive Ihsan (excellence) with the first two streams shifting them from merely transactional precepts to transformational investments in this life and the hereafter that add the Barakah effect to your integrated work-life and helps you achieve more with less.

Now lets’ see how Prophet Muhammad PBUH explained resilience in the following hadith; 

“Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The example of a believer is that of a fresh tender plant; from whatever direction the wind comes, it bends it, but when the wind becomes quiet, it becomes straight again. Similarly, a believer is afflicted with calamities (but he remains patient till Allah removes his difficulties.) And an impious wicked person is like a pine tree which keeps hard and straight till Allah cuts (breaks) it down when He wishes.” [Sahih Muslim 5644]

Prophet Muhammad PBUH describes the believer as a fresh tender plant with the capacity to adjust and adapt to the tides of life (in the garden) - at work and outside of work. He, PBUH, places the essence of resilience in a well grounded spiritual identity and the lack thereof as a marker for inadaptability and in our healthcare work, a risk factor for burnout.

In order to be able to meaningfully impact the 3 levers that we highlighted above, it's important to do a gut check and dig deep into who you are today and how you show up in the world around you.

I offer some insights about how this directly impacts the care you provide in your healthcare role and 2 steps to consider in your journey of self-exploration in a previous newsletter, Knowing You.

Let me know how this goes for you and please do share any other resources that you have found useful in this regard.

May Allah, the Most High, enable us to continue on this journey of Growth, Resilience and Impact (grounded in our Deen) that benefits us and everyone that we serve in this life and the hereafter. Amin 

Sincerely,

Sulyman

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