Bringing head and body into harmony through body resilience: The holistic resilience method integrates thoughts and feelings to get through difficult situations and overcome all stresses

Mental strength and resilience are usually associated with mental methods and the right mindset. Isabel Scholz 's " Body Resilience ", on the other hand, integrates the levels of our body, our emotions and our thoughts into a healthy whole.

A method that closes gaps

The topic of “resilience” has been on everyone’s lips for several years. From spiritual life coaching to systemic organizational consulting to medical conferences, there is talk of positive beliefs, the right mental attitude or psychological resilience in order to respond appropriately to crises or illnesses.

However, according to Isabel Scholz, a business graduate and fitness and personal trainer who has been coaching people and companies in difficult situations for over 20 years, these mental concepts have their limits. Why is the role of the body and the autonomic nervous system almost never discussed in connection with resilience? Why is there never even a glance in the corporate context at how our mindset also benefits from a stable physical base?

She wants to close these gaps with her book and provide a counterbalance to the usual resilience methods: "I will link the topics together in such a way that everyone who reads this book can perceive, explore and exploit the connection between body and psyche in themselves."

Classic approaches to resilience

The term "resilience" originally comes from materials science and describes the ability of a material to be deformed and then return to its original shape without external influence. In psychology, resilience is understood as a type of coping ability to adapt and recover in the face of ongoing stress, problems or crises, which is often even accompanied by inner growth.

The now widespread resilience concept has identified seven main criteria that are said to be largely responsible for whether a person can go through life with mental strength or not. Acceptance is the first and most important key: saying yes to problematic situations or crises leads to calmness and creates space for new things. Optimism and trust in self-efficacy focus attention on positive things in order to achieve one's own goals. It is beneficial to us to take responsibility ourselves instead of blaming others. Because a solution- and future-oriented approach opens our eyes to new opportunities and possibilities, and social contacts are said to have a stabilizing effect on our health.

Body resilience as a holistic concept

For Isabel Scholz, who has worked intensively with body psychotherapy and body-oriented process work, this concept has not been thought through to the end, or the physical factor has been completely ignored. Mental approaches all have something in common: they aim to control or manage behaviors, states or situations with mental power, with thoughts, which can sometimes take on a compulsive attitude. As a rule, this only works if the problems that are to be solved have a simple structure and are "superficial". Mental methods are therefore "management" of the head, of the thoughts. They exercise control from top to bottom (top-down).

In contrast, Isabel Scholz develops resilience from the bottom up and combines the three processing levels of body, emotions and mind into a healing whole: "My concept leads you to yourself and your deepest inner self, so that you can then go back out into the world and never lose the connection to yourself. This makes your life real and authentic, and an inner balance is created."

Book tip:
Isabel Scholz: Body Resilience . Bringing head and body into harmony: How to achieve calm, stability and resilience. Mankau Verlag, 1st edition November 2022, paperback, 13.5 x 21.5 cm, 239 pages, 18.00 euros (D) / 18.50 euros (A), ISBN 978-3-86374-667-4

Link recommendations:
More information about the book “BodyResilience”
To the reading sample in PDF format
More about author Isabel Scholz
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