The Myth of Grit
People often tell me I’m resilient. They mean it as a compliment. A nod to my ability to take the hits life has thrown and keep standing. For years, I wore that label like armor. I believed resilience meant toughness; the quiet endurance that keeps you upright when everything inside you is collapsing.
But somewhere along the journey, I started to question that definition. Because endurance, I realized, isn’t the same as healing. You can survive a hundred storms and still feel like you’re carrying the wreckage of each one on your back. True resilience; the kind that lets you move forward instead of just hold on, isn’t about how much you can take. It’s about how you rebuild.
Resilience is less about gritting your teeth and more about laying new track after the derailment. It’s the capacity to move again, not just to stand. And for that movement to be steady, the track has to be strong.
That track, I’ve come to see, is made of two rails: forgiveness and boundaries.
Without forgiveness, we stay anchored to the past, heavy with anger and unfinished business.
Without boundaries, we stay exposed to the same patterns that broke us before.
Together, they form the track that allows resilience to move forward: balanced, directional, and whole.
Psychologists define resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant stress” (American Psychological Association, 2014). Notice that word, process. Resilience isn’t a trait you’re born with. It’s a set of capacities that can be built and rebuilt over time. And those capacities depend as much on how we release as on how we protect.
If this idea of grit versus genuine growth resonates, I explored it more deeply in Between the Ridges: Building Resilience in Ourselves and Our Children.
The Inner Rail: Forgiveness as Psychological Release
Forgiveness has long been misunderstood as a moral transaction. Something we do to excuse harm or to absolve the other person. Psychologically, forgiveness is not about letting someone off the hook. It’s about releasing ourselves from the emotional tether that keeps us stuck to pain.
When we’ve been betrayed, hurt, or mischaracterized, our nervous systems respond as if the danger is still present. The body holds the story. Muscles tense, cortisol rises, and the mind replays the moment like a loop we can’t escape. Forgiveness in its truest form interrupts that physiological pattern. It stops the loop.
Research supports this: studies show that forgiveness is associated with lower stress levels, improved cardiovascular health, and higher overall well-being (Toussaint, Owen, & Cheadle, 2012). Other findings reveal that forgiveness can reduce chronic anger and depression. Not because it erases memory, but because it rewires our relationship to it (Worthington & Scherer, 2004).
Forgiveness, then, is not weakness. It’s emotional recalibration.
It’s the inward rail that steadies us when bitterness threatens to throw us off course. It lightens the load. Not by pretending the damage didn’t happen, but by deciding we won’t keep carrying it in our chest.
In emotional recovery, forgiveness is less like a declaration and more like a daily practice of loosening the rope. It sounds like:
“I no longer need to keep rehearsing the pain to validate that it mattered.”
It doesn’t mean reconciliation or access. It means I’ve chosen to stop letting resentment drive the train.
Psychologist Everett Worthington describes forgiveness as “a shift in motivation from avoidance and revenge to compassion and understanding” (Worthington, 2006). That shift doesn’t excuse the offense; it restores agency. In forgiveness, we take back the power to decide what defines us.
When I forgive, I’m not saying what happened was okay. I’m saying what happened will not control the direction of my next mile.
That’s the first rail. The one that runs inward, smoothing the terrain beneath the wheels of resilience.
The Outer Rail: Boundaries as Structural Integrity
If forgiveness frees us from the past, boundaries protect the future.
Boundaries are often mistaken for walls; barriers that push people away. But in truth, they’re more like guardrails that keep the journey safe. They define where the track runs, not who’s allowed to ride.
In emotional recovery, boundaries become the structure that keeps us from returning to old, destructive loops. They are how we translate self-awareness into self-protection.
Psychologists Nancy found that clear and consistent boundaries correlate with higher psychological safety, lower anxiety, and stronger relationship satisfaction. Boundaries are not control mechanisms; they’re stability mechanisms. They allow us to engage with others without losing ourselves.
If forgiveness is what loosens the weight of the past, boundaries are what prevent the same train wreck from happening again.
Boundary-setting is not just interpersonal, it’s neurological. Every time we assert a limit, we send a signal to the brain that says, I am safe enough to choose. That act alone begins to restore the sense of agency trauma often steals.
Psychiatrist Dan Siegel calls this “integration.” The process of linking differentiated parts of the self into a coherent whole. Boundaries make that integration possible. They mark the edges of selfhood, allowing our emotional system to distinguish between what’s ours and what’s not.
Without boundaries, we lose shape.
Without forgiveness, we lose flow.
With both, we regain movement.
In my own recovery, boundaries often felt harsh at first. Saying no to people I used to accommodate. Ending conversations sooner. Protecting silence instead of filling it. But I learned that every no I said to chaos was a yes to stability. Every time I defined the track, the train ran smoother.
Boundaries aren’t about keeping people out; they’re about keeping your journey intact.
I unpack this tension between openness and containment in The Soft Heart: Living Whole in a Numb World
Where the Rails Meet: The Balance Between Release and Protection
If forgiveness and boundaries are the two rails, then resilience is the train, the movement between them. But for that movement to stay balanced, both rails have to run parallel.
Forgiveness without boundaries becomes emotional exposure: the bravery of vulnerability without the protection of discernment.
Boundaries without forgiveness harden into defense: the safety of structure without the softness of compassion
Neither, on its own, creates real resilience. Forgiveness frees the heart, boundaries secure it. Together, they keep the journey stable.
This balance mirrors what psychologists call the window of tolerance. The emotional range within which we can function effectively under stress. Forgiveness widens the window by reducing emotional reactivity; boundaries define its frame by maintaining safety. Within that space, resilience grows.
Consider what happens when you begin to forgive someone who hurt you deeply: say, a former partner, family member, or friend. Without boundaries, forgiveness can quickly become reenactment. You might find yourself re-engaging in patterns that reopen the wound. The emotional track gives way.
But when you pair forgiveness with boundaries, the pattern changes. You can release the bitterness without re-entering the storm. You can say, I wish you well, but this part of the journey continues without you.
That’s the equilibrium of resilience: movement without collapse.
Self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff describes this as “tenderness with firmness.” It’s the ability to hold empathy for others while maintaining self-respect. True resilience doesn’t mean detachment; it means connection with discernment.
Forgiveness and boundaries, side by side, make that discernment possible.
Rebuilding the Track After Emotional Collapse
Emotional recovery rarely happens in a straight line. It looks more like rebuilding track after a landslide. Clearing debris, relaying ties, checking alignment. Each act of rebuilding is a small declaration that your life isn’t over at the site of the wreck.
Resilience starts with the decision to move again. Not fast, but forward.
Psychologists Southwick and Charney describe resilience as a dynamic system built on three pillars: meaning, connection, and self-regulation. Forgiveness and boundaries serve each of these:
- Forgiveness restores meaning. It helps you reinterpret pain as something survivable; even formative.
- Boundaries rebuild connection. They allow you to trust again without losing your footing.
- Together, they regulate emotion. They turn chaos into coherence.
In practice, this rebuilding might look like small, quiet shifts:
- Choosing to stop rereading the text thread that always reopens the wound.
- Declining a conversation you know will spiral.
- Letting go of the need for someone else’s apology to feel complete.
Each of these is a rail spike in the new track. Tiny anchors holding the weight of forward motion.
And with time, the terrain begins to change.
Forgiveness softens what’s hardened inside you. Boundaries strengthen what’s been too soft. Together, they make you flexible and firm; the two traits resilience needs most.
Emotion researcher Barbara Fredrickson found that positive emotions like gratitude, hope, and compassion expand our psychological capacity. They “broaden and build” the mind’s resources for coping. Forgiveness nurtures those emotions internally, while boundaries make space for them externally.
In other words, forgiveness builds the inner landscape; boundaries protect the outer one.
Resilience isn’t just how many storms you’ve survived; it’s the track you’ve built to travel through them.
The Practice of Resilience: Tools for Emotional Recovery
While resilience may sound abstract, its daily practice is often surprisingly tangible. Here are a few ways to strengthen both rails in everyday life:
1. Name and Notice
Psychologist Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us that awareness is the first act of healing. When a wave of resentment or anxiety hits, name it: This is anger. This is fear. Labeling emotions lowers amygdala activation and restores executive functioning. Forgiveness begins with awareness.
2. Reframe the Story
Ask: What am I holding onto that no longer serves me?
This question moves the focus from what happened to how it’s still affecting you. Cognitive reframing, a core concept in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Beck, 1979), helps transform emotional stuckness into insight.
3. Create Boundary Scripts
If boundaries feel intimidating, pre-script them.
- “I’m not able to talk about that right now.”
- “That topic isn’t helpful for me.”
- “I wish you well, but I need space.”
These statements build confidence through repetition. Like rehearsing a new language of self-respect.
4. Engage the Body
Resilience isn’t only mental. Trauma lives in the nervous system. Practices like walking, yoga, journaling, or deep breathing reconnect mind and body, allowing forgiveness and boundaries to become embodied rather than intellectual.
5. Seek Repair, Not Return
Sometimes emotional recovery includes relational repair. But that’s not always reconciliation. Repair is internal: it’s mending the torn fabric of your trust in yourself. Boundaries ensure that repair is safe; forgiveness ensures that it’s possible.
Each of these practices helps rebuild your track one section at a time. Not toward perfection, but toward peace.
The Journey Ahead
Resilience, I’ve come to realize, isn’t about being unbreakable. It’s about learning how to rebuild when you inevitably break.
There’s a quiet strength in knowing that even after betrayal or heartbreak, you can still lay new track. Stronger, straighter, steadier.
Forgiveness releases the past so you can travel light.
Boundaries define the future so you can travel safely.
Together, they create a way forward that doesn’t require erasing what came before.
At its best, resilience is less about arrival and more about movement. The slow rhythm of recovery that reminds you life is still unfolding.
So if you find yourself standing among the wreckage, unsure where to begin, start here:
Clear the debris.
Lay one rail of forgiveness.
Lay the other of boundaries.
And begin again.Because resilience isn’t the medal you earn for surviving.
It’s the sound of the train, still moving.
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