282. Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal: You're Not Resilient. You're Just Coping. Here’s 5 Practices of Highly Resilient People

June 30, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal spent two decades studying people recovering from traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. She noticed something puzzling: patients with nearly identical injuries had vastly different recovery trajectories. Some languished, while others thrived. That observation became the foundation of her research into resilience—and her central argument is that most people have resilience completely backwards.

Resilience is not about being tougher, going harder, or bouncing back as quickly as possible. Those three things, she says, are actually the opposite of resilience. True resilience is about recovery, modulating output, and listening to what is happening internally. It is not Teflon-like invulnerability. It is the willingness to show up and let others have a window into what is happening in your life.

The Five Practices of Highly Resilient People

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Resilience is Categorically Misunderstood** - Dr. Stejskal introduces the core reframe: resilience is not about toughness or speed, but about recovery, modulation, and vulnerability.
2 (03:29) **The Genesis: Traumatic Brain Injury Research** - Dr. Stejskal explains how her work with brain injury patients revealed vastly different recovery rates, sparking her two-decade study on resilience.
3 (08:04) **The Core Reframe: Resilience is Not Toughness** - Dr. Stejskal dismantles the common misconception that resilience equals speed and stoicism.
4 (10:57) **Practice #1: Vulnerability as the Foundation** - Vulnerability is not weakness; it is the first and foundational practice of highly resilient people.
5 (17:52) **Practice #2: Productive Perseverance** - Perseverance alone is not resilience; it must be paired with stress modulation and strategic goal assessment.
6 (26:30) **Practice #3: Connection (Internal & External)** - Connection has two parts: the often-overlooked internal connection with oneself, and the external connection with others.
7 (32:29) **Practice #4: Gradiosity (Gratitude + Generosity)** - Dr. Stejskal shares her personal story of being stalked to illustrate how to reframe trauma into gratitude and generosity.

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Show Notes

Roughly 82% of autoimmune diseases show up in women, and the cause may not be what you think. In this episode, I sit down with resilience researcher Dr. Taryn Marie to unpack how the stress you hide rewires your nervous system, why "toughing it out" is actually the opposite of resilience, and the three questions I'm now asking myself every morning. She also opens up about the 20-year secret she hid from everyone and a study where babies who had food, water, and everything but one thing still didn't survive.

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Connect with Dr. Taryn Marie Stejskal

Website: ⁠https://bit.ly/4oRTL1r⁠

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