If you’ve lived through these 8 experiences, you’re more resilient than the average person

Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It’s messy, unpredictable, and sometimes downright brutal. But the strange thing is, it’s often the people who’ve faced the most adversity that end up the strongest—not in a hardened, emotionless way, but in a grounded, quietly powerful way.

That kind of resilience doesn’t come from reading self-help books or going on yoga retreats. It comes from living through the kinds of experiences that shake you, stretch you, and ultimately shape you.

If you’ve lived through the following 8 experiences, chances are you’re more resilient than the average person—and probably stronger than you give yourself credit for.

1. You’ve hit rock bottom—and climbed your way back up

There’s something transformative about reaching a point where you feel like you’ve lost everything. It might have been a failed relationship, a job loss, a mental health crisis, or just a string of life events that left you wondering how you were still standing.

Hitting rock bottom teaches you one of the most important truths about resilience: you’re stronger than your worst moment.

When I was in my early twenties, I had what I’d now call a quarter-life collapse. I was working a soul-sucking warehouse job, completely disconnected from who I wanted to be. But it was during that time—when I felt lost, aimless, and miserable—that I stumbled across mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy. That’s when things started to shift.

Sometimes the breakdown is the beginning of the breakthrough.

2. You’ve grieved a deep loss

Grief is one of life’s heaviest teachers. Whether it was the death of someone you loved, the end of a relationship that mattered, or even the loss of a dream you’d clung to—moving through grief changes you on a cellular level.

It strips away illusions. It softens your ego. And weirdly, it often makes you more compassionate toward others.

To grieve deeply is to love deeply—and to survive that is a mark of immense resilience.

You learn how to carry what you can’t fix. You stop pretending life is fair. But you also start to appreciate the people still around you with more tenderness than before.

3. You’ve had to reinvent yourself

At some point in life, most of us have to start over.

Maybe your career path collapsed. Maybe you realized you were living someone else’s version of success. Maybe you moved to a new country or left behind a whole community to find something more aligned with who you really are.

Reinvention requires courage, especially when it means walking away from things that are “fine” but not right.

And it’s rarely glamorous. Most people don’t see the self-doubt, the nights spent questioning your sanity, or the uncertainty that comes with change. But you kept going. That says everything.

4. You’ve been misunderstood—and stood your ground anyway

There’s a certain strength that comes from knowing who you are, even when others don’t get it.

Whether it’s holding onto your values in a toxic environment, choosing a non-traditional path, or speaking the truth when it’s inconvenient—resilient people know how to stay anchored even when the social tide is against them.

It’s exhausting to feel like you have to constantly explain or defend your choices. But if you’ve been through this and didn’t abandon yourself in the process, you’ve built a kind of inner trust that many people never develop.

5. You’ve taken care of others while breaking inside

This one doesn’t get talked about enough.

If you’ve ever been the strong one—keeping things together for your family, your kids, your partner—while secretly falling apart, then you know what quiet, invisible resilience looks like.

You showed up for others even when you had nothing left. That’s not weakness—that’s warrior-level strength.

And while you deserve support too (and I hope you’ve learned how to ask for it), surviving this kind of emotional load gives you a depth of empathy that’s hard to teach.

6. You’ve faced rejection—and still kept putting yourself out there

Whether it was love, work, friendship, or creative pursuits—rejection stings. There’s no way around that.

But what makes you resilient isn’t avoiding rejection; it’s what you do afterward.

Do you retreat forever? Or do you eventually get back up and try again?

Resilient people get bruised, not broken. They let the rejection shape them—but not define them.

I’ve had articles tank. I’ve had business ideas fail. I’ve had people close to me walk away. But every time I came back a little smarter, a little softer, and strangely, a little braver.

7. You’ve lived with uncertainty and kept moving forward

Life rarely offers the kind of guarantees we crave. Whether you’ve waited for a diagnosis, faced financial instability, or gone through a season of “I have no idea what’s coming next,” then you know what it’s like to live with open-ended questions.

Resilient people learn how to dance with uncertainty instead of trying to control everything.

They don’t always feel brave—sometimes they’re terrified—but they still show up for life anyway.

If you’ve kept going without knowing how it all turns out, that’s courage in motion.

8. You’ve learned how to let go

This might be the ultimate resilience test.

Letting go isn’t about pretending something didn’t matter. It’s about accepting that it did, and that now, it’s over.

That applies to people, places, expectations, versions of yourself you once loved. Letting go is painful—but it’s also incredibly freeing.

Resilient people understand the art of release.

They don’t cling to what’s already gone. They grieve, they process, and then they open themselves to what’s next.

As I often write about in my book, Hidden Secrets of Buddhism, non-attachment isn’t about detachment. It’s about meeting life as it is—not as you wish it would be. That mindset is where real peace (and strength) comes from.

Final thoughts: You’re stronger than you think

If you’ve lived through even a few of these experiences, chances are, you’ve developed a kind of emotional and psychological strength that can’t be faked.

You might not always feel “resilient.” You might still have moments of doubt, fear, and overwhelm. But resilience doesn’t mean being unaffected. It means being willing to keep going—especially when things are hard.

The most resilient people I know aren’t always loud about their strength. They’re just quietly steady. They know what they’ve lived through. They’ve met themselves in the dark. And now, they move forward not because everything is perfect—but because they’ve learned how to carry both joy and pain at once.

And that, to me, is real power.