157: Year Three, Clearer And Kinder

Resilience shows up in the small choices that restore steadiness after a hard season, and in the rare moments when private truth reshapes public policy. As we mark three years of the show, I share the unexpected chapter that changed my professional life: partnering with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on the Post-Disaster Mental Health Response Act. The work was slow and human. It demanded a shaky voice, persistent calls, and an insistence that survivor stories deserve visibility, validation, and a central place in how we write the rules.

Across nearly 150 conversations of this podcast, a pattern emerged. Guests rarely used the word resilience, yet everything they described—uncertainty, identity, responsibility, care—mapped to it. No one glorified pushing through pain for its own sake; instead they talked about decisions that led back to wholeness, connection, and stability. Behind the mic, that meant a different kind of craft: research that honors nuance, questions that protect context, editing that preserves dignity, and a steady presence when a guest shares something fragile. The outcome is a lens on how people rebuild and how systems can help or hinder that process.

We also look forward. The next phase introduces a produced narrative series exploring decisions and turning points that communities use to make sense of loss and progress, alongside episodes shaped by a survivor’s lens—people who have lived through disruption and can articulate what it reveals about culture and responsibility. Through these formats, we’ll keep centering lived experience and tracing the quiet truths that drive meaningful change. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Everyday Questions About Resilience
• 0:20 Three Years And A Turning Point
• 0:47 Working On A Federal Mental Health Bill
• 2:03 The Slow Work Of Systems Change
• 3:25 Patterns From 150 Conversations
• 5:15 Resilience As Wholeness Not Hustle
• 6:35 Craft, Care, And Stewardship
• 8:25 Centering Lived Experience
• 9:20 What’s Next: Research And New Formats
• 11:00 An Invitation To Reflect
• 12:15 Gratitude And Looking Ahead

Transcript

Manya Chylinski: 0:00

Most people don't walk around thinking about resilience or asking big philosophical questions about it. We ask questions about everyday things. How do I move forward when something bad has happened or things keep changing? How do I stay grounded in the midst of all of this unpredictability around me? Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, Manya Chylinski. In this final episode of the year, we mark three years of conversations, three years of learning in real time, three years of discovering what resilience looks like through the eyes of other people. And today, that reflection starts with me. All year this year, I've asked my guests about something they never imagined doing. And in this episode, I'm answering that question myself through a moment that reshaped my professional life. I worked alongside Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley on the Post-Disaster Mental Health Response Act. And this remains one of the most unexpected and amazing chapters of my life. It certainly was not on any vision board. It happened because of my own lived experience and my desire to change the world and to get help for other survivors. And through an understanding that stories like mine, people who survive trauma, disruption, and are dealing with the mental health impacts of that deserve visibility and they deserve validation and they deserve to be believed. And part of making and passing this bill enabled me to recognize something I hadn't really seen clearly before. Our systems, our policies, our institutions, they change when people keep saying, hey, this isn't working. They keep making the phone calls and they keep at it, even when that progress is slow. Because when we're talking about system or policy change, especially on a federal level, it is slow. It's a detailed process. There's a lot of moving parts. And in my case, it required using my voice even when I was afraid. And my voice was shaking. And as I was doing this work, I felt an emotional weight. All the survivors who'd ever trusted me with their stories, and all the survivors who are going to exist for things that haven't happened yet, that maybe I could make a difference for them. And working with Congresswoman Presley and her team revealed the power of lived experience when it is respected and supported and centered in policy making. And it also revealed how change is possible when someone chooses to walk alongside of you. Sharing this is my one thing, the thing I never imagined doing, feels right here at the end of year three of the podcast. Because the story behind the bill mirrors the story behind the show. There's some unexpected paths, unexpected growth, and some clarity about why this work matters that I wouldn't have imagined. And reaching this three-year mark of the podcast, I want to pause and notice what has changed and what I have learned and what has emerged over nearly 150 conversations. When I started this show, I wasn't thinking about where it would lead. I was just thinking of it as a way to learn from people I admired, people doing this work, really smart people who think about survivors and resilience and how to recover from trauma, and a way to understand beyond the surface level definitions of these things that often get tossed around casually, and to sit with people who have lived through disruption or reinvention or simply the complexity of being a human being. Over time, I began to notice a pattern. Even guests who had never used the word resilience were still telling stories that were about resilience on some level on the foundation. And that revealed how people move through uncertainty and how we rebuild our lives when something changes without warning. And over these conversations, I kept recognizing resilience as a pathway to wholeness, a pathway to well-being, not resilience for resilience's sake. That's not what people were talking about. People were talking about decisions that helped them return to normal moments in their lives or in their organizations that focused on connection or shifts in the way they were thinking or behaving that enabled them to become stable again. Not once did I have a guest who talked about pushing through pain simply to prove that they could push through pain. When you looked, you could see that every story has a deeper purpose. And another thing became clear a lot of people don't talk about resilience specifically using that word. And they don't think about it in philosophical terms. It's uncertainty, it's identity, responsibility, care, compassion. Or they talk about the moment they realized something had to change, or the moment that they moved forward, even though they didn't have a plan and had no idea where they were going. Or they talked about having questions and no easy answers. And they revealed a gap between what people need and what people receive. And they revealed the moments where care for another human being matters most. And how compassion, when you really dig down and look at it, shapes our decisions, relationships, and our communities. Three years of these conversations have also changed the way I see this work. It's really deepened it. And these conversations have sharpened the lens through which I understand how people recover, what resiliency is, and human behavior. And they've shown me how much of resilience is so quiet and not noticeable by other people. And how much of that begins with recognizing, with being validated, having someone believe you. And how much of resilience also depends on human connections. Behind the scenes, the podcast has required persistence. Scheduling, editing, preparation, note-taking, and being emotionally present, and then holding other people's stories with care. And it's been a commitment. And that's asked for consistency, even when my own life has been unpredictable. But the gift I get out of all of this is clarity about the conversations I want to be having in this world, about the story I want to tell, and about questions that are the ones that really matter. Three years of this podcast have taught me as much behind the microphone as in front of it. There's all the prep reading, research, mapping the questions that will bring out the truest story, shaping the conversation to bring out something coherent and clear and respectful. And the emotional side of it for me, being steady when a guest shares something vulnerable, and then making sure that their story has dignity, the dignity that it deserves. And then I take that responsibility of making sure their life isn't reduced to a headline or a single moment of pain. And those kind of decisions behind the scene have had me thinking very carefully about representation, about nuance, compassion, and care, because some stories are fragile. And it's really important for me and for this podcast to build a sp space where people feel safe to tell the truth and know they're not going to be exploited. And that's a guiding principle of the show. And hosting this podcast has required a sense of stewardship. Every guest brings a piece of their life into this space. And my job is to hold that piece with respect and care. I'm asking questions and I need to be safeguarding the context, making sure that we're not flattening someone's story into inspiration or framing it as a neat and tidy lesson when it was quite complex to live through. And that responsibility has shaped my approach and my understanding of resilience. And the way I think about listening to people and the concept of truth. Resilience is usually quiet. And my job as a podcast host is to create the conditions where those quiet truths can be heard. And being a steward of these stories has changed me. It's strengthened my commitment to centering lived experience. And it has made my work feel larger than a podcast. And it's become a way to make meaning for myself, for my guests, for anybody who's listening. And at the core, the show is here to understand how lived experience of trauma and disruption shapes resilience, how people rebuild, and what those journeys, which are largely personal, reveal about the world around us and the systems and institutions we are part of. The next phase of the podcast is going to be some more intentional field research, a way to understand how people build after disruption, what hidden strengths they discover, and how our systems and policies and institutions support or hinder that process. In 2026, the show is going to include two new kinds of episodes. The first is a produced narrative style series, limited sets of episodes exploring decisions, symbols, and turning points that communities and individuals use to make sense of loss or progress. Going to experiment a little bit with structure and storytelling. This won't replace the conversations you're used to. It's going to expand the world of the show and add another layer of meaning, is the plan. The second is voices shaped by a survivor's lens. Survivors of tragedy, yes. And people who have lived through any significant life disruption. People who have a perspective others may not see, who understand how things change when your life changes, and who can articulate what those moments reveal about our culture, about responsibility, about how we show up in the world. I think this is where the show is naturally directing me, the next expression of what you've heard across these past three years. A way to understand resilience from the inside out as lived experience, especially for those people who don't think about resilience as a concept. I want to help you understand what it is. And as we move into the new year, I have an invitation for all of my listeners. Choose one conversation from this past year that stayed with you and revisit it. What stands out now that you've lived another 12 months or some number of months since you first listened to it? What do you understand differently? What feels clearer or more relevant now than it did when you first listened to it? That kind of reflection can reveal how you've changed, even if you didn't see it happening in real time. And you probably didn't see it happening in real time because we rarely do. Stepping into a new year offers a moment to notice change in yourself, in your relationships, in the way you move through the world. These conversations on this podcast have showed me that resilience is visible when we look backwards and we see the choices we make, the boundaries we protect. And like I said before, most people don't walk around thinking about resilience or asking big philosophical questions about it. We ask questions about everyday things. How do I move forward when something bad has happened or things keep changing? How do I stay grounded in the midst of all of this unpredictability around me? How do I take care of the people in my life when they're struggling? How do I take care of the people in my life without losing sight of myself? Every answer to questions like these that I've heard over the past three years point towards resilience and compassion, even when they don't use those words. They point toward clarity, they don't point towards connection, and the part of ourselves that does stay steady when things are changing. This show will continue to follow those threads through stories, through lived experience, from how we rebuild and recover, how people reimagine their lives. And through you, the listeners, thank you for being here for year three. Thank you for listening and being present and being curious. And thank you for making space for these stories. The very act of listening is its own form of care. Here's to the conversations ahead.