Introducing Dr. Stuart Shanker’s latest book Restoring Resilience
Dr. Stuart Shanker spent his entire career working to better understand and support the wellbeing of us all and, while he has retired from formal university work, he has not stopped. No matter what issues the world is facing, Stuart always responds the same way: he reflects on the latest in neuroscience research searching for ideas that might help us to better understand our children, ourselves, and each other and, in so doing, allows us all to work towards lives filled with meaning and peace.
Those ideas became The Shanker Chronicles. A series of webinars designed to address stressors that were arising in our lives and how we can support each other to self-regulate and find calm in the midst of them.
By 2022, The Shanker Chronicles had evolved into a monthly series attended by listeners worldwide and the response was invigorating. But Stuart’s talk and Dr. Susan Hopkins’ moderated discussion was only the beginning of the conversation. The audience wanted more. It was time to move from the screen to the page, to expand and reflect on the original webinar content, and to provide tools to support the reader on their own journey to resilience.
In The Shanker Chronicles: Restoring Resilience, Stuart reframes the idea of resilience and takes the reader on a journey deep into the brain in order to show that resilience is not a matter of self-control but is a state that can only be built on a calm foundation. A foundation we can all build.
A Sneak Peak Into the Book
In the first chapter, “Stress in Today’s World,” Stuart takes the reader through the history of the idea of stress to demonstrate how our beliefs in self-control as the antidote to stress became entrenched. He then debunks those beliefs in light of revolutionary findings in neurochemistry. The chapter concludes with valuable and practical advice about the power of recognizing our very personal and unique signs of stress and homeostatic imbalance.
The second chapter, “Want vs. Need,” explores the apparent plague of instant gratification that has taken hold of so many. Stuart explores the SEEKING system deep in our brains to show that this compulsion is not voluntary. Instead, the person is hooked, unable to see anything but their immediate reward, even if it doesn’t ultimately provide what they truly want. Stuart concludes by showing that true gratification can only be found by reducing stress and seeking restoration.
In the final chapter, “Reframing: Resilience is a State not a Trait,” Stuart unpacks different perspectives on resilience and digs into the science of what is really happening in a brain struggling with a heavy stress load. Stuart shows the reader that our capacity to face adversity is not fixed, inherited, or strengthened by struggle. Most importantly, we can all help each other to be in a state of resilience.
More Than Just a Book
In addition to Stuart’s insightful writing, The Shanker Chronicles contain tools to support the reader:
- Shanker Self-Reg Basics: An overview of the framework and its scientific foundations.
- Learning From: personal lived experiences of Self-Reg in application.
- Summaries: key ideas from each chapter.
- Reflect: Applied Self-Reg Knowledge offers a challenge, a reflection, and an opportunity to build the reader’s personal Self-Reg toolkit.
- Glossary: An extensive list of terms used in the Chronicle with key quotes and graphics to support deep understanding.
- References: A list of readings cited in the text.
- Index to allow the reader to quickly find keywords and concepts in the text.
The vision of the Shanker Chronicles is the same as it is with all of Stuart’s work and the work of his organization The MEHRIT Centre (TMC): To work towards a world where we can all grow and thrive. Stuart does this by demonstrating how ever evolving and nuanced discoveries in neuroscience can be applied, through Self-Reg, to our very practical everyday lived experience. It’s an incredibly powerful leap and it takes a great deal of ingenuity, insight and passion to jump it.
