The Myth of Resilience in Humanitarian Work

We praise humanitarians for being resilient - but rarely ask what it’s costing them.

You’ve heard it before:
“She’s so resilient.”
“He always bounces back.”
“They can handle anything.”

In humanitarian work, resilience is one of the most prized, and most praised, traits. It’s treated like an essential job qualification, a badge of honor, and a sign of strength. But what if that same “resilience” is masking a deeper wound? What if the way we talk about resilience is part of what’s burning people out?

Let’s name what’s really going on.

Resilience has become a shield, and a silence.

For too many humanitarian professionals, being seen as resilient means:

• Pushing through personal grief while managing others’ emergencies

• Withholding needs to “not burden the team”

• Performing composure to avoid being seen as weak or unfit

Resilience, in practice, often gets rewarded when it looks like endurance without complaint. But quiet survival isn’t the same as being well, and forced silence isn’t the same as strength.

The cost of being the strong one

The myth of resilience is particularly damaging because it’s isolating.
The more “resilient” people appear, the less likely they are to be offered support, checked in on, or truly seen. They become the people others lean on, never the ones encouraged to fall apart.

But beneath the surface of that composure?

• Panic attacks between meetings

• Numbness that feels like it might never end

• A growing disconnect between one’s values and the system they’re working within

When we glorify individual resilience, we ignore the responsibility of organizations to create conditions where resilience isn’t constantly required just to survive the day.

Let’s redefine resilience, or replace it altogether.

There is another way.

We can choose to talk about capacity instead of just resilience.
We can talk about sustainability.
About systems that don’t constantly drain the people inside them.
About strength that includes boundaries, softness, clarity, and rest.

Real strength isn’t in how much pain someone can absorb without breaking… it’s in their ability to recover, to relate, to reconnect, and to resist being reduced to their utility.

Before we praise resilience again, let’s ask:

• What support do they not feel safe asking for?

• What costs are we not seeing?

• What systems benefit from their silence?

If your strength is measured only by how much you can endure, we’ve already failed you.

Holding space with care and solidarity — here’s to staying whole, together,

~ Kate

Thanks for reading The Olive Pages: Fieldnotes on care, clarity, and staying whole

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KRC provides coaching, psychosocial support, and organizational consulting to humanitarian professionals and mission-driven organizations worldwide. Based in lived experience and trauma-aware care, our work helps clients navigate burnout, moral injury, organizational change, and career transitions — while staying human in the process.