Rising Above Life’s Storms, The Deep Resilience Way in an Age of Crisis

Rising Above Life’s Storms, The Deep Resilience Way in an Age of Crisis

This is a book for our times. War and conflict rage across West Asia and Eastern Europe. Job losses mount as global supply chains fracture and automation accelerates. Loneliness has been declared an epidemic by the World Health Organization. Anxiety and fear grip people across generations, from students worried about an uncertain future to retirees watching their savings erode. Post-pandemic, we have all been buffeted by forces entirely outside our control—geopolitical shocks, economic volatility, climate disasters, and the quiet erosion of social bonds. The human race can be amazingly resilient, adapting and surviving against impossible odds. But at the same time, it is also very fragile, becoming more so in the construct of modern living: nuclear families, transient communities, digital connections that simulate intimacy but lack its healing warmth, and the absence of extended family and neighbourhood support systems that once buffered individuals against life’s hardest blows. Is there a way one can build resilience intentionally, systematically, and durably? Neena Verma, a leadership coach with a multi-disciplinary background spanning organisational psychology, appreciative inquiry, grief psychology, and depth psychology, believes the answer is yes. Her new book, RISE — The Deep Resilience Way, offers not just a theory but an original, actionable model for what she calls “deep resilience”—a capacity that goes beyond mere survival to encompass growth, transformation, and even flourishing in the aftermath of trauma.

The Author’s Credibility: Resilience Forged in Fire

Neena Verma is no stranger to grief and trauma. Her earlier book, A Mother’s Cry, A Mother’s Celebration, was written after the loss of her 22-year-old elder son, Utkarsh. That loss could have broken her. Instead, it became the crucible in which her understanding of resilience was forged. In the moving introduction to RISE, Verma describes how her faith and hopefulness have been tested time and again. She endured not one but four episodes of COVID-19, a freak accident, and transient ischemia—a condition often described as a “mini-stroke.” Any one of these events could have overwhelmed a person. She could have lost her bearings, retreated into despair, or simply given up. Instead, she writes, “By almighty’s grace, expert medical care and my son Pratyush’s care, I recovered warmer, wiser and kinder.”

This is not the hollow platitude of a self-help guru who has never suffered. It is the hard-won testimony of someone who has walked through the fire and emerged not unscathed but transformed. Verma notes that while Utkarsh, her lost son, has inspired her understanding and practice of resilience, it is also her scholarly studies, research, and experience as a grief and growth coach that have led to the conceptualisation of her “deep resilience” model. She brings to the page not just lived experience but rigorous academic grounding. This combination—the head and the heart, the scholar and the sufferer—is what gives RISE its distinctive authority.

What Is Deep Resilience? A Definition

Through her own reminiscences and the stories of others, Verma embarks on a profound exploration of what leads to resilience. And these stories are what make the book come alive. A widow who rebuilt her life after her husband’s sudden death. A business leader who lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis and started over. A cancer survivor who found meaning in advocacy. A refugee who rebuilt a new life in a new country. It is through these stories that Verma arrives at a definition of resilience that is richer and more nuanced than the usual clichés of “bouncing back.”

To Verma, resilience is not merely returning to a previous state of equilibrium. It is not about being “tough” or “stoic” or suppressing one’s emotions. Rather, it is “a combination of virtue, mindset, capacity and personal resources that enable an individual’s ability to recover from adverse, stressful, challenging, trying or traumatic circumstances, adapt to life in the aftermath, restore healthy functioning and grow stronger.” The key phrase is “grow stronger.” Deep resilience does not just restore; it transforms. It takes the broken pieces of a life and reassembles them into something new, something perhaps even more beautiful than the original.

The RISE Model: Four Pillars of Deep Resilience

The book is divided into three parts. Part One dives into the life-storms raging in our world—the wars, the losses, the anxieties, the fears. It teaches us how to learn to endure these storms and recognise our own vulnerabilities. Part Two is where the meat is, where we are exposed to the deep resilience phenomenon, and where Verma’s creation, RISE, is explained. RISE is an acronym for a four-aspect model: Restorative Adaptation, Imaginal Growth, Supple Strength, and Expansive Emergence.

Restorative Adaptation is the capacity to recover from a crisis and adapt to a new normal. It is not about pretending that nothing has changed; it is about accepting that change has occurred and finding a way to live meaningfully within the new reality. This pillar draws on insights from grief psychology, which distinguishes between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping. The resilient person oscillates between confronting the pain of loss and engaging in practical tasks that rebuild life.

Imaginal Growth is perhaps the most distinctive and original aspect of Verma’s model. It refers to the capacity to imagine a different future, to hold a vision of possibility even when the present is bleak. This is not wishful thinking or toxic positivity; it is the active, disciplined work of imagining a self that has survived, grown, and even thrived. Verma draws on depth psychology and the work of thinkers like James Hillman, who emphasised the role of images and imagination in psychic life. When we lose our job, our health, or a loved one, we also lose the imagined future we had built around that person or situation. Imaginal growth is the work of building a new imagined future—not as a replacement, but as a continuation of the story.

Supple Strength addresses the paradox of resilience: that strength often comes from flexibility, not rigidity. A tree that is rigid and unyielding will break in a storm; a tree that bends with the wind will survive. Supple strength is the capacity to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to admit weakness, to change course when the old way no longer works. It is the opposite of the toxic masculine ideal of “never showing weakness.” Verma argues that true resilience requires the courage to be soft, to be open, to be receptive.

Expansive Emergence is the final pillar—the sense that from the ashes of destruction, something new and unexpected can emerge. This is the phoenix moment. It is the discovery that the person you become after trauma is not just a damaged version of your former self but a genuinely new creation, with new strengths, new perspectives, and new capacities. Expansive emergence is the recognition that growth is not linear; it is emergent, unpredictable, and often surprising.

Each of these four foundational aspects interplays with the others. They are not sequential stages but simultaneous dimensions of the resilience process. You can be engaged in restorative adaptation while also cultivating imaginal growth. You can practice supple strength while remaining open to expansive emergence. The model is dynamic, not static.

The Stories That Make It Real

What makes RISE accessible and moving are the stories. Verma weaves together her own experiences with those of clients, friends, and historical figures. There is the story of a young woman who lost her parents in a car accident and found a new family in a community of survivors. There is the story of an executive who was fired from a job he had held for 20 years and went on to start a successful social enterprise. There is the story of a refugee who fled violence, lost everything, and rebuilt a life in a new country, becoming a community organiser and advocate.

These stories are not merely illustrative; they are integral to Verma’s argument. Resilience is not an abstract concept; it is a lived reality. It is not something you read about; it is something you practice. And the stories of others who have walked the path before you can serve as guides, offering not formulas but inspiration. They show that it is possible, not that it is easy.

A Book for Slow, Mindful Reading

RISE is beautifully structured and brilliantly articulated. Verma, who is also a poet, wields her pen with magic. The storms that plunder and the inevitable rainbow on the horizon are expressed in verses that convey far more than mere prose. A poem about loss, a meditation on grief, a reflection on hope—these interludes break up the text and invite the reader to pause, breathe, and feel.

However, this is not a book to be consumed quickly. It requires slow and mindful reading. The stories are illustrative of the concepts she unpacks, but there are many concepts—perhaps too many for the lay reader to grasp at once. Verma references the work of numerous psychologists—from Viktor Frankl and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross to Martin Seligman and Brené Brown. If you get deeply interested, you will find yourself Googling these names, exploring their work, and going down fascinating rabbit holes. This is not a criticism; it is a feature. The book is a doorway, not a destination.

There are also plenty of exercises that Verma sets for the reader to do. Journaling prompts, reflection questions, guided visualisations, and action steps. You have to halt and internalise, then reflect and question yourself. This is not a book you read once and put on a shelf; it is a book you work with, a book that works on you.

Why This Book Matters Now

We live in an age of compounding crises. The COVID-19 pandemic was not a one-off event; it was a dress rehearsal for the polycrises to come. Climate change will bring more frequent and more intense natural disasters. Geopolitical tensions will continue to disrupt supply chains and markets. Technological change will continue to displace workers and transform industries. And the erosion of social bonds—the replacement of community with algorithm, of conversation with scrolling—will continue to leave individuals isolated and vulnerable.

In this context, resilience is not a luxury; it is a necessity. It is not something you develop after the crisis hits; it is something you cultivate in advance, like an insurance policy or an emergency fund. Verma’s RISE model offers a systematic way to do that cultivation. It is not a quick fix or a set of platitudes. It is a serious, evidence-informed, and deeply humane approach to the art of living through hard times.

Conclusion: A Bedside Companion for the Storms Ahead

RISE — The Deep Resilience Way is a book that should be definitely on your bedside. Not because it will solve all your problems or make the storms go away—it will not. But because it will equip you with the fortitude to cope with whatever fate throws at you. It will remind you that you are not alone, that others have walked this path before, and that it is possible not just to survive but to grow, to transform, and to emerge warmer, wiser, and kinder.

Verma’s model—Restorative Adaptation, Imaginal Growth, Supple Strength, and Expansive Emergence—offers a map for the journey. The stories offer companionship. The exercises offer practice. And the poetry offers solace. In an age of crisis, this is no small thing. It is, perhaps, everything.

Q&A: Neena Verma’s RISE and the Deep Resilience Way

Q1: Who is Neena Verma, and what gives her the credibility to write about resilience and grief?

A1: Neena Verma is a leadership coach with a multi-disciplinary background across organisational psychology, appreciative inquiry, grief psychology, and depth psychology. More importantly, she is someone who has lived through profound grief and trauma herself. Her earlier book, A Mother’s Cry, A Mother’s Celebration, was written after the loss of her 22-year-old elder son, Utkarsh. She also endured four episodes of COVID-19, a freak accident, and transient ischemia (a “mini-stroke”). Rather than being overwhelmed, she writes that she recovered “warmer, wiser and kinder.” She brings to the page not just scholarly knowledge but lived experience—the hard-won testimony of someone who has walked through fire and emerged transformed. This combination of academic rigour and personal authenticity gives her “deep resilience” model unique authority.

Q2: What is the RISE model, and what do its four components represent?

A2: RISE is an acronym for a four-aspect model of deep resilience:

• Restorative Adaptation: The capacity to recover from a crisis and adapt to a new normal—not pretending nothing has changed, but accepting change and finding meaningful ways to live within the new reality.

• Imaginal Growth: The capacity to imagine a different future, to hold a vision of possibility even when the present is bleak. This is not wishful thinking but the active, disciplined work of building a new imagined future after loss.

• Supple Strength: The paradox that strength often comes from flexibility, not rigidity. The capacity to be vulnerable, to ask for help, to admit weakness, to change course when the old way no longer works. True resilience requires the courage to be soft and open.

• Expansive Emergence: The recognition that from the ashes of destruction, something new and unexpected can emerge. The person you become after trauma is not just a damaged version of your former self but a genuinely new creation with new strengths and capacities.
  These four pillars interrelate dynamically; they are not sequential stages but simultaneous dimensions of the resilience process.

Q3: How does Verma define resilience, and how is her definition different from common understandings?

A3: Verma defines resilience as “a combination of virtue, mindset, capacity and personal resources that enable an individual’s ability to recover from adverse, stressful, challenging, trying or traumatic circumstances, adapt to life in the aftermath, restore healthy functioning and grow stronger.” The key distinction from common understandings (which often focus only on “bouncing back”) is the phrase “grow stronger.” Deep resilience does not just restore; it transforms. It takes the broken pieces of a life and reassembles them into something new, something perhaps even more beautiful than the original. It is not about being “tough” or “stoic” or suppressing emotions; it is about active adaptation, imagination, flexibility, and emergence.

Q4: Why does the reviewer describe this as a book for “slow and mindful reading,” and what features require that approach?

A4: The reviewer notes that RISE requires slow and mindful reading for several reasons:

• Conceptual density: Verma introduces many concepts (Restorative Adaptation, Imaginal Growth, Supple Strength, Expansive Emergence, each with sub-components). There are perhaps too many concepts for the lay reader to grasp at once.

• Rich intertextuality: She references the work of numerous psychologists (Viktor Frankl, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Martin Seligman, Brené Brown, James Hillman, and others). Interested readers will find themselves Googling these names and exploring their work.

• Exercises and reflection: The book includes journaling prompts, reflection questions, guided visualisations, and action steps. The reader must halt, internalise, reflect, and question themselves—not simply consume text passively.

• Poetic interludes: Verma is also a poet; the book contains verses that convey more than mere prose, requiring contemplative engagement.
  The book is structured as a workbook and companion, not a quick read.

Q5: Why is this book particularly relevant “for our times,” according to the review?

A5: The review argues that we live in an age of compounding crises: war and conflict (West Asia, Ukraine), job losses (from supply chain disruptions and automation), an epidemic of loneliness (declared by WHO), and growing anxiety and fear across populations. The COVID-19 pandemic was not a one-off event but a “dress rehearsal for the polycrises to come”: climate change will bring more frequent natural disasters, geopolitical tensions will disrupt supply chains, technological change will displace workers, and the erosion of social bonds will leave individuals isolated. In this context, resilience is not a luxury but a necessity. It is not something developed after a crisis hits but something cultivated in advance, like an insurance policy. Verma’s RISE model offers a systematic, evidence-informed, and humane approach to building the fortitude to cope with whatever fate throws at us. The book belongs on the bedside to equip readers for the storms ahead.