Retrieve The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness Through Gratitude, Empathy And Mindfulness Author Hugh Van Cuylenburg Version

is an easytoread story about how the author came to understand the importance of practice timing gratitude, empathy and mindfulness on a daily basis as as way of improving mental health, particularly in young people.


Hugh van Cuylenberg is passionate about his subject and for years has devoted his energies to spreading this message.
He has developed school curriculum on resilience for at least one Australian state Victoria, and worked with high level sporting teams in different football codes and cricket.


His style is casual, easy to read the book a string of anecdotes illustrating how using his techniques has changed lives, even in the tough world of professional sports.


This is the publisher's blurb:
Hugh van Cuylenburg was a primary school teacher volunteering in northern India when he had a lifechanging realisation despite the underprivileged community the children were from, they were remarkably positive.
By contrast, back in Australia Hugh knew that all too many children struggled with depression, social anxieties and mental illness, His own little sister had been ravaged by anorexia nervosa,

How was it that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a loving family, struggled with their mental health, while these kids seemed so contented and resilient He set about finding the answer and in time came to recognise the key traits and behaviours these children possessed were gratitude, empathy and mindfulness.


In the ensuing years Hugh threw himself into studying and sharing this revelation with the world through The Resilience Project, with his playful and unorthodox presentations which both entertain and inform.
Now, with the same blend of humour, poignancy and cleareyed insight that The Resilience Project has become renowned for, Hugh explains how we can all get the tools we need to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
look. i need to get my thoughts together properly, i dont doubt this book has helped people and this project has and does help lots of people, and thats great. but its just another surface level be grateful and you can fight your mental illness and shit stuff that this white dude learnt on a trip to india.
and im not even writing him off because hes just some white dude who went to india lol this book goes way too into his own life then like, actual gem techniques or whatever theyre called and again it was all very surface level.
im glad his sister is happy after what she went through but with his wifes story too it just felt very oh everything is positive just think this and do this and you can forgive abusers etc which i can tell is not really what he wants to put across but it is what it is and as a trauma victim/survivor its more complex than that WHICH HE MENTIONS but thats it its literally like, a sentence, and another sentence where he says hes not a medical professional so blah blah! but like okay then why did you write about trauma like that im glad your sister came out of it and aced her yearand shit but i mean cmon.
also too many sporting references and name dropping that just went in one ear and out the other, Fluffy positivity figurative music for my ears, Dead easy read although its very Australian sport centric which might be a put off, Not as involved as other self help books Ive read but a great starting point to get a different perspective, I loved this book! I listened to it on audible and I really enjoyed it, It made me laugh and brought me to tears, I can see the benefit of utilising the GEM principles Gratitude, Empathy amp Mindfulness in everyday life and the improvements it can bring to our sense of happiness and wellbeing.
I will definitely recommend this book for my friends and family to read, Everyone needs to read this or have a listen on audible, Lots and lots of life lessons addressed in this book, all of which every one of us should probably take on board.
Would love to start putting the GEM method into practice!

/this is the nonpreachy “self help” book I didnt think I needed! Incredibly inspiring, resonated with me and with a journey I'm currently embarking on.
Beautifully written, an easy read, Found myself on more than one occasion, emotionally touched by the stories in the book, positives: the author seems like a genuinely good guy and i would have loved to have had him as a teacher, easy to read, important message but it isnt executed very well, the chapter about luke had me sobbing

negatives: this book is giving scott morrison in that the author cant seem to empathise unless a woman close to him has suffered through it this is not a self help book its a memoir i did not know this.


i think the links back to resilience / gratitude / empathy and mindfulness are quite lacklustre, just bc kids in india have it worse doesnt mean that your problems dont exist HOW are you supposed to automatically be happy just because others have it worse is that not toxic positivity i think that overlooks the key premise of mindfulness accepting your negative experiences and emotions rather than hiding it away just because relatively, “its not that bad”.


theres also only a singular focus on how well individuals e, g. his sister and stanzin could overcome their problems, i find it strange that he isnt able to then empathise with everyone else who has also overcome / is dealing with these issues

the biggest issue i have with this book is that theres a complete lack of selfawareness and understanding of his privilege.
theres no mention of how him being a straight, white, male who obviously came from a wealthy family with loving parents contributed to his position in life and helped him to be resilient

theres also wayyy too much name dropping in the second half of the book I listened to this book as an ebook.
It was really interesting to hear the messages about gratefulness, empathy, and mindfulness GEM told through the lens of personal stories.
Hugh is a born storyteller and you find yourself invested in his stories as you listen to them, Then you realise youve learnt the lesson he was imparting without having to have sat through a theory lecture, Well worth a listen or a read you will definitely take away something valuable from it, Nothing groundbreaking here . I loved this story, so Australian, so relevant and so necessary! Made me laugh out loud while listening on my walks and gave me so much to think about and easy ways to implement in my own life the process of gratitude, empathy and meditation.
Such a down to earth and kind bloke and loved the way he has woven his love of sports and family into this story.
Highly recommend listening. oh boy I have a lot of thoughts about this,

First of all I don't want to take away from the work the resilence project does and downplay any help they have provided to people.
This is just my personal response,

I have a real discomfort with using the life of a poor Indian boy to leverage our perception of how good we have things.
The same with those who are differently abled in some way, Our sense of happiness shouldn't be reliant on those we perceive to have less than us, I say this as someone who, like the author, has partaken in precisely the same 'voluntourism' so no judgement he does and personally I am embarrassed by and regret it having become more educated on the matter.


The second thing that bothered me was a flippant remark that anti depressants 'dulled' his wife's feelings or emotions, I can't recall the exact wording.
As someone who used antidepressants to bring myself out of the EXACT illness his sister suffered, I think this can be damaging.
This is a bad stereotype about such medication and runs the risk of encouraging those who refuse this, at times, lifesaving medication.


I also didn't enjoy the regaling of sport and sports clubs with no insight into the cultural issues these places and environments can pose for minorities and or women.
The sporting references grew tiresome at the beginning and only continued relentlessly, Yes sport can help people but it is remiss to mention that these exact environment can breed toxic behavior,
Having said that I have a real interest in positive psych and can see that Van Culenburg has packaged it in an appealing manner for a vast audience.
This book could have benefited from practical strategies beyond 'meditate' and 'gratitude' to help people apply this,
It is a good thing my maternity leave is coming to an end because I am clearly overthinking and spending too much time on everything at the moment.
i saw hugh live not too long ago and thought he was an excellent speaker, ive seen many mental health speakers in my life and he was one of the rare ones who i genuinely thought got it and didnt make me feel stupid.


however i sadly dont think his message translated as well into this book as it does in his other work like the podcast or his talks which is a shame.
This book is a heartwarming reminder that happiness and joy comes from who we are, not what we have, This was a huge tear jerker at points, and I loved the anecdotes of the beautiful people who have inspired Hugh's very successful baby, The Resilience Project.


This was a very timely reminder for me that practicing gratitude has the potential to literally rewire your brain to search the world for positive things, rather than to search for threats and confirmation of our negative selftalk.
I found it super easy to incorporate nightly journaling into my life, I'm excited to see the effect it has had on my disposition and selftalk in a few

months,

However it should be noted that contrary to popular belief, this isn't selfhelp or instructional, It is a memoir about Hugh and the inception of his work, I saw some negative reviews online on this point, so please go in with the expectation that this book will not outline what to do to become resilient, but rather what inspired Hugh to create the Project and why, as well as the impact it has had.


Hugh is very humble but it is abundantly clear that he has had such a significant impact on schools and corporates.
I'm a big fan and would love to do one of his workshops one day, .