THE GEOGRAPHY OF RESILIENCE

As an elite athlete, Jean-Paul Bédard has learned to navigate the upper limits of human endurance, that tenuous place lying at the precipice of total physical and mental annihilation. Jean-Paul credits his athletic success not just to the hours he puts into training, but also to the mental acuity he forged through the hellish fires of childhood trauma and the subsequent years of his drug and alcohol addiction.

The genesis for this book was an attempt to reconcile the disconnect between the image of strength and confidence that Jean-Paul projects to the outside world and the feelings of weakness and inadequacy he carries inside. What started out as a quest to understand his own resilience grew into something much more universal.

“The Geography of Resilience” is the culmination of almost 350 hours of candid interviews providing a rare glimpse into what lies at the heart of courage, hope, and resilience. Jean-Paul takes us along on a pilgrimage through the uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory of human emotions as he unearths the most inspiring and heart-opening stories of people who have weathered cataclysmic events in their lives––people who have arrived at the other side, resilient and forever changed. Ultimately, “The Geography of Resilience” is a testament to the embers of resilience that exist within each and every one of us.