Deirdre: The topic of how to harness resilience during times of stress has really hit home for me personally. The Thomas Fire, the largest fire in modern California history (consuming 281,000 acres), burned its way across the Los Padres Mountains from Ventura to Ojai to my front door. My home miraculously survived because of the protection of world-class firefighters.

One week later, my husband and I surveyed a charred landscape, grateful no one was harmed. We had about a week to catch our breath, and then the rain came. It was torrential, descending like a million bullets hammering our fragile, barren mountains.

The watershed came rolling down, and boulders the size of trucks carried by the mud cascaded down on us like cold gray lava. My hometown, Montecito, California, was buried like Pompeii while we slept, the destruction rolling all the way to the ocean. The next day, we faced the unimaginable — neighbors, friends, pets, and homes lost, our beautiful California dream gone.