Journey Challenge - BUILD YOUR SENSE OF RESILIENCE
BUILD YOUR SENSE OF RESILIENCE
It’s important to know that sometimes we just have to start over with how we think about our future, or what comes next. At times, this will be with small things, day to day. At other times, it will mean starting all over again in a big way. But this is a necessary part of life, and not to become a self-judgment or an indictment about being a personal failure.
It’s okay to start over, to reconsider your plans, or maybe just put things on hold for now.
Know that you can grow your capacity to start anew – to think and act in new ways.
HERE’S THE CHALLENGE
in 1888, the philosopher Nietzsche wrote the often quoted line, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.” It seems that the ordeals in life come our way to test our character. Nietzssche is suggesting one should take suffering as an opportunity to become more resilient, to strengthen our positive egos.
We all have moments in life where we feel like we are reaching our ‘breaking point’ – where we can bear or handle anything more than what we are facing. For some of us, now is one of those times.
We need to know that we can rebound from setbacks, that we can get through whatever appears daunting, and that we can find resources to help us – both within us, and around us, whenever we are truly in need of help.
Resilience, psychologically speaking, is the ability to adapt to adversity or significant stress. When faced with difficulty, resilient people recover more quickly. They view setbacks as temporary and move forward despite uncertainty.
Building our resilience often requires having an active witness to help us regain perspective, and to re-assure us in our darkest moments. And sometimes, we just need to be reminded that we can start over again – sometimes, this is the most direct way through the darkness of the unknown.
HERE’S YOUR TOOLS
Positive self talk is an essential tool for building resilience. We have to actively confront our mind’s tendency to give up, or to give in to resignation and passivity. When we can’t find a way to reframe our disappointments and setbacks, we need to have the common sense and self compassion to turn to others who support us on our journey. Here is what we need to be reminded about:
1. Setbacks are inevitable.
2. Setbacks are temporary.
3. Setbacks are not evidence of personal failure or character deficits
Another way of looking at setbacks is what successful entrepreneurs would say is “learning to fail fast” – we accept that failures and setbacks are natural to any active learning process, and we understand that it is not personal – we use mistakes, failures and setbacks for what they really are – learning opportunities. A person who never fails, and who never has to adapt – never really learns.
Connecting To Your Foundational Inner Resources
New Bearings
A journey song by Thomas Douglas.
Inspiration
A Poem by Mark Strand
You stand at the window.
There is a glass cloud in the shape of a heart.
There are the wind’s sighs that are like caves in your speech.
You are the ghost in the tree outside.
The street is quiet.
The weather, like tomorrow, like your life,
is partially here, partially up in the air.
There is nothing you can do.
The good life gives no warning.
It weathers the climates of despair
and appears, on foot, unrecognized, offering nothing,
and you are there.
Reflection
The Importance of Bearing Disappointment – Growing Resilience, Growing Up
Adapted from the work of Ian Graib, by Michael Mervosh.
A sobering and liberating essay that uses the experience of disappointment as necessary for our maturation, and for reconciling one’s self with the challenges of living life on life’s terms – and confronting the complexities of the realities we must inevitably face.
One premise for successfully navigating the unknown is that we can only have our lives work better when we can recognize and incorporate the darker sides of life, such as disappointment and death.
Paradoxically, the more we deny this reality, the more difficult our lives become, and the more we become involved in breaking the links between people.
Action
See below for doing the Life Force In Motion sequence of movements, which supports building resilience in body and mind.
Animate your life force by putting it into conscious and embodied movement.
Hold the following energy intentions for the Four Cardinal Directions of the Medicine Wheel – East, South, West & North.
East – Dare, Imagine, Act
South – My Heart’s Desire & Divine Will Are One
West – Yes to Life!
North – No Attachments to My Creations
Building Your Resilience 1
In a crisis, we can all learn to cultivate emotional resilience.
Here’s the first of a series of articles on Resilience from the NY Times.