“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”
Robert Jordan
What is resilience?
Psychology Today describes it this way: “Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”
In a nutshell, resilience can be defined as the ability – and tendency – to “bounce back.”
What are the synonyms of the word resilience – elastic or flexible. So what does that mean?
Think of resilience like the ability of any elastic material – like rubber or spring – on one hand it’s solid yet on the other hand it’s quite elastic – how it’s able to absorb the energy of a heavy blow and still able to release that energy as it springs back to its original shape. The recovery in this can be viewed similar to the ability in a human being to bounce back after a huge set back.
In today’s modern life, everyday we encounter lots of stressful uncertain situations – illness, fear, loss, grief, isolation, uncertainty, and unemployment – sometimes it’s things we don’t know how to deal with. If the stress is such that it lets us stretch yet come back to normality, then it’s ok. But if it is stress that can break you, it is difficult.
But the question is to what extent can you deal with this stretching? You must stretch but not break. The truth is we can’t change what happens to us but we can change how we respond to things. We have to oscillate like a pendulum from stress and recovery – that is how we are designed.
There are many ways to build up your own reserve of self-learned resilience. Below are just a few ways to go about it:
- Embrace change:
The word for happiness in Sanskrit is Santosha – it means complete acceptance – so try and be in complete acceptance with your reality, if you are in resistance mode, it will take you far from happiness. Make peace with reality and take small steps or the next best step towards your goals or overcome any negative situation – but if you resist and fight – our ability to change is lost and then we break – this one sweet spot lies the greatest talent of resilience – one of the greatest gifts we can give to our nervous system – which has become so important in the post pandemic world. - Nurture and Nourish:
Indulge yourself with healthy, positive self-care—get enough sleep, eat well, and exercise. - Rest and Recover:
Everytime you go through a stressful period, are you giving your mind and body enough recovery? Because that time what you give for your recovery is what makes you resilient. It is ok to give yourself that permission to feel weak, to feel stretched – we all need to invest time to rest and recover. Don’t be too hard on yourself, try and avoid that mental chatter and remember to have that flexibility and elasticity which comes with our mental peace.
Like in a storm, it’s the stiffest and the stubborn trees that break whereas the bamboo and the willows that bend with the wind always survive.
We so often forget about how much power we have over our lives and our circumstances.Resilience is not a trampoline, where you’re down one moment and up the next. It’s more like climbing a mountain without a trail map. It takes time, strength, and help from people around you, and you’ll likely experience setbacks along the way. But eventually you reach the top and look back at how far you’ve come. I hope this piece has reminded you that you do indeed have the power to improve your resilience.
