Resilience
Whether or not you practice gift-giving, December is the season of gifts. As such, I thought I would offer a gift to you, my dear reader, each week during this month. Today’s gift is resilience. I hope you unwrap it and find it comforting and empowering. Like all gifts, use it, embody it, then pass it on to someone else. Enjoy! ~ Lyn
Resilience
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Resilience 〰️
I was curled up in my bed in a fetal position. Every pore of my being throbbed with the memories of long ago. I couldn’t think straight because my feelings were topsy-turvy, spinning me around, leaving me depleted.
“How can I go to work?” I thought. “I can’t manage to get dressed, let alone teach a bunch of kids.”
Yet, in spite of my self-doubt, I did get out of bed, I did get dressed, wash my face and brush my teeth, I did eat breakfast, and I did gather my tools to teach 25 first graders in my classroom. Somehow, I pushed through my pain to find the part of me who could nurture, inspire, and love the children. I went from totally incapacitated to wonderfully competent in an instant. This scenario played itself out over and over again for ten or more years and somehow I always managed to show up. Over time, my pain lessened and my confidence grew. I was exercising my resilience muscle.
The dictionary offers two definitions for the word resilience. The first is “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.” During that period of my life, making it through the day was a major hurdle. I honestly didn’t think I had it in me. But every single time, I recovered from my despair and rose to the occasion.
The second definition for resilience is “the ability to spring back into shape; elasticity.” I love this description because it suggests our superpower ability to be flexible. Resilience, here, is not so much a sudden, sharp change but an organic readjustment to the surrounding environment.
One part of me did, indeed, make a sharp about-turn. Another part of me realigned myself to the changing requirements. I recovered quickly from difficulties and I was elastic. Great survival strategies!
In this first week of December, I give to you the gift of resilience. The truth is you already have it because you survived. But if you receive it from me with intention, you will become more aware of its power and potential. In spite of your pain, confusion, and fear, you are resilient. Someday, if not today, you will look back with pride that, like a rubber band, you bounced back from the obstacles in your path to healing. You may fall, you may make mistakes, but you recover.
Put that under your tree and open it!
Speaking of Gifts
The best gift ever … !
Why not consider buying my memoir, Crazy: Reclaiming Life from the Shadow of Traumatic Memory? You can give it to yourself — because you're worth it — or to a friend or therapist who might benefit from it. Click here and Amazon will send it to your door! And while you’re at it, leave a rating or review 👍.
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If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lyn