Throughout My Life I Have Been Accused of Being Resilient.
People have wondered how I became, and why I was, so resilient. I’ve had so many ups and downs in my lifetime as we all do, that I think if I honestly and openly lean into that resilience and ask myself how it's there and why it's there, I can simply say that no matter what, giving up was never an option for me.
I have always felt such a strong relationship with my faith and with God. Every time things were really difficult for me, I would lean into God and I would look to God to light my way. I’ve never felt alone because I know that I have God's love. I would always pray for the Holy Spirit to guide me and to lead me to answers. This is the foundation of my resilience.
I also had a very strong sense of wanting to show up and serve, doing something bigger and greater beyond me, looking outside myself and wanting to help others.
Another building block to creating my resilience, is that no matter how difficult things were, no matter how much a circumstance or a fact genuinely, just sucked, and it was devastating – I had to face hard emotions such as loss and grief, or times where I was beaten and physically hurting - I always looked for, and still look for the positive. I lean into gratitude, and I find things that can bring me a sense of joy, sometimes, something as small or as big as a song brings me joy, or going on a walk and getting fresh air, taking a bath with Epson salts and essential oils, doing things to take care of myself, but most importantly, honoring what I am going through at that specific time. With the deeper understanding life is not meant to be great all the time. There is a balance of positive and negative experiences. Human beings were not meant to be in utopia all the time. I would not wat to feel good about losing my husband, or being beaten, or molested. Without that shame I carried like a backpack for most of my life, I wouldn’t have felt the difference when I was able to unpack the back pack that held me down for so long.
It was difficult to feel joy or feel happiness in losing my husband. I knew and understood that his death was going to give me a huge sense of loss and grief. However, taking that time when I'm in the loss or grief, to breathe into that emotion and recognize that it's there and not fight it, to figuratively say hello to it, shake its hand, look it in the eye, and say right now I am feeling grief and loss, right now my body is physically hurting, I’m sad, but I’m not staying in that place, is where healing takes place.
When you allow your feelings, and you open up to those feelings, you're able to experience them, process them, and let them pass. When you do this, you can become open and allow and lean into all the amazing and varied things that life has to offer.
I believe many people walk around thinking that life is supposed to be happy. They’re striving so hard to have a happy life or to find peace. I know this because I was one of them. I have written goals every six months since I was in middle school. l would write the same thing on my list, I want peace. My life was spent striving to find and get peace. What I finally came to realize was that all the happiness and peace was, and always had been, inside of me. Rather than looking externally for peace and happiness, I must look within.
Others are walking around lost or just dissatisfied with their life because they're looking externally for their peace and happiness. They're looking for someone to comfort them. They’re yearning to get into their jammies, climb in their bed and binge-watch Netflix. They’re craving a glass of wine or a neat bourbon, or they’re leaning into watching pornography, which actually disconnects them from the very thing that they're wanting to connect to. And yet they are so confused why they aren’t happy, something feels like its missing.
Learning that all this seeking of happiness outside ourselves should be turned inward, helps create resilience. Understanding what it is your mind is offering, and not seeing it with a judgmental point of view, but without judgment. Think of looking at your brain like you're watching TV and being able to discern all of those old rerun patterns that your brain is offering you. Lean into understanding that you are 100% responsible for how you think and how you feel. You are in control and no longer seek to blame your feelings on anything or anyone else but yourself, and you don’t have excuses or reasons to seek comfort outside of yourself! Allow your feelings, experience, process, pass them through and grow resilient.