Chapter 1: Resilience

Resilience is the fourth and final meditation for Chapter 1: Emotional First Aid Kit.

What first comes to mind when you see the word resilience?

Resilience is a nuanced concept. Resilience is more than just courage or confidence. It is more than just being disciplined, showing up and putting in the effort. It includes qualities like determination and adaptability. Most importantly, resilience is our ability to encounter challenges or adversity, to rise above to continue moving forward. Being resilient is being capable of learning from our mistakes or from dark periods of our life; to use the lessons we pull from our failings or our suffering in a sustained effort to help guide our actions and decisions for a better future.

Resilience doesn’t exist if there hasn’t been hardship before it. You don’t just wake up one day, suddenly resilient. It’s in the actions we take following difficult moments when our resiliency can be most acknowledged with awareness.  It’s something that’s worked on, built upon and then fully recognized further down the line. Resilience is a long-term investment of the soul.

We all encounter, endure or contribute to challenges in our lives that teach us hard lessons about resilience. If we successfully learn from those moments, we can apply our earned wisdom to future situations that bring up similar emotions. When times get tough, practice diving into your toolkit and tapping into your earned resilience.

Here are 3 takeaways from my own personal learned lessons on resilience:

One: Know with complete certainty that you deserve happiness. You deserve to be treated with kindness, love and respect.

Resilience thrives in the knowing that each and everyone of us deserves to be at peace. You, the person reading this, wholeheartedly deserves happiness, meaning and purpose. It is healthy to ensure you’re being treated with kindness and consideration of your feelings. We all have different standards of what we allow into our lives. It’s helpful to assess if your life, and the people in it, reflect those standards and if you’re living a life that is aligned with what’s in your heart. You always and eventually get to have a choice. In the face of hardship or mistreatment from others, choose your happiness. Know that you are worthy of it, every single day.

Two: Learn to recognize when it’s time to persevere and when it’s time to quit.

Throughout my life, I have had to change my definition of success because I have often felt a pressure to succeed and perform well beyond my capacity. The grind culture we live in, and especially throughout adolescence, we’re bombarded with the expectation to find ourselves quickly and be successful TM (whatever that means). Let’s be clear, everyone’s definition of success is different anyway.

While I believe having a goal to work towards is incredibly important, I have found it helpful to continuously assess my wellbeing as I build my life. Doing so ensures I don’t rush through things, and it prevents burning myself out. A part of resiliency is knowing how to recognize when a direction or avenue has been exhausted. I have learned the incredible skill of closing doors and starting anew when necessary. It is healthy and wise to assess whether a project, goal or relationship continues to be aligned with your values or not, and to be brave enough to make the decision to end it if you need to.

I am not saying to give up simply because things get tough, but for some us who stick it out much longer than we should, it is helpful to know that it is okay to respectfully walk away from what isn’t working and start somewhere new or put your focus somewhere else. It is not a moral failing to call it quits when the situation calls for it. Sometimes a completely unsatisfying situation becomes comfortable, and it feels favourable over the unknown. Revitalizing a stagnant situation can be great for the soul, especially if we take our learned lessons with us and refuse to repeat the patterns that got us there in the first place.

Three: Have a vision of what you want life to feel like. Cultivate a blind faith that you can and will achieve it.

When times gets tough, it can be helpful to have a guiding light to hold on to. Having a direction to walk in is helpful in building mental and emotional strength, even if it’s unclear how to get there or what exactly the road looks like ahead. Instead of trying to pick what job you want, how many kids you’ll have or what you’d like your relationship to look like… I recommend building a vision of what you want your life to feel like. Have a clear understanding of why you want to have that emotional experience. Why does that align with you and your values?

Cultivate a belief that you can achieve it, like a blind, naïve faith that it will all work out. Hope isn’t foolish. A “clear-enough” picture in our hearts about what we want helps to keep one foot in front of the other, forging the path ahead. Over time, we grow an understanding how we want to feel. The path on how to get there becomes clearer. We see tiny steps forward, while holding the big picture in our heart. Slow down and take your time. Get to know what fills your heart with fulfillment and meaning.

Bonus: Inspire yourself from the stories of others.

Resiliency is a skill like any other. It is a quality we can cultivate. It is something we can practice. We can inspire ourselves with the stories of others and how they overcame their challenges. We can learn from those who traveled before us. We actively look for lessons to learn from that could benefit our own travels. It’s no wonder our history books are filled with stories of people who embody resilience: Anne Franke, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. When times are good, we can gather information and inspiration so that when hardships inevitably return, our motivation and strength of character are more easily accessible to us. We’re primed to pick ourselves up and get back on track. We too can find our own way forward despite the obstacles.

Know that you can do anything you set your heart to.

Believe that you can, and will, get through the toughest situations.

Hardship is not fun. Perseverance isn’t easy. But recognizing your resiliency after adversity is a particularly satisfying healing state for the soul.

Respectfully let go of what doesn’t serve you.

Take good care of your heart, always.

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Chapter 1: Emotional First Aid Kit

1. Self-Love
2. Navigating Anger
3. Navigating Sadness
4. Resilience

 

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BREATHING IS ACTION is a meditative affirmation podcast for teens and adults. For everyone, everywhere. Let's be the change we want to see in the world!

 

Writing, research and production by: Macie Leblanc-Smith

Editing by: Macie Leblanc-Smith, Marc-Olivier Plouffe

 

Music: Serena by Bireli Snow on Epidemic Sound

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