The subject of Resilience, I believe is one of the most relevant qualities that we can develop, nurture and sustain. It is a quality that we too often ignore in this fast paced, technological whiz of a life. In the next few blogs and articles, I will be addressing various ways that you can think about resilience and apply it to your life both personally and professionally.
Part One
Isn’t it amazing that on the day you think you have it down, meaning you are centered and acting from a place of being grounded and calm, a myriad of circumstances can enter your world to shake you from your stance? It is especially humbling when you feel you have graduated from a certain level of reactivity and think that you are no longer vulnerable to spouts of reactive anger, stress, sadness, fear or grief. So what do you do when circumstances arise that dismantle you?
I, like most of us, have an over developed inner critic, so I’m going to suggest the following steps that you can apply personally or professionally and individualize:
- Refrain from judging your “fall” and instead embrace a stance of loving compassion for “losing it.”
- Pause as soon as you become conscious to do so, breathe and become reflective. Is this new or a trigger from the past? What do I have control over? What can I do? What can I change? What do I need to let go of?
- This may take 5 minutes or it might go on for weeks or longer. Journal, pray, meditate or speak with a trusted friend or counselor.
- From this place of inner reflection, create an action step. It may be to simply breathe and move on or there may be various outer actions that need to happen.
- Know that life is very much like flying a plane. Pilots are rarely on course in their flight plan. They arrive at their destination by constantly correcting their course.
- Keep your vision clear and always make room for adjustments.
In the process of compassionately fostering resilience,
Françoise
Laughter is my cup of tea. There have been times I thought I forgot how to laugh. Long live Music Education and play/party games. I agree with you in that public education is so redundant with all the data and teaching to tests. My class fits the “stress buster” term. We need to create a new parydyme that addresses the problem of information being sent into short term rather than long term memory. Longer hours and longer school sessions is not the answer.
Sometimes we all forget to think before we react, so I think that steps 1 and 2 are really important in being kind and respectful to ourselves and others. But steps 5 and 6 are really important because we may have plans for our lives but rarely do things go as planned/hoped/wished. Resilience is needed daily to be a kind, loving, generous, thoughtful person.