"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
I saw this quote and it made me smile, there have been many times in life when I’ve needed this kind of reminder, as there are for all of us. If we’d not kept getting up when we were learning to walk and continually falling on our bottoms we would have been in trouble indeed, and it's no less true as we mature.
Resilience is about having the resources inside to be able to take life and its challenges in our stride. It is never going to be the case that there will not be difficulties to deal with, change is a constant, we move home, change jobs, have challenges in studies and at work, go through people we love ageing, getting ill and dying and so on and so on. Life has its richness, and that can be wonderful and awful, often all at the same time.
The trick to resilience is not as some people would have it ‘to be strong.’ It’s not about toughing it out or not letting the difficulties touch you. Rather, its about being able to be vulnerable. Resilience is about feeling your feelings and allowing them to move through you. It’s about taking care of yourself, and letting other people take care of you, and ensuring you have the sleep, nutrition, exercise, social and emotional support you need to navigate through what you face.
For me resilience is about graceful action. It calls for strength, and for flexibility. It calls for a sense of harmony with your surroundings and those who are important in your life. It asks for a sense of rhythm and balance, a responsiveness to what is happening outside you and within you.
Many years ago I spent some time with a small community of the San, sometimes known as the bushmen of the Kalihari desert. I was struck by their resilience and grace within their ancestral environment. The ease of movement, and the sense of oneness with the landscape and their community were humbling, albeit it was a short glimpse and a holiday for all involved not day to day living. I think a post-industrial built environment is harder to be at one with, and yet, this is the world we have created and in which we reside, and so it is incumbent on us to find that rhythm and harmony, and to support and enable each other as best as we can.
If you fall, get up. If you are tired, re-charge. If you need support, reach out for it. It begins with you, always, and yet, none of us can do anything much unaided, we live in an inter-connected world. For psychotherapy support when demands on you outstrip your natural resilience, get in touch at fejrobinson@gmail.com.
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