Building Resilience | 04
Your resilience muscle has never been more important
Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst
This pandemic has put us to the test
When life changed forever in the spring of 2020, we needed resilience. And wine. But that’s a different newsletter.
The fact that you’re reading this, almost two years since the start of this Covid business, is testament to the health of your resilience muscle. (Go you!) And since I don’t think this thing is going anywhere anytime soon, the best we can do is continue to get stronger.
It’s been, and continues to be, a long haul. I’m happy you’re here.
Two grandmothers were bragging about their precious darlings. One of them says to the other, “Mine are so good at social distancing, they won’t even call me.”
When last we met…
When last we met, we were talking about humor and its role in building and maintaining resilience. Were you able to find something funny in the situations you encountered this past week? Did it help you cope better with them? If it did, great. If not, keep working on it. Eventually it’ll happen. You’ll see. And then when your kid calls you 45 times in the space of an hour panicked because one of the kittens he just got has gone missing, you’ll be able to say helpful things like
Tell me again the cat is missing and you’re going to go missing.
The only thing worse than you losing the cat is you not losing my number.
Truth be told, when my kids call me in a panic, I panic. I have to work hard to find the funny in the situation. My point is that
I know it’s not easy.
But I also know you can do it.
Recent studies have found that a good laugh can boost our dopamine levels and even shore up our immune systems. So while funny jokes — even coronavirus and quarantine jokes — might feel gratuitous in the face of today’s world, they can actually do a lot of good. Source: MayoClinic.org
About that email I sent you
I know, right? More email. Who needs it?
Sometime in the past week I sent you an email asking for feedback about this newsletter and several of you replied. Thank you. It’s good to hear you find it informative and humorous. That’s my goal. The whole “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down” thing.
My mom responded as well. Of course she praised my work — she’s my mom! But she also brought up something I hadn’t thought of. The role of courage in resilience. And it made me wonder:
Does courage fuel resilience? Does resilience fuel courage?
At the risk of being a wiseass, I’m simply going to say
yes.
When we do something that requires us to have courage and we survive the consequences, whatever they may be, it builds our resilience.
And when we do something that requires resilience in the face of rejection or knowing that, no matter what we do, we’re going to lose someone we love, it builds courage.
I believe the trick is to be aware of when we’re being resilient — you keep applying for jobs despite constant rejection — and when we’re being courageous — you pull a kid out of the street before he’s hit by a car. Awareness is what allows this good stuff to soak in so we can draw on it in the future.
*One more note about courage.*
Yes, we are courageous when we do something incredible like save someone’s life. But we’re also courageous when we take care of ourselves. It takes courage to say, No, don’t put me on the schedule for the bake sale, or No, I can’t take that assignment on.
*And on that note, never forget that…*
No is a complete sentence.
Your resilience building exercise for the next 7 days: Notice resiliency and courage in yourself and your surroundings.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
God bless that plant. Pushing it’s way to the sun through the snow. Such courage. Such resilience. Over the next week, your exercise is to open your eyes, look at yourself, look at your surroundings, and catch yourself and others in random acts of resilience and courage. Develop that habit, and you’ll see the world in whole new light.
P.S. I’ve added some fun, new extras to this site that I hope you enjoy. Columns on resilience, and funny stuff, and thought-provoking quotes. You can check them out here.
See you next Saturday, friends. Have a wonderful week. And if you’re finding this information helpful, I hope you’ll encourage others to subscribe!