Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the physics concept of resilience as “Capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation, especially if the strain is caused by compressive stresses—called elastic resilience.” As it applies to people, the spin-off definition of resiliency is “recovery” or “bouncing back” after stress.
When we see the physics definition—we are led to believe that resilience (for humans) is about “bouncing back” after stress—or returning to who or what we were before whatever hard rain hit us and soaked us to the bone. Elastic resilience would lead me to believe that once I dried off, I’d be the same me I was before the rain fell. You know, I’d go back to “normal.” BUT what’s done, cannot be undone.
“Life’s reality is that we cannot bounce back. We cannot bounce back because we cannot go back in time to the people we used to be. The parent who loses a child never bounces back. The nineteen-year-old who sails for war is gone forever, even if they return. You know that there is no bouncing back. There is only moving through.
What happens to us becomes a part of us. Resilient people do not bounce back from hard experiences; they find healthy ways to integrate them into their lives.
In time, people find that great calamity met with great spirit can create great strength.”
You’ve heard of the proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed —- try and try again”. But have you heard of these ones:
- If at first you don’t succeed, then maybe you should do it the way I told you
to in the beginning. - If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0
- If at first you don’t succeed, try two more times so that your failure is statistically significant.
Last night I made Swedish meatballs for dinner. It’s one of the many new things we experimented with in 2020, and is one of my favourites. Make the flavour-packed meatballs, then create a roue and with the help of some very fattening heavy cream, it turns into a wonderfully creamy gravy to pour over the meatballs and a big whack of mashed potatoes. Well, I had the gravy perfect. The potatoes were just finished cooking, so I put the strainer in the sink to drain them, and then clearly in a moment of less than stellar awareness, I grabbed the pan of gravy and poured it into the strainer and down the sink. Luckily, when my eyes saw what was happening, I stopped before any more than half the gravy was gone….
Weird… how stupid mistakes are so funny after the fact, but at the time, they are sooo maddening.
Our third focus in our time for CARE is Resilience. Resilience is the ability to make positive adaptations in the face of challenge. Much of the work of spiritual practice is an effort to create a life of more resiliency.
And I’d venture to guess that most of us are working on exercising our resiliency muscles right now…trying to find ways to endure this pandemic, to make the best of being at home, or isolated, or working under these much more difficult conditions.
I appreciate the words of Eric Greitans when he writes: “What happens to us becomes a part of us. Resilient people do not bounce back from hard experiences; they find healthy ways to integrate them into their lives.”
It is like those wise people among us who say we won’t be “going back” to normal after the worst of this pandemic, we will be creating “a new normal”. This speaks to resilience not as a ‘bouncing back’, but as discovering healthy ways to integrate and move forward in a new way.
We are confronted with the images given to us by the first Christmas story. The tale of a young couple making a harrowing journey to be registered in their home town, and despite being late in pregnancy, Mary and her husband Joseph travel to Bethlehem and just as they arrive, the time comes for her to give birth. They can’t find a place to stay and ultimately, she gives birth in a stable and have to use an animal’s food trough as a crib to lay the baby.
What a story. It has everything you want in a good drama: a new relationship, a long journey, the dramatic tension of whether they’ll make it in time, a birth, and some cute animal sidekicks. It’s no wonder we tell it again and again…
An added bonus to this story, is we get some wisdom in resilience. We can find it in three ways:
It would be easy when faced with a long journey on foot in the 9th month of pregnancy to just throw in the towel; To see it as impossible; to find excuses to avoid it.
If we are resilient people, we are able to look at a challenge with new eyes. I quote Reaching In, Reaching Out, a Canadian evidence-based program for teaching resiliency: “Research has demonstrated that the number-one roadblock to resilience is not genetics, not childhood experiences, not a lack of opportunity or wealth. The principle obstacle to tapping into our inner strength lies with our thinking style.
We are most often held captive by ourselves – the messages, the patterns, the tapes, the thoughts that keep replaying inside our heads.
How we construct our initial questions about our challenges, and what patterns we fall into when answering those questions that can have a determining affect on our outcomes, our resilience, our inner strength. For example: “Who caused the problem? (me/not me) “How long will this last?” (always/not always). “How much of my life does this problem affect?” (everything/not everything).
Noticing the patterns in what our answers are to those questions makes a difference. Perhaps we always lean to blaming ourselves, or exaggerating the impact of a challenge that it will last forever or affect our whole lives. Perhaps we minimize the impact of a challenge and don’t take it seriously enough. Our resilience muscle is strengthened when we are able to reframe our problems and challenges with an eye to balance between responsibility and giving ourselves the permission to be human, the grace we need to be ourselves.
When we challenge our thinking styles and move beyond our preferred traps, we put our thoughts and instincts on notice that we’re aware of their patterns – we increase our resilience. We build those muscles. We say to ourselves, I’m not going to think or believe this just because I’ve always thought that way.
Dr. Kordich-Hall again, describes healthy relationships as one of the biggest indicators of a strong resiliency muscle. And we know this as people who’re part of a community like this one: there is value in relationships that accept us for who we are, and want the best for us. These are the people we know we can come to when we need help. These are the people we know we can trust with our reality, with our hopes for the world as it could be, with our truest selves. The healthier our relationships are, the stronger our resiliency will be. If some of our relationships don’t give that permission – we know we have to work towards it, or find relationships that can help us live free of guilt and shame, open to the path we can walk together – and that’s what helps our resilience muscle grow stronger.
I think we’ve heard the stats…it’s not the number of friends and acquaintances one has, it’s the depth and honesty, the trust and acceptance that can be shared between people that is most important. Even one person in our lives that we can talk to, rely on…that’s enough for us to be strong and resilient. It only takes one…who is the Joseph to your Mary, the Jonathan to your David, the Ruth to your Naomi, the Calvin to your Hobbes? Having each other, person-to-person or in caring community…we’re healthier for it.
Becoming a resilient person is living with an openness that the way we’ve been doing things, the way we currently do things, the way we plan to do things, might not be the best way. It may turn out so, but entering into a situation wherein we assume we have the best answer, the only answer, or the most effective process…is a sure way toward a closed-off perspective. Being open is the attitude that let’s us acknowledge that there isn’t just one way to catch a star, there isn’t one right way to start your family…even if it’s in a barn.
To have openness in our spiritual toolbox – as an exercise for our resilience muscle goes a long ways. Being open, as we all know, doesn’t give us any answers; it doesn’t prescribe solutions to life’s problems; but it enables a process to happen that lets us approach challenges with something different within us: not an immediate sense of worry, or dread. Not an immediate over-confidence. In short: it gives us the permission to say: “there are options.” It opens the door to a heightened awareness of possibility.
An old Buddhist saying:
Life is like a potter’s clay, changing shape from day to day
As stars sparkle in the sky light and dark go quickly by.
What’s the future, no one knows. Peace we seek in life’s highs and lows.
We will come out the other side of this time. It’s been a long time and we’re all tired. But we are showing great resilience: we are showing care in our relationships, in our openness and in our ability to reframe our challenges toward productive and healthy directions. It will lead us not to “bounce back” but to be strengthened by what we’ve endured. It will create in us a new depth and new wisdom.
-Chris New
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