Let's Talk About Resilience
March’s Theme: Resilience
Hi ya’ll my name is Elly and I am thrilled to talk about why we’re focusing on flexing our resilience muscles this month.
Resilience is the ability to cope with and bounce back from negative events, challenges, or change. It requires positive emotions, especially a sense of hope. Resilience is something that we all have. But just like our muscles, our resilience skills only strengthen when we are aware of them and when we actively work on exercises to make them stronger.
Resilience does not mean that you are not allowed to be sad, frustrated, or to mourn a loss. Fully experiencing these emotions is necessary to truly move through a challenging time. Resilience is acknowledging the pain, having compassion for yourself, and knowing that the pain won’t last forever.
As a genetic counselor, I have the privilege of working with incredibly resilient families through their “diagnostic odyssey,” or the long journey of discovering what their genetic diagnosis is. These families know that their child has significant health problems but have been told over and over again that the medical field just doesn’t know what condition their child has. Through coping with these unimaginable challenges, families teach me resilience everyday. They are hopeful that their child will receive a diagnosis, they depend on the care of loved ones, and they are grateful for their child’s life. Just like these families, we all have the ability to elicit the positive emotions that strengthen our resilience.
We all have the ability to train ourselves to be more cognizant of our positive emotions. Finding out how to elicit these positive emotions is really just self-care: spending time in nature, connecting with someone who loves you, finding a creative outlet, exercising, ect.
Resilience is an innate tool in each and every one of us. We are all resilient every day. You were tired, so you drank some coffee and then went on with your day. You fell on a box jump, but you tried it again a week later. You had your heart broken, but after some time, you set up a Bumble dating profile.
I encourage you to notice when you are being resilient this month. When do you pick yourself up and keep going? And what are the tools that you are using to allow yourself to do that? Is it compassion for yourself? Leaning on a friend or significant other?
Notice that, yes, you have resilience, and yes, you have the tools to help you strengthen that resilience. Know that your “resilience muscles” are there whenever you need them.”
