Life is Full. Life is Tangly.
Use this intricate bundle to create more resilience in your life
Dr. Chris Johnson
Embodiment Teacher & Leadership Coach
The good news?
Resilience can be developed through your intention and practice.
A key essential practice is self-renewal.
Self-renewal involves an active commitment to build your capacity (muscle) to be with the stresses of life which allow a quicker recovery.
A few key questions for self-reflection:
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What kinds of events have been most stressful for me?
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What’s been the impact?
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Who have I reached out to for support in working through a difficult time?
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What have I learned about myself & my interactions with others during this time?
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How have I overcome obstacles?
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What has helped me feel more hopeful about the future?
By definition resilience is, "the ability to bounce or spring back into shape after being stretched, bent, or compressed."
If you’ve ever felt stretched too far, bent out of shape, or pressed into a ball of roiling stress, you’ll know the internal longing to bounce back, to ‘feel like myself’ again. Yes?
INSPIRATION ON YOUR PATH TO A MORE RESILIENT YOU
Getting Good at Stress: Recognize-Renew-Reflect-Return-Rewire
Folks who are resilient in the face of life’s struggles ‘see’ stress differently. And, they function within the Window of Tolerance, that one of emotional arousal within our nervous system where we’re able to function most effectively. When we’re in this zone, we’re typically able to readily receive, process and integrate information and respond to the stresses and demand of everyday life without much difficulty.
And because they operate in that window, they tend to hold the mindset that stress-is-enhancing (vs. stress-is-debilitating).
Rather than a threat, they believe that adversity is a normal challenge and part of life. They don’t use energy resisting change. They believe they have choices to make, and they make them.
These stress-hardy, gritty, resilient folks recognize the situation they’re in and that it might be tricky.
They renew their physical body by pausing, slowing down and breathing which calms down their emotional reactions.
They reflect on the details at hand from a calmer perspective.
They return their attention to what the situation calls for at the moment.
In the process they’re re-wiring their brains for a more resilient new normal!
Click below to get your practice!
Building the muscle of resilience is key to working with life’s never-ending stress.
How Vulnerability Can Be a Leadership Superpower
Good leaders bring mentally healthy values to their teams and organizations. And that means showing weakness, at times, and facing the resulting risk of being perceived as a weak leader. But accessing that vulnerability is harder for some leaders than others.
In this episode, host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with Jason Rosario about his own journey with depression and anxiety, and the lessons he’s learned about vulnerability, masculinity, and leadership. Rosario left a career in finance to found The Lives of Men, a social impact and creative agency focused on decoding masculine psychology and challenging false concepts of masculinity.
That Discomfort You're Feeling is Grief
Feeling lost in a sea of chaos and discomfort? David Kessler—an expert on grief and colleague of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the mother of grief studies who taught uf the 5 Stages of Grief–guides the reader through the experiences involved in grappling with the COVID reality of today.
He moves beyond the classic five stages to share the discovery of the sixth stage of grief recovery, the one that helps us make sense of what’s going on all around us.
The five stages of grief include the following:
- Denial “The virus won’t affect us.”
- Anger “You’re making me stay home from work? You’re quarantining us from going out?”
- Bargaining “If I have to do this for a while, ok, but then . . . It’ll all get better, right?”
- Depression “So much sadness all around. So much suffering . . . Me too.”
- Acceptance “This is happening, what can we do now?”
Raising Appalachia
Resilient
More Practices
The short practices below will help train your attention, shift your body’s felt sense, and provide renewal to your body and mind.
Being Open to What Is
Mindfulness, by definition, is all about cultivating resilience—being in the moment, on purpose, non-judgmentally. Being with ‘what is’ can be tricky. Check out the practice to the left to start now.
Resilience Insights
Zentangle
Through the Zentangle Method of creating, you can relax, focus, expand you imagination, and trust your creativity. By increasing your awareness, you’re building new, resilient responses to confidently address the unexpected. Plus, you’ll discover the fun and healing in creative expression.
USA Zentlangle by Shawna Oertley
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.
Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.
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