Resilience

I cannot claim any great resilience on my own part; au contraire! My skin is all too thin, despite my efforts to toughen up by chewing broken glass and rubbing alum on my blistered hands and feet. I learn things over time, often too slowly to help me with a present problem. Hindsight is infallible,of course, and armchair quarterbacking begins every Monday, after losing. Jane E. Brody of the New York Times broached the subject the other day in her weekly Health Column. Resilience is the ability to weather stresses, large and small, to bounce back from trauma and get on with life. Resilience has to do with the way we assimilate negative experiences and translate them into something positive. Resilience is the strength and confidence to change a blocked or nonproductive direction or chosen path. This does not mandate a life without risks or adverse conditions, but rather learning how to deal effectively with the inevitable stresses of life. And here is the best,most optimistic part: resilience can be learned! Apparently we have "negative scripts" in us that we live with all our lives, until or unless we change them. Others have labelled them 'paradigms.' Whatever we call them, we need to nurture our self-esteem by seeking out activities which elevate our spiritual lives and nurture our inner strengths. Resilience relates to the expression, "experience is the name men give to their mistakes." That is, the positive interpretation of our experiences does. It is the anti-hero's voice saying "I think I can't, I think I can't" or Brave Mr. Buckingham saying "That HURTS" instead of the opposite that block us. And those ugly little voices, "I am not good enough," "just say no" and "no, but..." instead of "yes, if..." that keep many good people, including me, from pursuing their dreams. So the great news is that if you did not luck into getting this in your gene pool, or in your home upbringing, or at school, it is never too late to take control of things by changing the script: "We are the authors of our lives." Amen to that!