Repeating Situations

This was my favorite speaker from the annual convention and now they were here. Or they had one night when they were seventeen, and that was it. But some of us did that way too often, or watched friends do it too often, and we know those feelings way too well. It's not casual, to go through something like that, but our culture acts like it is. We're supposed to pop out of bed the next day and laugh, text about it, send a string of emojis with black hearts and clown faces. Oh, I fell down at a party where I was meeting my date's friends for the first time. I was out of my mind, threw up in the garden. Totally humiliating. Ain't life crazy! We grow up thinking these are necessary rites of passage, to be performed many times. But somewhere along the way to getting sober, we personally decided it's really okay to stop being nonchalant about episodes like that. Resilience is not trying a failed strategy repeatedly, but rather trying a new approach with optimism. The parameters, environment and challenges we find ourselves facing today, and that we will face in the future, will constantly change. This means we too must start to see change as the constant that Heraclitus promised. In fact, those who adapt, who create new ways of doing things and persevere from `one failure to the next without losing enthusiasm', as Winston Churchill encouraged us, are the ones who have traditionally thrived throughout history. To become more agile, more adaptable, more capable and skilful in the face of change, we must be willing to advance our thinking, or indeed, rethink our thinking, beliefs and behaviours. Rethinking requires discipline, focus and a willingness to challenge our own points of view and existing mindset. But if change is going to remain a forever challenge, then agility of thought will also be a Forever Skill. To foster agility, we must: Think of resilience as mental agility.

Imagine an alternative framework or universe. We cannot heal and thrive if we cannot first inhabit our bodies. I have a history of sexual violence and trauma, and this Grounding Breath has been an essential piece of my healing journey. Those experiences, like many traumas so many of us experience, took me far out of my body. The Grounding Breath was the tool that I created to bring me back to my body and to gain confidence in my body. That helped me worry less about the future, feel less sad about the past, and open up to the reality of the here and now. Over time, accessing my Grounding Breath has enabled me to stay present through many of the most joyous and challenging moments of my life. There are still times when I check out of my body, and they are mostly with my partner when we're navigating difficult experiences. The beauty today is that I am aware that I am checking out and have the Grounding Breath as the anchor to bring me back into the experience of the present moment. The Grounding Breath is a potent practice for dropping into your body, connecting to the earth, and encouraging your system to self-regulate. It's also a great practice if you get frequent headaches. Yes, she said cheerily. Does that bother you? Her optimism and friendliness were too much for me. I'm an unregenerate heathen savage, I replied, smiling. I'm a hopeless case, and you will never succeed. As she walked away laughing, I wished she would convey my message to all her confederates who would know that at my house they would not find a soul ready to be saved. I did not want my soul to be saved, and I would not let them save it no matter how hard they tried. I wanted it to stay here with the great blue herons, eastern box turtles, and tiger swallowtails. Nor would they enlist me in their fight to save the human race, as I did not think the human race worth saving.

The fourth time occurred on a late-summer Sunday morning after I had ridden my horse and then picked tomatoes under a slightly overcast sky amid the warm breeze of early autumn. I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. I knew it would all be all right. The two-hour drive in the snow with bare tires (worse than bald), my last ten bucks in the gas tank, the borrowed blazer and skirt--it wasn't all for nothing. I was going to leave equipped with the tools and tips I needed to be successful. I set my lunch bag under my seat. I took out my pens and new notearticle, then got my water out of my purse. I put everything within arm's reach. I was going be prepared when it came time to ask questions. This was the moment. The company promised that if I worked hard, became teachable, and helped others, I would be making seven figures too. So this one goes out to you, dear drunken girl at the summer BBQ, whose name we don't know. We hope you got home okay, slept it off. We hope you have an awesome roommate who cooks you an egg sandwich in the morning and gets you a Gatorade at the deli, and makes sure you know how great you are and promises you'll feel better tomorrow and finds you some good junk TV to watch and keeps you company for a bit. We think of you with a giant massive ton of kindness, dear drunken girl at the BBQ, even though you don't know we exist. Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious. It was a blast of pleasure to find out the difference between so-so generic honey .

We thought, What's the big deal, why does this jar of honey cost $8--so what if it's from wild blueberries in Maine? Push beyond `the obvious barrier'. Challenge our own assumptions. Develop multiple senses of awareness. In the hundreds of conversations and interviews we've conducted around this concept of Forever Skills, `resilience' is one of those words that came up time and time again as a defining factor of success. Interestingly, the definitions and meanings that people attach to this seemingly simple word are remarkably varied. Some define resilience as mental toughness, best served with a cup of concrete and a `harden up' attitude. However, on digging in a little further, most people tended to moderate and broaden their views of resilience and associate it more with mental flexibility, adaptability and the ability to `bounce back' after a challenge. In other words, resilience is, at its heart, a creative skill, and crucial to agility. We need to shift our conception of resilience from `running at the same impenetrable wall without losing enthusiasm' to one of applying that enthusiasm to trying a new approach every time. Can't break through the wall? Take a moment to settle into your chair with your feet flat on the floor. Set your practice intention. Inhale and exhale gently through your nose for five cycles. Next, bring your awareness to the soles of your feet. With a slow inhale, imagine drawing up energy from the earth into the soles of your feet, up to your knees and back toward your hips. On the exhale, imagine the energy flowing from your hips to your knees, and then back down through the soles of your feet to the earth. Continue to sync the energy revolutions with your breath for five minutes. Let go of the revolutions and allow your breath to settle into a passive state. Take your time with this practice;

Begin with five minutes and work your way up to ten. The world could not have seemed more beautiful when an immaculately clean Buick full of people pulled into the driveway, all the way down to the end near the garden. A well-dressed woman got out and stepped toward me with caution as she was wearing high heels, which do not work well on gravel. Do you need directions? I asked naively, ready and wishing to be helpful in those pre-GPS days with all I knew of the scenic township roads roundabout. When she pulled a copy of Watch-tower out of her bag, I suggested that she go away. I was disappointed that I had not been able to be helpful and mystified that she felt impelled to educate strangers in the religion that already dominates the culture rather than showing by example and sharing her considerable resources with people in need. One day the disciple was a man who came to the house and was greeted by Clarke who has a quicker wit than I do. Jesus is coming, the man began. My husband countered with, Tell you what: if you see him, you let me know. Or if I see him first, I'll call you. This was going to be the man that helps me change my life! I leaned in, concentrating on every word that came out of his mouth. The speaker looked kindly up there under the lights, the platform in front of him, his glasses and slightly balding head shining back at us assuredly. His presence gave off the feeling that if he could make all that money, we could too. He continued, Is there anyone here that is not in my organization, but another line? Almost knocking over my water, I raised my hand excitedly. I thought to myself, He already wants to help us! This guy is great. He's going to take time to acknowledge those of us who had come all this way that were not even in his group.