Resilience Isn’t a Beauty Contest
With the rise in popularity of resilience has come with it a few misunderstandings of what resilience actually is. There a several definitions of resilience, but they all boil down to two central points: the ability to rebound from adversity, and to grow and thrive in life despite (or because of) the challenges faced. When I hear people talk about resilience, they often speak of the overly-glamourized, Hollywood version of resilience. This is the version of resilience where everything goes according to plan, and the person facing the challenging circumstances handles everything thrown their way with poise and grace, and not a single tear shed. Folks, I’m sorry to rain on the wonderful parade that version puts on, but that’s not how resilience actually goes. Resilience is a nitty gritty process, and it is often not a pretty process.
Understanding that resilience is not always pretty, or that there are no style points for resilience, is in my opinion, one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn, but also one of the most important lessons to learn. I am a work-in-progress recovering perfectionist, and for a lot of my life growing up I struggled under the pressure I put on myself to be seen as perfectly put together in every moment. To an outside observer they would see someone who was involved in sports, was social, and who did well in school. But internally, it was a storm of self-doubt and self-criticism for not handling situations as well as I thought I should have. The more I piled on my plate, the more the storm would rage, and the more my anxiety rose over needing to hold it all in to show others a calm appearance. If I could go back in time, and tell my younger self one thing it would be this: it is completely okay to not be okay sometimes. That being resilient in a moment does not mean you don’t feel pain, or that you don’t struggle with your emotions, or make mistakes.
The past few weeks have been rough. Both of my grandmothers were admitted to the hospital for major concerns. One is on the road to recovery; the other was diagnosed with cancer. My oldest son tested positive for COVID, and had to be isolated from the family for 10-days. Ten long days of wondering if the virus was going to spread throughout our house, and who was going to get it next, all while trying to console his worries and help him recover. With the rise is COVID cases across the globe I had to cancel a work trip that would have allowed me to progress further within my job. Among a myriad of other challenges and stressors that arose, I think you get the point. Life was not easy in this moment. I am comfortable enough with myself to admit to you all that I eventually broke down from the weight of it all. I had put the pressure on myself again to handle all of these issues head on, and still continue to strive to be the best version of myself at work and in the gym, and as they say, the bill came due. In this moment I had let myself experience the emotions that I was feeling, and then remind myself that this is part of the process in being resilient, in being strong. Resilience is about getting frustrated, giving yourself a minute or two to figure out what’s going on, and then taking a deep breath and getting back to work, or having a moment, regaining some sense of composure, and then finding out what is the best way to productively move forward.
Resilience is messy. Life isn’t easy, and we can’t expect ourselves to handle everything perfectly. We are human beings and are bound to make mistakes, and struggle at times. And guess what? That’s all a part of the process of being resilient. We make mistakes, or handle things ineffectively, we learn from those moments, and then we keep driving on by giving it another try. By learning to cope, adapt, and grow from the messy and challenging moments in life, it allows us to move further down the road in the journey of being always in pursuit. We strive to live life on the offense, but don’t forget that defense is also important, and that defense is accepting that we may not always have the answers, or things may not look the best when we are going through something, but if we hunker down we’ll weather the storm.
Have a great week everyone!
-Daren