Resilient You!

We don't need to worry 'cause when we fall, we know how to land

When I first heard the song "Permission to Dance" (BTS), the above lyric really hit me. I thought, I know very well how to fall, but do I know how to land? I sure didn’t think so. One of the singers from BTS, Suga (민윤기), had spoken about this during an interview:

“I’ve said several times that I’m afraid of falling, but not landing. And the difference between falling and landing is that landing means that you can take off again.” 

As someone who is used to falling, for me, landing meant either going SPLAT and face planting into misery or it meant the end. The end of a relationship, a failed project, an important missed opportunity - you name it. Seeing it as an opportunity to take off again wasn’t really in my vocabulary. My inner critic adamantly confirmed that with, "You’re right, you’re not resilient. You’ve been beaten down too many times. Just stay down…”

The definition of resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. There are many kinds of resiliency: physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, job loss, divorce, failure - pretty much any area of life that can be challenging. Now, as someone who has felt like the least resilient person on the planet, I knew this was an area I needed to strengthen. I once heard a fellow student, during a class I was taking, comment on resilience and alchemy. She basically said that it’s not only about getting back up, but transforming into something greater. I began to wonder, how do we find or tap into our resiliency so that we can alchemize it? I learned that a big part of it is through awareness. 

You have to become aware that you actually are resilient - think of times where you’ve been resilient in the past. I made it to the top of Mt. Fuji while fighting altitude sickness which led to some physical issues after the fact. I made it up, and down, and recovered - there’s an example of resiliency. Think of how your body recovers from illness and trauma. Think of how you can find another job after being laid off or fired. Think of how you open yourself back up for love after a heart wrenching breakup. Think of how you pivot so you don’t give up on your dream. These are all examples of resilience. I figured out a little formula, that I call the 4Rs, for when I’m in a challenging situation that calls for resiliency:

• Remind yourself - think of the times when you’ve been resilient in the past, when you’ve overcome difficulties. 
• Response - how are you responding to the difficulty at hand? Is there something you can do to respond differently that will help you move forward?
• Reduce stress - how are you handling the stress? Meditation, getting a massage, moving your body, breathwork, or walking in Nature are all great ways to reduce stress. By reducing stress, we can think more clearly and hear our inner wisdom better. 
• Realign your thoughts - this is where the alchemy lies - in shifting your thinking. Instead of focusing on the falling, or that you might “splat” when you land, start thinking about what you can learn from the situation and how you can use that to come back even stronger. For example, instead of "The project failed, it’s over," shift to "How can I pivot? What can I take from this in order to restructure and create something even better?"

The truth of the matter is we are way more resilient than we tend to believe. It’s an inner strength that we all have access to. Just as Nature is resilient, so are we. When we can tap into that resiliency we can navigate life’s challenges more easily. Let’s be honest, with as crazy as the world is right now, we need our resilience more than ever. There is another comment that Suga made in the interview that sums it all up perfectly:

“So, no matter how desperate the situation is, if we choose landing instead of falling, choose not to give up, and just land, we’re ready to fly again.”

Falling can be really scary, but at some point we will land and we will have that inner resilience to tap into to decide where we’ll go from there. If we can put our attention on landing instead of on the fact that we’re falling, we can direct our energy to harness what we learned and launch ourselves into something even greater. The next time you find yourself facing a big challenge, I invite you to focus on the landing, alchemize what you’ve learned from the situation, and use it as fuel to take off stronger and wiser so you can fly in the direction of your goals, dreams, and desires. 
                                                                                                                                      Heart Hugs, Adrienne :)