How would you define resilience?
I (Helen Terry) was recently asked this question in a fascinating 30 minute session with Nina Khoo. an amazing coach who specializes in guiding Sensitive Women Leaders. I appreciated the question and my time with Nina and feel inspired to share a little of my answer/process here… Welcome to a mini taster of the world inside my brain…..
Helen Terry “Welcome to a Taster of the World in my Brain”
My brain loves to break things down, build things up, turn stuff around, jumble words, even create new ones, read upside down and backwards!
I see Resilience as Re Silence.
When I am in a difficult situation, experiencing challenges, feeling threatened, in some kind of significant source of stress (and sometimes “all of the above”) one of my “go to” strategies is to return to silence.
That is I “Re Silence” myself and check in with my body and breath. The “Re Silence” begins the process of re-building discombobulated self to re-find equilibrium, sometimes bounce back (and other times hang out facedown in the arena - thank you Brene Brown), recover, navigate the setbacks to ultimately emerge stronger and more capable as a result of the process.
I name my felt sense of this centering process my “Re Silence” and, in the privacy of my own brain, often the whisper of my breath and sometimes the exclamation of my voice as I run, I pulse and repeat my code word “Re Silence” until I return to, and my code word shifts into, “resilience” as my mantra. I see my centered “i” return, the broken pieces mend and some how the fragmented parts of me come back together, stronger and wiser, back into “Resilience”
“re·sil·ience
/rəˈzilēəns/
noun
1.
the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
”the remarkable resilience of so many institutions”
2.
the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
”nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience””
Helen Terry “look back with smiles and no regrets”
This poem aligns with my belief and attitude that, although there are many things beyond my control, like I can’t always prevent “bad” things from happening to me, what is within my control is how I deal with them, and to do my best to do so in a “good” way. At least a way that, I can look back without regrets, enhanced appreciation for growth and a sense of fulfillment towards my desire to bring integrity and kindness to the world.
“‘If—’.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise …”
Meet Nina:
When I discovered I was an HSP, I felt as if I’d finally been given the right user manual for me.
Lightbulbs went off in my mind & everything started to make sense. Even though I had a degree in Psychology, spent years studying Neuro Linguistic Programming, Shamanism & other personal development modalities, I had intuitively felt there was something missing. Recognising I was an HSP was the missing piece of the puzzle.
I finally understood why:
years working in the technology department of a global investment bank left my soul feeling destroyed & nearly led to burn-out
the early years of becoming a mother were a blur of sleep deprivation & feelings of inadequacy
others sometimes struggled to see what I did