Our Natural Resilience

I recently had a workshop with a team of psychologists and counsellors I have been accompanying for a year; beautiful people who dedicate their time and energy to serving others in need.

Like many people and organisations, they are going through significant organisational changes and turbulences and can sometimes get caught up in worries, just like all of us.

While listening to them, what occurred to me was not to talk about worries, but about our natural resilience. Their own and their clients’ resilience. -It looked like they had forgotten that for a moment. We all do.-

There are many ways we can talk about resilience.

We often speak about it in terms of doing, so we look for things we can do to take care of ourselves and strengthen our resilience. Nothing wrong with that; taking care of ourselves and nurturing our mental and physical strength is essential.

But what most people overlook is that our resilience is an innate capacity and a gift we have all received at birth. It is not something we acquire; it is always active within us, whether we notice or not, regardless of our circumstances. Seeing it is very powerful.

We all have innate resilience; it´s like a mental immune system. Without it, we would not be where we are, none of us.

If we can stand up after a battle, navigate through difficult times, and enjoy the sky after a storm, it´s because we are all naturally resilient. If we can handle the “mental viruses” we encounter daily in and around us, it is because we have this incredible strength, and flexibility in us.

But although resilience is always active in us, waiting to be acknowledged and strengthened, we don’t always see it, and do not always give it credit for what we master in our lives.

Do you remember when you surprised yourself with the power you had to deal with a difficult situation? Do you know how often you have bounced back after challenges? All the flexibility you have showed unconsciously that unabled you to move through life? The creativity you show in complexity? All the changes you have adjusted to in your life and work without noticing? How you stood up and restarted fresh after falling, as if (almost) nothing had happened? Yes, we do these kinds of things.

That´s our natural resilience at work.

In our last session one of the psychologists talked about a patient who came to her office again and again although she was visibly mentally confused. The therapist had the impression that nothing was moving in the therapie, but this woman found her way to her each time, kept showing up which was a miracle, and restrained from more harmful behaviour. It also happened that the therapist “incidentally” talked about it in the middle of our conversation about resilience and wisdom. Synchronicity. Seeing these little things was very big. Things were moving and she didn’t see it. So she started looking in the directing of what the patient had instead of what she was lacking. There was hope and intelligence behind all that.

It is incredible what looking in the direction of our inner forces can effortlessly do for us. Always.

In times of turbulences, the best way to access our innate resilience is to look in its direction, to activate and trust it. Acknowledging and trusting this powerful ability we all have gives it a chance to show up more often when we need it and allows us to see it in others too. It´s like opening a channel where our natural resilience can do its job.

Knowing that we have this beautiful ability guides us through life wisely. We can imagine the end of a tunnel when it is not yet in sight, deal with our scarce resources with intelligence, slow down in the dark to wait until we see more, and trust that life will show us a way out of a situation when our heads cannot yet figure it out.

Knowing that we all have resilience as an innate capacity is the basis for trusting our abilities to recover from any situation, be endlessly smart, and come up with new ideas wherever needed.

It is a hopeful and positive attitude toward ourselves and others. It enables us to navigate turbulences more wisely, and reminds us that our teams, colleagues, clients, families and friends have that capacity too.

Resilience, trust, hope, mental health, creativity and wisdom often come together because they are part of the same family. When we reach out to one of them, we are in touch with all of them.

With Love,

Drissia