A Podcast Featuring The Resilience Way
/Below is the link to the blog post and podcast with author, speaker, and coach, Melanie Parish. In it, she talks with Kelly Ann McKnight about navigating through uncertainty, resilience, and life…
Insights, Tools, Tips and
Knowledge to help guide you
on your path…
A Great Documentary About Death
/In The Resiience Way we talk about death. This is because one of the things that makes us resilient is our ability to live with death. Yes… live with death. We do some amazingly non-resilient things in our desperate efforts to avoid everything related to death.
These include:
Photo by Ave Calvar
Never talking about our own death… as if not talking about it will avoid it happening.
Not wanting to talk about the death of anyone else. The entire topic is taboo and so folks who are dying or grieving are left with the additional strain of knowing that no one wants to hear about it. I recently had a friend apologize for shedding a few tears when I asked about a sister she had lost several years ago. She said “I’m sorry… I guess I’m still not over it.” It’s not okay to be not okay. And if you are dying, you’d best not talk about it, because people get very uncomfortable. Somehow their need for comfort trumps your need to share your experience and feel supported and loved.
Not doing anything to prepare for our death… leaving our loved ones to figure out a mess of legal, financial, and other details including guessing at our wishes surrounding funeral arrangements and distribution of our estate. By the way, less than half of adults in the U.S. and/or Canada have a will!
Allowing the entire dying and death experience to be handled and controlled by “professionals” with the assumption that we don’t know what is best for ourselves or our loved ones in this time. We follow the standard, long-established procedures without questioning what might work better for us. We rely on rituals and standard cultural practices rather than consider what is best for our situation. People die in hospital who would rather be at home, families follow funeral practices that don’t fit their actual needs.
We need to reconsider our thoughts about death. The reality is that we will all die. Yes, all of us. And so we need to become far more comfortable with death so that we can make better choices and prepare ourselves and our loved ones for this event. Death is a part of the human journey. It is complicated and difficult, and natural and often peaceful. Being resilient requires that we invite in death in such a way that we can think about it and share our thoughts with others, as we navigate the fullness of life.
I recommend that you watch this amazing 10-minute video. It is an honest and straightforward look at death and dying. We all need this learning.
Podcast - Learn what it takes to manage through this challenging time... with resilience!
/Depending on your situation you may be experiencing the stresses of isolation, worry about your health, or that of family and friends. You may be facing economic hardships. If you are lucky you might only be struggling with working from home and keeping your household running despite the constraints. All of these situations can cause us to demonstrate and, in the longer term, develop resilience.
It is critical to manage your expectations at this time. You must reconsider your expectations of yourself and others. If you are feeling highly anxious and are somewhat numb from the changes you are facing, this is not the time when we get to pull resilience out of thin air and start to use it. On the day of the marathon, for instance, you can use the endurance you developed during all those months or years of training. You don’t develop your strength during the struggle of the run but you get to use what you laid down in training. We only have access to the resilience we have already developed, through our past efforts and experiences. So expect, at least in the short term, to just “get through it”. You need to hang on tight and do what seems to make sense in the moment. Be kind to yourself.
Follow this link to a podcast with Valeria Teles on the “Fit for Joy” site:
Video: Introduction to The Resilience Way
/https://youtu.be/pZ_QVuZBDWc
Be Kind to Yourself!
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I just want to touch base with a word about being kind to yourself…
Depending on your situation you may be experiencing the stresses of isolation, worry about your health, or that of family and friends. You may be facing economic hardships. If you are lucky you might only be struggling with working from home and keeping your household running despite the constraints. All of these situations can cause us to demonstrate and, in the longer term, develop resilience.
A word about expectations… It is critical to manage your expectations at this time. You must reconsider your expectations of yourself and others. If you are feeling highly anxious and are somewhat numb from the changes you are facing, this is not the time when we get to pull resilience out of thin air and start to use it. On the day of the marathon, for instance, you can use the endurance you developed during all those months or years of training. You don’t develop your strength during the struggle of the run but you get to use what you laid down in training. We only have access to the resilience we have already developed, through our past efforts and experiences. So expect, at least in the short term, to just “get through it”. You need to hang on tight and do what seems to make sense in the moment.
Be kind to yourself and don’t expect to breeze through without hitting any bumps.
In terms of those around you, your family, friends and co-workers are also in this state of upset and they need your compassion rather than your judgement.
Luckily, we have all built some degree of resilience, and we can and must use the resilience muscles we already have to help ourselves and those around us. Feel free to use the self-assessment available through The Resilience Way to remind yourself about the strengths you have already.
And hang in there!
Your Resilience Strengths
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As you well know… this is a time when our resilience is being tested. It is less a time for developing new resilience muscles and more a time to use the strength we already have. It’s as if we have been training for a marathon and now we are in the race. Use this free 10 minute assessment to remind yourself about how resilient you already are… and make sure you are using your skills to navigate through these difficult times. You will get your results immediately.
Image thanks to Frank Busch via Unsplash
Managing Through with Resilience
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Thank goodness for my meditation practice. These days it is my best tool for reflecting reasonably on what is happening around me and freeing me up to use my resilience. I am resilient. I know I’m resilient. But that does not stop me from getting wound up in upset and anxiety. Just like most people, anxiety interferes with my ability to use my resilience tools.
When I meditate, I relax my mind and body and allow more complex understanding to bubble to the surface. As I return to my day after meditating, I can think clearly about what needs to be done, who needs my help, and what that help might be. These are precious moments – just like the moments when you first wake in the morning and your pure mind is still in control – when you are most aware of the universe and its messages. Once you dive back into your activities you tend to lose track of yourself to some extent and you are pulled in many directions by the information and people around you. As people hoard supplies and the media supports a dooms-day scenario, you lose track of yourself. And this situation is unprecedented and so it’s really easy to feel uncertain. In fact, uncertainty abounds.
Yet, there are some certainties. I am certain that
I’m the same person I was before all this uncertainty arrived. I am still talented, capable and resilient. So, by the way, are you!
I am still connected to the universe and everything in it. I am not alone. The world needs me just as it always has. It’s up to me to sort out how I can use my resilience, care for myself and others, and learn and grow from the experience.
This is not the last challenge I will face. I will look forward to getting through this situation and building my resilience so that I can live my life to the fullest and have a positive impact along the way.
How can you quiet your mind and find space for the calm that awaits you?
A Recent Article about The Resilience Way
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Here is the link to an article in The Wellington Advertiser about The Resilience Way… Check it out!
https://www.wellingtonadvertiser.com/fergus-author-publishes-new-book-on-resilience/
Do You Need Resilience in the Workplace?
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In a recent Financial Post article we see more proof that employers need to take a deeper and different approach to building resilience in their employees. The research is clearly showing that most of us are experiencing higher levels of stress on the job, and we are willing to leave our employer for a lower paying job if we can find a less difficult environment.
Where do you stand as an employer? Would your employees say that you care for their mental health? Do you help them to build their resilience, or is that something they need to do on their own? The high price of talent means that it’s worth investing is the emotional well-being of your people. If you don’t they will leave for greener (or calmer) pastures.
Check out this article:
https://business.financialpost.com/executive/posthaste-canadians-are-financially-stressed-but-they-will-switch-to-a-lower-paying-job-in-a-heartbeat-for-this-one-perk
What Does Resilience Look Like in 2020?
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We are now a month into 2020. How are you feeling? I’ve been feeling unsteady. I was wondering why until I asked my husband (a strongly analytical guy) how he felt about what was happening in the world around us. My question was actually, “Tell me what you think about what’s going on in the world these days. What is 2020 bringing us so far?”
He began a long lecture on the state of the world. It was hard to listen to. I’m a generally optimistic person and what was most concerning was that I could not argue about any of his points. No matter how much you want to remain positive, and I do, you can’t deny that there are many threats in the world today. I don’t need to list them, you can do that for yourself. The issue is that we still need to carry on, we need to find ways to move forward and to contribute in meaningful ways, even when we feel a certain level of futility.
The Resilience Way is not just about dealing with the personal issues and difficulties that enter our lives, it is about dealing with the uncertainty around us that feels mostly beyond our control. We desperately need resilience so that we can find the opportunities to take action, in whatever way we can. The world needs us to step up… and if we are feeling too overwhelmed by the issues at hand… if we feel helpless… then we can’t do that. If we do nothing then we accept the downward spiral many of us feel 2020 brings so far.
I have always loved The Serenity Prayer,
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
My dream for The Resilience Way is that we can use this simple model to help us live this way. We can improve our Emotional Well-Being, find the Relationships that support us, and then build a plan that will move us, our families, and our communities, forward.