How Resilient are YOU?

Copyright © by Mike George

     When things go “belly up”, when bad new arrives out of the blue, when adversity strikes, how well do you cope? When one of those disastrous days shows up and everything seems to “go south”, how resilient are you? Have you developed your “bouncebackability”? Are you able absorbed, with equanimity, what the world seems to want to throw at you? Or do you collapse in a heap and need days and perhaps an army of sympathizers and supporters to pull you through?
 
     Being resilient seems to come naturally to some, but for others it’s almost impossible. In essence “resilience” is our ability to recover and regain our strength, albeit physical, mental or spiritual, following some form of “adversity”. However, everyone’s idea of adversity is different as we each have our own values, beliefs, habitual perceptions and lifestyle expectations. What is a catastrophic disaster to one person can be less than a pin-prick to another.
 
     Our body has a natural resilience built in. Known as the “immune system” its job is to eliminate or expel foreign invaders while helping us to recover our physical strength after an illness. We can help it or hinder it with the power of our mind and the quality of our intentions.
 
     Being mentally resilient is something we also have “built in” to our psyche. However, a lifetime of “indoctrination” may have installed many mental viruses which sabotage our ability to adapt and recover from adversity. Indeed these viruses can even serve to create our adversities without us being aware that they do so. These mental viruses include: learned perceptions which then generate negative thoughts and emotions; basing our self worth/esteem on external things like our appearance/possessions etc; believing that happiness is dependent on others/circumstances etc; expecting and wanting love in life to come from outside of our self! These and many other beliefs set us up for some form of adversity and therefore the weakening of our capacity to adapt and bounce back strongly in the face of other people’s behaviors and day-to-day events.
 
     For many people just one negative thought can open the floodgates to many other thoughts and a rollercoaster ride through an array of emotions that sabotage our “bouncebackability”. Our level of resilience then depends on how quickly we can change our thinking and dissolve our emotionally reactive states. Not so easy without daily practice. Some seek such practice with great enthusiasm as they recognize the priceless value of building their inner strength of character. Others seem to be forced to build that strength, simply because a series of particularly adverse events and circumstances appear to come to test and challenge them on their journey through life. Others learn quickly to enact the lyrics of that famous song as they “pick themselves up, dust themselves down, and start all over again”! While some simply collapse into utter helplessness at the first sign of something going slightly not to plan or the smallest loss of something previously deemed to be a little precious! Each person’s capacity to recover varies but it is a capacity that can be strengthened and expanded. It can even be transcended.
 
Freedom from Adversity

     In order to expand our capacity to recover from adversity we need to find the “roots of resilience” which are prior to our physical and mental states. It’s prior to our thoughts and feelings that we can find the inner “states of being” that can eventually make even resilience a redundant and unnecessary ability. It’s when we live in and from these states that we ensure adversity never strikes. So here goes. First the theory, which although challenging in itself, is always easier than the practice.
 
     To transcend and free our self from adversity the primary state we need to access within our own consciousness is the state of “innate knowingness”! It is a state that could be called “beyond belief” which means prior to our beliefs. This is the inner awareness of the truths that challenge and dissolve the beliefs and perceptions that are responsible for our experience of adversity. In this state of innate knowingness we “know” (we don’t just believe) that we have nothing to lose as we have realized the truth that nothing and no one is ever “mine”. In this state of innate knowingness we “know” (we don’t just believe) that we already have what we seek as we have realized the truth that while we are motivated to find peace, love and happiness in all that we do we know that we are already our own inner source of such states of being. In this state of innate knowingness we “know” that everything around is happening, emerging, evolving, progressing, regressing exactly as it should. We have realized that the flux of continuous change in the world around us is but the backdrop to our life. We have realized and “know” the truth that life is a game that we are here to “play”, not in a childish sense (though occasionally that too!) but more in a theatrical sense. And sometimes our playfulness includes helping others who are still suffering because they have not yet “realized” that nothing is mine and that they already have what they seek and that life is a game.
 
     From these “states of knowingness” we are able to see that nothing bad ever happens. Whatever happens just …happens. And what is adversity but the belief and perception that something has been lost because something bad has just happened and that life is a seriously serious business!
 
     Freeing our self from the beliefs, and habitual reactions that arise from those old beliefs, is unlikely to happen instantly, especially after a lifetime of “adversity conditioning”! While we may recognize such truths, in reality we cannot live “from” such truths without daily attention and the intention to free our self from such conditioning. It takes time to translate our intellectual realizations into our thoughts, attitudes and behaviors on a moment-by-moment basis. It’s between here and there i.e. where we are now, which is our belief in loss and therefore adversity, and our ability to respond “from” truly knowing we have nothing to lose, that we can work on our resilience, on our ability to bounce back. Perhaps the middle path is the “philosophical” path as opposed to the “realized” path. The philosophical response to adversity sounds more like, “Ah well stuff happens…it’s not the end of the world…life goes on so let’s move on….you can’t change what’s already happened”.
 
     Whatever approach we do take however, one thing is for sure, the suffering that comes when we believe in adversity is a messenger. And the message is simple. There is something we need to change within our own consciousness, there is something that needs to shift at the level of the beliefs and perceptions that we are creating and sustaining. Why, because adversity originates as a belief arises as a perception and emerges through our attitudes and behaviors. Which is why one person’s adversity is another’s celebration. Being free of adversity is to be free of any cause to mourn or to celebrate. And while some may say that that is not living, others may contend that that is only when life and living can truly begin. For them living life fully, free of suffering which means free of adversity, is in itself the only true celebration.
 
     And yet, only by “seeing” this for our self can we “know” the truth for our self.
 
     May you “see” …for your self!
 
Question: What was the most recent adversity in your life in which you were personally affected?
 
Reflection: Which of the above beliefs within your consciousness shaped your perception of adversity – loss, not getting what you want, life is seriously serious!
 
Action: How would you, could you, respond differently next time if something similar happened?


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