Noun.
1. the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
2. the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.;buoyancy.
3. the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process,
The old me hadn’t heard of resilience and never gave it any thought as to whether or not I displayed enough of it or was manly enough to do anything but soldier on no matter how overwhelming or confronting a situation might be.
When I was younger growing up on a cattle and sheep station in Northern Queensland. I hadn’t heard of the word ‘resilient’ or used it the context of recovery and getting back to something you once had. My words were grounded only in the world around me of those times which was to grit your teeth and just get on with it. Simply bearing through the pain and/or discomfort. Not showing “weakness” head down and get the job done. Resilience wasn’t my word. It was the simple thought that there really was no choice except get on with the task. Only once it’s done are you finished. Not having a choice in my mind wasn’t a negative weight. In fact it often served as a positive. The decision making, options and cop outs weren’t available as possibilities. It was only get the job done as best you can but get it DONE. So in that way it helped the doubts and what ifs be quietened and the switch of just get on with it be locked on.
It gave me a good work ethic and drive to solve the problem as presented not kicking it down the road as it was your responsibly and guess what there was literally no one else to do it if you didn’t.
When I had a bad horse riding accident it served me well during recovery and getting back out and competing. I had a line in the sand and giving in to pain wasn’t an option. Solve the problem of getting through the day, doing the best you can. Grin and bare it, don’t let the pain overwhelm you. Push and shove it into a dark corner of your mind. Chain and nail it down, whatever it takes to not acknowledge that pain can set you back or limit your life. Ignore it, distract from it, get as far as you can before the night terrors claw at your exhausted tired brain unable to control the volume anymore. Everything is crashing down, hope you can find sleep before the noise becomes intolerable and the mind and body will be left in a thick brain fog slowing reactions and decision making sensors. What could possibly go wrong in a hazardous workplace. So basically you are slowly and surely burning the candle at both ends hoping against hope somehow you can stop the two flames from ever meeting. Except of course they do eventually no matter how hard you’ve fought to keep them apart.
Then after doing the total male thing of not talking about your struggles nor accepting help, ps that’s not as much of a male thing as I used to think, (Warrior mode) only staying in a very narrow gap of knowledge and very occasionally knocking on the door of health care professionals. Of course if you are only seeking limited fast (patch me up get back out there) help in moments of extreme distress then the care you’ll receive is mostly low level and often misunderstood differences between short term fixes, and long term rehabilitation. I didn’t care though as I was functioning again (sort of).
It all changed with another accident which brought up a junction with my body I could no longer ignore. Have hip replacement or genuinely go down the full rehab program. My previous choice of just grinding on; wasn’t remotely on the table. That path now went over a cliff, and as I didn’t want to walk off said cliff I had to figure something else out.
Through a little good luck and actually opening my mind to choosing different options in life my health started to slowly make a turn in the opposite direction. After 9-18 months of fairly intense and confronting regular rehabilitation I would start to consistently call myself pain free. Perhaps not what others might think of as pain free but as someone who’d frequently been working and living with a pain column of 14 or 15 out of 10. being in a mild 3ish seemed like bliss.
Except now my tough no choices brain suddenly collapsed. Because now there was actually a choice. If I came up against a pain level 4 or 5 which would have been considered before a great day, was now unbearable. I can’t get my brain to accept that level of pain when it knew a steady 3 was possible. Why not just put things on hold until 3 arrives again. Previously things had to be heading towards 20 then I’d allow myself to collapse for a few days. Now my brain was in a hot mess of indecision and intolerance with the lowly figure of 4. I felt I’d completely lost all my bearing. Nothing made sense. I couldn’t stay focused on goals or plans, I felt the massive need to be wrapped in bubble wrap. When the hell did the world become so dangerous? The possibilities of getting hurt seemed to lurk around every corner.
Now I was starting to hear words and phrases around resilience and willpower. Mine though seemed to be nowhere in sight. I felt humiliated that my motivation and willpower once the foundation to moving through impossible days and weeks. Now that same bedrock seemed to be in tatters and I was very much cast adrift and completely rudderless. I couldn’t get my mind to focus and get my body to fall into blind obedience.
I had unconsciously noticed that some horses when they had tolerated long term pain and then been treated properly and now were on the path to recovery refused to go through the same level of pain they had once easily tolerated in their past. Now I seemed to be encountering a similar phenomena and it was creating a crisis of confidence and identity. My self image was based strongly around overcoming pain yet here I was complaining and being bogged down unable to overcome or drive myself through what I would have considered very mild levels of discomfort, hardly even pain at all.
Many people like me caught in the warrior loop long term relate, to the dread of holidays for the simple reason my mind and body would scrape over the line and the morning of the holiday as the mind let go of all its battles. The blinding migraine would arrive that would scour and burn through my fragile brain. Sometimes if it was bad enough uncontrolled vomiting accompanied the migraine leaving me completely hollowed out and utterly hydrated. Yep a great welcome to the first 2 or 3 days of getting away from the stresses of life. This often only left another 2 or 3 days to go. I was the total life of the party and feeling very guilty for disrupting everyone else’s time and that I hadn’t been able to partake in any fun activities. However having spoken to many of my fellow human beings trapped in that warrior mode to survive their day to day lives. Many found the same or similar occurrence when going on holiday. And of course being the intelligent species we are. We problem solved the situation by having less holidays because who wants to experience those symptoms and added pain for a period where you are meant to be on holiday unwinding from pressure and relentless pounding of pain and fatigue.
Often commencing work again hating the fact you’d gone and not understanding or allowing yourself to understand the message your mind and body was trying to tell you. But wrapping it up in weakness and promising yourself not to allow the warrior to be unprotected again or try to deal with rawness of allowing pain or anxiety to flood out from it’s locked and nailed down storage cupboard.
Suddenly I knew nothing about anything. Foundations that had served me to this point were being blown away and weakened almost with every breathe. I understood the much talked about word resilience now to bend back your original position. Except because I was being punched into a swirling breeze I had no origins to claw back to. For the first time it wasn’t about holding on and weathering the moment. It was looking into every habit that had sustained me up until now and seeing if those same habits were going to grow a whole new foundation. Would this give me a new mantra and life I never thought possible? Could I have something that was outside my survival mode and actually be growth. When you are used to operating in the dark of pain or the swirl of consistent anxiety. The thought of personal growth is not only unfathomable but you genuinely had no real concept what that even entails.
People often say you end up following the path that brings you to what you were meant to do in life. That may be true but at this stage my path was over grown with foliage and covered in mud and sharp rocks.
I had no idea which direction I should be walking in or how far the journey will take me. So after coming to terms with the fact that all the choices looked equally uncomfortable as they were all up until this point unexplored. I started to walk and slowly find my path the more I realised the second part of that answer is simply a life time of exploring. Live every day and hopefully learn every day.
The first part had to be one of the hardest lessons. Of letting go of hard won battles. Things you may have spent many hours, days, weeks, months or even years being the centre of everything can and should be place on the ground to be stepped over. For me placing down was the hardest part and amazingly once there I could easily step over a life time’s worth of pain/anxiety and struggles. Things that I thought made up who I was as a person suddenly had little or no bearing on my future. They shaped me but now didn’t hold me. As terrifying as feeling like you are starting all over again can seem, it’s better than staying beholden to someone who has lost the courage to risk living truly in the now.
Two thoughtful friends summed up some of their thoughts on resilience this way.
“I think personally and professionally it’s been a transition from understanding that resilience and silent diligence are not the same thing. You don’t have to “put up with stuff in silence” and think it’s resilience. I do think it’s a combination of agility (following the cheese) and purpose (knowing why you want the cheese) and determination (being prepared to do what it takes to find the cheese).”
“Personally I’m still trying to figure it out I guess. When I was younger I think I had a very narrow interpretation of resilience. On reflection I equated it with persistence, determination, never giving up, never say die attitude, pushing on relentlessly. It was probably about surviving, coping but not necessarily thriving or growing, if that makes sense. At the same time within that conceptualisation there was no room for empathy towards myself, or understand, being kind to myself and giving myself permission to fail, but to fail forward and see mistakes from a growth mindset perspective and to know that resilience looks different for everyone. Some days just making it out of bed and getting out my pjs is a huge demonstration of resilience and that’s ok. I think that many of the psychological definitions of resilience liken it to an elastic band , the stretching under pressure and the ability to return to its pre-pressurised or ‘normal state, but I don’t really see it that way, I feel that resilience is about having tools to continue to thrive in the face of adversity or challenge, you may not return to being the person you were before, you will still show the scars if being broken, but you can find light, and purpose and joy anyway and a different way to live, a ‘new normal ‘ not necessarily better or worse, just different, you shouldn’t feel that you have to somehow get back to being whatever you were before the band was stretched.”
I think we are all still trying to figure it out as there isn’t a map and one size fits all. However being resilient is a good trait to have in your tool box. Though if you only use it all the time the loop becomes tighter and less forgiving.
Remember to stand back and look at the big picture and unhook from the emotions of our past and connect with its lesson. Knowing progress is often uncomfortable but better to be uncomfortable for awhile then stoic for a life time.
During periods of growth and resilience our time clocks get stuck on pause, yet each day passes and a new day arrives. Won’t it be better to approach the new day with a sense of possibilities rather than a backpack full of past pain.
Good luck.
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The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma
