How much have we heard the word 'resilience' since the pandemic hit us?
Possibly because it's 'the salt of life', we would say in my mother tongue, and it's what supports our sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves and our ability of being connected to ourselves and our community.
I disagree with one of most of the common metaphors associated with 'resilience'. I distance myself from this idea that we as human beings can ‘bounce-back’ from adversities.
it implies that we are like rubber balls who get pushed to the ground and spring back up. As if when faced with a challenge, after crashing on the ground, we can come back to the same place we were, ‘pick ourselves up' and carry on as if nothing had changed.
But a lot has changed. Sometimes for the worst, sometimes for the best. Either way, change needs acknowledging: there is so much learning, growth, expansion and love that happens in the thick of a crisis.
So, I went back to my school days and looked at the etymology of the word Resilience - I love going to the roots of meaning making, don't you?
The word 'resilience' comes from the Latin root RESILI, meaning the ability to spring back in relation to the capacity of plants to adapt themselves to different conditions – think of a flower growing through concrete.
In physical science, it is seen as the ability of a material to return to its original state after it has been bent or stretched. It is like an elastic band that can stretch to accommodate objects of different shapes and sizes, and then return to its original form when released.
In relation to human behaviour, resilience is the capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours when faced with life disruption, or extended periods of pressure so that we emerge from difficulty stronger, wiser and more able. 'Like a plant, we emerge from difficulty and emerge stronger, wiser and more able'. Carole PembertonI believe that resilience is about being open to moving through difficulties, challenges and opportunities and learning and growing from the consequences of that risk that you choose to take/ or were forced to live through.
Join me for this Facebook live to hear about my favourite image to support our resilience i.e. the Emotional Reservoir.
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In our society, there is strong pressure to conform and this somehow makes us confuse 'fitting in' for 'belonging'.
In order to be accepted and included you apply yourself to learn what's expected of you, and somehow mould your beliefs and behaviours to fit into a particular scenario or relationship, for instance.
Have you tried to belong to a new group of people or a partner and then decided to step back from them because you felt you couldn't recognise yourself any longer? The same can happen when you long to belong to a new country. You can lose your true self. What if belonging wasn't a feeling for someone, somewhere or even something, but was a skill?
A skill we can all learn.
Even if it is not taught at school. True belonging might be a forgotten art but all it’s needed to get you started you already have: YOU! Belonging to ourselves start with connecting inwards.
Once you’ve developed a relationship with yourself that is so loving, intimate and committed belonging to yourselves will become what will support you, shore you and back you up no matter what challenges life throws at you
Yet it is not something I can put into a 5 step process for you. Instead, I’ll whisper to you a childhood story. The story of when I married myself… You will not need to bring tissues, just an open heart ready to receive my story and a gorgeous poem! This is a Facebook LIVE video. If you would like to join our multi-cultural, multi-talented, multi-faceted group click the button belowOur body is the first gate of belonging, it’s the home we never leave and yet is the one home we struggle the most to fully recognise, appreciate and tend to.
Often our embodied presence can feel judged and made feel unwelcome.
Our culture seems to have so much to say about the colour of our skin, the shape or size of our limbs, and the fitness levels or the health of our ensemble that we feel our body is judged, excluded and not welcome When this happens, there is no surprise that we struggle to appreciate the squishy living creatures we are, is there?
This leads us to ignore the key messages that the body sends us about its needs for rest, sleep, food, water and more… and we seem to grow apart from our body.
Such dissociation of body and mind is also supported by a culture that celebrates being active and productive to the extent of treating our bodies as if they were machines, exhausting them and then replacing their parts as if they were robots. Many layers of conditioning need peeling on the journey to Feel At Home in our bodies. Yet it's worth doing
Holding ourselves lovingly and tenderly, indulging in our feelings and pre-empting its needs can really support us to feel safe in our bodies, accept multiple states and ways of being, heal traumas and ultimately bring us back home to our bodies.
Watch this training to
This is a Facebook LIVE, if you wanted to join our group you'd be welcome - just click on the button below. Otherwise, be reassured that I'd be keep sharing the video on my blog so noot to exclude anyone! I strongly believe that when relocating to a new country, a new climate, a new landscape we don’t give enough attention to our relationship with the new natural elements.
We are so involved in learning the language, understanding the unwritten rules and finding our people that we neglect nurturing the relationship with the landscape of the new place – this might be a new city or country.
Yet the changes are obvious before our eyes. The soil often has different forms and shapes, the air smells differently, the light has a different quality etc.
We might feel intimidated by unfamiliar natural environments, more than by unfamiliar cities. We might feel so bored by the persistent rain/consistently blue sky to become depressed.
Watch this short training
During this short training you’ll receive practical tips on:
Would you like to receive tons of free support and teaching?
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