Fundamentally, resilience is self-care
Resilience is manifold. It means withstanding and adapting. It means to act according to the situation and your place in it. Fundamentally, resilience is self-care.
Resilience is manifold.
Being resilient doesn’t just mean being strong and withstanding adversity. It also doesn’t mean simply being adaptable. To understand resilience more deeply, let us take the example of losing a loved one. There are times when you will face intense emotions of grief, sadness, or anger, and it will be necessary to withstand them in order to continue with the essential tasks of your life, like eating, sleeping, resting, or taking care of your children. Sometimes, it’s necessary to open yourself to those emotions in order to harness their healing power as you integrate that loss into your life. And sometimes you need to do both: withstand the emotional waves and simultaneously hold an inner space for what emerges and wants to be seen or felt. Resilience encompasses all of this, and in addition it constitutes the wisdom to act according to the needs of the situation and your place within it.
Fundamentally, what we are talking about are acts of self-care and love. Resilience doesn’t mean being strong for the purpose of showing strength, or shutting down your emotions and thoughts. On the contrary, it means going with the flow of life, as that’s the way healing happens. If you learn and practice resilience, you gain agency even in moments when you never thought it to be possible.
Self-care and resilience come with self-responsibility. It’s only available to you if you choose to live your life fully. Otherwise, you still depend on someone else. So whenever you are struggling with something, the struggle is a clear sign that you are not in charge of yourself. Take your life into your own hands. Clear your mind, and understand the decision you have to make. And then choose wisely and go on. Your strength, decisiveness, and resilience grow with every step.
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