With the global pandemic slowing for a moment or two I wanted to get back into writing. I want to talk to you about resilience. Resilience is the ability to withstand the pressures of life and keep your head up. I used the GIF to show a samurai sword being made. This is one of the strongest weapons ever created by hand.
I want to spend the next few weeks talking about resilience, and how it applied to my life. Today I want to talk about what resilience is, and a very broad look at how it is developed in each of us. This does not just apply to first responders, but to all people that are making their way in this thing we call life.
The bad news, resilience can only be built through challenges. Just like the samurai sword pictured above it is heated, folded, hammered, cooled, heated, folded, hammered and cooled over and over again. To my knowledge this occurs over two hundred times to forge the weapon. Once that weapon is forged, it is almost impossible to make it lose it's edge, and it will cut into concrete. This forging process is what makes it so strong and gives it the resiliency to last virtually forever. This is the type of resilience that we should strive for.
Now I am not saying you need to go out and get yourself a bunch of trauma so you can be forged and become hard as steel. In reality we have all faced challenges throughout our lives and have the recipe inside us. The goal is to take that recipe and increase our personal resilience. There is some work that you have to do to be able to face situations from a place of stength which we will go over bit by bit over the next couple of blogs.
Today I just wanted to give you the beginning of the formula that will help you build resilience in your own life. Quick disclaimer, I am not a doctor or a licensed expert in this field. I am someone that has built myself back up from a deeply broken place and have become resilient. Using my personal experiences and things that I did I will show you the path that I took. So without further adieu let me tell you the beginning of the formula for building your strength and improving your confidence and resilience.
True resilience comes from HEALING yourself from past trauma, current trauma and accepting yourself for who you are right now! Many people have heard the parable about the person who was stuck in a hole. As he sat there a person came by and he asked, "can you please help me?" The first person replied, "I have no rope or no ladder, but I will pray for you that you find a way out." With that they said a short prayer and continued on their way. A second person came by and said the same thing, but also added, "I will set a plate to get some money to buy a rope". A third person saw this person in the hole and without a thought they jumped in. The stuck person looked in shock, "what are you doing, now you are stuck here too?". The person replied, "I have been stuck here before and I know the way out, follow me!"
I am the person, and I have jumped in the hole. With the pandemic, and increasing call volumes, isolation, long responses, job losses and terrible economic factors many of you are stuck in this place. I ask that you follow, share, like, and comment below and lets work together to get as many of you out of this place as we can!
