Resilience: Knowing You’ll Be Okay, Even When It Hurts
This week, let's explore a word we hear often, but perhaps misunderstand: resilience.
What comes to mind when you hear "resilience"?
For many of us, it conjures images of fighting, pushing back against challenges, and stubbornly digging our heels in.
While these actions have their place, I invite you to consider a different, almost opposite, perspective.
What if true resilience isn't found in the fight, but in the letting go?
Resistance vs. Resilience
We often think we are being resilient when we are in a state of resistance—pushing, fighting, and building walls to protect ourselves. This phase is important. It helps us understand what is truly valuable to us. When we fight for a relationship, for example, we are clarifying its importance. This is the energy of the "solid oak," strong and unyielding. It stands its ground, and sometimes, we need to be that oak to discover our core values.
However, staying in this state of resistance builds just that: resistance, not resilience. It’s an energy of struggle, not flow.
The Birth of True Resilience
True resilience is born from a much gentler space: a space of acceptance and softness. It’s the energy of the "bendy reed." The reed survives the wind and water not by fighting them, but by bending with them. Resilience is the deep inner knowing that even though things are difficult now, this too shall pass. It's the understanding that you will be okay.
This isn't about giving up or wallowing. It’s about allowing yourself to feel what you are feeling, to sit with the discomfort, the sadness, or the anger without letting it consume you or projecting it onto the world. These emotions are invaluable messengers from our inner selves. By allowing them to surface, we can understand what they are trying to teach us.
I will do a future discussion and blog on emotions, as I believe it’s such an important topic and perhaps a misunderstood one.
The Journey to Resilience
Resilience isn't something you can decide to "build" one sunny afternoon. It is forged in the fires of our challenges. The journey often begins with being the solid oak—resisting, fighting, questioning. But as we process these experiences, we start to understand. We see that fighting for something may not be what we truly need.
I recall a painful breakup years ago. My initial instinct was resistance; I didn't want it to end. But with time, by allowing myself to feel the grief and look at the situation with open eyes, I came to a place of acceptance. I saw that the end was necessary for my growth. In that process of healing, I didn't build my walls higher; I dismantled them. I learned about my capacity to love and my own strength. That is where my resilience grew.
This process has no fixed timeline. Grief, anger, and disappointment all have their own schedules. Be patient with yourself. Healing happens in small steps—introducing something new you couldn't do a week ago, seeing a situation with a little more clarity, or having a moment of peace.
Embracing Your Inner Bendy Reed
So, how can we cultivate this resilience?
Allow, Don't Fight: When you're in a challenging situation, notice the urge to fight or flee. Can you instead just sit with the feeling for a moment? Allow it to be there without judgement.
Seek Perspective: Sometimes we are too "in it" to see clearly. Talking to a trusted friend, family member, or a professional can help lift you out of the 'bucket of mud' and see the bigger picture.
Listen to Your Emotions: Your emotions are for you. They are a gateway to understanding your deeper needs and beliefs. Listen to them, learn from them, and then you can choose how to move forward.
Resilience is the quiet, unshakeable confidence that you will stand up again. You will laugh again. You will see the beauty in the world again. It's not about preventing bad things from happening, but knowing you have the inner capacity to navigate them when they do. It is the strength found not in rigidity, but in the grace of the bendy reed.
Closing Reflection
If you’re moving through something painful right now, let yourself soften. You don’t need to push through or force healing. Take each day as it comes, and allow yourself to bend like the reed, knowing that bending is not breaking.
Resilience is already within you. It doesn’t demand perfection or constant strength—it asks only that you trust yourself enough to believe you will be okay, even when it hurts.
Explore This Week’s Free Resources
🎥 Watch This Week’s Discussion on 🔗 YouTube or Listen on 🔗 Spotify
✏️ To help you recognise when you are assuming, 🔗 Download the journalling worksheet
🧘 Follow the Guided Meditation, 🔗 Listen on YouTube or on 🔗 Spotify
If this post brought up thoughts or feelings you'd like to explore further, I’m here to support you. Book a one-on-one session to gently explore what’s unfolding within you.