|
Hello CWW community!
Last month, we focused on how to tap into our intuition and trust ourselves. But what happens if we follow our intuition but we make a mistake anyway? Or if we ignore our guts instincts (which some of us occasionally do despite the warning signs)?
Trusting Intuition But Also Building Resilience
It is indeed very important to trust our intuition but it is equally important that we build our resilience for when things go wrong. Because, despite our best intentions and our most finely tuned Spidey senses, bad things cannot always be prevented.
Be Careful!
This brings to mind a habit Rebecca’s mother, Lee, has of cautioning Rebecca whenever she is about to travel to “Be careful!” We can forgive Lee, who like most mothers is worried about her daughter’s safety, but at a certain point Rebecca realized it had been so steadfastly ingrained in her to avoid danger that even though this had likely spared her some hardship, she was less equipped to manage it when it came her way.
Bouncing Back When Bad Things Happen
The gist of this being that there is sweet point between being careful and avoiding mishaps and building the capacity to bounce back when bad things happen.
The Dimensions of Resilience
Resilience, at its core, means the degree to which we recover from hardship. But resilience is not fixed. We can be more resilient in some areas and at different times. In other words, we can think about our resilience within certain domains—relational (personal and professional), physical, emotional, ways we think about what’s happening in our life and how we perceive the world, etc.—and across time be it hourly, daily, seasonal, developmental phases, etc.
Compounding Stressors and Our Baseline of Resilience
Our resilience is also impacted by the number of stressors we are coping with—at a certain point they can have a compounding effect and leave us more depleted than we might normally be. We may also be more or less resilient than others around us so it important to identify our own unique strengths and vulnerabilities and not expect ourselves to recover at the same rate as others.
Fostering Resilience
We also suggest clearly identifying what fosters your resilience. When things get hard, what gets you through? Although the answer might be quite simple, it can be important to explore what helps you recover from challenges so that you can be sure those resources/strategies are lined up when difficulties actually arise. Because, although most of us are trying to “be careful” and avoid hardship, some of it will inevitably cross our path.
| 
