Principle #4 – Activate Your Learning Gene!
Our resilience is being tested. How are you holding up under the stress of our global crisis? What are you learning about yourself?
How much time do you spend on your emotional needs? I know…what a weird question when all we have is time right now. But seriously, how much time do you spend on taking care of yourself? Spending 30 minutes every day to re-center and fill your tank strengthens your resilience. Ask yourself the questions in the above picture. How many could you answer? I couldn’t answer them all either. Now, however, I’m working on them every day. Print out the questions and put them on your fridge.
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
– Elizabeth Edwards
My daughter was sick with a fever last week, so my husband and I volunteered to keep our grandson for the week. The first night he was with us, he called for me in the middle of the night. I went into his room and he asked, “Mammy, will you sleep with me?” I crawled into the bed and hugged him. He wrapped my arms even tighter around himself and we fell asleep. We moved as we were sleeping, and he woke up and wrapped my arms around him again.
I had a feeling of great sadness as I laid there. I was thinking about how his life has been turned upside down. What was he thinking and feeling? He is so young and has a long life ahead of him. Will he have to go through this again? Is he missing his teacher and friends? I allowed myself to feel sad because I knew that I would be ok in the morning.
Our emotions are all over the place. And we’ve all had our lives disrupted but, we are adults. We are usually more resilient and better able to handle difficult situations. Everyone says that children are resilient. But how resilient are they…have we taught them well enough? They learn to be more resilient by watching how we react in stressful conditions. And, also seeing how we take care of ourselves.
It’s so important to make your self-care a priority and take a breather to re-center…not only in times of crisis, but every day. Maybe answering the above daily questions will help you to strengthen your resilience.
Remember that we are in this together. We’ll Rise Up and be stronger!
Freedom is possible!
Love,
Deb