Latest / Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast / Everybody Wants Resilience Until It Stops Looking Polite

Transcript

Everybody Wants Resilience Until It Stops Looking Polite · Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Arc.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Amy Gamble.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: These are reflections on resilience,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: identity,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: and life,
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: drawn from experience,
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: observation, and a lifetime of learning what it really means to keep going.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Today's essay is called Everybody Wants Resilience Until It Stops Looking Polite.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes resilience doesn't look like perseverance.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it looks like walking away.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us love a great comeback story?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm drawn into hearing the story of how someone overcame a disability,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: a setback, or failure, and then turned their life completely around.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's as if the resilience pathway had a start, middle, and finish.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: The truth?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Most stories of resilience get lost because they aren't linear comebacks.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're not neat, dramatic, happy endings.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'd argue It's the continuation that really matters.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: What if I were to tell you my greatest personal story of resilience isn't
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: about surviving near-death experiences.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't about recovering from mental illness.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't about fighting my way through injuries to make the 1988 Olympic team handball team.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: My greatest story begins when I lost my mother.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: After she passed away, I truly felt lost.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: My biggest encourager, supporter, best friend, and confidante.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Gone.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It would take thousands of words to explain all the ways she impacted my life.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So removing this monumental, dependable, loving human being from my life, it took a toll on me.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It forced me to turn inward and focus on my own ability to validate myself.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has different relationships with their parents,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: but almost everyone has lost someone who played an outsized,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: important role in their lives.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that was a sudden loss,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: or simply relationships drifting apart that could no longer be maintained
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: for whatever reason, resilience showed up for me in ways I didn't think possible.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I began to lean on all the skills,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: experiences, and events that shaped me into the person I'd become.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I analyzed the parts of myself I liked, And the more shadow parts of me.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because no matter who we are, we have lightness and we have darkness.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to learn how I could shine my light in ways I hadn't thought possible.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But first, I had to conjure up the courage to address the parts of me I didn't want to look at.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: What about all the people I may have hurt in my life along the way?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Even if I didn't intend to cause pain, it still happened.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of beating myself up about my perceived mistakes,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I tapped into my ability to accept the things I couldn't change and forgive myself
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: for my perceived shortcomings.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's resilience in action.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: One day I woke up without a sense of purpose, without goals, without drive.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just woke up and realized what my mother always said.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Life goes on, Amy.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have to keep going.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of my resilience in practice was learning,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: number one,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: to protect myself,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: not only from other people,
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But from the internal critic inside of me that was notoriously hard on me.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: I always wanted to do good.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Be good.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Be perceived as being good.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what exactly is good?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's certainly not allowing yourself to be so vulnerable
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: that some people take advantage of your generosity.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely not allowing yourself to be in the company of people who discount,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: dismiss, or constantly put you down.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of resilience I'm most proud of is the kind Where you dig deep and set boundaries.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: The kind where you learn it's okay to disappoint people.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: The kind where you quit something shortly after you started.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: We applaud the person who perseveres.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the person whose resilience tells her to quit?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We admire someone who gives endlessly.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when resilience tells her to stop giving?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate vulnerability.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what about when resilience says, you don't get access to me anymore?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: We love the comeback story,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: but what if the comeback is simply deciding, I'm going to live differently now?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes resilience is the kind where you say, today, the heck with it all.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about changing my focus and making one of
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: the most important things in my life having peace of mind.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean I sit in my home with my head in the sand,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: ignoring all the things going on in the world.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It means I pay attention to what I allow into my mind.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Part of my resilience strategy is leaning hard on the skills of elite athleticism,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: what it taught me about getting your mind right.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I call it monitoring my thoughts.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Performance thought leaders call it mindset.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: If all the world around me feels unstable,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: unpredictable, mean,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: divided,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: hateful,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: and yes,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: to some degree, crazy,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: then it really is time for me to pay close attention to what I'm internalizing.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: That means putting limits on what I'm going to allow myself to get upset or fired up about.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Some people find great solace in religion or spiritual practices.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think when your spirit gets into alignment with your mind and body,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: there's no greater way to lean on that energy source.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's powerful.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: My resilience toolkit is built to last my lifetime.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important things in it is keeping my fears and worries in a contained box.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can take the box out from under the bed on occasion and look at it,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: move it around, but I must put it back into the box and place it under the bed.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Since I've been focused on protecting my peace, my stress response system has quietly shrunk.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: When I feel fear begin to signal that response is coming,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know to take a deep breath and immediately ask myself, what am I thinking about?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I thinking about it?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes I need a good night's sleep to just clear the slate.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need to figure out what I'm putting into my mind,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: whether that's reading,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: interacting with others, or picking up on an occasional doom scroll on social media.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Shifting the mind is like shifting gears in an old standard transmission.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't put the clutch down far enough and try to shift, it's going to grind.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes the mind does grind a little before we get settled and grounded again.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's no magic wand to getting through the challenges of life.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a journey.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's harder than others.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe resilience isn't really the dramatic comeback we've made it out to be.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a practice.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's learning when to push and when to quit.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: When to give and when to stop giving.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: When to let someone in and when to close the door.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: When to worry and when to put the box back under the bed.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's simply getting up one morning and remembering what my mother once told me.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Life goes on, Amy.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta keep going, one incremental step at a time.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Beyond the Arc.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: If this essay connected with you,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: you could find the written version and more of my work on Beyond the Arc
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: on Substack.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Amy Gamble, and until next time, keep going, one incremental step at a time.