Resilience (noun):
an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
Perhaps more than any one thing, I focus mentally on resiliency these days. But it wasn't always this way.
As I've mentioned before, I used to feel paralyzed by perfectionism (thought I didn't know to identify it as such, at the time). Thinking back to my school age days, an eager academic and a true lover of learning, I cared immensely about my grades, my performance in athletics...everything I did.
Somewhere along the way, I began to place a lot of weight on my performance as though it determined my worth. Often thinking thoughts like: "If I don't achieve [this thing], I won't have lived up to my potential."
It was an unfortunate mental space I found myself in, even though I had arrived there, like most, with good intentions.
But then, one day, I happened upon the work of Brené Brown. And for the first time in my life, I TRULY understood the concept of innate worthiness, innate wholeness .... innate enough-ness. And once I wrapped my mind around the fact that there was nothing I could do to add or subtract from my worth, I began to see perfectionism for what it was:
crippling
paralyzing
rigid
inflexible
stagnate
immobile
The OPPOSITE of resiliency.
No wonder I found it hard to ever really move forward in certain, significant categories of my life.
Back to resiliency...
Now I function from a space of believing in my innate worthiness. As in, I don't have to please, perform, perfect, achieve or strive for ANYTHING to make myself more worthy of love or belonging. Do I still love to strive for growth and accomplishment and change and new experiences? Heck yes! But I do these things now because I want to see what is possible not because I feel that they will validate my worth on some level.
From there, the MOST important mental attribute I can cultivate is resiliency.
When we strengthen our ability to recover easily from change, and learn to bounce back from challenges, we improve our resiliency. And when we become resilient people, we are better equipped to actually achieve what we set out to - because the goals continue to matter, but the amount of attempts we make at achieving them, the bumps and bruises and lessons learned along the way....those factor not, into our perception of self worth.
Have a wonderful week ♥︎
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