Resilience – that ability to be authentically responsive in the midst of stress – begins with your mindset.
Resilience – that ability to be authentically responsive in the midst of stress – begins with your mindset.We never want to admit when we’re playing the victim, despite knowing that we all fall into that reaction sometimes.
The goal is to simply shift gears into our inherent heroic mindset quicker and quicker, not to be perfectly growth-minded all of the time.
When we are confronted with the undesirable or the unknown, it’s very compelling to focus on this thing that is happening to me.
Emphasis on happening to me.
In that mindset, we are consumed by feelings of helplessness and negativity. We naturally resist that discomfort through denial and escape, or increasing efforts to control and prevent the dire outcomes we imagine.
Anxiety is the resistance of our call to adventure.
The fear is real. Both from the legitimate dangers that face us each new day, and those etched deeply in our souls from early life experiences.
The more we resist fear…the more we deploy tactics to avoid facing the reality that we have no control over our outside world, the greater the fear takes hold.
The reality is, things outside of our control are happening all of the time. Some circumstances are unfair, cruel and difficult. Others are fortunate opportunities. Both are always present. This is the yin and yang of life.
We are all on a hero’s journey.
Sometimes we are in a peaceful period meant for nesting and preparation. At other times, we are being confronted with a new, unexpected challenge. And then there are those times when we are in the midst of darkness, facing death and rebirth.
This is the inevitable and beautiful cycle of being alive; the impetus of friction and therefore growth. When we take back our only real control, that of our perception and response, we shift from a suffocating focus on this thing I don’t want that is happening to me into an expansive view of the opportunities opening up in the midst of the challenge.
The call to adventure.
We have a choice. We can choose to focus on the negative things that are happening, or we can shift and invite others into authoring openness, peace and joy, even and especially in the midst of the circumstances totally and completely outside of our control.
Life is not happening to me. It’s simply happening.
Every day, we are once again invited to embrace the adventure.