In Part 1, we explored why resilience is a valuable trait to learn and use. In Part 2, the focus was on one type of resiliency – shame resilience. The 3rd part was devoted to talking about how important it is to be hopeful when you are cultivating resilience. In this part – Part 4 – we will be focusing on the requirement for self-care. Without it – put simply – one just can’t develop resilience.

Naturally, we aren’t saying that being selfish is a good attitude to take. Self-care, on the other hand, is critical to success in life. Self-care begins with self-awareness. We must pay attention to how we are feeling – emotionally, physically and spiritually. And then we need to take action on those areas that don’t feel healthy. Maybe we’ve been working too many hours or spending too much time helping out a friend who is going through a rough patch. “I’m burned out”, is what we say when our lives are out of balance, and we aren’t doing a great job at managing our self-care. Health.com has an article on various ideas to step up self-care. They recommend several things, including: 

• sweating it out or pounding the pavement for those who can’t sit still
• escaping into re-runs of your favorite sitcoms or reading a book
• creating a relaxing routine which begins with disconnecting from devices
• grabbing some knitting needles or work on an art project that uses repetitive motion which can feel meditative

Read the full article here: 

http://www.health.com/mind-body/self-care-ideas

The reason self-care is NOT being selfish is because if you don’t take care of yourself, others may suffer. If you burn out it’s likely that you will just go into seclusion, leaving everyone high and dry, rather than managing to do what is needed on a daily basis to keep yourself positive and moving forward. Worse yet, you may become really ill (physically and/or mentally) and then others may have to jump in to rescue you. They probably would have preferred that you focused on yourself a little more so that you didn’t get to that point!

Want to know just how resilient you are?

I ran across The Resilience Institute, which has an online 60-second test to determine how resilient you are. They use the answers to just 12 questions to come up with your score. They invite you to go further by answering 60 questions to get your “Resilience Diagnostic” or you can sign up for “Your Resilience Journey” – a webinar course. The 60-second test is free. Anything more sophisticated costs $$$. My score on the short test was only 65%. Hmmm. Maybe I should take my own advice!

What are your thoughts on this?

Authentic Living Newsletter Subscription

In this article on “Cultivating Resilience” – the third in the series – I focus on how hope is a major aspect of being resilient. In today’s society, it’s easy to feel hopeless. We know we can’t control what’s going on around us, nor what our loved ones choose to do or be, but we can cultivate resilience by focusing on hope. 

Hope has been defined as, “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best”.  The most successful people are ones who have hope and don’t give in to despair. One of those is Nelson Mandela, who said:

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say.  Part of being an optimist is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward.

We choose to be optimistic or pessimistic, just as we decide whether the glass is half full or half empty. It’s our perspective. A person who chooses to be optimistic has hope, by definition.  I remember deciding when I was a teenager that I would take a pessimistic view of life because that way I wouldn’t be disappointed. That didn’t last long, though, because seeing the world that way wasn’t very much fun. In fact, it was downright depressing!

Being an optimist – having hope – is not turning a blind eye toward what is going on around us. It is, rather, acknowledging the present situation, but not giving up nor giving in to the notion that it will always be that way. Which are you? Optimist or pessimist? Do you have hope that things will get better? 

If you have hope, you are capable of great things. If you do not have hope, then the great things you could have may never come along.  According to psychologist Charles R. Snyder, hopeful thinking is made up of three main things:

• Goals – Approaching life in a goal-oriented way
• Pathways – Finding different ways to achieve your goals
• Agency – Believing that you can instigate change and achieve these goals

If we have a goal and we don’t give up, we will find the way(s) to achieve our goal. In order to persist in reaching our goal, we must believe that we are powerful enough to create change. And the magic potion is believing we have already reached the goal – whether we have or not – and living our lives at the same frequency as the goal itself. 

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

 

~ Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

Authentic Living Newsletter Subscription

Last week I blogged about the importance of resilience in dealing with life’s inevitable difficulties. I said that resilience is a choice. We can choose resilience and train ourselves to be more and more resilient, or we can choose to be a victim of circumstances. In this blog — Part 2 in the Series — I am sharing the concept of “shame resilience”, which is an especially compelling subject. Author and speaker Dr. Brené Brown developed the “Shame Resilience Theory” and writes about it in her book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame.

Being able to forgive ourselves and others has always made sense to me as an important strategy to become more resilient. Shame resilience delves more deeply into the power that shame has over us, particularly for women. As with resilience in general, we have to cultivate resilience in the face of feeling shame. Dr. Brown says:

We can never become completely resistant to shame; however, we can develop the resilience we need to recognize shame, move through it constructively and grow from our experiences.

Shame is one of those topics that never comes up at a cocktail party, unless, of course, you want to drive people away from you. The word “shame” is loaded and talking about it is …. well, shameful! Talking about it makes people incredibly uncomfortable. They would rather talk about school shootings than shame. Why is that?

People are afraid of shame, according to Dr. Brown, so much so that it has become a silent epidemic. By not talking about shame, we have “forced shame underground”, which makes it even more destructive. Researchers have found that shame plays an important role in many mental health issues, like depression, anxiety disorders, addiction, eating disorders, bullying, suicide, sexual assault, and various forms of violence.

Feeling shame is very painful, so, essentially, we avoid addressing it by changing our behaviors so that we bypass shame. Society and our culture teach us about shame by dictating what is acceptable and what is not. Because we have a natural, human need to feel like we belong, we sometimes choose to conform rather than feel the shame inflicted upon us if we don’t.

One of the antidotes to shame is compassion, both for ourselves and for others. Practicing compassion is the way we begin to develop empathy. Empathy makes it possible for us to accept the struggles that make us all human. Dr. Brown believes that “we are all capable of developing resilience to shame by turning the pain caused by shame into courage compassion and connection.” Once we have done that for ourselves, we can help others do the same.

All of us can relate to feelings of shame. What takes courage is to not run from the pain of those feelings, but instead to acknowledge them and try to understand why we are experiencing them. People may have been trying to control us by shaming us.

I had a girlfriend for many years, from 4th grade through the end of high school. She knew my vulnerabilities and sometimes used that knowledge to control me through shame. I remember one particular experience when I wanted “to die”. In front of several other students, she openly criticized and chastised me in a very mean way. My reaction was to try to change my behavior so that would never happen again.

Have you harbored feelings of shame from things that happened in your past? If so, you may need to address them and find out where they came from and why you are still carrying that poison around with you.  Shame is like getting a nasty cut that later becomes infected and festers. No one can change that for us. We have to have the courage, compassion, and empathy to do it for ourselves.

Perhaps start the process of becoming resilient to shame by taking one incidence of shame from your past and approach it with compassion. Could someone have been inflicting the shame on you so they could control you?

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

 

~  Maya Angelou

Authentic Living Newsletter Subscription

Life is not fair!  Yes, that’s the reality that keeps coming up but knowing that doesn’t really help when we are enmeshed in a difficult situation. What does help? Being resilient.

Resilience is a learned trait. We aren’t born knowing how to be resilient, although some of us may find it easier than others. The thing is, anyone can develop resilience. So, let’s do this.

“Why should I?”, you may wonder. Good question. Let’s take a look at what resilience IS and how it can make life better. That can help us stay motivated as we work to cultivate it.

According to Psychology Today, “Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.” Some factors of resilience include:

• a positive attitude
• the ability to regulate emotions, and
• the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback

Resilience is a choice. We can choose to be a victim of our circumstances, or we can choose to get back up off the floor, brush ourselves off and keep moving forward. Even people who have suffered the worst abuse imaginable can still find resilience within. 

Actress Susan Sarandon describes resilience this way:

Resilient people do not let adversity define them. They find resilience by moving towards a goal beyond themselves, transcending pain and grief by perceiving bad times as a temporary state of affairs.

Is resilience genetic?  Are we born with the ability to be resilient?  Experts argue that it is both genetics and something anyone can cultivate. We’ve seen them — those people who seem to roll with the punches naturally, but unless we are lucky enough to have been born with a natural tendency to better handle life’s stresses, most people have to set an intention to cultivate resilience and regularly spend time and energy to reinforce it.

Unfortunately, there are elements in our society that reward people for seeing themselves as victims. Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Steven Wolin, M.D.  points out that “There is a whole industry that would turn you into a victim by having you dwell on the traumas in your life”. In reality, he says, “you all have considerable capacity for strength, although you might not be wholly aware of it.”

Sometimes it feels easier to be a victim. If we can blame others for the bad things that may have happened in the past; we don’t feel obliged to change. And it can be seductive to receive sympathy and attention when we are suffering.

Wolin defines resiliency as:

. . . the capacity to rise above adversity—sometimes the terrible adversity of outright violence, molestation or war—and forge lasting strengths in the struggle. It is the means by which children of troubled families are not immobilized by hardship but rebound from it, learn to protect themselves and emerge as strong adults, able to lead gratifying lives.”

 

I am writing a series of blogs on resilience because I think it is a very important quality to develop. It’s equivalent in the physical realm to building infrastructure that can support whatever we are trying to develop. With that one trait, we can improve our lives. Without it, everything we are trying to develop can be compromised.

Because resilience is something that most of us have to develop over time and continually reinforce, let’s take a look at various aspects of it and develop strategies we can practice on a daily basis.

Stay tuned!

Authentic Living Newsletter Subscription

Such are the words of my mentor, Mary Morrissey, and they are true. Great ideas are stopped dead in their tracks unless someone has the courage and the persistence to pursue them. 

There are all sorts of reasons that we don’t take action. The main one is fear. Maybe we don’t think we are capable of doing what needs to be done. Perhaps we believe it when others say “it can’t be done.” We are inspired, we plant the seed of the idea in our mind, but then we pull it up before it has any time to take root in our life. We believe more in our limitations than we do in our inspirations. The truth is that we all experience fear. No one has ever succeeded at something new without experiencing fear. The key is to overcome that fear and turn it into a stepping stone. 

Okay, so you’ve decided for something and then fear comes along and rears its ugly head. What do you do?  You look right at it and say, “I know what you are!” Then tell yourself, “There is something in me that’s greater than this fear and I can move past it.”  

Fear is actually the border of the reality that we know. Imagine that you are driving your car at night, traveling down a road that you’ve never been on before. The headlights allow you to see a certain distance, but beyond their range, you don’t really know what’s out there in the distance. But as you continue to move down the road, more and more is revealed to you. The headlights illuminate what is known and continue illuminating more and more unless you stop in fear of something you can’t see from your current position. As long as the headlights stay on, you can continue moving ahead with confidence. It’s only by moving ahead that you can reveal more of what lies ahead!

A strategy to deal with fear, therefore, is to keep moving toward your goal one step at a time. We turn our fear into faith. There’s a story about a young Native American man who goes to his chief because it is time for him to go out on his vision quest and he is frightened. He has to leave the village and go out into strange surroundings where there could be bears and other wild animals that could attack him. He admits to the chief that he is afraid, saying, “I want to do the vision quest, but it’s like there are two dogs inside me fighting. One who says I can and one who says I can’t. And they are fighting and fighting and I am frightened and confused. What should I do?”

It’s only by moving ahead that you can reveal more of what lies ahead!

The chief very gently puts his hand on the young brave’s shoulder. He looks him in the eye and says, “The one who says you can will win.”  The boy responds, “How do you know that?” The chief replies, “Because that is the one you will feed. One you feed and one you starve.”

So, how do you feed your faith and starve your fear? You do it by directing your attention towards what you want to feed. That attention will magnify it and strengthen it. 

Fear is our companion through life, whether we like it or not. We control it by not giving it our attention. The Law of Attraction tells us that thoughts held in mind reproduce after their kind. On a farm, the seeds we plant will yield the fruit of that seed. Apple seeds will bear apples. Pear seeds bear pears. Corn seeds bear corn. In the same way “fear seeds” will bear fear that will result in constriction and containment. You need to deal with fear, but only because in order to move forward, you need to take the next step in that direction and not stop dead in your tracks. 

I heartily welcome your comments and questions!

I recently posted 30 quotes (1 per day for 30 days) on two Facebook pages that I manage. All of them have the theme of gratitude. In case you didn’t see them or would like to have another look, I have created a slideshow for you:

Slideshow: Quotes on Gratitude

Enjoy!

Okay, be honest!  How do you like the “New Years Resolutions” phrase? Do you shun the idea because your resolutions haven’t stuck in the past? Do you welcome the symbol of another chance to begin again and really make the changes you’ve been hoping for?  

Many people feel stuck in their circumstances but haven’t succeeded in changing them. They may have tried diligently in the past and gotten exhausted with the effort, only to slide back to the status quo. I get that. We ALL get that. We’ve all been there more times than we would like to admit. How will this day and this year be any different?

If we make resolutions, we are telling ourselves that we’ve DECIDED. We will do this or we will stop doing that. If we don’t keep the resolution, did we fail (once again)? It turns out that failure is necessary in order to succeed! No one has been successful without first having experienced failure, sometimes many times over. I imagine that you’ve heard the story of Thomas Edison, who eventually invented the incandescent light bulb. He admits to 10,000 “failures” on the journey; however, he says that he merely found 10,000 ways it wouldn’t work. Other inventors were also experimenting with the same goal in mind, but Edison was the one to succeed. 

Edison had a habit every day of sitting down in his rocking chair and going to “the land of solutions”, as he called it. He would rock back and forth holding a rock in his left hand. He always had a metal pail positioned just under the rock, so that if he were to fall asleep, the noise would wake him up. What he was doing was accessing a higher intelligence, one that has all the answers. He knew that there can’t be a problem without a solution and there can’t be a question without an answer. The fact that his mind could even conceive of the incandescent light bulb was proof that there was a way to make it happen. He just needed to be persistent. 

Whether or not you have succeeded in the resolutions you have made in the past, each day offers a new opportunity. If we are still resolved to create change, we just need to renew that resolve and go at it again. We change the story we have been telling ourselves and open up to options that may help us move along. Tell the Universe that you are open to help and that you definitely intend to create this change. Making this declaration to the Universe and to ourselves strengthens our resolve and reminds us to be open to the possibilities out there. 

Allow this day and this new year to signify the start of a new cycle, in which we don’t carry the burden of what may have happened in the past. Perhaps, as with Edison, we are just learning the ways in which we can’t accomplish the change we want. We are learning what doesn’t work.

Subscribe to the Authentic Living E-newsletter

Until we make a decision and say “yes” to it, we can’t move towards it. It’s as simple (and difficult) as that!

Typically, we go through the day picking and choosing what we like and what we don’t like. We are slaves to our past experiences, making decisions without truly examining our options. If we could just see things from the perspective of a brand new baby, perhaps we wouldn’t so quickly judge. We might be curious and want to know more. We might be willing to try something, learn from the experience and make our choice then: to retreat, to try a slightly different path, or to charge ahead!

Yes, trying new things and exploring can be risky. One might experience difficulties or pain, that’s for sure. But what if we learn something about ourselves and about our purpose in life from the experimentation? All of a sudden, new doors open, we become excited and eager to learn more. We DECIDE to say yes to ourselves this time, trusting that deciding for something doesn’t mean making a long-term commitment. We choose to remain open until we know for sure if it’s the right path for us.

We have begun a conversation with the Universe. We will see where it leads us. If the journey becomes unpleasant, we will reconsider. We can trust ourselves to do that. 

While on the journey, we will experience doubters, naysayers. They may be our friends, our family or even our own egos. We don’t ignore what we are told. We are grateful that they care. We show appreciation, but we don’t allow the doubters and the naysayers to make our decisions for us.

Most people – even those who desire change – will be dissuaded. Life happens, We get busy. Before we know it, another year has gone by and we are still in the same place where we started, living a life by default rather than by design. So, now we pick ourselves up and try again, right?  Or we give up and give in to the paradigms that keep us stuck. 

It doesn’t have to be so difficult. There is help available to make the journey quicker and easier.  Through a proven process and a coach to keep you on track, in just 3 months you could be starting to live a very different life – one that is harmonious with your soul’s purpose. Interested in learning more? You may contact me using the Contact Us Form on the website or simply by replying to this email.

Saying “Yes” to the universe opens the gate to receiving what your soul really wants.

~ Madisyn Taylor

Contact Us Form

Subscribe to the Authentic Living E-newsletter

Many of us find it easier to give than receive. It has a lot to do with our sense of deserving (or lack thereof). 

Giving and receiving are part of the same cycle, and we each give and receive in our own ways. But we can lose our balance when we try to be too controlling on either side of the cycle.

Madisyn Taylor, “The DailyOM”

It’s kind of like having a bank account that you watch carefully every day, cognizant of the value of what is going in and going out. Keeping score in a way. At this time of year especially, with Hanukkah and Christmas and various other holidays, there is an expectation.  One of my family members recently said in answer to my question about what they would like for Christmas, “Don’t get me anything!  I’m not getting you anything, I’ll tell you right now!”  I felt hurt in a way. It’s not that I really need anything, but I love to give, and this person had robbed me of that opportunity. Perhaps it was the vehemence with which the response was made, along with a facial expression that said, “Don’t you dare defy me on this!” 

This conversation and my reaction to it gave me pause to try to understand what was going on. Was my desire to give somehow evidence of being controlling, just as much as the other person’s refusal to give and receive? 

I think we all have different reactions depending on the person and the circumstances, but we do tend to try to place a set value on what we give and what we receive, and we attempt to keep it in balance. It rests, I believe, in the sense of obligation. The energy shifts from the higher vibration of sharing to a lower vibration of having a duty. It’s no wonder that some people give anonymously! Then the receiver feels no obligation to return the favor. 

If we take a broader perspective, there is a Universal Law of Circulation, but it doesn’t say that we will give and receive necessarily from the same source. In fact, it says that “what you give to one person, you will receive from a different source.” You don’t give with the expectation of receiving back from the same person. You give knowing that it will definitely come back to you, possibly multiplied, from other sources.The Law of Circulation works with the Law of Cause and Effect, so we needn’t worry about reciprocation. We can receive without feeling an obligation to give. We can give without an expectation of receiving from the same source. 

It’s actually freeing to approach giving and receiving this way. If I could, I would still give something to this family member, but I don’t want to upset them. I guess the change that I want in the World has to start with me, so do I dare?

I’d love your insights on this conundrum!.  Please post your comments below.

When we can allow ourselves to receive as well as give, we do our part to keep the channels of abundance open for ourselves and others. 

Madisyn Taylor, “The DailyOM”

Subscribe to the Authentic Living E-newsletter

Things happen in our lives for a reason, even if that reason is not clear to you right away.”

Madison Taylor, DailyOM

Synchronicity is a noun defined as “the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.” Perhaps you are aware of an occurrence of synchronicity in your life. More familiar to us is the verb form, “synchronize”, in which there is a conscious act “to cause to go on, move, operate, work, etc., at the same rate and exactly together”, such as synchronizing watches or performing synchronized swimming.

There are the naysayers who believe that synchronicity is simply coincidence. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those who believe that there are no accidents in life — everything happens for a reason. Where do you stand on the subject? Many philosophers and psychologists believe that we will start noticing synchronicities with practice.  The more we notice …. well…. the more we notice! 

Something happens. You react. You think, “This is a coincidence. I must investigate further.” You do … then more synchronicities occur and you are suddenly following an exciting line of action and reaction. The higher and clearer your frequency and intent, the faster you manifest synchronicities.”

Quote from Cystalinks; 

http://www.crystalinks.com/synchronicity.html

Here are some typical examples of synchronicity:

• You drive to a place where parking is “next to impossible” and someone pulls out of a parking spot or it is waiting for you.
• You walk into a bookstore not knowing what to buy, and the book you need falls from a shelf and practically hits you over the head.
• You have just received your last check from unemployment when suddenly a job comes along.

Synchronicity is also referred to as “serendipity”.  Imagine you typically catch a plane to go home on the weekend, but this time you decide to go by rail. On the train, you meet a person you end up falling in love with and marrying. What made you change your mind and go by rail? Who would you have married if you hadn’t gone by rail? Is it magic? Is it simply chance? 

Belief is what activates synchronicity. If you don’t believe that it is possible, then you can’t activate it.  Something could be right in front of you and you still won’t see it.

Consider trying an experiment. Decide to believe in synchronicity and make an intention to be open to the possibility of it.  See what happens! I’d love to read your comments and questions below!

Subscribe to the Authentic Living E-newsletter