How do we build resilience? I had felt for the last while that I had lost mine, if that is even a thing. The struggles had been coming at me at such a pace that I felt like I was in a constant state of fight, flight or freeze. So I slowed down. I took stock.
I wrote this poem last year during the first COVID lockdown, where I found myself with no money, no job, three kids to homeschool and a toxic, narcissist ex who seemed intent on causing problems. My life had taken a sharp turn downwards and I had no clue how or if I would make it out of the downward spiral.
I have been blessed by the words of Tara Brach ; her voice, her books & her meditations have guided me to reparent myself and keep on the healing journey through the last difficult years going through divorce, health problems, and the non-stop dramas of raising three boys on my own with a narcissistic ex. It was absolutely life changing to realise how traumas from my past had kept me locked in negative patterns. It is a long and sometimes insufferable journey to shift patterns and beliefs. It's lonely and ugly, dotted with days where it is a struggle to just show up. I would rise up and get knocked down again. I would have moments of fun, but they were just a few sprinkles on top of the overwhelmingly dreary, muddy path of finding all the shattered pieces of my life and putting them back together again.
The great (and sometimes horrible) thing about journaling is that you can look back and see what you were struggling with over the years, how you perceived it and how you dealt with it. Nowadays the blows come, but I don't stay in the mud like I used to. Sometimes I retreat momentarily to re-balance myself, but I get back in the game. I realised that all these blows, landing face down in the dirt, feeling hopeless down there, were all just opportunities for me to rise. I was training my resilience.
The longer I stay in it, the more I realise that it is enough to stand strong, unapologetically in my own power. I am starting to face it differently. Arms raised, with a soft heart and a strong back, I am standing my ground. From that place of inner strength, the blows no longer scare me. They are losing their power. That is resilience, and it feels good.
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