Resilience

Resilience is a word I have heard quite a bit over the past six weeks. From family, friends, and former colleagues to even my therapist, I keep being told- “You are so resilient. No matter what happens to you, you always bounce back.”

This has had me thinking more about the definition of resilience. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the noun as the following:

1.        The capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.

2.        An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.

An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Yup. That’s me in a nutshell. As I reflect on my forty-plus years on this planet, I can’t help but think that most of my four decades have been an ongoing journey of recovering from misfortune or change.

But couldn’t we all say this? We all go through highs and lows in our lives. We all have seasons of plateaus where our day-to-day seems mundane, and then BAM! Something good or bad happens that ensures we have no choice but to react to the situation, showing resilience.

As a young girl, I was bullied in school. It’s not something I talk about a lot, but as I reflect on my life, I know that this is likely where my resilience training began. For years, I was bullied for how I looked, for my stories of my summer adventures in Philadelphia, and for being different from the other kids in my school. This was extremely difficult, and if you’re reading this and have also been bullied, then you can understand why I choose not to share this publicly.

But the bullying created a thick coat of armor for me, forcing me to show on the outside the ‘I don’t care what people think of me’ mentality—leaving the people-pleaser at the door and marching to the beat of my own drum.

Joining the Army at 17 played a significant role in building this armor. For the first time, I began to build my confidence. Although my opinions on my time in the military have changed over the years (hello, deconstruction work!), I will say that I am grateful for the mental strength and fortitude the Army instilled in me. I’ve repeated this time and time that the Army will tear you down, only to build you back up into the machine they want you to be.

I remember those early years in service allowed me to become a cocky and arrogant soldier. Then, deployment came in 2004. When a roadside bomb hit the truck I was driving, my combat training kicked in, and we made it to safety, but I hadn’t had any mental health training. Back then, the mental health services were not nearly what they are today. I struggled for the remaining seven months in combat. I have publicly shared this, as it’s the premise for my book series and my entire social media platform.

At the time of my deployment, I didn’t feel resilient. I felt like I was drowning, but I kept pushing forward. Every day, I woke up and followed through on whatever mission or task was assigned to me that day. I focused on my why—making it home to my husband and daughter. All I knew was that I needed to suppress the inner dialogue fighting that was happening in my head and keep pushing forward.

An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. I didn’t realize it, but I was building up more resilience.

Fast forward twenty years, and my life has had countless lows. I’m not going to hash out every single one here, as that would likely become its own book (hm…. Perhaps a memoir in the future?), but every time I was at what I thought was a new low point, I somehow dug my way out.

An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Again, every time I was at a low point, I didn’t realize it, but I was building up more resilience.

So now, I am again facing a low point. My 9-5 career came to a crashing halt in late November, right as we entered the holidays, which are quite literally the most challenging time to find employment in the corporate finance world.

An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. I continue to dig my way out. Networking in my finance sector, relentlessly applying for jobs, working on edits to book 5 for an early release, and planning future writing projects.

For the first time, even though I am still at a low point, I see my resilience from facing bullies in grade school to making my way through my Army training to facing death in the face and living to talk about it. I am resilient. I know I can recover and adjust easily to misfortune or change. I don’t love it—trust that—but for some reason, I seem to have a knack for clawing my way out from the depths of darkness.

And guess what? You are resilient, too. Maybe you have had a similar path in life, or perhaps you have undergone your own struggles. But I promise you, if you are reading this, you, too, have found the ability to recover or adjust easily to misfortune or change. You have the power to dig yourself out of the depths of the darkness. Even if you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s there.

After all, to have light, we must first experience darkness.

The painting posted at the beginning of this blog is titled- Antiquarum Lacrimae (The Tears of Ancient Women) and was painted by Joan Snyder in 2004. It is currently on display at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Per the description at the museum:

Joan Snyder created this work in the wake of the September 11^th attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq to evoke the suffering cause by war, particularly that of women and children. The title of the work, Antiquarum Lacrimae, or “ancient tears”, is repeatedly painted across the canvas along with dried flowers and thick applications of dripping, pastel paint. The calm colors are at odds with the graffiti-like lettering and chaotic paint application, perhaps capturing the feelings of anxiety and chaos during the war.

Of this body of work, Snyder said, “The people of Iraq and mist especially its women and children were in my thoughts constantly as I made these paintings. I firmly believe that we need to send powerful female energy and imagery out into the universe if our world is to survive the horrific violence inflicted upon it.”

This piece struck a chord, forcing me to face my resilience and the need to write these words. My hope for you is that you feel the female energy in this painting and allow it to evoke in you the strength you need always to move forward.