Presence Matters

The issue of resilience is in the air since the publishing of Elizabeth Edward’s new book. It is a timely and valuable subject since so many people are facing such adversity in their lives right now – emotional, financial, and health-related issues.

How we respond to stress and adversity defines the quality of our lives. Life’s stressors are not going away. The only thing we really have any control over at all is how we respond to what life presents to us. And, our ability to respond well – defined as making choices that enhance our life experience – is dependant in large part on our resilience.

In a recent interview about her new book, “Resilience”, Elizabeth Edwards gives us her definition,

“I talk about my father’s dealing with his life after he had a stroke. I think that resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had, the reality that you liked before. That’s what my dad did. He still grabbed hold of what was left and lived it as fully as he could.” (italics mine)

My own father had a unique and wonderful way of demonstrating this for me when I was growing up. If a difficult situation came up, rather than reacting negatively, he would use it as an opportunity to “put on his thinking cap” and rise to meet the challenge, especially if someone tried to tell him that the problem was unsolvable.  

My earliest memory of this talent was one Christmas vacation when I was about eight years old. We were driving to my grandparent’s cabin in Fort Valley, Virginia when it began to snow, hard. By the time we got to the final leg of our journey -  a long dirt road up a steep incline to their cabin – the snow was almost three feet deep and still coming down. There were two other cars stuck at the bottom of the hill with my uncles huddled around them looking worried and defeated. They were about to abandon their cars and carry all their stuff on foot up the long steep hill through the deep snow. We were tired and grumpy as kids usually are after such a long time in the car.

However, when my Dad looked over the whole situation and yelled to my uncles that he was “going for it”, our tiredness turned to excitement. I remember him backing up the car, getting up speed and charging up the hill, slipping and sliding all the way.

Over and over, we watched as he got part of the way up and had to back down and start again. Each time he would get a little farther up the hill, until, finally we were all at the top – all three cars – and everyone was feeling exuberant rather than defeated.

Then, there was the time (obviously before the days of security checkpoints), when we arrived late for a flight. The ticket agent looked at us and said, “ You have exactly nine minutes to make it to your gate.” Dad looked at all of us with that gleam in his eye and said, “You want to run for it?” Well, run we did, and we made the flight, seconds to spare, breathless and triumphant.

He emanated this wonderful sense of adventure and creativity in times of adversity.

The other day I was working with a young woman in her late twenties who had recently been home visiting her parents. She went to sit down in a chair and it collapsed. She found herself suddenly sitting on the floor, unharmed, but to her surprise, feeling anxious and frozen in place.

 As we explored it further, she told me that when she was younger, her Dad would beat her with a belt if anything ever went wrong. It didn’t matter whose fault it was, and it happened so frequently that it became an automatic response to freeze, waiting for the blows she knew were inevitable. 

So her recent response was understandable, but outdated and crippling to her as an adult woman – to be frozen with anxiety because of something that was an accident?

In her trauma response, in that moment, she had no resilience, no ability to see the situation as it currently stood, and thus no ability to respond in a creative, life-enhancing way. 

Slowly we worked together to release the old nervous system response and bring her body and its ability to be resilient, into the present moment where she is safe and capable of taking care of herself quite well. 

Memories of my Dad coached me all the way – if he had been there when the chair broke, he would have gotten that gleam in his eye and probably headed to the garage for the tools to fix it, all the while engaging her in how to creatively solve the problem of a faulty chair.

When the time was right, I shared the image of my father’s likely response, and she was astonished. Then she laughed and decided that his was the attitude she wanted to hold next time something went wrong. My story helped expand her view about how differently a parent could react in situations like that. 

By the time we finished, she no longer felt like a scared little girl. Her power had returned and she had practiced how she could respond in the future.

A colleague and friend, Kathy Burns, gave me another definition the other day as we were discussing this issue.

“Resilience is the ability to accept what is actually happening, with as little judgment as possible, so that you can take clear, wise action about it – to make the best of it.”

Then she laughed and added,

“This acceptance issue is a huge step for most people, particularly when the situation isn’t what they bargained for, or even faintly wanted.”

Life can really throw some hard stuff at us these days. To be disappointed, angry, frustrated or depressed over a turn of events is normal and even appropriate at times. The problem is when you stay there, stuck in an emotional soup that keeps you paralyzed and unhappy.  

The skill of knowing how to expand your lens on what is happening is one worth cultivating, so that you can get the perspective to be able let go of whatever judgment is hounding you. With this acceptance comes an expanded capacity to creatively problem solve, in ways that are not available when you are locked up emotionally, or frozen with anxiety or worry. 

My father modeled resilience for me. It guides me all the time these days. And when I share his wisdom, it guides others as well. Although he is no longer walking on the planet with me, part of him lives on in me. I know that would please him to no end. Thanks Dad!

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