Stepping Off the Merry-Go-Round
January 17, 2024
Center in Your Own Wisdom
January 31, 2024
You’ve been through some things. Life goes through stages: tragedies and delights, wonderful times and boring times, struggles and wins. Recently, someone asked me to write about hope, about life being less of a struggle. Perhaps they wouldn’t have to use their resilience skills quite so much. I certainly hope for easier times for her, and for you. I disagree, though, that you won’t need your resilience skills during times when life is not a slog. I think that is the perfect time to use your skills to build meaning and joy into your life, to thrive.
Toward Thriving
Thriving goes beyond surviving. Surviving means having your basic needs met on an ongoing and predictable manner. Thriving is a step up – pursuing joy and meaning in your life. Joy is a deep sense that things are right in your corner of the world. Meaning is the sense that it matters that you exist. You make a difference. You can use your resilience skills to build more of what you want into your days.
Getting through hard times taught you how to be persistent and what really matters to you; it gave you a determination that wouldn’t be stopped. Those skills that got you through can be used to pursue more of what you want. This is a continual process of self-discovery, not a one-time decision. Taking a step back to connect with yourself is important. Using your hard-won resilience skills to explore options on your journey. Here are some ways to think about joy and meaning in your life:
Joy
A thread of delight, energy, well-being that runs through you. More than happiness or fun – it is a deeper sense of amazement and awe. It isn’t an end state that can be caught, once and for all. It is an ongoing emotion and an awareness of beauty, in all its forms. Sustaining it requires paying attention to those things that delight you. Joy can co-exist with difficult times and hard days. You can invite it by using the tools of appreciation and gratitude. During easier times in life joy can be expanded and shared. What things bring you joy? How can you set the stage for more of that to happen in your life? Sharing joy can be a source of meaning.
Meaning
A sense that you matter in this world, that your effort makes a difference. More than doing a good job or being a nice person, it is a sense that you create positive change. Meaning is found in many actions – helping, creating art, nurturing, sharing lessons learned. It can look very mundane. Cleaning your bathroom before family/friends gather. Paying attention to a news feed and making calls or sending emails. Daily actions strung together create change and build a sense of meaning. This can be done in even the hardest of times. When life eases up you may have the energy to broaden or deepen your impact. Where do you make a difference? How can your resilience skills help you pursue the things that matter to you? Paying attention to the larger meaning of regular tasks can increase your sense of thriving.
Your resilience skills can be used to pursue those things that bring you joy and meaning, to build a sense of thriving into your life. In this series we will look at some of the tools of resilience and consider how they help you thrive. Resilience skills are built during times of difficulty, but the skills don’t go away once trouble passes. They are yours forever.
Peace,
Laura Gaines
This is part one in a seven-part series. The next five weeks will cover specific groups of resilience skills useful in building a life of thriving. Part seven will be our conclusion. You are welcome to comment as we go by sending an email to resilience@learnmodelteach.com or engaging on LinkedIn or Facebook.
