RESILIENCY IN TOUGH TIMES: BREAKING THROUGH DESPAIR

Father Mother God, Creator of all beings —

Unparalleled Lover from Whom emanates the boundless capacity for love
and for eternal care;
from Whom issues all balms to soothe and heal all wounds,
Who has known and suffered through us and with us all wounds that are possible –
that have ever been –
and Who has received these many hurts into His-Her Heart, speaking peace to them
holding them
caressing them
acknowledging them
accepting them
feeling their pain with them
suffering the deepest of nameless agonies with them.
Offering them up and into His-Heart to be healed.

Father Mother God, Creator of all beings, release us to our deeper truths,
and to our highest, most majestic expression of all that is good, and right, and beautiful.

In the name of Father Mother God, we pray that all that is wounded is healed, now and forever.  Amen.   ~ Gloria Constantin

I. The Unexpected is Normal

We don’t like to think about it, and we may not want to accept it – but we live with the unexpected – every day. The unexpected is regularly woven into the routines of our organized lives. It appears, again and again, inserting itself into our spreadsheets and carefully maintained portfolios. And just as the unexpected reminds us that we cannot escape the cycles of chaos, the weather or the seasons, it also reminds us that change is an inescapable fact of life. We are only fooling ourselves if we think otherwise.

What is resiliency? It is the ability to recover. From deep fatigue, from loss, from disappointment, from change, from shock, from trauma. From having your life inverted and turned upside-down without your permission. There are many things to recover from as we move through our lives. Not all of them are equal in intensity, but they all require that we adapt.

Again, resiliency is the capacity to come back from despair and vulnerability and still embrace life and move forward. We need the willingness to accept change, to surrender to the unknown, and be willing to meet the demands of change if we are going to allow resiliency to flow through our lives.

But how do we get there?

II. Situations and circumstances that lead to the need for resiliency

When you’ve lost your job, your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend, your house, your child, your beloved pet, when you’ve been forcibly and permanently separated from who you loved and what you need to live, the grief and shock can be overwhelming. When we no longer have the support systems of financial flow, shelter, and/or we’ve lost persons and pets who provided us with emotional connection and support, we’re not having a debate with despair, loneliness, or terror – we are those things.

When change comes, particularly change that overturns our well-laid plans and cracks the foundations on which we built them, we never fail to feel betrayed. Or victimized. Or outraged. Or wonder whose fault it is and where to place the blame. Or perhaps wonder what the heck karma is still dogging us, demanding payback. Then we give in to our suspicion that the universe is a rigged system and always has been.  Sometimes the system benefits you, and sometimes you’re just irrelevant.  If causes always had effects that were clear-cut and logical, and we knew that taking certain actions always led to specific results, life would be much simpler.  And kinder.  

Change can be so huge and so irrevocable that we don’t have a clue how to begin to rebuild. And looking at the blasted wasteland of what was our life, it doesn’t appear that we can rebuild. We have neither energy nor resources.

So what now? How do we navigate something that we have no precedent for? How can we wake up each day and still choose to move forward?

III. So who am I to talk about finding resiliency when the going gets really, really tough?

A few brief highlights

My parents were immigrants. My mother was born and raised in Ceiba, Puerto Rico. Her mother died when she was barely adolescent, and she stayed home to raise her 12 siblings. Years later, she joined her sister in the Bronx. After permanently leaving Havana, Cuba, my father walked from Florida all the way to the Bronx, New York City. He slept on park benches and ate out of garbage cans, but this was nothing new for him. His mother, the only person who ever cared for him, died when he was very young, leaving him to be starved and beaten by his father, and mistreated by his cruel step-brothers. He was not sent to school. He ran away from his home, which was not much more than a shack with a dirt floor, and became a child laborer under brutal conditions. After he became a father and husband, he revisited on his family the abuse and neglect he had suffered.

This is the legacy and the reality I inherited, and it affected how I perceived the world and how I perceived my value. I grew up in the South Bronx, where the tenements had been abandoned by landlords to poverty and crime. The inhabitants of that time and place were powerless in nearly every way a human being can be powerless. Most were on welfare; those that were not worked at jobs that paid very little; most were victims of domestic violence.  Most had only a rudimentary education. They did not know how to find help or stand up for themselves. I grew up in a South Bronx where there was constant gang warfare. Homeless and abandoned cats and dogs faced agonizing deaths from starvation and cruelty. 

Years later, disconnected and steeped in naïveté, I lost my best friend and the truest ally I’ve ever known — to this day.  This loss has been an irretrievable thorn in my heart that reminds me every day to never, ever, ever take another human being for granted.  

After an unexpected physical breakdown in 2008 — the meniscus in both of my knees mysteriously ripped to shreds and I was in a wheelchair for months — I lost a really good job that I had managed to hold on to for 8 years.  I did not find another until 9 months later.  Towards the end of 2010, I lost that job when the company moved its offices. I was unemployed for a period that turned out to be 14 months long. Also in 2010, the guy that I was nearly engaged to went on a trip to Ireland and never returned, having decided to focus his affections elsewhere.  Over the course of 14 months I applied to over 300 jobs, all of which I could reasonably fulfill — at least from the description. Out of those 300+ applications, I landed two interviews. The first did not result in a job offer, but the second was successful and I obtained a position in a law firm. As it turned out, the advertised job description and the actual job duties bore no resemblance. The downgrade in job duties was not to my liking or a benefit to my resume, but after 14 months of diminishing resources, I was grateful for what I had.

At the end of a little over a year I was laid off, ostensibly due to the firm’s economic restructuring. It was the last “official” job I had. Three of my precious cats had died within the last year and a half. I lost my Colorado home of 31 years, and left Colorado’s unique beauty. I left behind family, friends, and contacts; beloved parks and lakes, and my secret, treasured places. I was numb with shock and fatigued at a depth I was not even aware of. The impact to my body in the form of an aggressive autoimmune condition gradually unfolded.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For five years I lived in a city that broke my heart every day. I was a foreigner here; a stranger not to be trusted.  This city was ugly to me, devoid of beauty and kindness, and the stench of the ubiquitous dumpsters with their open lids and spilled garbage, and the poverty, the unemployment, the crime, the homelessness of people and the abandoned pets, overwhelmed me with sorrow.  For nearly every day of those five years I sobbed out loud as I stood in the filthy arroyo where I had set up my feline rescue feeding stations, stations that were repeatedly destroyed and that I repeatedly rebuilt, refusing to give up on my mission to rehabilitate and re-home these precious discarded beings. I yelled at my guides and I demanded that the feline devas do their part to protect their own. I eventually realized that they were protecting their own — through me.  There wasn’t going to be any more help.

How could I have come to this, to these circumstances, to this life after my years in beautiful Boulder, Colorado?  I frequently recalled the dangers, the poverty, and helplessness of my childhood in the South Bronx.  My long journey to what I believed was my final safe haven did not end with that haven.  But I had always known that my fortune was tenuous and fragile, completely dependent on the linchpin of continued employment.  When that pin got pulled for the last time, a cascade of consequences, like an avalanche, buried me.   

IV. Going deeper into the experience of shock and loss

When we experience what we do not choose, we feel powerless. Angry. Betrayed. Then we wonder, did I ask for this? Or maybe: I deserve this – I’ve been bad; it’s my karma catching up to me.  If that’s the case, please show me what I need to do to restore equilibrium.  Failing that guidance, perhaps I consider laying down to die, because there’s nothing I can do. 

In the 2000 film Cast Away which starred Tom Hanks, the protagonist Chuck Noland is faced with a deep survival crisis when he finds himself stranded on an uninhabited island after his airplane crashes into the South Pacific. At the time of the incident, Chuck is a federal express employee with an established life. He has a girlfriend who he plans to marry, and his network of co-workers, family, and friends, are solidly in place. Suddenly he is cast into utter isolation, cut off from his loved ones, and completely dependent on his personal resources to survive. Whether or not there was a higher force that guided the protagonist to the island shore, he still had a choice to make. He could continue living, find a way to survive on the island, or he could make an exit.

Although the horrific experience of ripping Chuck out of his life was not planned, he was nonetheless confronted with the urgency to do something about it if he wanted to live. He was being asked, should he choose to do so, to continue the act of his own creation by creating his life without the support of community, peers, or comfort. He was on his own, absolutely and irrevocably. If he was to live, he had to become the Creator and stand in the shoes of God. He ultimately chose to fight for his life, but there was no way he could know that this period of his life would last an eternity of four years.

When we find ourselves stranded and isolated, we are always faced with the choice to give up or to fight for our lives, applying everything we are to unfamiliar and hostile territory. Isolation and limited resources are superlatively daunting circumstances and they can pulverize the faint-hearted OR catalyze your courage to reach for new life. It doesn’t matter that you have no clue what that life will now look like, or how you make it happen. What matters is that you have chosen to live.

V. What makes the difference between giving up and persevering despite the odds?

A deeper look at what’s really happening when you’ve lost it all

When you’ve been stripped of everything you relied on for support, you are in the space between the stories of your life. This is the Liminal Zone, a place that’s neither here nor there. In a very real spiritual sense, you are neither dead nor alive. When we’re in that space, we don’t know if we will ever get back to our former life, to our worn but comfortable story, or if we will get back at all.  If we do, it will be with a new identity and a new story. And therein lays the invitation of the Liminal Zone.  It is here, at the threshold of the terrifying unknowable, that we have the opportunity to be reborn.

Stamina must be at the foundation of our lives. It’s not only a physical attribute, but a mental one as well. As our world changes, we must adapt. We must press on, ever optimistic that we will rebuild our lives. Stamina is grit and hope and idealism, all rolled into one.

There you have it.  The story of your life as you knew it is over. Your old familiar comfort zone is gone, but there is the opportunity to make a new one.

When you’re in the Liminal Zone, without a story and without an identity, time is experienced differently.  In a sense, there is no time. There is no schedule that tells how long it will take you to break the trails that will get you back to your new home.  But if you choose to live, you will create a new story, and a new life.  It can take weeks, or months, or years.  Forget about your old track record.  It doesn’t work here. Your body and your will are the gifts and tools that will keep you going.

Do not underestimate what this will ask of you. As long as there is an option to comfortably make an exit, the likelihood is great that many will take that exit.  But the choice is really between these two things: taking on the terrors of the unknown or giving up despite knowing that you just might live. This is the gift of the Liminal Zone – comfort may be hard to come by while you’re in it, but you are nevertheless offered the possibility of a new life.

Now you must put yourself back together, acquire a new body, a new identity, and a new story.

VI. How do you navigate all this?

We seek out those things that encourage and develop emotional resilience. There are things we can do to develop resiliency. Some of it will arise naturally because your body wants to live.

IDEAS AND TOOLS TO GET YOUR RESILIENCY KICK-STARTED:

 • You cannot define yourself by your losses.  

 • In the same way, you are not defined by your experience of loss and trauma.  You are not your trauma.

 • You cannot define yourself by the things you are attached to or no longer have.  You were never those things in the first place.  They were impermanent interior decoration and landscaping, subject to change.

 • Stay in the present moment. This will help you deal with fear.

 • Don’t isolate yourself.  It’s deadly. Get with your tribe, or find one!  If you can’t do this in person, there is the phone and online video conferencing.

 • REST! A rested body is a resilient body; a rested mind is a resilient mind. A resilient mind is a creative force.

 • You are still connected to everything; don’t believe that because you have lost something that you are not connected.  Your anchor is your desire to live.

 • Develop a conscious relationship with your mortality. It will deepen your awareness of your eternal self.

 • When you’re hungry, eat!  Taking in nourishment will ground you.

 • Allow yourself to grieve and scream, as needed. Go ahead, curse God and your Guides. They will not retaliate, and you will get your anger at them off your chest.

 • Use this time of heightened sensitivity to access awareness of your connection to all things.

 • Believe in yourself. I don’t care if you don’t or never did.  Making the choice to do so will empower you.

 • Calm your body, soothe your heart. Let your heart guide you towards what nourishes you. It knows. You know.

 • Trust your intuition.  Don’t second-guess yourself.  You know what’s right for you.

 • It’s OK to not know the outcome or the answers or how you will get from here to there.  Allow spirit and your creativity to find solutions. There’s more than you acting here. Really.

 • Focus on what is working / focus on what you can change/ focus on your strengths.

 • In other words, fix what you can fix; let the rest go.

 • Surround yourself with beauty. There is still beauty out there!

 • You are always inside a bigger picture, a greater context. We do not know what the whole story looks like, and what part we are writing. It is always being written. You are the next great novel that tells a story of ferocious courage.  Live to inspire us.

  • Identify your core essential truth.

 • Connect to people who don’t give up.  

 • Hold your vision for what you know to be true.  

 • Connect with the people who believe in YOU, who see what you’re capable of.

 • Be aware that you are not alone; that there are many, many others who share your vision for what’s possible for humanity, and who are actively working towards it. So what are you giving up for? Go be with them.

 • Look for the victories. They’re out there. People everywhere are uniting in the cause of supporting life, and they’re winning.

 • Stop keeping it a secret from everyone, including yourself, that you are a winner.

 • Get a trainer/ get a teacher/ get a mentor.

 • Treat yourself with love and respect.

 • You have a unique legacy.  Work with it

  • Deepen a friendship.

 • Thrive through inter-connectivity – join an organization that you can get your body, heart, and soul behind.

 • Surround yourself with life and living things.

 • Offer someone hope when they have none.

 • Stay connected to your purpose.

 • Play.

 • Engage the heart: love what is easy to love. It will keep your heart open. (My cats keep my heart open.  Rescuing cats keeps my heart open.)

 • See the apparently insurmountable force as your great Ally. See it as a Mentor who encourages you to be courageous, to reach higher levels of mastery.

 • Resiliency comes from authenticity – above all, be yourself. (If you don’t know who your authentic self is when catastrophe comes knocking, you will find out!)

 • Learn the stories of others who have dealt with horrific circumstances and lived to teach about what it really means to be alive and cherish every moment.

VII: More on How to Navigate

From his book: Deep Survival – Copyright (c) 2003 by Laurence Gonzales

“As a journalist, I’ve been writing about accidents for more than thirty years. In the last 15 or so years, I’ve concentrated on accidents in outdoor recreation, in an effort to understand who lives, who dies, and why. To my surprise, I found an eerie uniformity in the way people survive seemingly impossible circumstances. Decades and sometimes centuries apart, separated by culture, geography, race, language, and tradition, the most successful survivors – those who practice what I call “deep survival” – go through the same patterns of thought and behavior, the same transformation and spiritual discovery in the course of keeping themselves alive. Not only that, but it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are surviving being lost in the wilderness or battling cancer, whether they’re struggling through divorce, or facing a business catastrophe – the strategies remain the same.”

” Survival should be thought of as a journey, a vision quest of the sort that Native Americans have had as a rite of passage for thousands of years. Once you’re past the precipitating event–you’re cast away at sea or told you have cancer–you have been enrolled in one of the oldest schools in history. Here are a few things I’ve learned that can help you pass the final exam.”

1. Perceive and Believe.  Don’t fall into the deadly trap of denial or of immobilizing fear.  Admit it: you’re really in trouble and you’re going to have to get yourself out.

2. Stay Calm – Use Your Anger.   In the initial crisis, survivors are not ruled by fear; instead, they make use of it. Their fear often feels like (and turns into) anger, which motivates them and makes them feel sharper.

3. Think, Analyze, and Plan.  Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline.

4. Take Correct, Decisive Action.  Survivors are willing to take risks to save themselves and others. But they are simultaneously bold and cautious in what they will do. They handle what is within their power to deal with from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.

5. Celebrate your success.  Survivors take great joy from even their smallest successes. This helps keep motivation high and prevents a lethal plunge into hopelessness. Viktor Frankl put it this way: “Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”

6. Enjoy the Survival Journey.   It may seem counterintuitive, but even in the worst circumstances, survivors find something to enjoy, some way to play and laugh.  Survival can be tedious, and waiting itself is an art.

7. See the Beauty.  Survivors are attuned to the wonder of their world, especially in the face of mortal danger. The appreciation of beauty, the feeling of awe, opens the senses to the environment. (When you see something beautiful, your pupils actually dilate.) When Saint-Exupery’s plane went down in the Lybian Desert, he was certain that he was doomed, but he carried on in this spirit: “Here we are, condemned to death, and still the certainty of dying cannot compare with the pleasure I am feeling. The joy I take from this half an orange which I am holding in my hand is one of the greatest joys I have ever known.” At no time did he stop to bemoan his fate, or if he did, it was only to laugh at himself.

8. Believe That You Will Succeed.  It is at this point, following what I call “the vision,” that the survivor’s will to live becomes firmly fixed.

9. Surrender.  Yes you might die. In fact, you will die – we all do. But perhaps it doesn’t have to be today. Don’t let it worry you.

10. Do Whatever Is Necessary.

11. Never Give Up.  If you’re still alive, there is always one more thing that you can do. Survivors are not easily discouraged by setbacks.

Copyright (c) 2003 by Laurence Gonzales

 VIII. Examples of historical figures who went through hell with resiliency in hand: Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, and Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel

Harriet Tubman, c. 1822 – 1913

Harriet Tubman became famous as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad during the turbulent 1850s. Born a slave on Maryland’s eastern shore, she endured the harsh existence of a field hand, including brutal beatings. In 1849 she fled slavery, leaving her husband and family behind in order to escape. Despite a bounty on her head, she returned to the South at least 19 times to lead her family and hundreds of other slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Tubman also served as a scout, spy, and nurse during the Civil War.

Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and epilepsy, which occurred throughout her life. It didn’t stop her.

She said: “I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 – 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr., January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People’s Campaign, when he was assassinated by James Earl Ray on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in numerous cities and states beginning in 1971, and as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in Washington State was also renamed for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011.

I’ve Been to the Mountain Top speech excerpts. 1968, shortly before his death:

“Nothing would be more tragic than to stop now. We have to see it through. We go up together, or we go down together. Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.

And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

Elie Wiesel, author of Night, 1928 – 2016

Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel, (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He was the author of 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his horrific experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, at which time the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a “messenger to mankind,” stating that through his struggle to come to terms with “his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler’s death camps,” as well as his “practical work in the cause of peace,” Wiesel had delivered a message “of peace, atonement and human dignity” to humanity. He was a founding board member of the New York Human Rights Foundation and remained active throughout his life.

He said: “Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life. We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.” He also said: “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”

We should never lose gratitude for the life we still have, the life we are always making.

Nelson Mandela, 1918 – 2013

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country’s first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by tackling institutionalized racism and fostering racial reconciliation.

In 1962, he was arrested for conspiring to overthrow the state and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial. Mandela served 27 years in prison, initially on Robben Island, and later in Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison.

Quotes from Nelson Mandela:

“Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.” “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

 “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Il Gattaro D’Aleppo — Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel (late 30’s – early 40’s; still active)

Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel is a Syrian ambulance driver and rescuer, and until December 2016 he lived in East Aleppo, Syria, where war has been raging since 2011. 

While driving his ambulance, Alaa noticed all the strays that had been left behind when their owners left the bombed-out city. He began to feed them. At the end of 2015, thanks to donations, Alaa opened Ernesto’s House of Cats. It also contained a playground for children. The sanctuary fed nearly 200 cats and also a few dogs. On November 16, 2016, the sanctuary and playground were bombed. The group’s ambulance and Alaa’s home were bombed. As the bombing continued, many of cats were killed.

He could have fled the country, together with his wife and his three children. Instead he decided to stay for love of his country, his people, and the animals. Before the war he worked as an electrician; now he is a rescuer and drives an ambulance. Every day he helps the neediest people of Aleppo – children, the elderly, the disabled, and orphans. 

With the help of donations, Alaa rebuilt the sanctuary and children’s playground, added a vet clinic, continues to take in cats and make sure orphans are cared for, all while the bombs are still falling. He is not a 501(c)(3). He is 100% dependent on donations. And the bombs are still falling. But as long as there are people and animals to feed and care for, Alaa will be there for them.

IX. The Gifts of Finding Your Resiliency

GIFT: You will find your Core Essential Truth

YOU HAVE A CORE ESSENTIAL TRUTH. IDENTIFY IT, AND START LIVING BY IT.

There is something enduring at your Core that has nothing to do with time or place. This is what gets revealed after everything has been stripped away.  This truth is what your life is anchored into.  It is unwavering and immovable.  Stay connected to this truth, and it will sustain you.

What is happening to you right now is not ultimate truth. It is not YOUR ultimate truth. This is because you are much, much bigger than this moment, this circumstance, this issue, this problem, this time and place.

When you realize how big you are, and how powerful, your current awful circumstances won’t be able to compete.

But how do I tap into that – access that power?

Ask Yourself: What is my core essential truth in the face of the insurmountable?  Identify it and articulate it. This truth will anchor you when things seem hopeless.

What are your core values and beliefs? Do they hold up under deep stress? If so, they will sustain you.

The author’s essential truth: Life matters. No matter what, I support life to the end.   No matter what, MY life matters and YOUR life matters.

You have to be willing to master the core knowledge that drives the Universe’s existence.  The core knowledge of the Universe is that selfless consciousness rules the Universe.  Selfless consciousness recognizes at all times that it does not exist for itself.  Selfless consciousness knows that it exists only in relation to others and that others are part of its existence.

You are bigger than your experience of loss and trauma. You exist in relationship to all things. You are universal. And therein exist infinite possibilities to get what you need to create your new life.

GIFT: You will find your Life Purpose

Digging deep into your personal resources to get yourself out of uncomfortable or difficult circumstances will unearth treasures that will reveal to you what you’re made of.  From this, you will find your calling.  Because you will have found yourself through:

 • self-reliance.
 • the courage to persevere in the face of an unknown future.
 • the courage to persevere without external aid from tools or others.
 • the courage to tend your own wounds.
 • profound creativity in designing new applications to deal with what you’re facing.
 • learning to deal with, and accept, severe restrictions and limitations.
 • learning new skills that will take you farther than you’ve ever been.

GIFT: You realize that your soul has always told you what it wants.  You need to listen! There are directions, a map, and instructions to guide you.

What does the soul want? The soul wants to be fully present and engaged. The soul needs to have experiences that challenge it to expand and grow new anatomy. Don’t be surprised when change happens. It is inherent to the soul to be creative, and to be dynamically so. As sparks of God, we are each god in our own right. God is the mastermind par excellence of Exploration and Creation, and when he/r incarnational expression spends too much time going over the same lesson plan, the soul will endure boredom only so long.

XI. Life on the other side of loss, or the new story

The protagonist in Cast Away would not have made the effort to reach deep within and begin to cultivate new skills, nor would he have had any incentive to step into becoming the person he now needed to be, if his life had not been at stake. The person he needed to evolve into, if he was to live, required a new mindset, new tools, and a new perspective on what his life, and Life itself, was about.

When Chuck got back home he had a medicine bag bursting with new skills and self-knowledge. With these hard-won and intrepid tools under his belt, his capacity to handle whatever life brought him had increased by magnitudes. Whether or not he had asked for training in new levels of mastery, he was nonetheless given a stark and unprecedented opportunity to do so.  And he would need to apply these tools because the life that had been taken from him was not restored.  His losses were real and they were permanent, and he had to live with that and still make a new life.

WELL HERE YOU ARE! YOU MAY AS WELL LIVE THE MOST MAGNIFICENT LIFE YOU CAN LIVE, WHILE YOU LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING WHAT’S NEXT.

XII. Resiliency is a Practice, a Way of Life

None of us know what’s around the corner. None of us know what our future brings. We need to be prepared for the unexpected. We need to stay vigilant, and rather than resist, cultivate at each opportunity our capacity for resilience. You have no idea how much resiliency you have. Your spiritual power is greater than your fate.

Resiliency is Your Calling

You are not your limitations.
You are not your fears.
You are not the projections of others,
nor are you defined by others.
You are uniquely YOU.
You know who that is.
Wake up. Get up. Get moving. Step out, step up!
Claim your birthright. Draw down your blueprint.
All of it. ALL OF IT! Don’t leave anything behind.
Hold nothing back!
As long as you’re still here, as long as you’re alive,
As long as your boots are on the ground,
your creative capacities to re-make yourself and your world
in the image of all that is good and beautiful, and what you
know, in your heart of hearts to be just and true
is completely available. To you. And from you,
to everyone and everything else.
Do it. Re-make yourself. I dare you. The Creator was only
just getting started when you were made.
The Creator was never prouder than when you said,
“I’m here now, and I’m taking over.”
The two cents in your pocket have nothing to say about that.

~**~**~ Without change, challenge, and struggle, there is no resiliency. Without resiliency, there is no evolution. Without evolution, there is no you.

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