Welcome back to my weekly blogs. I missed you all and it feels great to be back!
I mentioned I would be traveling and was hoping to restart my blogs early April, but life had other plans for me resulting in a slightly longer blog pause. Several unexpected events caused me to face my resilience head on so I would like to delve deeper into how we show up for ourselves when life gets in the way of the plans we’ve made. This is also known as staying in our resilience zones and our ability to “bounce back” when life takes over. The first thing is to accept that life is unpredictable and when something happens, and it will, we must flow with the new journey.
My resilience test started on day 1 of our trip to South Africa when my mom broke her ankle which derailed the remaining three weeks of planned outings. Instead of leisurely enjoying our family, friends, and the beachfront, we spent our time in a hospital and in a rehab center. We had all travelled for a family event that unfortunately my mom was unable to attend.
I view our resilience as jumping on a trampoline which was my favorite activity as a child and into my teens. I loved the feeling of flying. I was able to perform a controlled backflip while looking at the sky and earth in a twirling upside-down state. I also loved jumping up, landing flat on my back, and bouncing right back onto my feet. Think of your resilience zone as the space between a floor and ceiling. In our daily travels we are jumping up and down in this space. We react when we hit our heads on the ceiling or crash onto the floor. As we practice to center and calm ourselves, our resilience zone expands, the floor and ceiling become further apart allowing greater tolerance to deal with the unexpected.
It helped that my mother also has great resilience in these situations as she never complained or felt sorry for herself. She accepted what had happened, and she maintained a positive outlook by staying focused on the superb care she was receiving from the surgeon, physical therapist and staff at the hospital and rehab centers. Our family also rallied around to visit her which helped a lot even though it was not in the environment she wanted.
As with the trampoline, there are always ups along with downs. Even though I was exhausted, I was able to still lead a 3 session (in-person) conscious parenting workshop at my old high school. There was even an electric blackout on the first night, but it was perfectly imperfect as I led the first session with lanterns. We joked that we could all be more authentic with the lights dimmed out.
I then arrived back in NY and helped my father bring his life passion (a musical) to the stage by helping as a production assistant on the set. There were so many joyful life lessons in this experience that I will save it for my next blog.
For parents:
As the caregivers to our families, we often put ourselves last and are left with little downtime. This shrinks the space in our resilience zones. Taking stock of where we are before walking in the door is essential. Our children are not mind readers, so communication and connection are key.
I have noticed that when I am tired or hungry, my floor and ceiling become much closer together. I always carry a protein bar, and when I’m tired and irritable, I verbalize that I am out of my resilience zone and need space to recharge. No one is perfect, and on occasion I do lose my cool. We can’t be conscious 100% of the time and I am compassionate to myself when this happens. I have noticed these moments are spread further and further apart.
If you feel you are constantly bouncing out of your resilience zone, and not showing up as your best self whether as a parent, in a relationship or for yourself, I am here to provide Do Over tools to help keep you in your safe zone.
~Andi
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