WHERE IS RESILIENCE HIDING?

If you’ve been reading my posts this week, you’ll know that I see resilience as a natural capacity that we’re all born with – one that allows us to navigate the ups and downs of life, learn from it all and move forward.

All very well you might say, but something must happen in the intervening time between the baby who shows limitless resilience while learning to walk and the older child or teenager who holds back from life due to lack of confidence, self-doubt and worries about what others think of them.

Yes, something does happen in that intervening time. We naturally start to collect ideas and concepts about who we are and what’s possible for us in life. They might be things we were told as a child or they might be things we started to tell ourselves.

For example:

I’m not good at drawing.

I won’t try because then I can’t fail.

I am different to everyone else.

People like me don’t succeed.

None of this is a problem in itself, because these are ideas and concepts. They are not reality.

But what tends to happen is that we start to take these ideas and concepts as reality. This is where they become limiting beliefs and this is exactly where we start to lose touch with our natural capacity for resilience. It’s totally normal and happens to us all to a greater or lesser extent. This is being human.

When anyone, of any age, truly sees the made-up ideas and concepts for what they are, they are free to be their beautiful, unique, resilient self.

That’s exactly what “Resilience for All” helps upper primary school children to do, which equips them beautifully for navigating their teenage years.

Or in the words of one participant,

“I discovered that resilience is in all of us. It’s helped me to be myself when I’m around other people.”

If you’re working in schools and you’re ready for a fresh approach to resilience that goes way beyond striving to have pupils “act as if” they are resilient, you can access free resources here.

And please join the conversation and share your own thoughts via the contact form or the social media links at the bottom of the page. I’d love to connect with anyone who hears something interesting in what I’m talking about.

#mentalhealthawarenessweek #resilience #mentalhealth#schools #education