Resiliency Journey
BY Sam McFarland
Resiliency is a crucial skill that empowers individuals to navigate life's ups and downs, harness their inner strength, and transform challenges into opportunities for growth. In this multi-part series, we explore the concept of resiliency, its importance, and how to cultivate it in all aspects of our lives.
Some may ask how I know anything about resiliency. Let me take you on a short walk through a small portion of my life. My first twenty-six years of life, I lived in abusive “homes”. It was drilled into me at a young age that I would never make anything of myself. I stood there as a teenager and listened while my dad told a college recruiter that I was a waste of their time, and they would be stupid to waste their time on me. College was never an option.
I was homeless while I was pregnant with my oldest son. Fast forward a few years, and I was feeding a family of five on about fifty dollars a month. I started college at twenty-six. If you look back up, you notice that I took charge of my life then. No more abusive homes, it was time to work on a future for myself and my three sons. It took fourteen years to get my bachelor’s degree, partially because my wonderful husband finished his degree first.
I had to live with abuse in my life until I was forty, when the abuser’s youngest son turned eighteen and was on his own. I learned that financial abuse is a thing when I took a ten week course to learn about abuse. Everyone needs that course.
I have battled chronic mental health issues most of my life and am now battling physical health issues. Starting in 2018, I saw eighteen doctors within three years, changed my diet, started working from home, and am still doing everything I can to make each day a little better. Last December, a chiropractor was able to help get me walking again without a cane or walker.
With all that has happened in my life, I learned to keep moving forward. Each moment, I move forward even when life throws me backward. I have had decades of therapy with many different therapists and learned a lot from each of them. One psychologist taught me, “stop shoulding all over yourself” which reminds me to stop saying I should do this or I should have done that. I am always striving to make life a little better. In doing so, I continue to research personal topics including, PTSD, depression, trauma, the nervous system, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and lately polyvagal theory.
When researching resiliency, I found a video called The Farmer and the Donkey from the Resilience Engine . The donkey falls in the well and the farmer is lost as to how to help him. He brings over other farmers to help him bury the donkey. The donkey sees the dirt and shakes it off. He realizes that the dirt allows him to move upward and eventually out of the well entirely. The trick is to shake it off and take a step up.
Life happens. But, you can make changes. You can change your perspective. You can think outside the box that our minds have created. You can look for positives.
Some ways to build resilience are:
Ensure you have social engagement and connections
Science has shown that connecting with others can increase our ability to get through the tough things in life. I learned through researching the polyvagal theory that when we have personal connections, we are also helping regulate our nervous system.
Find purpose and meaning
Going back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we know that the top of the pyramid has Self-Actualization, which includes finding purpose and meaning. We shouldn’t wait until our lives are in the perfect place to find a purpose or meaning. I found purpose in raising my kids better than I was raised. I reached out to others and helped them even when I didn’t have much.
Work towards self-awareness and self-care
Self-care is something we talk about a lot. Positive Psychology defines self-awareness as “the ability to see yourself clearly and objectively through reflection and introspection.” This includes your cognitive, physical, and emotional self. Paying attention will help build your self esteem which is a great thing for resilience.
Accept that change and crises are a part of life
Good, bad, or indifferent, change will happen. At work, at home, within family or groups of friends, the one constant is change. Life happens. When we accept that things will change, it’s easier to adapt to the changes. We don’t fight the change as much and focus on what we will do with the new situation. It doesn’t mean change is always easy, but it will be easier.
Embrace positive and healthy thoughts
When I am having a bad day, I stop and think, “I woke up today and that’s a good thing. I was able to get out of bed, and that’s good. I was able to walk to the bathroom on my own. Yes! I have running water and indoor plumbing, which is awesome. I made my own breakfast. Look! I had food in the house and didn’t have to think about it. How great is that?” After walking through some of these, I change my thinking to what is going well, instead of focusing on what isn’t. It sounds crazy, but shifting your thinking can make a major difference in your everyday life and definitely helps you tackle life’s challenges.
Take one step, move forward, no matter the challenge
Move forward, even when life throws you back. This was my internal motto as I worked my way out of bad situations and out of poverty. Life sure did throw me back and sometimes it was really far back. However, I still moved forward. Sometimes, I was snail crawling, but still moving forward. Using positive thinking and focusing on what I believed, helped me move forward no matter the challenge.
Learn from experiences
I think most older adults know this. Some live it. I think back to what I heard growing up. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well, if I find myself in the exact same situation, that’s on me. So, I learn and adapt. I changed how I raised my kids as I learned. I changed how I interacted with people as I learned. I also try to help educate the future generations in my family. So learn from the experiences to help you deal with the future and teach others if you so desire.
The Resilience Engine has another great video called The Resilience River . I highly recommend watching the video as the analogy within is very simple yet powerful. As our life moves like the river, the rocks are life’s happenings. We can raise our river with our resilience building tools. A full river will allow us to flow by life’s happenings much easier. A low river could cause us to get stuck.
When does resilience come into play? As big as a major life event. As little as getting through a tough moment. Moments such as the loss of a loved one or an argument with a friend. Overcoming the little moments builds resilience to assist us with those big ones.
Let me walk you through an activity that can help you build resilience. Get a piece of paper and some drawing utensils. Draw a picture of something that makes you happy or a picture that represents happiness to you. Do this before you read further. Of course, you don’t follow directions and are still reading, aren’t you? Next, you will need tape or glue, another piece of paper, and more drawing utensils or even paint. Follow the next steps.
Tear your happy picture into pieces (they don’t have to be real small)
Hold those pieces above your 2nd paper
Drop the pieces letting them scatter
Glue or tape them where they land
Use your drawing utensils to color over the pieces
Below are pictures of my first time doing this activity. You can see the flowers, the boat, the fish, and the sun. In the second picture, you can see parts of the happy picture showing through with paint streaks over the top.
Now let’s reflect on the activity. What was your first thought when you were told to rip up the picture? How did you feel when you glued the pieces to the second paper? As you added art to that 2nd page, how did you feel? When life hits us with major challenges, we adapt and change. We sometimes have to start over, but pieces of what we were before are still a part of us. By drawing or painting over the pieces, we are creating something new.
This is similar to Kintsugi, which means gold (kin) stitching (tsugi) in Japanese. A broken dish is revived with gold seals to put it back together and make a beautiful dish. Kintsugi not only helps put the dishes back together, but also highlights the seams of the dish. Similarly, we should recognize that our scars are beautiful and should be embraced. Our scars make us who we are.
When we feel like we have fallen apart, finding ways to get through and learn to thrive again, that’s resilience. Life changes can interrupt our happiness. We can choose to adapt and move forward. We can find beauty in the way things are now. We can change our perspective.
I leave you with a quote by an unknown author. “The biggest and most complex obstacle you will ever overcome is your mind.”
Sam McFarland, born and raised in Colorado, recently relocated to Johnston County, North Carolina, due to the proximity to Duke Health for health reasons. Sam is married to a wonderful man and has four boys, two daughters-in-love, and six grandkidlets. She works full time from home as an internal auditor where she has completed her regular duties and also created and delivered presentations on technical topics, resiliency, stress reduction, and self-care. Beyond her professional life, Sam enjoys painting and various other crafts. Moreover, she is working on writing down her life’s story–a testament to her lifetime of overcoming difficult times and learning not just to survive, but to truly live.
