“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Confucius, Philosopher
The subject of “resilience” has found its way onto corporate agendas and self-help bookshelves alike. People are sent on training courses to help “develop resilience” and “strengthen your resilience muscle”. But, as is so often the case, resilience isn’t something you need to build, develop or strengthen; it’s something you’ve already got. Here’s an excerpt from my book, CLARITY: Clear Mind, Better Performance, Bigger Results © 2013 Jamie Smart
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The nerve-shredding documentary, Touching the Void, tells the story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, two climbers who made the first ever ascent of the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. On their way back down, Simpson fell and broke his leg. It was a death sentence. Simpson told Yates to go on without him, but Yates refused, instead choosing to lower him down the steep, snow-covered slope at the end of a long rope. After hours of painstaking descent, Yates suddenly felt the rope go taught; Simpson had fallen and was hanging off the edge of a cliff! Yates was stuck in a nightmarish dilemma. Simpson’s weight was slowly pulling Yates free from his belay point in the snow. If Yates kept holding on, he’d be pulled off the mountain, but the only alternative was to cut the rope. Finally Yates made a decision; he cut the rope and Simpson plummeted into a crevasse where he lay shivering and alone, without food and seriously injured. When Yates climbed down and saw the crevasse, he assumed that Simpson was dead, and continued down the mountain. But Simpson was alive. Over the next three days, in a feat of resilience that can only be described as heroic, Simpson hopped, crawled and dragged himself over treacherous terrain, arriving at the base camp only hours before Yates was planning to leave. In Simpson’s description of the incident, he explained that it wasn’t “him” that brought him down the mountain; it was as if someone else was doing it. That “someone else” was his innate resilience, a power we all have within us. |
We’re all connected to a source of innate resilience that is unaffected by the pain of traumatic events, and impervious to the ebb and flow of circumstances. But if that’s the case, what explains the fact that some people get laid low by seemingly trivial situations, while others thrive and prosper in the face of extreme adversity?
A misunderstanding. We’ve been conditioned to believe that circumstances effect or even control how we feel. You’ll even hear people say “I wouldn’t be able to handle it if X happened”, where X can be anything ranging from the seemingly trivial (Eg. lousy haircut, parking ticket, lost wallet) to the extreme (Eg. death of a loved one, relationship breakup, serious illness). Yet in training programmes and team building events, I’ll often ask this question:
“Have you ever had something happen that, if you thought about it beforehand, you would have thought would be the worst thing that could happen? And then it happened, and it turned out that not only did you get through it, but it turned out to be one of the best things that’s ever happened to you and for you?”
When I ask this question, typically 50% of the people in the room put their hands up.
So if our feelings don’t come from our events and circumstances, where do they come from? Feelings are a reflection of the principle of Thought creating the totality of our perceptual reality, moment by moment. The formless principle of Thought creates our experiential reality, and our feelings let us know about the ‘shape’ of the perceptual reality we’re living in each moment. I’m not saying that thought causes feelings; I’m saying that thought and feeling are one thing; two sides of the same coin. One of my clients shared the beautiful metaphor of a musical note; you can’t have the sound without the vibration, and you can’t have the vibration without the sound. Similarly, thought and feeling are one thing; a totality.
And what does this have to do with resilience? The moment you insightfully realise your feelings are letting you know about Thought taking form in the moment, and NOT your circumstances, you fall out of your outside-in misunderstanding, and into the present moment; the infinite ocean of resilience, capability and solutions.
Have a great week!