The Bliss Mistress Guide: Exercising My Resiliency Muscles

Human beings are resilient creatures, with the ability to bounce back from nearly any eventuality. We wouldn’t have survived as a species if this weren’t the case and yet there are times when we doubt that we will make it one more step, let alone another year or a lifetime. Think back to happenings in your own life when you were faced with daunting challenges, physical or emotional pain. The way in front of you seemed dark and fraught with peril and you could hear “Lions and tigers and bears….oh my.” being chanted progressively louder and with more fervor by Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. The sad part is, you might have believed them; I know I did until I remembered that I always had the power to return Home. That would be true even without sparkling ruby slippers.

I was blessed to have been raised by parents who had a ‘get it done’ attitude without being harsh or demanding. They just did what it took to work full time, raise two children, and volunteer, take care of their elderly infirm mothers, have a social life and sustain a life time loving marriage. They played by the rules even if they didn’t always like them and somehow found a way to overcome the challenges. My father’s name was Moish (the Yiddish derivation of his birth name Morris) and I called his pithy little sayings “Moishisms” I’ve shared some of them here before, but this one jumped out at me this morning as I was reading a book by author Tama Kieves called Inspired and Unstoppable. She was sharing about sitting in front of her therapist and regaling her with horror stories of how events in her life were unraveling. Rather than the sympathy or at least, empathy she craved, the woman simply responded with “Oh well.” At first, I imagine it felt dismissive to Tama, until she recognized the value in those two words. It reflected a belief that she was bigger and stronger than any monster-challenge that seemed to block her way. My father had a similar response when I would cry to him about things that didn’t feel quite the way I wanted them to turn out. “If that’s the worst thing that happens to you, you’ll be alright.” I sometimes felt that my very real and raw emotions were being discounted until I too saw that he was helping me to build my resiliency muscles, just as my gym rat father built his physical muscles during his regular workouts. He was preparing me for even greater obstacles to come. Many of them, including losing a home to Hurricane Andrew, a husband to Hepatitis C, both parents 2 ½ years apart, raising a child solo, working full time with several consulting gigs for almost 15 years, were better faced with my coping skills tool kit filled to overflowing, offered by my dad’s legacy. I think that part of his motivation was that he didn’t like seeing his children suffer. He would also sometimes tell us, “What hurts you, hurts me,” which I know was at the root of my co-dependent patterns over the years. I have shaken loose of that one.

When I have been able to see these events as just that….moments of challenge, chapters in the book of my life and not the entire novel, I don’t need to read to the end to see how the story turns out. Once upon a time into happily ever after isn’t just a fairy tale and a 90 pound weakling who gets sand kicked in his or her face can become a metaphorical Charles Atlas and Stretch Armstrong rolled into one.

Edie Weinstein is a Bliss Mistress, Opti-mystic, journalist, motivational speaker, interfaith minister, social worker and the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary. www.liveinjoy.org