Learning Resilience

This was supposed to be our summer of glory. A big, open, expansive summer to catch up on all of the things that we missed from life during the pandemic. We were vaccinated, our loved ones were vaccinated, and we were going to get out and enjoy life. Things were going to feel more normal, even if we didn’t ever expect them to return to the blissfully predictable rhythms of pre-pandemic life.

At least this is what I thought, going into May. Now, as the month of August ripens and our newfound liberties are being rolled back in so many ways, it’s easy to feel that our summer of freedom and rebirth has been a big letdown. It’s getting harder to feel resilient as we start second guessing our travel plans, that concert we were looking forward to, or even whether we should continue eating out at restaurants. We’ve been here before, in this squeamish place of uncertainty, wondering how we’ll find the strength for the continued challenges of the pandemic.

Resilience is a tricky life skill. In some ways, I feel that my own resilience has improved significantly over the past 18 months as I’ve faced so many new challenges and setbacks. In other ways, my resilience feels like my bank account at age 22: dangerously over-drafted. I know I’m not alone. I know that as we read the news on the delta variant and consider how the new school year is going to go, we feel how empty our tanks are. It can be so hard to keep going.

I remember the year that my son started to really grapple with learning resilience. He was in second grade, so he must have been around seven years old. This kid is incredibly bright, and many things had come naturally to him up to that point. But the more new things you try, the less likely you are to be instantly great at all of them. Everything seemed to frustrate him to the point of tears. I remember standing in disbelief at the screaming fit that ensued each time he went into the backyard to practice “cradling” his lacrosse ball. Lacrosse was new to him and something he felt passionate about. Or perhaps more aptly, passionately furious. Within seconds of getting the ball into the pocket, it would bounce out and go rolling into the tall hedges flanking our backyard. He spent more time rooting around for the ball then he did practicing his skills. And that’s when the screaming would start. I remember trying to help him and getting verbally accosted as his face turned purple with rage and the crocodile tears ran down his face. He wanted it so badly, and had no way of dealing with the frustration of being so terrible at it.

That was a tough time in his development. I remember losing my patience as new fits of frustration erupted from him over a wide variety of attempted tasks. He was learning about resilience, while testing mine. I realized some important things about (his and my) resilience during that time.

• It’s ok to sit in the feelings. My son would go from 0 to 60 in about ten seconds, revving up for a big screaming session over the smallest disappointment. And this was at seven years old, not at two! It was hard to find patience and let him feel his feelings. I started stating his emotions back to him over the din of his wailing. “You are frustrated because you’re having trouble tying that shoe lace. Is that right?” It gave him a chance to recognize and acknowledge the emotion, which can be half the way to finding calm and trying again. As grownups, we often censor our anger and frustration. We’re not supposed to show anger, so we don’t fully identify and sit in the feeling. It helps me immensely to fully verbalize just how frustrated and angry I am so that I can acknowledge it and let it pass, hopefully moving on.
• Self-judgement doesn’t help with resilience. “I can’t control myself. Why do I get so angry, Mom?” my son would ask me, as he wound down from a tantrum. I could tell he was getting frustrated with the frustration, and beating himself up about it. I find that as grownups, we are especially good at this one. We notice the feelings just long enough to judge them. Where is my resilience? Why am I getting stuck on this small stuff? Why can’t I just be better? My advice is to notice the frustration without judgement. Ok, I’m incredibly pissed that this is happening, and it just is what it is. Give the lack of resilience an “Oh, well” shrug.
• Frustration can be reframed as effort. I love this one, and have been talking to my son about it a lot lately. He’s ten and often still thinks things should come easily to him. We talk about how frustration is a sign of effort. If we’re frustrated, it means that we are trying hard at something and want it badly enough to get upset about not achieving it. We can reframe the frustration as a symptom of our hard work, rather than our failings.
• You have to start small. My son couldn’t practice resilience on lacrosse drills. It was too hard, and he was too invested in it. Instead, we had to find smaller things that were easier to accept and practice resilience on those. To put it in adult terms, what are the mildly annoying things that I can practice accepting with more grace in order to build my resilience? Maybe I’m not ready to just shrug and say “oh well” when that concert gets cancelled for the third time, but can I put it in perspective and move on when I have to wear a mask to the grocery store again? ?

Resilience is one of those tricky life skills that we can always get better at. The good news is, we’ve all had plenty of reasons to practice it in the last 18 months. What areas of your life would you like to apply more resilience to? What would the benefits be?

A coach is a great partner to work through the things that frustrate us the most, and find new levels of resilience we didn’t think were achievable. Reach out today for a free exploratory session!