Stress Is a Choice: Resilient or Resistant

Living a Purposeful, Resilient Life

In my most recent book, Silent Integrity, I featured Mother Nature analogies of flowing water and a dam depicting resilience and resistance. I wanted to share some insights in case anyone is struggling with resistance at this current time.

I recently realized that we do not know the actual definition or feeling of resilience until we face resistance. Sure, we can feel confident and abundant, but when we pull through after a challenge, that’s when the real meaning of resilience appears. It’s like a breakthrough! A moment of fate to say, “I did it! It was tough, but I did it!”

This idea of resilience can equate to speaking up for your worth, turning a hard conversation into a heart opener, learning a new skill, making a bold decision, taking courses, building a family, getting a new career, buying your first home, etc. All of it matters, and everything is a lesson.

Robert Sapolsky, a neuroscientist I followed while writing my latest book, expressed stress response in his book called Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In it, Robert offers a fascinating perspective on stress, discussing how zebras experience stress only when faced with an immediate threat—like escaping a predator. Once the danger is gone, so is their stress.

But humans? We hold onto stress. We ruminate, replay scenarios, and let fear drive our decisions. This is where resistance begins.

The Real Cost of Resistance: Stress

Stress floods your body with adrenaline, preparing you to react during resistance. You might justify reactions, cling to control, or feel overwhelmed by change. This behavior builds resistant walls around you. In my book Silent Integrity, I use the analogy of resistance as a dam that quivers, blocking good energy flow.

Have you ever seen an irate person? They shake, don’t they? Have you also seen a happy-go-lucky person? They flow, don't they?

Resistance traps you in patterns of fear, defensiveness, and over-analysis. It keeps you from moving forward, like a dam that blocks flowing water.

Peace Can Be Yours When You Realize: Stress is a Choice

Resilience is about trusting that you can handle what life brings. It’s not about avoiding pain but learning to navigate it with grace such as:

• Seeing setbacks as opportunities or even miracles that teach you something about yourself you didn't even know existed.
• Staying open instead of shutting down when facing conflict.
• Taking deep breaths when stress arises instead of reacting impulsively, blaming, or self-depreciation.

Health is Wealth

Studies show that the time it takes to recover from stress over extended periods of time impacts your body. If you actively choose to hold onto resistance, it can affect well-being and lead to burnout, anxiety, and even physical illness.

Want Some Calm? Shift Your Stress Response

Learn how you move from resistance to resilience. Notice your stress responses:

• Do you react quickly or irrationally, or do you give yourself time to work it out in your heart?
• Do you interrupt others when you feel challenged or seek a slower pace with empathy?
• Do you feel a need to be right or give yourself time to digest the idea of neutrality?

Instead of resisting, try softening. Instead of reacting, try listening. Instead of holding on, try letting go.

Water flows around obstacles. But damn, the dam—it holds back, strains, aggravates and eventually cracks under pressure.

You are made of 75% water. You have the ability to flow. You have the power to choose resilience.

The world will test you, but your response is in your hands. Will you resist, or will you rise?

The best part of the rise can be so wonderful. New ideas emerge, calm arrives, and reality settles in without emotion.

If you’re interested in self-development and improvement on this topic, you can find a chapter on this topic, plus many insightful and inspiring philosophies and methods to calm down during strife in Silent Integrity at TheKindCommunicator.com.