What is Resilience?

The internet says this about resilience - "the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness". 

Resilience has been really interesting to me lately. I have questions such as, "What makes us resilient?" "Why are some people more resilient than others?" "Is there something biological that some people have and others don't?"

I know the general consensus is that people who are resilient have better coping skills, have better "ways" of "dealing" with difficult things and situations. Some of us simply don't have the inner workings to be resilient. Right?

I think the question of "what makes us resilient" gets a lot clearer when we can see how we see the world and also see how others see the world. If your understanding is that your experience of life is completely dependent on your circumstances and what is going on in the world, then you will need to have really good coping skills to "deal" and "manage" and "cope" with life. You will need to search for the next best thing that will "fix" whatever needs fixing. You will have to find the next therapy that will help you to "figure out" why things happen to you and figure out what they mean, analyzing and analyzing until you come to terms with what is going on. You have to rehash and revisit your past on a constant basis to simply be okay with the past. It will become increasingly important to always be thinking about your "goals" and how you want to be in this world.You need to control your thoughts and focus on getting rid of the bad thoughts about the past, future, and everything else.

If you understand that you experience your thinking and only your thinking in the moment you no longer need to "manage" and "cope" with life. When you understand that what you feel is thought "in that moment" you are no longer a victim to your circumstances. You no longer think that everything outside of you causes you stress (physically and mentally). You no longer have to look for the next best therapy that could be the ticket to help you feel better. You don't have to continually do X, Y and Z in order to "feel" good on a daily basis. You no longer have a check list of meditation, journaling, practicing gratitude, breathing, etc. in order to "survive" the day. You no longer look at your job as it being inherently "stressful". You no longer think the world is out to get you and everything is trying to cause you harm. You are no longer afraid of your feelings and start to see them as a wake up call telling you that you are using your thinking to cause you harm instead of using your thinking to create this beautiful life as it was intended. You will give yourself lots of grace when you are in a low mood and understand it will pass once you have a new thought. You understand that when you can't figure something out you can let it go and the answer will appear when it needs to appear (the intelligence behind the system).

But, it can't be that simple can it? There has to be "things" and "circumstances" and "situations" that CAUSE us stress. Right?

I'll leave you with this...

After 35 years of worrying and thinking everything in life caused me stress, worry, and fear, I woke up to the Three Principles of Mind Consciousness, and Thought and I could not be more grateful. I'm no longer afraid of life and I look forward to having "experiences" and just experiencing every moment.

So what makes us resilient? It's not coping skills, techniques, tools, tips, our outlook on life, how good we are breathing and "managing" stress". It's knowing our feelings come from our thinking. Knowing we experience thought in the moment. Knowing nothing outside of us can make us feel anything, it's only our thinking in the moment that creates our feelings/emotions. Knowing our job, spouse, kids, gas prices, inflations, politics, etc., cannot create our experience and quality of life.

Am I resilient? I am now :)

Until next time,

Jackson