By Eric Hodgdon
Resiliency is all about bouncing back, coping with something tough, and quickly returning to our original, pre-crisis frame of mind. It means that we take care of ourselves because we can’t expect to be on our mental A-game when we’re exhausted.
When was the last time you gave yourself rest and recovery? I have to ask myself that question often. Partially, because I’m someone that likes to go, go, go, and I find it hard to stop and settle myself so that I can recover. When we go, go, go for too long, we start to feel stressed, lethargic and sometimes irritated with anything and everything. I get it, I was there.
A couple weeks ago, I was finding it especially hard to rally up the motivation to do anything. I had just come home from doing a TEDx talk and presenting at a college in upper Michigan. Combine that with business contract work, I couldn’t understand why my motivation was lacking. The mental and motivational muddiness got to the point that I forgot that I was going on an international retreat. Even while I was packing for this trip, I wasn’t that excited for it.
But then something happened while I was away. I discovered that in my disconnection from the everyday grind, I was reconnecting with myself and if felt REALLY good. I mean, waking up in another country with no agenda but to focus on myself, self-care was just the “knee” I needed to take.
You see, if we don’t make it point to take care of ourselves, we will burn out and we won’t be available for not only us, but the people around us. Resilience means that you are able to come back from adversity. Self-care is resiliency at its best.
