The Art of Resilient Living
I remember the first time I came to USA, landing in Seattle about 10 years back. It seemed like a dream come true — A place to fulfill my academic goals and make new memories and hopefully have a great time overall. I was also amazed by the beauty of Seattle — The Emerald City — I still am. There are very few places in USA with as much greenery and hiking opportunities as Seattle.
Little did I know what life had in store for me — In a place so new, I had trouble making friends and adapting to the lifestyle here. Not to mention a lack of family support. If that was not enough, I was not getting along with my academic advisor — The only other source of support and inspiration in my life. Life seemed bleak — The stress of grad life had caught up with me and I seemed to be in the middle of a full-blown life crisis.
Looking back, this was one of the first times I had so much uncertainty in life. It was as if life took me out of my little cocoon and threw me into the wilderness with strange creatures and changing environments. Not knowing what was coming next, fear, worry, anxiety and a lack of purpose were the feelings besieging me while I lay locked up in a golden room atop a castle with no one to help me out.
I quickly realized that I could not continue the way I was living without some drastic changes to my lifestyle, which consisted of — 3 hours of sleep, waking up in the middle of the night due to a restless mind, worrying about my research projects, blanking out in the TA sessions I was leading at school and constant fear of how things are going to shape up — had crossed the threshold of sane lifestyle for me.
We all face uncertainties in life to various degree such as — Waiting to land a job or internship while at school or worrying about visa approval/extension or concern about personal life and relationships or striving to get a promotion at work that always seems to be out of reach?
And if these situations keep us from being happy, centered and focused — And we give it the power to even make us lose our sleep, peace of mind and well-being, what exactly are we doing about it??? How do you get your mind to bounce back to its optimal state in uncertain situations??
Personal resilience
I knew it was time to build my resilience given the situation I was in — It was the only way out!
What exactly does resilience mean? It is the ability to bounce back from set-backs and road blocks in life quickly and effectively.
Imagine, you are expecting a promotion at work this quarter and you worked really hard to complete your deliverables for projects on time. And yet, for some reason — It didn’t happen. How would you take that ? How much time before you can get yourself to give your 100% again at work? Often times, set backs stop or freeze us in our tracks.
It’s like you fell in a pit while you were walking and are in such a shock that you can’t think of a way out of the pit and keep wondering how you got there in the first place? And why YOU of all people had to fall in the pit? Logically, we should just walk out of the pit — But in life, does that happen easily?
I felt that way 10 years back when I decided it was time to do something about it. I knew that resilience had to do with keeping my happiness independent of external situations and people. But the questions was HOW?
What steps do you take to make yourself more resilient? For me, it was through a workshop on managing my mind, reducing stress levels and discovering the art of living. We are not resilient because we don’t let our mind be fluid with respect to situations or people. And resilience is also letting life happen and being ok with things not going your way and keeping your smile!
Sounds tough? I have grown in my resilience through the years by keeping my stress levels down and my mind clear and ready for action through practices based on breathing and meditation. These practices help calm the mind, remain unshaken by unpredictable/uncertain situations and increase clarity of thought — Great qualities to have to be more resilient and responsive in tough situations. And it shows — I am less reactive and more responsive to situations at work or in personal life. I am able to step back and assess a situation before jumping in from an emotionally charged state. Long story short, I went from quitting my Phd to completing it successfully, managing my stress levels, staying happy and productive and landing an amazing job post Phd. I have to really thank my mentor, inspiration and life coach — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (humanitarian, global peace leader and founder of Art of Living) for showing me the way out of the mess I was in. If not for the stress-reduction techniques and breathing techniques to manage the mind he shared through the workshop — I might have been groping in the dark for quite some time.
How would life change for you if you were to be more resilient in your mind, more fluid, more adaptable, more open to what life has to offer — day to day? Have you thought about it ?
Final thoughts
Resilience shows up in every aspect of our life — Work, relationships, neighborhoods, organizations, etc. Only if we learn to be more resilient, can we sail through the ups and downs of life with a smile. It’s a life-long learning. All it needs is some awareness and couple of positive steps from our end. How resilient are we as communities after a set back? I remember the floods in Mumbai many years back — When there was 99 cm of rain in one day — It was called a cloud burst — A huge dump of water in one city, enough to flood the city and bring it to a standstill. And yet, life was back to normal in a few days. Everyone was helping each other to make it through the natural disaster, cutting across caste, status, religion — Humanity shined through strongly for those few days!
Can organizations also be more resilient? We will take a look at this with a case study in the second part of this post. Stay tuned!