Resilience: I’ll Be Clumsy Instead

Hi guys,

how are you? How was October?

This month for me, I’ll go straight to the point, has been about resilience.

The past 5 years have been. The last two, obviously, even more. If we look back, our entire existence is about resilience.

I will use a minor, mundane example to explain how I got to thinking about our capacity to recover and get back up, more generally, throughout our lives.

As you know, Elis, Catherine’s nanny, quit a month ago, suddenly. And when it happened, I was terrified, heartbroken, lost. A part of me, because of how much of me Catherine has always needed, I admit I was scared of the time we would spend together.

When I used to nurse her (until she was 16 months), and she wouldn’t let go of my breasts, of my body, I feared not giving her enough nourishment, love, protection; now, in a way, I had the same fear.

Today, a month later, after several adjustments, I am thriving in my new life with Catherine. I love being her mother more than anything in the world. Fear disappeared the moment I took action.

Now, this is a minor setback, of course, losing a nanny.

But it is during the minor setbacks that we can learn the lessons we will need during major life events. When Elis left, I looked back at my life and realized what a resilient woman I am. We are resilient beings, all of us. When we walk life one day at a time, not only we can survive anything that gets thrown at us, or that we encounter on our path, but we can actually make something out it, thrive in the post-challenge scenario, transform any challenge, health related, marital, personal, spiritual, professional, into an instrument of change, service, and purpose.

Resilience is not perfection, however.

Being resilient doesn’t imply we do it gracefully all the time. I am very clumsy at it.

For a long time, I lived my life afraid of suffering and scarcity.

Whenever I looked at the big picture of life I feared loss, failure, pain, disaster, war.

But today, I no longer focus on the big picture, and that does the trick for me.

I wake up every day asking for guidance: I look at the incredibly inspiring people I have around me, and who have done this before, getting over cancer, death, divorce, bankruptcy, darkness…and transforming their experience into a success story. I look at my own life, to what I overcame. And I am no longer afraid.

A few years back, when we met in London, my therapist gave Catherine the beautiful book “We Are Going on A Bear Hunt“, by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury:

I can’t help but wonder if that book, ultimately, was meant for me as well.

We have to go through it. We will always get through it. 

Now, a few updates:

– I have a renewed love for broccoli;

– I am obsessed with Molchat Doma (Houses Are Silent), a Belarusian dark wave band;

– we have found a wonderful nanny that comes a few hours a week when I work, and it’s been a blessing;

– I have received the first two blurbs for the book, and they are the most beautiful sentiments a peer has ever said of me and my work;

– For Halloween, Catherine is going to be a witch and a box of pasta;

– Catherine’s teacher, suggested I’d buy a Buddha’s board for Catherine, a board on which you paint with water, and that helps meditation, relaxation, mindfulness. I didn’t know how much I would love that for my own relaxation. It reminded me that we never know where teachings and inspiration will come from; so let’s walk the walk with an open heart, and we won’t miss the next indicated action.

If I have a bag of rocks to carry as I go

I just want to hold my head up high

I don’t care what I have to step over

I’m prepared to look you in the eye

Look me in the eye

And if you see familiarity

Then celebrate the contradiction

Help me when I fall to

Walk unafraid 

I’ll be clumsy instead

R.E.M, Walk Unafraid