resilience – Choose Forgiveness

Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.

~ August Wilson, Playwright

Most people would agree that forgiveness is a virtue. They’d also agree that eating healthy foods and exercising are desirable goals. So why aren’t we all eating lots of vegetables and working out regularly with grace-filled hearts?

Most of us would like to be resilient, meaning being able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult situations. So why do we often struggle with our thoughts and emotions and sometimes turn to unhealthy avenues of escape?

Because resilience requires hard work.

Forgiving means uncovering a painful event, and moving beyond shame, bitterness, anger, or blame. It means accepting life as it is, even if we don’t like it, and working hard to find a way to move forward with courage, compassion, and creativity. The ability to forgive empowers resilience.

Elizabeth Edwards, attorney and activist, described resilience this way:

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.

Forgiving, resilient people learn from their mistakes instead of dwelling on them. Once they know better, they do better. They accept whatever circumstances they were born into or cannot change and let go of regrets after they’ve learned from them.

Sometimes we fight what was and is so we don’t risk failing at what could be. But if we bury ourselves in shame, or if regrets keep us locked in our own personal prison, we can’t use whatever gifts and talents we possess to move forward and give to others. We blind ourselves to the joy that’s possible if we create a new and improved story about our struggles.

I dislike the saying “work smarter, not harder” because it may give us the idea that if we need to work hard at something, we’re not smart. And who wants to be considered stupid? As a teacher, I learned that most students would rather be bad than dumb, which is why they act badly when something is difficult for them. It’s a cover-up and a cop-out.

Setting priorities, working efficiently, focusing, and picking our battles are all smart ways to work. But sometimes the smartest thing we can do is work harder. If we want to forgive a major hurt quickly and easily and skip the part about wrestling with our demons, we will miss out on the genuine, heartfelt feeling of freedom and peace that comes with deep forgiveness. If we are facing a difficult challenge but seek shortcuts or easy outs instead of developing courage and wisdom, resilience will likely be elusive.

We’re lucky to live in a society wealthy enough for us to have free time to think about what makes us happy. Happiness is great. I love it. But Eleanor Roosevelt warned us that “Happiness is not a goal, it’s a by-product.” If we dwell on happiness or our lack of it, make it a goal in and of itself, we may miss out on the joy that comes with tackling tough situations. We may find ourselves stuck, because changing and evolving, learning and growing, requires us to work through some unhappy times. It requires us to confront tough emotions, take risks, understand people we don’t like, and accept that being human can be very hard indeed.

We all have a lot to learn in our lifetimes. That’s why forgiving, resilient people are open-minded and open-hearted. They’re not afraid to listen to others while staying true to themselves.

Brene Brown researches and writes about the benefits of vulnerability. She said, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we’re never really giving with an open heart.” It’s tough for us to admit our imperfections and own our pain. It makes us vulnerable. But vulnerability is also what joins us with others and lights the way for truth, genuine communication, and spiritual connections.

Both forgiveness and resilience are nurtured through the hope that there will be brighter days. We need faith in our ability to overcome suffering. Poet Shane Koyczan said, “If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.” When we let go of our fear and grief, we find space in our hearts for love and forgiveness. We are able to create a life that provides us with dignity.

Resilience means you get back up again not just once, but again and again and again. You forgive yourself and whoever else you are blaming for your pain, count your blessings – no matter how meager – and keep trying. We can embrace wisdom from Confucius who said, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.”

Forgiveness and resilience are skills that can be developed over time. Helen Keller, who was blind and deaf from the age of 19 months, surmounted her limitations and became an author, educator, and advocate. She said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” And the good news is that like any skill, forgiveness and resilience get easier the more you work at them. Studies at the Yale School of Medicine found that our brains can be trained to be more resilient over time.

Famous role models like Michael J. Fox and Oprah motivate me to be strong, but I’m even more inspired by resilient neighbors and friends who have suffered tragedies or trauma. They realize we don’t get to dictate what challenges we face, but we do get to choose whether or not we use our hardships to create a meaningful future.

Forgiving, resilient people use gratitude to stay hopeful. They confront their struggles with courage, and they balance their negatives with positives – perhaps a hike in nature, a great cup of coffee, a heartwarming act of kindness, beautiful music. We choose whether to count sorrows or blessings.

Sometimes our pain and grief seem unbearable. We may need to congratulate ourselves for just getting out of bed in the morning and facing the day. We’ve kept moving and that’s something to be proud of. That’s how we make our angels sing.

In times of rapid change and conflict, we long for certainty. We want to predict and plan for the future and clearly see the path forward. We need something to believe in that will carry us through tough and confusing times when we feel out of control and fearful.

It’s natural to yearn for certainty, but we are better off if we can learn to embrace it. Tolerating uncertainty is good for our thinking as well as our mental health.

Tolerating Uncertainty Improves Our Thinking

If we cannot tolerate uncertainty, we risk being manipulated by tyrants and charmers who reassure us that they know all the answers. It’s easier to just follow someone who appears to be extremely confident than to ask questions, listen to various viewpoints, and make decisions on our own that we may be unsure of. We can calm ourselves, for a short time at least, by picking a person or a news source that tells us what we’re comfortable hearing. Information that challenges our chosen beliefs can then be ignored or labeled fake news. We’ve found a story and we’re sticking to it.

Tolerating uncertainty, however, guides us to good thinking and is an important characteristic of a critical thinker (someone who analyses and evaluates an issue before making a judgment). When I first heard that I thought, “Tolerate uncertainty. That’s strange advice.” But, with further reflection, the wisdom became clear.

When we’re certain we’re right, and totally confident that we know what we’re doing, our minds close. We shut down our curiosity and our willingness to listen to and examine new ideas and creative solutions.

How many people have been hurt because some group was certain their political system, their religion, their territorial claims, their way of doing things was right and the opposing group’s wrong? “Of course God is on my side and supportive of the pain and ruin I plan to cause proving it!” Off to battle we go, leaving a trail of devastation and destruction instead of renewal and restoration.

Admitting we’re uncertain can be tough because it may be seen as weak instead of wise. Once we say we’re certain about something, we may refuse to change our minds because, unfortunately, we often would rather be right than know the truth.

Embracing Uncertainty Is Good for Our Mental Health

Accepting the uncertainties of life is good for our thinking and also for our mental health. Therapists now call our tendency to react negatively to uncertain situations and events “Intolerance of Uncertainty” or IU. Excessive stress and fear, plus uncontrollable worry can result when we doubt and feel indecisive. We naturally like norms we can count on and people we can trust.

How can we lessen IU and create more peace of mind? First, we must be comfortable with uncertainty and accept that there are many things in our world we personally can’t control – like nature, family, friends, politicians, viruses, etc. Acknowledging that we are not in control of the grand majority of what goes on in our world can be scary, but when we embrace uncertainty instead of fight it, we lay the foundation for the next step, which is building up our ability to cope with uncertainty.

Embracing uncertainty helps us tone down the fearful part of our brain (the amygdala) that helps us quickly remove our fingers from a hot oven burner, but that also leads us to saying and doing things we regret when we’ve had time to calm down and think things through. We can keep our fearful instincts in check by avoiding excessive negative information and angry voices whose purpose is to manipulate us. Choosing to focus on constructive, calm voices, beneficial events, and productive problem-solving efforts allows our higher order, logical brain areas to guide us. It prevents paranoia and unfounded suspicions from surreptitiously weaving their nasty web into our thinking.

When we relax and become more at ease with life’s inherent uncertainty, our health improves. Our life’s journey becomes more peaceful and enjoyable when we let go of the idea that life should be a certain way, and instead just let it be. We quit fighting against the waves of life and learn to ride with them.

When my world seems chaotic and confusing, I work on calming my fears through time in nature, music, and reading. Charles De Montesquieu said, “I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.” I pray, believe in love and kindness, turn my attention to helping others, and commit to conquering my fears instead of giving into them.

I don’t think IU is a mental disorder. I think it’s simply our human condition. It’s hard to be uncertain, but we can improve on how well we deal with the fact that there is no fail-safe recipe to follow in creating a happy life.

I’m inspired by the ponderosa pines of the Black Hills. They have learned to thrive under very uncertain weather conditions. They encounter vicious winds, snow that bends and breaks their branches, droughts, fires, and a vast array of temperatures. I see them curve like acrobats, flourish in rocks and sheer cliffs, and rise up after forest fires. The ponderosa pines remind me that although we can’t force life to follow our will, we can resiliently adapt to life, appreciate its beauty, and embrace its uncertainty.

Tag: resilience

Forgiveness Empowers Resilience

Embracing Uncertainty