Resilience – the ability to become strong, health or successful again after something bad has happened
There is a story of a visitor to a Benedictine monastery that asked one of the monks what it was like to be a Benedictine. The monk responded, “Well, we fall down and we get up. Then we fall down and we get up. Then we fall down…” The monk was acknowledging that sin was an unavoidable condition, but that in faith God gives us the strength to recover and continue moving forward. We all experience stress or suffer events that have the capacity to knock us down. The question is whether or not we stand back up. For the last week and continuing this week, I am in a course that will prepare me to teach how to be resilient. The goal is to help others learn that resilience is not an inherent condition but a choice to think about life in a new way. The attitudes we hold close can be our strength or our liability. We need to make the choice of what attitudes guide us before we find ourselves confronted by the challenges of life.
The link below is of the Hoyt family. When they were faced with the challenge of having a son with severe disabilities, they chose a positive perspective. It could not have been easy, but there is no doubt of the reward. By the way…the idea to start racing was the son’s…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWtmcBpai9k
