Resilience and Shame and a Voice; Yours!
Resilience is the self’s ability to cope with and bounce back from difficult situations. After a crisis, it’s an ability to return to a pre-crisis state. Let’s face it. Life can be difficult and just to be alive poses a certain risk unless you live in a bubble, which really isn’t living, and poses its own risks. The more resilience a person has the less at risk they are for developing chronic mental and physical disease. The reality is… life comes with struggle and risk, if we hide from life we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to thrive. So we need to educate and prepare ourselves to build resilience through safety and connection with our selves first, confidently, and then know what resources are out there for us to protect ourselves and connect to our world in healthy ways so that we are able to live life to the fullest.
Resilience. A person is considered to have resilience when they have developed the mental processes, coping skills and healthy behaviors that promote and protect personal assets after experiencing negative stressors. This seems so easy, right? Potentially, it could be? Maybe? Why is it that some people seem much more able to bounce back to healthy life functioning after an aversive event rather than others?
So… Resilience is how we manage stress and return to every day functioning with value for ourselves and our ability to live life productively. Key words..With Value for Ourselves! Notably, those who start with value for themselves are at a much greater chance of ending with value for themselves after an aversive, negative, life event.
So then… How do we learn to value ourselves when we feel that others don’t?
Many studies have found that the more supported a person feels by family and friends and society the better able they are to overcome obstacles and negative life events. So, a healthy support system is crucial. When people don’t have close family and friends they can rely on, sometimes they turn to religious groups and leaders for their need of connection and social support. In today’s world many young people have challenged the belief system of many religious groups that lead through shame and fear and are turning to yoga/wellness studios for their need to connect and feel supported, (which of course also have their pros and cons). For me personally, finding a connection in the yoga community is how I was finally able to find a love for myself and feel the connection and support that I needed to keep going after feeling rejected from my own family and my own culture, and yes… I did have to filter through that community as well.
Rejection wether real or perceived is extremely damaging.
Sue Johnson, a leader in the field of Marriage and Family Therapy, researched secure attachments in relationships. After years of studying human emotion and brain imaging she found, “That rejection and exclusion trigger the same circuits in the same part of the brain, the anterior cingulate, as physical pain.”
Being human means experiencing and learning to navigate through pain, rejection, vulnerability, and struggle; in society, within families, and within yourself; this includes the different hierarchical structures of dominance and submission patterns to find your authentic voice, which is extremely complicated. To complicate matters more, when an individual experiences victimization of abuse or violent crime it is literally, physiologically life threatening. Those that have a strong voice and feel supported can develop resilience much easier than those that have been shamed into complete submission and rejection without a support system to turn to, even when rejection, abuse or a violent crime has been experienced.
This again brings us back to mindfulness. Mindfulness provides a voice for yourself so strong that has the ability to filter through, miles and miles of chaos. It gives you the freedom to know and understand yourself so well that you have the capacity to connect with others with integrity, leadership, and clarity. Life is challenging, more so for some than for others. Believe in yourself and love yourself enough to find value in your voice. The world can reject you, your family can reject you, but only you can reject yourself. Start within yourself to find your true voice. Even if you have to do it alone, first. Just start; resilience, value, connection and health will follow.
Namaste,
-Anna Marie Hallows
