When You Embody Resilience, You Begin to Truly Live

I often discuss Resilience in this Blog.  I just love the tool of Resilience that we humans are equipped with.  We all have challenges in our lives.  These challenges teach us lessons.  If we learn from them, we are creating resilience.

I absolutely love the season of Fall, especially in Florida.  The weather doesn’t change too much from the Summer, but football season starts.  There are also Halloween and Thanksgiving, and in October, all of my favorite Libras celebrate their birthdays.  Fall is fun!  Fall is carefree!

However, there are five days in September that absolutely devastate me.  But I have used resilience to recognize that these are only five days.  They come and go, and I get them out of the way in one fell swoop. I can then enjoy the rest of Fall.

The Five Days and How I Used Resilience

September 7th

This year, it will be the five-year anniversary of my mother’s untimely death and I think how five years went by so quickly and at the same time so slowly.  I have changed and grown so much since that fateful day. 

How I use Resilience to manage this day follows:

One of the amazing things about this date, is that it is the birthday of my dear friend’s son, also known as my nephew. When she and I looked at the calendar on the first anniversary of my mom’s death, we both said at the same time, “we love this”.  Knowing that I get to appreciate his birthday on what is an otherwise horrible day for me is an absolute blessing. My love for him helps takes away the sting of that terrible day.  This embodies resilience and living.

September 8^th

This used to be a very happy day for me.  I adopted my first cat on September 8, 2000, as a senior in college. 

September 8 is also the birthday of a cherished friend. I said goodbye to that cat in 2018, and I lost my friend in 2020. 

How I use Resilience to manage this day follows:

My favorite memory of my friend, Todd, was that I was able to be there to celebrate his last birthday.  I completely surprised him, as I was supposed to be in Paris.  We didn’t know then that it was his last birthday.  A twist of fate, actually a hurricane, cut my trip short and brought me back to the United States. I was able to be there to celebrate him. 

September 9^th and 10^th

These dates don’t really hold too much significance for me.  They are just sandwiched in there.  If you are a Floridian, you know that these days are the height of hurricane season and can be an anxious time.

September 11^th

I imagine that this day is hard for everyone.  I don’t often talk about this, but I lived in New York, just outside of Manhattan in 2001.  I had moved from Florida to New York on July 4, 2001. 

How I use Resilience to manage this day follows:

I count my blessings that I was not in New York City that day, and everyone I know that was in The City that day made it out safely.

How Resilience Helps

I used to get very apprehensive about these five days and work myself up.  I would ask myself; how do I react to them?  What can I do to prepare for them?  Or should I just allow myself to see how they play out and honor my feelings and emotions?

Resilience came into the picture when I changed my thinking and realized that out of the 365 (sometimes 366) we get in a year, that only five of them really affect me.  I recognized how lucky I am to have all five of these days in a row.  I give myself permission to feel any way I want to those days and do so without judgement. 

Finding this resilience and giving myself permission to handle these days any way that I want to have really made these days so much easier.  There is no sugarcoating that these days are difficult but by embodying resilience, I am able to manage these days and look forward to a wonderful Fall.