What is resilience? Do I have it?

You have heard of your Intelligent Quotient (IQ), Emotional Intelligence (EQ), and maybe even Cultural Intelligence (CQ), but what about your Resilient Intelligence (RQ)? What makes a person resilient? How does someone move through difficult circumstances and grow rather than shrink? Resilience is an essential component in the workforce and is a contributing factor to personal success. Did you know that resilience is learnable and achievable? What are key factors that will help you grow resilience? 

When I was asked to lead this session for UNMC and UNO’s GRIT series I immediately asked myself, “Do I have resilience? And when I realized that I do, I asked myself, Where and how did I develop resilience?” I have chosen four moments. I could choose others, but these four proved to be profound moments where I had to choose to move through or bounce back when I did not think I had the capacity to do so. On September 11, 1998, our home flooded in Tropical Storm Francis in Houston, Texas. Greg, Mikayla (our two-year-old) and six-month-pregnant-me along with two dogs had to escape through rapid moving flood waters. We left the cat. It was rescued in speed boat. Along with several other thousand people that day, we lost it all and had to begin the process of rebuilding. It took six months so our new born baby was technically born homeless. In October 2001, ENRON, the Fortune 500 company my husband worked for collapsed and we lost everything financially. We ended up being relocated to Omaha and had to rebuild a whole new community and financial base. On August 3, 2016 while on a leadership retreat with our Resident Assistant Team, I hit a tree while ziplining because my brakes didn’t work. I seriously injured all of the tendons and ligaments in my feet and ankles while crushing my heal pads of my feet. For the first time in my life, I felt what I thought was level 10 pain. I live with chronic pain from that injury even today. And on October 3, 2017, Grace University announced that it was closing. As the Dean of Women, I had to walk through eight months of grief helping the students and staff let go of our 75-year beloved institution. Each of these stories carry intense moments of deep learning and hard choices to push through when I thought I did not have the mental, emotional, social, or physical capacity to do so. But I learned that I am much stronger than I thought I was and that yes, I can move through to a better tomorrow and a better normal. Why? Because I am resilient!

So, what is resilience? Resilience can be defined as the bounce back factor in the face of difficult circumstances without engaging in dysfunctional behavior. Resilience is the ability to move through it and become better because of it. The crazy and amazing thing about resilience is that it is learnable, teachable, and possible for all people. And that with each step we take toward moving forward we strengthen our resilience! In many ways, resilience is caught more than taught in the hard moments of life. It is caught when we get up and take the next step. 

So, I find myself asking, What did I learn about resilience in these four moments? Honestly, I could never have walked the journey without my community of faith, family, friends, and yes, coworkers and students. As hard as it was to do, I learned to ask for help. After the shock wore off when I hit the tree, I had no choice. I could not stand on my own two feet by myself. I found that my students would carry me when I could not stand, literally! As I experienced their kindness in carrying me, I learned more about how to serve others in those moments than any other in my life. I can give stories from each of these moments where someone carried me. Through these moments of seeking help, I experienced in more profound way the power of love, sacrifice, and service. And that God truly is our help in our time of need and that with God all things are possible. Often His answers come through the hands and feet of those around us! Asking for help is not only a gift to ourselves, but it is to the other person because it allows them to walk in the blessing of serving you.

Another characteristic of resilience that I encountered was the power of being present in the moment even when it meant conflict, suffering and/or pain. I discovered that if I took the time to assess the situation and acknowledge what I was feeling and going through that I was better able to handle the moment. Acknowledging something makes it less scary. At times, I would just verbalize aloud what I was feeling. So, if I didn’t like me in the moment, I would just say it. This somehow helped me to pull it together. It helped me to center myself and be mindful of what I was going through. I had to learn to give myself grace and others as well. If I focused on what I could do in that moment and just take the next step, I would feel like I accomplished something. It gave me a sense of completion and accomplishment which made me feel like I was in control in what was perceived an uncontrollable situation.

I realize that this is not everyone’s story, but for me, I found that if I faithed it, I could make it! I found strength in God and the people of God. This means that even though I could not see what would be, if I stepped out in faith trusting that movement, healing, provision, and whatever I might need would happen that I became stronger. I started saying, “I am faithing forward!” I found ways to feed my soul with spiritual truths that encouraged my heart and mind. I found ways to share with others about my journey. This kept me from living in mental isolation. Which really helped me process and release a lot of stuff. I tried hard to think about how my husband might be feeling and how I could be his encouragement or how my students and colleagues were feeling so that I could serve them with better understanding. On the night that we flooded and lost it all, we were sleeping on a day bed in my parent’s guest room with our two dogs on the floor, the cat on the edge of the bed, our two-year-old wedged between us and I whispered to my husband, Greg, “Babe, we have all we need right here. I am content and we are going to be okay.” I meant it and it was true. Despite losing it all, we can now say that we are better having gone through it than if we had not. 

I could tell you about all the things that God taught me to release like pride, vanity, greed, materialism, and identity in things, positions, power, or influence. But that is another lesson. However, with resilience building I discovered that there were things that I needed to hold onto and things that I needed release. My self-talk was critical. I could beat myself up, tear down others, or remind myself of truths that brough positive outcomes. Two truths that I found myself embracing as I moved through these circumstances were “we will make it through” and that “I am stronger than I think.” I realized that normal is whatever I make it to be. If I take the time to set a rhythm into the routine, then I create a new normal. I am the one that determines what normal is for me, my family, and my work. This was huge! It made chaos comfortable and confusion settled. Why? Because I determined in my heart what the norm was and did not allow the circumstances to tell me otherwise. 

How are you being challenged right now to be resilient? What aspect of resilience have you already developed? Where might you need to grow or take the next step? Go ahead and faith forward and create your new normal by choosing to be in community, ask for help, focus on the moment, do what you can do, and live out good self-talk as you move forward! Shalom Y’all! 😉

Do you have Resilient Intelligence (RI)?

I was recently asked to speak on resilience. I wondered how the person who asked me to speak had come to the conclusion that I was a resilient person. I found myself asking myself, “Do I have resilience?” By definition, a person with resilience has the ability to bounce back in difficult circumstances. As I reflected on various life circumstances, it occurred to me that God has allowed me to face some very unique circumstances that reveal that I have the ability to bounce back. I realized I am a resilient person. One moment that wrought great havoc in our lives occurred when Tropical Storm Francis dumped 25 inches of water on Houston in less than an hour. Greg and I were sound asleep when the phone rang. When I picked it up my sister-in-law was frantic, “Get up and prepare! A tornado is coming toward our neighborhood!” We lived in the same subdivision, but in different city grids. It was 5:30 am in the morning and I was almost six months pregnant with Grant. Fast movement was not on my list of things to do at 5:30 am. Greg jumped up to go see what he could see, and he came back running into the room before I had fully stood up and said, “Forget the tornado! We are flooding! We need to get out of here!” Greg immediately started telling me what to gather. It was all very fast. I packed up a bag for Mikayla, who was two at the time, while Greg packed up important documents we would need. He had the forethought to place some files in the attic. 

We had just bought and had delivered a few days before our first pieces of real wood furniture. They were in the garage because Greg was in the process of staining them. I do not know how, but the two of us lifted them onto sawhorses so they would not be standing in the water. One hour later when Greg went to open the door, it was already two feet high outside. We realized that we couldn’t open our door without flooding our home. He ran and flipped off the circuit breaker so that we wouldn’t risk getting electrocuted and we called our neighbors to get them up. We had two dogs and a cat. There was no way we could manage all of them, but we had two floaties and a little life preserver my mom had just bought for Mikayla that summer. So, Greg climbed through the window and held the floaties as I passed the dogs and Mikayla through. Somehow, I hefted myself up over the ledge and out the window. 

At this point, the water was now waste deep. Greg carried all of the bags while I carried Mikayla. We had the two dogs laying perfectly still on the floaties between us as we began our journey of wading out to safe ground. We had no idea how far we would have to go, but we hoped to make it to our family that lived in different sections of the subdivision. It was so surreal. Mikayla kept crying, “Swim! Mommy, swim!” We passed by neighbors that refused to leave. I started to cry when I saw Samantha in her diaper looking out the window at us crying. I wondered, “Will I ever see her again?” We kept walking. We discovered that fire ant mounds were floating toward us and we had to dodge them. It was the craziest thing. They were fully intact and flowing rapidly with the water. We were very alert to the debris, tree branches, and the possibility of snakes because we lived right off the bayou. Fortunately, for us as we approached my parents house about eight city blocks away the water was only up to their front porch. It had not reached the inside of the house. When it was all said and done our house filled up on the inside about two feet deep with sewer and mud. And yes, we had a few surprise moments with snakes. Anything the water touched was destroyed. Our cat was rescued by a speed boat and we found ourselves to be homeless and very uncertain about what tomorrow would entail. 

What held me together? What held us together? How were we able to bounce back? It was a devasting time. Our neighborhood looked like a war zone. All but three families on our street ended up divorced because the journey of returning to normal was more than they could push through. The ability to push through starts in our thoughts. It was our faith in God and the truth that God uses all things for our good when we are in Christ Jesus that gave me hope when it seemed so bleak. I immediately started praying and asking God what He wanted from us in this moment. I remembered the that the God of all comfort and compassion will pour into you so that you can pour that same comfort and compassion into others (2 Corinthians 1:3-11). So, I asked God to show us how to pour out His comfort and compassion to others. I also started praying and asking God to show me how to give Him glory through this and how to give Greg glory. These were the core spiritual truths that made me strong inside when I felt very weak. I held onto them and believed them to be true. Some might call this positivity, but I call it faith walking. I believe that my faith walking made me resilient. 

The other thing that made us resilient was our family. When we were wading out, we knew that if we could get to our family, we would be safe. We knew our family would take care of us and help us through this even if they were going through it too! Fortunately, we were the only ones in our family of four families that lived in that subdivision that flooded. Our family carried us. We knew if we could get to them, we would not sink. It was our family community that made us strong when we were weak. Our lives were filled with hard labor for many weeks and lots of rebuilding for nearly seven months. In that time our family housed us, fed us, helped us, did laundry, hauled garbage, packed up items that were salvageable and comforted us. And when little Grant was born everyone took turns caring for the baby. 

That first night as Greg and I lay in bed with our two-year-old snuggled up sleeping and our baby nestled deeply in my womb, I whispered to Greg, “Babe, we have all we need. I could not be more content than I am right now. We are together and we are safe. We are going to be okay.” I believe without a doubt that another reason I stayed resilient was because I made a conscious choice to think from Greg’s perspective and other peoples perspectives of what they must be going through and this caused me to want to serve others. I made a choice to find ways to help others. Greg found ways to help others, too. So, when our church started showing up to help us, we started sharing people to our neighbor’s homes so that they had help, too. This gave us a sense of purpose and healing. It helped build our hope because we were able to get outside of our own pain and consider another’s pain. This grew a spirit of thankfulness and gratitude in us for others and each other. We discovered the gift of gratitude. 

Resilience is something that we all want, but the reality is that resilience is not something you even know you have until you are pushed beyond your limits and discover you must find a way to bounce back and push through. I remember walking into church two days later to give a testimony for an event coming up called, Friend Day and thinking, “No one in the church knows that my life had changed. I am not who I was when I was asked to share this story, but I will not disappoint them. It doesn’t matter what I have just been through, I have a chance to encourage my church to become a people that seeks to build friendships with someone different than them.” I wanted my church body to see that I was still able to see the value in being a good friend to those around me even when I was hurting. I look back now and realize that if I could have put a word to it that day, resilience would have been a good word to describe what I hoped to model. 

Resilience is born in adversity. It receives its ability to bounce back through faith. It is empowered by community to push through and emboldened by serving others to keep moving forward. Resilience is forged in the battlefield of the mind. It does not allow itself to settle for being a victim or a whiner. It makes the choice to seek God, live in community, and serve others even when it hurts. Resilience when practiced births the gift of gratitude and thanksgiving. Resilience finds hope and pursues hope at all costs, and this is why it has bounce back strength. Adversity grows our resilient intelligence. Do you have RI? Are you willing to pray for it and ask God to grow you?

Resilience

I woke up this morning pondering the word resilience. It was the last thing I talked about before I went to sleep last night. I was sharing with Grant my outline for a speaking engagement coming up in February. The topic is resilience. When I woke up I had the this visual of a tree that was deeply rooted with strong character traits that helped it dig in deep into the earth so that when the winds blew it was steady. I was reminded of verses and character traits that have helped me in moments of resilience. The tree's leaves moved from green, to yellow, to red, to brown, to nothing on the branches. This showed that resilience that is built on faith and the character of God can withstand the seasons of fruit bearing and even barrenness because its roots are deep. What character trait or verse helped you stand resilient through the seasons you have walked through?  I would love to know!