As I sit and look out of my office window I can see the lush green leaves of the oak tree forest that surrounds our house. The way we are held by nature is one of the reasons we fell in love with this land here in France.
I feel more ‘me’ when I can place myself in direct relationship with the natural world. My perspective opens, I sense a groundedness in my centre, a wholeness that is fed by the sense of being interconnected with the earth.
This is home, where I feel connected to my resilience. Where I can feel myself in relationship to the world.
For a long while I’d fallen out of love with the idea of resilience. I wanted to be soft and malleable and resilience felt like armour I needed to shield me from the outside world.
When, a few years ago I came across the work of Staci Haines I was introduced to the somatic view of resilience and it began to reconnect some dots. It invited me back into right relationship with what I now see as a somatic superpower. Something that is inherent within us, tethers us to more ease and reminds us of the expansiveness of being alive.
I hope this exploration into resilience can offer you some of the same.
Reclaiming resilience
The idea of resilience has become a dirty word in some circles. Tied into toxic hustle culture and the idea of keeping ourselves strong so we can take more blows.
I can understand it - in recent years our need for resilience has been tested and perhaps even equated with compliance and giving up our autonomy.
Resilience has been weaponised to minimise the pain and suffering of others ‘Oh but they’re so resilient'. Or, to excuse the lack of help we give to those in need. And at times it’s been used as a reason to ignore the harm and oppression many communities face.
I understand that if resilience is part of the armour we need to exist inside of systems that take away our freedom, it doesn’t feel like a positive attribute or something we want to foster.
But, hear me out, and if you’re a resilience denier I think there might be a way to shift the story, and that’s by looking at resilience through a somatic lens.
The somatics of resilience
Somatics understands resilience as an inherent trait of being human. We’re born with the internal capacity to grow and evolve, just as much as we are born with the survival strategies of fight, flight and freeze when under threat.
In part, resilience is felt in the ventral vagal state of safety and connection. We can think of resilience as being our ability to move from hyper-alert survival patterns to a centred place of being after stressful or traumatic experiences. Resilience as a practice asks us to bend with the waves of life instead of bracing against them.
Resilience lands us in the possibility of the present moment. It’s where we can stay connected to hope and goodness.
While our resilience is part of how we live through hard times, at the root of it is the inherent human ability to ‘come back' to ourselves. It’s where we find our intactness again.
Practising resilience can also feel like resistance. To engage with our connectedness and rediscover a positive vision, even when the experiences and conditions are difficult feels like liberation. An intentional act to set our compass towards the things we enjoy and that allow us to feel connected to each other and the world itself.
Despite being bombarded every day with messages of sexism, ableism, hyper-individualism, white supremacy and capitalist ideals we have the possibility to turn towards life not away from it.
Our very nature is to be resilient and creative. To imagine solutions and ways to thrive. Practising resilience into our bodies can be a map towards a more dignified and fair future for ourselves and all beings and an anchor to our aliveness.
What are the places you find your ‘intactness’, where do you feel anchored in hope?
Creating a relationship.
In somatics, we engage with the possibility that we can practice and attend to our relationship to resilience through our soma, our living body.
You might want to try it now; how does the understanding of resilience feel in your body?
If you were to bring awareness to the sensations of resilience you might notice warmth, expansion, aliveness, more ease or an understanding of the body being wider, deeper, taller. You might feel more settled in the hips or lower body. (If you’re stuck for the right words, I’ve developed a guide you can download here)
Resilience might be calming and energising at the same time. Through it we may find a deeper relationship to others, to our environment and to land and spirit.
If you were to notice the emotions of resilience you'd likely find a sense of calmness, curiosity and connection.
Relationally resilience often shows in connection, the feeling of wanting to give and receive, to be more patient and compassionate. A place where we find loving acceptance.
How does resilience show up for you? What sensations and emotions are present? How does it affect you relationally?
Weaving in resilience - an invitation to practice
If I’m beginning to enliven your desire for exploring resilience, there are a few ways that you can start to create a deeper relationship with it.
The first and maybe most accessible one is unearthing and engaging with practices that fire up your resilience.
Below are some ideas of resilience sparking activities…
Things that connect us to resilience:
Connection to land, animals, plants
Experience of loving and being loved
Being part of collective making, sharing, moving (belonging!)
Imagining positive futures
Carefree, unrestrained play
Learning something that brings your joy with your whole body and heart
Dance, music, rhythm, art, creativity!
What other activities connect you to resilience, to your aliveness?
If you’d like to explore seeding a resilience practice into your day, week or month, let’s start gently - follow these simple prompts:
Reading the list above, where do you think you can purposefully connect to more resilience-igniting activities? Choose one or two and remember our motto is ‘easy does it’.
Take a moment to set your intention, maybe it’s as simple as openly exploring the feeling of resilience in your body.
Next, as you’re engaging in your chosen practice to uncover more resilience, see if you can get really present with yourself.
Take a moment to feel into your breath, body and any sensations, emotions or thoughts that might be arising.
While you continue to enjoy your practice, from time to time, pause and check-in. How is the feeling of resilience showing up for you? How do you know it’s present (or not)? What is your personal resilience map?
Remember this is an exploration into recognising how resilience feels in your body, in your nervous system. There are no right or wrong answers. Note down anything you notice (or that you don’t).
Try to be kind to yourself in your practice time. There is no place you need to get to and remember that connection to our bodies takes time and sometimes a whole lot of undoing the things we’ve learned along the way.
Paying more attention to our soma and recognising how different states and emotions feel can encourage us to linger in their landscape and befriend them. So over time we gently, easefully reclaim our connection to all of ourselves, not just the parts we feel are ‘palatable’ or ‘acceptable’.
I’ll be sharing more ideas for resilience practice in the ‘part 2’ of “Reclaiming resilience” so keep your eyes and heart open for that soon.
I’d love to know how your explorations into resilience go.
If you enjoyed this invitation and want to dive into more moments of somatic connection, I have a gentle self-led course available for you, the invitation is here.
With love, Sara x
P.S - if anything within this article has sparked a fire within you that you’d like to explore further, I’d love to connect.
Why don’t we have a virtual cuppa and talk things through?
P.P.S - have you had chance to read my other Substacks? I think you’re the kind of human that would really love them. I’d recommend starting here if you enjoyed today’s.