Resilience

 “Wow, what a great idea! What beautiful humans there are in the world,” said no-one after listening to the news! The world has been a difficult place to be these last few years with an overload of  doom and gloom reported at every turn and truly terrible acts of violence and aggression that feel too close to home. I have met several people lately who are feeling the strain of what is occurring in the world. It’s not always obvious to them that that is why they are feeling anxious, but as they talk it starts to unfold. They realise their physical aches or pains may be as a result.

We hold tension in our feet too. Yes, we really do. And if there are all those reflexes on the feet that connect to all parts of our body then it’s hardly surprising this tension could cause issues literally anywhere else. I can feel it at the start of a reflexology session at times: the feet feeling solid, inflexible, maybe cold or dry. That’s why it’s important for me to encourage my client to let go of everything outside the therapy room, albeit temporarily.  Sometimes we need a reminder to give ourselves permission to do this. Life can carry on for an hour or so without us, we can re-join when we are done. We will be a little calmer and our resilience will be strengthened.  Not to be confused with resistance, resilience is the ability to bounce back, to bend and flex rather than snap. We can build on our resilience by learning from our experiences, rather than repeating our mistakes, by honing our skills to handle stress and by knowing when to ask for help.

We can help each other build resilience too. We can search out some positive stories and we can definitely tell them more often. And if we are telling them more often, we can listen and encourage more often too. “Wow, what a great idea! What wonderful humans there are in the world!”, said everyone, everyday.