When I got my first serious injury with running, almost 8 years ago, I felt like the world was crashing down on me. Desperate, confused, and nobody was able to understand what was happening to me. I started to eat less, sleep less and worse… I was always nervous, and every single time I put my left leg on the ground, there was this constant sharp ailment reminding me of how I was unfortunate and blacklisted by the fate, maybe by God herself.
After few weeks feeling like that, a colleague of mine dropped me a book, titled: “I resist, therefore I am.”. This book was a revelation, for the simple easy way it expressed that, when you think you have reached the final limit of your experience, there is always a further step. You can either give up or try to go over that limit. If you are self-aware enough, you will not put yourself into the no-return zone, and at the same time you will get an additional chance to strive, to put up with the awful that has happened to you and get the most out of it. Which means, in other words, your resilience can make you win, and even if you then lose, you would have gained experience on yourself and on what surrounds you.
Few weeks ago, I have had a similar revelation once again. Attending a meditation open class in a park in Coconut Grove, the presenter described his experience with cancer. When he got to know he was ill, his reaction was “This is great!”. Silence around the attendees, before he started to explain that this extreme exercise of positivity helped him be surrounded by further positivity coming from his family, friends and acquaintances (“if he is positive, why should not we be?”), helped him make the most out of the cancer (“I will be stronger than ever once I sort this out”), and helped him focus on what was really important in his life (“when you are close to lose something, that is the moment you realize how important it is”).
I am not crazy for this huge movement around positivity, but I must admit that it somehow makes sense, although I prefer to call it “Resilience”. Which is, putting yourself into it, and jump over the bar that someone else, either a person or an event, has kindly raised for you. Make that jump anyway, because if you don’t, you will never know if you were capable of, and you may never get another chance to jump over that bar. If you do and fail, worst case scenario you understand your limits better.
And if you do and succeed, try to make a list of positive outcomes. But take some time, it’s not going to be a quick one.
After few weeks feeling like that, a colleague of mine dropped me a book, titled: “I resist, therefore I am.”. This book was a revelation, for the simple easy way it expressed that, when you think you have reached the final limit of your experience, there is always a further step. You can either give up or try to go over that limit. If you are self-aware enough, you will not put yourself into the no-return zone, and at the same time you will get an additional chance to strive, to put up with the awful that has happened to you and get the most out of it. Which means, in other words, your resilience can make you win, and even if you then lose, you would have gained experience on yourself and on what surrounds you.
Few weeks ago, I have had a similar revelation once again. Attending a meditation open class in a park in Coconut Grove, the presenter described his experience with cancer. When he got to know he was ill, his reaction was “This is great!”. Silence around the attendees, before he started to explain that this extreme exercise of positivity helped him be surrounded by further positivity coming from his family, friends and acquaintances (“if he is positive, why should not we be?”), helped him make the most out of the cancer (“I will be stronger than ever once I sort this out”), and helped him focus on what was really important in his life (“when you are close to lose something, that is the moment you realize how important it is”).
I am not crazy for this huge movement around positivity, but I must admit that it somehow makes sense, although I prefer to call it “Resilience”. Which is, putting yourself into it, and jump over the bar that someone else, either a person or an event, has kindly raised for you. Make that jump anyway, because if you don’t, you will never know if you were capable of, and you may never get another chance to jump over that bar. If you do and fail, worst case scenario you understand your limits better.
And if you do and succeed, try to make a list of positive outcomes. But take some time, it’s not going to be a quick one.
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