Resilience: The Power of The Human Spirit

Stories of Beauty & Resilience Touching Our Hearts

Recently I received a comment on a post from Ernie, a man whose wife has died.  His remarkable story of love and resilience touched my heart.

I began thinking of a few other individuals who have inspired me with their resilience.   Today I want to honor the quality of resilience and the power of the human spirit.  It shows what we’re capable of and gives us faith in people and life.

You may know of situations or you may have a story about your own life. I hope you’ll share these treasures,  as they are an offering of hope and inspiration.

Ernie McCray

I want to quote Ernie’s words, written on the post about Loneliness. Even in the midst of his tremendous loss, Ernie gives love and enhances the well-being of his community and our precious earth. I don’t think he’d mind my quoting him, because his words are on this site:

…So what I’m finding ten months later is that I have moments of loneliness, especially at night when it’s time to turn in, but I no longer consider the totality of my experience as one of loneliness. I think “missing” Nancy is more descriptive of my feelings.

But she’s so much a part of me that I feel her energy and love all the time as she gave me so much; sometimes I cry at the mere thought of her, a remembrance that suddenly appears based on where I might be or what I might see or hear of feel – but then I wipe my tears away and go about what I feel needs to be done to make the planet look like I want it to look, with my baby in tow in my heart and soul, knowing that she wants me to push on, knowing that she always encouraged and supported me, knowing that she’d kick my rear end, figuratively, if I gave up (smile)…

How inspiring and beautiful.  This is resilience.

I’d also like to share a remarkable story Ernie wrote about his Mother – this man knows the love of women. It is beautiful:

Mom, The Woman I Got Whether I Chose Her Or Not

Robin Easton – Naked In Eden Blog

Robin is a remarkable soul.  She embraces the dark nights of the soul and as a result her countenance is radiant and she is filled with a joy of life and moves into the wild as if it’s her best friend – and teacher.

In a recent post entitled Finding Your Way Home she has these words to say about loss and moving through the pain:

…As I listened to the song it took me to a time of my life when I was stripped down to the bone and wanted to “go home”. My Dad had died, my Mom had drifted away with Alzheimer’s, I’d been through a divorce, my childhood home had been sold, the family cottage on the lake had been sold (a place that forged my love of the wild and saved my sanity through my school years), I was new to society after years in the wild, my beloved rainforest was thousands of miles away, I’d just moved to a small city, I had no money, and didn’t know a single soul.

Everything that had previously anchored my life was gone, as if my past had been erased. I was left only with my abiding love of the wild, my deep unwavering sense of self, and my communion with the great spirit of life. During that time I hiked alone, day after day, into the mountains of New Mexico. Although it was winter, I’d lived so much outdoors and barefoot in the previous years that I continued to hike barefoot up the mountains, across snow and freezing water. I wore cut off jeans, a wool sweater, and my old fringed leather jacket. With my hair down around my waste I must have looked like a wild woman. I was a wild woman. I was so fit and healthy that my feet never felt the cold, only in that it made me feel alive and connected to the Earth and Life itself. I hiked miles through the mountains, and cried and healed. Slowly, step by step, Nature helped me put my life back together.

During that time I hungered like a wild animal to go home, but I had no home. I felt totally alone in the world. And yet, over the months, as I cried and walked I knew in my heart that I already was home. All the people (and the wildness) that I’d loved and lost still walked with me: my mom, my dad, my lost husband, the rainforest, the childhood home, the cottage on the lake. I had become those things and they’d become me. I was blessedly at peace in the ways that really mattered. Life was deeply painful, but sooo richly good. Although I had no idea where I was headed or what would come next, I did have those who walked with me in love…

Finding Your Way Home

Amazing!

Catrien Ross – Energy Doorways Blog

Catrien is another remarkable person and her poem is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever seen on resilience and speaks to both our fragility and our strength:

Letting Go Of Loss – by Catrien Ross

Are you getting unstuck by gently letting go?

Someone you loved is gone.

Something you needed is no longer there.

Your heroic commitment has faded into failure.

The foundations of your existence lie crumpled beneath you.

You surrendered solutions long ago and your answer ahead seems impossible to fathom.

What remains?

Today, there is nothing and no-one.

There is only you.

Out of pain and disillusionment you admit all you once cherished is indeed lost.

Faced with emptiness, you breathe into your untapped courage.

You discover that in grasping nothing you are now free to embrace everything.

You are getting unstuck.

Letting Go of Masks

So you peel off your myriad masks to reveal the face you knew before your outer world was made.

For the first time in years you understand who looks back at you in the mirror.

You are this one genuine face.

Yet what your features reflect may be too much for those you meet.

Some will gasp, dismayed.

Others will shrink back, embarrassed by what you now expose.

Even your closest family and friends might retreat.

In your clarity of recognition you observe yourself fronting this face, no matter how discomforting.

You are compelled above all else to be the face of what you truly are.

You are getting unstuck.

Letting Go of Maps

You step around a sudden curve and the contours of your inner life open into unfamiliar territory.

You realize the poles have shifted and your compass no longer points your true direction.

Your former maps are useless.

Disoriented in place and time you can confirm only uncertain and difficult terrain around you.

What happened to the paths you once traveled?

Where do you go from here?

Mapless, you have only your intuition to guide you.

Now you must trust the honesty of your own emerging senses.

The way the land lies: how the sun falls; where the water flows.

Now you must deepen awareness of what is real in yourself and what you love.

You test your footing on fresh ground that has never been walked before.

You expand into the unknown, an authentic explorer at last.

You are getting unstuck.

Letting Go of Limits

You long to cry rivers, but your eyes burn parched as desert sands.

Your heart extends in natural connection, but your rhythms are stifled.

You yearn to share your essence with others, but you dim your response.

Your mouth fills with the truth of what you are, but you silence your song.

And then your energy shifts.

You find yourself letting go, little by little, of limits that define and constrain you.

You are getting unstuck.

Letting Go of Aloneness

Your lone voice echoes in the mountains.

A wind, too, blows through the canyon.

Birds together sing the oneness of spring.

Rain lifts in singular purpose from the Earth’s living waters.

You accept your own reconnection as a journey of transformation and compassionate wisdom.

Year after year, you have tuned and repaired this instrument you are.

Now you are become the music of your life.

And your true melody is thrumming.

So you play and you sing and you leap and you laugh and you touch and you cry and you sense and you know and you thrill with delight and you nurture with joy and you dance with inspired abandon in the landscapes of your soul’s desire.

You are getting unstuck.

My Close Dear Friend

Last but certainly not least, one of my dearest friends lost her beautiful 21-year old daughter about 1 1/2 years ago.  Her only child.   My friend’s daughter was murdered.

As you might imagine, it has been a shattering experience.  Being with her, and observing her resilience and the power of her spirit, has been one of the most inspiring experiences of my life.

She would have every “right” to be bitter, but she chooses not to be.    Instead, she talks about her appreciation for all the love in her life.  She and her husband gave a presentation and a large donation to the organization that was there to help them through their grief almost immediately.  They shared their experience with others who were grieving the loss of a loved one through murder.

My friend and her wonderful husband  have re-arranged their lives to care for their young grandson, whom they have embraced and love to the core of their beings.

My friend doesn’t deny the anguish and pain.  Yet, she hasn’t spent one day in bed.  She hasn’t missed my acknowledging my birthday or Christmas.  My friend never fails to inquire into my life.  She hasn’t indulged in self-pity.

We burst into song and laughter on occasion.  She takes care of herself, of her heart and soul.  The hard days are excruciating and she embraces them with a courage that is unsurpassed. She chooses life.  My friend chooses love.

My remarkable friend embraces life and values it.  She still has a sense of humor.  She honors her daughter, her husband, her grandson, her friends.

I have rarely seen resilience such as hers and her spirit touches everyone she encounters.  She is beautiful.  I want to be more like her.

Our Fragile Yet Resilient Hearts and Souls

Life is filled with paradox.  Life is perspective.  What do you choose as your perspective? It is a significant question for it reveals the quality of your life.

Our hearts are fragile, yet resilient.

While pain and bitter resentment may be part of your life experience – and a natural part at that – you can choose to use them wisely and move through your dark nights of the soul into a place of love.

You can embrace life and maintain a sense of wonderment for this remarkable opportunity.  The opportunity to experience and choose your response to life.  You get to choose. Choice is freedom. Even a jail cell or chains cannot deprive us of our response.  Many unsung heroes have demonstrated this.

Share Your Stories of Resilience

If you have any stories of resilience I would love to have you share them.

I hope these stories of these 4 remarkable persons inspire you.

Be well, and may these stories of resilience act as a soothing balm to heal your hearts and spirits.

Lauren

Photo Courtesy of: h.koppdelaney