What is resilience in recovery?

Resilience in Recovery from Addiction

In early recovery. I struggled with trying to place my emotions and then trying to map that out. It was all foreign to me and I was having a hard time separating the resilience from the resentments. Earlier videos, we’ve talked about resentments and how they can build and what happens when, when we take those and it develops into that triggers something sets us off, something pushes us.

We get to that event, crisis point and and pretty soon resentment takes on a life of its own and starts making decisions for us. I’m in a place my resentment builds. I’m not giving any chance for resilience to develop and whatever. What do I mean by that, what is resilience in 2022 in recovery, it’s a little challenging to navigate our emotions. We we’ve said that already, it’s even more challenging. Is trying to map them out. If we’ve never had experience facing those. I spent a lot of time borrowing my emotions or stuffing my emotions where angry all the time I was I was upset and I was frustrated and there was no way to unbox all that emotion because I’m the one that packed it all and I’m the one that set that up.

I could manage it on my own piling up Dog piling itself on so much that eventually just all unfolded and that that resulted in hitting rock bottom. I don’t know if you can relate to this, hitting rock bottom can be a defining moment. I’ll have the choice where I can choose to become more from that experience. I’m able to choose to develop myself beyond that event crisis point. Yes, I could choose the whole onto resentment and build onto it and and hold on to that resentment and let it make decisions for me, where I also have the choice, I have the chance.

Developing Resilience

What if I were to take this opportunity and shifted into something where I’m using it to leverage before and I’m using that experience. But what if I’m using that event crisis point, help push me further to help develop myself from my acceptance, embracing life on life’s terms? If I move forward with that in a positive direction, if I take those lessons and I take that opportunity where these situations are challenging. But in that same moment, if I take that opportunity to grow that as resilience, I’m able to develop that that inner working, that I’m doing all that work in the shadows where I’m developing myself, so that when those event crisis points, I’m already resilient, I’m already something that’s able to tolerate this, I’m able to rise up to that challenge.

Negative experiences & Resilience

But what if I have never faced those experiences. Is there any opportunity for resilience to grow? Well, no, I think we need those experiences, we need those challenges to help spark that innovation inside of us. We need those challenges to help push us forward and I can’t do that if I’m living in a little bubble and protecting myself, I need to encourage myself to grow to to develop outside of my comfort zone. And we’ve talked before about comfort zones, have are safe points to have those experiences, but we also need to embrace the opportunity to grow.

We need to push ourselves outside of that comfort zone to the point where I’m able to look at life on life’s terms, to not just focus on my my linear vision of what’s in front of me to see the world as it truly is outside of my comfort zone, outside of my purview and appreciate that there’s things outside of my control that I can’t handle, those things outside of my wheelhouse that I’m not able to control. And as soon as I let go of that, as soon as I let go and move forward and have faith and take steps in the positive direction.

What does Resilience mean to you?

This helps create the space for resilience to grow. I don’t know if that makes sense. I’m hoping it does let me know what your thoughts are, what is resilience when it comes to resilience. What is your first thought that comes to your mind. My thoughts of resilience is that it helps develop us through these event crisis points. These challenges can help push us forward in ways we can’t even imagine and our future selves will thank us for persevering through these impossible situation. If I ask myself six months ago, 10 months ago, two years ago when I’d be able to survive the craziness of 2020 I would say no, there’s no way I could do that.

But if you ask the version of me, if you ask the multiverse version of Jason from 2020 that’s been in 2020 I look back now and those were really challenging times. Early recovery was very challenging times. 2020 is challenging times last year is challenging. Last month was challenging. But the resilience comes from seeing those opportunities to grow, challenging myself to go outside of my comfort zone and live life on life’s terms, folding those lessons in continuously, helped build that resilience, help build that tolerance, help build that experience, that knowledge, that solid foundation that I wouldn’t have otherwise had it not been for 2020 and had not been for early recovery.

Know, Like, and Trust

That had not been for those challenging times. We’ve answered the question, what is resilience? It’s something that we have before we, something we develop before we hit that event crisis. It’s something that we can call upon. I don’t want to say that it’s a it’s a crunch. I would say it’s a knowledge into knowing it’s a it’s a level of certainty if you will where I can come to know like and trust that I have that within me, I have that capacity and I needed those lessons to help push me forward.

I needed those challenges to help to find myself in this moment as it truly is the foundation that I’m building today helps set a precedence for tomorrow and I need that tolerance, I need that resilience. I need that foundation to be built continuously. It’s not something that one day I’m going to do resilience is something that I’m every day I’m doing.

Everyday Resilience

Ok. Second question, can I be resilient and grateful at the same time? And that sounds bonkers, why would I be resilient? And why would I be grateful? And the crazy part is if I’m going to be resilient, So this is this is me being resilient. But if I’m, if I’m grateful at the same time can both occupy the same space. And I would say yes, gratitude is something that I’m choosing to partake gratitude is something I am lifting myself up to to appreciate or to recognize it’s going to be craziness out there. The situations that are outside of my control. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t be grateful. And so similarly, if it could be resilient and I could be grateful at the same time.

I would almost argue that factoring in gratitude folding in that gratitude first. Living a gratitude first, life helps build that pattern helps build that habit. I’m able to become resilient. So by adopting the gratitude, I’m able to create space where I can grow and develop that resilience. In the previous video, we talked about resentments if I’m choosing to adopt the resentful perspective. If I’m choosing to live a resentful life where I’m angry, I’m frustrated and resentful and that’s all I see. I can’t be upset if that’s all I’m going to absorb, because that’s what I’m choosing them to recognize the validate and like within me. And that sounds bonkers to say out loud.

Mental strength and resilience

In another video, we mentioned about the orange. If I take an orange and slice it, what comes out as orange juice, if I take a hammer and I smash it, but comes out as orange juice. So it doesn’t matter what instrument we use, it’s going to release the same orange juice from what’s inside the orange. So when someone puts pressure on you and someone puts the squeeze on you and what comes out as anger, frustration, resentment, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with with the instrument.

Yes, the stress is almost the catalyst. If what I’ve chosen to recognize as anger and frustration and resentment when I’m under pressure, if that’s what I release, that’s a reflection of what I’ve chosen to recognize. That’s that’s a reflection of my habits. Yes, they’re challenging moments and they’re challenging things to take place. But it doesn’t mean that I only focus on the negative. There’s an opportunity to grow their yes, these experiences happen, but I also have a chance where I can look at things from a resilient perspective, from gratefulness, from a gratitude perspective, where I can walk away with something more, I can take this little piece of nugget is this tiny thread of knowledge and I’m able to help weave that into my foundation and that might take a lot of work.

Benefits of mindfulness in addiction

It’s not, I’m not saying it’s going to be something super easy, barely an inconvenience. What I am saying is there’s a chance to grow and there’s a chance to develop gratitude and resilience go almost hand in hand and if I’m not sure how to develop that sense of resilient, adopting a gratitude perspective and definitely helped when I build up resilience, where does it go if I’m building my resilience? We talked before about having that foundation and as it helps prepare myself for when another event happens in the future, if I thought 2020 was an absolute bonkers, bananas a year, 2021 didn’t necessarily make it any easier, but if it wasn’t for 2020 I wouldn’t have had the foundation to move forward into 2021 further that resilience can come from those experiences, but the outcome is that resilience then folds down into that foundation of knowledge base where that trust that I can have believe that I have this certainty, it’s not like an arrogance or an ego, it’s coming from a place of I’ve been through something like this before, where I’ve seen this experience before, I’m able to move through it because I moved through other things similar like things can be crazy and outside of my control, but it doesn’t mean that I’m out of control.

Trusting Resilience

That means I have a chance where I can choose to perceive something as an opportunity to grow as something. I can walk away with, something I can develop and so that I can fold into my foundation. So where does resilience grow once I have it? It folds down into my foundation and my knowledge based my trust, the trust in myself, the trust I have in others were leaning more towards conversations about having a level of certainty beyond our ego. That sounds weird to say aloud and maybe maybe we should have a follow up video about ego.

I don’t know if that’s something you guys are interested in having that sense of certainty, having that sense of foundation, having that found, I almost want to call it an attitude, but it’s not, it’s not something I’m just choosing it. It’s something that, over time of building this habit, I’m able to then shift my focus into this sporadic random life that I’m living into having a sense of knowledge. Yes, I’m in early recovery, I was white knuckling my way through things and I could barely get through a day or a week or once, but after I hit that 90 days I was in a position where I had that trust in myself.

I got 90 days under my belt more will be 91. And yes, in the 91st day was really hard. But thanks to the 1st 90 days I had this certainty that I can move forward. But if you were to ask me on day one, if I could move forward, I would say 90 days is impossible. So if I were to ask myself what changed this is where the resilience foundation comes in. I hope that makes sense. My friends, I was resilience expressed and so if I were to express resilience, I would I would share that my life has become way more fulfilling.

I would say that my life has grown in depths beyond. I’m filled with gratitude with where I am with who have become thanks to my recovery. Thanks to my challenges I’ve faced in my addiction have caused me to grow in such a way. I have developed empathy. I’ve developed compassion. I’ve looked at myself the way I look at others, the way I help, the way I show up. So when I say, where does resilience expressed? I’m looking at more than just the surface level Experience resilience is now formed into that foundation, but it expresses itself in ways that stretch further beyond in the service level, what I see genuinely day to day.

It starts developing a sense of legacy where there’s this pattern where wherever you go, you’re leaving that positivity around you, you start projecting this. I don’t want to call it an aura, but you’re you’re now in a position where you’re not, you’re not just faced with simple negativity or challenges because it’s it’s something you know, you can persevere through. I’m coming from a place of experience. If it wasn’t for having those original challenges, I never would have faced those event crisis points. And I wouldn’t have sparked that idea that what what can I do to help change my mind, what can I do to help shift my focus.

If I didn’t start digging and asking better questions of myself, I wouldn’t have looked for those answers. I took those challenges to push me to a place where I am now open to those ideas and having that I almost want to call it a safety net. I’m now allowing myself the capacity to make decisions where I can fumble. I can make mistakes. But I’m allowing myself that tolerance to grow from those mistakes and adopting gratitude. I’m choosing to be resilient and creating a pattern of positive, healthy habits which then creates a life that’s outstanding.

And that’s that’s where this show comes from. This is where I’m folding this in every day to help avoid those frustration points for those angry, negative, those pressure from stuffing my emotions into this bottle, there’s no good that comes from that. So when I speak about where is my, is my resilience expressed. It’s expressed through living and outstanding life. It’s expressed in a way that positive and supportive and I have a supportive community around me. I have great friends and you my, my find community. I hope you’re enjoying this.

How is Resilience Expressed?

So we’ve talked about how is resilience express? Where does resilience go when I build it and I’d be resilient and grateful at the same time. And we mentioned, yes, those are almost tied together. What is resilient. These are all things we have discussed. These are all things I’m hoping that you’ve gained value from. My name is Jason. If you enjoyed this video, please go and check out our website Outstanding Life. We also have a podcast which is an audio version of this. We have videos over on Youtube.

So if you’re on Instagram or twitter, definitely give us a follow. I hope you enjoyed this. If you have any questions, let me know, I do enjoy these videos and I hope you do too. In the meantime, friends, You take care you have fun and I’ll catch you in another video