✿ The 5 Characteristics of Incredibly Resilient People ✿

This is a very interesting article:



I remember the day I found out that my aunt had cancer. Although she was the most positive person I had ever met, I still worried about how she would handle such an overwhelming diagnosis.

Looking back, now that her cancer is in remission, she continues to be the most positive person I know. But even more than that, she is what I call an elegant spirit.

Cancer, in my aunt's world, was a small valley hidden amongst the many glorious peaks of her life. While she may have had some moments of despair as we all do when we find ourselves alone in our thoughts, unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, she never showed this to the world outside.

She never complained. During her treatment, she continued to go to work and share her passion. She turned long days of chemotherapy in the hospital into a party with her friends where they would share stories, laugh and play cards.

Life threw her an arrow, and she, an archer herself, caught this arrow and created her bow. She knew that she could not control the fact that this arrow had come to her, but her bow could hold it stable. Instead of defeating her, the arrow ultimately strengthened her.

As a physician, I have met many such elegant spirits. Their resilience is awe-inspiring. They have the ability to handle even the most devastating diagnosis.

How then, do people cultivate such strength? And how can we do that for ourselves?

Here are five things resilient people have in common:

1) They practice mindfulness

Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to your life on purpose. Mindful people monitor the thoughts that come through them. However, instead of reacting to their negative thoughts, they observe them like a storm that is passing through.

Furthermore, they pay attention to what is right in their lives. They give it strength and value, thereby turning up the volume on the beauty that surrounds them.

They understand their role in the universal flow of life. They realize that they are a part of a divine cycle of life and death.

And in this understanding, they remain like the eye at the center of a tornado.

The world will continue to change around them. But at the center of this tornado, is their mind, where there is tranquility and calm.

2) They don't compare themselves to others

They don't spend their time feeling sorry for themselves. They realize that every soul has a different journey and therefore it is pointless to compare the path of your life with someone else.

They are continually trying to be the new and improved version of themselves. And as long as they are better than they were yesterday, they know they are on the right path.

They are their own measuring stick of success.


3) They understand that after every big setback is an even bigger transformation

I remember in medical school when part of our rotation was to learn how to deliver bad news to patients, I shadowed a physician who informed a young 40-year-old woman that she had stage four breast cancer.

Immediately, without missing a beat, this woman said, "I know one thing. After every big setback is an even bigger transformation."

Resilient people understand this. They see difficulties as stepping stones to a transformation.

4) They find humor in everything

Laughter, in its very highest form, is a spiritual practice. It connects us to the part of our soul that heals. When we laugh with others, we gain a sense of interconnectedness and belonging.

Laughter may help lower our blood pressure and increase our vascular blood flow. It can do wonders for our health.

Resilient people look for reasons to laugh. They find humor in the mundane. They understand that paying attention to the ordinary is what makes life extraordinary.

5) They do not try to control their lives

Gary Zukav wrote about elegant spirits like this:

The journey of a hawk depends on both the hawk and the wind. The wind is your life. It is all the things that happen from the time you are born and the time you go home.

Elegant spirits don't know what will come up next, the same way that hawks don't know which way the wind will blow next.

This doesn't bother them, because they don't try to control their lives any more than hawks try to control the wind.

Resilient people do not try to control their lives. They surrender to the flow of the wind. They adjust their sails and ride the next wave of their life.

People that have overcome hardships, tremendous obstacles or disease often feel that life goes from black and white in the before to many beautiful colors in the after. The have turned up the volume of beauty in their lives. They practice mindfulness. They stop comparing themselves to others. They find humor in everything.

And they know that they have been transformed.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

I know some pretty bitter people that are though as nails, having a goal and grit helps to endure more than someone that have no reason to carry on.

I absolutely LOVE this post! I think I do these things without consciously deciding to do so. It just seems to make me a happier person.

But why is this thread in Political Madness?

I have not idea why I put it in Political Madness!!!!!!!!

hahahahaahah

I need a MOD to help me move it!!!
lol

I believe this post just confirms my belief that I have a very old soul occupying this body. I have always believed that some souls are old and just experiencing the next thing the universe sends it way.

Nice. Excellent OP!

I absolutely believe that your thoughts/feelings can affect your health/outlook on life both negatively and positively.

Have you ever had a job where you have to work closely with someone that complains about how much the job sucks every 5 minutes. Did you ever notice that the more you were around it, the worse you felt about the same job? Or have you ever had some say "You look like you feel bad... Do you feel ok?" ? Then you start feeling like maybe you don't feel so well. Negativity is powerful and so is positivity.

I think most people grossly underestimate how these things affect them and those around them.

THANK YOU TO THE MOD THAT MOVED MY POST TO THE CORRECT FORUM!!


Indigent: yes, I have met people like that but they are not happy.......and if you work in a hospital you'll see that happier people really recover faster (most of the time, of course).

Benevolent Heretic: I'm the same, I do do those things already without even thinking about it!

Skorpy: you are probably right.......maybe it takes an old soul to see that you should try to be grateful and happy all the time, no matter what.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Absolutely!! I believe your attitude to life affects the way your life is......and happy people also look different.....they sort of glow........an inner glow.

a reply to: Agartha

I have found spiritual people more in tune with their life than the ordinary folks...Surrendering to a bigger greater power enables us to have a much calmer sailing through the stream of life.I have been diagnosed by cancer almost 15 years a go but I am still alive and well.I always looked at my body as a rented vehicle or a machine given to me (my soul) temporarely to use but that thought never prevented me from maintaining it as best as i could,or never made me sad because i have to leave it someday...Life is an amusement park with an expiry date on the ticket and limitations on different rides for everybody,so we better enjoy it while it lasts.

Do you think resiliency comes from being around the block a few times? Or is it a trait you bring so much of into your life?

Wonderful words of wisdom!

I often wonder what the world would be like if more of humanity looked at life from a positive instead of negative perspective. It isn't easy to do, as everything seems to be geared in life towards magnifying all that is wrong in todays society!

a reply to: Agartha

Great post !

I'm a huge believer in mindfulness.

It's a philosophy I crossed paths with many years ago and have been practicing ever since. It taught me to sit back and reflect on all of the negative experiences in my life, only to realize that every one of those experiences I actually learned something from and therefore gained something from... thus turning the negative into an actual positive.

Consciously paying attention to one's thoughts and feelings throughout the day helps you to step back, look at the broader picture, give yourself a reality check, and put the situation into a more truer perspective. You'll discover that 9 out of 10 times your thought processes are unnecessarily negative, thus inflating a situation far worse in your own mind than what it really is.

If nothing else, I've learned that every single negative has a positive side to it.

For anyone who's interested, here's a little info on Mindfulness, and there's a ton of websites out there that can teach you how to put it into practice. This philosophy is starting to become common place with more and more psychologists and psychiatrists with their patients in replacement of pharmaceuticals, which is a good thing.

a reply to: shapur

Well done and I'm glad you are still here, sharing your own wisdom and experience with us!!!
Life is an amusement park with an expiry date, this is why I try to love every minute of it..........I obviously don't succeed all the time, but having a great sense of humour really helps.........I laugh at everything.....myself included!
lol


a reply to: CranialSponge
Thank you for the link in your post, I will certainly google the subject. I practice it without thinking about it most of the time......I believe that being negative and complaining about something won't make it right.......but as soon as you switch your positivity, solutions seem to come easily.

a reply to: CranialSponge

I'm so glad to see people embracing mindfulness and not dismissing it as woo woo hippy nonsense.

It is a tool that I believe should be taught to children at an early age. It's more or less something that allows us to stop navigating life on autopilot, and take control of where we are going, and how we get there.

This has to be the most inspiring and positive OP's I have read on ATS.
If I could flag and star you 1,000,000 I would.
Thank you Agartha.
May rainbows continue to light your path
Jane

It's all so much easier when you learn to let go of the things you really can't control and leave it up to someone or something else. It's also much better when you realize that stuff doesn't make you happy and no amount of stuff will make your happier.

So, let it all go and stop worrying about it unless it is in your direct power right now.

a reply to: angelchemuel

Thank you!! I think one star will do.........lol
And many rainbows to light your path too, my friend!