Resilience - When you get smacked down, how to get back up again stronger than before

Resilience

How you deal with adversity and setback, do you lie down and accept being knocked out or do you take a moment to reassess and work with what you have, learn and grow stronger.

Going out for a Bike ride with my Mum yesterday she has always been a inspiration to her daughters, but this year she had her biggest challenge mentally, as a very active, fit and self sufficient person in her 60’s with lots of plans of adventures she wants to get in before old age starts slowing her down too much. She broke her leg, her first bone to have been broken, now this was a frustration, and inconvenience as she couldn’t be active, but also couldn’t stand for long periods, couldn’t drive, and had to put some MTBing adventures on hold.

6 - 8 weeks she could handle this, and she focused on relearning the piano and other less active things. The problem and real struggle came when she got her cast off, her achilles had shortened, there was loss of muscle strength and bone density too, but the muscles all through the back of her leg seemed to have shortened, causing terrible sciatica pain, she couldn’t sit for long, couldn’t run or sit on a bike, walking was it.

So here she had accepted and prepared for the first knock but it was the 2nd and 3rd that really wore her down, and the recovery from that took another 3 months, Mum and Dad even decided after 2 months to just head down south to try doing the MTB trials and had to turn around and come back after a day as Mum was in pain sitting in the car and on the bike, the guilt she felt for stopping dad, the frustration of not being able to do it, the fear that she wouldn’t ever be able too, the recovery was very slow for what seemed a long time.

But it was mums resilience the fact she worked with what she could do, she found some specialists to help her, a masseuse, and a PT but mainly self persistence, it was small steps with a little running and little biking, some strength training and LOTS of stretching, it seemed like it was forever but riding with her yesterday where she said it was a “cruisy ride” and I was working hard to keep up I was amazed at how she had overcame the adversity the challenges and setbacks, focusing on the goal and I am sure she has learnt a lot along the way.

November she is training towards a 2 week trip biking down south day after day, she’s amazing!

The one thing we can guarantee in life is that things don’t go to plan, it is how you deal with the setbacks and learn from them that make us stronger.

“Success is self satisfaction of being the best you are capable of being” adapted from Enda McNulty

Resilience is

“It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life’s story will develop.”

― Dieter F. Uchtdorf