Building Resilience

"Resilience is not just for surviving the worst day of your life, it's for thriving every day of your life."
Dr. Rick Hanson 

Last week as I was at home with a sick kiddo, I read a book called Still Life by Jeff Sutherland. It is a book about a doctor who is battling ALS and loses a son during this time. He speaks about resilience and how it can help us "live more happily in our imperfect lives". This really spoke to me. It also fits as a compliment to our theme last week of mantras. Jeff spoke about his daily mantra. Each day he repeats what he believes to be the essential elements of a life well-lived in which he purposely ends with resilience. Here is his daily mantra:

Abundance, balance, compassion, courage, empathy, faith, forgiveness, gratitude, hope, imperfection, integrity, joy, love, mindfulness, passion, peace, purpose, resilience. 

Resilience is the ability to flourish while facing adversity. We all face adversity throughout our lives. Jeff speaks about the importance of incorporating our loss and our struggles into our life and the way to do this is through personal growth.

So what do resilience and your yoga practice have in common? Our yoga practices allows us to build stress resilience. While our yoga practice works on physical flexibility, it also helps train our mind to adapt to change. How? I love this explanation in an article from Yoga International. "The brain loves two things: novelty and repetition. While that may sound contradictory, novelty (like trying a new pose) requires your brain to get out of its comfort zone and to problem solve. This creates new connections in the brain that make it more adaptable to change."

When we face challenges, our yoga practice and mindset help us to stop forcing things and flow with what is. This increases our health and happiness and allows us to build stress resilience. 

I would love to have you join me for class this week to explore this theme in more depth. Whatever the challenges that YOU are facing, know that I am cheering you on. Here's to more flowing and less forcing!