As we head into a new year which seems guaranteed to bring challenges, “Cultivating Resilience” in the January edition of Costco magazine caught my attention. We don’t “bounce back,” one of the experts was quoted as saying. “….we bounce forward. Resilience is the ability to effectively face challenge, change and complexity—what I call the three C’s—in a way that ultimately enhances us, not diminishes us,” noted Taryn Marie Stejskal, Ph.D. and founder of the Resilience Leadership Institute (resilience-leadership.com).
The neuroplasticity that we have often heard about in recent years, the brain’s capacity to change its structure, undergirds resilience. Dr. Amit Sood, also quoted in the Costco article, describes resilience “as the core strength we use to lift the load of life, leveraging the brain’s ability to change itself with experience.”
Sood developed a program called Leveraging the Stress Management and Resilience Training (SMART). He reports that this approach involves awareness of what challenges you, paying attention and “the five principles of attitude: gratitude, compassion, acceptance, meaning and forgiveness.” While those principles all are important, it comes as no surprise that gratitude heads the list, that foundation of wellbeing and understandably contributes to resilience.
Another piece that caught my attention came from John Pavlowitz, author, pastor and speaker, who wrote in his Christmas blog:
Friends, you may be struggling to hold onto the light within you right now. I am too. But I also know that right now it is more valuable and powerful and necessary than it’s even been.
Do something to remind yourself why you live.
Embrace the people you love.
Use the gifts you have to bring joy.
Be present to this day.
Laugh fully.
Give what you have to give.
Give thanks.
May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter. Shalom, Kate
Hope’s Café Bonus: “I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it.” — Maya Angelou
Hope's Cafe 
Thanks for your health promoting words, Kate. I have gratitude that you keep the doors of Hope’s Cafe open. Also, thanks for sharing Pastor Pavlowitz’s Christmas blog. I hope to remind myself of its applicability to everyday of this coming year, not just Christmas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is a post that I will need to return to a lot over this next year. Thank you for giving us a way to think that is instructive and hopeful.
LikeLiked by 1 person