Resilience

We carry more than we know. We carry each other. We carry trauma and resilience together through our bodies and across generations.
~ Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother's Hands

Both history and our world today have given us ample evidence that pursuing the values that lead us into Beloved Community and making them real in the world require our steadfast commitment and, even more importantly, our resilience.

Resilience in our capacity to withstand, adapt, and grow in the midst of and after change, especially after harm has occurred.

Resilience personally, when we experience grief, illness, or loss. In our ability to get back up and get going again as we face general, day-to-day soul-deep weariness.

Resilience collectively, when communities face violence or systemic oppression of any sort, or climate crisis, or racism, or anything that poses a real threat to wellbeing. Such resilience, unfortunately, is most often demanded of marginalized people — and needs to be supported by collective care and structural change. As trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem says,
We carry more than we know. We carry each other. We carry trauma and resilience together through our bodies and across generations. (emphasis mine)

When unable to be resilient, it’s most often because our inner cup is empty, absent of the resources we need to make it through so that we can drink in what Menakem refers to as a resilience that isn’t just psychological, but is embodied, intergenerational, and relational.

Suggested below are seven qualities of resilience we might each fill our cup with, along with a non-definitive list of practices to cultivate them so that we can draw upon what we need when we need it, because we are each called upon for some amount of resilience at different times in our lives, whether individually or collectively:

1. Quality: Groundedness. A steady sense of presence in body, place, and story.

Practice: Each day silently name: one body anchor (e.g., feet, hands, voice), one favorite place that anchors you, and one story anchor: (e.g., ‘I belong or I believe’).

Personal Example: I am anchored in my breath, my kitchen table where my family gathers, and in my belief that kindness matters.

Body anchor: my breath; place anchor: kitchen table; story anchor: my belief that kindness matters.

Collective Example: We are anchored in this building and each other, the land we steward, and the ongoing story of care that our community has created.

Body anchor: building and each other; place anchor: the land we steward; story anchor: the ongoing story of care our community has created.

2. Quality: Adaptability. The capacity for flexible responses and a willingness to be
open to new ways of addressing problems.

Practice: When facing a difficult situation, ask yourself “What new response(s) might I try now that this is showing up?” Journal your answers, and/or discuss them with a friend, continuing to ask, “What else might I try?”

3. Quality: Persistence. Sustained commitment, despite setbacks.
Being in community with someone you can speak with regularly is helpful here, and while a professional is often most helpful, a trusted friend or accountability partner can also be an option.

Practice: Set one simple intention each day and share it with your accountability partner. The goal here is not to spiral into self-blame if you don’t follow through, but to clarify and revise your commitments along the way and to take small steps to begin realizing them.

4. Quality: Creativity. Transforming loss into meaning or possibility.
Loss can take place through death, loss of health, a job, or a relationship, among other things.

Practice: Write about the loss and reflect upon one seed of new possibility -- whether it comes as a result of the loss or in some other area of life.

5. Quality: Relationship. Community, interdependence, and mutual aid.

Practice: Write down who you are in community with; how you recognize your sense of interdependence, and who you can connect with to receive or provide care or mutual aid.

Nurture these relationships each day by asking someone in your circle, How are you? What do you need? How can I help? OR share how you’re doing and what you need, or how you might need help. It’s important to know how to give and to receive. An imbalance occurs when it’s only one way or the other.

6. Quality: Boundaried Rest. Understand and protect your limits so that you can rest and renew yourself.

Practice: Most ideal would be a full day of rest, but if that’s not possible, consider a no-devices or no screens sabbath for several hours, or set aside specific time for a nap, or a quiet walk. Even a short tie of intentional rest on a regular basis can offer renewal.

7. Quality: Moral Clarity. Align your choices with your values; make sure
love and justice are included.

Practice: Before acting, and this includes our speech, pause, and ask yourself: Is this kind? Does this enlarge life and dignity? If no, choose something else.

These are only some suggestions for filling your cup before it runs empty. As you might have noticed, two things are primary: the willingness for inner reflection and interdependence. The cultivation of conscious awareness about your actions and the practice of being in community with others.

Regarding both these qualities as they relate to resilience, closing here with the words of two poet ancestors:

Maya Angelou: "I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."

Gwendolyn Brooks: "We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond."

While we may be inevitably changed, may we never reduced.

May our cups be filled with intention as we care for one another and this world in Beloved Community.

Palms together,

Rev. Jacqueline

Reading: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Listening to: Vol. 1 Women in Jazz

Watching: The Pitt on HBO Max  

Bringing me joy: Memories of trudging through two feet of snow last week in the quiet woods of northern Massachusetts.