Alpha women are so wired for a struggle that when we find a word that we think means, “it’s noble to struggle” or “blessings upon you who continue to struggle happily” - We get excited!
If you have gotten yourself into a situation that needs quitting or leaving,
it is not resilient to refuse to quit
or leave, it’s actually self-abusive.
Let me say that a different way, because I’m about to attack the long-standing fiction that motherhood means sacrificing everything for everyone and that being a great idea.
Resilience is not about remaining blind to abuse you are enduring, at the hands of yourself (most common) or another.
So, if I heard a common tale of a mother, with two or three children, sacrificing all of her time to cook, wash, clean, bus them around, do their homework, argue on their behalf, to the point of continuous exhaustion, reoccurring illness and empty marriage - basically where she is just a shell of a person who lives to serve… THAT is not
resilient.
If I heard of a mother doing ALL of that, who then decided that no matter what it cost or what it looked like or how she was judged, she needed to CUT BACK on some of her children’s activities so
she could get at least six hours sleep each night…THAT is resilience.
A dictionary definition for resilience includes:
1. The ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult situations, toughness
Or
2. the capacity to spring back into shape.
So why does our typical Mom example above and the general habits of many Alphas NOT fit the definition of resilience?
Look at the
definition. Resilience requires recovery!
Resilience means you went through the tough time,
and then you… Stopped!
You got through it. It ended. You spring back into the original, healthy shape.
We don’t do that. We just keep on keeping on and continue to endure and that is why resilience doesn’t fit for many of us.
We put too much focus on the difficult situation part of the definition, and NOT on the recovery part.
That is why resilience means
quitting if you NEED to quit,
so that you can get to the recovery and spring back part.
So ask yourself, can you apply the correct definition
and understanding of Resilience to your life and your choices?
Or, are you still stuck in the endless difficult situations?
Resilience means quitting if quitting is required.
In
Joy,
