Photo by Naletu on Unsplash
I am always looking for ways to create resilience, especially for highly sensitive people. I want us to thrive in the world both as individuals and in relationships. I’ve seen significant research that shows how we interpret our lives makes us less or more resilient. If we take advantage of what happened to us rather than bemoan it, we lead healthier, more secure and content lives.
Have you known or read about a family that suffered from a traumatic experience but produced one child who suffered as the forever victim and one child who thrived? I’m really curious about the child who thrived. Did you know that twelve of our U.S. presidents lost their fathers while very young?
“There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.”
― Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage
For some it seems, the obstacle is truly the way.
Perception changes everything
I’ve heard it said we only have control over our perceptions, decisions and actions. Perceptions are the foundation to all three. By creating a narrative that makes sense of everything that has happened to us and how it has strengthened us, we boost or change our perspective.
Personal coaches help clients change their perspective so they can move forward in their lives.
Sensitive and suffering
I often ask clients how a past misfortune changed them in a positive way. Perhaps their negligent parent caused them to be self-reliant and independent (sound familiar avoidant attachment types?). Perhaps their overly dependent parent taught them how to read people well and anticipate other’s needs.
Inborn sensitivity to threats matched with negligent parents makes it tough to establish security but there is hope for resilience.
Building a narrative helps.
Photo via Unsplash Sydney Rae
We can view our sensitivity as a gift that gives us superior insight into other’s feelings, allowing for close connections through empathy. We can use our parent’s unavailability as a spur to develop personal grit and an independent nature.
Parenting guilt not necessary?
For a long time, I’ve carried a sense of guilt about needing time to myself to write and recover energy. This guilt rears its head the most in the parenting realm. When my marriage was ending and my writing began, I withdrew mentally and physically from the family sometimes to gather myself and create. I also was raised with a fair amount of autonomy, so naturally my parenting style resembles my parents.
A few comments my oldest son made recently, make me think perhaps I did not scar him as much as I think I did. He said he is glad I did not ‘baby’ him too much. He thinks it is OK to say no to your children once in a while. He said he is more independent than kids whose parents did everything for them.
He may not have felt my absence as deeply as I believe or he has built a positive narrative of his own.
You don’t have to write a book…
Photo by Ron Smith on Unsplash
You don’t have to write a book to get the full benefits of establishing a narrative (just think it through or jot down thoughts in a notebook), but writing my book gave me a sense of peace and understanding I hope passes on to the reader so they may build clarity and security with their own life stories.
Writing The Quiet Rise of Introverts: 8 Practices for Living and Loving in a Noisy World, helped me make sense of my experiences as sensitive person in a rowdy world. It definitely made me more resilient.
What stories do you tell yourself? Do you have grit or grief? How could you change your perception?
If you would like help reframing your perception of your life story, please contact me for personal coaching. I’d love to work with you to create more security and resilience.
Here’s a video I created describing what The Quiet Rise of Introverts is about, what readers are saying and how it differs from other introvert books.
Hi Brenda,
I believe that being born the last child I was spared. It’s not a good thing my father was abusive on all forms but what that has taught me is to have strong discernment. I’m able to avoid men (narcissistic men) and most problems that I see other people get caught up in. I have a strong radar when it comes to weeding out these individuals because I learned from the best and thats not a compliment, lol.
Not only that I don’t use my past growing up without my mom (since 14) as an excuse not to live my life. I know everything I have been through that my pain or adversity is attached to other souls and that I can help them. It’s not about me. I feel being an empath, introvert and HSP that I am able to connect with others and sense their emotions. Not all the time people know how to articulate their thoughts or feel safe to do so. When someone can’t say what they want to say or they don’t have to over explain everything, It can make them feel safe to open up.
I’m the child who thrived… while everyone else made the same choices. Someone had to break the chain and make better choices. Some of my family are still stuck in 1995 or prior to that and they can’t move forward. It’s a shame when you have someone in their 60s(my dad 67) still playing the victim of the hurt 5 year-old-boy and his mother has been gone for 24 years and he has yet to forgive her. So it affects every area of his life and he uses this as an excuse to treat women bad and to not be held accountable for making anything of his life, because he claim he wasn’t taught.
I believe in life, they’re are no right or wrong answers, only perceptions and choices. When you throw the label of “right or wrong” on it, then it becomes judgement and all these attachments. Then emotions set in and people start thinking they are unlovable and that they are going to go to hell because of their choices in life, based off others peoples perceptions and their own perceptions. A person can only feel bad about something if they make themselves feel bad or if someone else makes them feel bad by the words they choose.