Introduction to Resilience

Is it just me, or is the word resilience popping up everywhere these days? I might just be hypersensitive to it since I named our practice Resilience Naturopathic and I spend my days helping people become more resilient. But it really does seems to be everywhere, doesn’t it?

I couldn’t be happier about it.

The world, the environment, and the people who inhabit it, could all use some focus on resilience.   Resilience is that ability to get back up after you fall, to keep going in the face of adversity, and foremost it’s about you being the very best version of yourself possible.  

Resilience is why I became a doctor

I have dedicated my life to helping people improve their physical and emotional resilience. Resilience is  why I became a doctor, it’s why I’m able to help so many people, and most importantly it’s why I am able to remain med free in the face of my own personal mental health challenges.  With all that, I get asked all the time “What is resilience”?

So, I think now is a good time to talk about what resilience truly is and how to cultivate it.

Yes, I said cultivate it.

You can change how resilient you are both physically and emotionally.

That is our mission here at Resilience Naturopathic. We work with you specifically where you’re at to give you the support you need to become more resilient. It’s not just medical interventions.  We do that, but we also believe in YOU. We work with you to give you the individual tools that you need.  It’s a process and it takes work, but you are worth it. We know you have it in you and it’s our job to help you let it out. So let’s take a minute to define what resilience means.

What is resilience?

Imagine a cowgirl. A real tough girl, boots, spurs, even a white hat.  She’s sitting astride an unbroken horse in a dry, dusty paddock with the sun beating down on her. She is hanging on with all the strength she can muster because her horse is not happy. You might even go so far as to say it’s mad. It’s jumping, bucking, and doing all it can to get her off it’s back.

The cowgirl is you and the horse is life.  

Nine times out of ten the horse succeeds and throws the rider off and into the air. The rider hits the ground in a bone jarring cloud of dust. Some people will pack up and go home, or maybe decide to ride a weaker horse. But not our hero cowgirl. She picks up her hat, dusts off her chaps, adjusts her gloves and hops back up on the horse to do it all again. She has a mission to accomplish that brought her to that horse in the first place, and she isn’t ready to give up. Eventually she succeeds. She stays on the horse, and now has a trusted companion.

The key here is a choice. She chose to get back up and keep trying. This is what I’m talking about with resilience. It’s that choice to get back up when all you want to do is quit. Our cowgirl had the grit to choose to be resilient.    

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Our choices are only a fraction of what it takes to have resilience. In fact, our choices are the last step in having resilience.

In my personal and clinical experience 70% of resilience is lifestyle, 25% mindset, and only 5% is that decision to get back on the horse.

Resilience is a lifestyle

The lifestyle that will set you up for resilience gives your body, your brain, and your mind the tools that they need to be able to make the choice to get back on the horse.

A resilient lifestyle gives your body energy and strength. When you are faced with a challenge you won’t fall ill or be too weak to overcome it. A resilient lifestyle gives your mind the fortitude to recognize the opportunity in challenges and the optimism to tackle them with grace.

Tools for Resilience

Resilience is complicated, but it’s also exceptionally easy to achieve if you just have the right tools.  My job is to help you get those tools and learn how to use them. In the coming weeks to months, we will be sharing details of some of the tools necessary for cultivating resilience in yourself, your family, and your environment.

We will be talking about diet, exercise, stress management, reducing toxin exposure, sleep, and connection and contribution to society. We will also be talking about some targeted strategies to take for specific conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, autism, PANDAS, OCD, schizophrenia, and more. And finally, we will share some information about the most powerful stimulus to heal and restore resilience – homeopathy.

I am really excited to share these tools with you. I know that following these strategies will help improve your ability to take on the world and anything it hands you with a level of confidence and ease that you haven’t experienced in awhile – or maybe ever.

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