Hi, it's Kelly Boys here. I've been asked to answer the question: what if I don't have the energy to be resilient? I'm grateful for this question and I can really relate to it. There are plenty of times in my life that I felt like I don't have the energy to be resilient in the ways that I'd like to. And I want to share two pointers that have really helped me and I've also seen help others with this question around not having enough energy to be resilient. The first pointer I'd like to offer is you can take the pressure off of yourself and you actually don't have to have the energy to be resilient.

So this might sound funny, but for me, it's held up as true. When I pressure myself to be a different way than I actually am, you know, maybe I'm overwhelmed or exhausted or I'm stressed out, I actually add to my lack of resilience because now I'm feeling like I'm not living up to how I think I should be. I'm adding pressure to myself. So how do you take the pressure off? Well, you acknowledge how things actually are, and this can be done using the tool of mindful self-awareness. So you might say something like, wow, I am feeling the complete opposite of resilient right now.

I actually want to run and hide under a rock instead of facing the world. So if you take a moment and actually notice, as you acknowledge what's present in your experience, you know, how it feels not to feel resilient, how it feels to want to hide from the world. You know, you'll feel it in your body, your mind, your spirit, and this is totally acceptable. It's a natural feeling and it's very important to acknowledge. When we acknowledge how we actually feel instead of pressuring ourselves to be different, we paradoxically gain resilience.

I have found this in my experience. Just recently, after a sudden move amidst the global pandemic that is happening, I found myself for a number of reasons feeling under resourced. And for me, it was acknowledging that I felt under-resourced that allowed me to rest and repair and then come back with resilience. So there's no idealized version of resilience and it comes in different shapes and sizes. And it actually has a lot to do with our own willingness to face the moment as it is, and to find creative solutions to what we're experiencing.

Sometimes that might mean doing some radical form of self-care and actually taking time to go under a rock and be away from the world to rest. You know, stress is natural. And when we have these moments of rest and repair, our bodies are pretty darn resilient. And I think for myself, if I had pushed through in order to be some idealized version of resilient, I would have gotten actually more strung out and more under-resourced and I know this. So instead I acknowledged how things actually are, and that helped me to be more resilient.

So I hope that can help you as well. The second pointer I want to share, it's a tool called the four Ps. This is really helpful for me. So I'm hoping it's helpful for you. Most of these were developed by psychologist, Martin Seligman.

And so it goes like this, say you have a pattern in your life that keeps repeating and it's gotten you down. The question is what are you believing? It turns out that if we have a low resilience mindset, we're typically stuck in the four Ps. The four Ps go something like this. This is pervasive. It's happening everywhere in my life.

This is permanent. It's all the time and it's never going to change. Sound familiar? This is personal. It reflects on my personal identity and who I am as a person. Lastly, there is no potential to learn.

I'm giving up. I'm sure we've all been here. And the tool that I'd like to share is when we seek to have a high resilience mindset rather than low resilience, we find the opposite to be true. So when we question ourselves with these four Ps, we can find a new truer story. Say we have just repeated some pattern.

A high resilience mindset compared to the low resilience would say using the same four Ps. Well, this isn't pervasive. It's only happening in this one scenario in my work. And it's also not permanent. I'll have another chance to do it differently.

It may have failed in my estimation, but it's not personal. There were a number of factors involved and I'm not a failure. I just had a failure. Lastly, there is a major potential to learn here. I am excited that I can, you know, lean into this and learn to act outside of these patterns that I've done in the past.

It's a growth opportunity. For me, I had a pretty big work failure at one point in my life. In fact, I've had several. And using the four Ps, I was able to take the learning and create something really special for the next project. And even the micro failures that I had in that next project, I took us learnings for the future.

So of course they still hurt. They don't feel good. But it didn't get me at an identity level. And I felt really willing to risk, to play, to create. And I knew it wasn't going to be personal if I failed.

So when we don't have the energy to be resilient, we want to check our mindset. What are we believing? So use these four Ps and check in, and this can make a huge difference in your level of energy and your engagement to your life and your resilience. Thank you for your practice. And I wish you well, as you work with the four Ps and also work with taking pressure off yourself from being some kind of idealized form of resilient. So remember today to be gentle.

You see the beauty around you and most importantly, be kind to yourself.