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.