Resilience

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert puff resilience.

It's such a beautiful word and concept and it has a lot to do with happiness.

The definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or toughness.

So why would resilience be important for our happiness?

It's actually very simple.

It's just one of the rules of life and this rules like gravity.

It is a guaranteed thing to happen.

We can do a lot of things to slow it down from happening,

But sooner or later this thing's going to happen and it's change or impermanence life changes.

It doesn't stay the same and change can be good,

But for us sometimes change isn't so good.

Sometimes these changes are big and sometimes these changes aren't so big,

But there's still changes.

For example,

I've had the same email address for the last 30 years.

It's a good one.

I use it everywhere,

But the company that hosts my email address made some changes and what they didn't tell me is that they were having difficulty on their end with these changes themselves.

So my email address stopped working and I spent a good part of a week trying to fix that,

Not realizing that the real problem was coming on their end where I thought it was something wrong with my technology and I really needed that email address to work because it's part of my business and what I do.

It ended up getting resolved and thankfully I stayed pretty calm through it.

It took me a lot of hours to get it resolved,

But through it all,

Because of the gift of resilience,

I was able to stay pretty calm and just kept plugging away at it until it got resolved.

But sometimes change has more permanence to it.

We may have been at the same job for say 20 years and all of a sudden our company goes out of business and we have to start all over again or we may have found the love of our life in high school,

Been married to them for decades and then all of a sudden they decide to leave us or they die.

So change is just what happens in life.

It's very hard to completely push it away.

We can do things to prevent it,

But mostly sooner or later we're all going to face that change,

That impermanence of life and resilience helps us to deal with it with equipoise and calmness.

Well,

Let's first talk about what keeps us from developing or engaging in resilience.

And sadly,

What I'm going to describe now is what a lot of people do.

Instead of being strong,

Instead of adapting to change,

They resist change,

They fight it and so they suffer and sometimes we can suffer for a very,

Very long time,

Often for the rest of our lives.

So what happens?

What happens that keeps us from being resilient?

Do you remember earlier when I was talking about change being like that of gravity where it's just one of these laws of the universe and you can't fight it or if you do,

You're going to suffer.

I mean,

Can you imagine fighting gravity saying,

No,

I don't believe in gravity,

Gravity is bad,

I'm going to fight gravity.

Well,

If we do that,

We're going to get injured a lot.

And it's the same thing with change.

If we fight change,

Which is one of the rules of life,

We are going to suffer.

So when change occurs to people that fight change,

They'll say,

This isn't fair.

This shouldn't be happening.

This is wrong.

It's like saying there shouldn't be gravity.

I shouldn't have fallen and hit my head.

It's gravity.

It's change.

It's part of life.

So they're fighting it and that fighting it makes it so much harder.

When you fight change,

You're going to lose because change is there.

It's going to be there.

And like I said,

We can slow it down.

For example,

We may not want to get older.

We may fight that.

And if we eat right and exercise,

We can definitely slow it down,

But sooner or later our bodies are going to slow down.

Sooner or later,

People that we love are going to die.

Change is going to happen sooner or later.

So we can fight it and then we suffer or we can flow with it and not suffer nearly as much.

We'll talk more about resilience a little bit later,

But here's another thing we do besides fighting change.

We numb ourselves to change.

And what do I mean by that?

Relationships change.

If we're married,

We have a 50-50 chance that sooner or later that relationship is going to end.

If we're in a relationship,

We're dating someone,

I think it's even higher.

So that's a change we have to face.

And if we're resilient,

Of course,

We adapt,

We adjust,

And we lead a beautiful life afterwards.

But what some people do,

And I actually think a lot of people do this,

Is that change occurs.

They are fighting it.

They're not accepting it.

But it's just too hard to keep fighting it.

So what they do is they say,

I'm exhausted.

I just can't fight this anymore.

So instead of adapting to the change,

They numb themselves to the change.

So they come home after a long day to the empty house.

And instead of just working on it,

What they do is they drink.

They turn to drugs.

They go to the doctor and get prescription drugs.

They start eating more.

I mean,

Fill in the blank.

The blank is addictions.

Addictions work.

They numb ourselves to change.

And so,

Of course,

We don't feel it anymore.

But there's a lot of negative karma that comes from not feeling.

Again,

It's a lot like gravity.

We cannot believe in gravity.

So we could start taking medication that numbs our body.

So when we fall,

It doesn't hurt anymore.

And that would work for a while.

But with time,

That would end up being a pretty awful life.

Addictions are the same way.

They keep us from hurting anymore.

But in the long run,

It's horrible for us going around without feeling,

With numbing ourselves.

We need more and more of that addiction that we have.

And the pain keeps rearing its head because it hasn't gone away.

We're fighting it.

So it's going to keep being there.

And we say,

I don't want to feel this anymore.

So we numb ourselves.

And then the numbing comes with a lot of consequences.

If we drink,

We're going to get sclerosis of the liver.

We know.

We know what addictions do to us.

If we eat,

We're going to get fat.

If we go from relationship to relationship to numb ourselves,

We're going to have a lot of relationship pain.

So numbing,

Though a lot of people do it,

Is definitely not the path to happiness.

And we're here to be happy.

And we're here to make our lives work well.

So how do we develop resilience?

The first and primary thing we really have to do is we have to believe in gravity.

Or in this case,

We have to believe in impermanence and change.

Change is one of those laws of nature.

It's going to happen.

It's part of life.

So if we accept it,

That's the first step.

So instead of being surprised when a change happens,

We're more like,

Yeah,

OK,

There's that change thing again.

I get that.

There's that gravity thing again.

I get that.

I know it's there.

And if we know it's there,

If we know sooner or later it's coming,

Then when it rears its head,

We're like,

Oh,

Yeah,

There you are again.

I remember you.

You're my old friend.

So this past week when I was dealing with email problems,

I knew with technology,

Sooner or later,

Things go awry.

If you're into technology,

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

And we sometimes have to spend a bit of time fixing things.

And sometimes we're not even able to be fixed.

So we have to adjust to those changes.

We suffer because we say,

This isn't right.

This isn't fair.

But that's like saying gravity isn't right.

Gravity isn't fair.

It's just part of life.

I mean,

Not that we have to like it,

Not that we have to embrace it,

Particularly when it's not fun,

When we love someone and they leave,

When we have a great job and we lose it.

Yeah,

It's not fun.

It's not like we celebrate it.

It's like when we fall.

We don't celebrate the fall,

But we get up.

We let our bodies heal and then we move forward.

That's how change works.

We say,

Okay,

Now,

Like I said earlier,

We come home to the empty house.

Our loved one isn't there anymore.

And we always knew this could happen.

So not that we're glad that it happened.

Of course not.

We're sad,

But we let ourselves be sad.

And then we live our life.

Sadness doesn't take that much time every day.

If we truly are healing,

It takes a short amount of time to heal our hearts.

It's like our bodies,

You know,

They'll heal and it can be painful,

Particularly at first,

But with time it gets better.

That's how we know we're on the right track with change is that our hearts are adjusting to the change.

And the more we embrace change and say,

Okay,

I get it.

Change is going to happen.

So what I'm going to do,

I'm going to really celebrate what I have.

If today my body feels great,

Awesome.

If today I'm in my love relationship,

Awesome.

If today I have this great job that I love,

Awesome.

But tomorrow I may not.

So it makes me even love those things better today.

Cause tomorrow,

Who knows?

Change is coming.

And if I know it's coming,

I'm going to be more relaxed.

I'm going to appreciate what I have.

And when change comes,

Instead of fighting it,

I'm going to welcome it,

Let it settle,

And then adjust to that change.

Cause the great thing with resilience is we are so adaptable.

It is shocking how adaptable we can be when we do this right.

We can adapt to anything.

And I mean anything,

Severe pain,

Severe loss,

Severe tragedy.

Now true,

A lot of people don't do this.

That's why we may not be that familiar with it,

But all you have to do is become a observer of humanity,

Which I am,

And start finding people that have gone through amazing tragedies and come out of it shining.

Once you start looking,

You'll see people like this all over the world and throughout history.

Again,

Maybe they're the exception to the rule,

But we're here to be that exception.

We're here to be like they are.

And as long as one person on the whole planet earth throughout history has gone what we're going through and come out of it well,

Really well,

Then that's a possibility.

That's a possibility for us.

And the only thing keeping us from coming out well from whatever we're going through right now is us.

We're fighting the change and because we're fighting change,

We're suffering.

When we say,

No,

I'm going to turn this into something beautiful.

Then what happens is that's what we get something beautiful.

So with resilience,

We can handle anything and when we cultivate that skill,

That gift of resilience,

Then one thing kicks in that is the most beautiful part of resilience.

And that is we lose fear.

We become fearless.

Here's what happens.

Once we realize that we are resilient,

That we can adapt to anything,

Then when we think about the future or we hear stories about other people's future that are tragic,

That seem very sad and we think that could happen to us,

The next thing that settles in is,

Oh,

But I can do that.

I can do anything because I'm resilient.

I know that life has changed and I also know when that change comes,

I'm going to shine because I can adapt to anything,

Anything.

And with that approach to life,

There is no more fear.

Fear's gone and we begin to live lives that are amazing.

And whether change comes regularly or whether there are long periods of time where there is no change,

With a resilient heart,

It really doesn't matter.

We enjoy our lives.

We embrace the change.

We adapt to the change and we enjoy our lives.

We're not trying to hang on to anything.

We're just living life well right now because when change comes,

We know we're resilient.

We know we can adapt to that because we understand change is part of life.

And again,

Like I said,

The most beautiful gift of being resilient is we lose our fear and life is so much more beautiful when we go through it without fear.

I think most people,

Almost everyone has fears,

Lots of fears.

Could you imagine going through life being fearless?

I believe it's possible for anyone.

That's why I create this podcast,

To help us to be fearless.

We can be.

It takes work.

It takes a lot of adapting of our minds to seeing things differently than we've saw them before.

But once we change the way we view the world,

Once we don't fight change and say,

Okay,

I get it,

Change is part of life and I am resilient,

I can adapt to anything,

Then what happens is we become fearless and a fearless life is a happy life.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Besides creating this podcast,

There are a variety of other things that I do.

If you'd like to keep abreast of these activities and perhaps someday we may be able to meet in person,

Just go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

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And until next time,

Accept what is love what is.