Resilience is an Idea of Challenge

Resilience is adapting in the face of adversity; adversity is a state of hardship, misfortune, calamity or distress. Poverty is an adversity as well as mental illness and cancer patients require resilience during such distress. When we challenge these negative aspects of hardship, misfortune, calamity and distress, we are taking steps to overcome the negative, which can bring our livelihood to “slow motion” as well as our mental stability. When we reach out to adapt to situations which are negative or stressful, when we become resilient, we are in reality rebuilding our lives through an inner strength that involves behaviors, thoughts and actions which must be learned and these are instances we must have in order to maintain strength, trust and a sharing of our courage. With resilience we must have realistic ideas and positive thoughts about ourselves and confidence to make our ideas work. We must not fear to communicate or strive to solve problems. To develop resiliency we must know, not all people share the same problem or suffer traumatic episodes in life; what works for one may not work for another and we should know that everyone has a different way to solve a problem they are experiencing. Looking into your past may seem extreme yet this is one way to learn what may be a necessity in overcoming the adversity you may be facing. By looking at the answers you have of your life, how you react to the distress you have been facing you have begun to discover how to respond to the difficult challenges which affect you. Be open to finding other places for help as well as other people. This helps to build resilience and courage, which will keep you spiritually strong and filled with trust in your ability to work your way around stressful obstacles. Written by Donald Sammons

Recovery Conference 2010: Resilience

I attended recently a Recovery Conference held by MHCD in Denver, Colorado. I am a consumer of MHCD and also an employee; and having gone alone to the conference, though there were nearly over 300 persons attending, I knew then at that time I was not alone in needing strength and maintaining my sobriety, most of all accepting reality.
I met two of the principle speakers and having known other doctors and clinicians which attended besides nurses, I did not feel like the “lone stranger” in my endeavors’ of learning something new to make my life seem more meaningful to myself and to others. Learning that Resilience plays a major part in recovery along with Spirituality gave wind to optimism, which made life a bit more meaningful, when you realize you have lived through illness, both physical and mental, and must remain strong.
I understood throughout one of the speakers’ agenda that we have to “live the moment of life we live” and that “wishful thinking” is not optimistic and that we should lean towards realism—that is truth. Spirituality and Religion is the “realm of human experience” understanding to create with the power of the spirit and knowledge which is good and most positive in prayer and meditation not something negative or destructive to the peace we sojourn to seek.
Both speakers and all involved agreed that, everyone should remain positive in thought and strive with hope and that we should practice compassion, seeking emancipation from the “sick role” being lived, so that we renew our faith, our understanding of spirituality, live in truth, our belief and have a purpose in life.
“If you think you know it,
Rejoice.
If you don’t,
Think again and regale.”

Donald Sammons
May 30, 2010