Thoughts on resilience...

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I have been thinking a lot about resilience this week – partly inspired by the fact that my 16 year old daughter is, as I type, is trekking 16 miles across the Yorkshire dales.  As anyone who has met her will know, Amy is not an outdoors person but nonetheless she has donned her walking boots, her waterproofs, her woolly hat, her brave face and is getting it done. 

However my thoughts on resilience have come from something much more wide spread.  From knowing that so many of the people I spend my time with, have had a difficult week full of anxiety, loss, disappointment and sadness.  This has been the case for both members of the youth theatre and also people from the rest of the walks of life I encounter week to week.  I’ve been saddened by this but also incredibly impressed by how some of them…even after the toughest time bounce back and look for the positives in what they are going through or to the potential for happier times in the future. 

Of course the need for significant amounts of resilience to deal with the mind, heart and back breaking things life flings at you hasn’t just applied to people this week, it’s continual.  The challenges individuals face day to day are many and significant…I see so many people managing to cope despite being confronted with things that could so easily cripple them.  This observation married with the specific struggles of this week got me thinking about how wonderful it would be if a formula could be discovered that would capture the ingredients for resilience.  Within youth theatre I genuinely believe that some of those ingredients are readily available, I know that the sessions help…I would just like to help more.

Obviously there is no magic formula but there are patterns I see in those that manage to keep their head above water in the storm.  Of course no one manages to be brilliant at being able to bounce back all the time but I am happy to know people who are pretty damn good at it a lot of the time…

So this blog is an accolade to all of those that see the joy through the sadness, remain reflective and thoughtful in the face of difficult situations, avoid ricocheting through states of aggression and defensiveness, resist blaming others or themselves, see the people they encounter as individuals not heroes, villains or victims, are empathetic and curious as they try to make sense of a complex world and who find laughter in the darkest of corners.  You are inspirational and wonderful and I’m privileged to have you in my life… 

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