April 2011 Inspiration - RESILIENCE!
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Journaling Prompts
Rebound: How difficult is it for you to bounce back after you've had a setback in life? Is your ability to regroup different in different arenas of your life? What's the longest time you've been 'down for the count'? Do you give yourself a break when you are unable to bounce back quickly, or are you kind to yourself? What active steps do you take when you need to start yourself toward a rebound?
Hanging On: What or who keeps you buoyant and able to hang on under difficult circumstances? Have you had the emotional experience of hanging by a thread? Did you maintain your grip or lose it? What thoughts, beliefs or truths do you hang on to that you wish you didn't, or are glad you do? Which is scarier - hanging on or letting go?
Adapting and Flexibility: How malleable are you? Do you have a solid core but a soft exterior? Or vice versa? Are you hard or soft all the way through? Which life circumstances have forced or encouraged you to adapt? How does being flexible or rigid impact your life and decision-making? Is going with the flow an act of surrender or trust?
Endurance and Stamina: In which ways do you stick to your guns? What stories from your past demonstrate your endurance, and did your endurance pay off? Have you ever stayed with something longer than you should have, in retrospect? How much can you 'take'? DO you bend before you break, or do you go until you break? When something in you breaks, does it break evenly or in a jagged line?
Survive vs. Thrive: Is there a difference between surviving and thriving? How do you know which one you're doing? Are there times when you first simply survive a challenge and then thrive later? How do you approach difficulty in your own life vs. hearing about someone else's difficulty? Can you draw on your own experience to help others thrive and how?
Tolerance: Are there situations that you simply can't tolerate? Has your tolerance threshold changed over the years? What have you previously not tolerated about yourself about which you are now more gentle? How do you handle intolerant people in your life?
Music
We find that people's beliefs about their efficacy affect the sorts of choices they make in very significant ways. In particular, it affects their levels of motivation and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Most success requires persistent effort, so low self-efficacy becomes a self-limiting process. In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life. Albert Bandura
He's a million rubber bands in his resilience. Alan K. Simpson
The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that leaders need. Warren G. Bennis
I don't want to read what is going to slide down easily; there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience. John Ashbery
It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. James Arthur Baldwin
Resilience is really about collaboration and mutual understanding. Roger Simpson
Prepare yourself for the world, as the athletes used to do for their exercise; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do. Earl of Chesterfield
I am positive that flexibility is a feminine characteristic. Emma Bonino
Let no one think that flexibility and a predisposition to compromise is a sign of weakness or a sell-out. Paul Kagame
The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers. Brian Greene
Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance. Virgil
Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Nelson Mandela
Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty. John Ruskin
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory. William Barclay
Endurance is patience concentrated. Thomas Carlyle
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts. James Russell Lowell
Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance. Virgil
For to be poised against fatality, to meet adverse conditions gracefully, is more than simple endurance; it is an act of aggression, a positive triumph. Thomas Mann
Heroism is endurance for one moment more. George F. Kennan
I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. William Faulkner
Man is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. Morgan Freeman
Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite. Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. David Mallet
Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful. Jacqueline Bisset
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. John Locke
Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason. Francis Bacon
Gird your hearts with silent fortitude, suffering yet hoping all things. Felicia Hemans
Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. H. G. Wells
Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live. Marcus Aurelius
Each generation's job is to question what parents accept on faith, to explore possibilities, and adapt the last generation's system of values for a new age. Frank Pittman
Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent. Nolan Ryan
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. Stephen Hawking
Life does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes. James Lovelock
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. Franklin D. Roosevelt
A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That's where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It's having backbone. Robert Kiyosaki
Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. Clementine Paddleford
If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it. Brendan Francis
If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum. Holly Near
Fall seven times, stand up eight. Japanese Proverb
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists. Japanese Proverb
Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit. Bernard Williams
An arch never sleeps. Proverb
Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. Marcus Aurelius
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory. William Barclay
People are too durable, that's their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long. Bertolt Brecht
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes. Buddha
To bear is to conquer our fate. Thomas Campbell
Not in achievement, but in endurance, of the human soul, does it show its divine grandeur and its alliance with the infinite. Edwin Hubbell Chapin
The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother. Charles Dickens
Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup. D. H. Lawrence
People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear. Maria Mitchell
Endurance and to be able to endure is the first lesson a child should learn because it's the one they will most need to know. Jean Jacques Rousseau
Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change. Friedrich von Schiller
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. William Shakespeare
It is the nature of the strong heart, that like the palm tree it strives ever upwards when it is most burdened. Sir Philip Sidney
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