Seven Steps to Staying Resilient
Creative ways to overcome challenges while maintaining a positive outlook
Between push-ups, bicep curls and weighted lunges, I barely have time to check my watch during the aptly named High Intensity Training (HIT) class. The rest of the group doesn't fare much better as we struggle to imitate our young instructor. A 15-second break allows me to even my breathing, then we're back at it.
Why do I attend this difficult class? Because it helps maintain my resilience.
No one reaches retirement age without resilience ─ the ability to overcome challenges while maintaining a positive outlook. My resilience was tested 22 years ago when an overnight explosion of toxic mold forced my family into a suspenseful real-life horror story lasting two years. We lost our possessions and our home, but my marriage and family survived. We are stronger because of the experience and have remained gratefully mold-free ever since.
City traffic became too stressful, theater stairs too steep, and gardening too difficult, even though I'm capable of each.
But my resilience has faded over time. It's difficult to stay engaged and upbeat during illness, or as eyesight, hearing or other important abilities deteriorate. I began limiting my behavior to suit fears and perceived diminished capacity. City traffic became too stressful, theater stairs too steep, and gardening too difficult, even though I'm capable of each.
My resilience is further dampened by the accelerated pace and scope of changes pursued by our new administration. Each day brings dramatic, far-reaching changes to government institutions, policies, trade and our future. I find facing challenges with a positive outlook more difficult now.
To recharge my resilience muscle, I'll focus on seven behaviors that helped us survive our mold ordeal.
Take Action. Emptying, cleaning and painting the interior of the portable building where we slept did more than improve the air we breathed. Taking action also provided some control over our circumstances. Making meaningful changes in our lives helped build resilience.
Seek (and Provide) Support. Talking to people who'd survived toxic mold provided helpful information and allowed me to feel less isolated. Hearing the experiences of those who'd faced similar challenges helped me feel less alone while navigating the situation.
It's hard to imagine the impact a single kind act can have on someone in need until you find yourself in a difficult situation.
Stay Connected. It was healing to share phone updates with my mom even though all she could do was listen and empathize. These conversations eased the loneliness I felt while trying to get our home rid of an invisible toxin when dealing with work, family and displacement.
Preserve Hope. Hope was critical to surviving toxic mold. Hope allowed us to clean, work and believe we'd ultimately return to a safe, clean home.
It's hard to imagine the impact a single kind act can have on someone in need until you find yourself in a difficult situation. With our belongings locked in our contaminated home, a librarian's gift of a dictionary was exactly what we needed for my son's weekly homework assignments. (I couldn't find a dictionary in our small town even after searching for hours.)
I still reflect on the librarian's kindness. Knowing someone cared enough to help renewed hope that we'd make it through the ordeal. Even her caring words fueled hope.
Maintain Humor. Humor helped sustain resilience by providing perspective and release from the tensions of the day. I often joked to myself about the difference between the life we'd built and the life we actually lived. I thought we'd reached bottom while living in travel trailers parked in the yard outside our toxic home ─ until the trailer became contaminated. When living the lyrics of a bad country song, there isn't much left to do but laugh and keep trying to make things better.
Most of us understand the importance of action, support, connection, hope and humor on resilience since we've used these tools to face challenges before. However, two behaviors that build and maintain resilience are often overlooked. These behaviors are so ingrained in our younger years that we don't notice their absence later.
Do Hard Things. Everyone does hard things while young: we learn to walk, talk, read, play sports, drive, date and more. Doing hard things involves trying, failing and retrying until we succeed. Trying, failing and succeeding are how we build competence, confidence and resilience.
As we age ... we often limit our choices to things we've mastered and avoid activities where we are likely to fail. This makes us less comfortable with failure.
As we age, though, we often limit our choices to things we've mastered and avoid activities where we are likely to fail. This makes us less comfortable with failure. This cycle feeds on itself as a limited range of behaviors lowers both success and confidence.
To counter this cycle we need to fail and succeed, which means doing hard things or things we aren't good at. Studies have shown that pushing our comfort zone by learning a new skill allows us to maintain cognitive ability as we age. It can be a new craft, musical instrument or anything that pushes us to learn something new. Trying and failing, and continuing to try builds confidence that we can learn and adapt to a changing world, which is critical to resilience.
Build Strength and Stamina. It's difficult to feel resilient when we can't climb stairs without getting out of breath or get up off the floor without assistance. No one intends to lose their strength or stamina, but it's easy to do so without initiating a plan to maintain both.
As children, we built strength through play and sports. Those activities are often replaced by work and childcare, and sometimes aren't revived during retirement. While we maintain physical strength and cardiovascular health with relative ease when young, it takes effort as we age. As the saying goes, "either use it or lose it" and that applies to muscle strength and cardiovascular health.
Activities like walking, cycling, pickleball and swimming help maintain cardiovascular health. In addition to the HIT class, my cardio schedule includes spin class or cardio classes four days per week.
Maintaining muscular strength as we age usually involves some form of weight-bearing exercise. I've attended cardio and weight classes for years, which is great as long as the exercises vary over time. Our muscles adapt quickly, so we need to modify the routine to maintain strength.
The gym allows me to build muscle, increase stamina and do hard things outside my comfort zone.
I recently started lifting weights again, and am more impressed with the increase in my confidence than muscle tone. Physically lifting and carrying more makes me feel I can handle more in other parts of my life. At 69, my strength gains are admittedly small. However, I love the feeling I get from gaining ─ not losing ─ strength.
Seven resilience-building tips may seem like a lot, but I accomplish all of them via daily gym visits. The gym allows me to build muscle, increase stamina and do hard things outside my comfort zone. The gym provides opportunities to take action and show progress in my physical health, maintain humor, and provide connection and support. In addition, a good gym workout provides hope that I'll maintain the strength and endurance needed to handle whatever comes my way.
Like others, I count on exercise to deal with stress. I've doubled my gym class attendance from one to two per day recently. See you at the gym.
