I was once asked a very simple question from a mentor, “Ami, would you rather be an egg or a bouncy ball?” I was confused. What do those things have to do with me?
Disappointment, overwhelm, anger, sadness, resentment are feelings that are anything but positive. Obviously we experience all of them as humans, but for some reason it’s much harder to let go of the negative emotions.
I tend to really struggle with disappointment. Especially if I had high expectations regarding a situation or relationship. So much so, that when disappointment sets in, it feels like it’ll hang around forever. Like a cut that takes forever to heal or a bad headache.
I had suffered just that kind of disappointment. It was crushing actually. I had been working towards a huge goal and was under a deadline to boot. Needless to say, I missed the goal. Time was up. The immense weight of that feeling was enough to keep me under the covers for months. It was at that moment I was asked that question. “Ami, would you rather be an egg or a bouncy ball?” I thought about it and shrugged, confused. This is what she told me;
When life hands you struggles, disappointments and letdowns, you can either be an egg or a bouncy ball. A bouncy ball, when dropped, will bounce right back up. An egg, however, will break from the fall. It doesn’t have bounce back ability. It’s not resilient.
It’s my belief that the most successful folks in the world are not the smartest, most beautiful people. It’s those who are resilient. The dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Resilience is caught but it is also learned.
My 14 – year old son came to me completely overwhelmed with his schedule one afternoon. He told me that he didn’t know what to do about it. So I asked him a few questions about what activity was most important. All of them. I also asked him about the timing of each activity, how long each one took. I asked him what his expectations were and if it was possible to mentally walk through his schedule so he would be prepared. I reminded him that he is well able to finish his tasks if he’s prepared. We discussed resilience, what it meant and how it’s developed.
Resilience is developed by walking through your life. Living life on life’s terms. It’s coming out on the other end realizing that you still have all your limbs and that you survived and most likely learned something along the way.
Your life cycle of manifesting into a bouncy ball is in progress. But it’s a choice. It’s always a choice.
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