{"id":1112,"date":"2018-10-24T02:02:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T02:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/?p=1112"},"modified":"2018-10-24T02:03:38","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T02:03:38","slug":"againstresilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/againstresilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Against Resilience: Numbness is Not Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

We often mistake the ability to persist and soldier on as a sign of resilience, an evidence of strength. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The issue is that we overvalue hardiness, and fail to appreciate our fragility.<\/strong> Resilience connotes the notion of overcoming obstacles and setbacks, and the ability to soldier on. There isn’t anything wrong with that. In fact, we need to be able to go through hardships and difficulties and come out the other side with valuable life lessons\u2014sometimes with scares to prove.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, sometimes we need to embrace the fact that we don’t have to “bounce back.” Instead, we have to first listen to the inner workings of our body, sometimes we simply need to take the time to recharge, to re-organise ourselves, or even call it quits on certain jobs or relationships. No need for “bouncing” or moving on. Just sitting still.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Resilience is obsessed with\u00a0forward movement, as if life is a straight line. As you probably experienced it first hand, life is anything but a linear process. When we continue to persist in our belief that life is a straight line, we push ourselves ahead. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In order to “move on”, we numb ourselves. We mistake numbness as a strength. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, \u00a0numbness happens when the waves of emotions overwhelm. But if we numb-out because we want to be a trooper, we fail to recognise the our mind is there to take care of the body… not “mind over body.” As Tim Minchin said in his commencement speech, we need to learn to feel it, not fill it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

If we learn to feel it, not fill it, then there is strength in vulnerability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[14,64,62,63],"class_list":["post-1112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychological","category-reflections","tag-emotions","tag-numbness","tag-resilience","tag-vulnerability","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/fullcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}