Resilience Means Showing Up For Yourself

 I think one of the most overlooked components of resilience is showing up for yourself.  After all, the only person you can absolutely 100% count on to show up for you is you.  "Wait, wait!" you might be saying.  "I have an incredibly loyal and attentive parent/spouse/sibling/friend etc. and they always have my back!"  I hope you do and I'm sure they do.  I don't say this from a jaded, cynical perspective like the people who cryptically post things on Facebook like "You just can't trust people" with a sad face emoji.

I love people and I believe that for the most part, they give us our best.  But other people also have their own flaws, insecurities and agendas.  Communication can go awry.  Stuff happens and sometimes even the people we love best in the world can disappoint us through no fault of their own. 

But you control whether or not you show up for yourself and showing up for yourself is one of the most resilient things you can possibly do.  In order to understand how we can show up for ourselves, I think it's important to look at how we fail to show up for ourselves.

We fail to set boundaries.  A fabulous co-worker recently said, "You teach people how to treat you."  She went on to say that she doesn't allow anyone to bring negativity into her space.  When we fail to set boundaries with people, we send the message that our ideas, thoughts and feelings are not important.  That they can behave in any way they'd like, and we will accept it.  We often mix up a lack of boundaries with unconditional love, and it can be particularly challenging to set boundaries with children, significant others and other family members.  But you are allowed to love someone no matter what but still not tolerate their bad behavior.

Another thing we do is fail to put ourselves out there.  We're so afraid of being too much, too loud of taking up too much space.  Sometimes we manage to put ourselves out there but in a half- hearted apologetic way.  We reject ourselves before someone else can do it.  We think it's narcissistic to say that we're fabulous.  We fail to accept compliments.  We apologize for our work (whatever our "work" is) or refuse to even let others see it at all.  

There are other ways we fail to show up for ourselves.  I used to stay up late and I would always sleep late.  As I get older, my sleeping patterns have shifted.  I'm exhausted by 8:30 at night but I'm awake early.  I'm more motivated in the mornings these days.  When I try to stay in bed because my old programming insists that being up at 5am is ludicrous, I'm not showing up for myself.  

Showing up for yourself (and therefore being resilient) requires really looking at our patterns and behaviors.  Showing up for ourselves is simple but by no means easy. There are so many ways we self-sabotage.  I encourage you to really look at ways you might not be showing up for yourself.  Stand up for yourself.  Show up for yourself.  Be your own hero every single day.