(Re)Building Resilience: What the Trees Teach
Being resilient.
The trees are one of the most resilient beings I know.
At my current house, I have 3 old apple trees. They are strong, beautiful trees albeit a bit neglected over the years. They are connected and sheltering; branches touching and I am sure their roots too. One neglected over the years and half dead yet alive with her deadened part, home to mason bees and other insects. And the other part boldly fruiting a few red apples last summer. As if to say, I’ve been wounded and I’m still here for you.
Trees are amazing in their resiliency. Healing over a wounded area and continuing to thrive and grow. Warning others of danger without chaos or drama.
When I create a timeline of the most meaningful or impactful experiences and decisions in my life to this point, I think, these have made me who I am today. And I am these and more because I have chosen this path. These have made me resilient AF.
Psychologists might measure this in Adversity Quotient - one of the 4 types of intelligence. We are familiar more with IQ, emotional and social quotients. But AQ is essentially the ability to deal with bumps in life and keep going.
When I am in a negative, activated loop, that I’ve talked about before, I can’t get to rest and stay in anxiety and hopelessness. That of course makes it harder to demonstrate high AQ because I’m in a spiral.
Remembering growth mindset and self-compassion, I can thank my brain for trying to protect me and start to attune to my breathe again to slow things down. Even when I go back into old patterns after an OMG moment, I know I’ve grown in awareness and knowledge. I can always redirect and keep moving forward - it’s a dance - this human journey of increasing awareness and capacity for love.
Over the last two years of some really hard times, I think about what has rebuilt my resilience time and time again because it’s never a one and done thing. It’s a regular part of true self-care. And now, I might sound a bit like my favorite broken record here but there’s a reason, they work.
My resilience rebuilding self-care plan:
Nature
Movement
Breathing attention
Connection to community
Daily practices and routines
Circling back to trees - what guides they are - connecting, moving around wounds, breathing in and out, standing firm and grounded. What do you see when you sit with trees?
What are some of your tools for rebuilding resilience?
New growth on a cut down tree in the neighborhood.