What Is Resilience? Learning to Feel, Bend, and Keep Becoming

Resilience is often described as the ability to overcome difficult experiences, get back up after life knocks us down, and keep moving forward. But what if emotional resilience is not always about getting back up as quickly as possible? What if sometimes, resilience means allowing ourselves to stay down for a moment, feel what hurts, and trust that we can still move forward when we are ready?

I recently attended a CreativeMornings event in Milwaukee with the topic Nakhla, the Arabic word for palm tree. During the event, different interpretations of resilience were shared, including the idea that resilience shapes our identity and is formed through both our experiences and the things we are taught at home.

Many of the interpretations focused on resilience as the ability to keep moving forward without breaking. The image of the palm tree was particularly beautiful to me. A palm tree survives storms not by standing completely still and resisting every force around it, but by adapting. It bends and moves with the wind. Over time, we can learn to do something similar.

We cannot always prevent the storms in our lives. We will experience disappointment, uncertainty, rejection, loss, and moments that challenge our idea of who we are or where we thought our lives were going. But perhaps resilience is not about becoming so strong that nothing affects us. Perhaps it is about learning that we can be affected by something without being destroyed by it.

Maybe Resilience Isn't Always About Getting Back Up

There is another interpretation of resilience that I find equally important.

Maybe resilience isn't always about getting back up.

Maybe sometimes, resilience is having the courage to stay down for a moment. To stop pretending that everything is okay and allow yourself to genuinely feel disappointment, sadness, fear, or frustration.

Not because you want to stay there forever, but because you don't have to run from an emotion in order to overcome it.

You can acknowledge what you are feeling without becoming it. You can say, Yes, this hurts. Yes, I am disappointed. Yes, I am afraid, while still knowing that the feeling you are experiencing is part of your life in this moment. It is not the complete definition of who you are.

I think we often feel pressure to immediately turn difficult emotions into something productive. We want to find the lesson, look for the positive, or convince ourselves that everything happens for a reason before we have even allowed ourselves to experience what actually happened.

But perhaps we don't have to turn every difficult emotion into a lesson immediately.

Sometimes, we simply need to feel it.

And then, when we are ready, we move. Not because we were not strong enough before, but because we finally gave ourselves permission to be human.

Emotional Resilience Means Being Able to Feel

Resilience is one of the strengths I would want to teach a child. I would want a child to know that it is okay not to be okay. That it is okay to cry. That emotions are not something to be ashamed of or immediately fixed, and that sometimes we need to allow ourselves to feel them instead of suppressing them.

And is there a better place to learn that skill than at home?

Home should always be one of the safest places for us to be human. A place where we don't have to perform, pretend, or become someone else in order to be accepted. A place where we can experience disappointment without being told that we shouldn't feel it and sadness without being rushed toward happiness.

But I don't think this lesson is only for children.

We don't suddenly stop needing emotional safety when we become adults. In fact, many of us are still learning as adults what we may not have learned as children: that we can experience a difficult emotion without needing to escape from it.

I really appreciate the teachings of psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy, particularly her work around raising resilient children. However, I believe many of her ideas apply to every human relationship, including the relationship we have with ourselves. Whether you have children, want children, or neither, there is something powerful in learning how to sit with another person's emotions without immediately trying to take them away.

You Can Feel Disappointed and Still Be Okay

One of the ideas I find particularly interesting is that resilience comes from being able to sit with a wide range of emotions rather than constantly trying to restrict them.

We often make happiness the goal for ourselves and for the people we love. If someone says, "I'm not good at reading," our instinct may be to immediately make them feel better by saying, "But you're really good at soccer!"

The intention is loving. We don't want to see someone we care about feeling badly about themselves.

But in trying to immediately move them toward happiness, we may unintentionally teach them that difficult emotions need to be escaped as quickly as possible.

What if, instead, we could acknowledge what is actually happening?

What if we could say, "It sounds like you're feeling discouraged because reading feels difficult right now."

That does not mean agreeing that they will never become a good reader. It simply means recognizing that their current feeling is real.

The same idea applies to us as adults. We do not have to deny our disappointment simply because someone else can point to something positive in our lives. Both things can be true.

You can be grateful for what you have and still be disappointed about something you lost.

You can be successful and still feel uncertain.

You can love your life and still have a difficult day.

You can experience fear and still be brave.

Our ability to hold more than one emotion at the same time may be an important part of emotional resilience.

Sitting on the Bench of Disappointment

Dr. Kennedy uses the idea of a child who says, "I'm the only one who didn't make it onto the soccer team."

In that moment, the child is sitting on what we could call the bench of embarrassment and disappointment. As adults, we may immediately want to tell them that their bench is not really their bench. Or we may see another, happier bench and try to move them there by reminding them that they are good at something else.

"But you're great at math!"

Again, the intention is loving. We want to take away the discomfort.

But the bench is real to the child because the feeling is real.

Perhaps resilience means learning that you can sit on that bench and still be okay.

You don't have to pretend that you are not disappointed. You don't have to immediately find another reason to feel successful. You can experience rejection, embarrassment, or disappointment and discover that those feelings do not destroy you.

They may hurt. They may stay with you for a while. But they do not define your entire identity.

This is where another teaching I appreciate becomes important: separating identity from behavior and experience.

Every child, and I would argue every human being, is good inside. A person can make a mistake without becoming a bad person. Someone can experience failure without becoming a failure. Someone can feel afraid without being defined as a fearful person.

We need to learn to separate what happens from who we are.

This happened to me, but it is not all that I am.

I feel disappointed, but disappointment is not my identity.

I made a mistake, but I am not my mistake.

That, to me, is an incredibly important part of resilience.

Resilience Is Not About Tolerating Everything

Of course, learning to tolerate difficult emotions does not mean accepting abuse, toxicity, or situations that are harmful to us. Resilience should never mean teaching ourselves to remain somewhere unsafe or convincing ourselves that we simply need to become stronger in the face of unacceptable treatment.

There is a difference between experiencing something difficult that is part of life and remaining in something that continuously harms us.

But there are many things we cannot avoid simply because they are uncomfortable. Rejection, failure, embarrassment, uncertainty, and disappointment are part of being human. We cannot always prevent them, and perhaps the goal should not be to avoid feeling them.

Perhaps the goal is to learn that we can feel something difficult and still remain connected to ourselves.

To know that we can sit on the uncomfortable bench for a while.

And still be okay.

We Heal Through Connection

I also believe that one of the things that makes difficult emotions so hard is feeling alone inside them.

We are human beings who constantly look for connection. When we feel that nobody understands what we are experiencing, when we believe that we are the only person sitting on a particular bench, it can become much harder to move through what we are feeling.

Sometimes, we are not necessarily stuck because the emotion itself is too big. Sometimes, we are stuck because we feel alone with it.

We don't always need someone to immediately solve the problem. We don't necessarily need someone to convince us that everything is going to be okay before we have even had the chance to acknowledge that something hurts.

Sometimes, healing begins when we simply feel seen.

When someone is willing to sit beside us and say, I understand that this is difficult for you.

Connection does not always take away the pain. But it can take away some of the loneliness that keeps us trapped inside it.

I believe we heal through connection.

Roots and Wings

This idea reminded me of a recent conversation I had with someone who said that he would want to give his children not only roots, but also wings so they could become who they are meant to be.

I thought that was beautiful.

Roots give us a sense of safety. They remind us where we come from and hopefully teach us that we have somewhere we belong. Wings allow us to explore, make mistakes, take risks, and become more of who we are.

Perhaps resilience needs both.

We need roots that remind us that we are worthy of love and connection even when we are struggling.

But we also need wings that allow us to experience life without expecting someone to protect us from every disappointment.

We need to know that we can fall and still find our way again.

Not because we will never need anyone, but because we can learn to trust ourselves as we move through life's inevitable storms.

We Never Stop Becoming Resilient

I don't believe resilience is something we achieve once and then possess forever.

I think it is something we continue becoming.

Every difficult experience teaches us something about our ability to adapt. Every time we allow ourselves to feel instead of suppressing what is happening inside us, we have an opportunity to become more connected to ourselves. Every time we experience disappointment without allowing it to become our identity, we strengthen our ability to move through life as it actually is rather than as we wish it would always be.

Like the palm tree, perhaps we become stronger not because we refuse to move, but because we learn how to bend.

And maybe one day, our greatest strength will not be that nothing ever affected us.

Maybe it will be that we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable, yet strong. Receptive, yet resilient. And unfettered, yet touched.

To me, that is a beautiful kind of strength.

Not hardness. Not pretending. Not becoming unaffected.

But allowing life to touch us without allowing every storm to take us away from ourselves.

Give Yourself Time to Become

Resilience is not always about rushing toward the next version of yourself. Sometimes, it means giving yourself time to experience where you are right now.

To feel what you feel. To learn. To heal. To bend.

And eventually, when you are ready, to move again.

Perhaps that is why the words "Give Yourself Time" resonate with me so deeply. We live in a world that often encourages us to move on quickly, be productive, find the positive, and become stronger as soon as possible.

But becoming stronger does not always happen by rushing.

Sometimes, it happens when we finally stop running from ourselves.

My empowerment clothing and designs are created as small reminders to celebrate growth, expression, and becoming. They are for those moments when you want to wear something that reminds you that you don't have to fit perfectly into someone else's expectations.

You are allowed to grow at your own pace. You are allowed to feel deeply. You are allowed to change. And you are allowed to give yourself time. Because life is your most important collection.

And if no one has told you lately: 

You were never meant to fit into the world. You were meant to express yourself in it.

You deserve to feel beautiful, comfortable, and fully yourself, all at once.