I bought a box of resilience cards from The School of Life recently. The cards share prompts and thoughts that help us think differently about resilience. They offer new perspectives on things that might be worrying us and making us feel less than hopeful about the future.
One in particular stood out:
‘We were not put on the Earth to be happy for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch – and nor should we expect to be.’
For me this comment is freeing. For many years I’ve chased this fictitious nirvana where I’m happy all the time. And because I’ve believed there is such a way of being, I’ve believed I’ve been failing somewhat by not being there.
But the truth is, that happiness, as with all emotions, doesn’t stay with us, it moves through us. All emotional states are temporary, so to chase one as if it’s going to stick around forever once we land on it, is missing the point entirely.
When I did my coaching training I was taught that ‘all emotions are beautiful’ which was a new idea for me. If we combine the idea that all emotions are fleeting, and probably won’t be around for anything longer than fifteen minutes, with the notion that all emotions are beautiful, then how glorious does that make the business of being alive?!
Not chasing certain emotions, and acknowledging that how we feel will change is very much a part of building and maintaining resilience.
Life and work are both opportunities to feel our full range of emotions. It’s about remembering all emotions pass, and most likely they’ll pass within fifteen minutes, so all that’s left is to feel them whilst they’re here.
With love and happiness, and all the other feelings,
Hannah and Team Bird
Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash