#MyWordForToday is #Release

#MyWordForToday is #Release.

"God, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 paraphrased. 

The other day, I listened to Loyiso Bala and Don Moen sing the evergreen song "it is well with my soul", and yet again, I was amazed at Spafford's (the original singer) incredible resilience.

That song has always been a sort of catharsis for me. In 2010, when I got passed over for a job that I had worked so hard to get, it provided a much-needed release from that shocking pain.

Release means different things used in different contexts. In the context of Spafford' s song,  it seeks to make one find relief or rescue from sorrow, pain, suffering or trouble.  This is also one of the definitions in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. 

Release, unlike many words, has very few negative connotations. So I have named it the gracious word. 

This morning, I listened to Lucy Hone's TED talk on "3 Secrets of Resilient People".

These powerful strategies she stated are designed to help one find outlets or release from the pain and grief that they might be feeling. 

She started off by saying that adversity does not discriminate. This is so true, almost all of us have been broken down by events that either happened to us directly or indirectly. 

Some of us have friends, family, colleagues and relatives going through excruciatingly painful times. No pain is alike, as we all know.

Hone was/is a resilience expert, and she had moved to Christchurch to help with the earthquake efforts. She, unfortunately, got thrown into the other side of the equation, when her 12-year-old daughter Abi, her friend and her daughter's friend died in a tragic automobile accident.

What struck me, in particular, was the fact that although being a resilience expert, the strategies and resources she got from other sources didn't work for her. They only sort of exacerbated her pain. 

In order to gain release from all that grief, she turned to her own research and found these strategies I'm about to share below. I am going to be writing them in the manner they spoke to me.

Strategy a: 

I mentioned this earlier - "Adversity does not discriminate". This means adversity can happen to anyone. We really have no control over it. 

A person wanting to be resilient must, therefore, realise this, and instead of asking "why me", such a person understands that "shit does happen". 

This does not mean that you welcome suffering. What it does is shake you from feeling discriminated against.  A type of victimhood entitlement.

Terrible things happen every time. Sometimes, you watch the news, and shut it off again, because of all the horrible things happening around the World.  

When a tragic event happens to you, one has to see it as a "swim or sink" situation, the alternative is very unpalatable.

Do you remember Whitney Houston's Shoop made in the movie "waiting to exhale"? She sang "sometimes you will laugh, sometimes you will cry? Life never tells us the winds and the whys…".

That song is telling us to just breathe, exhale, release!!!!

Now, this takes us to the second strategy of gaining release or being resilient in the face of grief.

Strategy b: 

Tune into the good: The other part of Whitney's song went thus: "when you've got friends to wish you well, you'll find your point when you will exhale….."

Tuning into the good can be simple as surrounding yourself with people who are good for you and good for your soul (trust me, you know them).  As I listened, I mentally rewrote this portion as "if need be, hunt down the good". What @ethical_leader is doing with #Iamremarkable is a great example of this. 

So deliberately seek out the good in your life; science has proven that it helps to find the good  because it makes one grateful for what one has. 

So if need be, hunt down the good stuff in your life. Count your blessings, name them one by one. 

As Hone put hers, and this hit me powerfully, "don't lose what you have, to what you have lost".

Strategy c: 

The third strategy is to pause in between applying the two above, and ask yourself "these things that I am doing, thinking, (insert the verb) are they working for me or are they hurting me"? 

In the days following her daughter's death,  Lucy said she would pore at her daughter's old photos. She said she began to get upset all over again. She then had to ask herself "am I helping or hurting myself". She decided that she was doing the latter, and stopped.

 This third strategy calls for you to do what works for you in order to gain your release.  The overriding concern is that you be kind to yourself. And it works in all kinds of situations, i.e. "do you really need to eat that last piece of steak"? "Do you really need to seek out your ex (toxic to You Boyfriend)"?

Be kind to yourself even as you are in pain and constantly rethink the strategies you have employed to help you.

You can find a fuller version of Hone's Tedx talk on YouTube. I hope it blesses you as it did me. 

 May we all find release from all that ails us.

"It is possible to live and grieve at the same time."- Lucy Hone 2019

Namaste 🙏🏿

Bibireosefowora 💌