Into the the wilderness: Story 37
One of my strengths has been resilience. If you’ve read the wilderness entries of Walk the Moon, you’ll see that my family and I have been through a lot- and those entries are only a few of many dramatic and traumatic events, with some good times for imagined balance. Resilience is my life theme.
2024 and so far 2025 have been doozies. In the past year, we’ve experienced both voluntary and involuntary job changes, started new businesses, managed four hospitalizations, cancer (all ok, thank goodness!), breakdowns, breakups, a marriage, car accidents, immigration and legal issues (for one of our family members), betrayals, financial change, depression, lost friendships and networks- and more. We have rallied through- every time.
As the center of our family matrix, I set the resiliency example. I pick us all up, identify next steps, map the way forward. I write solutions down in notebooks and on pieces of paper, numbering down the page from most urgent to least. As I work through each one, I delight at checking each off. I’m the “fix it” super hero, the family’s mental health concierge at their service, thank you very much.
But lately, I’m tired. so very weary. The kind of tired that switches the brain and body to a temporary- though it may feel permanent- OFF setting. Too tired to read. Too tired to watch TV. I can sleep. And I can manage podcasts. This is the kind of tired I am.
I know why it started. We experienced another traumatic family event last week- one I’m not ready to share yet. I went into my usual “we got this” mode. I have my list. I’m working through it, checking it over and over, making sure to stay on track.
But then, the tidal wave of tiredness crashed over me. I slept past 11 am two days last week. Sunday, I wore my white, cotton nightgown all day, trudging around the kitchen like a Victorian mama sans kerchief. I was so tired I decided to lean in to tiredness. Just let myself sleep as long as I wanted. Allow myself a donut breakfast and “clear out the fridge” for dinner. The kitchen was closed.
I mulled, meandered and mucked around, reflecting on not only recent events but the past year. Wow, I said to myself, that’s a lot of shat going on in a year. And yet, I still exercised regularly- it is my job to exercise- wrote weekly, ran a business, planned family events, nursed others through sickness, made family dinners, hosted family events, started making my own bread to avoid store bought, vigorously cleaned out every closet and drawer in the house, started selling old work clothes on Poshmark, rescued and trained another dog, on-my-knees deep cleaned every inch of my house, remodeled rooms, volunteered, held community events… This is not a comprehensive list.
Yesterday, I suddenly realized: I have a resiliency hangover. I have resilienced myself to X factor nth degree of resiliency.
Resilience has become the hallmark of mental health. Made popular by many of my favorite mental health gurus, including Brene Brown (love me some Brene Brown), resilience protects against permanent down-in-the-dumps depression and misery. It equips us with coping mechanisms to manage stress, helps us adapt to challenging situations, mitigates negative effects on mental and physical health, prevents burnout, promotes positive mindset and encourages healthy engagements with others. It puts the Wow in Wow. Or the Pow in Pow. It puts the GOT in “I got this.” You get the idea.
Overall, I can check the boxes on these positive effects. I cleave to family and friends when in crisis, I find titanium linings in every situation (l’m hearing Sia sing “I am Titaaaaaniiiiium”), I make fun games out of healing (someone has dumped you, let’s have a cleanse his/her energy dump party!). I’m gooooood at resilience.
But can one be too good? Does over resilience exist?Does resilience just multiply into infinity and beyond (thanks, Buzz Lightyear and Randy Newman)? Can one get tired of being resilient? Is there an anti-resiliency movement? (I just found out anti-resilience is used for transformational justice as “the quality of resisting the obfuscation of systemic violence enacted upon communities of color and the poor.”) At what point does the mind and body need to say, hands thrown in the air, “on vacation for extended period”?
In fact, too much resilience can be negative. For example, if resilience leads to too much tolerance of adversity, negative self-judgment or as a way to push one’s self or others to be too positive. At least, that’s what Google tells me. I’m not trying to make myself or others positive right now. But if life hurls too much adversity one’s way, what is the choice? To be resilient, again. Or not to be resilient? To be or not to be. Damn Shakespeare.
Actually, Shakespeare had this figured out centuries ago, so let’s lay this down right here:
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
I’ll suffer the slings and arrows and pause, per Shakespeare. I will sleep and dream. I will take arms and end the troubles. I will choose “to be” over “not to be” every time.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of debate.
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