Resilience might seem like the latest buzzword, it was previously used as a technical term to measure the ability of a substance to return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched, or pressed. Now it’s used to describe the ability to be happy, successful, again after something difficult or bad has happened.
It might seem like a strange webinar for Free Range Dairy Network to run but this year has been one to challenge the most resilient of people.
We’ve missed being with people, both running and attending events because we’re not just about promoting free range milk carrying the Pasture Promise logo, it’s about building a community. We care about the people we work with, the people who buy the milk, the cows as well as the planet and as we can’t get together, we want to try to connect in other ways.
Our first webinar was with Carol Harper from Human Givens about Helping to Build Resilience and she started by talking about how having meaning and purpose in your life will help. This can be through work, hobbies, but it’s also about connecting with people. To have someone to rely on and someone who needs you in return. There was a reason so many people volunteered to help the NHS or in their community, it’s because we all want to feel part of something bigger.
After I lost my mother and a close friend within a week of each other, right at the start of the lockdown in April, I was devastated. The person I would go to comfort me about the loss of the other were both gone. I was lucky to have friends to support me as well as being able to access grief counselling, as one thing I needed to hear was – everything I was feeling was normal, all part of the grieving process.
Right now, as Carol pointed out it’s normal to feel a little anxious. We’re in a global pandemic that is impacting not only our health but businesses too. There is a threat which is real to us.
One thing that came out in the webinar is how important nature is to our wellbeing. The space to think, how exercise in the fresh air helps balance us, how good food nourishes us. To feel that connection with nature, grounds us.
As part of building resilience, we need to be adaptable. Like the famous quote from Kung Fu legend Bruce Lee.
“Empty your mind; be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
To be water is to be adaptable, to be able to bend and flow under stress. Or maybe that should say – be like Pasture Promise free range milk.
This is why we’re going to be running a webinar each month on different topics as we build back our community online. We don’t want people to feel like they have to endure life but that they are building purpose and meaning into their life.
We hope that we can play a small part in helping everyone build that resilience for themselves.
To do a self-check on your emotional wellbeing go to Human Givens and fill in the Emotional Toolkit