Bringing Forth Our Strengths During Difficult Times

In my recent interview with Ellen Rogers, she emphasized the skills, or as I call them, character strengths, that helped her cope with her son’s devastating crisis.  And she wonders if she was born that way, with her abilities to be resourceful, to problem solve and to manage complex tasks.   The big concept for having the ability to carry on and keep getting up to meet one’s challenges is Resilience.

We all have strengths, capabilities, those ‘seeds of greatness’ that are within us.  And during hard times, it can feel next to impossible to bring them forth and utilize them to our advantage when we certainly need them.  Sadness and pain obscure them.   But that’s when, as Ms. Rogers says, “you have to dig deep and you have to believe somewhere in your heart, in your soul, that you do have them.”

It behooves us to know what they are.  What are your strengths?  Because when we know what they are, when we focus on them and exercise these muscles by utilizing them, we feel better about ourselves and function better in our lives.   We are more apt to reach for our goals and dreams, take risks, and meet up with more success.

We will then be able to call upon them during our difficult challenges.  We will cope and manage our situations better and in a more healthy manner by utilizing our capabilities and strenghts.

A couple of great exercises to begin to explore and examine our strengths are:

1. Taking  15 minutes to write about your personal strengths – the things you are good at.  Be specific and write down examples of situations where your strengths came forth.  There’s no right or wrong answers.  This is just for you to begin to hone in on your strong points, on your seeds of greatness.
2. Taking a survey at the Values In Action website, also known as VIA strengths here at: viasurvey.org.  It only takes about 15 minutes to complete and you then get your personal ranking of the 24 strengths.  Answer as true to yourself as possible knowing this is not your end-all identity,but it does raise your awareness about yourself.  And it’s fun to see how close the score matches up with what you believe are your strengths.

Many of us don’t feel like we have the strength and resilience to deal well with difficult times and situations.  We say, “I’m not made up of that.”  We can develop more skills, more abilities by recognizing and using the greatness that’s already within us and then moving forward to incorporate new activities to develop other pathways.

For instance, if you don’t feel too energized, you might start an exercise routine, {always} starting small and building.

If you lack a sense of appreciation and gratitude, you might start a small gratitude practice.

If you don’t feel like you have much in the area of courage, you might recognize that courage is the ability to push through fear and do it anyway, and so you dance with the fear and spin off into it.

During my daughter, Nava’s, year-long medical crisis, I was terrified of the thought of having to suction her trache.  Just the sound of the nurse doing it made me hold my ears so I wouldn’t hear that gurgling and gagging sound.  It made me gag.  I said, “there’s no way I can do that.” But yes, my turn came when I had to learn how to do it.  To this day, I still can’t believe I ever did it.  But yes, there were many times in her rehab hospital when upon hearing the guck rise in her throat, I’d take the tube and suction it out.   I’m not saying that was courageous on my part, but I sure had to push through my fear and disgust to do what I had to do.

We can all do this.  We just don’t know it until we’re put through the test and challenge.  Our head and thoughts tell us no, but when the time comes our thoughts and beliefs go by the wayside and our actions take over.

And so we must “nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune”.   We must consciously exercise our strengths so that they’re there for us when we’re at a low point.

One of my strengths is an appreciation of beauty.

I go on nature outings as that fills me with joy and serenity.  When Nava was sick, I made it my business to go for my walks through the quiet streets surrounding her rehab hospital and on some hikes in a nearby state park because I knew that gave me some calmness and clarity.

 

Your turn: what is one of your strengths?  How do you use it to enhance your life and to help you cope during those tough times?

 

Photo by:  Daniel Fortiz    Wow, talk about resourcefulness!  Here’s to the fast turtle!