Those of you who have received my newsletter for awhile may be wondering what happened to my discussions about grief and thoughts on caregiving. Am I tossing them in favor of resiliency? Not at all. In fact, resiliency is a healing concept that works very well with both grief and the challenges of caregiving.
Let’s look at grief within the context of resilience. Physicists use the term resilience to describe “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress.” (Merriam Webster.) From the Latin resilire, resilience literally means “to recoil” or “jump back.” Thus, the concept of bouncing back from adversity.
However, when you’re grieving, the idea of “bouncing back” seems a little too chipper and upbeat. As I’ve written about previously, the spiral nature of grief can last for a long time. So, while you may not bounce back immediately from grief, using and increasing your resiliency skills can help you not only “recover your shape” but also move forward as a stronger and more confident person beyond your loss.
Similarly, caregivers need to learn and exercise resiliency to keep themselves healthy and happy while they are caring for their loved ones. The ability to ask others for help, being open to exploring the idea of acceptance, and learning from the journey are all aspects of resilience from which caregivers can benefit.
There will be more about these ideas in later posts. I’m looking forward to exploring grief and caregiving within the healing framework of resilience with you.