You, Recharged by Polly Campbell

Author:Polly Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mango Media
Published: 2021-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Adversity Vitality

Our terrier is a ten-pound tank when she plants her paws. Like she has now, rooted in the middle of the bed, the flat of her head pushing me toward the edge, into another morning.

The sun hasn’t yet cracked the sky and the air is damp, chilly with rain. The dog is hungry and I don’t want to move. But I do. I get up, slowly loosening my achy body like a carpenter’s rule. But by now you know this is me. Arthritis has challenged me, but it isn’t an obstacle in my life. It’s a part of my life.

When we recognize that adversity isn’t some failure or mistake or flaw, but part of being alive, we can glean energy from it. Hold our heads up. See the tough stuff coming. Look it square in the eye, and step into it knowing we will be changed, but not diminished. Knowing that because we are agile, we can take the intense energy of the bad stuff and transform it into something better.

A melanoma diagnosis years ago made me healthier, because I scheduled regular skin checks and caught other spots I wouldn’t have noticed. Tricia Thompson took the fear and intensity that came with learning her daughter had epilepsy and let it motivate her to build a business helping other parents with kids who are struggling. Fred Guttenberg’s daughter Jaime died in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. He is now a gun activist transforming this shattering experience into one that is making the world safer for the rest of us.

Nobody wants this kind of pain, trauma, adversity. It may be the hardest thing we ever do. But it does not have to render us powerless. The energy around adversity can become resilience—messy, imperfect, tearful, heart-pumping resilience that will then carry us through the next storm.

There is energy in movement. In surviving the unsurvivable, or even just getting through a shitty day. At every bend, we must deliberately decide to keep going. To get up, find meaning in the awful, take an action that will help us keep taking a breath, and create the next part of our experience—even when we are bruised and hurting and angry.

This is adversity vitality—the energy and power that somehow trickles in when we think we have nothing left. When we wonder if we are too broken, or tired or scared or pissed, to go on. Our adrenaline surges, and our thoughts align so that we can rise up, do what must be done to heal, recover, help, get through, rise.

And when we remember our strength, our resilience, our skills, and our abilities, when we remember to love even when we are afraid and to laugh at the absurdity of it all, we get stronger—for always, not just now. We become less afraid. Softer. More open. Vital. And that energy becomes action. And our actions become focused on the rebuild. And soon we have.

Daily Drains

It’s not enough to transform the life-altering adversity. Any plan to recharge must include managing our daily diet of stress as well.

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