The Dark Ink

Resilience;
The innate power of resilience comes from within,
When battles of life beat you down, with a series of failures and disappointments,
Instead of questioning “Why me?” say “What else you got?”
The urge to never give up, never lose out and to navigate to the shit storm that life has become, that, my friend is resilience;
– Shruti Bevara

What is Resilience?

Resilience is an act of endurance. Life hits us with storms and tides of challenges, each far more difficult and cutthroat than the last. Survival depends entirely upon the person’s will and resilience power. Patience is the child of resilience, something everyone has but to reach the parent, it takes decades.
Challenges that life throws at us, define the integrity and strength that we hold.

Introducing The Surge On Resilience –

Psst.. come closer. (Hide the screen from people beside you.) I will let you in on a secret. The best way to live life is to lose control over it.
When you stop obsessing over external factors not working your way, you reach tranquillity. You need to have faith in the universe and its plans for you. You become that space of tranquillity.

In a world where change is the only constant, life becomes absolute uncertainty.
Resilience, at its core, is the capacity to face challenges head-on, recover from setbacks, and adapt to new conditions. It is about fighting back, about the urge to never be put down and treated less than our capabilities. Resilience begins internally. We cultivate the skills, mindset, and systems needed to thrive as the world constantly changes.
Starts with training our minds to hold on tight when life is ripping us into two. Unleashing hell upon us.

In short, resilience is essential for navigating our uncertain world. The Surge on Resilience blog is here to help you unlock it.

If you made it this far, let’s turn challenges into opportunities. Let’s build strength. Create a space where resilience is not just a response to adversity. Let it be a way of life.

Be the person who still tries,
After failure, after frustration, after disappointment, after exhaustion, after heartache,
Be the person who musters up the courage to believe that a new attempt can manifest a new outcome.
Be the person who still tries.
– Unknown

How to Measure Your Resilience levels?

By now you are questioning yourself, do I have that resilience, the strength that is needed? Let me tell you, You Do! And you are blind enough to not see it in you. Not only you, I do too. I need someone else to tell me directly. They should say, “Shruti you are a strong and resilient person.” Maybe then will I actually believe that I am resilient too.
Psychologically, it’s the innate power of our minds to attract and absorb negativity first. It takes voluntary action (a command from the brain) to solely focus on the positivism of a situation.
It is the layman’s explanation of how we sabotage ourselves in a thousand different ways without actually knowing it.

To see where you stand on the scale of resilience, do this –

1. Sit down with yourself. (now don’t come at me saying how else would I sit down, I mean sit with 100% focus on the current.)
2. Take a few deep breaths, and focus on your journey from childhood to the present age.
3. Focus on your challenges and struggles. Remember particularly those that left a mark on you. Reflect on those that took a piece of your heart with them.
4. This step is tricky. You need strength to resist the urge to sit and sulk. Once you find those hardships, find out how you carved the path out of the situation.
5. The ‘carved paths’ you created to eliminate the situation depict your strength, resilience and determination. Your sheer will and clarity that you are not defined by the current situation, that there is so much more to you than the hurdles you face.
6. Your struggles are directly proportional to your resilience. The more you have to face in life the more you grow strong and resilient.

How to Grow Resilience?

Just like training your body towards fitness goals, or ‘dream body’, you can train your mind to grow strong. Alternatively, it can grow weak.
You will become what you feed your mind. If you feed it junk like ‘you are not socially acceptable’, you will start believing it. Doubt yourself, your skills, and your abilities, and you will feel like you are drowning in a pool of failures.
Feed your mind with healthy affirmations. Give it occasional compliments. Appreciate your mind and body. They bear what you put them through and thrive. Your mind and body will find ways to make it ironclad-strong!

Just like your body, your mind fuels and thrives on what you feed it. Be mindful of what you feed it, and what you absorb into your head and believe to be real.
Let’s adopt some ways to increase our resilience –

1. The art of letting go – Honestly, I need to work on it too. (I can imagine my father muttering under his breath while reading this article, “This is what I kept telling you if you cared enough to adapt it!!” I hear it dad, I am adapting it, so just breathe it out okay?)
Whatever has hurt you, caused you pain once, continues to pain you further until you decide to stop nurturing (watering the seed) in your heart.
The day you decide to pull out the weed from your life, it loses power over you. It loses its ability to draw strength from the negativity you build.

2. Find Closure – For those strong negative emotions (not weeds but strong shrubs in your heart), try your best to accept the situation. Make peace with it. Find ways to gain well-deserved closure. Relieve yourself of the pain, disappointment and longing of avenging.

3. Concentration of Power – Do Not Diversify Your Power. Meaning, never allow anyone to ‘make you feel anything’, be it good or bad or worse. No one should hold power over your well-being. You define yourself. You decide how to act or react to anything life throws at you. Never allow anybody to influence you. Advise? Yes. Manipulation? No.
Never take anyone’s word for it. Analyze, add your thoughts, have remarks, and decide whether they match with your ideologies, or not.
Anything that does not serve you, does not deserve your energy. (Period!!)

4. Root within. Remember, everything is temporary. I do not know how you will, but let it sink into your brain. Let it flow into your blood and run it through your veins. Every situation, setback, failure, loss, sorrow, struggle, and disappointment is TEMPORARY. You will outgrow it, accept it, and work through it.
You will find ways to pull yourself out of it.

You are defined by your journey, from zero to something, not by passing storms.
You don’t take material possessions, money, or fame with you. You leave the world known for your kindness, wisdom, and strength. You are remembered for the ways you ‘changed’ someone’s life. You take your experiences. You carry the love from people. You also hold onto their grief. You have a realization of what a beautiful journey of life you had on earth.
You feel satisfied. You outgrew your struggles and walked through rocky paths. You encountered cliffhangers and built wooden bridges to cross them. Your sheer willpower and determination never let you give in.
That there is light, on the other end of this dark tunnel. You just have to go through this tunnel with your eyes closed, holding the hand of your loved one.
Knowing that Everything Will Be Fine. Eventually.

I apologize in advance if this blog stirred up heavy emotions inside you. (I’m kind of not sorry about it.) Sometimes, we need to be reminded of the fact that struggles or not, we lead a beautiful and jarring roller coaster ride called LIFE.

Let’s make this world a better place for future generations. We want them to remember us for the deeds we did. We want them to recall the ways we influenced and inspired them to be better than us.
Until next time, with another blog!

Stay True! Stay Positive! Stay You!
Shruti