Resilience - One of The Greatest Tools We Have
It can be Challenging for Men in The Modern World…
Written by Daniel Ellenberg, Co-Founder of Strength With Heart
Bombarded with constant, conflicting messages about how to be a “real” or “strong” man, we experience uncertainty regarding how to sort it all out. Making it particularly challenging is that we often have no one to talk with about our confusion. Positive male role modeling and guidance comes at a premium; while it exists, it’s not common. (This perspective fully embraces the fact that lots of good male mentoring still takes place in business, sports and personal/familial worlds). Historically, boys looked to men to learn how to be a man. Usually, these men were in their villages or even their own families. Guided through the tutelage of older males, boys learned the vicissitudes of being male.
Today it’s not so clear. The initiators are more opaque and the results more ambiguous. Now younger men are looking more towards films, music, and the underground café of the internet to teach them about manhood. In the expanding complexity of modern life, the simplicity of being a man has been lost. Not that we should yearn for times past. Cultures tended to be inflexible regarding roles. A man did this, a woman did that. (Some cultures still have not evolved). There were restrictions in perceptions, feelings, and expressions of being male that today are radically evolving. As we expand our notions of being authentic men, the possibilities for freedom also expand. For example, we can be strong and still share our fears. We have unprecedented opportunities to be free men emotionally, physically, spiritually, creatively, and financially. How can we avail ourselves of information systems in the forms of gender roles, neuroscience, modern psychology, and business acumen to create powerful performances and generally, the full lives we aspire toward? That’s precisely what we intend to teach.
Being able to draw on different aspects of your personality—being self-motivating yet collaborative, having opinions yet willing to ask for help, thinking both linearly and laterally, being willing to completely go for success yet knowing when to stop—allows for a fuller, more resilient expressions of being male.
Resilience—the capacity to be stable so that you have a strong base from which to operate, adaptable so that you can respond flexibly to changing circumstances, and revivable so that you can come back quickly if you are flattened—underlies all sustainable life success.
While some men experience great resilience naturally, most do not. The good news is that a resilient mindset and skills can be learned. Through understanding and practice, resilience can become second nature. If you think resilience training could be the next frontier for your health and happiness, and thus, your overall performance, then perhaps give us a shout at SWH..