“RESILIENCE as we end up 2025 ”
As I returned from Nepal on Thanksgiving, after 3 non stop weeks there and 19 hours of flying from Kathmandu to New York via Doha in Qatar, I felt coming to a different world.
And that world did not stop banging at my door. Until I found myself in the Emergency Room of Mt Sinai’s Astoria hospital.
I realized bit too late, my brains (the creative one and the logical one) had taken over. I was flying. I was working on two dozens projects non stop, relentless, falling step by step in the un-worrying-ness of un-awareness.
My body attempted to follow up, making the best out of the situation, bending, flexing, developing scenarios to support it, stomach and heart leading the charge.
I did not listen, as I felt I could do more and more, able to save a few friends in dire conditions, and saving projects that seemed to be left to the wrong paths or to be forgotten all together.
Until I was told sternly by the ER Dr that I needed to slow down seriously, and check with the cardiologist soon to see how my sudden high blood pressure would behave.
So I did, increasing my sleep patterns and also reducing my working hours including negotiating to bring a workshop to half a day, so I could fly back and go to bed before 10PM, my new benchmark.
On that flight back, I read a little HBR book “Resilience” , one of the emotional skills leaders need to cultivate. The first chapter mentioned 3 attributes of it that I immediately could refer to.
—> being aware of falling down ( I clearly needed some help there)
—> a vivid sense of purpose (if I forget, my Nepali team will remind me)
—> ingenuity and its French version called “bricolage” (per famous French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss). Apparently resilient companies - the ones that survived catastrophic challenges and get back on their feet - are filled with “bricoleurs” .
On that flight back home, I had come to understand that my logical Alsacian-German brain was telling my Creative Parisian brain “don’t get so lazy, sloppy, etc..”.I realized that that created numerous distortions, adding to my stress level. And I needed to accept both sides as part of me, and find ways to balance their insistences by simply letting go of the overthinking and get to moments where I would simply be at ease doing nothing or play scrabbles or go to the gym, or walk in nature.
And how to sustain it as I get so easily caught in the overdoing it again and again?
In addition to my life coach and new breathing techniques, one of my London based meditation teachers, Felix New, happened to have a piece “restoring safety and resilience for your nervous system” that inspired me.
It went this way: to cultivate your resilience, stay in the HERE and NOW and to do that, remind yourself to have
1- the Courage to change
2- the Joy to make it easier
3. and that LOVE is the reason why you would do it (I translated it by an equal part of SELF LOVE)
No better way to invite you to do so and to keep Luminescent Love shine for your loved ones, and for all sentient beings as 2025 draws to an end,
See you in 2026! Pheri Bethaula as they say in Nepal.
