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My name is Jen Briggs and welcome to the whole shebang where, on Mondays, you get what else but a mini bang. These short episodes are really meant to meet you where you're at, to help you set an intention or focus for the week, to consider a perspective that maybe you haven't before, and to answer the most common questions that not only propelled my personal and professional growth, but the best of the best I see around me. This is where we unbecome shedding the layers and the old ways that aren't serving us anymore, and where we continue becoming, stepping into and magnifying more of who you really are and who you're meant to be. So buckle up buttercups we're diving in Happy Monday. Today we're talking about resilience, and I might use some different kind of words and filters for this. What is resilience and what is it not? And through the lens of the masculine feminine, I'm going to even call some of what I think we've perceived resilience to be has actually been from a wounded masculine, and let me explain what I mean. First of all, I'm going to just start by using a story I think many of us can relate to or I've seen recently.

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Simone Biles is in the Olympics now. She's one of the most successful gymnasts of all time. She's won all kinds of world championships, she's heavily medaled, and the last Olympics she pulled herself out. She had some mental anxiety and some mental health challenges and what she would call were the twisties. So she'd be up in the air and not able to attach what she was doing to her body, which was really dangerous, like if you can't land what you're doing when you're 12 feet up in the air. That's really scary. And so she pulled herself out of the Olympics four years ago and of course, that was to her own detriment. It was to the detriment of the team at the time, because she was a lead on the team and there were a lot of people that were judging that and wondering why she couldn't just push through for the sake of the team. Why couldn't she push through that?

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And that's what I kind of want to hone in on today, I think for myself I'll speak to myself in this and I think what I see in a lot of people is that this, the wounded masculine, this, the wounded masculine, like the inner man that we all have within all of us, when it's wounded, oftentimes feels like it needs to prove itself, and so one of the ways it can prove itself is by just pushing through at all costs and then labeling that resilience. And don't get me wrong there are times in life when we need to pull ourself up by our bootstraps and we need to be disciplined. And if you're, like normally, a couch potato, it's probably good for you to have a little bit more of that push in your life. But when you're dealing with something that is, you've pushed so hard that all of the sudden your body and mind starts to I don't want to say break, but not work the way it's supposed to work, in full alignment and full health. Maybe that's a better way to put it. The mark of resilience to me is knowing in that moment that it's time to say no, that it's time to say no. So resilience is not toughing it out at all costs all the time. It's knowing when to say no, so that you can get what you need, so that you can come back. Call it a redemption tour, if you want. Call it the next chapter of your life, call it a rebirth, call it a being reborn. But if we push through at all costs, often the cost is way higher than if we understand that life ebbs and flows and that we move in cycles and that there is a time to say no and to pull back from that. And in a spiritual sense, I would say that I see this in that rebirth process, in the evolution, any phase. We constantly go through these phases of transformation and when we're on the edge of a new phase, of a new transformation, of something new that is being born in us or in our life, it always requires a going into the darkness, whether that's a cocoon and it's a safe space, or going inward spiritually or inward into the shadows of our minds, to uncover things and to heal things and to create a safe space for healing so that we can come out. On the other side of it, until we're healed and whole enough to, I'm going to say in the Simone Biles analogy, if we're not whole and healed enough to perform, then it's not time to come out. So until we're healed and whole enough to perform, or until we're ready to be reborn, we need to say no and stay in that dark place.

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We've been reading and kind of recapping this book, the Heroine's Journey, and came across this last night, on page 88, if any of you have the book or want to get the book and she's talking about even the discipline of saying no. This author is talking about women in particular, who and I see this in men too I just think the more that I'm talking about the masculine particular who and I see this in men too I just think, the more that I'm talking about the masculine feminine. I want to sort of erase this idea of gender. It is not a race, it's not gender specific. We all have inner male, inner female, inner masculine, inner feminine. I believe that the secret to our own rebirth and a most whole self is a beautiful union between the two of them. I'll just keep reiterating that.

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But this particular example in this book is a woman author talking about women in the working place and how we, many of us and I'll put myself in this category have been I don't want to say like been trained or I don't know. I guess I'll just speak for myself. I just saw the path being one of in my career prior to now, being of like let me achieve the next thing, get the promotion, do the next thing. I've always been in leadership, so when the next leadership opportunity presented itself, it was like yeah, that's what you do, you say yes, you say yes, and then you perform at all costs until the cost becomes too high. So okay, back to the book, the Heroine's Journey.

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When a woman stops doing and this is the context of in work when a woman stops doing, and this is the context of in work when a woman stops doing, she must learn how to simply be. But it is not a luxury, it is a discipline. I want to pause on that for a minute. It can look from the outside in. When a woman or a person takes time to be like, aren't they lucky? They just get to kick back and live in a lap of luxury. If that is your view, little do you know, and you will find out, because life is going to have its way with you, because life is going to have its way with you, that being is not always a luxury, it is a discipline to refrain from doing when we're so used to just pushing through at all costs and doing so. When a woman stops doing, she must learn how to simply be. Being is not a luxury, it is a discipline.

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The heroine must listen carefully to her true inner voice. That means silencing the other voices anxious to tell her what to do. She must be willing to hold the tension until a new form emerges. Anything less than that aborts growth, denies change and reverses transformation. Being takes courage and demands sacrifice. For the sacrifice to be complete, old ways have to be excised. Women have to start saying no to positions they really do not want to fill, even if it means a loss of acclaim from their outer world and it usually does. It also leaves a gaping hole that needs to heal before the new way is clear. That's so powerful, isn't it so powerful? That means silencing the other voices anxious to tell her what to do. She must be willing to hold the tension until a new form emerges. Willing to hold the tension.

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I'm taking this Jean Kieslap class right now and learning that when transformation is happening within us, especially when we're going from doing to being, there is an energetic alchemy that takes place within us, and when we. For me, my tendency, especially with this platform, is to share what's happening in me too quickly and I leak that energy out. That's what I have done in the past. But to learn to hold that tension, to create a safe space around it, to incubate what's happening within you and to hold that in your beingness, to just be until you feel the thing, transform, be healed, become whole, and then you emerge. Be healed, become whole, and then you emerge. Then you come out and emerge. But the holding that intention requires a different kind of discipline that is not muscling through. It is such a different experience to be with that and that resilience to come back around, to come back new. I don't even want to say come back around because I think we're never, we don't ever go back to the way things were. God willing, goddess willing, we emerge new and we move forward, we become something new, we show up in a new way. Simone Biles didn't just redeem herself to go back to what she used to be. She's even better than she was on the other side of that and that resilience that she's showing in these Olympics right now is a result of her saying no and being with herself until she knew she was hold and healed enough to come forward and show the new version of her the goat, if you will.

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So being resilient requires the knowing when to rest and when to rebound. Okay, it requires really tuning into your body that so much of this the feminine, the healing that we all need and reintegrating the feminine always comes back to this embodied version of self where we're in tune with listening to our body and knowing what our body needs. And we can start really small with honoring when we're thirsty and drinking water oh, knowing I feel thirsty, I'm drinking water and these little ways we start to tune into our body. So when we know we're getting a much more major symptom, like the twisties, we can tune in and understand what our body needs and what our minds need, what our spirits need. So resilience requires that knowing when to rest, knowing when to rebound, knowing when to honor our body, how to honor our body and it might mean making decisions that will be unpopular or misunderstood and that might feel like it's at the detriment to somebody else, and that takes a lot of courage to make those decisions, to say no to some things so that you can say yes to what you need. And in addition to that, this is not an either or this is an. And Then it's also knowing when to get back up.

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The going in a cocoon or going into the dark place to heal can look like depression, it can look like isolation. You know if you're depressed, you know if you're self-isolating and you know if you're in a transformative cocoon, if you're in a place where you need help, I'm going to encourage you to reach out for the help that you need Professional psychologists, counselor, friends, family. If you're feeling like you want things to end a suicide hotline, if you're in a place of depressive state right now, or if you've gone there thinking it's the place that you need and it's darker than dark, reach out for help. What I'm talking about today is the cocoon. That is the healing space. It is the dark night of the soul. It is going inward to recreate and heal and become whole and come out. And other people on the outside might think that it's something that it's not, but you know what it is.

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When you need to go in, in in order for you to come back out resilient, that to me is the true mark of resilience.

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It's being able to have the courage to take care of yourself the way that you need and seeing yourself come out on the other side.

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So this week you might consider where are you before you get to the point of what feels like a breakdown. You may be able to take some mini, micro rests, A lot of these, you know, like this idea of going inward or going into a cocoon or taking rest in order to rebound. Sometimes it's on a macro level Like you look at Simone Biles and sometimes it's a four year or a two year rest and a two year rebound. Sometimes it's a day, sometimes it's 10 minutes. It's oh my gosh, my toddlers are winding me up right now and I need to go inward for a moment and connect to my breath and connect to my body, and so we can take these principles on a small level and on a really broad level. But resilience is, to me, measured in the ability to do that on a micro and macro level, so that you can stay the course long term and continue to evolve in the way that nature wants you to evolve. All right loves, consider this week, where you might need to rest in order to rebound.