Resilience

What does it mean to be resilient? What is the difference between resilience and simply enduring? I never really thought about it before until I came across a book at the airport on my way home from Australia. It was titled: Build Resilience and Free Yourself From Fear. It was kind of perfect timing. After a quarter final finish on the Gold Coast, my mind was on the fence between overthinking everything, focusing on the fears of the future or simply acknowledging the situation, adapting and letting go. My natural instinct is to overthink. That's just how I have been since I was little. If I lose, I go over what happened a million times in my head and beat myself up emotionally. I have had this weird idea that if I pound it into myself hard enough, it won't happen again. Ha. It's a blessing and a curse. That mindset has gotten me to where I am today but has also held me back in many ways. Focusing too much on the the could have's and should have's and what if's is emotionally exhausting and counter productive. All you can control is right now. The book got me to thinking: What do I fear? When I get anxious where does it come from? I made a list of all my fears on the plane ride home. Being able to write it down and clarify my fears really put them into perspective and made them less overwhelming. Back to resilience. I really liked this quote from the book: "Resilient people don't endure challenges. They don't avoid disappointment. They are proactive. They cope and then they bounce back. Better than before." I have spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and enduring, waiting for the storm to pass. This year one of my goals is to work through the challenges and come out the other side stronger than before. The book was a perfect reminder to roll with the punches. If I fall down, I want to get back up and approach it from a different angle. 

My trip to the Gold Coast was super fun. We got waves the entire time which was nice and one of the days even got pretty big. I paddled out to the point and it was like six feet! My heart started racing. Got to catch up with the Hendy Ohana and play with little Rocky. Loved having Dad and Luke around. We surfed, ate and napped a lot. Had the honor of having Rabbit Bartholomew in my corner again and always enjoy learning from him. The comp finished for me in two days so I had enough time to come home for a week and reset. Timed it perfectly to catch a few heats of the girls we’ve been working with at Regionals. They did awesome! Any chance I get to come home, I will take it! About to board the plane for Melbourne and take on the next adventure. Yew! Xx