Resilience … such a big word! What does it truly mean? In my last post, I shared a personal down I experienced last week which manifested in two ways: feeling lonely and feeling undesirable. Since then, I’ve been doing much better. I guess it’s all about acknowledging, facing and turning the page. 

I don’t know how you experience and feel things … but I’m the type of person that if I don’t face the issue, I put it on the back burner; it will slowly but surely burn and somehow explode. I’ve done it over and over again. 

I’m such a complex being! I need to talk and express what I’m living; yet, I don’t want to talk about it when I’m feeling down. It’s so contradictory, right? It is… But with time, I found my solution to be in meditation … a space where I can face the issue, sometimes acknowledge the real reason behind it, forgive and then turn the page. 

Resilience: A “Must Have” in Your Toolbox

I’ve been through depression in the past. I now know that one of the major reasons for this depression was all the sufferings and trials I had simply pushed aside. I did not want to face them, they were there, sometimes they’d come back to the surface, but I’d immediately make sure they were silenced.

All these life events suddenly became like nuclear bombs! It was all there inside me, eating me up like a bunch of worms. I was continually sick. My doctor could never pin point what it was and he put me through a crazy number of tests. My sleep was becoming scarcer and I could hardly focus on my work. 

It affected me in more ways than I could admit back then. A simple “You gained weight” was enough to throw me down. A bored person in the assembly while I was preaching could easily shake me to a point of looking for my words. I was never happy in whatever position or job I had, etc.

It had to stop… I had to find the strength to finally face all these issues and turn the page for good. I needed to dig deep inside me to find the necessary resilience to start anew. 

Resilience Is Not a Magic Tool 

However, resilience is not a magic tool. It’s not about that easy peasy “think positive” type of thing. Resilience is more like hitting the gym after a few years, only to realize you had become weaker than you thought, acknowledging that your muscles were sore. Maybe you even needed to face some physical wounds.  

Yet, you might even start noticing that another major problem is your relationship with food! If you don’t look into your eating habits, the gym results will definitely not show up so easily.

When dealing with past wounds, it’s a bit the same. Some of our behaviours, our temperament, our reactions, etc., are often conditioned by what we’ve been through positively and negatively, by the lessons learned just as much as by our wounds. 

That is why in some of the major life issues like alcoholism, addiction to video games or pornography, we do not try to deal only with the problem; we help others to go deeper into into what is provoking this behaviour.

Deeper is where the pain is … deeper is a place of sorrow, but deeper is also where we will find the beginning of resilience. 

Where Resilience Begins

Let me share with you something very personal… Been doing it since the beginning and many have been reaching out in private to tell me how much my posts have been helping them, so I think I’ll continue. 

I’ve spoken about the abuse I’ve lived, but never really went into details… at this point, I also won’t go into it. I truly believe I’ve learned from these wounds and have grown from them. That is resilience… I will never forget … it will come back here and there just like the other day (my last post), but I now have the tool to help me work my way through it.

Avoiding details, I want to share one major element that had been conditioning me in many ways and that eventually brought me to the verge of killing myself. It is the same element that got me thinking I was undesirable the other day and the same element that made me hate myself to a point of not believing people could actually truly love me. 

If all I said above is not enough to show you how we can hurt others… I don’t know what could! And you know who did this to me? A priest. Yes, a Catholic priest. You know how? Not with what he did physically, that is already bad, but with what he told me, “All this is your fault because you’re gay which is a contagious condition and it’s also because you’ve lost your dad.” I’ll stop the quote here. 

Resilience Is Also Forgiveness—Forgiveness Is to Free Yourself

Isn’t weird that even writing this, there is a part of me wanting to erase it? You know why? There are still residues of me feeling guilty and disgusting. But hey, I forgive the guy! I forgive him because he was just as f**** up as I was. He is a non-assumed gay man who could not face it for himself.

Years later, I sometimes fall back into a place of self-hatred. I’m not suicidal anymore, but in moments of hurt, I surprise myself dreaming of disappearing. I’m not looking for self-pity … nor am I looking for consolation from others… If I share this part of my life is to help others grow through trauma. 

Forgive. Give yourself a gift! If not, you will keep these sad elements in your mind and soul, they will slowly get the best of you and will destroy your relationship with others. 

Find the resilience to get back up and bite into life with new energy. Forget those who don’t understand your journey, put aside those who keep you in a defined box and see you in a determined way. Leave behind those who judge your decisions and don’t understand where you are heading! 

Seek within yourself the only compass you will ever need. Don’t look for approval! Do things out of conviction. Simply take the road that will ultimately take you to a place of resilience and forgiveness. 

Life is not always easy, you will need time to heal … believe me! You will also need time to forgive… I know! But freedom is on the other side of fear, freedom is on the other side of trauma. Freedom is taking your life back into your hands, seeking the help needed and turning the page.

Oh… Talking about that! I’m turning a page. I’m leaving Termoli… I’ll tell you more about where I’m going in my next post! Make sure to subscribe and share my texts with others.