Getting Back Up<\/p>\n
Here we go again. We\u2019ve spent what feels like forever in\u00a0quarantine and just when we thought it was safe to come out and play, we have
to go back in again. We aren\u2019t in shock this time. We\u2019ve dealt with it for far\u00a0too long for that, but a pall of depression and hopelessness seems to be\u00a0hovering over my friends and me. We\u2019re tired of Netflix and wearing masks.\u00a0We\u2019re tired of the Greek names of variants, super spreaders. long haulers,\u00a0conspiracy theories, anti vaxxers and the rising numbers of contagions and\u00a0deaths.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to fall down the depression spiral, but instead of\u00a0watching the ticker tape of bad news that is so available all the time, I\u2019m
placing my focus on resilience. My time in the ballet was all about that.\u00a0Showing up every morning for an hour and a half class. Rehearsing eight hours a\u00a0day. Dancing on blisters and sprained ankles. That was all difficult but\u00a0nothing challenged my toughness like touring: getting on a bus every morning\u00a0for 10 weeks at a time, traveling from one Podunk town to another, performing\u00a0every night, crashing in a seedy motel and getting up in the morning to do it\u00a0all over again.<\/p>\n
We blew off steam by rushing through the hallways and pouring soap\u00a0suds into the fountains but those things were diversions. No matter what we did\u00a0the night before, every day we had to be resilient enough to get up and go.\u00a0During each tour, I remember a morning, usually about half way through, when I\u00a0got onto the bus and I wanted to scream. \u201cI can\u2019t do this any more,\u201d I told\u00a0myself. As the engine revved up and we hit the road, I fantasized quitting,\u00a0going to an airport and flying home. But when I fell into that kind of frustration,\u00a0I called on my toughness and dozed off, waking up when we pulled into a motel\u00a0parking lot in the next town, ready to perform. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Disappointment and doubt show up when we fall. It’s embarrassing
and discouraging. But we feel so much better when we get back up and keep moving\u00a0forward. When figure skaters are flying across the ice and they take a painful\u00a0fall in the middle of a triple axel, they get up so fast, you wonder if they\u00a0even fell at all. They return to their program as if nothing happened. That\u2019s\u00a0resilience.<\/p>\n
When I write, I notice a similar pattern. I\u2019m coasting along, my
fingers are moving as if by magic, the words are flying onto the page, when\u00a0suddenly I hit a wall. I make an abrupt stop at a fork in the road, I don\u2019t\u00a0know which story line to follow and paralysis sets in. I can push away from the\u00a0computer in frustration and self-judgment or I can sit there, speak kindly to myself\u00a0and wait for my pen to start moving again. It always does and that\u2019s when the\u00a0really good stuff starts flowing out of my mind and onto the page.<\/p>\n
Learning to get back up is what Buddhists call \u201ccultivating
resilience.\u201d It isn\u2019t just there. We have to develop it. It takes time and a\u00a0lot of practice to stop thinking about hopelessness. To stop feeling like we\u00a0failed. To stop wanting to give up. I was watching a documentary on Disney + about\u00a0the Beatles composing and preparing for their final performance as a group. I\u00a0was amazed at their process, how they constantly tried different methods and
approaches, went \u00a0back and tried again. It seemed to us that they just sat down and the magic happened but the group that Ringo now calls \u201cThe Greatest Band in All the Land\u201d had to show up every day and keep perfecting their craft.<\/p>\n
Do you see yourself as a resilient person? How does that show up
in your daily life?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Getting Back Up Here we go again. We\u2019ve spent what feels like forever in\u00a0quarantine and just when we thought it was safe to come out and play, we haveto go back in again. We aren\u2019t in shock this time. We\u2019ve dealt with it for far\u00a0too long for that, but a pall of depression and hopelessness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}