being resilient - GingerGarner.com

“I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” Wall-E

Such a simple statement from the futuristic children’s movie Wall-E, but its meaning carries seismic paradigm shifting consequence. Survivors, at some point in the very midst of their crisis seizing body, mind, and spirit decide…they are not going to fight, flee, or freeze. No, survivors will tell you at some point, they decide they will not give in to instinctual, autonomic, involuntary reaction. Survivors will tell you they want to do more than survive, they want to live.

“It is not the situation that matters, but how you react to it”. Epictetus

In the midst of mortal danger, or even repeated mundane daily stressors (which over time can cause as much damage or even more that one incidence of mortal danger), we have a golden opportunity for glory.

With each daily stressor (or if you are THAT person experiencing mortal danger or threat) we have a decision to make, which will change our lives. Although sometimes we do not think or accept that suffering through life is good, I believe it is. Suffering allows us to learn and if not mortal, gives us a second chance to make the right decision. Making the right decision determines whether we will be “bitter or better”, and whether we will stand or fall. Adversity and struggle really ought to be our best friend, our greatest teacher.

The question is this: will we allow ourselves to be dictated by the world’s definition of success or failure, or will we seek success in a new light? This light, which some call enlightenment, allows you to forever refute the world’s definition of success, and instead embrace an eternal definition of success.

Much of our fear and worry comes from caving in to seeking approval and expectation from others. It also comes from thinking that this “world” is all that will ever exist for us. This type of thinking creates a fear-based poverty mentality where a person may act out of character and good reason because they are making decisions based on fear of loss, poverty, or death. However, who is defining or telling us that loss, poverty, or death are “bad” things? The world tells us that loss, poverty, or death are bad. Those with what I’ll call “Eternal Wealth Philosophy”, make the decision and choice to not succumb to the world’s definition of “wealth vs. poverty, success vs. failure, or pleasure vs. pain”. Those people hold a belief that is dear and sacred to them. They believe that they are in no position to “judge” pleasure from pain or success from failure but instead they live by faith that in all things they endure – ultimate eternal wealth will come.

We can take this a step further and say that once the survivor has made the choice to endure and overcome, staying full of expectant hope and refusing to be confined by the finite world’s view of success, they can choose to help others who have similarly suffered. This is called the golden rule or the rule of karma and dharma, do unto others as you would be done unto and act for the sake of action’s sake, not just to reap the reward of the action.

We should pursue, with great compassion and love, those activities which ultimately “build up”, instead of “tear down” relationships. I believe the greatest act of resilience is to love others, which leads others toward a life of expectant hope and demonstrates that eternal wealth is a birthright and exists through love and its actions.

I believe all things work toward a common good for all who believe in a life of eternal wealth. It becomes easier to shed “poverty and fear” based thinking when we have something to look forward to beyond this life. It also becomes easier to shed doom and gloom thinking when we realize what we suffer through can ultimately help another person survive.

What also makes survivors resilient is their exercise of choice (either knowingly or unknowingly). By choice, they overcome. And each time they undergo adversity and survive, they become stronger and draw on faith from past experience, as well as from being supported by others who have suffered similarly they will again survive.

In many cases, belief in a Higher power is where people derive that core “faith,” because they believe there is a cloud of witnesses who have gone before them who have survived similar ordeals and are surrounding them with support. Those people also draw on faith because they believe nothing is left to chance and that everything happens for a reason and can work for the good of all.

John Donne’ said, “No man is an island…do not think for whom the bell tolls, the bell tolls for thee.”

As a result, our life experiences, our “surviving”, is never in vain. We can always use our situations of survival to aid and assist others. Ultimately, our pain can be our best teacher. We can further harness lessons, and be of help to ourselves, by helping others through their similar pain and suffering – by sharing in the human condition. Someone else’s pain becomes our pain. Someone else’s joy then becomes our joy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. penned from an Alabama jail, “We are all interconnected…I cannot become what I am supposed to become until you become what you are supposed to become….”

Learning the lesson of using pain as our teacher to help ourselves and others can ultimately be what empowers us and others to choose to survive, and overcome. By your suffering, you can save two lives – someone else’s and your own.

The Power of Earth Day

April 23, 2008 Michael and Ginger awaiting transfer from pediatric ICU

The Power of Earth Day

What does Earth Day mean to you?

The fragility of the earth and human life are interconnected.

Three times in my life I would have never dreamed circumstances would turn out as they did – reminding me of the sacredness and fragility of life on earth.

The first is my marriage. What a surprise, so pleasant, never expected, and the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The second is my first son’s arrival, Michael, into our lives.

The third is Michael’s sickness. There are others too, but none as significant and earth moving as those three. I thank God I do not know the ultimate plan for my life. The smallness of my humanity could not endure the shock of Truth, nor then would I learn to walk by faith.

I believe that nothing we endure or suffer is ever in vain. All adversity is part of “fighting the Good fight and running the race to completion.” I cannot judge what is good or bad, because I’ve lived long enough to know that what the world considers to be failure or pain may ultimately be the best thing that ever happens to me.

I have also learned that through all struggles and pain, good can come – like the phoenix from the ashes.

Today, I am infinitely thankful for my adversities.

Today is Earth Day, but to me it is Michael’s Surgery Day. This date will always make my heart tighten – but that painful memory I know can also be used to grow wisdom and love.

On Michael’s Surgery Day, forever ingrained in my soul is the moment my husband and I handed Michael over to the surgical team and watched one of the women in the team carry him away. Our tiny son draped was over her shoulder in his hospital gown, the gown too big for his tiny body. Michael was hugging her, a stranger, and clutching his Snoopy and little blanket. He was sedated so he would not be afraid of leaving us. My heart ached to take his place. Its seams were being stretched in a way I did not know was possible.

On Michael’s Surgery Day, I traveled to a place I had never been before. My heart painfully expanded and in doing so increased my ability to know compassion and love greater.

On Michael’s Surgery Day, my heart’s memory will always recall the waiting. As my husband and I stood on the pediatric floor (we could not possibly sit down in the waiting room during those 5 hours) I happened to gaze out the window at about the fifth hour. Michael’s tiny hospital bed, surrounded by the surgical team, was there – being wheeled by as I by chance happened to look out that window, across a courtyard and through a bank of windows that opened onto a hallway. His bed and he were completely draped and connected to every line possible. When I happened to look out that window and caught that 1 second glimpse, those seams of my heart tore and broke open. My heart bled freely and my legs gave way, but in that moment I lifted my head and gave thanks. That glimpse meant Michael was coming back to us.

On Michael’s Surgery Day, that 1 second glimpse was followed by the horrendous wait before we finally saw him. We were choking inside as we treaded down that pediatric ICU hallway, until we finally saw him in his bed, his Snoopy laying beside him as witness to his life saving surgery, while we stood in his ICU room – breath stolen from our lungs as we watched him laying there with a ventilator breathing for him, a chest tube draining blood and fluid from his heart and chest, and every arterial and vein line possible connected to his tiny 28 month old body.

On Earth Day, I am thankful for both of God’s gifts to me. Michael is my firstborn son, infinitely and immeasurably dear to me, while this planet Earth is God’s firstborn gift to us.

We should be treating this planet like we care for our own child. When my son hurts, when he was so sick – just like our planet hurts and is so sick – our hearts should tighten and we should gasp for breath.

We should move to act out of compassion and love to fix it, to nurture it, to help it grow. Like our children’s pain is also our pain – the pain of this earth should be ours too. Our hearts should burst at the seams – and yearn to love greater, our children and our Earth.

Our children, and this Earth, are a gift. If we love our children we must love planet earth. If we do not protect planet Earth as our precious child, then we do not love our children.

When you recycle, you are loving your children, even if you have no biological children. When you buy less and repurpose more, you are demonstrating love. Earth is our only home and if we destroy it, we are heartlessly destroying our childrens’ future.

The providential connection of Michael’s Surgery Day and Earth Day is no coincidence.

Let’s all do what Mother Teresa implored us to do if we want world peace, go home and love your children.

Love your children. Love the Earth. Because just 1 day – can make a world of difference, to the only truly valuable things in this universe.