Hi,
This is Dr.
Adam Bledsoe,
And today I want to bring you a little talk about bounce.
Three phrases for a resilient attitude.
Now what is a resilient attitude?
It's the perspective for coming out of a challenge.
Challenges are inevitable,
But then the question becomes,
Can you bounce?
As in,
When we drop a ball,
How high does it bounce?
So sometimes when we fall,
Can we bounce?
How high,
How fast,
How easily?
Having bounce is important because stress,
Pain,
And bad situations are inevitable.
When such things happen,
There's really two options.
We can rise out of them,
Or we can get stuck in them.
Today I want to share with you three little phrases that can help you develop a more resilient attitude so that you can bounce during tough times.
The phrases each come with their own meaning,
And I'll share with you some reflections that can help you tap into the bounce that you already have,
No matter how small.
First let me share a little story about attitude,
As in resilient attitude,
And how it's connected to our lesson today.
The word attitude in the area of mind,
Body,
Health,
And healing is defined as a tendency or orientation,
Especially of the mind.
The term orientation is important here for me because it reminds us that the direction we are looking in is where we'll end up going.
It says where you point your mind is what you notice and what you pay attention to,
And that's what you'll end up creating.
So let me tell you a little story that made this so concrete for me.
When I was 16 years old,
I was doing my learning to drive course.
This course was preparing me to take my driver's test so I could get my driver's license.
I was really busy at 16 years old,
So I really wanted my license.
During my training,
There was a very specific exercise where I had to steer the car through a course made of cones on either side of my car.
If I hit a cone,
A point was deducted from my score.
If I hit too many cones,
I failed.
I didn't want to fail.
At this moment,
My instructor said something that still resonates with me to this day.
They said,
Don't look at the cones.
Look where you want to go.
Then the car will go there.
What my instructor was telling me was to not look at the threat or the challenge,
But look at the opportunity.
Then the actions will take place that will move me there.
This was so great for me,
And I applied it often in many places in my life.
Don't look at the threat.
Look at the opportunity.
This helped me to become more bouncy in my life and to develop my own resilient attitude.
This attitude I'll share helped me face challenges,
Get through them,
And then recover afterwards.
So here are the three phrases I promised you at the beginning.
These are the phrases that I remember when I'm struggling with something.
Number one,
It will be okay.
Number two,
I can handle this.
And number three,
I can learn and grow.
Let's break each one down a little bit.
It will be okay is about maintaining an optimism for the future.
Often when something really bad happens or something stressful occurs,
We can feel doomed or stuck,
Or we can start to run our story about ourselves and where we failed or how we're not good enough or worthy.
But holding an optimistic vision of the future in our mind as we make our way out of the adversity helps us know where we're going.
It reminds us that there's something to strive for,
That there's a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.
So I ask you,
When you've been through tough times in the past,
Have you had an experience like that where things did work out for the better even?
Can you think back and remember an adversity or challenge that today now was for the best?
Taking a moment to remember that,
Remind yourself and reflect on that experience can help you remember that you've got some bounce in you already.
The second phrase,
I can handle it,
Is about your confidence in your ability to cope.
A lot of times stressful occasions can really affect your body and mind.
They can make you feel like you're going to crumble under the pressure,
Overwhelm,
Pain,
Inability to sleep,
Digestive distress,
All sorts of symptoms or feelings in our body and mind can make it feel like we just can't function.
And maybe in the past there's even been times where you did become overwhelmed,
Where you felt like you crumbled,
And you might remember that a little too closely every time you have a stressful occasion.
Maybe that's happened more than once even and feels a bit like a pattern.
This isn't about fixing the problem.
This is about your ability to maintain and manage yourself in the challenge.
This is about being regulated,
Being able to manage yourself.
So let me ask you this.
Can you remember a time in the past that you went through a bad experience and you held yourself together?
You were able to show up as your best,
Take care of what was going on,
And exit okay and get back to recovery.
Can you bring that up in your mind and just remember that process and reflect on a little bit to remind you there's a little bounce in there already.
You can do this and you've done it before.
And the third phrase is I can grow.
This is about seeing the adversities as opportunities to adapt,
To learn and grow,
And about seeing them less like threats.
A threat can imply doom or that you're not going to make it.
But when these adversities occur and we can see them as an opportunity to grow,
Maybe a challenge to overcome,
It's a much different perspective.
It makes us feel stronger and feels like we are more in the game.
I like to say it like this.
Problems don't disappear,
They're transformed.
When we have a problem,
We have a choice to learn,
Grow,
Or adapt,
Or again,
Get stuck in them.
When we can see our problem as an opportunity to level up,
To see things differently,
To learn or improve skills that we already have or maybe we didn't have before,
We can do it.
When that's the case,
We can let go of the old beliefs and move into a new way of being that will allow us to overcome that challenge.
So here's your question.
When in the past were you confronted with a stressful situation that you chose to make it into an opportunity for your growth?
What did you do?
What did you learn?
How did you change?
And how has that even helped you to this day?
So let me repeat your three phrases so you can write them down and put them somewhere important for you.
Number one,
It will be okay.
Number two,
I can handle this.
Number three,
I can learn and grow.
A resilient attitude has the tendency of helping you focus on where you're going instead of where you are.
And with that,
You can be more in the moment,
You can meet your own needs and balance yourself.
And then you can learn the new skills and act in a new way to improve your situation and create completely new outcomes.
This is how you can be bouncy.
This is how you can develop a resilient attitude.
Thanks so much for listening.
I'd love to hear your comments below.
My name is Dr.
Adam Bledsoe.
Take care of yourself.
