Resilience Reimagined: Strength Through Chaos

Ever wondered how allowing things to fall apart could actually make you stronger? Today, we unlock the secrets of resilience with our mantra of the week, "I allow things to fall apart and know they'll come back together even stronger." Join me, Steph, as I share personal stories that reveal how life's chaos can lead to unexpected blessings. Inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, we'll explore how our scars and traumas can add to our beauty and value, rather than detract from it. In our Mojo on the Go segment, come along for a quick errand to pick up some milk, where we'll discuss defining our baseline and tapping into our innate capacity to bounce back. 

But that's not all! In the second segment, we’ll dive deeper into building resilience as an essential skill for thriving through life’s inevitable challenges. You'll discover how reflecting on your past victories and crafting an "I am" list can bolster your self-image and enhance your ability to rebound from setbacks. Maintaining faith and hope, even during tough times, is crucial as we learn that these moments are temporary and often pave the way for greater opportunities. I’ll share practical steps to help you shorten those periods of feeling down and foster a mindset geared towards personal growth and empowerment. Tune in and let’s transform difficulties into triumphs together!

Chapters

• 0:11 Pocketful of Mojo
• 11:52 Building Resilience

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome to Pocketful of Mojo, where you're, you and I'm, steph, and we tune in here to tap into some mojo. Well, what do you mean? What's mojo? Well, what do you mean? What's mojo, mojo, is that feeling of unshakable confidence, booming self-worth, like you're an unstoppable force of nature, and I'm here to show you how you can have that feeling every single day. You see, I think I've cracked the code to being happy. I'm happy all the freaking time, like every day, at least most of the day, possibly to an annoying degree. But hey, I wasn't always this way. And not to flex, but I've had breakdowns on multiple continents and in two languages. But by paying attention and living with more intention, I've created this self-love first aid kit, and it's full of amazing tools that help me out of life's most sticky and stressful situations with grace and self-care. And I'm not here to gatekeep. In fact, I'm on a mission to help you tap into your best stuff and remember that you have everything you need to live your life on your own terms. So settle in. We're here for some positive change. So let's dig in to where your mojo meets the road.

Speaker 1: 1:33

In today's episode, I'm going to review our mantra for the week and then we're going to dig into today's main topic, which is resilience and plot plot twist. We are once again taking it on the road, shaking things up. So you stick around and I'm going to make sure that you're glad that you did. Let's get started with today's mantra and get tuned in, tapped in and turned on. Hello, hello, hello and welcome. This is the 30th freaking episode, my friends of Pocketful of Mojo, this is me, I'm Steph, and I'm your Mojo Maven, your cheerleader, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm here to reflect all your awesome and your potential right back to you. So let's settle in. Let's start by digging into today's mantra.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Now, today's mantra is I allow things to fall apart and know that they'll come back together even stronger. Hoo-wee, what is this Story of my life? Are you kidding me? Right now, I'm Steph and having my whole life fall apart was the best thing that ever happened to me Twice. But seriously, I can back up all this mantra has to say all day long. I am living proof that sometimes, when things fall apart, it's to get you onto a path that's meant for you For real, for real. Now, this mantra is rooted in the trust and the knowing that we don't know what we don't know, but it's all going to work out eventually. This well-placed faith in yourself, it's going to pay off.

Speaker 1: 3:22

I allow things to fall apart and know they'll come back together even stronger. When you look at the first part of the phrasing allow, it speaks to how you're conscious that your world is a dumpster fire, and remember that this too shall pass is one of my favorite mantras, by the way. It shows the most powerful form of surrender that helps you feel the helplessness but have the awareness that there's a bigger story unfolding. The bigger the loss, the bigger the setbacks. That's redirection, a nudge to greater things. I allow things to fall apart and know that they'll come back together even stronger. So there's this thing. It's called kintsugi and please forgive my pronunciation, but it means join with gold. Maybe you've heard of it. It's this Japanese art of repairing broken objects like ceramic, pottery or glass. Now, traditionally they used a gold lacquer and they'd use this to take whatever was smashed and glue it back together again. What you get is the original beauty enhanced by gold. It's been made more beautiful and more valuable through its repair or healing, if you will See where I'm going with this. I allow things to fall apart and know they'll come back together even stronger. Now, when we talk about mojo, I don't want you to think that I'm blind to the fact that life happens and things fall apart. My 45 years have been privileged, but I'm not without my own scars and trauma. But what is part of mojo is resilience and knowing that these painful and harrowing moments in our lives are just temporary and harrowing moments in our lives are just temporary and that we will see the other side of it is at the core of self-love, self-belief and faith in a bigger picture. Call it God, call it Source, call it Liza Minnelli. Whatever your higher power, they will shepherd you through the storm and it's all inside of you. You just got to tune into it. I allow things to fall apart and know they'll come back together even stronger.

Speaker 1: 5:52

And now over to our correspondent on the road, safely and hands-free, thanks to her new lapel mic. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between, let's take it on the road. Your Mojo Maven Steph oh wee Boy, does she know how to rattle? All right, let's get going. We're going to try this again. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between, welcome to Mojo on the Go. And we're on the go to go pick up some milk and I'm going to take you with me.

Speaker 1: 6:38

And while we're at it, we're going to talk a little bit about resilience. My friend, we're all born with it. It's just a matter of building it into our own self-image. Now, when I think about resiliency, it's really like what it's? It's your capacity, it capacity, it's, uh, our ability to spring back into shape, and I want to talk more about that in a second, because we have to define what that shape is. What is your go-to, what is your baseline, what is your normal? And that part takes a little bit more work. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that later.

Speaker 1: 7:17

But you know, our human elasticity is something that we can actively work on, and how we see ourselves is often how we present right. So when we think like, do you consider yourself to be a resilient person? Because I don't know, I don't ever think. I even considered it as part of my own self image until everything fell apart. And there were moments where I mean, when I say everything fell apart, I mean um, you know, 2020, pandemic marriage fell apart, mom died, had to move back to Canada, like everything, everything, capital F fell, capital A apart and in the process of rebuilding.

Speaker 1: 8:11

That was really when I found out that I didn't have to go any further than inside myself to figure out how to get back on my own two feet and that I could do it myself with the power that I already have. So that ability to recover quickly. Unfortunately, that means what we gotta we gotta hit the bottom first in order to bounce back, because it's resilience is more about is about more than bouncing back. You know, realizing that your mojo is available to you even when you're not feeling like. It is kind of its own little powerful superpower, just knowing that you can reach out and it'll be there. That's going to take time, but one of the things that you can do is, like, look back. Look back on all the things that you've done before.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Like and that was one of the things that really helped me come to where I am today was when I felt like I was at my lowest possible. I realized that I'd had this feeling before, like when I moved to Calgary to get my dream job and I was killing it every day and for two and a half years I had this incredible job that was using all my best stuff. I loved going into work today. And then I went to work one day and ready to facilitate a workshop, and just like that, my job technically no longer existed within the company and there I was jobless. Or the time that I moved to Montreal and I was looking for a new apartment and I'd rented this super cute apartment right off the Mont Royal stretch. It was so cool. I was excited. I was going to be two blocks away from work, uh, in this apartment on moving day, super psyched, and uh, yeah, I found out that they had rented it to someone else and they didn't tell me, so I was homeless.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Uh, and then, you know, like I referred to earlier, when my marriage ended and my mom left, I was alone and in each of those individual moments I really felt like that was it and I couldn't get better. But that the trick, when you have those thoughts, I I've learned is that these are places that we visit, they are not places that we stay, and that is where resilience is born. And you know, are things going to be shitty? Yeah, I promise you, at some point in your life there will be a moment where you're like, ah, this is shitty. And and when I talk about this stuff. I, I am absolutely a positivity monster. I will claim that until the day I die grounded and I am rooted in the truth that shit happens and all that I talk about within Mojo is never, ever trying to negate that or tell you that it's not going to happen, or tell you that it's not true, or tell you that it's uh, it's not real because it is.

Speaker 1: 11:52

But what Mojo does and what resilience is, it's that belief, it's that faith, it's that knowing that this too shall pass, that this will be in the rear view mirror at some point, and what point we get to actually play a part in that. And if we want to stay and wallow and live and just be like, well, I'm here until the next shitstorm comes, that's your choice too. But there are a multitude of options. And I'm just here to give you, you know, another look at a different part of the menu, because, while these things can be shitty, I promise you they are not forever. Because it's important to remember our victories as well. Because it's important to remember our victories as well, right, like, think back to the times where, okay, yeah, they scooped my apartment out from under me, but you know what else? The next apartment I did get was incredible and way better and everything I'd ever dreamed of. So you know, while I'm not here to pump sunshine up your ass, I am here to say keep going, because it will pass and it may morph and bloom into something even better. And that's where you know, and faith and hope play really important roles in resilience. So these are just kind of some of the things that we want to keep in mind when we're crafting our own self-image.

Speaker 1: 13:26

Do you see yourself as someone who is resilient? Can you look in your past and maybe see if there's any examples of a time where you kind of fell on your butt but you're like you know what I'm going to put on my big girl pants and I'm going to go out and figure this out? Because a lot of times we feel like paralyzed or stuck because we don't know that first step or we don't know the series of steps that we need to take to flip the situation or, you know, get back on our feet, but that's okay as long as we believe that we can, one step at a time. The staircase is going to start revealing itself and there might be more stumbles ahead, but, um, that can be part of the figuring out process. Right, it might be like, okay, well, I tried this and it didn't work. Now I know what I don't want. I'm going to try to figure out what I do want Now. I have a better idea Now that I have more information.

Speaker 1: 14:22

So you know that resilience component it is a muscle, but you may have flexed it more than you were aware. So a big part of resilience, I guess, is, like you know, knowing that you're resilient. You know, knowing that you're resilient. Resilience is about reducing the time of feeling down and out right. It's your ability to snap back to your normal, and this happens when, like, oh, I forgot, oh no, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, we're coming up on some construction, which is good cause. These roads are garbage, but these roads won't be garbage forever. These roads are resilient. So, when we think about the things that we can do to build our resilience and to continue to craft it as part of our self-image so that we can refer to it and lean on it and know this about ourselves in confidence as we continue to navigate this crazy thing called life, and we will fall down, but knowing that we are resilient and knowing that we have the capacity to get back up on our feet, we can really quicken the time that we are down and out, and we can do this in a couple of ways.

Speaker 1: 15:54

I was doing this the other day and it was it was as I was kind of researching resilience and digging into the topic a bit more. I started an I am list because I really wanted resilience to be part of how I self-identify. I wanted to see myself as someone who's strong, empowered, resilient. And that doesn't mean I'm Teflon, that doesn't mean that everything is rolls off my back. It means I believe in my ability to get back up again and that's a really empowering feeling. Actually, it kind of makes my chest stick out a little bit and my shoulders go back, and I like that about myself. It fits, it feels good and I know that I've done the work to earn that title to give myself.

Speaker 1: 16:46

So I took it one step further. So I any anyway. So I went back and I made a list of I am, I am resilient, I am funny, I am charming, I am silly, I'm a good baker, I'm ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, trust me. The list goes on and on, and then I did a list that was this is a list of the amazing things that I've done. And that list brought me to tears Happy tears, but tears Because I was so grateful, but tears because I was so grateful to be like in that moment I was overflowing with, like I was really proud of myself and I was so grateful for even having the chance at these opportunities and it just kept these, this feeling and these ideas at the forefront of my mind so that that could color my future decisions, that can color my, my outlook, that can color my mood and it's really hard to be in a bad mood after I've spent time sitting and how awesome I am. So I extend that to you as an activity. It's so rewarding and you may just surprise yourself. So this I am exercise, this list of amazing things that you've done.

Speaker 1: 18:11

It really helps to either eliminate or at least interrupt that feeling of down and out. At least interrupt that feeling of down and out, that feeling of I can't do this because here's a whole bunch of evidence that shows the opposite. Basically, and these exercises, they take that lack mindset and they flip it on its head. It reverses that lack mindset, which is only going to keep you living small, dreaming reasonably, which is not the purpose of dreams at all and it really helps to reposition your perspective about yourself and about your capacity and your capability. Capacity and your capability.

Speaker 1: 18:59

And when I was talking before about springing back into shape, I want to talk a little bit about the baseline. What is your baseline? Is your baseline happiness? Is your baseline mojo, you know, is it is your baseline Because we get to make these decisions. Baseline because we get to make these decisions, we get to make those calls. So if I define my baseline as like this great uplifting space where I see life positively, where I'm in control, where I have a positive mindset, where I'm speaking positively to myself, where I'm surrounding myself with love and attention and affection, then that all my wiring systems will always want to get me back to that place.

Speaker 1: 19:47

So that took me a long time to craft and cultivate. But at the same time, one of the things I've really noticed is the more I invest or make deposits in this way of life, that I want to live my life every day through a lens of positivity and love and empowerment and self-care, the more that's my baseline, the less time I spend out of alignment, with that being my day-to-day, my moment-to-moment, my, my standard of operation. So the more I practice things like mindfulness, meditation, positive affirmations, watching myself talk, prioritizing my self-care, setting and respecting my own boundaries, the more I fill my life with that. You can only put energy in one place at a time. So as I continue to fill my life with that, there is less room for negativity and time sucking and energy sucking influences. So it's just math that when you fill your life with more positive things, there's just going to be less room for negativity. So the more consciously we can design our day to day, the better we stand a chance of having things go our way and be more prepared when they don't, because we know and we've seen and we believe that this too shall pass and we will get back to our rightful space of living a life of empowered, self-confident, self-loving, beautiful days. And we just get into the habit of collecting as many of those days as possible, because all we're really responsible is this moment right here. It's the only thing that truly exists. So the more we can invest and make deliberate choices to contribute to this present moment, and it being a reflection of what you want, then you will start to feel empowered and you will start to feel like you can trust a little bit more and take a little bit bigger swings and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Okay, well, I'm gonna go get some milk. I really appreciate you checking in with me and coming on this little drive. I always like company when I go on ons, and so I appreciate you tuning in. I'm going to shoot it back to the studio, but if you have any comments about resilience or some great stories that you'd love to share, I am all over it. So find me on all the socials. Thanks for checking in. Don't forget to rate and review this podcast and let me know what you think. Share it with a friend, I don't know, just something crazy. Back to the studio, and that was attempt number two at Pocketful of Mojo Road Trip Edition. Please tune in next week to see if we do it again. But seriously, thank you for tuning in today and I hope that this has helped you tap into some of that mojo of yours. You're worth it, baby, and when you feel drawn to it, there's lots of ways we can do this again sometime.

Speaker 1: 23:35

If you like to read, I've got a weekly blog. You can sign up today and you can get a weekly Mojo magazine, which is going to be the best thing in your inbox all week. We're talking memes, we're talking Mojo playlists and your own link to the hottest blog in town. And if Insta is where you go for your inspo, you can find me at moststefinately. And finally, if you're more of an action taker, the seven day mojo makeover is for you, and all these cool links are in my link tree, which is in the show notes, so go have a look. You're here anyway. I've got so much great stuff to share with you guys, so be sure to tune in next week and until then, stay classy, stay kind. Ciao for now.