Stitchy-kin, if there’s a single lesson that living in this post-meaning world has taught us, surely it’s that in order to thrive, we need keep our resilience game strong.
Is it just that we’re trying to survive the never-ending craziness? Well sure, most of us are. But if you think about it, “survival” is a really low bar for a human life. All survival requires of us is to get enough sleep, shelter, and food for a day. Then, no matter how happy or miserable you were about it, you had to do it all again the next day, and the next, and the next. Or you died.
That was how life was lived for most of human history. And it’s a testament to human ingenuity, drive—and resilience—that we really don’t have to settle for that anymore.
We can have:
- medicine
- food stability
- architecture
- music
- hot and cold running water on tap
- furnaces to heat our homes so we don’t die from exposure
- the public infrastructure that provides the power!
- Not to mention art
- dance
- public education
- mega-jackpot lotteries
- air travel
- microwaveable popcorn—and so much more.
What is personal resilience? Why is it important?
Resilience is an indicator of our ability to harness our inner strength to adapt to the relentless pace of change. It’s sometimes described as an internal reservoir of mental or emotional strength that gets us through the hardships we all face in our human lifetimes. You can also look at it as a set of skills we acquire to help us stay sane and functional in challenging times. When life goes sideways, resilience is the inner quality that dictates how well we’re going to bounce back.
Think about the last time you lost your job, or a loved one. Or what happened when you last went through a break-up, or a natural catastrophe, or got so sick you couldn’t care for yourself? It’s normal to feel anger, grief, or despair when life starts to pile on, but it’s resilience that keeps us going and functional in when times get tough.
What contributes to resilience?
Here’s where we get to the heart of the claim I made in the title. There are things we can do to improve personal resilience. I’m sure you’re already guessing what some of them are, too.
- Improve your diet. Eliminate processed foods where you can. Get enough to drink—seriously, just staying hydrated has more implications for better health than I’ve got room to list here.
- Get regular exercise. Even a little goes a long way, especially if you haven’t been.
- Good sleep, and enough of it, is also critical.
- Find a fun way to develop your problem-solving skills.
- Be more compassionate with yourself when the stress starts to pile up.
- Build good social connections, in real life as well as online.
- Learn from your experiences. Find the good lessons in what you’ve been through. And don’t overlook the good things that came out of bad times.
- Learn to meditate. Like staying hydrated, the benefits of regular meditation practice go far beyond the investment you make in it.
- And, most importantly? Pick up your needle and cross stitch!
You knew I was going to get back to cross stitch eventually, right? 😁
Stabbing fabric with a needle makes us more resilient!
Cross stitch is a hobby with many of the characteristics that develop and strengthen resilience. It requires us to think about what we’re doing rather than what we should be doing, or what we’re not doing. We have to focus right down on the work in our hands in that moment.
Spending time with our stitching in hand is calming. It’s centering. It allows us a break from our troubles, wherein we just might find a bit of perspective, or inspiration, or even hope. As such, it can be a relaxing, deeply meditative practice, especially once the early learning curve is mastered. And that, my lovelies, is critical to personal resilience.
Stitching improves our problem-solving skills.
It allows us a sense of control over an outcome, and requires us to keep our tempers in check when the “frogs” show up (“rip it! rip it! rip it!”). Stitching also bonds us with others who also enjoy the hobby. And in a very special way, it connects us back to others through history who have enjoyed this crafty art, providing a sense of internal context for the difficulties we’re experiencing in our lives. These are things that improve our resilience, or so science tells us—and cross stitch has them all!
These are all qualities of resilient people. By default, you’re working on almost all of them every time you pick up your needle! And, as stitching improves our resilience, then resilience helps to keep us functioning on this dizzy globe, moderately sane and relatively happy, so we can stitch some more! It’s like mutually assured zen, really. And how can you go wrong with that?
Boy, today is a spaghetti-tangle of projects! I’m circling back here at the end to tell you that we’re running a sale for Women’s History Month! Both Clitarita and History Lesson are $2 off through the end of March 2023. And hey, if you order and download yours today, you could totally finish at least one of them before the month is done!
Thanks for reading along, and thanks again for stitching with me.
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