LK TommiAs the Resilience Tutor, I know that life can be tricky at times for our young people for a whole range of reasons. I could definitely make a long list of reasons here and I would probably fill two pages at least. I then could put the reasons into broad categories including life necessities (bills, money, time etc), academic, social, emotional and mental health, which are the ones we have all heard about that our young people or families have experienced.
The best part of life is that we are all individual with our own strengths and limitations. This is the way life is meant to be; otherwise, we would all be perfect robots running around this amazing world that we live in, and we wouldn’t get a deep and rich experience of this amazing world. There would be no challenges for us to overcome, we would see no growth in the way we develop as a person and maybe life would be boring or not as fulfilling.
I have heard podcasts of people with lots of money (what I would consider rich) and I hear the words I am not happy or feel discontented with my life. I have pondered this repeatedly, “How can this be”. Then I worked it out, what they are looking for is a new challenge in life. They have conquered or completed all the challenges in their life. Without, a challenge in life we are not using our brain to its fullest capacity. The brain likes nothing better than to have a challenge to work through and solve.
When I work with young people, they often see challenges as something that is a negative. Challenges are too hard or something to fear, rather than embracing challenge as a positive and see all the learning that comes from a challenge. I love it when children say, “There is nothing like a good challenge?” Sometimes we become, overwhelmed by challenges, as there appears to be too many challenges at once to solve. This is when it is a good time to write each challenge down and solve them one by one, or talk to someone to unravel the tricky challenges. Too many tricky challenges can be like a ball of wool that is all knotted up, it is time to sort out the knots and put the ball of wool back as a smooth ball of wool, ready for use.
Could I say that challenge is a way of connecting you to life?
Sometimes a challenge comes along by surprise (these are often not my favourite ways of being presented, with a challenge) but then I smile and remember why I am being presented with the challenge. It is time to learn and do something different.
If we say to our logical brain, ok, I accept this challenge in life. How can I solve the challenge, then we totally enjoy the challenge and feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the challenge.
In the process, we are developing the ability to believe in ourselves and that is resilience in action.
When I look back at the challenge, I see how it has changed my life and what I have learnt through the process.
Would you agree that, challenge is all about learning.
Every time when a challenge comes along, I accept the challenge, I am curious about the challenge and engage with the challenge. Challenge completed. Time for the next one…
Have you thought of seeing a challenge through a different lens? What do you think you will see?
https://thetommiconnection.com.au/
Reena Terreping
Vivienne Spanopoulos
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