Soulbuilding lesson 1 – Resilience

Here’s the shocking headline folks:

Resilience is all about DEATH and REBIRTH

– it is not some upbeat advertisement for moisturiser where a jolly red rubber ball is squished and then bounces straight back to its original perfection.

Brian Walker describes the resilience theory that has emerged from studies of Australian bush fires, in his book Resilience Thinking, published in 2006. He presents his understanding of how the process starts with a period of rapid growth, followed by some consolidation, and then a disturbance intervenes (the fire). At this point there are three options for any system; firstly, the option to smother the disturbance as much as possible and return to the consolidated state, becoming rigid to prevent disruption in future (to stagnate). Secondly, the system can be destroyed by the disturbance and collapse. Or, if resilience is to be discovered, the third option requires entering the chaos and allowing it to do its work. If we can find a way to sit within the chaos, and be accompanied inside it, we will be able to allow transformation as some parts of the original are “burnt away” and die, and others survive but are restructured and profoundly changed by the chaos, perhaps showing the scars and bearing embodied memories of the transition process itself, often creating great beauty as in the photograph here.

I have always loved the symbolism of the Phoenix bursting into flames, being destroyed and rising from the ashes, the ideas of cycles of life and death, and the value and necessity of burning and crumbling in order to reach the glory of flight. J.K. Rowling added wonderfully to the original image in her Harry Potter books by providing Dumbledore’s phoenix Fawkes with healing tears.

The psychology of change is profoundly challenging when we embrace it at these raw and violent levels, instead of with some sort of triumphalism and a group cheer at the end of a redecision (Bob & Mary Goulding, Changing Lives Through Redecision Therapy, 1979). Adler talked about the consequences of shifting what he called our private logic into a new logic through such transformative change that disconnects us from old patterns; we can end up with no investment in any particular outcome, becoming willing simply to enter the new experience as we take on a new internal landscape, but we have to face the profound loss that comes with change, including needing to acknowledge where we don’t fit any more – we can still understand the people who have continued with their old private logic, but they cannot understand us.

At this time of year, of course, we are reminded that resilience is also the product of our survival of cold and scarcity – winter’s frozen ground, bare trees, lack of easily found nutrition, apparent death and barrenness. (I will be writing more about these concepts of cold and scarcity in a future blog)

So here are some Foxtales to get us started.

In Celtic mythology, winter is brought to us by the Cailleach – the old woman whose cloak of white is spread over the land at Samhain (or Hallowe’en) as we move into the darkest days of the year. She is sometimes seen as the goddess of death, but has a deeper, wiser role in guiding those who are dying through the process, and in accompanying people through their grieving. She is accompanied through the world by the antlered god Cernunnos (or Herne the Hunter in the English version, Gwyn ap Nudd in Wales), whose task is to lead the Wild Hunt to gather lost souls and guide them to their time in the Underworld to prepare them for their next life. The energy of the Hunt is wild, chaotic and potentially terrifying – “lightning to the psyche” – and yet is needed to break the soul from clinging to its old patterns, or to turn it from its aimless wandering into a new direction. It also forces any devils or demons from the world. Then comes the Winter Solstice in the Celtic calendar, the beginning of the return of the light, as the sun starts to move northward in the hemisphere again and the days get imperceptibly longer. Solstice coincides with many religious festivals that allow for withdrawal from regular activity, feasting, resting and reflection: our preparation “out of the world” for rebirth in the new year. All manner of metaphors emerge from this time – bulbs underground, animals hibernating and even giving birth hidden in their dens, newborns protected in the hidden place until they are strong enough  – focused on resting, conserving energy, and building of strength required to meet the demands of emergence. And how are we to emerge from our literal or psychological winter lair or ashes, our down time, our semi-hibernation, and re-engage with living? Will we be returning to old habits, comfortably uncomfortable ways of thinking and doing, perhaps exploiting the numbing potential of feasting in order to settle ourselves back down after the jolt of lightning delivered by the Hunter, the burning of the Phoenix, the chaos of the fire? We have the choice – as described in Walker’s model: will we become more rigid in order to avoid the fire and lightning impacting us in the first place (and thereafter quietly stagnate), or will we surrender to the fire and collapse in the flames, never to recover? Perhaps if we are very brave we will surrender, recover and regenerate, restructured and scarred by the chaos, but nonetheless transformed and ready to grow again until the next fire comes.

Questions to reflect with:

Where has the fire burned across my life recently, or the winter frozen it?

What does the fire or winter tell me about parts of me that need to be moved on, or even shocked by lightning into stepping off my familiar track?

Who will be my Cailleach and my Cernunnos and accompany me as aspects of my self, my old patterns and beliefs, need to die, and as I need support to grieve their loss as I let them go?

How can I nurture myself in my time “out of World” so that I build my resources and prepare to re-emerge into the light and the busyness of my usual world?

How do I imagine my life will be transformed if I allow myself to enter fully into the burning, and to bring my shining scars into the coming year?