Resilience

The word resilience is most often used when referring to our ability to adapt to adversity. It measures our capacity to recover in the face of a difficult situation.

After coming across a recent letter in Frankie Magazine that unpacked Sophie’s childhood ‘ordeal’ with arriving on stage for a rousing drum solo only to find her instrument was nowhere to be seen and then reading on to hear how she quickly saw the musical potential of a nearby salad bowl, it made us question our own resilience and our ability to not give up in the face of adversity.

While resilience is most often applied in response to a trauma, tragedy, threat or a significant source of stress, being able to find our resilient selves even amid our time with needle and thread will see us achieve more than we ever thought possible.

It’s the ability to find something inside us that pushes us to try something beyond our current capabilities, to unpick our stitching for the umpteenth time in the hope our next attempt will bring about the desired result, perhaps even the courage to engage an external support network that will take us to a level of competency we couldn’t achieve on our own.

The lesson Sophie learnt by being resilient and not giving up on stage that day was ‘sometimes, when it seems like you’re dead out of luck and there’s no feasible way forward, you just have to reach for the closest kitchen implement.’

While we’re not certain that the closest kitchen implement will necessarily be the tool that helps us in the face of our next stitching challenge, if we apply the same resilience by using what we find within and around us, we’re sure we’ll succeed and in the process, build a little more resilience that will set us up for continued success with needle and thread!