LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Tayla Parx!

How will this fadge?

Dear Lovelets,

I just spent the last ten minutes trying to find an interview I heard once on the radio with a scholar who had spent his entire life studying human resilience. From what I remember about this interview (which I heard maybe fifteen years ago?) this gentleman had determined that the three characteristics that are most associated with resilient people are:

1. A belief that life has meaning

2. A belief that your own life has a PARTICULAR meaning

3. And one other thing which is probably super important but I can’t remember it, and I’m not going to keep looking for it on the Internet, and I’m not going to make Margaret look for it, either, because I already give her too many dumb things to do! 

So I hope that’s helpful, everyone!

But here’s what I found interesting during my ten long and arduous minutes of deep research (I almost went into the DARK WEB, you guys!) — there are a lot of different opinions and studies and TED talks about the traits that resilient people apparently possess.

Among others, I saw: optimism, problem-solving, control (???), connection, emotional regulation (lol), mental strength (rofl), confidence, capability . . .

Maybe this is true? I don’t know. I don’t know very many people who have what I would call “mental strength.” And if I did know them, I’m not sure I would call them in the middle of the night if I were having a mental breakdown, asking for love and guidance. 

So where is resilience to be found? 

For the rest of us, I mean. For those of us who perhaps have no problem-solving skills or emotional regulation,

Resilience will not be found in a Google search, I promise you.

Yet you must have some of that resilience, or you wouldn’t be here, right?

Because the fact that you are actually alive today, and that you are HERE — wanting to be here — in this community with us, means that you most possess a certain amount of resilience. You’ve made it this far, after all.  

Our lovely guest this week is a young songwriter, performer, actor, and producer named Tayla Parx, who used her letter to reflect upon how far she has come in her life, and all that she has survived (even the dreaded “Saturn return,” which nearly took me out!) Love wanted Tayla to really SEE herself — to see her own resilience and strength.

Which made me want to reflect upon the question, too — the way we do things around here. Which is by skipping over the Google searches and the scholarly studies, and directly asking Love: “What would you have me know . . .”

Thank you for still being here, my loves. Every single precious, resilient one of you.

Love,

Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about resilience?

Dearest little melting popsicle of sweetness — first of all, as with so many of our conversations, I would have you know what resilience is NOT.

It’s not what you think.

Resilience, for you, has nothing to do with the things you were taught about being a badass, or what anyone else may say about it. It has nothing to do with being tough and very little to do with being brave. It also has nothing to do with sucking it up, being a good sport, putting a good spin on things, looking for the positive, etc. etc.

Listen, no disrespect to any of those things. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being tough, being brave, sucking it up, being a good sport, putting a good spin on things, and looking for the positive. It’s just that those are not skills of resiliency — not for you, at least. For you, those are survival mechanisms. You can tell that they are survival mechanisms, because they are hard, and because they take energy from you. And they are pretty good survival mechanisms, as far as survival mechanisms go, but we aren’t here today to talk about merely surviving — which you have done very nicely, and congratulations for it.

We are here today to talk about resilience. Which is far more fascinating and subtle than mere survival. And, if done gently, can be EASY.

Resilience, if done gently, can be easy.

Little Sparrow, yes, we have an easy answer for you on this. We have an answer that was formed just for you. And, as ever, we have a softer answer than you might expect.

For you, Lizzy, resilience will always be found through one lovely word: curiosity.

Do you remember that day, back in your apartment on 39^th Street over twenty years ago, when you realized that you had completely wrecked your entire life? Remember how you’d once had a marriage and a beautiful home, and you were about to start a family, and then you blew it all up and went out there and fell in love with somebody who was so charismatic and sexy and compelling and energizing and AMAZING that you were sure your life was about to become the most epic romantic adventure of all time, totally worth losing absolutely everything for  — and then that guy turned off the heat as soon as he won you, and was no longer interested in you at all (in fact, was suddenly visibly repulsed by you, and wouldn’t even make eye contact with you anymore) and you were devastated and for a year you thought you were going to die, and finally after a whole bunch of drama and pain and nonsense you had the dignity to end things with him? And that day on the couch, you suddenly realized “Oh my God, I now have nobody and I have lost everything.”

Because you really had lost everything, or at least a lot, or so it felt.

You’d just lost all your money in your divorce, as well as your home, a bunch of friends, and your dignity, and you were completely alone and all you could do lately was cry.

And do you remember that one moment on the couch when you suddenly stopped crying, because you heard a strange sound in your head? And that sound was a tiny little voice that said, “Hmm. This is interesting.”

And you started laughing! In the midst of one of the worst days of your life, you started laughing because you realized: “Wait, no, this actually really IS interesting.”

Because you’d never been in this place before. You’d never been so broke, so broken down, so hurt. Nothing had turned out the way you’d planned it. So here you were, all alone in the moment. Where you’d never intended to be, where you never meant to be, with no idea of where to go next.

It was as if, you realized, you were starting life all over again in a new country in a new world.

For a curious person like you, this was kind of intriguing.

You thought to yourself, “I wonder what’s gonna happen now.”

You thought to yourself, as Shakespeare would say, “How will this fadge?”

And from that tiny curious thought — how will this fadge? — you, our little precious fox kit, began your new life.

Child, do you remember your amazing great-aunt Lolly — one of the most vibrant and vivid people you have ever known? You remember talking to her at a family picnic once when she was in her eighties, and you asked her how she was doing, and she said, “Well, Lizard, I have cancer! Isn’t that INTERESTING?!”

And she went on to tell you about how fascinating she was finding the experience of having cancer — all the people she was meeting, the things she was learning, the twists and turns.

As she spoke, you watched her in amazement because you could see in her eyes that she really meant it. This wasn’t someone putting a positive spin on things, or being tough. This was somebody who was really interested, as a spectator, in what was happening in her body. For her, this experience of having cancer was, objectively, interesting. Because Lolly, like you, was an essentially curious person.

This curiosity, this genuine interest that you have always had in how things shall fadge is the heart and soul of your simple resilience.

This willingness to be an interested spectator in your own life, even when your own life is having a moment of pain, is what keeps you in the game. Your curiosity is a gift we gave you, to take you beyond survival and into resilience. And curiosity is easy for you, so lean on that. Much easier than being tough, which has never been your thing.

So that is what we want you to know. Keep your curiosity sharp and sincere, and resilience will always be yours. The day you lose your curiosity in life is the day . . . well, my dear, we don’t even need to finish that sentence, because we have no intention of you losing your curiosity, because we gave it to you as a gift.

It’s one of your INTRINSIC gifts. Meaning, it’s part of you. Cannot be taken from you. Is blended into you.

Just be curious, little bee. As if you could ever not be. It’s all you will ever need to be resilient.

Let’s keep going.

Prompt

This week, I invite you to join me in posing a question about what compels us to keep going. Has your sense of curiosity served you as well as mine has served me? Is it something else that serves the same role for you? Are you frustrated by your level of resilience?

You might ask Dear Love, what would you have me know about being resilient? Or Dear Love, what would you have me know about what resilience means to me? And, as always, I can’t wait to hear the answers, if you are moved to share your letters in the comments!