Flexibility and resilience are two of our greatest allies. As humans, we’re able to roll with the punches and stand up again. Even after terrible suffering, we are able to assess what happened with compassion and turn the experience into good. Unhappiness and stress is often caused by our getting stuck. We get stuck in expectations about how something should be or how someone should act. We get stuck in worrying about a future that is never as bad as we imagine it will be. When we get stuck, we also get brittle and hard. That means we’re not so resilient. When we’re punched by life, instead of feeling bruised and then recovering, we crack. Allowing softness in our soul is not weakness but strength. Opening ourselves to different ways of seeing things doesn’t make us wishy-washy but more powerful. Try something you’ve never tried today. Experiment with thinking about something from an entirely different point of view. Listen to an opposing argument with radical interest. Take on a responsibility that pushes your boundaries. Wear a different hat.
