Why is Resilience So Important?

      Let me begin by stating my reasons for writing a book about resilience.

      I believe that most people are suffering from the design of their lives because they do not understand themselves at a deeper soul level; and secondly, because they do not know what to do when they know their own soul. This book is about knowing your own soul and discovering that your soulmate is YOU!

      Over the years, I have been fortunate to live a charmed life. Not because everything I have done has been great, lucky or easy, but in large part because I have been blessed with an ambitious soul. In recent years, I have come to realize that not everyone has been so blessed.

      Unfortunately, you cannot necessarily be like me. Fortunately, you would not want to. What I am about to share with you is part of the methodology that I have used with clients all over the world during the past 17 years as a developmental coach who sought to develop resilience in myself and within others.

I define resilience as the differentiated power to persist when things do not work out at first, the capability to navigate ambiguity and uncertainty, the motivation to transcend common problems and barriers and to collaboratively anticipate the future in sustainable ways. 

1.   Why would people want more resilience?

      Essentially, we have a simple equilibrium to deal with: to live our lives and to be lived by our lives. The soul’s art is the unfolding of a life fully lived. Each of us has the opportunity to find harmony in our soul’s journey.

      The soulful expression of our individual and unique gifts and how we approach life is to be honored as the authentic dance of soul emerges. There is no right or best way for your soul to emerge into aliveness; it just is. The soul is at work unconsciously to fully emerge through you—a destiny of sorts. Perhaps in many ways, the journey of life is the unfolding of the soul and nothing more. Although in these days and times, our ability to live the illusion of more may confuse us.

      Life will present us with opportunities for resilience—challenges to the soul, our life, our relationships, our families, our activities, our religion and spirituality and daily in our work. In those moments, we may choose to engage, account, author and respond through conscious design, or not. The methodology I am going to outline for you will give you some tools which will enable you to become more resilient by design…if you choose.

2.  What is soul?

      First of all, I do not pretend to know the truth about soul, but I will share with you my insights on the subject and why I have chosen to address soul in this way.

      I believe soul is an emergent set of properties that arises from our nature via nurture. Religion and Spirituality aside, these properties seek fitness in a world that is constantly changing, growing, renewing and evolving itself.

      I do not consider soul to be good or bad, right or wrong. I will leave that judgment to you and your maker. Yet I will state emphatically that you have choices, that your life is not just a clock, or machine, but a canvas on which you have the opportunity to paint your own picture, albeit biased.

      Because of the myth of life and living, soul is often relegated beyond our choice, out of our control. I am here to express another viewpoint about the soul, its effect and affect in our lives as the amazing journey of aliveness that is possible individually and collectively.

      Essentially the soul emerges out of an "ensoulment"—a combinatorial effect of nature and nurture catalyzed by our own unique program of life. The being, having, doing and becoming our unique self is not out of reach or controlled by a deity or force apart from us, although we must recognize and regulate the destiny (karma) in our programming. The secret of soul is that the soul is not secret, but available to be actively nurtured and experienced throughout our life’s journey.

      Fortunately for all of us, whether we understand the secrets or not, our soul emerges, often in ways which are unimaginable. It is not just the so-called self-aware, the cultural creative, the spiritual sage, or repentant sinner that takes communion of the soul, but each and every sentient being in the universe. Out of our primal nature emerges the soulful life, if we only realize that and nothing more, life becomes alive! So, if you choose to do nothing, your soul will find its way. If you choose as I do to participate with the soul in designing a life, your soul will find you.

3.  What is design?

      Design works whether we do or do not. I am not referring to creative or intelligent design, although in some ways, certain aspects apply. As Frijof Capra related in Hidden Connections, it is simply the interaction of form, process, matter and meaning of life that creates aliveness.

      Consciously and unconsciously, we are alive. There is some argument as to what being alive means and that is where design comes in. I am not here to argue for or against intelligent, natural, or creative design—I will leave that to the philosophers and sages. What I am here to show is how, through a process that some may call an Integral Transformative System™, you may re-energize who you are by giving CPR to your soul.

      When I use the term design, I am talking about the unconscious natural design and what I refer to as the “cynthetic” design I use in this methodology. Cynthetic is a term I coined to discuss “creative synthesis.” By working with the creative processes in our lives—Nature Via Nurture as Ridley’s book of the same—each of us emerges by design, unconsciously and/or consciously. I am writing to show you the ideas I have about focusing on conscious cynthesis to promote the opportunities we all have to live together on one planet and in one universe with those we have yet to meet.

      I believe that design, whether it is natural or cynthetic can be combined to produce powerful opportunities for resilience, as does my friend Dr. Don Beck, of Spiral Dynamics Integral. In part because there will be fits and starts in our universe as we jump from one paradigm to the next, design will often be unconscious. At this time, we are in the middle of one of those leaps and CPR may be required for those who consciously decide to support the uncertainty of the jump we are now making in finding a way to bridge the challenges of the times.

4.  What is the pressing need…a new morality?

      I suppose I could list what is a long line of pressing needs that can be found in every corner of the planet, yet I will choose to focus on only one: adaptability.

      I cannot say with any certainty what will be the next problem, crisis, or calamity. I can say with certainty, that it will require adaptability. I do not know the specifics of preparing you for the future. I cannot point you to the future and say do this or do that in respect to what may occur—life is uncertain, at best. What I can do is show you how to become adaptable and I can show you how to resuscitate your soul in the process.

What I am suggesting has profound implications on our educational, judicial, executive and legislative systems both here in the US and around the planet.

What I’m suggesting is a new morality--a morality that considers that not all people are created equal, but have equal rights—an individual, yet uniquely differentiated in reality.

What I am suggesting is that we stop hiding behind outmoded blank slate philosophies.  We need to create a morality where people are providing the “government” which supports design that carries the weight of change and lessens suffering produced by people being forced to navigate demands when the demands are over their heads and beyond their capability as a result of nature’s lottery.

The current social structure of developed society says that if you are willing to work hard, you will get ahead. In some ways and for a few people that is certainly true. Those that have the natural resilience profile for this rule-set do wonderfully in the current system which favors them.  There is a reason that 1 percent of the people control more than 50 percent of all assets in the world and this percentage is growing rapidly in the face of complex change.

Yet, this social and economic structure leaves behind those who are not naturally predisposed to this solution-set. However, because we are SO afraid of the morality and excesses of applied eugenics - or so afraid that someone’s liberty might be impugned or that someone is thought to be less than someone else - we make the masses suffer at the hands of those whose nature is well-suited to the current set of rules.

While rule and solution-sets change across cultures, nations and economies, those most suited in terms of their nature, or through gifts of nurture long rooted in the spoils of past natural resilience or good fortune through the transference of familial wealth and prosperity—remain in the advantage.

In many ways, those fortunes are representative of the same design formula that I am proposing be offered to those—without the where-with-all—which creates a more encompassing safety net. I am proposing this simple distinction. That the whole rather than being driven by those who are naturally resilient or aligned to the rule-set en vogue, provide for those in need when they experience demand rule-sets which are out of equilibrium with their capability.

Now, many will say this is exactly what they are advocating. I beg to differ. We have seen no humanitarian effort based on anything but blank slate ideology—that if we provide the environment, that people will succeed. Is this not what you say I am offering? Not hardly. If you buy into the predisposition that the environment is all people need, then you will sweep over the huge mountain that is standing in the way of resilience for most.

By merely providing the environment, without mass customization and full recognition of natural capacity, we foist upon people the illusion that you can be anything you want to be. This is a severely flawed strategy and is leading to serious issues with sustainability, as the many attempt to follow the path of the few—those same few with natural gifts, nurtured indemnity, or good fortune (genes).

The “Be like Mike” syndrome depicted through NBA Basketball Star Michael Jordan doing a Gatorade commercial is indicative of the problem. Providing the environment is yet another narrow path up the ladder or mountain, if you like, that is strewn with failure and serious disadvantages to the many as a result.

Who will tell these people they “cannot be anything we can be?” That question is the reason for the new morality. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we are going to get the same results. Some term that as insanity! And insanity it is in my view.

Where did we come up with the belief that we can be anything we want to be? On what stone is it written? We have been handed this belief by those who believe in it, those very few who walk ahead of most, who—because they did, believe everyone can, or even wants too! This basic structure of the blank slate, the noble savage and the ghost in the machine keeps hope—afloat.

Yet, what it does, is keep the masses subservient because of the guilt in believing that if they would just work harder, or try harder, or learn more, or do what the successful do—they too, can share in the dream of “being anything you want to be.” It has become an American dream out of control, fueled by the unconscious knowledge that few will make it, but if not all, most will keep trying—a veiled, yet socially approved enslavement.

The entire focus of this flawed morality is in the outcome, and not the journey; in the ends—not in the path.

While most people in the helping systems of today are intent on truly helping people, they are just giving people fish—not teaching them to fish. When the days come that we begin to teach our children—first at home and then in schools, in business and in community that “anyone can be anything they can be…” and to find that within themselves, rather than looking outward to those others who are different, as just different, rather than superior in some way…the new morality lies dormant. The current paradigm keeps the new morality dormant and as a result we promote unsustainable futures.

5.  In the end, here’s what you will discover in CPR for the Soul:

      Each person has a unique constellation of gifts that often emerges in an equilibrium of action, which is not balanced. Therefore, resilience will be emergent in a variety of unique and unpredictable ways through the ability to innovate and adapt your own, as well as the constellation you create with others experiencing life-conditions over time. This is where I want to begin; in partnership.

Mike R Jay

Sept 11, 2005

Mike is the author of a number of books, founder of Leadership University and a coach and consultant to 1000s around the planet. Visit www.mikejay.com or purchase: www.cprforthesoul.com.

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