Bouncing Back

When crises arise, some people flourish while others flounder. Here's how your practice can help you build resilience.

By Sally Kempton

When your rational mind has stopped working, you have two choices: You can give in to anger, fear, and depression or you can start to explore the nonrational. Laura had never been religious, but she turned to prayer because she had lost the ability to make rational decisions.

"I started praying about everything," she says. "Should I have turkey for dinner? Should I move back to my folks' house or try to live alone? Am I supposed to stay where I am or go to Seattle? I felt silly praying about all of these things, but it was the only thing that worked."

Laura found herself living in the world of uncanny synchronicities that so many people experience during spiritual awakenings. She'd ask for signs and they'd arrive. Little miracles happened. She discovered she could make bold moves by praying for guidance and then following it. Unable to run or do weight training, she began using a video to learn yoga and found that it improved her balance. She painted—large abstract canvases. "Painting helped me express the intense anger I'd feel when I'd have a setback. I couldn't let myself get angry, because any strong emotion just made my headaches so much worse. So I'd paint my feelings, and the anger would dissolve and change."

As Laura surrendered to being "damaged," she started to sense a deeper purpose behind her troubles. Her consciousness was, quite literally, expanding. She felt as if she could sense palpable connections to other people and the universe. She was living her life from the inside out, discovering a force within her that was actually transforming her sense of self.

"I had a vulnerability and a compassion I'd never had before," she says, "so I was able to meet people in the place where they were and actually be of help to them. On the outside, my life looked really horrible. But I was also finding that sharing my story helped other people embrace their own hardships, to move forward and see meaning in their lives."

It's now five years after her accident, and Laura has written a book for people recovering from brain injuries. The work she did to retrain her brain has paid off; she can now read for up to three hours at a time. She and her boyfriend teach a form of energetic healing. Her IQ has returned to normal, but the experience of "losing" her rational mind changed her forever. She learned how to rely on something deeper than that mind. Like many others in similar circumstances, Laura is convinced that her accident was not really an accident but a nudge from the universe—the catalyzing event of her spiritual awakening.

Three Keys to Resilience

Laura's story is a classic example of the alchemical power of adversity. Deep understanding came to her spontaneously, as a series of insights. In a natural fashion, Laura discovered the three basic practices that the yogic sage Patanjali grouped together as kriya yoga, the yoga of transformative action. It was Patanjali's claim, and has been the experience of countless practitioners, that these three yogic actions—tapas (intense effort or austerity), svadhyaya (self-study or self-inquiry), and Ishvara pranidhana (surrender to the higher reality)—strike at the very root of suffering.

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

See All Holistic Healing Articles »