I was thrilled to be invited to speak at this great initiative. It was the first time I have met the other panelists and wow, i was blown away. We have some truly amazing women in our community doing amazing things.
Here is my speech:
How satisfying is it when you find a word for something you've just always done?
According to the dictionary resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness. The ability of a substance orobject to spring back into shape, elasticity.
For me resilience is being able to adapt and change, and to do that we first need to recognise that we are holding onto specific expectations, standards, ideals that may no longer be serving us. And sure spring back into shape but maybe not the same shape we originally thought.
I spent the first twenty years of my married life imagining what being a mum would like. Yep the first twenty because becoming a mum didnt happen like i imagined either. I remember when my baby was about 6 weeks old, my husband had returned to work and my daughter and I where going out together for our first time. I ironed my shirt (have since abandoned ironing completely - who has time for that seriously), dressed my baby, we both had on hot pink shirts. I opened the front door and before i had stepped out to our new freedommy baby threw up all over me. I could have lost the plot, could have retreated back inside, could have let it derail my entire day. Did I? no, i went in side grabbed a green clean, unironed shirt and got on with our day.
Going back even before them I had self imposed expectations without even realising it at the time. From the age of 2 all the way through high school I only ever had one expectation of myself and that was to be a school teacher. I took on everyone else's expectations that I would be a good student, that I would go to uni, that I would be everything that my mother and brother couldn’t be. Year 11 didn’t work for me, I was at a new school, I went from being an A student to failing even my favourite subjects. I had to "pivot" and find something else to do so I could leave. I went to art school for three 3 years. My childhood expectations held on strong as I went from one unsatisfying job to the next unsatisfying job. Feeling a failure and losing direction.
A car accident stopped me in my tracks and I had to find something that worked for me. I ended upwith an aromatherapy company that gave me a new direction. I qualified as an aromatherapist and bush flower practitioner and wrote and presented a course at the local Community College. The joy I felt holding my first pay cheque for teaching was amazing. Sure it wasn’t primary school but I had found a passion and a subject I loved teaching.
Around this time as a family my husband and I started exploring IVF as our expectations that we would be parents by then hadn’t happened the traditional way, the original plan was to have kids around 25ish, a couple of years after we married. Okay we had kids at 40 and 42.
How did I cope (survive) lockdown?
Homeschooling - we'd been struggling with school cant withone of our girls, homeschooling was eye opening, my girls needed the discipline of school but the current school system did not work for one. This year we have enrolled her in Tafe.
Markets and workshops had been the main way I ran my current oil business, they were restricted or gone for much of the last 2 years. I learnt new platforms and started teaching my classes online and really building my online presence, still keeping my face there and through my classes connecting with my team and customers.
I had been connecting within my community for a while and missed that physical connection during lockdown but again found a way to serve mycommunity and keep the connections. We changed the way we delivered the food outreach service in Wollondilly, we took networking coffee catch ups on line.
I reconnected with my creative side and things i had dabbledwith in the past become part of my everyday - making cards, painting, paintingrocks, designing and making positivity card sets, making badges to help cheer people up and raise our positivity vibration.
So pivoting, adapting, being resilient is something I havebeen practicing for years. My biggest lesson has totally been to let go ofexpectations, always look for the positive in every situation, and i know sometimes it is years later before we can see the positive but i always have faith that there is a positive to learn or grow from, from every situation life throws at us.
Has my day, my week, my month, my year, my life turned outexactly as I planned and dreamed and was promised? Hell no.
Will I survive, will I adapt, will I pivot, will I let go of expections - most definitely - bring on tomorrow....
A huge thank you to Brian Laul from Oz Funland, Good Morning Macarthur and Rainbow Crossing for this opportunity.
