Resilience - the key to thriving (not just surviving)
*Note: The below letter is an extract from Volume 3 of my best-selling series: ‘Reasons to Live: One More Day, Every Day’ - stories of resilience & triumph over trauma. It includes discussions on rising above suicide, sexual assault, family violence, child abuse, and PTSD. Love, Jas.
“Resilience is about knowing that hardships will come, but that you will overcome. It’s about believing that, with the right support, you can get through whatever comes your way. Anyone can build resilience and there’s never been a better time to start than now.”
Resilience.
If there is one thing I could give to you, dear reader, it would be this.
I truly believe that resilience is one of the most valuable mental tools that we can add to our everyday lives — and one that is crucial to our ability to thrive.
If you know a little of my story, you know I’ve gone through my fair share of challenges.
Family violence.
Chronic anxiety and depression from the age of 10.
A deep sense of suicidality that hit in my teenage years.
The loss of my dad to suicide just after I finished high school.
Being groomed and assaulted by a friend at the age of 20.
Going in and out of unhealthy relationships and putting myself in risky situations.
My husband being sent away on a six-month deployment when our son was still an infant.
Post-traumatic stress, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome...and that’s really just the start.
After all I’m only human; and chances are you’ve probably gone through as much, if not more.
Throughout my life, I’ve often reflected on what has helped most when I’ve been at my lowest; the moments where I’ve been hit with a situation that is so overwhelming that I can’t see a way out.
The moments where I’ve failed over and over, or felt myself slipping into a dark abyss of helplessness with no relief in sight.
And in those moments, the key to moving forward and pushing onwards has been found through resilience: that deep inner knowledge that, one day, things will change, and that if I consciously choose to live just one more day, every single day, then things will eventually get better.
Over the past year, so many of us have been challenged in ways we never expected.
Collectively, we’ve had to mourn the loss of so many things we held dear. Small everyday freedoms that we once took for granted, like getting out of the house to grab a coffee or see a friend. Or the loss of livelihoods, jobs and businesses, including dream opportunities that many of us had worked so hard for.
And then, there are deeper losses; such as the pain of having to farewell a loved one forever, yet not even being able to attend their funeral.
Let’s not sugar coat things — 2020 was a shitty year for millions of people. Many are still yet to fully come to terms with the trauma, anxiety, or stress that they are carrying. More-so, there are thousands who are searching for hope and strategies to get through the continued uncertainty in our world, yet are so overwhelmed that they don’t know where to start.
This is one of many reasons why I wrote this book, and why I’m working as hard as I can to get these messages of resilience into as many hands as possible.
At the end of the day, while things like money, social status, healthcare, education, and housing all actively contribute to our ability to live, there is only one thing that can help us to thrive consistently — resilience.
‘But where does resilience come from?’ you might be pondering. ‘What if I’m just not a naturally resilient person?’
Here’s the thing — while I don’t know your personal story or what is going on in your life at this present moment, the fact that you are here right now, reading this book, shows me that you’re already far more resilient than you realised.
Your story may be different to mine, but even so, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and assume that you’ve probably faced loss, failure, rejection, or isolation at one point or another. It’s likely that you’ve been in many situations where you’ve been so overwhelmed, that you’ve wondered how you can possibly keep on going.
If you have, I want you to know that I understand and that you are not alone. But most importantly, I want you to know that when those challenges reappear, you will rise above again — just as you have so many times before.
Nothing has more clearly proven to me the tenacity of the human spirit, than these past five years of working one-to-one with trauma survivors to write and publish their memoirs.
Throughout this time I’ve heard stories that have never before been shared; stories of survival at the hands of people, experiences, or traumas that no human should ever have to face. Most importantly though, I have witnessed over and over, how each of these humans has transformed their pain into purpose.
Just like my dear friend and client Prema (whose story you read in Volume 2); a woman who created a life of peace, fulfilment and joy after 15 years of child sexual abuse.
Or Sonia Anderson (featured in Volume 1), who used her experience of losing her precious daughter Bianca to domestic homicide, to leave a legacy and create changes to our legal system.
And then there are stories like that of Justine Watson (also featured in Volume 2), who went on to found ‘Mesh Injured Australia’ and use her experience — as one of tens of thousands of women injured by Johnson and Johnson’s disastrous pelvic mesh implants — to create global change.
These are just a few of the dozens of stories I have heard over the years, while working with survivors of PTSD, abuse, eating disorders and more.
But what my clients don’t know is that, often, I have gained just as much from working with them as they have with me.
Each of these brave individuals has shown me very clearly that as human beings, we are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.
And most importantly, that trauma does not have to be a life sentence.
Yes, this is something that I truly believe.
Despite what you may have been told, trauma does not have to be a life sentence.
To me it’s strange that such a statement can be seen as controversial, yet I know that — for some — it is.
I remember speaking at an event one day, and hearing a mental health professional tell one of the audience members that their trauma was, ‘unfortunately’ a life sentence. I remember cringing on the inside as I heard these words. I remember the way I clenched my jaw, holding back what I really wanted to say. How I stayed quiet, wishing and hoping that this audience member wouldn’t take onboard the message they’d just been given.
In all fairness, I understand where this mental health worker was coming from.
Once upon a time, I believed that trauma was a life sentence too.
Particularly, in the days and weeks after my sexual assault. I remember the way my limbs sunk heavily into the mattress each morning, as if held down by a rock. The way I stared unseeingly at the blue rafters of my bedroom, and the tissue-paper-like cobwebs that sparkled from the small skylight above. How shame and self-hatred cloaked me like an oversized trench coat. The feeling of fear that enveloped me at work when a male customer approached, or when a new boyfriend reached out to kiss me.
Anxiety, trauma, and hopelessness were so deeply ingrained inside of me that the thought of a different life wasn’t even possible. Trauma really did feel like a life sentence.
Yet, as I sit here right now, writing this letter and pondering on just how much has changed in the last 15 years, I know that nothing could be further from the truth.
Today I live almost 100% free from the post-traumatic stress that plagued me for so long. I live in a beautiful and peaceful part of Queensland, with my husband and son, and run my own business as a resilience speaker and book coach for purpose-driven women with life-changing stories. I’ve shared virtual stages with legends like Kevin Hines and Justin Baldoni, am currently preparing for my first TEDx talk, and just this week, walked into my local supermarket to see a double-page spread on my story in New Idea — one of Australia’s biggest weekly magazines.
So much has changed and a lot of it comes down to resilience.
I’d be lying if I said that I don’t still struggle with my mental health, imposter syndrome, or self-doubt.
There have been many moments in the last two years where I’ve considered throwing away all my dreams and going back to a ‘normal’ life of working for someone else. I’ve felt despair and overwhelm as I’ve looked around at others and compared my ‘smaller’ achievements to their ‘massive’ ones.
I’ve had moments with past trauma, where it has snuck up on me without warning and made me feel like a stranger in my own body.
Nights where I’ve been out on a date with my husband and seen my abuser’s face in that of a stranger; felt my speech slow, and my tongue become heavy as I fight against the way that my body freezes.
But those are the moments where I’ve reached out for support. Whether it’s for my mental health, or investing in a business professional to help me get out of the rut I’m in and continue my mission to change lives through storytelling, I’ve chosen to get support.
Resilience is about knowing that hardships will come, but that you will overcome. It’s about believing that, with the right support, you can get through whatever comes your way.
Anyone can build resilience and there’s never been a better time to start than now.
As you read through this final volume of ‘Reasons to Live’, I want to encourage you to use this book however you like. If you’re a highlighter kind of girl, get that highlighter to work! If you want to write notes in the pages or add a quote from a certain chapter to your vision board, do it.
And if all you do is read through the stories, and find the hope to keep pushing on, one more day every day, then that in itself is the greatest success I could wish for you.
It’s been a joy creating this series. Whether this is your first time reading ‘Reasons to Live,’ or you’ve been with me from the start, I send you my thanks and gratitude. And if no one else tells you this today, hear it from me: You are stronger than you realise. You deserve good things. I love you, and I’m cheering for you.
