One of the best tools I’ve found for increasing personal resilience is the garden metaphor.
Resilience is a skill that everyone can strengthen, which helps us cope with adversity and difficult circumstances.
You can read more about resilience here: Resilience: What It Is—Why It Matters for Everyone.
The more we strengthen our resilience skills, the more capable we feel.
That’s because we feel like we have the ability and resources we need to weather life’s storms.
One of the things that hinders our ability to handle adversity effectively is the feeling that we aren’t good enough.
A lot of us walk around with a deep sense of unworthiness, which manifests itself in several common feelings such as the following:
The feeling that we just don’t have what it takes to succeed.
Or the feeling that we just don’t have it—and the IT here is some magical quality others possess but we don’t.
Painting by Walter Langely, courtesy of Unsplash.
It may be a feeling that there are special people and everyone else (and we are in the everyone else group).
Such feelings greatly decrease our sense of worth and self-efficacy (the feeling that we are capable).
And the loss of our worth and self-efficacy greatly decreases our resilience, confidence, and hope.
So, one of the most important things we can do to strengthen personal resilience is to cultivate an authentic sense of personal self-worth.
That is because when we possess a strong sense of self-worth, we have a strong sense of something inside of us that is unconditionally valuable, good, powerful, and capable.[1]
And this feeling can become a source of strength that we draw upon to anchor us during difficult times and to help us solve problems.
Picture by Armands Brants, courtesy of Unsplash.
But how do we go about strengthening this strong sense of self-worth?
There are many different strategies for doing this, but the garden metaphor is one tool for accomplishing this important goal.
Let me explain.
The other day I was reading The Great Work, a book by philosopher and environmentalist Thomas Berry. In this book, he speaks directly to this idea of an authentic and beautiful sense of self-worth.
In a chapter called “The Wild and Sacred”, Berry argues that everything on earth–humans and animals and plants alike—possess something powerfully good inside of them that pushes then to cultivate and express this power for their own goodness, as well as the goodness of everyone else.
Berry writes,
“There is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human.
In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice.”
(Bell Tower 1999 edition, Ch. 5)
Berry refers to this glorious inner spontaneity as the wild sacredness of everything.
All nature photos in this post are by Shelly P. Johnson
Now, the phrase wild sacredness might seem confusing at first, but I understand what Berry means.
In fact, I recently experienced wild sacredness in my own back yard.
This summer I grew a garden.
I planted broccoli, tomatoes, green peppers, basil, sunflowers and cantaloupe, watermelon, and berry bushes.
And as the summer progressed, it became very clear that something wild and sacred was going on in my yard.
All the plants I planted grew into a beautiful, blooming plant party as if powered by some kind of sacred magic.
Now, certainly, I watered them.
And certainly the sun and soil and pollinators helped out this beautiful plant party.
But it was the inner spontaneity, that wild sacredness of my plants, that helped them grow into their gorgeous selves.
In other words, each of my plants possessed intrinsic worth—a kind of inner power and dynamism—that helped them grow and become everything they needed to be.
It was beautiful.
Believe it or not, human beings possess this same intrinsic worth, this same wild sacredness.
Contemporary research supports such an idea.
Over the last two decades, UPenn professor Martin Selgiman and his colleague Christopher Peterson have studied a list of character strengths and virtues found in every major culture in every major time period.
These are virtues like wisdom, humanity, temperance, courage, and transcendence.
Character Strengths and Virtues |
||
Character Strength[2] |
Definition |
Related Virtues[3] |
Wisdom |
The ability to apply knowledge and experience effectively to current situations. |
“Creativity, love of learning, perspective, curiosity, judgment” |
Humanity |
The ability to care for yourself and other people and to relate constructively. |
“Love, kindness, social intelligence” |
Temperance |
The ability to practice judicious restraint and discipline. |
“Prudence, humility, self-regulation, forgiveness” |
Courage |
The ability to approach life—the good, bad, and the unexpected—wholeheartedly. |
“Bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest” |
Transcendence |
The ability to connect positively with something larger than individual ego and immediate experiences. |
“Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, spirituality, humor, hope” |
Character Strengths in History
And Seligman and Peterson aren’t the first to note these strengths.
People have been writing about this very thing for thousands of years. For example, in ancient China, the philosopher name Mencius argued that human beings have seeds of goodness in them like capacities for love, righteousness, dignity, and wisdom.
Everyone, Mencius argues, has these seeds and can develop them if they desire to do so and practice.
When they do so, they express something beautiful and unique in the world in their specific situation.
Mencius, picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
If you come from a religious tradition, like I do, you might also think of these character strengths as the image of God in us or the fruits of the spirit that verses like Galatians 5:22-23 speaks about.
It is as if all of us possess a beautiful, planted spring garden inside of us, ready to bloom and grow into an exuberant party of inner strength.
Certainly this garden needs tending, and certainly negative internal and external factors can hinder its growth.
But it is also true that this inner garden wants to grown and bloom.
And there is more good news.
Signature Strengths
Seligman and Peterson’s research suggests that not only can everyone cultivate these character strengths, everyone possesses a signature character, a set of character strengths they are especially good at.
For instance, some people are especially good at humanity and seem to have a talent for love, kindness, and emotional intelligence.
Other people have a special gift for transcendence and are especially good at appreciating beauty and cultivating hope.
The more we understand our signature character strengths, and live from that strength, the more we cultivate a sense of intrinsic worth.
That is because we recognize that we possess something unique and special and unconditionally good.
In fact, we possess the most worthy thing in the world: the seeds of goodness—the wild and sacred part of us.
Our job is to cultivate and express this inner worth we all possess.
Such a belief builds our resilience because it gives us a sense of worth which builds positive feelings like optimism, hope, and self-efficacy.
And if you are wondering how to cultivate your inner character strengths, here is a process use can use.
Step One: Look at this list of character strengths and choose one you would like to grow.
Character Strengths and Virtues |
||
Character Strength[4] |
Definition |
Related Virtues[5] |
Wisdom |
The ability to apply knowledge and experience effectively to current situations. |
“Creativity, love of learning, perspective, curiosity, judgment” |
Humanity |
The ability to care for yourself and other people and to relate constructively. |
“Love, kindness, social intelligence” |
Temperance |
The ability to practice judicious restraint and discipline. |
“Prudence, humility, self-regulation, forgiveness” |
Courage |
The ability to approach life—the good, bad, and the unexpected—wholeheartedly. |
“Bravery, honesty, perseverance, zest” |
Transcendence |
The ability to connect positively with something larger than individual ego and immediate experiences. |
“Appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, spirituality, humor, hope” |
Step Two: Spend some time thinking or writing about these questions:
Question One: Why is this character strength especially meaningful or important to you?
Question Two: When in your life that you have demonstrated this character strength effectively? What positive effects did you see result from it?
Question Three: When have you witnessed someone else demonstrate this character strength effectively? What positive effects did you see result from it?
Question Four: Now take a minute and imagine yourself living out this character strength.
Imagine that it is fully developed and flourishing in your life.
Imagine some some exciting things that you would do, feel, and experience. Take some time to really connect with these feelings.
Question Five: What is one step you can take to develop this strength?
Step Three: Choose your own adventure.
Would you like to take more time to think about your chosen character strength? Or would you like to take your action step?
Either one is great. Feel free to reflect more or to take action.
You decide which path is best for you right now.
Step Four: Would you like an extra adventure?
If you want an extra adventure, you can figure out your signature strength by taking a free quiz here: Character Strengths Survey
Determining your character strength helps you reflect on your wild sacredness.[6]
Connecting Character Strengths to Self-Efficacy and Resilience
At the beginning of this post, I listed some common feelings of unworthiness:
The feeling that we just don’t have what it takes to succeed.
Or the feeling that we just don’t have it—and the IT here is some magical quality others possess but we don’t.
The that there are special people and everyone else (and we are in the everyone else group).
We are in a great position to see now how understanding our wild sacredness can help us develop these discouraging feelings and strengthen our sense of self-efficacy.
If everyone possesses character strengths that they can cultivate infinitely, then we most certainly have IT.
We have what it takes to succeed.
And if everyone possesses a signature character strength—their own wild sacredness–then we are certainly one of the special people—everyone is.
Concluding Thought
It is 100%, absolutely true that you are powerful, beautiful, and full of good seeds ready to develop.
And if trying to develop these seeds sounds too exhausting right now, you can just take time to imagine your favorite character strength growing, blossoming, and blooming in your life.
Imagination is powerful, and it leads us in the right direction when we are ready.
The wild and sacred in me honors the wild and sacred in you.
*****
You might also like these posts:
Computer vs. Tree: New Metaphors, More Resilience
Using the Ocean Metaphor to Increase Personal Resilience
How to Flourish by Cultivating Virtues
*****
You might also like to read Thomas Berry’s book The Great Work, which you can find at your local library or bookseller or at Amazon.
