What makes me lose my way is usually not the life changing stuff, but the small things. Challenges always abound. The to-do list has become a to-do book. Parenting, career, moving, all the things that make our lives beautiful also make it hard. But this month, there was an apparent outbreak of recluse spiders in my house. (Yeah, not amused.) And a broken air conditioner in a hot, el Niño year Lima.
So one, particularly hot day, I stop grumbling by our local market – the only place I can find non UHT milk. There I see this bunch of fresh radishes. They look crisp and cool to my sunburned eyes, and so I bring them home.
I get home, and while my husband makes drinks, I get butter and the local pink salt from Maras, used since before the Inca. Grab the radish by the stem, drag through the butter, dip lightly in the salt. Bite. It takes a while to eat a plate of radishes. We talk. My heart rate slows. We sit around our kitchen table, crunching radishes while the sweat run down the back of my legs.
Those sharp salty radishes are my reset button. My sense of perspective returns, my grateful heart feels restored.
So maybe that’s what resilience is. The ability to sit at a table with the ones we love, slow down to eat radishes and to remember who we are. The ability to reset, see the miracle in the ordinary day, and accept the gift of a cool, crisp radish.
PS: I’m teaching a webinar on resilience on March 10th at noon EST. Would you like to join? It’s Free! Sign up here
Recent Comments