Being Resilient Regardless of What Happened in My Life

An Orchid Story of Strength & Resilience

I’ve spent much of my life wondering where my strength came from.

It wasn’t something I consciously chose. It wasn’t something I trained for. It was simply steadiness, unyielding, and present even when life tried to convince me otherwise.

People often say children are resilient, that they bounce back easily, an idea that resilience research has long supported (Masten, 2014). And maybe that’s true. But what surprises me most is that my resilience hasn’t faded as I've gotten older. If anything, it sharpened.

No matter what has happened to me, no matter how painful, disappointing, or unfair a situation has been, I’ve never allowed myself to stay in that space for too long. I cry. I feel overwhelmed. I let myself sit in the hurt. I permit myself to grieve.

But I don’t live there.

Because I know myself well enough to know that if I stay too long in that space, it becomes dangerous. It becomes the place where self-doubt grows louder, where negative voices creep in, where motivation dissolves into stillness, something that trauma and resilience studies caution can happen when distress lingers too long (Bonanno, 2004). And I refuse to sink into a place that steals my movement.

My life hasn’t been easy, but I’m also careful with how I tell my story. I know some people have endured far more than I have. So I don’t label my life as tragic. I’ve experienced trauma. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been underestimated. But I never allowed those moments to define the limits of my future.

In fact, every traumatic experience did the opposite.

It pushed me.

When I was told I wouldn’t be anything more than a maid.
When opportunities were withheld from me, roles I knew I had earned but were intentionally denied.
When doors were quietly closed without explanation.

I didn’t retreat.

I pushed harder.

There’s something in me, something deeply rooted that refuses to accept limitation. Maybe it’s cultural. Perhaps it’s ancestral. As a Jamaican and Belizean woman, I was raised with a clear message: no one is better than you. You can learn. You can grow. You can rise, a belief system research links to resilience through identity and cultural grounding (Ungar, 2011).

And I believed that.

If someone suggests I can’t do something, something inside me ignites. How dare you tell me I can’t? That single doubt becomes fuel. If you think I lack knowledge, I will go find it. If you think I don’t have the skill, I will learn it, practice it, and implement it well, a response closely aligned with what psychologists describe as growth mindset and self-efficacy (Dweck, 2006; Bandura, 1997).

I don’t wait to be taught.

I research.
I watch.
I learn.
And then I do.

I’ve mastered skills I had never touched before simply because I refused to accept “I don’t know” as an ending. Building my business wasn’t handed to me. I didn’t rely on constant guidance. I studied. I observed. I gathered information. And I implemented step by step.

What I’ve learned over time is this: there are no unintelligent people. Some people have knowledge, and people who choose not to seek it. In a world where information lives in the palm of our hands, lack of knowledge is rarely about access. It’s about intention—something learning theory consistently emphasizes (Bandura, 1997).

And resilience lives in that intention.

That doesn’t mean I never feel defeated. I do. I have moments where the weight feels heavy. But I don’t stay down. I don’t numb myself. I don’t disappear. I come back swinging every time, which aligns with how resilience is described in the research: not as the absence of struggle, but the ability to re-engage (Masten, 2014).

That resilience is what saved me. It’s what kept me from becoming a statistic. It’s what kept me moving when stillness would have been easier.

And when I work with staff who struggle with motivation, self-worth, or belief, I wish I could hand them this drive. I wish I could embed it inside them. All I can do is speak it out loud: Show them. Prove it to yourself. Learn the skill. Apply the knowledge. Stand in your power.

Resilience isn’t about pretending things don’t hurt.

It’s about refusing to let hurt decide who you become.

Key Takeaway

Resilience is not the absence of pain, struggle, or disappointment. It is the decision to engage again, to learn, to adapt, and to refuse to let hurt determine who you become. Strength grows not because life is easy, but because you choose movement over stagnation and intention over defeat.

Reflective Notes

Resilience often goes unnoticed when it becomes familiar. We move forward without pausing to acknowledge how much strength it took simply to keep going.

Consider this:

• Where have you already demonstrated resilience without naming it?

• What challenges pushed you to grow rather than retreat?

• How might honoring your own resilience shift the way you see yourself today?

Resilience does not require perfection. It requires presence, reflection, and the courage to continue.

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman.

Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59(1), 20–28.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random House.

Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(1), 1–17.