Today we continue our journey through Linda Graham's  five C's of resilience, taken from her book Bouncing Back.  In recent weeks, I have written about the role of calm, connection, and competence in dealing with difficulty.   Let's move on to reflect on a fourth C, clarity.

Today is the perfect day for it.  After an extended bout with wildfire smoke, I woke this morning to a sparkling view of Montana mountains and blue sky.  The smoke has, for the time being, taken a different path and my outer world has once again come into focus.  I can see parallels for making progress on the mental level.

Like fires pumping out smoke, changes and setbacks cloud my vision and muddle my thinking.  The car breaks down.  Family needs change again.  I get a bad case of writer's block, tendonitis, or the flu. 

Linda Graham suggests that we use reflection as a tool for improving clarity under stress. She begins by quoting Viktor Frankl:  "Between stimulus and response is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.  The last of human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."  Frankl survived the horrors of Auschwitz during World War II; he was no stranger to painful circumstances.

With reflection we can generate multiple ways of looking at an unwelcome event.  At first glance, we easily see what is wrong with the picture.  On further reflection, we discover what might be right.  With practice, we can develop a habit of quick turnaround from letdown to hope.  A room full of manure?  There must be a pony in here somewhere!

She missed her flight and had to spend the night in the airport.  Conversation with a fellow traveler led to an introduction, which led to an exciting new romance. 

He lost his retirement savings when the stock market failed.  In order to make ends meet, he studied a new trade and opened for business.   His new life is far more satisfying than the unstructured retirement he had envisioned.

I applied for more than twenty jobs before one finally came through--the best of my long career.  It was well worth waiting for.

Clarity comes with recognizing the space between stimulus and response, and seeing ways of making the best of the worst we are given.  Clarity comes when the fires settle down, the winds shift, and the smoke clears.  Clarity looks for the pony, and finds it.

***

When have you broadened the narrow view of disaster to a wider view of opportunity?  Are you getting better at shifting perspective on the fly?