Resilience Is Not Bouncing Back

The Surgeon Who Saw a Masterpiece

After 34 surgeries, I sat in Dr. Wiss's office and asked him to cut my leg off. I was done. The pain, the metal, the scars that mapped every procedure across my skin. I wanted it over.

He didn't argue with me. He didn't give me a speech. Instead, he placed my leg across his lap, right on top of his white coat, and studied it. And then, "he did something that changed everything. He looked at it like it was a masterpiece, like it was a work of art. And something shifted in me that changed everything. I thought, wow, if he can look at it that way, maybe I can learn to look at it that way too."

I don't have any initials after my name. I have a PhD in suck it up. But that moment in the exam room taught me something no degree could. It taught me acceptance. And acceptance, I would learn, is the hinge that the whole door of resilience swings on.

We've all been hit by something, y'all. Maybe it wasn't an SUV on Ventura Boulevard. Maybe it was a diagnosis, a divorce, a business that folded, a phone call that changed everything. Pain is pain. And what I want to share with you is a practice I built from inside that pain, not a theory I read about it.

What Resilience Is Not

I used to think resilience meant getting back to who I was before the accident. Back to the motorcycle, back to the body, back to the life. I white-knuckled my way toward that version of normal for years.

It didn't work.

"Resilience is not bouncing back, y'all. I tried to do that. It didn't work. Resilience is your ability to overcome roadblocks and obstacles. It's the courage to decide to move forward and to actually thrive in the challenge."

That is not a slogan I picked up somewhere. That is what 34 surgeries, a 1% chance of saving my leg, and a whole lot of hospital beds taught me. When they told me 1%, "I was like, well, hey, so you're saying there's a chance. I'm willing to take that chance." Resilience is not about getting back. It is about moving forward, again and again and again.

You Have to Build It Before You Need It

Here is what I wish someone had told me before I was sliding across asphalt: resilience is not something you find in a crisis. It is something you practice before one arrives.

"You have to really work on it before you need it. And what I've also learned is it's not just my resilience. It's not just about me. Your resilience, it's not just about you. It's about everybody that you come in contact with."

Your kids are watching. Your team is watching. The way you respond to pressure becomes their blueprint.

I built a framework called PACER. It stands for Perspective, Acceptance, Community, Endurance, and Rest. Five elements, practiced daily, that make the difference between surviving a storm and being destroyed by one. By the grace of God, I got to test every single one of them from a hospital bed in my living room.

Perspective: Ask Why, Not What

One day I was laying in that bed, and the questions started. What am I going to do? How am I going to work again? How am I going to pay all these bills? The what and how questions spiraled and spiraled. And then I heard my daughter's voice. She just said, "Mama."

That one word stopped the spiral. Because it reminded me of my why.

"When you ask yourself what or how, it puts you in your head. But when you ask why, it puts you in your heart. And, y'all, it activates your human spirit. And the human spirit is powerful beyond measure."

Your why is the fastest perspective shift you have. And "we don't get burnt out or tired because we're working a lot or too hard. I really believe that it happens when we forget why we're doing what we're doing." Write your why down. Put it where you can see it. You could do that today.

Acceptance Is the Driver's Seat

Remember that exam room? The surgeon looking at my scarred, metal-filled leg like it was a piece of art? That was the day I stopped fighting what had happened to me and started working with it.

Acceptance is not giving up. It is not resignation. It is not saying the hard thing is fine. It is saying, this is where I am, and I am going to take my next step from here.

"Acceptance is freedom. Acceptance puts you in the driver's seat. And then you get to take action steps with grit."

I mistook stubbornness for strength for a long time. "I mistook stubbornness for strength... I mistook health scares for heroic acts... I mistook sacrifice for success and fear for function." Acceptance is not weakness. It is the bravest thing you could do, because it means you stop pretending and start moving.

Grit Without Connection Is Resistance

I tried to do it alone. I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, and pushed through every wall by myself. And all that grit, without anyone beside me, just wore me down.

"Grit without connection is resistance. Grit with connection. Oh, that's where resilience is truly, truly born."

Community is not a nice-to-have. It is the most important element in the whole framework. I have a group of ladies, we call ourselves the God Squad, and every day we text each other ten things we are grateful for. That daily practice of showing up for each other keeps the perspective alive and the isolation at bay.

You don't have to do it alone. You were never supposed to. "If you love yourself, y'all, you are going to be walking permission slips. And what I mean by that is, you are going to give others permission to love themselves, to love you." Reach out to one person today. Tell them specifically why you are grateful for them.

Gratitude Is Alchemy

Endurance is not just grinding harder. It is passion and perseverance, fueled by remembering your why. And rest is not weakness. "Now I look at rest as a part of my business strategy... if you really want to be resilient, sometimes you have to strategically stop." I had to learn that the hard way, because the hard way is the only way I seem to learn anything.

But the thread that runs through perspective, acceptance, community, endurance, and rest is gratitude. I'm not naturally positive, by the way. I work at it. Every single day.

"Gratitude is alchemy. It changes what you can't do into what you can do and what you don't have into what you do have."

That is not a pretty quote for a wall. That is what I practiced from a hospital bed when I could not walk, could not work, could not chase my daughter down the hallway. I wrote down what I still could do. I could breathe. I could pray. I could tell my daughter I loved her. And those small, true things became the foundation I built forward on.

I think about that surgeon sometimes. How he held my leg in his lap and saw something beautiful where I could only see damage. By the grace of God, I learned to see it that way too. Not because the pain went away. It didn't. I still live with CRPS every day, and gratitude did not magically cure that. But gratitude changed the lens. It changed what I could see.

So here is my invitation, y'all. Write down your why today. Just your why. And then write down three things you are grateful for, right now, in the middle of whatever you are carrying. You don't have to bounce back. You get to bounce forward.

Change is possible and hope is available and the choice is yours.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.