Resilient Village – Why I'm so excited about this community!
by Dr. James L Miles | Jan 15, 2022
Resilience has been a series of formal and informal lessons for me over the years. In my journey, the topic of resilience has become so significant that I’ve integrated it into my lifelong learning practice and I'm constantly learning something new. Included in my experience of resilience is an education and certifications from the HeartMath® Institute, a powerhouse network of researchers and practitioners who offer training in self-regulation and coherence. This still does not address where the “village” part came from and why this is so significant. Let’s look at both and see where it takes us!
The Resilient Village
The HeartMath® Institute’s research and training hit me with two major aha’s:
First, the heart talks to the brain more than the brain talks to the heart. Whoa, talk about needing to rethink years of assumptions, and in some cases, formal training! I still find myself unpacking this is in my daily activities. Especially when this one bit of information is extended into the options I have to improve personal accountability and self-regulation. Just thinking about all those times I claim the right to simply ‘go-off’ emotionally and verbally, as though that external to me justified what came out of me. Now please allow me to say very quickly: What I was experiencing was real to me and having a real impact on me. In some of these moments I needed to do something because the, then, current situation was no longer tenable. I even ended up under doctors care a few times due to stress etc. Still I claimed the right to stay angry, resentful, frustrated, scared, etc. Which translates into accepting the negative impacts of these negative emotions in my body, relationships, and life journey overall. Somewhat like this saying, “holding onto anger and resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”. It just doesn’t work that way. As I get better at integrating this broader understanding of the heart as a major driver of wellbeing and even brain functions, I can choose to practice regulating my responses from a heart-centered perspective. This heart-centered perspective includes very practical, science based, techniques for managing the heart-brain connection and reducing the stress response, while increasing access to creativity, problem-solving, and inner peace. In three words…It Really Works… and doesn’t take years of practice to experience results. We’ll deal with these techniques and the science that validates them in a separate post. This was the first Aha from the HeartMath® resilience training.
Second, my heart sends out an electric signal that’s loaded with information regarding my emotional state in the moment. Okay so now I’m a walking cellphone that transmits my true inner emotional state 24/7. I had so many issues embracing this one. Particularly realizing the ideal solution is to work on my inner emotional state versus trying to block transmission of that inner state. The heart’s electromagnetic field extends out from our body and can be picked up by others. So not only am I transmitting all types of emotional information, but I’m also picking up the same from others, especially those within a few feet of my physical location. What this told me is that my resilience learning journey is not all about me only. I am best served learning how to work with others if the goal is to create lasting beneficial change in my life and the places where my life takes me.
With these two major aha’s, my resilience learning journey, which I call my resilience praxis (applied learning) got off to a powerful start. One expression of this start is the Resilient Village.
We’ve created the resilient village to be a place where people can come together to study and practice resilience through formal and informal learning experiences. We have structured classes, community experiential learning, and are now preparing to launch our first private metaverse focused on experiencing and sharing personal resilience as an individual and collective wellbeing skillset.
This is very relevant and timely due to the large numbers of people in voluntary or involuntary life transitions. These transitions can be so anxiety ridden thus full of choices and experiences that people often wish they handled differently. While participation in the Resilient Village may not stop the actual transition, it can provide a toolkit and community of collaborators that make navigating the transitions a more personally beneficial experience. In our first two years, Resilient Village is focused on working with organizations, leaders, and groups in community. We are uniquely positioned to help leaders and groups successfully launch and manage their personal and marketplace visions. In the third quarter of year three, Resilient Village will work with Village Leaders to create programs and initiatives that can help a broader range of individuals who may not consider themselves a leader or part of a group. One little secret in all this, more of us are leaders and influencers than realize it!
Resilient Village and the emerging group of Villagers are currently taking on wonderful opportunities of getting social-emotional coherence and resilience toolkits into the hands of youth serving organizations, community building initiatives, corporate teams wanting to do well and do good at the same time, 1st responders, military veterans etc. We’re excited about our growth and marketplace position as being part of the solutions needed in today’s time.
Please drop us a note sharing how you've been resilient through this pandemic.