by Susy Giddy | Nov 30, 2018
Building Resiliency is about being able to navigate through Life with greater ease, to ride the sea of challenges, big or small and return as quickly and easily as possible to a place of joy, beauty, calm and love, in other words, your life! How then does the proverbial Rabbit Hole fit into Building Resiliency, you might be wondering? Let me explain, the place and value of sometimes ” choosing the rabbit hole”.
Sometimes, too much comes at us at once. Too tired, too much stress, too many things to juggle, too much negativity, all in all just too much. It piles up, faster than we can deal with it or process it. Do you know what I mean? When it happens to me, I keep moving, keep trying but nothing works. It feels like I am running and not moving. Or like spinning wheels in the snow. And you know what?Sometimes it is all too much. It is at those times, that I choose to go down the Rabbit Hole. What does that mean? For me it means, I choose to stop trying, I choose to take a break from whatever “it” is. I choose to let the chaos, hurt frustration be left alone. I just leave it all. It is kind of like turning off a switch. I go do something even if it is nothing! In fact for me it is often nothing, and usually it is nothing big. Not like running off to Hawaii, or a big shopping spree or anything like that. It is simply a choice to not continue on the stress path. It feels like driving down the road, and doing a K turn and stopping. It is also NOT throwing in the towel and giving up, it is hitting the pause button.
And do you know what? By allowing myself to choose the Rabbit Hole for a short time, the most amazing thing happens!!!! I wake up with clarity, with energy, with peace and calmness and answers available to me that were totally elusive the day before! It is as if the chaos settles during the time out. Clarity and calm replace overwhelm and I am actually able to return a joyful state of being and to solving the matters at hand. It is really quite remarkable!
Next time that feeling comes to you, of “it’s all too much”, consider choosing to “hit pause”, to visit the Rabbit Hole. It just could be the best way to refresh. I ‘d love to hear how it works for you!
allaboutresiliency.com coachsusygiddy@gmail.com
by Susy Giddy | Nov 28, 2018
I almost don’t know where to start on the subject of Cyber Bullying. It is so big, so prevalent and so hurtful. It takes the ingredients of the worst of human nature and the instantaneous and far reaching aspects of social media, mixes them together and flings the hurtful messages literally world wide! It seems to come out of no where and lands like a bomb into the life of the recipient, and like an exploding bomb, delivers it’s painful shrapnel. The wounds show up as, a horrible mixture of pain, anger, sadness, shame and humiliation to name a few. In the middle of this, is the horrible fear that maybe what the bully said is true. Maybe, I am unlikeable, unloveable, fat, ugly, or whatever the insult is that has been hurdled. And if this is true, I better not tell anyone about the bullying, because then others will know this horrible truth as well. So adding to the pain is a sense of isolation. As the use of Social Media increases, sadly so does Cyber Bullying.
The truth is bullying knows no boundaries, no subject is off limits, it aims only to hurt. No one is immune, we hear often about children and teenagers being bullied but the truth is anyone at any age and stage can be bullied and we need to learn how to handle it. I know this because, I have recently been the object of Cyber Bullying. I understand how painful it is! I understand how awful it is and I am beginning to understand the basics of handling bullying, thanks in large part to my colleague Nathan Segal, who reached out to me with kindness and information during the bullying crisis.
What I learned that Really Helped
Bullies aren’t like normal people. Bullying is not normal behavior. Bullies don’t feel bad about bullying. So there is no point in interacting with them as if they are normal people! As a matter of fact, arguing, reasoning, reacting, seems to be what they want and will most likely make things worse. The bully feeds off upsetting people, crying, talking, getting angry fuels the bully. I never understood this before reading Nathan’s book. I always thought, “talking it through”, ” trying to solve the problem”,like one would with others, was the way to handle bullying, but if anything this is giving bullies what they want. So the only way to handle a bully is to not interact.
This lead me to an Action plan. It is simple, quick, easy and effective.
1. Do Not interact with the bully. It is not going to help, it will likely make matters worse.
2. Report the bullying to Facebook or whatever social media you are dealing with. Ban and hide message immediately.
3. Seek support immediately. Don’t sit with the bullying in isolation.
Taking these steps will immediately, stop the current bullying, act as practical protection and diffuse the power of the bullying.
As we build Resiliency, we build the skills to face what Life Brings. Sadly, Cyber Bullying has become a part of life that many of us face. When I was being bullied, I found that understanding the nature of the bully and following these three steps was a great tool to have in dealing with it. I hope this helps you as well.
by Susy Giddy | Nov 21, 2018
Mont Tremblant
I am sitting here, with tears running down my face. They are tears of joy, gratitude and love. What is true that is that my husband and I were spared in a nearly fatal car accident, two years ago. Our son died of brain cancer last year. To be here, on the Eve of The Opening day of the Ski Season, is a miracle! To be here with my husband who healed from a broken neck and to be able to ski at our beloved mountain is just beyond wonderful…….. I have no words only joy, love and gratitude.
What I know for sure, is that to survive such events and to come back requires two things. A heart full of love and gratitude. That is it! For each day is a miraculous moment. It truly is. Each day we wake up is a gift. For now I remain speechless….
by Susy Giddy | Nov 21, 2018
It is the time of year, when the holidays are just around the corner. For some this is like a joyful, beautiful, unopened package, waiting to be experienced with gleeful anticipation! For others, it feels more like a monster, lurking and waiting, with sadness and stress. And still for others, it is a mix of both joyful anticipation and concern about how things will go! For those experiencing loss and trauma, the holidays can be fraught with stress, loneliness and something to be endured.
The first Christmas, after our son Robin died, I was pretty concerned about how “we were going to get through the holidays”, I suspected that our grief would intensify and at the same time, Christmas was coming, a time I have always cherished. So faced with Christmas coming, I decided to set an Intention for the Christmas season. What does that mean you may be wondering. The Intention I set was ” To experience Christmas joyfully and lovingly, while honoring our grief”. I literally sat down and mapped out a plan of how to make this happen. What do I love about Christmas, the decorations, cutting the tree, the music, entertaining, making gingerbread houses, and watching Christmas movies by the fire to name a few. What did I anticipate would be hard? Christmas Eve and Christmas Dinner. How could we navigate the challenging moments and maximize the joyful ones? For the first time in years, I bought beautiful Christmas cards and sent heart felt notes to all the people who had shown us such great love while Robin was dying, in this way we honored our grief. We went to Christmas Eve service and cried, no sobbed our way through from beginning to end. We ordered a beautiful 5 course Christmas Dinner and enjoyed every bite. I can honestly say that is was a beautiful, meaningful, joyful and loving Christmas.
5 Steps to Setting a Christmas Intention
1. Get Really Clear about what you want for your Christmas. Try to listen to your own inner voice. We had lots of loving advice about how to spend the first Christmas without our son. The truth is we knew what we wanted and needed, we just needed to listen to our own wisdom. What do you want your Christmas to look like, feel like, taste like? Who do you want to share it with? When January 1 rolls around, what would you like to say as you reflect on the Christmas just passed?
2. Write your Intention down, thinking it is fine, but writing it down makes it more real and powerful and therefore more likely to become reality. I had a pretty little journal to write in.
Your Intention…… Christmas is……………………………………………………………
3. Make a plan to carry out your intention. Be as precise as possible. Be as realistic as possible. What do you want to do? What do you want to eat? Do you exchange gifts? Do you decorate? Do you entertain? What do you love from Christmases past? What would you like to try new? What has caused you stress or pain in the past? How can you handle that differently? Remember there really isn’t one “right way” to do Christmas.
4. Read your intention each day. Check to be sure your actions and thoughts are supporting your intention. By reading your Intention each day, you keep it in the front of your mind and are more likely to bring it into being!
5. Make adjustments to the action steps as necessary in order to support your intention. As the season goes along, new ideas, thoughts and feelings will come to you, allow the space to adjust to them as long as they honor your Intention.
It is my sincere hope that setting an Intention for your Christmas, helps bring you the Christmas Season, from my house to yours…… Merry Christmas
by Susy Giddy | Nov 20, 2018
Yoga and I had a rocky start, if I am being truly honest. I am a runner, dancer, skier and tennis player, so trust me when I say it was a rocky start, or more accurately starts. I would give it my all, but the whole stillness, breathing, and staying on a little mat for an hour just didn’t do it for me. In a world where Lululemon and yoga mat bags are every street corner, I was not on the Yoga train!
But even if Yoga and I hooked up reluctantly, I have come to cherish my time on my mat, and even more so, need my mat time and even more believe that Yoga in her wisdom has brought me peace, calm and frankly saved me during times of adversity{ most notably after our car accident and Robin’s death}. Yoga in fact was part of my action plan, that I developed with my coach, after the car accident. I was stuck in many ways, husband with a broken neck, out in the country far from anything, scared to death to drive because of the accident and overwhelmed. The idea of going out to a Yoga class, was more or less as likely as driving to the moon, not going to happen. So I brought out my yoga mat, put on my favorite class from yogadownload.com and did my Gentle Hatha Class for 30 minutes. It did all the things that Yogis say it will do, calmed my mind, centered my heart, and in my words made me feel like “me” again, instead of accident victim and care taker in overwhelm.
What I know for sure, is that recovering form adversity and Building Resiliency, requires a multi pronged approach. It is because, when we are hurt, or experience loss. or are worn down, it is our whole selves that go through the experience. We can’t for example say, that it was only my husband’s neck that was broken in our accident, it was that his world was turned upside town and it all needed to mend. My friends and colleagues in the healing modalities such as massage, acupuncture and so on would say that the trauma gets stuck in the body. So as we heal, we need to get it out of our bodies and we need to get it it out of our hearts and minds. By practicing, yoga postures and breathing, we release tension in our bodies, in our hearts and in our minds. I can’t tell you how many times I sobbed in one posture called “Half- Pigeon” which is a hip opener, in our hips we store a lot of emotion, so quite literally by opening hips, tension and emotion spilled out and that is only one of many examples! 
Half- Pigeon pose, sharing mat with Millie the Cat.
I am grateful to Yoga in her wisdom, for showing me the way out of darkness, and back to light! At the end of each yoga practice, we yogis say ( yes, I am now a yogi), Namaste, which means ” from the light in me to the light in you”. I know for sure that by bringing light to ourselves, others and the universe, we heal we grow stronger and we Build Resiliency. So for now to each of you I say, Namaste!
Special hug of gratitude to all my beautiful yoga teachers, daughter Katarina de La Cruz, Grace Mazzucco, and Molly O’Meara all of Cabarete, Dominican Republic.
Beautiful daughter and Yoga Teacher at Pure Pangea Yoga, Katarina de la Cruz
by Susy Giddy | Nov 14, 2018
Suddenly, my husband said, “I don’t feel well” and fainted in my arms, while driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour. For the next terrifying seconds, the car swerved down the highway, making S marks. turned completely over, landed on its wheels up right, stopping just before hitting a cement highway bridge. It is a miracle that we survived, my husband with a broken neck and for me the trauma would prove to be the biggest injury.
This was the beginning of a journey that would last long after the ambulance left, the road to recovery. My husband with his broken neck in a brace, excruciating pain, unable to drive and a long list of medical appointments, was the immediate concern. My days were filled with caring for him, running the household, taking care of the accident bureaucracy{ form after form and then more forms}, the accident trauma left me terrified of driving { at first I could go only 20 miles per hour} and my husband could not and was not permitted to drive for six months and we were out in the country far from from all the appointments, very far in fact at 20 miles per hour!
As the weeks passed by, a darkness settled on me. I was confused. I felt and still do, enormously grateful for surviving the accident, when Doctors looked at my husband’s neck, broken at the vertebrae C2, they shook their heads in disbelief that he was alive and able to walk, by all counts a miracle occurred. The truth is, I was traumatized, I was carrying an enormous load and something needed to change and quickly.
And quite literally, just like the proverbial light bulb, I knew what I had to do. I needed to reach out. Suddenly, the meaning of being strong changed for me, it went from thinking and believing I had to carry it all, to knowing I needed help carrying the load. So I picked up the phone to my coach. ” Coach, ” I said tearfully, I need help”. When I look back, it was at that moment, that I knew I would be OK, I knew I would find a path out of the overwhelm, and I did.
Coach Terri and I made a plan, one of the biggest parts of the plan was me learning. how, where, when and to whom I could reach out. Emotionally, I was a bit of a wreck, { no pun intended}, my husband, usually my rock, was consumed with his own pain, in fact it would take many months before he could listen to my account of the accident without running out of the room in panic. So I needed to find emotional support elsewhere! My mother, sisters, daughters, BFF, and coach stepped up to listen and soothe. My time, was consumed by the accident, appointments, phone calls, as well as caring for my husband and taking on what he could not do. So I did not get any relief from the strain. My plan involved setting aside time for myself each day to Take Care of Myself and Taking Joy Breaks. My health was starting to suffer and my sleep, so I needed a plan to get some exercise and eat properly and to receive care for my injury, the trauma. The accident involved lots of out of pocket expenses and so our financial life was taking a hit as well.
Reaching out was the best thing I could have done. It gave me a plan to find a path through the recovery. It gave me the tools to follow the path. I can not say the path was easy. I can not say that the journey will ever be over. But what I can say with 100 % truth, is that my life is richer and full of more joy, love and gratitude than it was before that fateful day in October, 2016 and each day I wake up with a childlike wonder to the new day.
by Susy Giddy | Nov 10, 2018
One of the Building Blocks of Resiliency is learning to Take a Joy Break. I know you may be thinking ” Joy Break”, what is she talking about? Joy Break? My life is a mess and she is talking about a Joy Break? Here is why and how it works. We are building Resiliency, which is a combination of elements such as,strength, determination and courage to get through adversity and difficult times! Just like any other break or pause, a Joy Break, gives us a break from the challenge we are facing, it lets our minds rest, our hearts sing and our bodies take a break even if for just a few seconds or minutes. I remember talking to a great friend of mine, who was recently widowed after the love of her life had died, she described grief as carrying around a 50 lb bag of sand every where you go. A Joy Break lets you put down the heavy weight.
When our son was dying of brain cancer, which was so painful it was surreal, we visited each day at the hospital, watching the disease take over more and more of our boy each day. After each visit, we would take Ruffus for a walk in the park, often we were crying and talking and miserable, but every time we looked at Ruffus, doing some cute dog thing or other we would smile, sometimes we would even laugh. Taking him for a walk was not only good for him, but I believe enormously good for us. It kept us from sinking into levels of grief that approached despair.
From this experience, I learned the importance of taking Joy Breaks every day. I literally sat down and asked myself, what brings you Joy? I wrote down what came up quickly, so I wouldn’t over think it! In my day timer. I have my to do list, my Take Care of Self list, and my Joy List, along side and just as important as the rest of my to do list. My list of Joy Breaks contains pretty simple things. Walking my dog, dancing for a few minutes, talking to my daughters, looking at something beautiful, holding my kitty cats, each things I can do in a matter of seconds. Each of them brings me joy, each them eases the load, each of them brings precious moments. What is on your Joy List? I would love to hear from you.
My New Painting by Artist Samantha Chilvers http://www.chilvers.ca
by Susy Giddy | Nov 6, 2018
A very important building block of Resiliency is finding The Path out of Pain. This because, in order to move through a setback and on to the next part of our lives, we have to process and deal with our pain or else we become stuck. Anytime we face a setback or crisis, we experience a loss. Losses are painful. The loss of a loved one, the loss of health, the loss of a pet, the loss of job or money, the loss of friendships and so on, all involve the pain and grief of losing a part of our lives that was important to us.
At the heart of the problem, of moving through pain, is that it is so unbelievably painful. It sounds sort of ridiculously simple doesn’t it? But it is the truth. Our hearts hurt, our bodies ache and our minds are boggled, with the intensity of the pain. It really does appear and feel like it is just too much to bear. I can assure you though, it is not too much to bear, the human heart and spirit are strong and resilient beyond words, it is only for us to find the path through the pain, that is the question.
Like many people, my first reaction to the pain of a great loss, is to avoid it. On one level it makes sense, we don’t want to hurt. But I have noticed, while dealing with the great losses of my life, my first reaction is to get as far away from the pain as possible. To deny it, to intellectualize it, to run away from it with busyness and a vast myriad of other strategies, all with one goal in mind, to protect me from the pain. In some ways this avoidance has practical reasons. During our recovery from a serious car accident, I was the care taker to my husband and his broken neck and while our son was dying of brain cancer we needed to be there for him. But beyond the practicalities of such experiences comes the truth, I try to avoid the pain as long as I can, until avoiding it becomes in a way more unbearable than feeling it and so I have realized that the first step in the Path Out Of Pain is to honour it.
You may be thinking ” Honour the Pain?” that sounds awful. But the truth is until we honour it and acknowledge it we can’t feel it and most importantly, we can’t heal from it, because it stays inside us, it gets stuck. When we have physical injuries, such as a broken leg we don’t run away from the pain. We most likely would get a cast, rest, wait several weeks, get rehab and move back to walking, we would know it is a process. We would also probably be frustrated with our plight, but we would not deny it. To honour and acknowledge the emotional pain of loss, is to give it space from which it can heal. To give the pain a place to go. To give the heart the love it needs to heal. The day after our son’s memorial service, when it seemed as if the world was ready to return to “normal”, we knew we were far from returning to normal, we did not know what the Path Out of Pain would look like, but we knew we had to travel it. To honour our pain, we placed shoelaces from our boy’s shoes on our wrists, they were dark black, they reminded us that we were grieving, that we were hurting,the walking wounded in fact. Those black bracelets did not in fact take away our grief, what they did was far more important, they allowed us to Honour Our Pain and our own inner strength, the love of family and friends, and time have allowed us to move through our pain. My husband pointed to his bracelet recently, which 15 months ago was ebony black. ” Look he said my bracelet is turning white and lighter, and so he said is the pain from the loss of our boy”.
Honour the pain and you will find a way out of it.
by Susy Giddy | Nov 5, 2018
To be honest with you, the concept of self care, was not one that I had heard of before I entered the world of coaching, when I first heard it, it sounded kind of odd and a bit clinical in an icky way to me. I was much more familiar with taking care of others, husband, children, pets and so on! It dawned on me one day during the emergency procedures on a flight, the part where they say, in the event of an emergency, put your own oxygen mask on first, then help those around you, that we must take care of ourselves, even if we are consummate helpers, we can’t help others unless we take care of ourselves. After, the car accident it was if this truth became exponentially more important. I realized that there were certain ways that I needed to take of me, or I would not be at my best for taking care of my husband and the seemingly 1000s of tasks that were required!
My first step was to figure out what I needed, each day in order to be able to show up as my best self in the situation. So even with my husband and his broken neck and excruciating pain, I had to fine a way to do what I needed to do for myself. Physically, I needed to eat properly, exercise and practice yoga. Emotionally, I needed to be able to talk to my close family and friends for support. Spiritually, I needed to meditate. Moodwise, I needed to have some shots of joy each day. For me, that was being with Ruffus, my ever cheerful dog pal.
My next step was to make a plan for doing these things. I found that my first reaction was to worry and fret, plus with all the Doctor appointments and rehab appointments and paper work after an accident, it was like having a full time job, so the reality was that time management was an issue. My day timer was full of appointments and to do lists, so each day under the section “Important”, I wrote down my self care list, meditate, talk to BFF, run and so on. One interesting thing that happened, was that not only did it relieve some of my stress, it actually helped my husband to have me focus on something other than his condition for a while.
Taking care of Your Self is a very important part of becoming more Resilient. The time and care invested in you, helps you be stronger, and better able to withstand the pressures of getting through rough times big or small.
What do you need each day, to be at your best, physically, emotionally, spiritually and mood wise?
by Susy Giddy | Nov 3, 2018
Setbacks or crisis or just plain hard times happen to us all. It is part of life. We don’t have to like it. Who wants break ups, money troubles, job problems and other losses that come our way? Last year our son died of brain cancer at the same time that my husband and I were recovering from what should have been a fatal car accident, which resulted in a broken neck for him. These crises were deva
stating, they turned quite literally my world upside down. The grief was at times basically unbearable, so was the loss and the uncertainty! But what is also true, is that I found my way out of pain and back to a joyful, loving and abundant life. I have gained from the losses, a priceless and fearless appreciation for life. I know there is a path out of the deepest, most painful experiences of life. I know this because I have lived it. Coaching has helped me move though the traumas I have faced. My coaching can help you move through whatever you are facing, with my guidance, support and understanding. I can be reached at susy@cabaretelifecoaching.com or by private message
