I am haunted by reverberating echoes in my mind. The type of echoes that draw me inward. Echoes of past regrets and burdensome worries. I feel weighed down. I feel overly stressed.

I realize that this is a familiar feeling. I’ve been here before. Different and yet the same. Different circumstances, familiar feelings of shame and vulnerability.

I recall wise words on a plaque that I’ve had on my desk for almost my entire career:

“The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow”.

I have always found that these words bring me back to reality. I am reminded to take seemingly catastrophic circumstances much more lightly.

I remember how big previous crises felt to me. Yet days, weeks and years have now passed. Sometimes only hours pass that felt like days, weeks, years!

Echoes of a time gone past are like bubbles suspended in time. In no time at all, they are there and then they are gone.

I have learned from the gaffs and mis-steps, I rose above the perceived embarrassments and stressors. I emerged stronger, wiser, resilient.

I am vulnerable. I am strong. And, I am learning to more than cope, I am learning to live in resilience and resourcefulness.

Life will always bring me challenges. Always. It’s a constant practice to notice when I allow myself to be taken hostage by my own echoing thoughts.

I turn to the wise words of Henri Bergson: “It seems that laughter needs an echo”

• Perspective
• Resourcefulness
• Tenacity

by Lucy Shenouda