The Resilience Spectrum

We have come to the end of 2025, and this is our happy holidays newsletter. It’s written to send you on your year end and, if you celebrate, your Christmas break, with a little gift and the very warmest wishes for relaxation and rejuvenation, as well as laughter, love and joy!

The gift is a little look at my Resilience Spectrum concept, so you can do a little self-reflection and work out what adjustments might support you, ahead of the new beginning that next year offers.

I am hearing story after story, in my treatment room, of people feeling stretched to breaking point, catastrophically fatigued, and overwhelmed. This brings a knot to my stomach.... it’s not how I want my people to feel. Is this how you are feeling??

This is a boundary issue. It’s helpful for us to know our limits and try to stay within our window of tolerance. To take care of ourselves so we don’t live in a state of

exhaustion and overwhelm, even although the world at work and 20^th century society makes that almost impossible. We need to be advocates for ourselves and our wellbeing. This helps us offer the brightest and the best of ourselves to the world. If you are reaching the finish line this year feeling like a zombie, then maybe there are some tweaks you urgently want to make in ’26? 

I know we talk a lot about resilience and of course it's a strength we want to cultivate in order to back-up our success. But resilience is not about being endlessly strong, upbeat, or productive. True resilience is a capacity that moves and changes, just like we do. It expands and contracts. It strengthens and softens.

I wanted to share my spectrum thinking on resilience in order to help you look at where you are right now in the hope that it will assist you to plan for the tweaks you want to make for next year. The Resilience Spectrum is a tool and it's super easy to use. This is just a sneak preview, so it doesn’t detract from relaxation time. Please do use it gently, so it’s supportive and not critical or judgemental.

Take a look at the qualities that make up your resilience and see where you are with each? The idea is that we want each contributing quality, but not in excessive doses. Each quality must be present, but balanced by its opposite. Healthy dollops of the opposite quality will temper any extreme tendencies which in turn undermine true resilience.

Some of the qualities that make up the resilience spectrum are:

• Grit balanced by the ability to quit at the right time

• Focus balanced by the ability to wander and be scattered (for creativity)

• Committed, but balanced by the ability to be indifferent to prevent pig headedness.

• The ability to delay gratification, balanced by the pull towards instant gratification so you aren’t so complacent and patient you get nowhere.

• The ability to be flexible balanced by a certain rigidity, enabling you to be a shape shifter.

And there are many more, but maybe this little taster gives you a place to start investigating. Anything taken to the extreme flips from being a healthy and positive thing into a negative one.

So, as you prepare for rest, celebration, or reflection at year-end, I hope this little self-reflection exercise helps you pause, breathe, and reconnect with your inner compass.

If you feel like a little more to think about as you enjoy some “me time” ...Here are more Reflection Questions or Journaling Prompts:

• Which pair of qualities feels most surprising to you? Maybe you had a bias towards one extreme?

• Where are you being harder on yourself than it's helpful to be?

• What is one area where you could shift by even 10% and create more support, a little more rest, or some clearer boundaries?

• What does your body feel when you consider shifting a bit in this way? Tighter? Softer? More open? Relieved?

• If your resilience could speak to you today, what would it say? Can you listen??

• What is the smallest act of self-care that would move you one notch toward more balanced resilience? Can you make that a goal for next year? Can you start this holiday?

• What boundary, if strengthened gently, would support your resilience? Is it a “no” and “yes” or a line in the sand? Can you start to visualise putting that boundary in place?