Bouncing Back: Hope for the Hopeless

Have you experienced a disappointment or setback in your recent past that left you reeling? Have you found it difficult to get excited about things and maybe even felt like you needed to make a drastic change in order to bounce back?  If so, this week’s video post is just for you.  Below is a written version of what is in the video.

If you live in Phoenix, you may have noticed that a lot of shrubbery and trees froze over the winter.  They look like they are dead — all dried up and prickly – ugly.  I have a bougainvillea in my back yard that froze  — not a pretty sight.  It’s tempting to pull the whole thing out.   Because it looks like it is dead.  But I know that it is not, because this has happened in the past. And I know that once we trim all the dead stuff off, in the coming weeks, it will come back fuller and even more beautiful than it was last year.

That bougainvillea is a lot like us.  I think a lot of us have experienced what we would call a freeze in our lives at some point – maybe a layoff, a reorganization, or just having the rug pulled out from under you, where you think that nothing is the way you want it to be and you wonder how you will ever recover.  And I think some of us have been in a freeze for a really long time.  We’ve lost the passion in what we do.  We’ve lost the lightness in our step and maybe things have become a bit of a drudge.

You may think you have to change everything to bounce back, just like you might think you have to pull this tree out.  But really, there is wisdom in realizing that sometimes we have the opportunity to trim the dead stuff away and to recognize that there is something underneath it just waiting to break through.  And the freeze is neither good, nor bad.  It just is.  Whatever it is that may have happened to you or me in our past — it’s not good, it’s not bad — it just is.  What we need to realize that there is something within needing to break though and we have an opportunity to trim away the stuff that isn’t working anymore and have faith that in the spring we will bloom fuller, brighter and bigger than we did before.

For more on bouncing back:

Miracles in Disguise

From Frustration to Fruition

Bringing Leadership to Life

Leading Through Uncertainty

Embracing Life’s Uncertainty

Bouncing Back: Perserverance Personified

Leaping Into the Unknown

The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be