The Resilient Self – Heart Sisters

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

“That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If you tell yourself you feel fine, you will. Don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you. When life hands out lemons, squeeze out a smile.”

Translation: Blah blah blah . . .

Here’s one I like better: “Sometimes bad things happen to good people.” Period. End of story. As I’ve written here before, there is no Fair Fairy in life.

It is indeed tempting – and common – to spout trite platitudes designed to somehow make people feel better about those bad things with bumper sticker pop-psych. But can platitudes really lend meaning to a life-altering health crisis? Continue reading “Looking for meaning in a meaningless diagnosis” →

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

Somebody recently described my presentations on women’s heart disease as “part stand-up comedy and part serious cardiology talk!” I think she was right. I now believe, in fact, that some parts of my own heart attack story are downright hilarious. In hindsight, of course.

They weren’t one bit amusing when they were actually happening.

Authors Drs. Steven J. Wolin and Sybil Wolin would likely say that this ability to see humour in a catastrophic health crisis can be a key ingredient in healing resiliency. In their book The Resilient Self, they describe creativity and humour respectively in this way: “they turn nothing into something and something into nothing.” Continue reading “Resilience: it’s hard to feel like a victim when you’re laughing” →