One of the reasons I love teaching is that I get to learn.  In fact, I think I learn far more than I teach, but that's probably supposed to be a secret.  

This quarter in Lifespan Development, we are talking about our stories and the relationships that helped formulate our strengths and our challenges.  We are looking at how and where we came from, to better understand where we are now, and to know that where we are headed is a completely open-ended tale.  

Some of the many things we discussed this week was emotional intelligence and emotional resilience, and how the patterns of attachment as infants and children are critical to how we wield our emotional skill set. 

Simple stuff, huh?

(PS- it makes me positively giddy that I get to talk about this with 19 year-old people.  I know that I was definitely not learning this stuff in college)

We know that it is possible to be hurt, damaged, or broken by difficult and traumatic life events and relationships.  So an interesting challenge of this discussion was to address the question: can one be resilient if they have not endured trauma, losses, major stress, or some intense life experience?  

Do we need to lose people, fights, jobs, or ourselves? 

The overwhelming sentiment of the class was: YES we do need to 'suffer' to become emotionally resilient and intelligent.    

So why do we hate losing so much?  Why do we avoid pain and suffering? Why don't we walk headlong into trauma?  There are loads of ways we are wired to avoid 'bad' and move toward 'good'.  And that is really because we are wired to survive.  That's a good thing.  

But if we are talking about going beyond survival, and developing a skill set that is sharper, tougher, and more nimble, then we sort of need the kind of experiences that don't kill us but feel like they might.  

Can we re-write these intense experiences?  Even the ones that still break our hearts? Can we do The Work? Are we brave enough?  Are we strong enough?  Are we enough, period?  

I think that we are.  I think that you are.  

Let's try it out together.  Let me know how it goes.  

-Sunita