Leisha There has been something on my mind for quite a while now. It isn’t really about resilience, although that is where it began. It is about the way we think and how easily we accept certain ideas as truth simply because we have heard them our entire lives.
I have always believed that becoming more self-reliant is worthwhile. Learning to grow food, understand the soil, preserve a harvest, cook from scratch, repair things, and become less dependent on systems that seem increasingly fragile gives us confidence and freedom. Every skill we learn expands our choices, and there is a quiet satisfaction that comes from becoming a little more capable each year.
At the same time, I have noticed that the pursuit of resilience can become a burden of its own. The more we learn, the more we discover there is still to learn. There is always another fruit tree to plant, another skill to master, another project to finish, another shelf to fill, another book waiting to be read. Before long, the life we imagined would feel simpler begins to feel like another list we are constantly trying to complete.
Perhaps that is because we have also been taught to believe that we are never quite enough. We are encouraged to prepare more, achieve more, know more, and become more. We measure ourselves by what is left undone instead of noticing how much we have already accomplished. Without realizing it, we begin living as though we are always behind, always catching up, always one step away from finally being prepared.
The more I sit with that thought, the more I wonder if it reaches far beyond resilience. I find myself questioning the stories we have inherited about life itself. We are taught that success is good and failure is bad. Comfort is good and struggle is bad. Gain is good and loss is bad. Those ideas become so deeply rooted that we rarely stop to ask whether they are actually true or simply familiar.
When someone shares that they have lost a job, gone through a divorce, received a difficult diagnosis, or watched a dream fall apart, our instinct is usually to respond with, “I’m so sorry,” or, “That’s terrible.” Those words come from genuine kindness, and I value the compassion behind them. Yet I sometimes wonder if we are unconsciously reinforcing the idea that every disruption is something to be feared rather than understood.
When I share my own struggles, I am not usually looking for sympathy. I am often excited by what I cannot yet explain because I have learned that life rarely closes one door without quietly opening another. I have lived through grief, heartbreak, disappointment, financial uncertainty, and moments when I genuinely had no idea what would come next. I would never pretend those experiences were easy, but I also cannot ignore what they gave me. They made me question my assumptions, forced me to grow in ways comfort never could, and redirected my life toward opportunities I never would have chosen for myself.
Sometimes I think the response I would most love to hear is not, “I’m sorry,” but, “Congratulations. I wonder what this is making possible.”
That may sound strange until we look at nature. A forest does not see a fallen tree as a tragedy. The tree becomes food for fungi, insects, bacteria, mosses, birds, and eventually the next generation of forest. Disturbance creates opportunity. Floods reshape landscapes. Fire releases seeds that could not germinate without heat. Death and renewal exist together, and neither can be understood without the other.
Working with soil has changed the way I see almost everything. When I first began studying the soil food web, I stopped asking what was wrong with the land and started asking what the land was trying to accomplish. Every weed, every fungus, every insect, every microbial bloom carries information about the conditions beneath the surface. The landscape is not randomly falling apart. It is constantly responding, adapting, reorganizing, and trying to move toward balance.
That single shift in perspective eventually changed the way I looked at people as well.
For years I have questioned the language we use around health. We are taught that disease is something the body has become, as though it has suddenly turned against itself. Yet what if another interpretation deserves our attention? What if many of the processes we call disease are actually the body’s intelligent attempts to heal, protect, adapt, compensate, or restore balance? What if inflammation, fever, fatigue, and countless other symptoms are not always signs of failure but evidence that the body is actively doing something remarkably purposeful?
That does not mean every illness should be ignored or every symptom celebrated. It simply means there may be another question worth asking. Instead of immediately wondering how to silence the body, perhaps we should first ask what the body is trying to tell us.
The same question seems to echo through every part of life. Instead of asking why something has happened to us, perhaps we could ask what it is asking of us. Instead of assuming every loss is simply an ending, perhaps we could become curious about the space it has created. Instead of believing resilience means preparing for every possible future, perhaps resilience is trusting that we will continue to adapt, just as nature always has.
I still believe in learning new skills. I still believe in growing food, saving seeds, understanding herbs, caring for the soil, and becoming as self-reliant as we reasonably can. Those things matter to me as much today as they ever have. I simply no longer believe that resilience is measured by how prepared we are for every imaginable problem. I think it is measured by how willing we are to meet life with curiosity instead of fear, to recognize possibility alongside difficulty, and to trust that growth often begins disguised as disruption.
Perhaps that is the real lesson nature has been trying to teach us all along. Nothing in a living system remains unchanged. Everything is responding to its environment, adjusting to new conditions, and finding its way toward balance. Maybe we are no different. Maybe the challenge is not to avoid change, hardship, or uncertainty, but to stop assuming they are evidence that something has gone wrong. Perhaps they are simply life asking us to grow in a direction we could not yet see.
