Abundance Bound podcast  /  episode nineteen: Resilience

MIATA:

Abundance is not about the amount of money you have. It’s about the quality of the relationship that you have with your money.

KRISTINE:

And no matter where you’re at right now, you can decide to become someone who is bound to abundance. Someone who is committed to having a healthier and more compassionate relationship with your money. And you can decide to become someone who is bound towards abundance, someone who is stepping into a more expansive financial future.

MIATA:

We are here to help you become abundance bound.

KRISTINE:

So who are you, Miata Edoga? 

MIATA:

I am someone who has decided she’s going to learn how to surf – and I’m the founder of the Abundance Bound Financial Education Company. And who are you, Kristine Oller?

KRISTINE:

I am someone who learned how to cut my husband’s hair during the pandemic off of videos from YouTube – and I’m the developer and coach of the Creating Cashflow Program that lives inside of your Abundance Bound Financial Empowerment Program.

MIATA:

I just love that you can learn how to cut hair on YouTube.

KRISTINE:

YouTube. That’s all I’m saying. So today we’re going to talk about resilience.

MIATA:

Yes, it’s this word that I feel is so challenging to explore and critical on the route to abundance. So yes, I wanted us to talk about resilience. As always, I went to the dictionary, and I wasn’t so much a fan of the Oxford dictionary’s definition. They said that: “Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, toughness.” And that’s a big part of what I want to talk about today because I sort of feel like: “Okay, maybe that is what we have decided resilience is – the capacity to recover quickly – but I think there are more powerful ways to view resilience.” I also checked out the American Psychological Association and they said that: “Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress.” And that, I have to say, was closer for me… the process of adapting well. My challenge with “recovering quickly, toughness” is that I feel like that shows up for me, like: “I just have to go back to how I was before. Whatever happened, I’m just supposed to bounce back, move on.” And I don’t actually view that as valuable on our journeys because I believe that it isn’t so much about bouncing back – or I’d like to say I don’t believe it’s about bouncing back at all. I believe it’s about how we grow from the challenges, from the pain, from the suffering, from the hardship, if that makes sense. 

KRISTINE:

I totally agree with you. For me, “quickness” has never really been part of my concept of resiliency. It’s certainly not a requirement – like you have to check that box in order to be resilient. Because I think that there’s different things for you to be resilient from, and not all of them are going to be quick. And I agree, I’ve always associated the word growth with resilience. I also think resiliency is a mindset. I think you can self-identify as someone who wants to be resilient. And that is how you’re going to greet adversity – to call upon my skills or learn more skills, call upon a support system or get a support system. I think it’s an active choice. And I think it has to be an active choice each and every time because each thing you’re called upon to be resilient from is going to be different every single time. It’s less that you know how to do it and I think it’s more that you always choose to be it… and then you figure out how to do it.

MIATA:

Yes, yes, yes. “You always choose to be it and then you figure out how to do it.” I love that. Because if I decide that resilience is going to be a part of my identity, then I get to figure out and explore what the actions are that line up with that identity – that decision for who I am choosing to be. So my chosen identity of “resilience” leads then to my actions, which then lead to my feelings. That to me, so ties in with our Abundance Bound philosophy of the Pain Cycle versus the Power Cycle. We believe that the Pain Cycle is when we are leading with our feelings. Not that the feelings are bad, but we’re leading with them.

KRISTINE:

Yes. So if someone’s in the Pain Cycle, you’re having the feelings, and your actions are based on those feelings. And then that might lead you towards not being so resilient. And then in the Power Cycle, you work from your identity. And from that you choose your actions, which then produce feelings. And I do see that because I think that a byproduct of greeting problems with resiliency is confidence. Confidence is a real byproduct. You do the thing, and then it helps you feel more courageous; you do the thing and it helps you feel more confident. That said, you can choose to embrace a situation with resilience without feeling very confident or courageous. They’re separate things. But resilience feeds into courage and confidence.

MIATA:

Yes, I think that you can choose the identity of resilience and show up with those actions regardless of how you feel.

KRISTINE:

I want to be clear that resiliency isn’t the same thing as complete self-sufficiency: “I am resilient. I can handle it on my own. I will do this by myself.” It’s not that at all. It’s a decision to figure out how to handle a problem. And when you’ve made that decision, and you’ve aligned your energy with: “Okay, I’m figuring this out,” it actually attracts more people to want to help you. All of us, we’re all driving these little trains towards wherever you want to go. And they will go off the tracks, there will be snowstorms, trees will fall, our trains are going to go off the tracks from time to time. And, as other people in their trains drive by you – looking over there at your train off in the snowbank – and you’re just standing there crying or moping and just like: “Help me… can you help me with my train?” More often than not, people are gonna be like: “Oh, wow, okay, that looks pretty bad.” But if they see you and you’re like: “Okay, well, I have a shovel, you know, I’m gonna start digging, and I’m gonna, you know, let people know I need some help. But meanwhile, I’m going to be helping myself as much as I possibly can” – which might be only putting a little dent in the problem. But at least when people see you’re out there trying, they feel so much more inspired to help someone who’s already helping themselves, to help someone who already has a sense of resiliency. Because it’s really hard to cultivate resiliency from scratch in someone. It’s like: “Whew, that’s just too big of a job.” But whoa, if you’re already there and being resilient, well I can help magnify that, I can help boost that, I can put my resilience right alongside your resilience.

MIATA:

Recently, in our financial empowerment program, we read a book by Ryan Holiday called The Obstacle Is The Way, and then the subtitle is: The timeless art of turning trials into triumph. And one of the things that I highlighted is he said: “See things for what they are, do what we can endure and bear what we must. What blocked the path is now a path. What once impeded action advances action. The obstacle is the way.” The reason I highlighted that is like… it’s okay, see things for what they are. Try to create clarity around the situation, and then do what you can… do what you can. After I read that, I started looking back at some of the toughest, most painful financial times in my life. And a real tough place for me was when I had basically maxed out my credit card debt – just over $80,000 of credit card debt. The pressure of that situation had just been growing and growing (and the weight of that situation) for years and years. And ultimately, it led to what I’m going to describe as a bit of a breakdown. I went to family for help and they turned me down, and also really shamed me in the process (there was a lot of significant shaming). And I just felt broken. I sobbed for days, like really just constantly. And I could never, in that moment, have said: “I am going to choose resilience.” I mean, I just didn’t remotely have the framework. But what I can do now is now I can look back and say: “Wow, I showed up to that with resilience.” And so, just to quickly summarize: I cried, cried, cried, cried, cried, cried for days and days and days. And then I just hit kind of an exhaustion. And then there was this voice that was just like: “Okay, help isn’t coming from where you hoped it was, so what are you going to do?” Then I started investigating options. And I feel like looking back, there was kind of a bit of a frenzy around that investigation of options. And then I just started diving deeper, trying to get clarity. Was I going to file bankruptcy? Was I going to try and use one of these debt settlement companies? Were there other consolidation options? And I really started reading as much about those as I could and making the phone calls. Then, ultimately, I chose a solution. And the solution I chose was a formal debt management plan – so paying back every penny of the 80+ thousand dollars – but at lowered interest rates – and it was an entire process. And then I had to be very clear on what I was going to need to do to make those payments for the five and a half years that it took to pay off that 80+ thousand dollars worth of debt. And I share this because I think it can be incredibly valuable as we explore this word resilience, to look back at the things in your life that you have come through, and to actually break down what actually happened and what you did. Because once I had some distance from that experience, I could so clearly see who I chose to be. And the person I chose to be, now, all these years later – it’s not that I have never gone into debt again, it’s not that I have never had challenging financial times again, because of course I have – but the growth, who I became, starting at the person literally crumpled in a ball crying to the person who found the solution that she was going to implement, and then showed up to implement that process, and then did it for five and a half years. That person was a changed person in terms of how I have then gone on to handle financial challenges, to handle debt.

KRISTINE:

I love how you broke that down, especially when you were talking about how it was a little bit of a frenzy. Yeah. Because those are the emotions. Resiliency just doesn’t mean you’re cool as a cucumber, you’ve got this under control. It’s not that… it’s just choosing to not back down from the moment, accept the 

reality of what’s happening right now, and then deciding that you are going to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. And it’s also not telling yourself the story of: “I can’t handle it. I can’t handle it.” Now, you might need some support in handling it, you might need some guidance in handling it, you might need some help in handling it. But this story of: “I can’t handle it, I can’t handle it…” Because I can tell you from my own experiences, life can set you up for things where you’re like: “Whoa, whoa!” And then you start to handle the first big “whoa” and a second one comes in, and a third one comes in. You’re like: “I cannot believe I’m being asked to handle all of these things in succession – or all at once.” And it’s like: “Yeah, but you are.” And you still have to decide who you want to be in this moment when it can feel like you can’t handle it. I’m not saying you don’t feel like you can’t handle it. But in the Pain Cycle, you start with those feelings, and “I can’t handle it,” and then you take the action from there. In the Power Cycle, you can feel like: “What the heck!? It’s unfair that I have to handle this. This is disheartening and heartbreaking that I have to handle it. But obviously, I’m going to handle it because I have chosen my identity as a resilient person. And I know I can grow through this.” But oftentimes, sobbing in a fetal position is what comes right before great choices of resilience. That’s been the case for me many times. One of the things you mentioned when you were talking about Ryan Holiday, in his quote – “the obstacle is the way, what’s blocking the path becomes the path.” I have heard that before – as possibly some of our listeners have – but sometimes you hear that and you don’t really understand what does that mean… “what’s blocking my path becomes the path.” Do you have any examples?

MIATA:

Because I’ve laid out my own debt story, I’ll use that as an example. I saw my debt as the obstacle that was blocking me. This debt is just the block in front of me. And I’m just going to have to keep doing what I can do to knock this block out of the way. And I kept hoping for some magic thing that was going to move the block out of the way. Instead, the debt became a path towards me understanding how I was spending, understanding how I was earning, understanding through clarity around those numbers what changes I was going to have to make to get the ship moving in the right direction, recognizing that I had reached a place where I needed help. So I take Ryan Holiday’s words to mean that obstacles are inevitable. We are not perfect people and life is simply not perfect. And that obstacle doesn’t have to stop us. What once impeded action – that debt was impeding my action – it then began to advance my action – so what once impeded action, advances action.

KRISTINE:

I believe Ryan Holiday is quoting the Stoic philosophers with that phrase, “the obstacle is the way.” I believe that comes from Stoicism. But it can sound a little obtuse, a little vague. I think it’s best if added: “the obstacle is the way towards your growth.” It’s actually an invitation to growth.

MIATA:

It is an important phrase to break down – what is blocking the path becomes the path – because I always thought the job was to move through life moving obstacles out of the way. 

KRISTINE:

And how many parents think!

MIATA:

Absolutely. They now call them (instead of “helicopter parents”) “bulldozer parents” because they say that they’re not hovering above, they’re actually clearing the path. So I believed that my job was to move the obstacles out of the way, or frankly to simply avoid them, go around to them, find the path that doesn’t have any. And I genuinely believe that is one of the biggest awakenings that we actually need to have – which is that our journey towards abundance is not about finding an abundant path that has no obstacles in it. Being “abundance bound” genuinely means being resilient and growing from the obstacles that will be in your path. There’s no choice, there’s no path without them. So that for me is why the more examples that we can find in ourselves, (but also sometimes it’s a lot easier to go look for them in other people), the more examples of that that we see, the more we see its truth, and can build our trust in that truth.

KRISTINE:

It’s perfect that we’re talking about you surfing because if there was ever a sport where it’s just continually get knocked down, get back up, get knocked down, get back up… so why would you put yourself through this?

MIATA:

Surfing has always been something that I just believed it was too late for me. I missed that boat. I’m never gonna learn to surf at my age. But here are two things that have changed that: one is that I used to live in California, where – I am sorry – but the ocean is cold, it is freezing. And this whole thing about: “I’m going to put on a body suit and it’s going to be cold for a couple of minutes, and then it’ll be warm…” No, no, that does not work for me. Okay, and here in Panama, the ocean water is like walking into a warm bath. I mean, there is not even the littlest bit of shock. So that hurdle has been removed. But then the second part was, honestly, I just didn’t feel like I had the athletic ability. It just looked too challenging. And we have gone to a place a couple times where the waves are really good waves for beginners. And also, what I didn’t understand is that the size of the board really matters. And that if you have a long enough board for your height… I’m not gonna say it’s not hard. It is hard, but it’s not impossible. Just to be really honest, we’re not talking about me standing up on the board or anything like that. Like, I mean, I have maybe stood up for a fraction of a second before I fall hard. However, I could learn to do this. It is exhilarating but it isn’t this terrifying, overwhelming thing that I had made it out to be. It just feels like a fun challenge that I’m going to enjoy. I shall keep you posted on my progress.

KRISTINE:

Oh, please do… you will see me waving to you with my feet planted firmly in the sand. Okay, we’ll talk next month. 

MIATA:

Thank you so much.

This podcast is our invitation to you an invitation to accelerate your progress towards a more expansive future by joining us in the Abundance Bound Financial Empowerment Program. It’s an invitation to develop a healthier relationship with your money, one that is less conflicted, less neglectful, less desperate. Our program offers a warm, friendly environment where you’ll have the space and time to work at your own speed and get the hands on support you need. You’ll receive step by step guidance that will help you strengthen your money mindset. Practice consistent money management and create additional streams of income to fund the life you want to live. Your next step is to learn more. So take a moment today and visit: AbundanceBound.com/financial-empowerment.

KRISTINE:

All of the show notes for this episode are available at AbundanceBound.com/the-podcast. We are delighted you are listening. Please keep taking very good care of your very talented self.

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