On Resilience

Resilience is often framed as bouncing back, but sometimes it looks more like tripping forward, spilling your drink, and still somehow making it to where you were going. Just a bit more honest and human than before.

When My Stability Disappeared

2025 felt like someone yanked the tablecloth out from under my life. My routine, my home, and my plans all went out the window.
For me, a creature of habit who craves stability and control, that kind of sudden change isn’t just inconvenient. It hits the nervous system, the identity, and the story I tell myself about who I am.

There’s something quietly radical about admitting, “This is too much,” and not trying to power through on sheer will.
That honesty is where real resilience starts. Not in pretending everything is fine, but in admitting it absolutely is not.

My Anxiety, Uncertainty, and the Void

Anxiety has a way of turning every unknown into a worst-case screenplay my brain runs on repeat. I sometimes get in these obsessive compulsive cycles where I let intrusive thoughts take over, and completely reroute my plans.
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For me, I dealt with visa uncertainty, moving out of my apartment, and feeling physically and emotionally displaced from the community I built in Amsterdam over the last 12 years, and it makes sense that my system went on high alert.

Losing my familiar routines removed the scaffolding that kept me feeling grounded. I started having panic attacks and things that I used to enjoy, like speaking at events or doing standup, suddenly felt impossible.
When you grow up without much control, adult routines can feel like a hard-won safety net. So when they vanish, it’s not just “a bad season.” It can feel like the past creeping back in.

The Quiet Power of Getting Help

Finding a therapist I genuinely connect with is not a small subplot. It is a major turning point. I've had many that didn't resonate with me, and that led me to abandoning therapy throughout various points in my life.
However, I was going through so many life changes this year, that I decided to seek out a therapist before things felt too overwhelming - a "putting your own oxygen mask on first before helping others" moment for me.
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Therapy creates a space where I can be fully messy, anxious, hopeful, angry, and tired without needing to tidy it up or turn it into a lesson right away.

Facing uncomfortable things head-on is less “fearless warrior” and more “reluctant human showing up anyway.”
Sometimes resilience is just getting in the chair, telling the truth, and not bolting for the exit when the hard stuff surfaces.

Rest Without Guilt (Mostly)

This came up a lot in therapy, as someone who associates my own self worth with being productive.

Allowing myself rest and recovery without guilt is a form of rebellion in a productivity-obsessed culture.
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Rest is not a prize I earn once everything is fixed. It is one of the tools that helps me survive long enough to do the fixing.

On the surface, it can look like “doing nothing,” but underneath, my body and mind are quietly stitching themselves back together.
I learn that being on the couch can be healing, not failure. Even if a small part of my brain still finds this uncomfortable.

Planning as a Love Letter to My Future Self

Leaning into planning and productivity when I had the energy wasn’t about hustling. It was about kindness.
On the days I could move, I did things “up front” so that future-me, anxious and exhausted, had one less thing to carry.

That’s a very specific flavour of resilience. Not constant grind, but strategic effort in windows of strength.
It’s the opposite of perfectionism. It’s pragmatic tenderness. Doing what I can, when I can, and letting that be enough.

Redefining My Resilience

Resilience is not never breaking. It is learning how to live with cracks and still finding ways to grow.
It’s lemons into lemonade, sure. But sometimes it’s also lemons into, “I’m actually too tired to juice this, so they’re going in the fridge and that’s okay for today.”

For me, someone who craves stability and control, 2025 forced a different kind of strength. Flexibility, self-compassion, and trust that I can build new routines from scratch.
That is a quieter, less glamorous resilience. The kind that doesn’t always look impressive from the outside, but fundamentally changes who I am on the inside.