P. T. Mistlberger - Resilience

Resilience: Going Within in a Time of Crisis

Resilience: Adapt and Plan for the New Abnormal - in the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

Gleb Tsipursky

Resilience: Aging with Vision, Hope and Courage in a Time of Crisis

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Resilience: Connecting with Nature in a Time of Crisis

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Resilience: Going Within in a Time of Crisis

P. T. Mistlberger

Resilience: Grow Stronger in a Time of Crisis

Linda Ferguson

Resilience: Handling Anxiety in a Time of Crisis

George Hoffman

Resilience: Navigating Loss in a Time of Crisis

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Resilience: The Life-Saving Skill of Story

Michelle Auerbach

Resilience: Virtual Teams - Holding the Center When You Cant Meet Face-to-Face

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Resilience: Virtually Speaking - Communicating at a Distance

Tim Ward and Teresa Erickson

Resilience: Going Within in a Time of Crisis

P.T. Mistlberger

Winchester, UK

Washington, USA

First published by Changemakers Books, 2020

Changemakers Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East Street,

Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK

www.johnhuntpublishing.com

www.changemakers-books.com

For distributor details and how to order please visit the Ordering section on our website.

P.T. Mistlberger 2020

ISBN: 978 1 78904 687 8

978 1 78904 688 5 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937092

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of P.T. Mistlberger as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

UK: Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Printed in North America by CPI GPS partners

My thanks to Tim Ward, publisher of Changemakers Books, for asking me to write this short book under an equally short deadline. Tim, with his usual tenacity, hacked and hewed at my first draft until there was almost nothing left. Then mysteriously and Phoenix-like, there arose from the ashes a second draft, which became the book you now hold in your hands. My thanks also to John Hunt, founder of John Hunt Publishing, the parent company, as well as to the fine production team at JHP, and to the other authors of the Resilience series of books of which this title is one. May the force be with them all.

In a time of crisis - such as the 2020 covid-19 pandemic - we all have a natural impulse to help our neighbors. John Hunt, founder of John Hunt Publishing, asked this question of our company, and then offered a suggestion. He proposed producing a series of short books written by experts offering practical, emotional, and spiritual skills to help people survive in the midst of a crisis.

To reach people when they need it most, John wanted to accomplish this in forty days. Bear in mind, the normal process of bringing a book from concept to market takes at least eighteen months. As publisher of the JHP imprint Changemakers Books, I volunteered to execute this audacious plan. My imprint publishes books about personal and social transformation, and I already knew many authors with exactly the kinds of expertise we needed. Thats how the Resilience series was born.

I was overwhelmed by my authors responses. Ten of them immediately said yes and agreed to the impossible deadline. The book you hold in your hands is the result of this intensive, collaborative effort. On behalf of John, myself, the authors and production team, our intention for you is that you take to heart the skills and techniques offered to you in these pages. Master them. Make yourself stronger. Share your newfound resilience with those around you. Together, we can not only survive, but learn how to thrive in tough times. By so doing, we can find our way to a better future.

Tim Ward

Publisher, Changemakers Books

May 1, 2020

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.

Theodore Roethke

People wish to be settled. Only as far as they are unsettled, is there any hope for them.

Emerson

I was invited to write this short book by my publisher in light of the challenging crisis of 2020, the global novel coronavirus pandemic. The book that follows is not about that event, but rather about our psychological responses to a crisis of any order of magnitude, from getting fired from a job, ending a relationship, or something more large-scale. The premise of this book is that during a time of crisisand especially one that involves some variation of physical distancingthe ability to go within becomes crucial for well-being.

There are of course many practical ways to go within in the context of work on self. Some involve different forms of meditation, some involve art therapy or journaling. Some also involve simple contemplation. There are also forms of going within that are less that, than they are idle day-dreaming, or excessive rumination. It is common, for example, when feeling stressed, to dwell on old memories, not all of which may be pleasant. The present book is concerned with productive and illuminating ways of going within.

Since approximately the mid-1990s the Internet has been widely used, and today, a quarter of a century later, online life is so intertwined with our daily existence that for younger folk it is almost hard to imagine (or remember, for older folk) when such a thing did not exist. This may seem to indicate that our collective society, and people in general, have grown more introverted. I would argue however that this is more an artificial introversion, where people are more commonly staring at screens than they are truly looking into their minds.

In this short book I will outline some teachings and guidelines for going within, based on my many decades of making this inner journey. The main point I want to stress here off the top is that going within during a time of crisiswhich includes a global crisisis not about avoiding responsibilities or relationships. It is not about an insular, self-congratulatory practice that ignores the plight of others. On the contrary, it is about using ones time to look more closely in the psychological mirror and develop the correct attitude in the face of hardship, even while we do whatever is necessary to deal with worldly necessities and keep our relationships clear and balanced.

As I write these words in the spring of 2020, the exponentially growing statistics concerning the novel coronavirus, on a global level, have been disturbing and stressful to many. Listing the numbers at present seems pointless as they are increasing daily in many countries (even as they level off, and begin to decline, in others). The medical realities have been made clear by the experts, but these have also been accompanied by economic realities, and difficult financial stresses incurred by many. For all of us, 2020 is an unprecedented year. The last great pandemic of a similar nature, with a significant loss of life, was just over a century ago. Few, if any, are alive who have personal memories of that event.