Building Resilience
Resilience requires work in many areas. Today, we applied work to building physical and mental resilience.
In the cool and humid gloom, 13 pax met in the gloom.
Pax: Poacher, Vault, Colt, Cpt D, Colt, Guinness, Beano, Mad Bum, Squirrel, T-bone, Roadhouse, Neo, Scout
BEAT DOWN & DOWN PAINMENT: (Cinder block coupons)
Warm up: Mucho Chesto, Windmills, Good Mornings, Side Straddle Hops, Burpees.
The Thang:
800 m mosey
5 rounds
5 pull ups
10 merkins
15 block squats
50 m Bearpees
5 rounds
5 block swings
10 overhead press
15 incline merkins
50m Bear crawl
2 rounds
5 blockies
10 block sit-ups
15 side straddle hops
Announcements: Last Q Source next week before shifting to mentorship coaching. May take a week off from Q Source to start coaching the second week in November.
Prayer: Scout led us out in prayer.
Moleskine: Lead by example in building resilience.
In 2006, I lost one of my best friends, Matt Worrell, to a surface to air missile in Iraq. He and I served together for close to 6 years, in the same small units. We deployed to Bosnia and Iraq together. Our spouses took care of one another while we were away. We shared many experiences together with young children. We complimented each other in personality and focus. We worked and played hard with extremely long hours.
Of the many lessons I learned from him, he taught me about maintaining balance and resilience. With young children and far from family, he and wife found ways to break away…just the two of them for 2-3 days about every quarter. He made it a priority to endeavor to grow with his spouse and partner, despite the enormous amount of time that we spent away. These excursions proved essential for them and allowed their relationship to grow, especially when the stress, pressure, and responsibilities of raising a family and managing a demanding career took priority. Matt was a key leader at the time. In addition to managing his own resilience and that of his family, this demonstrated leadership from the front. Other Soldiers within the organization respected him for it and strived to follow his lead.
My M and I tried to follow this model over the years for our own resilience and relationship growth. It was not always easy. We did not always make the iterative timing for once a quarter. As a geographical bachelor, those periods extended way beyond that which I would have liked. Nonetheless, we found ways over the years. Last week, we realized that it had been nearly 3 years since we pursued a couple of days alone…together. We made a quick decision and headed off, just the two of us. We have a lot of change in our lives right now and decisions to make. This time was critical to talk as we ponder the future.
Sometimes, you just gotta put blue chips in the bank. We all change over time. We can choose to change with our spouses together or apart. Living under the same roof does not make one immune to changing apart. All of you lead busy, rewarding, fulfilling, and successful lives. Don’t miss the opportunity to grow together and to build some resilience.
If you haven’t done so in a while, think about a few days in a different environment with your spouse. Always leading from the front…even in resilience.