Reflections from a Deep Resilience Practice Group
What is “deep resilience”? Where does it arise from? And what can it nourish?
We held three “Deep Resilience for a Dark Renaissance” practice group sessions over the summer and autumn of 2024, focusing on three inquiries that touched on the psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions necessary for navigating this time between worlds—a second renaissance. The sessions were:
Honouring our Pain for the World (Work that Reconnects) (August 2024)
Authentic Relating (September 2024)
Befriending Anger (November 2024)
During this period, Catherine Tran and I worked together to design and facilitate sessions, seeking to create containers in which people felt safe and open to explore.
Through traversing our own disconnection and pain for the world in Session 1, expressing and witnessing each other in our authenticity in Session 2, and befriending and dancing with anger in the final session, we all experienced a gentle yet profound shift in each session. Participants shared heartfelt takeaways each time, and we all left with a sense of calm and a better regulated nervous system.
What is resilience, and how did these practices cultivate it?
The first question that arose for me, when Catherine proposed these sessions, was: how can we cultivate resilience in a way that embodies a soft, fluid receptivity? One that holds and moves with situations, rather than enforcing a rigid, "warrior" strength that blocks our own embodiment. How do we embrace the idea that there can be strength in vulnerability, that, in allowing ourselves to soften, we might actually become more resilient?
For me personally, emotional resilience is foundational to our capacity to integrate and receive wisdom. Too often, we try to understand emotions intellectually. Developing a mental resilience can help us navigate challenging times, yes, and yet, true emotional resilience lies in vulnerability. It sits in the courage to bare and hold ourselves open-heartedly, to be both simultaneously deeply exposed and maturely aware of the risks and the need to hold ourselves lovingly in this exposure. In this openness there is the risk of being wounded, and there is also the potential for profound growth and resilience building.
Is wisdom the ability to understand and apply a teaching in life? Perhaps. But deeper wisdom comes to us when we can apply that teaching whilst staying connected to its emotional resonance—not identifying with it, not detaching from it either, but choosing to respond informed by it. In practicing a dialogue with our emotions we can allow them to courageous break us open, in this way we can remain a channel for truth and sacredness, breathing into the knowledge that there is a crack in everything and that’s how the light gets in*.
What is a Dark Renaissance?
The term to us refers to a period of collapse followed by potential deep transformation, a time when society must face a prolonged darkness before dawn. Historically, the Renaissance itself emerged from the "dark age" of the 14th century, when calamities like the Black Death led to widespread loss and disorientation, but this period also cleared the path for a renewed vision of human potential, beauty, and knowledge. In this sense, we are in another "dark renaissance", a cycle of decay and rebirth. We are simultaneously experiencing a time of multiple complex crises that, while unsettling, may also be a prelude to cultural renewal.
Crisis can be the soil for transformation, as breakdown often brings forth new ways of being. Just as modernity was born out of the civilizational collapse of medieval Europe, we may be on the edge of a new renaissance, one that asks us to redefine resilience and embrace the possibilities that emerge from this hardship.
Get Involved
Do you want to participate more with our work? Although this series has stopped for the time being, you can still join us on a Second Renaissance Connection Call taking place biweekly. More details on our events can be found on our dedicated calendar page here.
*Quote from Leonard Cohen