Resilient Health Discovery

The Key to a Life of Success and Optimal Wellness

This may come as a surprise, but you may have two wolves living inside you—two wolves competing for the direction of your life path. 

Let me explain. 

According to a Native American parable, an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One of the wolves is evil—he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” 

The boy’s eyes grew wide, and the wise old grandfather continued, “The other wolf is good—he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, compassion, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, and faith. 

“These two wolves are waging a ferocious fight against each other. The same fight is going on inside you—and inside every other person, too.” 

The grandson thought about the fierce battle for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” 

The old Cherokee replied simply, “The one you feed most!” 

That parable has stuck with me ever since. It taught me that I had freedom of choice and that I could choose the path of life that was right for me. 

What are your thoughts? Which wolf in you are you feeding? Remember, you’re the one who chooses which wolf you feed. If you feed the evil wolf, you will find yourself blaming your negative thoughts, experiences, and feelings on other people and events. By faulting others, you give away your own power. The evil wolf becomes your inner critic, resulting in anxiety and low self-esteem. When that happens, you lose your freedom of choice; you become a “victim.” It’s normal to look outward as you try to make sense of what’s going on inside of you, but it’s so dangerous to get trapped as a victim of life. 

The key is to increase how much you feed the good wolf. That said, you shouldn’t try to squash the emotions of the evil wolf. Acknowledge them then let them go. As you exercise your freedom of choice and actively decide to “nourish” the good wolf, you free yourself to discover your one thing— your one path to optimal wellness and happiness.  Read more . . .

Dr. Keith Karren

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.

Steve Maraboll

If you think a well-toned, properly fueled body is the key to wellness, you’re right. To be more exact, you’re only a third right—because optimum wellness involves not just your body, but a solid balance between your mind, your body, and your spirit.

It all boils down to psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology. That’s quite a mouthful—and chances are good that you’ve never tried to wrap your tongue around it before right now. Let’s make it simple: it’s a science that shows how your mind, body, and spirit are all linked together and how they help you resist disease and infection. And it might sound like a bunch of hocus-pocus, but some of the nation’s leading researchers and medical experts have put their enthusiastic stamp of approval on it.

Researchers and doctors all over the world have been finding success with mind-body-spirit therapies. It’s pretty exciting: as just one example, they’ve shown how changing up emotions can make a big difference in diabetes and improves things like cholesterol, glucose levels, heart rate, and blood pressure. They’ve also found that meditation dramatically impacts chronic pain, anxiety, and depression, in addition to bringing on positive changes in the brain.

Dr. Keith Karren

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.

Steve Maraboll

Resilient Journey Excerpt

Everyone alive has a story. Let’s look at yours and how you’re writing it this very minute.

You add to your story every day through the events that contribute new pages, new chapters, and even new characters to the stories that make up your life. Some of your stories are good. Others are funny or surprising or sad. Some might be devastating.

Some stories are brief: you inadvertently step in a mud puddle on your way to an important appointment or you receive a welcome phone call from an old friend. Others seem to drag on forever: you spend years in a successful fight against breast cancer or work for eighteen months to research a ground-breaking dissertation.

Some stories are planned: you set your sights on law school so you can be a prosecuting attorney. Other stories are unplanned: along the way, you discover that your passion really lies in doing legal research for an environmental agency, something that will never take you inside a courtroom.

Some stories are predictable: you carefully engineer all the connecting flights to arrive in Anaheim for a long-anticipated vacation at Disneyland. Other stories are unpredictable: two of your children come down with stomach flu before you’re even able to leave the hotel the next morning.

Resilience is the set of skills, the innate force within your soul that enables you to look those disruptions right in the face. Resilience empowers you to thrive through adversity, challenge, and opportunity. Resilience gives you the grit to grow, become wiser, progress, and increase your coping capacity every time your life gets disrupted.

Simply put, resilience is the part of your story that helps you stay on your feet, no matter what. But it’s more than that. Instead of simply staying upright, you become better. And through it all, you realize that becoming stronger and better is a choice, one you can make over and over, every single day, regardless of what is going on in that story of yours.

There’s a lot to be said for resilience. It’s the very process and experience of being disrupted by change, stressors, challenges, adversity, and opportunities. That disruption— and what you choose to do with it—is good, because in the end it makes you thrive.

Dr. Glenn R. Richardson

We all need resilience to live a fulfilling life. With resilience, you’ll be more prepared to take on challenges, to develop your talents, skills, and abilities so that you can live with more purpose and joy.

 Eric Greitens