A funny thing has happened to me in recent weeks. I’ve started feeling happy, and positive, and more like myself again. I’m not going to lie, it felt really strange at first. Part of me didn’t trust it at all, and the other part of me thought maybe it was too soon. I kept waiting for it to go away and be replaced by the fear and sadness that has consumed my last year. Then one word popped into my head: Resilience.

And all of my newfound enthusiasm made sense.

On August 13, 2018, I came home from my mammogram appointment and crawled into fetal position on the couch as I waited to go back that afternoon for a biopsy. I knew something was wrong, and for the next ten months I spent a lot of my time coiled up on the couch.

If you had told me then, that someday I would feel like myself again, I never would have believed it.

The despair, fear, and grief were too overwhelming to see the possibility that I would eventually feel okay.

Some of my worst fears did come true.

I’m not going to lie, (shocker, right?) Going through the cancer treatment I needed was horrific. When anyone feels physical or emotional discomfort, it’s hard to stay positive. Getting bad news about the extent of my disease or learning about lackluster treatment outcomes kept knocking me down.

But, as they say, with challenges come growth. We build new perspectives, create different expectations, and even discover true gratitude.

Where does resilience come from anyway?

It comes from years of experience and facing big challenges.

We don’t just gain resilience when we experience big traumas like an illness or a death of a loved one. It also shows up in everyday life. Every time we get knocked down on the job or something doesn’t go our way, we are given the opportunity to get back up and recover from it.

I can’t say I mastered resilience while practicing dentistry. If I had, logic tells me I’d still be practicing today. I wouldn’t have let the daily challenges of being a dentist get to me so much. But I can say that leaving my career helped set me up to build resilience when I really needed it this year.

Here are 5 things that have helped me build my resilience muscle that can help you too.

Become a personal development junkie.

I used personal development over many years to change my perspectives to support the life I wanted.

For example, for years I felt stuck in my career because I didn’t think I had any other skills besides dentistry. Over time, I shifted my perspective to believe that if I could do something as difficult as dentistry, then I could do anything.

Once I believed that, I could and did do anything I wanted.

Or, for a while I believed success was defined by making a lot of money. That belief actually got me into trouble and kept me stuck. Now I believe success is much more than just money.

Including meaning and fulfillment in my new definition of success has allowed me to find more of that in my career.

Those are just a few examples of how we can change our thoughts to change our lives. Without personal development, it would be tough to integrate the next 4 steps.

Understand what Happiness really means.

My friend, Yvette, recently published an article on Forbes.com about happiness. In it she describes the two different types of happiness. She makes the distinction between happiness and Happiness.

happiness (yes, I deliberately started this sentence with a lower case letter for all you grammar police out there,) is typically what we all think of when we think of happiness. It’s about feeling pleasure and avoiding pain. It’s the thrill of being on vacation or the excitement of driving a new car. As Yvette describes, it labels things as “good or bad, desirable or undesirable… and doesn’t encompass all of the complexities of life.”

Happiness, on the other hand, involves creating purpose and meaning in your life. Whereas happiness can only occur when things are going your way and making you feel good, Happiness can exist during life’s challenges.

Discovering Happiness can take away some of the pressure, as we realize we don’t have to constantly feel great to be successful at being a Happy person. Once I accepted that it was okay to not be happy through a tough time, I felt a lot more free.

Embrace Sadness.

This ties in with letting go of the need for happiness. Sadness and grief are painful. It doesn’t feel good. The more we try to avoid the uncomfortable feelings and “be strong,” the more overwhelmingly sad and helpless we feel. We forget that it’s okay to be miserable and negative.

Deeply welcoming sadness when I felt the slightest urge, helped me move through it more easily. I didn’t always feel happy afterwards, but I always felt a sense of peace.

We can’t bounce back from sadness if we don’t allow ourselves to experience it in the first place.

There is no timeline.

There is no rule that says how quickly we have to “get over it.” Sure, we all want to feel better faster, but whatever timeline we need is what it’s going to take.

Besides, who knows? If the road to recovery is longer, you might even feel more grateful when you recognize how hard it was to bounce back.

Cheer yourself on.

Now that I’m past the really hard stuff, I’ve become a cheerleader for myself every day. I don’t artificially repeat an affirmation to try to trick myself into believing I’m a badass. It’s a genuine belief.

I’m a fucking badass. This isn’t the time for humility.

Stop caring about what others will think about you if you feel proud of yourself. We’re always so hard on ourselves, so cut the crap for a minute. Every moment that I reflect on what I went through, I’m in awe that I made it through something so spirit-crushing and difficult.

So yeah, I’m a fucking badass, and I bet you are too.

Here lies the beauty of resilience.

I’m not done with my cancer treatments. I just finished radiation, and I still have several months of targeted chemo infusions and ten years of Tamoxifen.

Despite the fact that I’m not “done” yet, resilience gives me permission to be okay with feeling joy again. I get to be proud of how I’ve handled myself. It allows me move on and stop feeling like I have to wallow, or suffer, or grieve forever like it’s a badge of honor.

This is how we get unstuck.