A speaker struggles with the belief that softness means weakness, while Connor Beaton explains two kinds of resilience: one learned and healthy, one forced as survival strategy that locks the nervous system into perpetual survival mode. Love and softness can transform a survival-driven psyche.
I know hard times make tough people. She brings the softness into my life that I've constantly pushed away for some reason. I don't know why. I feel like it's— softness is weakness in some depth or level, which I know is not true. But there's this push against the softness or this idea of softness in my life. And every time I look at her, she reminds me— truthfully, she reminds me that love conquers all.
Well, that's part of your survival strategy. There's learning to be resilient, and then there's having to be resilient in order to survive. And those are two very different things. Learning to be resilient can create, you know, resilient people, resilient kids. Having to be resilient is a survival strategy in a survival mode that almost everyone gets stuck in, and it becomes the only gear that our psyche and our nervous system knows how to operate in. Just survive, just survive, just survive. Be hard, be strong.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
