The Space Between Breaths: Rethinking Resilience

It’s been a long while since my last blog post - not because I ran out of ideas, or passion, or stories to tell, but because of one small, stinging moment: a negative comment. It’s surprising, isn’t it, how a single sentence from a stranger can feel like a stone dropped into the quiet lake of your confidence, sending ripples wide enough to push you away from the things you love. So, I stepped back. I went quiet. And in the quiet, something unexpected began to unfold.

I have been thinking a great deal about resilience lately. It is a word we tend to hold up like a trophy, praising the act of enduring without collapse. We are told resilience makes us stronger, that it is the backbone of success, that those who push through - no matter what - are somehow the ones who have made it. But resilience, as I have come to see it, can also be a double-edged sword.

For years, I was an English teacher. I adored the world of literature - the texture of language, the alchemy of turning thoughts into stories, the joy of watching young people discover their own voices. But teaching is one of those professions where resilience is not just encouraged, it is expected, woven into the very fabric of the profession. You keep going. You absorb stress. You withstand pressures. You manage increasing expectations. You carry the emotional weight of hundreds of young lives. You tell yourself, and are often told by others, that with enough resilience, you can do it all.

And sometimes I look back and wonder: Should I have been more resilient? Should I have stayed in the classroom? Should I have endured a little longer, like so many others do? These questions still tug at the corner of my mind like loose threads. But the longer I sit with them, the more I realise they come from an assumption that endurance is inherently superior to stopping—that stepping away is an act of weakness rather than wisdom.

But resilience is not about how long you can keep your head above water; it is also about recognising when it is time to come up for air.

In teaching, I was too often gasping. Not drowning, exactly, but floating at the edge of exhaustion. The burnout that so many teachers experience is frequently packaged as a lack of resilience - as though only the strongest can survive the profession. But what if resilience isn’t survival at all? What if real resilience is the ability to recognise that you are bending too far, stretching too thin, and that stepping away is not a defeat but a necessary turning point?

Leaving teaching felt, for a long time, like dropping a book mid-sentence. It felt unfinished, unresolved, as though I had somehow failed to live up to the invisible standards set before me. Yet, now, I understand that stopping was not the end of the story. It was a comma—a pause that allowed the next chapter in my life to find its shape.

Because stepping away from something you love can sometimes be the only way to love it again.

Think of a favourite song you’ve played many times. At first, every note is a thrill. You play it on repeat, letting it fill every space you are in, every moment, every thought. But after a while, the magic dulls. The melody becomes background noise. The more you push, the more the song fades into familiarity. Then, one day, without intention or expectation, you hear it again, in the most unexpected of places, and something in you stirs. It is as though it has been there waiting for you.

That is how it feels to write this blog again.

The time away - the silence, the bruised confidence, the uncertainty - became the distance I needed to rediscover the meaning this practice once held for me. If I had pushed through, forcing myself to write while the joy drained away, resilience would not have saved me. It would only have hollowed out the very thing I loved.

In my work now as a therapist, I see this pattern in so many people. We hold resilience like a shield, believing it will protect us, when sometimes it only keeps us locked into battles we no longer need to fight. We tell ourselves that to stop is to fail, even when stopping is the most compassionate thing we can offer our own well-being. I often meet clients who have spent years pushing beyond their emotional capacity because the world has told them that strength means staying the course.

But strength also means knowing when to rest, when to shift, when to choose another path, when to lay something down so that, one day, you might pick it up again with renewed tenderness.

Leaving teaching allowed me to step into the work I do now - supporting others through their emotional landscapes, helping them untangle their own stories, offering a space where they no longer have to be endlessly resilient. And this work -  it lights something in me that feels steady and warm. Not the bright flare of passion that burns out quickly, but a quiet, enduring flame.

Every time I sit with a client and witness their courage - not the resilience of pushing, but the courage of softening, pausing, grieving, choosing something gentler - I feel fulfilled in a way I never imagined when I first stepped out of the classroom. It turns out the skills I honed as a teacher, the listening, guiding, understanding language, recognising human complexity, were not lost. They simply changed shape. And perhaps that’s what resilience really is: not holding firm, but transforming.

As I write this, I can feel the familiar pleasure of words returning to me - the rhythm, the unfolding, the subtle weaving of thoughts. It feels like reconnecting with an old friend after a long separation. There is no bitterness, only recognition. Only the soft realisation that I didn’t lose this part of myself; it simply waited for me to be ready again.

Sometimes we must stop doing what we love in order to love it again. Sometimes stepping back is the only way forward. Sometimes the most resilient thing we can do is allow ourselves to change.

So here I am, writing again—not because I pushed myself through fear or criticism or old expectations, but because I finally have the space, the perspective, and the renewed affection for what this practice gives me. And because I now trust that my voice, like anyone’s, deserves to exist even when it shakes.

Thank you for being here, for reading, for meeting me at this place in the story where things begin again. I am fulfilled in my work, grounded in who I am becoming, and grateful for the unexpected path that brought me here.

And most of all—I am glad to have found my way back.