Unpacking 2024's Resilience: The Reality Check that Clears

Unpacking 2024's Resilience: The Reality Check that Clears

[00:00:00] Let's face it, people. 2024 threw us some curveballs, plot twists, and downright sucker punches. The world didn't get the memo to take it easy on us in 2024! 'cause 2023 and 2022 and 2021, 2020 were awful. And if you are here, it is because you survived all of that. You are resilient. But resiliency, my word of the year, my word for 2024 isn't just a buzzword anymore.

It's a survival skill. It's the duct tape holding our sanity together, the wifi that keeps our souls connected and the ultimate plot. Armor in the sitcom of life. This episode of Ayana explains it all. We're diving headfirst into what it means to bounce back, bounce forward, or let's be real, just bounce somewhere after life throws you down.

So grab a coffee, a notebook. I myself have my, uh, laptop and my phone and my microphone. Whatever it is you need. [00:01:00] To feel like you've got your life together and let's get into showing up staying strong and flipping the script when the going gets tough. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into it.

 Hey everyone Welcome back for another episode of Ayana explains it all the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior I am your host your hostess your explainer in chief Ayana are back here living in the suburbs of Northeast, Ohio and giving it to you straight Ayana explains it all is available on multiple streaming platforms, including wherever you listen to podcasts, literally wherever.

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You will also find every episode of the show, every episode. You can listen right from the website or you can click on one of those links and listen to it in your favorite player. Or you can go to our YouTube channel. Yes, we have a YouTube channel where all of the episodes are streaming by video. Yes, I have my audio converted into a video and you can play it in the background.

Listen to it, listen to what I have to say. Also, if you know someone who loves a good human interest podcast, because that's what this is at the end of the day, human interest, education, share this with them. Share it with them. Share a link with them. Let them know that there is a black Muslim lady lawyer out there who has an opinion [00:03:00] on everything.

And I do mean everything, honey. Education, technology, religion, parenting. I am the single mom of two kids. One is in college and one is in high school. I also talk about personal growth, mental health, I talk about physical health, I talk about race, I talk about politics, a favorite topic here, I talk about law, and I talk about friendship, and kindness, and growing together.

Uh, one thing I do not do is messiness. I don't do messiness. I don't do gossip. Those kinds of things do not serve me, but I know a lot of things about a lot of people. And I could talk about it if I wanted to, but I don't. Now, here at IANA Explains It All, you're going to learn something. Or you're going to be upset by something that you learned.

I make no promises either way, but, uh, this episode is inspired by, um, one of my Facebook friends who we both were pregnant together with our [00:04:00] youngest kids way back in 2007 and her name is Shauna Klingerman. And I haven't heard from her in a while, but. Her Facebook, her work inspired this episode. She did a word of the year.

She's very crafty lady, very crafty. She makes journals and stickers and all kinds of stuff. She did a word of the year and I thought, Oh, I want to do a word of the year. I want to talk about. The word that describes the year 2024 for me, you know, if there's one thing this year has taught me, is that I am in fact resilient.

1. can be resilient. I am resilient. This year, 2024 has taught me more about resilience than any affirmation could ever have. I learned so much about resilience. I dove head first into it that I have actually learned that what it is is not what we think it is. No, it's, it's been reframed And it's, it's evolved.

Like [00:05:00] most things, it has evolved. And I see resilience as a collective and compassionate process. Resilience, for me, has become a tool of empathy. Not the scourge of it. You see, Affirmations, which if you're, if you go to therapy or you're into like personal growth and things, people will tell you to use affirmations, look in the mirror and say, I am strong, I am brave, I am worthy.

Affirmations tell us to declare those things. But for me. Affirmations always come with a catch. When you claim these things, I am brave, I am strong, I am worthy, life seems to say to me, Oh, really? Okay. Let's see. Let's test it out. Let's see if you're really strong, brave, and worthy.

In 2024, I had to dig deep to find resilience, as I imagine many of us have, given the current political and world climate, both literally and figuratively, I myself am, [00:06:00] I'm, affirmations are okay, but I'm not keen on it. Affirmations because sometimes they can feel too much like toxic positivity and even resilience can be used as toxic positivity.

 Anything that's seen as positive can be seen as a weapon to be used against people, to indict people, right? I don't like to stand in front of the mirror and go, mirror, mirror on the wall. Instead, I pray. I pray. I'm a Muslim. I pray five times a day, sometimes six times, sometimes seven. And I make dua and I say, God, make me what I need to be when I need to be it.

So if I need to be strong, God, please grant me strength. If I need to be brave, God, please grant me courage. And I'll just pray that over and over and over. And I will hope for it. I'll hope for it. I won't assume that I won't have it. I won't assume that I won't be it. I hope for it, right? Resilience is the same thing.

God, make me resilient. God, make me resilient. Because there are so many things I have had to go through [00:07:00] to get to this point. The space that I am in now that I am amazed. I am amazed and it's all Glory to God glory be to God because he's the only reason why I'm here. He gave me the resilience He gave me the way through he made me get through it.

I find that resilience isn't a fixed trait, it is a skill. It's adapting. It's being weak and scared, but still standing tall when life demands it. And you know, this episode is going to sound like I'm trying to sell you something like it's a TED talk,

but it's also going to, I'm going to do something that perhaps is what we are always need when we're given advice. I'm going to give you a roadmap on how to get there.

People need tools. People need to know what to do. I'm one of those people. I am people. Do I, you know, do I think I'm always strong? Not necessarily always strong. I know myself. I can be weak sometimes. I can be, I can cry, but even when, you know, I'm, I'm feeling weak and I'm crying, it doesn't mean that I'm not [00:08:00] resilient, right?

I can achieve great things, but I don't know that I can until I achieve them. I believe in myself, but until I see myself doing it, I don't know that I can do it. I know that I am capable, but there are times when I get knocked down so hard, so far down that I'm like, you know what, this is it.

I am not getting up again. I'm not, I'm not getting up again. And then I get up again. But you know, that, that for me, that, that energy, that strength that comes from God. God grants me the ability to work hard to achieve my short term and long term goals. If I say I can achieve them and I don't, or don't even bother to go for them, does that make me a liar?

Am I delusional? Am I a hopeful idiot? I can sometimes be a hope dealer. I've been accused of being a hope dealer. I've mentioned this on the podcast before. I always believe every down situation will turn upwards because I've seen it. I've lived it. I've gone through it. So there's no reason for me to be hopeless.

When you are hopeless, you have closed the door to every opportunity [00:09:00] that you worked for. Those opportunities are gone. Those doors close. Once you lose hope, those doors close. And 2024 has shown me that hope can be applied to everything. It doesn't mean that we are going to succeed in every avenue, but we can have hope, but I know we feel like some situations are hopeless, not because they're they're bad, but because we're in situations with people who refuse to change for the better, or we're in environments that Decline and are not improving or we continue to make the same poor decisions and we don't know why we haven't figured out why we do this.

We vote against our best interests. We surround ourselves with the wrong company. We engage in harmful behavior and lean into the mercy of God to excuse our bad ways. But we just keep doing it. We have not learned resiliency. We haven't learned it. When we do that, we haven't learned it. And resilience is a universal story. And it's lessons echo everywhere. We think about current events from 2024, things that I have talked about in past episodes [00:10:00] this year. We think about the Palestinian people. Think about the Palestinian people in Palestine, living in Palestine, in Gaza, in the West Bank.

They are living amidst war, destruction, and unimaginable loss. Yet, we've also seen that they still find ways to laugh, to love, and create new life. They get married, they have babies, they have weddings under bombed skies, they pray in the rubble. It's a reminder that resilience doesn't mean thriving, right?

It means surviving when the odds are against you. And sometimes those odds are placed there on purpose. We can also look at the women of the United States who had to fight last year and this year for their reproductive rights who have had to fight every year, it seems like, since the 50s and the for their reproductive rights.

Some have marched, they've protested, they've canvassed, they've knocked on doors, they've gotten people to sign petitions and they've voted. While others have endured personal hardships of [00:11:00] painful miscarriages and painful traumatic births of children, they've driven hundreds of miles for medical care, or they face heartbreak due to a lack of medical options.

These women remind us that there can, that resilience is action in the face of injustice. So, remember, resilience doesn't mean thriving. It means surviving when the odds are against you. Resilience is action in the face of injustice. But also, resilience is reinvention, right? Don't forget the people of the Ukraine who are still fighting a war against Russia.

Still. Ukraine is a nation under siege, yet they're unwavering in their determination to remain sovereign. They've shown us how to be innovative, to adapt under fire, literally. They have redefined resilience as reinvention.

We might think of the people who will, unfortunately, perhaps in a few months, lose their health care, lose their public benefits, lose [00:12:00] employment because of the voting will of the people of the United States. People will have to keep calm and carry on. They will have to pivot, realign, readjust. People will have to count their blessings and be grateful because it could be much worse, right?

Isn't that what we tell people? People are facing insurmountable losses. In the next few months, people are scared. People don't want to hear pivot, realign, readjust when they're scared. People don't want to hear that. It's not the right time. It really isn't. And we've seen people go through major crises this, this year and how they have felt like they just needed to be strong no matter what, needed to get back up and put everything back together almost immediately without even taking time to process what has happened.

We think being resilient means that we can't even take time to process our grief. We can't even take time to grieve what we've lost. We can't even take time to learn from the mistakes we made. We're like, nope, we just get up and just don't do it again. But you have to learn [00:13:00] so that you don't do it again.

It's not just that you don't do it again. You learn something so that you don't do it again. We saw people, in the southern part of the U. S. in Florida and Georgia and Tennessee and North Carolina faced with natural disasters. Among other places, right? Faced with natural disasters, the United States is expected to get up the very next day and clean up and rebuild and replace and renew and refresh without people and places being given a chance to mourn their lost communities, their lost possessions, their lost culture.

family members, their loss of space, their, you know, they have to relocate, they're not even given a chance to deal with that before people are like, Oh, well, we'll just pick up and move on. We'll be okay. Everything will be fine. Okay. But. You're allowed to sit in your grief for a minute. You're allowed to process it.

You have to process it. You have to. People demand even that the government swoop in and give them millions and billions of dollars immediately to clean up everything because they want everything back to normal as soon as possible. [00:14:00] They don't want to go through this. You have to go through it. You have to go through it.

Yes, the government can come in and dump millions of dollars on your area, but there's still a process that you have to go through. There's still a tragedy that you have to deal with. There's loss that you have to deal with. You lost neighbors. You lost family members. You probably lost the place where you work.

Think of the hurricanes we had this year. Helene and Milton, you know. In 2024, climate change did not take a break. We had wildfires, hurricanes, droughts.

Floods have devastated communities. Hurricane Helene hit the U. S., destroying homes and infrastructure. And yes, people came together to rebuild. They came together and they organized donation drives. They volunteered in cleanup efforts and they created support networks to help each other recover. And that shows you another component of resilience.

 Community. I Firmly believe that resilience cannot be had. It cannot be sustained without community and [00:15:00] community is whatever it looks like for you. Community doesn't have to be a large cohort. It could be a small group of neighbors. It could be the small group of people at your, um, your place of worship.

It could be the people, your coworkers. It could be the people living in your house. It could be some club or organization that you belong to in your neighborhood. That's your community. People think of community, think, oh, it has to be thousands of people. No, sometimes community is like five or six people, if I'm being honest.

But even the economy has to be resilient. The US economy has to be resilient. It has to bounce back after natural disasters. It has to bounce back after pandemics. It has to bounce back after wars, during wars. It has to, and otherwise people will lose confidence in their government

people equate economy with government. And first of all, people don't even know what economy is, but I'm not even going to get into that here, but we see the economy rebounding as a sign that everything is okay. We have made it through. Everything is [00:16:00] fine. But in the United States, it's been. It's been wild for so long that even when the economy is good, people still don't feel at ease.

People still feel on edge, right? Like, if I told you that the U. S. added 227, 000 jobs in November, just as the hurricane season closed. came to a close and that indicates that the economy is growing, that the economy is doing well. You would look at me and go, I don't think so. The economy is so bad. I hear this every day.

The economy is bad. The economy is bad. And I'm like, let me Google what is economy. So I understand exactly what it is. Economy is before I go read some of these people. I'm like, yeah, that's what economy. That's what I thought it was. That's what it is. And so we're doing well here and in this category in this category in this category.

So the economy is doing well, right? But you tell people that and they don't believe you. I don't know what I don't know. Facts mean. Nothing. Facts mean. Nothing anymore. Right? And that's another part of [00:17:00] resilience. You got to endure some craziness. You have got to push back against craziness so that your, your common sense and intelligence and, and not just your opinion, you want to be correct.

You want to be correct so that it can thrive in a good environment. You have to push back against this wackiness, against lies, against people who have just negative opinions about things all the time. And they're negative and they're hopeless. And here you are with hope. And you're standing amongst people who have no hope.

What do you do? What do you do, honey? Listen, I deal with this every day. I deal with this every day. You have to remember why you are here. Nevermind why these other people are here. Let them do what they do. You have to remember why you are here. I have to remember why I am here and it's not to please or to live for anybody but myself.

Really at the end of the day, at the end of the freaking day, I'm not living for nobody but me, right? So I have to make sure my goals are [00:18:00] achieved. I have to make sure I have the tools. I have to make sure I have my spit together.

As we look towards 2025, we need to be concerned about more than just physical recovery, it seems, right? We're going to have to shift our focus to building systems because the state I live in is now, at least this year, it's the tornado capital of the U.

1. Yeah, we had like three or four tornadoes blew through here in September. Was that October? And it's happening every year now. We didn't used to, [00:19:00] we did not used to have these, like recently, like the last three or four years we are having tornadoes, it blows my mind, because this is, this is new, that means the climate is shifting, things are changing, so we're going to have to shift our focus to building systems that can withstand these disasters in the future.

Many countries and cities are working on eco friendly infrastructure like flood proof homes and renewable energy sources to adapt to the challenges of a warming planet. But one of the challenges they're facing is people. My son goes to a university way out in the, um, I won't call it cornfields because there's no corn.

It's just flat land way out in the western part of Ohio. And, um, One, one day I was driving him, I was pick, I had picked them up and we're driving home and we saw some things being built, like some huge, I don't even know what they, huge steel beams were being placed out in these fields and I'm, I'm like, you know, look it up and see what they're building and he couldn't [00:20:00] figure out what they were building.

And so this year I come back and it's solar panels. They were building solar panels. The city that I drove through was going to be used to harness solar energy for, I don't even know who, for a company, for the city. All I know is that that is big money. Big money. Tax revenue. Places that have these solar and windmills and wind energy farms, they get a lot of tax revenue from that.

And that tax revenue goes to the schools, obviously, the hospitals, uh, the city government, they can pay more people, they can hire more people, but as I'm driving past the solar panels, I see signs in people's yards. That says, say no to windmills. No windmills. We don't want any windmills. So apparently, solar farming is where they draw the line.

They don't want any windmills. Now, they do have a beautiful skyline. I mean, they, you can see the clouds in the sky. There's, there are no factories out this way. Well, there's one factory, [00:21:00] but it's very far away from where the people are living. And the sky is just beautiful. You know, people pay a lot of money for that view.

They have these teeny tiny, uh, ranch style homes on this big, giant piece of land. I don't know what they're growing because I never see anything growing when I'm driving out there. But the sky, oh, big and beautiful. If you put windmills, if you put windmills in these, uh, plots of land, Boop! There goes your skyline.

So people don't want windmills. Even though the energy harvested would be good for the environment, and it would be good for the cities where these things would be built, to have that revenue. Because face it, there are a lot of small towns in Ohio that suffer from having no industries whatsoever. So, they could use the money, but they don't care.

They don't want it. So, but innovation itself is an act of resilience. It's about adapting to a changing world and finding ways to move forward, but it may mean sacrificing the view of the clouds and the sky above your [00:22:00] head. You know, why sacrifice the view for progress? Let's also look at how the U. S.

political climate affected the resilience of people this year, especially Democrat voters, members of the Democratic Party, people who voted for Harris Waltz for president, but Democrats in the last four years specifically. The 2024 presidential election alone was a significant test of Democratic voters resilience,

but especially for democrat voters, right? We were tested this year. Tested and challenged, honey. The 2024 presidential election alone was a significant test. We had to channel our energy into voter outreach, fundraising, countering significant Disinformation campaigns adapt to new challenges such as shifts in media consumption, turning to platforms like TikTok and Instagram to disseminate political information and combat disinformation.

Democratic campaigns had to be innovative to [00:23:00] reach new and young voters, but also the last four years, there's been concerns over election integrity. They've deeply affected Democratic voters resilience, the claims of widespread voter fraud, primarily pushed by some Republican leaders and media figures after the 2020 election that eroded trust in the electoral process.

Which I fear may never be recovered this led to the introduction and I've talked about this also when I talked about voting. This led to the introduction of stricter voting laws in several Republican led states. Laws which disproportionately affected voters and Democratic strongholds, particularly marginalized communities.

And in Ohio, we've, we tried to fight gerrymandering. We tried to reverse, end gerrymandering, and we didn't succeed. So, in response to all of this, Democratic voters have displayed resilience by combating voter suppression through grassroots efforts.

We were very good at this. And organizations like Fair Fight, founded by [00:24:00] Stacey Abrams, work tirelessly to register voters, fight legal battles, and educate. The public on their voting rights. Unfortunately, people are so disillusioned by the current state of affairs and politics that a lot of people just did not show up to the polls to vote.

We had hundreds of millions, but still not enough. There were still millions and millions of registered voters, people eligible to vote, who just still did not show up. But the ones who did battled long lines, confusing new laws, and sometimes hostile environments at polling stations. And even though they turned out large numbers in 2022 and 2024 to make their voices heard, the voices of disinformation were louder.

The voices of, I hate to say it, fake news were louder. The voices saying that everything is bad and you need to vote for me because I will make it better. The person promising the wild, exaggerated, results. And [00:25:00] you know when someone over promises, when someone exaggerates, when someone promises big things, what, what, what do you usually get?

Shrimp. You get shrimp. You ever bought, you ever bought like jumbo shrimp to cook and you cook it and it, for some reason, turns into, um, Medium shrimp, small shrimp. I hate that. Like, what am I paying for? I'm paying for jumbo shrimp and then I cook it and it shrinks.

 But resilience, that's that, uh, sidebar. I do, I do that a lot. Sidebar sidebar, but resilience comes at a cost. It does. And I mentioned voter fatigue, but there's also anxiety over the future of democracy and the sheer effort required to counteract these barriers. It's taken a toll on many Democratic voters, particularly younger and first time voters.

You hear this from them a lot. They say, my vote doesn't matter. I'm not going to vote. I don't understand the issues. I don't have time. I don't want to be [00:26:00] bothered. I don't like either party. I, I feel like I'm not being heard. I feel like my issues are not being addressed, but particularly in the 2024 presidential election, black women felt completely disregarded.

While resilience has been a defining trait of Democratic voters in 2024, it's essential to acknowledge the emotional toll this political climate has taken on us. Constantly fighting against systemic barriers, witnessing the rollback of rights, and facing an uncertain future has led to burnout and disillusionment, particularly amongst Black women.

Voters, many have had to turn the on button off. The give button has been turned off. The light, the bat, the the bat signal has been, disabled, and we've had to switch to self-focused and community focused practices and support groups and therapy to cope with the stress of the political climate to cope with the betrayal that we feel, we feel betrayed.

We feel betrayed.

 [00:27:00] And what about on a very personal level? What does resilience look like in our daily grind, right? Resilience looks like the person, the parent who wakes up exhausted but still packs lunch for their kids. I'm a victim of that. It's the worker who shows up after layoffs, shake their industry. It's you waking up to a world that often feels like chaos and saying, I'll try again today.

I'm going to do this again. I'm going to give it my all again. Yet, let's be honest. [00:28:00] Our culture sometimes weaponizes resilience. See, now black women have reached the point where we're tired and we don't want to endure anymore. We want to just quit and be comfortable and rest. And we're being told, no, you can't quit.

You can't quit. You're not quitters. You're going to stand up. You're going to keep pushing. You're going to keep fighting. You're, you can't do this. Right? Because we're, we're resilient. We're known as being resilient. So, how dare the ones who have always been resilient stop being resilient. We glorify, society glorifies pushing through, but we forget to allow moments of rest, of grief, or imperfection.

Some of us don't have bootstraps on our boots to pull up, yet society demands we rise anyway. This resilience, it can inspire, but it can also exclude. Resilience can be a powerful quality, one that allows individuals, communities, and societies to [00:29:00] endure adversity and emerge stronger. However, like any virtue, resilience can be weaponized or turned toxic when it is misused, misunderstood, or imposed on others.

And instead of being a source of strength, resilience can become a tool of oppression. Yeah, a justification for neglect, a cause of emotional burnout. Here are some ways that Resilience can be weaponized or toxic. I'll give you some examples.

Resilience in the healthcare system. In countries without universal healthcare, like the United States, people are often told to be resilient in the face of illness or financial hardship. This framing Shifts the responsibility for survival onto individuals rather than addressing the structural problems that create these hardships in the first place, like insurance being a business or health insurance being tied to employment or the lack of affordable care.

Instead of addressing those problems, we turn to the people and [00:30:00] say, well, just endure it. It could be worse. Just pray for, pray for good health. I'll say a prayer for you. Instead of addressing the systemic failures of the U. S. healthcare system, we tell people to be strong in the face of illness or a financial hardship caused by an illness.

Workers in low paying jobs, For instance, are often lauded for their resilience in the face of economic insecurity, as though their ability to endure poor working conditions or low wages or lack of health insurance is a virtue. Meanwhile, the systems that perpetuate such inequality remain unchallenged.

And we see this, we see this right now, right now, people are told to be happy that you have a job. Or when people get a job, it's like, okay, well, some job is better than no job. The job that they're talking about has no benefits. No retirement package, no health insurance. You don't get any vacation time.

They've cut out overtime. All you get is straight minimum [00:31:00] wage. And so you have a minimum wage job, you have to get another minimum wage job, because one minimum wage job in most states is not going to be enough income to cover all of your expenses. But you're just happy to have a job, and people are happy you have a job.

Never mind that, You're still receiving food stamps while you're working that job. You're still on Medicaid while you're working that job. You might have to also sleep in your car while working that job. So they don't bother to fix the systemic failures that cause this kind of economic inequality to perpetuate.

 Instead, we're told to be grateful, to be humble, to wait our turn. I've been unemployed before. I know, I know what the hell it's like. It's hard as hell. I've had low paying jobs and people have said, just be grateful, just be patient, just wait, just wait. Tell a woman who has a baby and a law degree and a law license to just wait, just be patient.

But in these cases, resilience becomes a scapegoat. A way to [00:32:00] place the burden of survival on individuals while absolving institutions of accountability. When resilience is overemphasized it can also lead to dismissal of legitimate pain, trauma or hardship. People who express their struggles to others, right?

We go on the internet and we express our troubles to other people in social media posts and people go, Oh, at least you're strong enough to handle it. This will make you tougher. You'll come out on the other side a stronger person. Look on the bright side. Others have it worse. It could be much worse. At least it's only skin cancer.

Could be worse. Could be pancreatic cancer. No, no cancer is good. What the hell? These responses, though often well meaning, people mean well, but they can be invalidating. They imply that resilience is the only acceptable response to a hardship, effectively silencing conversations [00:33:00] about suffering, grief, or vulnerability.

Resilience can also become toxic when we use it to judge others. And you might see this one more than you see anything else. For instance, victim blaming. Survivors of abuse, discrimination, or trauma are sometimes criticized for not being resilient enough. If they struggle to cope. This shifts the blame onto individuals for not overcoming circumstances that were outside of their control.

There's also the pressure to perform in highly competitive environments. I work in a highly competitive environment. These workplaces or schools, resilience is often treated as a measure of worth. Those who tough it out are celebrated. The ones who work the long hours, who are there before everyone else, and who leave after everyone else has left.

The ones who hardly ever see their families during the week, but they can see them on the weekends. The ones who are always staying late, working overtime. That! That's celebrated, [00:34:00] while those who struggle, or those who want to see their families, or those who just want to work a normal eight hour day.

Maybe you want to work five hours, I don't know. But those who struggle in that regard are labeled as weak or unmotivated, or not as reliable as the person who's willing to do much more than they should be asked to do, but they're happy to do it. This creates a toxic Work environment, a toxic culture where people feel pressured to hide their vulnerabilities and to, and pretend to be strong, even when they are struggling.

And you might find those are the people who snap. Those are the people who snap. And yeah, there are emotional and psychological cost of toxic resilience. Burnout is one of them. Constantly told, being told to be strong or push through can lead to burnout. A state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion.

Constantly being, who, who are we telling lately to be strong and push through? Black women. We are in a state of [00:35:00] burnout currently when people feel pressured to be resilient. Also, they may suppress their emotions to avoid being seen as weak, and that can lead to anxiety, depression, difficulty forming authentic relationships.

You might have difficulty sleeping. You might gain weight. Suppressing emotions in the name of resilience can also prevent people from seeking help when they need it. Perpetuating cycles of suffering and this leads to internalized shame. And when resilience is framed as a moral imperative, those who struggle to adapt may feel ashamed or inadequate.

They might blame themselves for their inability to overcome challenges, even when those challenges are insurmountable. We put this on black women. We call us the strong black woman, the queen. We're calling each other queen. People are calling us queen. Black women are particularly, frequently praised for their strength and [00:36:00] resilience.

But that stereotype is toxic. It dismisses the emotional and physical toll of systemic racism and sexism. It encourages Black women to neglect our own well being in order to live up to societal expectations of strength. And it prevents others from offering or providing support. Assuming black women can handle it.

You're good. You're good. You're, you're, you're a strong black woman. You can do it. How many freaking times was I, have I been told that in my life? I want to scream every time I hear it. In fact, I don't even let anybody call me queen. Don't call me queen. Because telling me I'm a queen to me is just dismissing me.

Because they're, I don't feel like a queen every single day. Oh, but you should feel like a queen every No. No. No, and particularly in this political climate where I'm not being treated as a queen. A queen's wishes would be respected, right? Mine are not.

In toxic environments, the [00:37:00] concept of resilience can be used to gaslight individuals. You know, gaslighting, people like to use that word incorrectly. But the concept of resilience can be used to gaslight individuals into thinking the problem lies with them rather than the organization. For example, an employee who speaks out about harassment or discrimination might be told to toughen up or develop a thicker skin, shifting the focus away from the need for accountability and change.

And this is one of the, the, the, this is one of the worst examples of toxic resilience. And this is something that I see in my line of work every day because I work in um, public service. I'm a public service attorney

people who are the recipients of government benefits are denigrated and debased and treated with such disdain. It is disgusting. It is disgusting. Never mind that there are [00:38:00] people who, who desperately need what their government can provide for them. That's the life of this world. People are going to be poor. People are going to be disabled. People are going to be sick. People are going to be unable to care for themselves. People are going to be unemployed.

Everything isn't neat, it's not perfect, but this idea that everyone has the ability to pull themselves up by their bootstraps is deeply ingrained in the American culture and it completely disregards the fact that that is not fucking true. This narrative often downplays the role of systemic support, such as affordable health care, education, housing,

and helping people succeed. By framing resilience as a personal responsibility, policy makers justify reducing funding for social programs they argue that individuals should be able to overcome adversity without government assistance.

 These programs were formulated because people were not able to overcome adversity without government [00:39:00] assistance. That is why these programs were made. And it hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. And today, in fact, people are upset that the government doesn't provide more to help people. If the government, the U.

1. government, the federal government, right now said, each American is going to get 5, 000, people would be dancing in the street. They would be dancing in the street, whether they needed the money or not. We could all use a little bit of something extra. And there are people who need a lot extra. And so what if they do? You get to demonize them? Because they might need a little bit more help than you? I don't think so.

Demonizing the poor, the disabled. Yeah, there are people who take advantage of the system, but guess what? There are rich people who take advantage of the system, too. Wealthy people who don't pay their fair share of taxes. That's a thing, too. You don't demonize them, but no, you'll demonize poor people.

You'll make them seem as if they're the [00:40:00] problem. And when these social programs are cut, those who rely on them are often stigmatized as lacking resilience. And this blame shifting not only harms individuals, but also undermines collective efforts to address inequality and poverty.

How do we overcome this? How do we overcome this? One way is to redefine what success is. Resilience should not be measured by one's ability to endure hardship alone. Success should also include the ability to rest, to seek help, and advocate for systemic change. The modern focus on resilience often loses sight of its purpose, and that is to help individuals and communities navigate challenges while preserving their well being.

 Toxic resilience occurs when society uses the concept to perpetuate harmful systems and ignore [00:41:00] valid struggles or push people to their breaking points without offering meaningful support. We must advocate for systemic solutions. This is what we should be doing in 2025 because we're going to be faced with hardships in 2025 when a lot of the things that we need and enjoy are cut.

So we need to advocate for systemic solutions. Whether we are addressing economic inequality, discrimination, or environmental challenges, systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Expecting individuals to adapt. To adapt to injustice perpetuates harm. Therefore, advocacy, policy change, and equity driven reforms are essential steps to ensure resilience isn't a survival mechanism, but a choice. We shouldn't have to rely on, on resilience to survive. We shouldn't have to rely on our ability to be strong to survive.

 [00:42:00] We expect everyone to stay positive in the face of negativity. The keep calm and carry on. We don't complain about our problems when we're resilient, right? We work hard. We are determined. We're self confident. We're stoic.

But the resilient can also be accused of rushing to instant gratification, not planning for the future, not waiting for evidence, rushing to judgments, conclusion, conclusions and punishments. Our pursuit of progress also. Demands resilience. Look at the rush to adopt artificial intelligence companies pushing innovation without stopping to assess the risks is what we're seeing in 2024.

We're going to see more of it in 2025. It's like jumping into a new world without a parachute. True. Resilience isn't reckless. It's deliberate. It is a choice. It is a deliberate choice. It's about balancing forward momentum without, it's about balancing forward, it's about [00:43:00] balancing forward momentum with thoughtful planning.

Resilience is the mindset that says, Okay, I got knocked down. I'm not going to stay here.

I'm going to respawn and strategize better this time.

 2024 was the year of resilience.

2024 was the year of resilience. It was the year that people were adulting. On a difficult level, dealing with the looming threat of student loan payments, job instability, rising costs, and climate anxiety. But we were still grinding, showing up, and building the life that [00:44:00] works for us we're practicing self care. We're going to therapy or even just allowing ourselves to say, you know what? Not today, but I'll try again tomorrow.

2024 has been the year of resilience because even when things felt broken, like politics and relationships or our 10 year plan, we found ways to believe that it will. And can get better. Resilience does not mean that we work for everything and our hand at nothing. People become so resilient that they lose the ability to be understanding and empathetic. The all resilient don't understand that not everyone needs to be excellent. And not everyone is presented with the opportunity to be excellent.

Many of us have the potential to be excellent, but there may be unseen issues that prevent us from reaching that full potential. And there are people who cannot take the normal route to achieve the high goals that others achieve within seemingly weeks or months. The all resilient may see those people as failures, [00:45:00] those who don't try hard.

But those people are also resilient because they learn to adapt their world to their abilities. They don't succeed in the way that the old resilient do. They succeed in a way that accommodates their unique personality, their ability, their disability, their mental capacity. And when people ask for help when faced with a hardship, that is resilience, even though some may view it as a weakness.

Resilience isn't about thriving by someone else's standard. It's about adapting your world to fit your reality, not forcing yourself into molds that weren't made for you. At the beginning of the year, think it was February, February, excuse me, I did an episode on self love. And I, I, I spoke about how I was learning to love myself and I centered the discussion around a book that I read that just opened my eyes to so much as a person who, um, has ADHD and the book is called [00:46:00] The Gifts of Imperfection and it's by Brene Brown.

In this book, she explores Brene Brown explores how to live a wholehearted life by embracing vulnerability, authenticity, and courage.

And she discusses resilience as a key component of emotional well being and provides practical insights for cultivating it. Remember, I told you I would give you tools, tools to help you be resilient, to help you choose resilience and to be resilient when you need to be. And here are some key takeaways on resilience from the book.

She introduces the concept of shame resilience, which involves recognizing, understanding and addressing shame constructively, right? Resilience requires recognizing shame triggers. Talking about shame with trusted individuals. Practicing self compassion and rejecting [00:47:00] perfectionism. Reject perfectionism.

Please reject perfectionism. Trying to be perfect will ruin your life. By building shame resilience, people can navigate difficult emotions and stay grounded in their worthiness. Brown emphasizes that resilience is deeply tied to connection. Remember I said community is important to resilience? Building meaningful relationships provides a support system that helps individuals endure life's challenges.

She writes that we are wired for connection, and we are. And resilience grows when we lean on others and foster empathy. She also highlights that hope is a critical element of resilience. You have to remain hopeful. Unlike fleeting optimism, hope is a skill that can be cultivated through goal setting, perseverance, and belief in one's ability [00:48:00] to navigate obstacles.

The hopeful outlook strengthens resilience in tough times. You also have to practice self compassion, which is something a lot of people do not do. We show more grace to a leaf on the ground than we do to ourselves. More grace to a stray, wild animal than we do to ourselves. And resilience requires treating yourself with kindness, particularly when facing setbacks.

Don't engage in negative self talk, and Brown suggests letting go, in fact, of harsh self criticism, and instead practicing self compassion by acknowledging struggles and responding to yourself with care. Perfectionism undermines resilience by creating unrealistic expectations and fear of failure. So you must let go of perfectionism.

Brown advocates for embracing imperfection and striving for growth [00:49:00] instead of unattainable standards. Let me repeat that. Strive for growth instead of unattainable standards. Standards, but you also want to practice gratitude. That is another tool for building resilience. Brown explains that gratitude shifts focus away from scarcity and fear.

When you feel like resources are scarce, which a lot of people complained about this year, food being scarce, job being scarce. When you focus on scarcity and fear, you lose the ability to be grateful and feel joy. And when you shift your focus away from scarcity and fear, you foster a sense of abundance and joy, even during difficult times.

And that is not to say you pretend like everything is fine and everything is going to be okay. That is to say, You shop around where you are, where you live. I had to do this a lot because I, I was constantly looking outside of myself for sources of joy, for sources [00:50:00] of happiness. And everything that I needed was already inside of me.

I had already had everything, but I was constantly going outside looking for it. And I never found it because it's, it's not outside of me. It's inside of me. It's in my body, in this chair, in my house. And I didn't need to buy, you know, more shoes and more clothes. I already had enough shoes. I already have enough clothes.

My goodness. I finally did all my laundry and I saw that I don't need more of this and more of that. I already have enough. I already have enough. This is something that I practice saying to myself quite a bit. Ayana, you have enough. Ayana, you have enough. Because there are times when I feel like I don't, and there are times when I feel like having more will make me happy, and it won't.

It doesn't. But during difficult times, it can be tough to look around and go, Hey, I have enough. And I've had difficult times. And I've had times where I've had to just sit my ass in the house and do absolutely nothing because there was not any money to do anything. And, uh, I just had to be, I had to say to myself, you have to work with what you have, [00:51:00] you have to work with what you have.

It's not always going to be this way and you're going to have to work with what you have. Make the most of what you have. Brene Brown also talks about using vulnerability as a strength. She reframes vulnerability as a source. As a source of strength rather than weakness, by leaning into vulnerability, she says, people can develop the courage to face adversity, try new things, and grow through challenges.

So, practical steps for resilience. Embrace vulnerability and let go of the fear of being imperfect. Build supportive relationships and engage with others authentically. Be your authentic self. I cannot stress that enough. Be your authentic self. Engage with others authentically. Develop hope by setting realistic goals and staying committed to them.

Even if you have to achieve your goals one step at a time, you plan them out. You're realistic with your goals and you [00:52:00] stay committed to them. Cultivate gratitude and mindfulness to maintain perspectives during hardship because there will be hard times. And those hard times may cause you to lose sight of your goals.

Those hard times may make you feel some kind of way about yourself, and you shouldn't. Cultivate gratitude and mindfulness to maintain perspective during hardships. Practice self compassion and release perfectionist tendencies. Embrace your imperfections and cultivate practices that foster a resilient, wholehearted life.

And yes, you have to remain hopeful. You have to. Even during the absolute worst and trying of times. I believe that. I believe that. Because I know. That being hopeful and remaining hopeful is the only way that I'm going to, when I pray to God to grant me something, that's the only way I'm going to get it, is if I hope, I hope, I [00:53:00] believe.

That I'm going to get it. That I'm going to be granted this thing. If I go to God and I pray for something, but I also have no hope of attaining it, what the hell am I doing? What am I praying for? I either want it or I don't.

I either want it or I don't. I have to believe in my ability by identifying past challenges I've overcome and remind myself of my resilience. I have to acknowledge obstacles. And develop strategies to stay motivated. I've had one goal for the last, I don't even want to say how many years, but it's been some years.

And I've been working on it for the longest time. And I finally, finally broke through. And I've talked about it on this, on my podcast before. And that is, um, weight loss. I've been working on weight loss for years. Years, honey. When I was in high school, you couldn't even see me. That's how thin I was I didn't use that as a measure of my worth though. [00:54:00] But the older I got, the harder it was for me to lose weight. And then I got pregnant with a very big headed baby. I love my baby. And I got pregnant again and the weight just was not coming off. It wasn't coming off.

It was only getting, um, I was getting heavier. Heavier and heavier. And my doctor was like, Oh yeah, you have fatty liver disease and you have hypertension and you have high cholesterol and you're going to die soon if you don't do something. And I work out. I was a runner. I was a walker, I've changed my diet eleventy hundred times, but losing weight just was not coming easy to me and then the weight would just come back.

It would come back and come back and come back. And I mean, I have, I have comorbid conditions. I have hypothyroidism and I have insulin resistance. And eventually I was pre diabetic. Which is like, whoa, okay, pre diabetic means eventually diabetic. And I don't want to be diabetic. It's a hard life. [00:55:00] People with diabetes have to live.

It's a lot to manage. And so finally, I've talked about this, I'm very open about using weight loss medication. I use, I listen, my insurance company has taken me through the entire list. You can have this, then no, you can't have this, then you can have this, then no, you can't have this. And finally, you can have this one.

Yes, because you are fat enough to have this one. So I take, I take Wegovy, but it's not just that I take this Wegovy and the weight has just melted off. No, honey. I've been on Wigovi for two years. I've been on, not Wigovi, but Manjaro, Ozempic, Wigovi for two years. And in two years, I have lost now 54 pounds and kept it off, whereas, I mean, other people have lost 54 pounds in a month, but I can't compare myself to them because I know myself.

I know my struggles. I know my, my conditions. I know my schedule. I know my motivation. I know that I've had to start and stop the [00:56:00] medication several times because my insurance wouldn't pay for it. And every time you stop, you have to start from the beginning. Like it's a step up and every time you start, you have to start from the beginning.

So I've had to start over three times and that probably has had something to do with why my weight loss was slow. But I also still have to work out. I can't just jab myself in the thigh with the medicine. No. I still have to work out, and I have to eat better.

I eat a lot better. I eat high protein, high fiber, eat a lot of vegetables, my god, and a lot of pears and apples, and I drink a ton of water. I'm one of those people who frequently uses the restroom too, because water goes in, water got to come out.

But I have maintained this goal. I have maintained this goal and I have not ever given up on myself. I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and working and praying and working and, and [00:57:00] I'm finally at a point where something is working for me. I'm breaking through. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful to God for giving me the opportunity.

I'm grateful that I have a, see, now I have to be grateful that I have a job so I can have health insurance that pays for this. It's insane. It's insane. If you, if you don't have health insurance, it could cost you 1, 500 a month for this medication. Or any med, medication could cost you 2, 000, 3, 000, 4, 000 a month.

I have other medications that I take that if I did not have health insurance, I wouldn't be able to pay for them. So I have to keep my job. I gotta keep my good, uh, government job. So that I can have health insurance. That's crazy that we live in a country with that kind of inequality. That if you don't have a job with health insurance, then you likely will not have health insurance unless you are disabled or pregnant or a [00:58:00] child.

And that is an inequality that we need to address in our country. People shouldn't have to endure that, should not have to endure that, right?

But we do. But we do. We endure so much and, you know, resilience isn't about winning. It's about enduring. But there are things we should not have to endure, but we do. Because what other choice do we have?

What other choice do we have? But we also continue to hope, to dream, to fight, even when the outcome isn't guaranteed. This year, 2024 has shown us that resilience also means asking for help, setting boundaries, and knowing when to rest. It's not about being unbreakable. It's about being human. Resilience is not perfection.

It is persistence. Resilience is not about ignoring pain, but about turning pain into purpose. It's not stoicism. It's strength through adaptation. And if 2024 has taught us [00:59:00] anything, it's that resilience is less about bouncing back and more about bending without breaking. Resilience is prayer in the rubble.

It's protest in the face of oppression. It's surviving systems that aren't built for everyone. Resilience is not about toxic positivity or pretending like everything's fine. It's knowing that life will sometimes feel like a buggy glitchy mess, but you keep pressing start on the game anyway. So let's celebrate resilience and in 2025 work to build it within us.

So that when we have to choose it, we choose it. Not as a badge of honor, but as a testament to the human spirit. Because sometimes, resilience isn't about winning. It's about refusing to quit. And this has been Ayanna Explains It All. Brought to you by Facts, Figures, and Enlightenment. I hope everyone [01:00:00] has a happy new year.

Take care.