It was just over a year ago that we created the I Am Resilient Project. The goal was to create a safe space for people to share, read and hear stories of resilience. Our community is an outlet that can help you navigate your challenges and not feel so alone.
Over the last year we:
- Published 19 stories of resilience
- Shared 17 blog posts
- Launched our newsletter
- Spoke about the community at various speaking engagements
- Started the Radical Resilience interview series
- Planned 4 fundraisers for mental health/counselling assistance programs across Canada (but had to postpone 3 of them)
- Began to work on our first published book (which is of your stories)
What we have to look forward to is the creation of our podcast, which is currently being worked on, and collecting more stories of resilience. Every story deserves to be told and that is why we came into existence.
How It All Began
You see, my life is full of challenges. Not only am I a child of divorce but I’m also the daughter of a man who lives with addiction. We were really close when I was young but his addiction led to him divorcing my mom and not being the father that I needed. This caused a lot of emotional trauma that I carried with me as I grew older. There were many times that he was supposed to spend time with me and he never showed up, which broke my heart. I didn’t understand why my dad didn’t love me anymore. I didn’t understand why my dad didn’t want to spend time with me. What did I do wrong? This sadness is something that I carried with me.
I was tired of being unhappy and angry all the time and in 2008, when I was in my mid-twenties, I was given the tools that I needed to forgive him. Because of this one beautiful conversation he began his journey to sobriety, developed a new relationship with me and reconnected with the rest of the family. Sadly, his health has been declining over the last few years and in December of 2018, we learned that his COPD was in the end stage and that he had only a few years left to live. I finally have my father back in my life, which I thought would never happen, and now he’s being taken away from me. Why? This isn’t fair?
My dad lives in Manitoba and I live in B.C., which makes spending time with him more of a challenge. We are doing the best that we can to talk every day and I try to go back to Winnipeg whenever I can, to spend time with him and make happy memories.
We decided to share our story of addiction, forgiveness, and resilience to help us heal and to help others heal, forgive and be resilient. When I was young, I didn’t understand that he was sick and was living with addiction, which is something that I wish I knew. I think that if I knew that, my life would have been different. The silver living of our story is that we can inspire others by sharing what we have overcome.
I find resilience and strength in sharing my story, which is what inspired the I Am Resilient Project to be born. Being able to talk to friends, family, therapists and the world has helped me cope with my dad’s illness.
I’m honoured that Alana Kaplan, my sister and our Project Manager, decided to join our team. Together we will continue to share stories of resilience while evolving the community.
How can you be a part of our community?
- You can submit your story of resilience.
- You can be interviewed for the Radical Resilience series.
- You can share our work with our network via social media, email, word of mount or messenger pigeon.
- You can read the stories of resilience that we feature.
- You can just be you and do what you need to do.
Life is precious and you only have once chance at it. Remember it’s okay to not be okay and that you, my friend, are resilience. Are you ready to share your story of RESILIENCE? You can do that HERE.
X Blair Kaplan Venables
