Recovery
Plant life is subject to natural and necessary elements in the environment like wind. When wind causes some stress for plant life, it responds to the stress by becoming stronger. Seedlings exposed to some wind develop more resilient stems that support the plant’s health and make it able to withstand greater stress from higher winds in the future.
Stress. Resilience. Recovery. Repeat.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Sometimes. But if the stressor that doesn’t kill exceeds the resilience of the stressed, the damage done will demand to be compensated in recovery. A tree exposed to some wind will grow roots to withstand more wind. Too much wind, and the tree blows over. It may still recover, but it will take longer, and it will be more vulnerable to other stressors during the recovery process.
Relationships share some of these characteristics. Natural and necessary stressors are present, like conflict, change, and problems. When these cause some stress in a relationship, they create opportunities to grow deeper roots. When we use collaboration to engage in conflict, navigate change, and solve problems, we strengthen relationships. We practice resilience, and we get through stress. We recover and develop greater resilience, which can be leveraged next time necessary stress arises.
Stress. Resilience. Recovery. Repeat.
The pandemic brought with it dramatic increases in conflict, change, and problems. We proved that we are resilient. But this wasn’t just the kind of wind that encouraged deeper roots. It was the kind of wind that did some damage, the kind that requires active recovery. We need our relationships at work to be able to handle the natural and necessary stressors that come when people try to accomplish something together. If we can admit to one another that the wind blew hard enough to make us lean a little closer to the ground, maybe we can be intentional in the ways we prop one another up.
Maybe we can make a plan for recovery, and maybe we can make things better than they’ve ever been.
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