When I woke up this morning, I went outside to my patio to enjoy some fresh air and meditate before getting started with work.  It was a foggy morning, and the moisture in the air caused me to notice several spider webs clinging to my patio furniture.  The photo I used for this newsletter header is one of the webs on my umbrella.  Look at how fascinating that web is!  It’s a work of beauty the way it’s intricately woven and spread out across a large portion of the umbrella to capture as many insects as possible.

So what can we learn about resiliency from spiders?  Did you know that if a spider web is destroyed, the spider will recycle the silk and either weave a new web or consume the silk to recoup the energy expended from weaving the web?  What if we took this approach when encountering failures? How might we “recycle” those failures to draw out the most significant learning and to try again?  Or how might we transform the negative emotions that initially come with experiencing failure into positive feelings of gratitude for the learning experience?  So, here’s my challenge to you this week:

• When something doesn’t go as planned, or you experience a failure or a negative emotion, pause for a moment and visualize a beautiful spider web.
• Think about how you constructed that web. What were the events that led up to your negative experience?
• If there was something within your control that you could have done differently to construct your web, what would that be?
• What parts of the web remained intact through the negative experience? What things worked well that you would do again?
• What are you grateful for because of having this experience?

Spiders have adapted over millions of years to survive.  I encourage you to continue to strengthen your resiliency not just to survive, but to thrive!

Wishing you the best!

Amy