By Marquita Herald, Emotionally Resilient Living

Ask friends or family what resilience means to them and a chances are most will say it has something to do with “bouncing back” from a crisis. This is a popular theme, and the image of a rubber band being pulled back before it goes forward is easy to visualize.

Unfortunately many take this analogy literally and focus all their energy on bouncing back to the way things were before they were blindsided. Of course it’s perfectly understandable to want to return to a place of familiar comfort and sense of “normalcy,” but the reality is that sometimes our lives are irrevocably changed by these events and we are challenged to redefine what “normal” looks like, just ask the newly divorced, unemployed or a family who recently lost a loved one … just ask Amy Purdy.

You never change things by fighting existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. ~Buckminster Fuller

Many people first became aware of Amy from her amazing performance and accomplishment as season runner up on Dancing With the Stars, and her interview with Oprah. But to really learn from her experience you have to look beyond the image of this dynamic young woman as she is today, a successful athlete, entrepreneur and newlywed.

Amy has been through hardships that most of us will never face — or can even understand – and she has an important story to tell, but it requires looking beyond her designer prosthetics and bubbly personality to find a highly resilient young woman who refused to let even a catastrophic illness stop her. In this inspiring TEDx talk “Living Beyond Limits” Amy challenges us to accept that our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by the choices we make and how imagination allows us to break down borders, to move beyond our circumstances to achieve big dreams.

It’s not about breaking down borders but pushing off of them and seeing what amazing places they might take us. ~Amy Purdy

Today, Amy remains passionate about sports and is currently the top ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world. She also co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, a nonprofit organization that provides her with the opportunity to help other people with physical challenges get involved with action sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding and wakeboarding.

The way Amy has continued to challenge herself while making a positive impact on the world is a true testament to her spirit, and if you’d like to learn more about her I encourage you to take a look at her book On My Own Two Feet (affiliate link).

Do you have a dream for your future?

How big is your dream? Is it so vivid, so real to you that you can taste, touch and imagine it in living color and just thinking about it gets your heart thumping? Is your dream built on what you believe is realistic for you to achieve based on your circumstances, or is it BIG enough that to achieve it will require mustering the courage to venture well beyond your current (perceived) borders?

Let today be the day you give up who you’ve been for who you can become.

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The mission of ERL is to encourage you to embrace the power you have to put “you” unapologetically in charge of your life. To learn more about ERL and the benefits of becoming a member of our community please visit the “About ERL” page, and if you’re curious about me you might like to read My Story.