Strong, flexible, resilient.

These words came to me out of the blue when I was struggling to get my head around the news that my skeleton was officially crumbling (a bit hyperbolic, perhaps, but that’s how my diagnosis of osteoporosis at 56 years old felt).

I knew that I needed something to hold onto.

Something that would help me send a message to my system. A message of hope. A positive suggestion to counter everything I was reading about what this diagnosis might mean. That would counter the suggestions I had been given by the nurse who delivered the news.

And then those words appeared.

Strong, flexible, resilient.

And as I lay in bed last night, listening to the wind howling through the trees they came back to me once again.

I realised how perfectly they describe the trees themselves.

I found myself repeating these words over and over. Sending strength and flexibility and resilience to the trees, trusting them to withstand the storm.

And I remembered too how, every time I’ve told someone about the fall in which I broke my wrists, I’ve used the phrase “I came down like a tree”.

When a tree crashes to the ground we are shocked and upset. But that’s because it’s so unusual. For every tree that falls in a storm, thousands stay standing. They bend in the wind but they do not break.

They are strong, flexible and resilient.

So this is my new mantra.

This is the powerful suggestion that I am giving myself every day.

I am strong, flexible and resilient.
Physically, mentally and emotionally.
From my very bones to my sense of self.

If these words resonate with you I invite you to adopt them as your new mantra too. Or to find your own variation on this theme, your own personal mantra, your positive suggestion, and – if you choose to – to share it with me.