Beyond Coping: A Pathway to Cultivating Inner Resilience

So many of us are coping — getting through the day, holding it together, ticking boxes, but feeling quietly stretched to the limit or just empty.
The world keeps telling us to “be resilient,” which often translates to “keep pushing no matter what.” That’s a recipe for burnout!

It’s not what serves us, and it’s not real resilience.

In this episode, Eimear offers a new understanding:
That resilience isn’t about white-knuckling through, but cultivating the inner resources that protect you from burnout and help you recover from life’s inevitable challenges and setbacks with grace.

You’ll learn:
→ What true resilience actually means — and how it’s been hijacked by hustle culture.
→ The difference between the “Red Zone” and the “Green Zone” — and how to know when you’ve crossed the line.
→ Why we often suffer from the “second arrow” — and how to stop adding pain to pain.
→ How unmet needs for safety, satisfaction, and connection quietly drain our energy.
→ Practical ways to resource yourself and communicate your needs — including a simple NVC-inspired tool for speaking up at work when you’re overloaded.

This episode is your invitation to build a steadier, kinder relationship with yourself — one where resilience doesn’t mean hardening up, but coming home to calm, courage, and care.

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© 2025 Eimear Zone Coaching. All rights reserved.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi, welcome back. I'm your host Eimear Zone, and this week we're talking about a really important topic, I think I say that every week. Do I? resilience. And I think anytime where we're taking on something new and we're choosing ourselves and in whatever form that takes for us, whether it's. We're like walking into that big room to give the big presentation to make the pitch, whether we're going for that interview or whether we're, you know, returning to the workplace or getting into a creative project after being at home for a long time.

I think we are calling on resources within ourselves that perhaps we haven't cultivated intentionally before, and we can experience a lot of. Instability internally because of that. And I think the word resilience is one of those words that's kind of been stretched and twisted until it's [00:01:00] almost lost.

Its meaning, it's often just masking. People who never stop. They never, rest. And it can often mask when we are nearing burnout. But it feels really good to be called resilient, that we just keep going. I think real resilience isn't about, you know, being unshakeable. I think it's about really being truly, truly authentically alive and meeting the moments of our lives from a position of grounded strength and grace.

Because we're all going to face challenges. We're all going to stumble, and it's about recovering skillfully and in a way that honors our core needs. Those core needs are for [00:02:00] safety, for satisfaction, that sense of fulfillment and and for connection. Because when we don't cultivate our resilience. We all know when we're not feeling resilient, right?

It's the smallest things undo us. They send us into a spin. It can be a snide comment or a perceived snide comment from somebody else, or a delay to a timeline. Something doesn't quite match our expectations, or we get a no and we internalize it. It sinks in and hits deep, and we make it mean something about us, and suddenly, yeah, we're in this spiral and we're replaying and we're doubting ourselves and we can lose hours.

Sometimes days are longer to stories that drain our energy. [00:03:00] And our joy, and it really impacts our ability to sort of gather ourselves together and to come back in and engage with life as the powerful, amazing human beings that we all are. But when we build resilience. When we really kind of tap into what it truly is, we begin to pay attention and look to cultivate, nourish, and build it.

We begin to move through our lives differently. We begin to experience our lives differently, our challenges and our setbacks. The challenges will come, but they don't define us. You know, we recover faster and we stay open longer, and our self-trust deepens. There's this teaching from the Buddha that I often talk about, and I return to a lot, a lot in my own life because I'm always noticing when I'm doing this, when I miss this, and it's the teaching about the two arrows, [00:04:00] the two arrows of suffering or pain.

So that first arrow that strikes us in life is that unavoidable pain of life. It's the illness, it's the loss. It's the disappointment. It's the argument. It's the job we didn't get. It's the thing outside of our control. It happens, and the second arrow is the one that we fire at ourselves. Afterwards.

We shoot that second arrow. That's the second arrow of suffering. It's the rumination, it's the self blame. Or the endless, you know, that endless mental replay that keeps that woundedness open long after the event has passed. We're like picking over it. And if you think about resilience in this sense, it's like the art of seeing that second arrow [00:05:00] before it lands and sort of catching it.

And instead we choose a wise, skillful response. Instead of the one that's become the default, the one that's the automatic one, that second arrow response. Some examples of how we might experience this in everyday life. So you didn't get the job. That's the first arrow it happened, the story you tell yourself about what that means.

For example, like I'm not good enough. It'll never work out. I'm never gonna get that job. I shouldn't have applied in the first place. What was I thinking? That's the second arrow and that's totally generated by us. I say your partner snaps at you. That's the first arrow. You were playing it for three days.

Getting into that, I should said this. I can't believe he. [00:06:00] That inner narration and the replay, that's the second arrow. Your body flares up and slows you down some illness. So my, I live this. I live this. That's the first arrow, darn it. This health thing is happening. Again, the guilt for not pushing through and not getting on with it.

That's the second era. That's the one I have control over. Now I get that. This is tough because we're not used to seeing it like this. I was very resistant to hearing about the second arrow because I liked. I liked it. I liked it. I liked the second arrow. There's a payoff to the second arrow. It's got a little bit of poor me, it's not fair.

And it sort of calls in attention and sometimes that can feel nice. We like a little bit of company in [00:07:00] being the victim of this circumstance, and I don't mean that we don't kind of take a moment to go. That was disappointing. It's not that we're pushing through, not acknowledging that getting back on the horse.

It's not like that, but it's like, oh, there's, a little space here for a little bit of choice. That's where we're building the resilience. It's kind of, okay, that was disappointing, and what am I gonna choose now that's really going to nourish me? That's really going to create that steady foundation for myself that I want to be operating from.

The more time we spend sort of nursing those second arrows. I'm really putting my hand up here. I can't emphasize this enough. I really, this is hard for me nursing the second arrows, just acknowledging that that is something that I would do. The more we do that, the longer we stay in what I'm gonna call the red zone, [00:08:00] which is a reactive state where that kind of ancient.

The survival brain, if you will, that mode of operating is running the show, and we're gonna talk more about that. So let's talk about putting a sort of visual on this so that you can relate to it a little bit better and notice it in yourself more clearly. I find this really, really helpful. So if we. Talk about the red zone, kind of reactive mode.

Say when we're caught in nursing, that second arrow, it's survival mode. It's, you know, the blood flooded with the stress hormones, you'll feel it in your body. It's really interesting to take things into the body. You'll feel a contracted state. Internally. Your body's flooded with stress hormones and your mind is scanning for threat.

And everything [00:09:00] feels personal and urgent. And it's that late night overthinking. It's the catastrophizing. It's the endless what ifs. It's our beautiful, wonderful, imaginative mind, the one that kept our ancestors safe from saber tooth tigers. But it's now imagining that the tigers are everywhere in your inbox, in your slack messages, in what somebody might be thinking about you.

So if you're. If you're a founder, for example, it's the sleepless nights before the pitch, the mental rehearsal, over rehearsal of everything that could possibly go wrong instead of, you know, what goes right? If you are returning to the workplace after years of being at home, being the CEO of that family, it's the flood of who am I now questions.

I don't belong. And your mind whispering. Everybody else has figured it out. [00:10:00] It's too late, can't begin again. In the red zone, we really give into that prehistoric brain that was beautiful for its time where we overestimate danger. So we tend to overestimate the danger and underestimate our capacity. We forget how powerful we actually are and I can't stress enough how important it is to acknowledge that thinking.

Like this, imagining worst case scenarios is normal and is the way the system was designed because back in the prehistoric day, the old, um, rustle in the bushes could have been a saber tooth tiger, and you had two choices to ignore it and think it's probably nothing. Or to assume it was a saber-tooth tiger every time, and to get the hell out of there.

And if you may, you know, the first choice meant you, you could well go extinct. So our brain is trained that the [00:11:00] risk of ignoring the threat was too high. It was life or death. And our brains haven't gotten, you know, like a software update. There is no software update unless you do this work. Yeah, unless you do this work, this is one of the most profound sort of realizations that I've had on my own journey.

It's like, oh, no wonder I feel like shit. Often. It's because I'm running on really ancient software and there's been no place to plug myself in to get a software upgrade that really, reflects the environment and the complexity of life as it is today. There isn't, so we need to do this work ourselves.

So let's get into the green. Zone and talk about that because this is really where resilience lives and here is where our body is receiving those physiological signals that we're safe it, we feel safe enough then so that we can think more clearly. [00:12:00] Our heart opens so that we can make meaningful connection.

We can meet challenge with presence. And access to all of our capabilities. Instead of being in a panicked, red zone, reactive mode, we can hear that perhaps difficult to hear feedback without making it, making up a story about it without collapsing into some calamity mode, and we can rest without guilt.

So important. So the green zone isn't, everything's all perfect. It's about being able to access possibility and all of our resource life is still happening. Challenges are still coming, but we're remembering and grounded in and holding steady and able to access wise and skillful response and a whole selection of choices.

Really important to think about it as a continuum. I like to think of [00:13:00] it like if you are looking at your car dashboard and you're seeing, the fuel gauge, so it's like that, am I in, I'm in green and then I'm moving into red. There's orange. It's like a continuum. The goal isn't to live in green forever.

It's just to recognize and to be aware when we're, when that kind of. Pointer is like heading into the red, or whether it's staying in there too long and knowing how we can find our way back and connect into the green. So if we think about what pulls us out of that green zone, whenever we slide into red, it's usually because a core need hasn't been met, feels threatened.

So let's think about core needs. So let's say there's three core needs. And they are safety, satisfaction, and connection. So the [00:14:00] first one would be threatened. When we're feeling uncertain, unstable, out of our depth, there's a threat. Satisfaction. We've lost progress or reward. We're feeling unfulfilled.

It's not meaningful connection that need not being met. We're feeling. Like we don't belong. We're feeling unseen, we're feeling unsupported in some way. And that just, so when you're feeling any of those threats to these needs of safety, satisfaction and connection, just think for a moment about if any of those are relevant for you right now.

And then imagining that dial and feeling, do I feel contraction in my body? Is my mind going to. Second arrow kind of feelings and spinning and cycling through those. So when those needs are shaken, it's kind of like the mind ringing an alarm bell [00:15:00] and we start overestimating the threat and underestimating our resources.

And resilience is really about calming that alarm system. And reminding ourself and resourcing ourselves so we can remind ourselves of the truth of the fact that we're safe enough, we're capable enough, and that we're not alone. And that's when this real sense of calm and grounded strength and a sense of grace and presence and real competence, you know, that can return to us.

And it's so important that we have to resource this green zone because it's not just. Oh, I'm in the red zone. Need to get into the Green Zone and tell ourselves a few things. We really have to actively cultivate the resources, the self resourcing, so that Green Zone is much easier to stay in for longer and to come back [00:16:00] from the Red Zone two when we need to.

So how do we build that inner world? How do we build this inner resources to deal with an outside world that is so unpredictable often, and we do it through four key pathways, if you will. And as I said this area really is huge and so we're just touching on a number of things today. I'm gonna go into these in more detail with more examples and a sort of.

Richer invitation to more resources to support us in these different areas. But for now, I'm just gonna touch on these four pathways. So the first one is, and this is how we're building that inner world, recognize kind of name it to tame it. We begin with awareness. Always, always, always ask yourself, am I in the red or the green right now, very simply.

[00:17:00] That just simply noticing, kind of interrupts this trance that we can find ourselves in. And I find it very helpful to have it in in that kind of very simple form, oh, red zone, green zone, or where am I tipping in? And feeling it in your body is a really good way. Just shortcut again here for red is contracted and the green, it's almost like when I think red.

I have my shoulders almost, I heard this from a friend recently. She said, her shoulders felt like earrings. You know, your shoulders are, but it's tight, right? And then the green zone is more like, imagine that you're relaxing those shoulders back and down, and that's a green zone sort of feeling.

Much more expansive. So just noticing that name it tame it. The second pathway is resource. We need to nourish The green [00:18:00] zone runs on nourishment. So think about how do we nourish ourselves at our core, like, and it's the simple stuff, but we need to amplify them. Think about your sleep. So important. You ever gone in, have you ever done this?

I've done this. I spent my time stressing over preparing for something, not getting enough sleep, and then not performing anything like as well as I could have done if I had been properly physically, you know, rested. Don't underestimate the power of like sleep movement. Whatever that means for you.

Getting up and just dancing outside for a walk, whatever it is, movement. We need that laughter. Life seems very, very, very, very serious sometimes, and laugh. Humor is so good for us. Music, nature, friendship, looking at [00:19:00] beautiful things, whether it's painting, art, whatever. Nourish yourself. These aren't indulgences.

They really are beautiful fuel. Your nervous system needs them to function. Just the way your phone needs a charger. You need to plug into things that resource you. Okay? Third pathway regulation. We're talking about shifting your state fast, and once you've noticed that you're in the red, I find the quickest way is to really work with your body.

Breath is a great recess button. So important I find really helpful for me. Something that I'm doing a lot at the moment is just big belly breaths. It's in through the nose and I breathe right down into my belly so that I look like I've just had, three Christmas dinners all in a row, like really nice, big fat belly, and then exhaling down as if I am exhaling down into the ground through my [00:20:00] feet.

And then inhaling through my belly, my big fat, nice round belly. And then I imagine that I'm exhaling, through the top of my head into the beautiful cosmos. And then I repeat that deep belly breathing, and it's also called central channel breathing. I find that very helpful. But deep breaths, great reset button to shift our state fast tells us that we're safe, that core need you're safe.

That can move us towards the green. And if you want a few other quick tools to help you regulate your state, just check out an earlier episode called Shift Your State Fast. Five Nervous System Tools for a number of practices. Woo five in fact, that are designed exactly for this moment when you need to come back to that calm place quickly and skillfully.

And then the fourth pathway is. Relate, [00:21:00] communicate skillfully. This is a whole enormous topic, obviously all in itself. Connection brings us back to the green faster. Really the many things, it's often we're disconnected. When we're overwhelmed, we often withdraw or we lash out. I know for myself, I'd get very protective and I want to win.

So, communicating skillfully is really, really important. And one thing for me, who's somebody who would indulge in an awful lot of righteous indignation and wanting to win and make the other person wrong, I have really leaned in heavily to skillful communication. And one simple framework I love comes from nonviolent communication and it goes like this, and I offer it to you as an invitation that you might like to try this.

Also, so the framework is this, when you do X, so ex describe what [00:22:00] happened factually. I feel Y the emotion because I need Z. And then state your need. And this really helps to turn what can feel like a lot of. Tight conflict sort of energy into a more open space where true communication can actually occur.

So picture this, you're like that overwhelmed employee who amongst us hasn't experienced this at some point where there's just too many projects and there's not enough support? So instead of exploding or shutting down or getting overwhelmed. You communicate the situation like this. For example, when I'm given multiple deadlines without extra help, I feel anxious and stretched too thin because I need clarity and realistic timelines to do my best work.

That's that [00:23:00] structure. When you do X, I feel Y because I need z. So that's green zone communication. It's calm, clear, and it fosters connection and it really takes the heat out of conflict and potential argument because how we relate to each other, particularly when we're stressed, determines how quickly return to the state of balance and integration in the green zone.

And also, let's be honest, nobody's ever had a great outcome in a work professional or a private environment. When they've lost their temper, they say, lose your temper and make, you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. So really thinking about this green zone communication, if you like, can be really, really powerful in bringing us back into that integrated, grounded.

Zone, the green zone. [00:24:00] So resilience isn't about never cracking. It's not about that. Always keep going. I think that's very bro. It's about really tuning in, knowing what needs attention, what needs resourcing, what needs repair. The world will keep pulling us into Red zones. But each time we find our way back with breath, with truth, with humor, with kindness, all of this resourcing, we're strengthening that return pathway.

We're strengthening our ability to inhabit that green zone and to, for that to be where we're coming from. So this week, my invitation to you is just to notice what does your red zone look like? How much time are you spending there? What's triggering you and landing you in there, and then what does your green zone feel like?

And when the next arrow lands, see if you can [00:25:00] pause. Ask yourself, am I about to shoot the second arrow? Or if I just shot myself with a second arrow, choose a gentler path home to yourself. That's the real. Art of resilience, if you will. It's about meeting your life with strength, yes, but with grace and a skillful response.

Thank you for listening and for the privilege of your attention. It means a lot to me. I will see you next time. Be kind to yourself. Bye.