capacity and resilience

Jul 23

Hi.

First of all, welcome to Within. Like much of my life right now, I’m not completely clear on where this newsletter will take us. But I am completely clear on one thing: I will write, share and connect until it no longer feels like it is serving you, the collective whole, or myself. Until then, I am here for it. All of it. To those reading, thank you for being right where you are in this moment. And for being on this journey with me, and the rest of the Journey Through Bliss community.

I recently read a beautiful reflection about capacity struggle from a mentor of mine, Cait Scudder. She was in a really disorienting time in her life, all while raising three young children and managing multiple businesses. Although very different circumstances from mine, I could relate. Deeply. I’m sure you can too.

So that inspired me to think a bit deeper about capacity and resilience.

Capacity, from a general sense, is knowing where your limit is and how much you can hold in the moment. Resilience is what happens after the fact — when you’ve hit your limit, and have to find a way to re-center, re-connect and move forward.

The real relationship between capacity, resilience and your day-to-day

As a highly ambitious, intelligent, loving <insert the rest of your amazing traits here> woman, you likely have a fairly high level of capacity and resilience. But their role in your life and how you relate to them can be a little tricky.

Capacity, from a general sense, is knowing where your limit is and how much you can hold in the moment. Resilience is what happens after the fact — when you’ve hit your limit, and have to find a way to re-center, re-connect and move forward.

As a society, we generally celebrate adaptability, grit and pushing our limits within these spaces. I am not arguing that there isn’t room for that at certain points of our life. But on a daily basis? It’s destructive.

What if it wasn’t about bringing yourself to the brink of your capacity baseline everyday? What if you didn’t need to “bounce back” after every stressful situation in your life? What if you could live in a way where:

you make choices that prevent you from ever coming close to your edges of capacity
you respond to stress with discernment, not depletion
you begin actually integrating life’s inevitable disruptions and see them as the lessons they truly are

In this space, resilience stops acting like a default coping mechanism, and becomes a backup system that is only activated when life’s curveballs really zig-zag.

And yes, I truly believe it’s possible to live this way. Have I perfected it? Hell no. But choosing to walk this path — to live with intention and presence — is the bliss I named this community after. Wherein bliss isn’t the destination, but the journey; greater capacity and resilience aren’t the goal, but the natural byproducts of a life lived in deeper alignment.

The truth is, we need to drop the hero story and instead lean into the human story…It is all real, raw, messy, beautiful and completely, fully human.

Talking about what it actually takes to live this work…IRL

Now…the elephant in the room; “This sounds great, Courtney. But how the hell do I live in the 21st century and embody a life of the Dalai Lama?”

First of all, none of us are aiming for Dalai Lama status here. We’re going for more of a Brene Brown, Glennon Doyle or Michelle Obama status.

Second, I’m not going to sugarcoat it — this type of change can be really freaking hard. But it doesn’t have to be.

The starting point is simply stated, but takes work: Begin from a regulated nervous system. Your operating system (brain and body) has to be running at a level in which it has the ability to re-pattern itself to stop living in constant crisis. Where it can integrate life’s inevitable disruptions with a nervous system that is set to receive all of it in a way that heals, not depletes.

This is where you begin to live in alignment over reactivity. And that’s when the magic happens.

Let me give you a personal example.

This last year without my husband has been undoubtedly the hardest I’ve ever experienced - in every way possible. As I walked each day, I kept waiting for the fall. When I wouldn’t be able to hold it anymore. Wondering if I was “doing it right" and feeling everything I should be.

But I realized something. Each moment where I feel so much I am nearly incapacitated, or I feel myself slip into survival mode and disconnect from my body, I am also building awareness around everything that is going on within me. As a result, I am building my capacity to feel, instead of react. And even through all the parts of our journey where I was just surviving, I was still building my capacity. Slowly stretching my need for resilience, and allowing it to be there for the internal work, rather than the heroic recovery.

The truth is, we need to drop the hero story and instead lean into the human story. Because there is nothing heroic about grief. There is nothing heroic about motherhood. There is nothing heroic about the human experience. It is all real, raw, messy, beautiful and completely, fully human.

Let’s leave the hero stuff for Spidey and Wonder Woman.

So this is where I stand with you — in that space where you are ready to build your capacity so that you don’t feel yourself hitting a wall after every thing that is thrown at you. When you stop reacting, start feeling and listening to your body, and begin to build resilience that is truly embodied and healing.

Until next time — with all my love and soul,

Courtney

About the author

Hey there

I’m Courtney

Courtney is the Alchemist of the Pause—honoring the potency of sisterhood by bringing together like-hearted women and creating a safe community for women to reclaim their breath, their bodies, and their inner wisdom in the midst of full, fast-paced lives.

After walking through motherhood, profound personal loss and the unraveling of everything she thought she knew, Courtney discovered that healing doesn’t happen through hustle—it happens in the pauses. That sacred, often uncomfortable space where we meet ourselves again.

She created this work because she needed it too. Not another thing to add to the list—but a way of being that integrates into real life. Her spaces offer grace over guilt, breath over burnout, and community over isolation.

At the heart of her work is a simple but radical belief: we were all born with magic. We just forgot. And remembering is always worth it.