We could think of our experience as an unfolding drama. There are scenes, actors, acts, motives, and methods - all in search of a purpose. We identify the dramatic elements as we put the pieces of our experience together in some kind of order, in some kind of sensemaking process. The story helps us to retell what's happening so we can look at it and name it and decide how to deal with it.

In our recent story, I picture scenes like those staged in a virtual Go To Meeting, in Rose's living room, in the Carnegie Museum, and in my own dining room. There were many scenes in many locations - mini-dramas where elements of the story were played out. To heighten the drama, there is villain and victim, surprise ally and silent foe, strategic moves, moments of despair, and even moments of laughter and incongruity. The absurdity and ambiguity of human behavior does not escape us. We have been punked!

When the scene pieces fall where they may, there we still are - hands on hips and heads thrown back. We are women of the hills and the plains. We have lots of stories. We've lived out lots of dramas. We even tell each other some of the darkest stories and consider how we lived through them, came through them to another place that was ok.

How did we do that? When it didn't seem possible?

As I apply for jobs, I experience the inevitable rejection that accompanies the process. This comes courtesy of the appbots that screen for unpredicted keywords and the humbots that whittle down what passes through. The e-applicant is so in the dark.

My response is complicated. It seems to contain anger at being in this spot at all, a feeling of freedom at being in an in-between place that has possibility, and a mix of fear about what could be "nothing" on the other side along with anticipation for what it will be. It's enough to drive me to an obsessive interest in the small things I can control.  I know...I will exercise. I will clean. I will shop. I will read and write. 

The unseen costs of residing in this kind of "no place" lie in confidence, self-concept, social identification, independence, self-sufficiency...etc. Guilt and failure swirl in. How will this affect a marriage? After all, this wasn't part of the deal.

Are there stages of grief and loss essential to a resilient response?

For this reflection, we are challenged to document the experience of processing the news about the dissolution of HHI delivered via email to partners, Rose and Gail, on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013.

 It's a real life example of being knocked back, stunned, and stopped. I'm reflecting on that experience and the experience of creating a path forward which summons resilience as in awakening a kind of muscle or opening a vault of capacity. I'm thinking of what it's like to do that in the crucible of a difficult experience that brings disappointment, anger, betrayal, awareness of one's own culpability, and so on. I can see both tapping into something I have and adding to it at the same time. I wonder how that "something" became there in the first place. It is easier to see how I am adding to it. I'm thinking of "resilience by fire" as a capacity developed in the heat of experience.

At approximately 3:30 EST, Gail and I literally put our pencils down just two sentences from completing the employee module on Purpose. I said feebly, in an act of deliberate denial, "Shall we just finish these two?" But the oxygen was gone. What had mattered so much just a second before now didn't matter at all. I stared at John and Sarah's stories. Poignant then and stupid now.

Rose's voice said, "Go and look." There were words like "never thought this would happen" about a guy who was still making assignments the day before. It was incongruous. Slowly, a feeling a betrayal crept in. He had to have known. His daughter, the COO, had to have known. She had noticeably withdrawn any communication with me in the prior two weeks. Why didn't I question that?  Did I just fall for hyperbole? After all, there were no customers waiting, ready to buy. We had built it and they didn't come. Disbelief became anger and that was trimmed with guilt and resentment.

 Perhaps it was there for the seeing the whole time - over-exuberance and big promises ("The boys can just put it on accounts of 130,000 students...easy...they'll never even know it.") Could we have recognized that the emperor was unclothed? Or did we suspend disbelief because these were people we loved and trusted. If we were working in vain, they would surely say something...right? They wouldn't make empty claims...right? Or did they warn us and we just didn't hear.

I remembered an ex who said "Why didn't you tell me?" and I thought, "How can that be? I've been screaming this for years!" Sometimes, we just don't want to hear or we just don't want to say unequivocally - until no veil of hope remains. Perhaps, this is a first and tiny step towards resilience in the heat of hurt - sensemaking that includes a seed of charity. I say it can't be because they are bad, malicious, deceptive, defrauding people...and I wrestle with that incongruity.

What was your initial experience?