The first fear that a parent has, and possibly the only one in the role of a parent, is the fear of their child getting hurt.

Will my baby fall off the crib? Will my toddler hit his/er head? Will my kindergartener break a bone falling off the bike? Will my teenager have a secure job? Will…

The list is endless; getting hurt, bruised, battered, or broken is woven into the DNA of life. Our very birth is a rupture of our mother’s bodies — a reminder that pain and growth arrive hand in hand. No matter how hard we try, we cannot escape the ruptures our bodies and souls will experience as we live and love.

And yet, within every rupture lies the possibility of recovery — a return, a bounce.

What I wish to help my child learn is to be a bouncing ball with greater elasticity.

The height to which a bouncing ball rises depends on the height from which it falls, the surface it crashes upon, and, most importantly, the material from which it is made. When that material is elastic, the ball has a better chance of springing back higher.

So it is with us. The elasticity of the human mind — our ability to get back up when we are hurt, to recover after failure or heartbreak — is what we call resilience.

Resilience doesn’t mean you feel any emotion less.

You will still bleed when you are hurt- literally or otherwise. Your emotions will still unnerve, disconcert or pain you. What you are capable of doing when you have worked on building the muscle of resilience is that you will bounce back to life. Nothing that happens to you will have the ultimate power to hold you down.

This understanding of resilience became more than a personal philosophy — it became a purpose.

The InkWell Project was born of this desire of the parent in me.

Life experiences with mental illnesses, both as a clinically diagnosed patient and a caregiver to one, may have planted the seed of thought. However, it was the deepest wish to equip my child with this elasticity of the mind that finally made it sprout.

As my child keeps growing, wrapping me in hugs when I am sick and overwhelmed with big emotions, giggling in play when I am not, navigating all those big emotions that adolescence barges in with, I simply wish him to embrace himself wholly, with his ruptures and with his light.

I am on my path to greet my big emotions as a parent.

Are you joining me?