Resilience, ACT & Martha Stewart
If I could pass on one skill to all of my clients, it would be resilience. Resilience is the most important trait a human being can have to sustain good mental health and successfully face life. One way to further promote your own resilience is to identify your values and commit to taking actions based on the things that matter to you, a key principle in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I like to have an actual person to emulate when I’m trying to develop a new skill or trait, so today I propose Martha Stewart as our resilience role model.
"Martha Stewart and the cupcake bloggers" by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The only certainty in life is the assurance that we will all face hard times. And taxes.
Even if you’re born into privilege and have a smooth trajectory in your early years, your later years are sure to include adversity. You and everyone you love is a mortal being. All bodies age and eventually fail. We are all increasingly socially isolated. We are all facing ecological uncertainty, political turmoil and the aftermath of a pandemic. We as a species are going to need some resilience to make it through this life.
And I’m not talking ‘keep calm and carry on’-pretend-everything-is-fine-resilience. I’m talking about tragic resilience. Resilience where we face how tragic life can be and still find a way to take values directed action despite the adversity. Resilience where we contribute to the world and are present in our lives— not because any of it is easy, but because it matters.
How do you pursue your values and live a meaningful life when Plan A fails? How do you find Plan B?
Enter Martha friggin’ Stewart.
I was blown away watching the recent Netflix documentary on her. If anyone knows how to pivot and make the best of their life circumstances, it’s Martha. Now for anyone whose seen the documentary, you may be wondering why a therapist would write a blog post celebrating someone like Martha, who is actively annoyed when asked about her feelings (she actually mocks the idea of talking about feelings during the documentary). Despite this, I think she is a great example of values driven actions, finding your plan B and the art of resilience.
Disclaimer: Is Martha Stewart the pinnacle of emotional warmth and vulnerability? No.
But I believe my job is to guide clients towards their own values and goals. A therapeutic modality I use a lot with my clients is called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). One of the first steps you take in ACT is defining your values.
Do you value connection? Hard work? Financial success? Legacy? Patriotism? Equality? There is no right or wrong value, no better or worse. You may think some are better than others, but that’s just what matters to you.
Martha’s values are probably very different than mine, and we have made different life choices as a result. But I find when humans follow their own personal values, their lives tend to evolve in ways authentic and meaningful to them. So yes, Martha “emotions are dumb” Stewart is going to be my muse for this therapy blog post on resilience and values driven actions.
I like to appreciate people who are different than me.
The Rise
A feminist crusader?
I never thought of Martha as a feminist, but she was pioneer. She took a historically devalued skill set- home making- also known as “women’s work”, and turned it into a business that made her into the first self made female billionaire. Instead of ascribing to the idea that her creations in floral arrangements, catering, gardening and decorating were less important than the creations of men, she proved how much value there was in home making.
Equity for consumers
I loved her emphasis on making beautiful items accessible to people regardless of their income level. When someone asked her derisively why she decided to sell her goods at Kmart she said, “Because people shopping at Kmart want to buy beautiful things”. She understood that a love of beauty doesn’t discriminate based on socioeconomic status. By selling her products there, she was stating that she wasn’t above the people shopping at Kmart.
Martha shared that growing up her family had very little money and her education in gardening and fixing up homes was born out of necessity- her family had to grow food to have enough to eat. Her knowledge of DIY and fixing things yourself were taught to her because of the economic hardship her family faced growing up. She then took that undervalued labor and turned it into an empire.
The perfectionist
“Imperfection is… something you can deal with” was Martha’s quote on her attitude towards imperfection in her later years. Growing up, she stated imperfection was intolerable to her. It was only something she learned to accept as she aged. Her perfectionism was the defining trait of her brands and a lot of what made her exceptional. It was a lot of what she was vilified for in later years when the media backlash came for her (as it always does when you’re a powerful women).
But her description of her own perfectionism wasn’t suffering. She relished in her perfectionism and the pursuit of high achievement.
That is what I want for my clients who experience perfectionism. I don’t want their perfectionism to be something that beats them up, I want it to be a motivator that helps them dream big. I want their pursuit of doing things “perfectly” (whatever that means to them) to light them up and drive them forward. I think perfectionism can be a driver rather than a punisher.
The Fall
The moment that defines Martha’s resilient spirit to me was watching her board a plane after spending 6 months in jail, while wearing a crocheted shawl of another inmates creation. Even in jail, she valued the ingenuity and creativity of individual makers. She valued a hand made creation and hard work.
Instead of wasting her time, she took values driven action and created a meaningful life, even in jail.
She helped out with the gardening. She provided business coaching to the other inmates. She supported the talents and dreams of other female creatives. She showcased their work as she left.
Being in jail shattered her reputation and her brand. The idea of her as a perfect home-maker was lost. Her business was in shambles. But her values were still intact. She could still create and contribute and work hard. And that’s what she did.
The Resilience
Martha is not set in her old ways. A lot of people are threatened by changing cultural attitudes and practices, but Martha just seems to roll with it. After her time in jail, she pivoted. She helped roast Justin Bieber. She posted thirst traps on Instagram. She hosted a cooking show with Snoop Dogg because “the sharing of cultures is a beautiful thing”. Instead of digging her heels in and insisting on her original life plan, she let her values drive her forward.
Martha continued to open herself up to the opportunities life presented her with. Even if it was Plan B- she did it her way, “perfectly”.
I see so many women grow more insecure as they age- especially women who were considered particularly beautiful in their youth. The idea that their beauty comes with an expiration date is a pervasive myth a lot of people fall for. But not Martha! Martha appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated at the age of 62. She celebrated her beauty in her later years, even though she was different.
The value I most resonate with in Martha’s creations is her appreciation of beauty. She sees, appreciates & creates beauty wherever she goes. Whether it’s in her childhood garden, a creation from another inmate, or her own body through the years, her appreciation of beauty is evident in everything she does.
If you feel like, yeah, yeah, Martha Stewart is cool I guess?? But I don’t know what my values are… And I don’t know how to be resilient or find my Plan B…
I can help.
We can identify your values and help you create a meaningful life.
Let’s help you find your Martha Stewart level resilience.
Book a consultation with me to get started.
Reach out today.
The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only. This blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment that can be provided by your own mental health practitioner. If you have any specific concerns about your mental health, you should consult your doctor and you should not delay seeking medical advice, or treatment for your mental health, because of information on this blog.
Megan Bruce
Megan Bruce is a licensed therapist specializing in eating disorders, anxiety and perfectionism, and quarter life challenges. She is based in San Francisco and sees clients in-person and virtually in the greater California area.
