We were lucky to catch up with Adrian Howell recently and have shared our conversation below.
Adrian, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I think resilience, much like other characteristics like courage or perseverance, is something that is cultivated and developed rather than something that people are innately born with. My understanding is that Western society lacks the essential “coming of age” ritual and transition into adulthood that is seen in indigenous and ancient cultures, which I believe creates generations of adults who do not know who they truly are, they do not know what they want to offer the world, and they lack the resilience and sense of courage to be able to become truly self-actualised.
To answer where I got my sense of resilience from would not be a brief endeavour, but I will try my best to give a concise answer without delivering my entire life story. I believe that adversity is the main catalyst for creating a deep sense of resilience, or rather, the overcoming and integration of adversity. I have faced various challenges in my life which have resulted in a crossroads of sorts: to keep going, or to give up. The facing of difficulties is something that is inevitable and guaranteed in the human experience. Much like moments of joy and gratitude, suffering and hardship is something inescapable. In those moments we are presented with a hidden opportunity to transform, evolve and adapt. The overcoming of which will raise the threshold for all future experiences. What once created a sense of crippling anxiety only a few years ago becomes something which can be approached with a calm and focused attitude. These crossroads have visited me frequently over the brief course of my life, forcing me to face the rite of passage that I believe many of us are lacking. After a while, I began to seek it rather than avoid it. I hurled myself into the unknown, even when the overwhelm was practically unbearable.
One of the pivotal moments of my life was when I was 16 years old and on holiday in India with my family. It was New Year’s Eve and I became violently ill, and in that moment when I had no choice but to face the inescapable discomfort, I knew something had to change. That previous summer, my experiments with alcohol became more and more frequent, to the point where large periods of time became blank spaces in my memory. I gained weight rapidly, and when I went back to school, the suffering increased exponentially. I felt internally empty and completely lost. It was in this dark moment on New Year’s Eve that I knew something had to change, so I decided to stop drinking and make an effort to improve my diet and lifestyle. Over the following years, I zig-zagged between a desire to live healthily and frequent regressions into the drug and party scene. It could progressively worse over time, as my sense of inner shame began to grow and overshadow any sense of hope. Each time I relapsed, it became worse. I experienced a family tragedy that spiralled the cycle of addiction into further depths and stronger substances. When I was 18, I was presented with what I perceived to be one of my final opportunities to redeem my life path. The crossroads had come to visit once again, but the alternative choice this time had dire consequences.
I quit drinking and taking drugs completely, removed myself entirely from my then-friendship group, bought a road bike and started training for a 100 mile cycling event called RideLondon. I needed something to channel this energy into, and cycling became that focal point. I went from no physical exercise to riding 200+ miles per week, and needless to say, I was hooked. In the years that followed, I became interested in trail running and began to rack up a series of ultramarathon races and adventures in the mountains. This active pursuit of adversity is something that I realised was missing before: it was the reward of delayed gratification. Instead of searching for short-term pleasure, I began looking towards the long-term, and how the overcoming of challenges would shape character in ways that are truly profound.
This not to say that life simply came together and nowadays I am living the dream, far from it – as much as others seem to believe. I still experience difficulties and the hardest ones are the those that you don’t choose. The curveball is thrown and often catches us off-guard when we least expect it, as the past few years have shown to all of us, regardless of who we are or where we come from. Yet still, we have a choice. How to respond: to let it crush you or to let it initiate an alchemical process of transformation?
Resilience is a practice, it is something that we can choose, and often it takes years to build into anything substantial. It is a participation in the perpetual dance of life and the destruction that is sometimes bestows upon us. But does it happen to you, or does it happen for you? Resilience is the practice that will help any of us decide on how we respond to such a question. It isn’t easy, but I don’t believe we came here for an easy ride. We came to create, to evolve, to uplift. Resilience is the medium through which we can begin to manifest our unique contribution in the world.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
After graduating with a photography degree in 2019, I left university and began to travel around Europe – combining my creative skills and personal interests to shape the lifestyle that I wanted to live. In the years that followed, I delved more into filmmaking and storytelling, creative direction and web design. My focus at the moment is helping purpose-driven businesses and organisations to create a positive impact in the world, finding ways work that is both meaningful and profound.
On the side, I write stories that I share on my Substack page which explore the intersection between nature, people and place. Every once in a while I head off into the mountains to do a wild endurance adventure, often writing or creating a short film about the experience. My main aim is to always live on my own terms, to offer something valuable to the world, and to try and give back to the land that nourishes us.
My dream for the future is to restore an off-grid farm into a guesthouse and hub for events which can help to positively transform our world. But for now, you can find me holed-up somewhere deep in the countryside – writing, designing, filming, travelling every once in a while, and connecting with like-minded individuals who want to turn their audacious dreams into reality, for the betterment of ourselves, each other and our planet.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Courage – A quality and attribute that much like resilience is something that must be practiced in order for it to grow. The etymology comes from the French word “cour” for heart, to live with heart. I believe it is essential to free ourselves from the shackles of our minds, to understand who we truly are and what we wish to offer the word. Courage is a character trait that will give you reason to foster resilience, and perhaps it is also the hidden outcome of resilience as well. It is the force that sustains you through difficulty and reminds you of the path that you are on.
Silence – Our world is utterly inundated with noise of all kinds. Whether that is noise in our physical space, or information overload from our devices and media channels, for most people living in the modern world it is very difficult to be alone – whether out of “busyness” or an overwhelming inability to tolerate stillness and silence. We have been crammed full and deceived into thinking that when we are left alone, it will be intolerable to bear – but silence is when inspiration whispers to you, it is when ideas begin to flow. Making an effort to reduce external noise may be challenging at first but repays tenfold.
Creativity – I can’t attest to whether all humans have intrinsically creative traits, but I know of many people who are true creatives and artists and either don’t realise it, don’t believe in themselves, or become so distracted by what they “think” they should be doing (often as a result of psychological conditioning) that the idea of pursuing a creative practice seems utterly uninteresting and irrelevant. I believe that fostering a creative practice is what enables us to evolve in other areas of our life. It will show you where your blockages are. It will show you what inspires you. In the end, it may change your entire life path altogether.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
Movement in the outdoors has always been my go-to choice for approaching any feeling of overwhelm. I believe that humans are biologically designed to move, to play, to be outdoors. There are chemical and hormonal changes that happen within us when we take the time to move our bodies, which create profoundly positive impacts on our sense of wellbeing. There has never been an issue that I’ve faced that hasn’t felt more manageable after going out for a bike ride or a run, and it remains my go-to daily practice that keeps everything in balance. It is incredible that simply by going outdoors, engaging our bodies and exploring our surroundings, it can shift our emotions and attitudes in such a profound way.
Contact Info:
- Website: adrianhowell.co.uk
- Instagram: instagram.com/adrianhhowell
- Youtube: youtube.com/@adrian.howell
Image Credits
Adrian Howell, Toms Majors, Mike Cotty
