Emotional Resilience: a User鈥檚 Guide
Emotional resilience is our ability to cope with stressful situations, and adapt to life鈥檚 ups and downs. Developing emotional resilience is a key skill taught in 118图库鈥檚 anger management programmes.聽
Becoming emotionally resilient doesn鈥檛 mean that you鈥檒l never be stressed again. Life has a habit of challenging us no matter how prepared for its pitfalls we might think we are. We only need look at the unexpected聽Covid-19 pandemic聽for a vivid illustration of how challenges can completely surprise us.
But emotional resilience does help us face adversity without being overwhelmed by it, and dedicate our nervous energy to solving the issue rather than ruminating on worse case scenarios.聽
The late Susan Jeffers, author of self-help smash聽Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, wrote聽鈥淚t is reported that over 90% of what we worry about never happens. That means that our negative worries have less than a 10% chance of being correct. If this is so, isn鈥檛 being positive more realistic than being negative?鈥�聽This can be tough to remember when you鈥檙e facing divorce, or redundancy, or you鈥檙e enveloped by grief.聽
Stress though is essentially fear. Like anger, fear can be a useful emotion that advises us to take action. But fear that we won鈥檛 be able to take any effective action is mostly unfounded.
Without emotional resilience we stop believing that we can deal with challenges. Instead we 鈥榗atostrophise鈥�, exaggerating dangers that haven鈥檛 yet happened, and can鈥檛 pull ourselves out of that tailspin.
Usually, going through even the most testing times is not as bad an experience as dreading the possibility of them. 鈥淭he subtext to fear is that we can鈥檛 deal with it,鈥� wrote Susan Jeffers.
At 118图库 we encounter many people who, despite their achievements, do not trust themselves to cope. Unfortunately, this is often a product of their childhood. Instilled in their psychologies is a sense that their core personality is at fault 鈥� a state known as 鈥榯oxic shame鈥� 鈥� and they 鈥渟hould know better鈥� but don鈥檛. They鈥檙e burdened a sense of desperation, believing they will always be inadequate somehow 鈥� which makes them angry.
Some of us prioritise avoiding risk or stress. But,聽鈥淵ou get diminishing returns when you are restricted to your comfort zone鈥� as superstar theologian Sunday Adelaja says. Never challenging oneself does not build emotional resilience; indeed it depletes it. Neither does positively reinforcing our self-image by comparing ourselves to others. Claiming that our life choices and innate resourcefulness are superior may help to keep worry at bay. But it does not build emotional resilience either, and we eventually find this out the hard way.
Four 鈥榮tressors鈥� we see at 118图库 are: not feeling in control, not trusting ourselves, prioritising others over ourselves, and being out of balance (putting much more energy into work rather than rest for example). Building our awareness of these psychological aspects, and growing into them, can have huge impact on our emotional resilience.聽
Those of us who appreciate life are probably best placed to deal with stress. When you鈥檙e in a hole, it鈥檚 difficult to be positive. But聽considering 鈥淲hat鈥檚 life trying to teach me now?鈥� really is the best way to approach building emotional resilience. Equally, 鈥淏ring me solutions, not problems鈥� has become a management clich茅 but it remains a very positive approach to thinking as much as it does to work.聽
Sharing issues in a group can be surprisingly therapeutic. Biologically it helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system that calms us down. Moreover, listening to others helps us to be objective 鈥� studies show that when we see beyond our own circumstances we often conclude that we aren鈥檛 in so bad a spot after all, no matter what the details demonstrate. A healthy sense of meaning and purpose springs from seeing beyond one鈥檚 own circumstances.
Mindful activities that put us 鈥榠n the moment鈥�, such as聽meditation聽and competitive sport, help for acknowledging this. In meditation, we learn to observe our thoughts. We discover how scattergun and conflicting they are 鈥� how they do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our core self. Honing our sense of gratitude too can have huge impact 鈥� over time, especially. We鈥檙e taught to always be striving for more, when it鈥檚 possible to be grateful for a roof over our head, dinner and a warm bed. Appreciation builds both happiness quotients and emotional resilience.
In our darkest moments it can be difficult to think like this. But as anyone who鈥檚 hit 鈥榬ock bottom鈥� will tell you, there鈥檚 a perverse optimism to it. The only way remaining to go is up, and we are given permission (as it were) to implement creative solutions to our plight. Often those of us who鈥檝e been through tough times have at least the benefit of knowing that they did indeed get past them.
The Covid-19 pandemic slowed everything down. It offered time to reflect. It brought up feelings. It was important for us to question what we need, who we are, what we feel, what we think. Could we see the positive in the challenge?聽
Doing so is at least easier once we can acknowledge the stories we tell ourselves, and how destructive they are. Nebulously blaming our choices for the curved balls life throws at everyone, and undermining our own self-belief, is maladaptive behaviour inherited from parents who did not attend to their own issues.聽
鈥橶hat story should I be telling myself instead?鈥� is the question we are free to answer. It鈥檚 not easy to overturn years, decades even, of reinforced 鈥榮tinking thinking鈥�. But if we focus on the reality of our lives, rather than the unhelpful stories we tell ourselves, we realise that we are entitled not be scared.聽
Join Mike and guests for a free emotional resilience workshop live on Zoom at 4pm on Saturday 4 December. Sign up details forthcoming!
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