Cultivating resilience
The last couple of years have taught us that being resilient is so important, enabling us to cope with the curve balls that life throws at us. I explored this topic in my podcast in November and want to share it with you here too.
What is resilience?
According to the Oxford dictionary resilience is the ability to recover quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock or injury. The American Psychological Association goes further saying, “As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from these difficult experiences, it can also involve profound personal growth.”
How do we cultivate resilience?
The good news is resilience isn’t a personality trait that only some of us possess. Resilience is about behaviours, actions and thoughts that we can learn and develop at any age. Just like we can develop the thoughts, behaviours and actions that will make us more confident.
When I was researching this topic I found a really good article on line on building resilience from the American Psychological Society. In it they suggest focusing on four core components to build resilience —connection, wellness, healthy thinking, and meaning. I’m going to use these same headings as I share my thoughts.
Connection
This is all about building connections with others and staying connected even when life is hard. It’s important to nurture our relationships with family and friends in the good times and to keep in communication and ask for and accept help in our bad times. Having someone that we can be open with and share our worries and vulnerabilities without fear of judgement or being gossiped about is so important.
Having a sense of belonging is also important in building these connections. Where do you have a sense of belonging in your life? For example, I have a sense of belonging in my family, in my friendships, in my church, in an online membership group. For you it may be your sports team, your choir, the mum’s you see at the school gate, your colleagues at work. It’s so helpful if it’s in more than one place because let’s say it’s a breakdown in family relationships that is the cause of the stress. If you only have a sense of connection and belonging within your family group then you are going to find it harder to get through the difficult period.
It’s really important to build these relationships in the good times. And of course this is a two way relationship and you’ll be there for them in their bad as well as good times.
Wellness
This is about body and mind. If we’re running on empty how are we going to carry on, to bounce back when life gets hard?
This isn’t about waiting until we need to be resilient, we make sure we’re looking after ourselves all the time.
Make sure that you have self-care practices that are supporting your body and mind. This could include things like eating well, managing stress using mindfulness, moving your body daily, getting enough rest and sleep and setting healthy boundaries for yourself and others.
Healthy thinking
We build up the habit of thinking in a healthy and productive way so that it’s easier to do in the hard times. This is about
keeping things in perspective rather than catastrophising and letting things get way out of proportion.
realising that life is about change. Things change all of the time whether we like it or not and realising that we can cope with change, enjoy it, thrive because of it.
being compassionate with yourself in the good times and the bad. It’s okay to make mistakes, be tired, to be far from perfect. Reminder perfection does not exist!
Be kind to yourself. Acknowledge and celebrate all your successes, big and small and you will build the belief in yourself that will help so much when you need to be resilient.
Meaning
Having meaning to our life is especially important at those times when life is hard. Meaning will of course mean something different to us all but broadly speaking this is about things like having goals or ambitions. While in the moment you may not have the mental capacity or energy you usually have, having the goal, the ambition for your future can help you to focus on more than the immediate issue. Having my podcast and blog to think about has helped me during my chemo. Nights when sleep is difficult lying and thinking about my next topic and script have kept my mind off other things.
For you meaning may be about voluntary work, about helping others and even if during your difficult times you can’t do as much as you would usually, those connections you’ve made whilst volunteering and the things you’ve learnt about yourself will have helped build your resilience.
And finally, when we approach life with an attitude of learning both in the good times and the bad we come to realise that we grow even in the bad times. And that growth, those things we’ve learned are able to help us be resilient and get through the next curve ball that life throws at us.
Have a good think about how you are going to ensure that you are honouring all four of the components – connection, wellness, healthy thinking and meaning in your daily life so that you have the resilience you need next time life gets hard.
