Building Resilience
Resilience is often described as an individual’s ability to transform adversity into wisdom, insight and compassion. Resilience is ordinary not extraordinary that means everybody has resilience, it’s a question of how well is it used when needed. High resilience does not mean that an individual does not feel pain but simply means that they have found a good way to deal with negative events in life possibly quicker than others. Like any other human skill, everyone has the capacity to build resilience and to do so the most needed ingredient to the recipe is willingness to do so.
Here’s a list of strategies to build resilience:
Positive Thinking: Thinking patterns are known to trigger emotional patterns. Because we have built-in survival mechanisms, our brains are naturally wired to pay more attention to negative events than the positive ones. But in essence, we experience positive events with much greater frequency. One key to building resilience is noticing and appreciating those positive experiences whenever and wherever they occur.
Nurture a positive view of yourself: When you discover a positive attribute in yourself, it is important to nurture it by self-talk, sharing it with important loved ones or by maintaining a journal. Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trusting your instincts helps build resilience.
Self- care: Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body well equipped to deal with situations that require resilience. So is important to pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing and exercise regularly.
Learning from past experiences: Focusing on past experiences and how you dealt with them gives personal strength and ability to identify strategies for building resilience. Learning from reactions to challenging life events is likely to enhance your self-belief, confidence and helps with building wisdom.
Goal setting: Developing realistic goals and focusing on achieving one big or small goal each day enables you to move forward and achieve bigger goals. Focusing on this accomplishment is likely to build strength and enhance ability to have a hopeful outlook.
“When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on to using them” (By A P J Abdul Kalam)
If you are going through difficulties and need to find your inner strength, why not give us a call today? Our team of highly skilled and well-experienced Psychologists are here to help.
 | This blog was written by Aanchal Sood, Psychologist at Your Mind Matters. Aanchal completed studies in psychopharmacology and psychology in England, and is fluent in both Hindi and Punjabi. Aanchal has experience assisting adolescents, adults and couples to address a variety of difficulties including anxiety and mood disorders, grief and loss, trauma and stress related disorders, adjustment issues (e.g. cultural adjustment), sleep difficulties, relationship difficulties, schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, obsessive compulsive and related disorders. Aanchal works with us 1-2 evenings per week. |