Resilience is a buzz word right now. We may not even be completely sure what it is, but we all want more of it. However, developing resilience can be easier said than done. Resilience is the ability to maintain stability, process emotions in healthy ways, and find hope in even the most trying times. Does that mean life is never painful or challenging? Absolutely not. It just means you’ve learned coping strategies and know where to find the necessary support and resources to navigate the most complicated situations. In this blog, we’re going to offer up our top five tips for people who want to develop greater resilience.
1 – Change Your Focus
Through thousands of years of evolution, people have become very good at paying attention to things that are potentially dangerous. This evolutionary trait was important to keep us alive. Today, there aren’t necessarily bears outside our doors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still things to worry about. Financial instability, relationship conflicts, job security, diseases, and violence in the world. The things we have to worry about are endless. Because we are designed to hold onto potential dangers to keep ourselves safe, these stressors can overwhelm us and linger, especially if there’s no clear and immediate way to resolve them. While we cling to negative thoughts and emotions, we are significantly less likely to hold onto or focus on the good in our lives. When you feel yourself fixating on the negative, try to refocus your attention on something more positive in your life.
2 – Make Time for Gratitude
One way to refocus your attention on the positive in life is to make time each day to think of things you are grateful for. In 2005, Mitchel G. Adler and Nancy S. Fagley published a study of the positive impact of gratitude. The result showed that, by finding things to be grateful for each day, people experienced a greater overall sense of satisfaction and happiness in daily life. To increase resilience, consider listing out things you are grateful for even when you’re going through a difficult time.
3 – Treat Yourself with Kindness
During times of grief and struggle, it’s essential to show yourself kindness and respect your own needs. As you go about your day, ask if your current thoughts/feelings/actions are helping or harming you. If the answer is harming, give yourself permission to do something else.
4 – Remember that Acceptance Is Half the Battle
If you’re familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief, you may know that acceptance is said to be the final stage of grief. Sure, we don’t really ascribe to the idea that people just systematically work through these five stages of grief and are then fully recovered, but the stages of grief are a helpful tool when it comes to developing a better understanding of the complexities of the grieving process. There is a reason why acceptance is often thought of as the final stage. When we are able to understand and accept a loss, we are able to move forward. When we experience a crisis or tragedy in our life, it’s easy to think things like:
- The world is against me.
- I’m so unlucky.
- Why me?
This is our mind struggling against accepting the challenging situations in our lives. People who are the most resilient have learned to accept that life is filled with good and bad. Experiencing adversity is a fact of life. Rather than feeling discriminated against, this acceptance opens resilient people up to realizing how many other people have had similar experiences. If you start to feel like the world is out to get you, reframe your thinking to focus on accepting that difficulties happen in every person’s life, but you can keep going and move forward. This doesn’t mean the situation stops being difficult or doesn’t hurt. It just means you’ll have some expectation of peace and contentment in the future.
5 – Find the Hope
With acceptance, people are often able to find a greater sense of hope. If you are cursed or unlucky, the bad is just going to keep coming and hope for good things in the future seems unlikely. If negative things are just a natural part of life, there is hope that your circumstances will get better. Even at the most difficult times, allow yourself to find hope for relief from emotional or physical pain and look toward future happiness.
Bonus Tip – Consider Talking to a Professional
Even the most resilient people can benefit from therapy to support them through challenging times. If you’re navigating difficult situations, we hope you’ll consider scheduling a therapy session with the Cedar Counseling & Wellness team. We make getting started as easy as possible. You can call our team at (443) 924-6344, email info@cedarcounselingandwellness.com, or complete our online scheduling request.
