In this episode Joanne discusses the topic of resilience, the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, increase yours and weather any storm with ease!
Checkout our new Digital Sound Bath Meditation Membership and join our Self-care & Wellness Newsletter Club.
*This podcast does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and its contents are intended for informational purposes only.
In this episode Joanne discusses the topic of resilience, the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, increase yours and weather any storm with ease!
Checkout our new Digital Sound Bath Meditation Membership and join our Self-care & Wellness Newsletter Club.
*This podcast does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and its contents are intended for informational purposes only.
Welcome to Episode Nine of our Full Spectrum Wellness Podcast. I'm so happy and excited to be back here with you for our nineth episode.
Life is full of ups and downs. When challenging experiences inevitably arise, you’ll want to be ready to rise to the occasion. Your ability to bounce back after a transition or hardship determines whether most of your life is enjoyable and meaningful or troublesome and frustrating. This idea can be summed up in one word: resilience. The more resilient you are, the quicker you’re able to re-adjust to a situation and move forward in life.
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, the ability to bounce back from life's adversities, stressful events, and emotionally-taxing situations, and move forward by growing through every part of life’s process. Struggling is a natural part of living. What matters is how we react to struggle.
It's easy to let difficulty keep us down. It isn’t easy to stay afloat when the waters are rocky, and it’s okay to feel that struggle. Resilience is associated with toughness. Part of being tough means admitting to difficulty and working through it instead of ignoring it.
Resilience allows us to grow, heal, and overcome situations instead of letting hard times get the best of us. It’s the key to overcoming any difficult situation and living a better life.
Physical resilience is our body's capacity to face and accomplish physical challenges, maintain stamina, and recover from injury. Physical resilience can be important if you have a major life-altering injury or find yourself in a life-threatening situation.
Mental resilience is when you are able to think clearly, be flexible, and creative. In many ways, mental resilience is your ability to problem-solve, conceptualize goals, and execute strategies. Without it, you might not be able to effectively think through tough situations.
Emotional resilience is your ability to accept adversities and find positive outlooks in dire circumstances. Emotional resilience is closely connected to emotional intelligence, emotional awareness, perseverance, and optimism.
Community resilience deals with a community's ability to be resilient and respond to adverse situations.
I want to bust some myths about resilience…
Some of the most common adversities we face in life include:
Common events that occur in life include:
1. Major life events, those events that have a lasting impact on your life. This can include the death of a loved one, terminal disease, divorce, loss of a job, something that will impact your life significantly.
2. Temporary events, those events that disrupt your daily life but do not last more than a month or so. Things such as the flu, a tough deadline at work, your child’s upcoming math exam, or a tough criticism said by your significant other are all temporary problems.
3. Daily events, those events that we face every day. Everyday household chores, getting stuck in traffic an annoying co-worker, or finding the time to exercise regularly are all daily problems. Daily problems rarely have a significant impact on your life.
Consider these ideas as you think about your own resilience:
1. First responses. When something initially begins to trouble you, how do you
respond? Maybe you bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away. Perhaps you just ignore the situation and pretend it isn’t happening.
If you’re resilient, you’ll choose to approach the situation head-on, and
promptly. You’ll define the issue, consider your options, and make a plan.
You’ll set out right away to resolve the situation before it becomes a
full-blown issue. Promptly employing problem-solving skills will help you avoid a major meltdown.
2. Approach to past events. Do you try to forget about your prior challenges?
Instead, try applying what you learned from them to navigate present or future
situations. When you reflect on what you’ve been through, you’ll think about
the mistakes you made. But, you’ll also be excited about how well you handled some situations and use those same skills again. The energy required to try to forget something important draws heavily from your present resilience, wearing it down. Alternatively, focusing your energies on the lessons and skills you’ve learned from past experiences builds your resilience.
3. Daily practice. Do you work to accomplish something, however small, each
day?Or do you find yourself watching entire days go by while you sit and brood or feel sad or angry? In order to improve your resilience, consider each day an opportunity to do something positive, even if it’s just one thing.
On a day off, this might be something as simple as going for a walk or
cleaning the living room. Your practice today could even be finishing a
novel or calling a friend you haven’t talked to in ages. What you do with
your life each day provides meaning for you.
4. Your support network. Do you have plenty of friends and family to call on if you need something? Resilient individuals build a supportive system of people they can visit, call, talk to, and turn to whenever they hit troubled waters.
If you feel like you’re all alone, start building your support network today
by setting a goal to make one new friend within the next month.
5. Who matters to you most? Do you treat yourself as if you’re the most
important person in your life? When you take care of your own needs, you’ll be
more resilient when a crisis knocks on the door. If your own health and living
situation are at the top of your priority list, you’ll be prepared to face any hardship, be it emotional or physical. Taking the time to keep yourself in tip-top shape physically and mentally builds your reserves of resilience whenever trying situations and events occur.
You might be skilled, talented, educated, and brilliant. But, if you’re not resilient, persistent, and gritty, you’ll never make the most of those other attributes.
Think about the five most successful people you know. On the average, they’re probably not that talented. However, they know how to get things done and persist.
When you practice the skills that go into being resilient, you'll notice positive changes in your life. Bouncing back from adversity doesn't mean that things will just get back to normal, but that they will get to an even better place.
Resilience strengthens motivation and drive. You'll begin to feel more empowered when you practice these resilience skills. For example, being able to look at a situation objectively will help you take more responsibility for your happiness. This will strengthen your confidence and willingness to take risks.
Resilient people make good leaders. Part of being resilient means knowing what you can do and being transparent about what you struggle with. Good leaders are able to admit when they need extra support. Strengthening resilience will increase your ability to problem-solve and ask for direction.
Self-awareness and self-motivation increase when resilience increases. Knowing yourself means knowing when too much is on your plate and when you need to take a break. Setting boundaries with people, work, and yourself will get easier as you practice resilience skills.
Improving resilience will build your ability to accept the truth of what life throws your way. You'll always know that things will get better, and you'll find that you worry less about the worst-case-scenario.
Try these techniques to increase your resilience:
Following these seven steps will help you to build your resilience and find a strength that you never realized you had.
It can appear difficult to implement new habits, especially when they involve making big changes in your life. Keep in mind that you can learn something from everything you encounter, and this is a good opportunity to learn something that will improve your self-worth and enthusiasm for life. When you're learning something new, it's easy to beat yourself up for not getting it immediately. Let go of self-judgment and try something new. If it doesn’t work out the first time, see what might work for you in the future and go from there.
Go easy on yourself when you're seeing what works for you. Keeping a journal can help you get your thoughts out so that you don’t have to keep them in your brain. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to have so many thoughts swirling around like a whirlpool. Writing it out can help ease that feeling. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write whatever comes to you, even if it doesn’t make sense. One of the skills you’ll learn emphasizes the importance of building community. You can use this skill to implement changes you want to make by asking for accountability. Having people around you who know the changes you're trying to make will remind you of your goals.As your self-awareness improves, so will your ability to maintain a positive outlook on your progress. If you can look back at the work you do and be proud of yourself even if you were not perfect, you'll be more confident in your ability to grow.
Part of resilience is facing difficult things head-on. That can bring up some difficult emotions.
Challenges, transitions, and hardships will invariably arise in your life from time to time. If you confront situations immediately, use knowledge gained from prior trying events, and build your support network, you’ll be on your way to constructing resilience for the future.
Do one small thing for yourself each day, and before you know it, you’ll weather any storm with ease!
I’ll leave you with one final thought, well question really, “what could you do with your life if you were the most resilient person you knew?” You’d be unstoppable!