Becoming resilient

BY TARA MYSHRALL

“To live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” Friedrich Nietzsche

We fight so hard to stay in control and have certainty in our lives. Many of us hold on to what we know and our expectations of how things should be. Our resiliency is challenged when unexpected events occur and when traumas ravage our sense of self.

What is resiliency? It is derived from the Latin verb resilire: “to leap back.” We are all on common ground with this pandemic, so why are some people thriving?

I believe what makes people resilient is their ability to be fluid in the face of adversity. To accept that the polarity of life will bring us both perceived positive and negative experiences. These experiences will either take us down and keep us there or we will have the strength to rise again.

The great news is that resiliency is also like a muscle, it can be built over time.

Being in a state of resilience is a process and can change from situation to situation. This is a far more empowering way to view resilience, as we reclaim our power to adapt and modify our thinking and responses. We recognize that resilience can be developed and that we are empowered to choose our mindset.

Oddly enough we can build resiliency by starting with positive events. If we can take the time to express gratitude for what we have and savour our blessings, then that energy can help us in offsetting negative events and traumas.  We can leverage the controllable factors like our beliefs, attention, motivation, and coping styles to the uncontrollable events such as our environment and the lack of support to bring more balance in difficult situations.

Positive life events include simple, kind words from a stranger, the blessing of your child’s smile, the sloppy kiss from your pet or the fresh ray of sunshine on your face. Our society tends to seek extraordinary events, however, the small daily blessings are what will create more balance in our life. First, we acknowledge them with gratitude and then we savour them to create the muscle memory we need to carry us through the dark days.

Similar to the positive aspects of life being small events, we need to pay attention to the small stressors as well. These small things account for 20% of the variance in our mood changes: that traffic jam, the fact that you cannot meet and mingle with your social circle, the lines at the grocery stores. These events add up like thousands of papercuts and can impact our patience and mental health.

The state of resilience allows you to maintain your center despite these setbacks. When you’ve pre-programmed your mind to focus on the small things that actually matter, shower them with gratitude and savour their impact in your life, you are more equipped to show up and deal with the negative 20%. You can “bounce back” much quicker and have the state of resilience to help you keep going. Remember: resilience can be developed, you can become resilient.