Emotional Resilience Toolkit - Training Tips, Ways to Build Toughness
Emotional resilience is the process of coping and adapting well to adversity, tragedy, trauma, threats or other significant sources of stress and heartache.
We cannot expect to never fail under stress, but it is how well we rise after failing or stumbling that counts.
Emotional resilience is a person's capacity to 'bounce back' from difficult experiences.
Being resilient doesn't mean you are insensitive or thick-skinned to stress sources and negatives in your life, but rather how can cope with them by maintaining disciple, peace of mind and some self-control to win out, in the end.
People are not born with resilience, but it is something that everyone develops to a greater or lesser extent. It involves thoughts, behaviors, exercise, training, positive thinking and actions that can be developed and learned by anyone. Learn to develop emotional resilience.
What are the Key Elements of Emotional Resilience
- Insight
- Independence
- Relationships
- Morality
- Creativity and Innovation
- Humor, smiling and laughter
- Rational Positive Thoughts
Factors That Boost Resilience
Research has shown that resilience is generally something that most people show resilience to some degree, but some people can learn to cope better than others. Some things that boost the power of resilience are:
► Spending time with loved ones to gain support and encouragement and learning to rely on others just as they may rely on you
► Knowing when to step back or withdraw to re-energise yourself and rebuilt shattered emotions
► Stepping forward and taking action to deal with your problems or to cope with the outcomes
► Maintaining flexibility, control and balance in your life
► Good relationships that offer role models, trust, love support and encouragement.
► Staying Flexible
Asking for Help
► Getting help, knowing when you need it and how to get it are crucial for building your resilience
► Reading books and seeking professional help
► Sharing ideas and information with group support and councilors are good ways of helping and getting assurance that you are not alone.
Learn from Past Experiences
Being resilient depends on knowing more about yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. It also means knowing what helped in the past and what you have learned from previous experiences. Some of the questions to ask yourself are:
► What kind of events have been most stressful for me?
► What past events affected me the most?
► What people are most important and reliable to turn to when I am distressed?
► What have you learned about myself and from your interactions with others during stressful times?
► How did you overcome obstacles in the past and how?
► What have you learned from helping other people have gone through similar experiences
Strategies for Building Resilience
► Find out what works well for you in various circumstances. Self-knowledge is one of the keys to resilience
► Take care of yourself. Keep fit, healthy and avoid excessive alcohol and food binges, which can destroy self-esteem. Be selfish about your own needs and feelings. Regular exercise can do wonders in relieving depression. Going for a walk or jog can help you think deeply about things and perhaps solve dilemmas and help you to change tactics and look for different outcomes that are better.
► Maintain a hopeful putting a positive spin on things.
► Try to keep things in perspective. Consider the broader context, and long-term perspective. We often over emphasize the negative effects of minor events are their consequences, taken out of context.
► Nurture positive self respect and view about your worth. Develop greater confidence and knowledge about you ability to develop solutions to problems. Trusting and relying on your gut-feelings and having the self-confidence to carry through, helps build resilience.
► Look for opportunities for discovering more about yourself which builds resilience. It also helps to build up inner strength top cope with things that threaten.
► Take decisive actions and don't be passive and cop the blows. Don't simply drop your bundle and wish the negative things would just go away. Taking actions is the first step to showing [proactive resilience.
► Develops your goals and keep moving towards them despite what happens. the progress towards achievable goals is good therapy
► Accept that change in life is an inevitable. Nothing stays the same and so negative events ares simply part of the evolution of life. Learn to be more accepting of change being an inevitable and unstoppable fact of life.
► Avoid seeing crises and events as causing insurmountable problems. there are always solutions. You go back in time or switch off the consequences of what has happened. What is important is how you interpret what has happened, consider the options and make the right response. It may not be perfect and it may only provide a partial solution but your need self assurance to know that what you do is the best thing possible in the circumstances.
► Foster your support base and make connections. Good relationships with close family members, friends and others are important. This may mean little more than having someone who will listen to you,
Help Yourself and Be Positive
► Learn ways to laugh and smile more. Humor is a great antidote and relief from stress and builds emotional resilience
► Recognise that you are going to have set backs and failures, but keep moving forward after taking a step backwards.
withstanding negative events and rebounding from various adversities in your life.
► Try to develop courage, encouragement, perseverance, hope, mindfulness which are very helpful in
► View crises and setbacks as new challenges and learning experiences
► Maintain a positive outlook
Related Articles
=> Positive Ageing Through Gardening - Role of Technology & Wearable Devices
=> Teenage Sleep Requirements, Lack of Sleep, Ensuring Teens Get Enough Sleep
=> Chronic Insomnia Causes, Cures, Treatment, Management and Remedies
=> How Much Sleep Do You Really Need - Age, Weekly Cycle and Personal Needs Guide
