COUNSELLING, ONLINE
APRIL IS NATIONAL STRESS AWARENESS MONTH, AND NOW MORE THEN EVER WE ALL NEED TO BE ABLE TO BOUNCE BACK FROM ADVERSITY. FIX COUNSELLOR, CAROL TERMEZI SHARES HOW YOU CAN BUILD YOUR OWN RESERVE OF RESILIENCE.
Being resilient means having the ability to bounce back from adversity. When life gets tough, (as at times it inevitably does), it is our resilience that gives us the strength to pick ourselves up and carry on anyway. So developing resilience is actually dependent upon things not going well, disappointments, failure, emotional distress, are all prerequisites for building greater resilience.
It is fairly safe to say that we are all to some degree resilient. We will all have experienced defeat and disappointment in some form or another and yet still managed to carry on. Having those experiences, however upsetting at the time, actually made us stronger and added to our life experience, if properly integrated.
A person with strong resilience has:
- The capacity to make realistic plans and do what is necessary to carry them out.
- A positive view of themselves and confidence in their own strengths and abilities.
- The ability to communicate and problem-solve effectively.
- The capacity to manage their own feelings and impulses.
So clearly being resilient is beneficial, who doesn’t want to live life with the ease that comes from having the above attributes?
Thankfully, resilience isn’t a have or have not trait, it is something that can be built and improved upon through concerted self effort. It comes as a result of being aware of the opportunities for self-development and having the courage to take advantage of them.
There are many ways to build up your own reserve of resilience. Below are some pointers in the right direction:
- Allow yourself to feel and process all of your emotions, they are there to be felt.
- Identify your own support system (people that you can depend on and confide in). Allow yourself to gain the support of others as you also support and encourage them.
- Notice how you are feeling and do what you need to do to look after yourself, e.g. having enough sleep, time to relax, a good enough diet and a workable and well rounded routine.
- Identify something(s) that gives you a sense of purpose in your life and use it/them to build positive self esteem and belief in your own abilities, (look for the positives and record them, they can easily be missed if you’re not in the habit of noticing them).
- Accept and embrace change and endings as inevitable, they act as openings for new beginnings.
- Be optimistic – don’t ignore your problems, just understand that everything passes (even problems), and that you have what it takes to make it through if you dig deep enough!
- Develop problem solving skills through strategies such as making a list of potential ways to solve your current problem. Take whatever action is necessary and doable. Accept that there will be things you cannot solve and that you have no control over and determine to let those things go.
- Reframing – is the ability to see a certain situation, disappointment, defeat etc through a different ‘frame’. An example of this could be an argument with a friend. In one frame this could be seen as very upsetting, things were said, which although true, caused a friend to walk off angry and upset, “we are no longer speaking, our friendship is over!” Reframed this could be seen as a disagreement with a friend which was discussed and aired. “She left which means that by taking time out we will both have time to think things through, we can come back together and resolve the issue when we have both calmed down.”
Resilience comes through maintaining an awareness of ourselves, other people and our environments. We build it through accepting and moving on from disappointments; by not allowing them to take over our thoughts and emotions in negative and self destructive ways. This way of being keeps us balanced and in tune with ourselves and others. It enables us to accept ourselves for who we are, not for what we have or have not done or achieved.
A quote which perfectly describe what resilience looks like in practice:-
‘She was unstoppable, not because she didn’t have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them.’ (Beau T)
If you need help managing stress or building resilience you can book online counselling sessions with Carol through Fix.