How to build your resilience

Author: Julie Crowley of Clear Mind

Resilience is a word less used that focusing on the problems of ‘stress’ and ‘mental health’ but it is the other side of the coin.  We cannot build resilience without first going through difficult times in our life.

Resilience arises from overcoming those problem times, the hardships – to realising you can manage things you thought, at the time, you couldn’t or wouldn’t get through.

Resilience is not ignoring the problems but recognising within that you can ‘cope’ with them initially i.e. get past the problems, work through them and learn from them. Then you learn to better ‘manage’ those difficulties – mistakes, embarrassments, loss, missed opportunities, regrets and illnesses or period of stress and anxiety, and depression for example.

It relates to the emotional reactions that come with those things, but also realising there is going to be an end to the pain and the embarrassment at every reminder or feeling down, in response to overwhelm of stressful events at times.

A few exercises you can try to consciously build resilience are as follows:

• Write down (journal) what hardships you’ve endured in the past and how you got through them – beginning/cause, middle/feelings and the end/resilience.

• Remember and note what behaviours you exhibited that helped you – talking to someone, asking for help, exercising, consciously eating well, learning your lines better for next time etc

• Look at other people you know – how did they cope and then manage their problem times?  Parents, friends, siblings, neighbours or colleagues will all have had their share of pain and problems. How did you see them managing, hear from them how they were dealing day to day with it or hearing afterwards that they coped and dealt with it – worked through it to a better place.

Learn to build resilience

Recognise this won’t last forever

Know that you will bounce back in time

Your feelings will change with time and space and everything will ease even a little at a time

You will have learned something (look for it)

Look for good points in the midst of the bad situation – a silver lining (later if not right now)

Remember other things you have overcome, and how well you managed those times

Ask for help and advice – you don’t have to take it, but it might help you”

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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