Resilience:
thriving, not
just surviving:

Resilience

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” Nelson Mandela

In recent months resilience is something that we have all had to learn. It can get us through the difficult times and overcome hardship. But what is it and why do we need it?

Resilience is the key to living a fulfilling and joyful life. Unless you are resilient you are not going to achieve peace of mind. Unlike positive thinking, self-compassion, or gratitude — which can all be developed when things are going good or going bad — you need challenges in your life to develop it. You have to get knocked down in order to learn how to pick yourself back up. Over time, you’ll start to see that it makes you stronger — plus it makes you less afraid to get knocked down again.

Here comes the biology lesson…

Resilience is something that we are born with as we inherit it from our parents but that’s only the beginning of the story! How we develop it is down to how we respond to events throughout our life. Whenever we get upset we say or do something we later regret (and who doesn’t now and then?), that’s a sure sign that our amygdala— the brain’s radar for danger, and the trigger for the fight-or-flight response — has hijacked the brain’s executive centres in the prefrontal cortex – our “mission control” sense checking service!

The circuitry that brings us back to full energy and focus after an amygdala hijack concentrates in the left side of our prefrontal area. Each of us has a characteristic level of left/right activity that predicts our daily mood range — if we’re tilted to the right, more upsets; if to the left, quicker recovery from distress of all kinds.

Thriving, not surviving

Earlier this year our MD Lindsey joined a fascinating virtual event where Emma Bell, a coach and resilience expert, was speaking about what enables people to thrive through adverse events, having done extensive research talking to 50 people who had suffered extreme situations in life; she calls them her “Thrivers”.

The Thrivers are individuals who have faced radically different kinds of trauma but each of whom are thriving. Emma discovered they all had the same nine key resilience strategies which enabled them not just to flourish in the face of adversity, but to thrive in the face of everyday challenges too. You can find out more about the Thrivers in Emma’s new book In ‘9 Secrets to Thriving’.

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You have to get knocked down in order to learn how to pick yourself back up. Over time, you’ll start to see that it makes you stronger plus it makes you less afraid to get knocked down again.

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AssKick

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You have to get knocked down in order to learn how to pick yourself back up. Over time, you’ll start to see that it makes you stronger plus it makes you less afraid to get knocked down again.

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So, how we can we be more resilient?

You are now probably wondering how you can work on being more resilient? Emma shared her top tips with us….

1) Stop overthinking

Autopilot thinking is what we use 47% of the time; 67% of thinking is negative or redundant. 90% of today’s thoughts will be the same as yesterdays. If we can avoid auto-pilot thought, like a pinball bouncing around in a machine, and are mindful of our reactions, we will thrive better in this world.

2) Stop complaining

Stop complaining! You are either complaining about something you can control, so you are able to fix it, or you are complaining about something that you have no control over so it’s a complete waste of time. It takes your focus away from the things that you actually can control.

3) Look after yourself

Focus on simple self-care strategies that are always forgotten about such as eating well, exercising, self-compassion and getting more sleep (see our recent article about sleep for tips on how to get a good night’s kip).

Focus on empathetic thinking rather than wishful or support-seeking. Empathetic thinking can be used to turbo-charge you, to energise you and enable you to focus in the right way. Empathetic thinking is about becoming more deeply thoughtful and tuning in to relative gratitude for what is good.

Emma also told us about using the U-HALT acronym and not to have important conversations when you:

  • U – are feeling unloved and not valued
  • H – are hungry
  • A – are angry or irritated
  • | – feel lonely or isolated
  • T – are tired/exhausted

4) Find support from people around you

Emma suggests that in difficult times, form your own “committee” which might comprise of a friend, a professional contact, a mentor/coach type person. It can be helpful to have a “Blurt” buddy but set a time limit of 3 minutes to vent in difficult situations. The Blurt-buddy will be vulnerable to being emotionally affected over a longer period, whereas for 3 minutes and no more, and if they can imagine there is a “blurt screen” between them and their buddy, they can simply listen enabling the Blurter to be heard. This preserves the pre-frontal cortex functionality and objectivity!

Resilience cannot be underestimated.

Having the capacity to deal with ongoing stress, to adapt efficiently to change, to cope with whatever life throws at us is important for our overall health and wellbeing.

Hopefully this article has shed light on what it means to be resilient and provided helpful tips for you to build on this important skill. Maybe now would be a good time to reflect upon your own resilience. What could you do to work on being more resilient?

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Having the capacity to deal with ongoing stress, to adapt efficiently to change, to cope with whatever life throws at us is important for our overall health and wellbeing.

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