Express emotions assertively
In point 10, we explain how to identify, find meaning, and finally express emotions assertively in how to control anxiety. One of the components of assertiveness has to do with not judging. Now feeling anxiety, sadness, fear … is a common reaction, but if you remember that you have strategies to face adversity, neither anxiety nor fear will win the battle.
Remember that resilient people are assertive, even in difficult situations where you think you might fall!
Cooperate in initiatives
Initiatives to help people appear continuously: volunteering, online counseling, new projects, future start-ups … Resilient people have these small details where they tend to participate in these initiatives, growing contact networks, carrying out a charitable activity and, in turn,,, they help others.
This positive attitude towards the other will allow you to surround yourself with people with the same interests and concerns. Resilient people create a climate of trust, generate a change both in themselves and in others, and highlight the positive aspects of a situation: seeing the glass half full.
Indeed because of your trade, some initiative has appeared, now is the time to participate in it! And if none have come out, you can be the first! What are you waiting for?
Reduce what distracts you
At home, as at work, countless distractions can make you miss your goals. To become a more resilient person, it is best to apply self-control techniques, such as those you can read in the articles we wrote about self-control techniques.
Remember that one of the biggest distractors is social media. Resilient people can control all those inputs that distract them from their actual goals and only use social networks when they are a means to an end.
resilient person
Control impulsivity
For those who are more impulsive, it is time to reduce it to avoid taking counterproductive actions. For this, we have two recommendations: physical exercise and relaxation.
Although both seem opposed, they pursue the same objective, which is to achieve a more excellent state of calm (in the case of exercise, it is afterward) and feel better about themselves both in adverse and difficult situations. The relaxation techniques that we recommend the most are diaphragmatic breathing and the Jacobson relaxation technique.
But in the case of the most impulsive, you can also use this “trick”: define where you can be impulsive. Think about those areas or situations where it is better to remain calm, and on the other hand, think about what situations you will not be able to control impulsivity, and in this way, you can have greater flexibility and more excellent emotional balance. Resilient people know how to behave depending on where they are.
Pay attention to homework
As we said before, both at home and work, you must have many distractors that do not allow you to carry out the task. In this case, self-control techniques will help you. But we also have another distractor, which is the mental one: worry.
In these times, it is difficult to control worry, but you can still ask yourself: what do you worry about? Does it have a solution? If so, am I doing all that I can do? What else could I do? And work on it.
As a Chinese proverb said:
If you have a problem that has no solution, why bother? And if it has a solution, why do you worry?
Another technique to become the resilient person you are looking for is to point out the adverse situations in which what worries you appear and share it with those who are in your home or with a professional, and in this way, the worries will indeed mitigate.
One last strategy for you to reduce your worry, be more attentive and improve your resilient personality: stop informing yourself about what worries you. You are likely overexposing yourself to information from the media, looking for similar cases on the internet, making it monothematic when you talk with your family or colleagues … it is time to stop because this information will increase the anxiety level you find it challenging to handle.
Educate to live Resilience
Do I maintain a certain emotional balance in the ups and downs of life? Do I see difficulties only as a “brown” or as a possibility to learn, improve, and become stronger? Do I stay grounded or find new ways to meet my needs of the moment? How do I interpret what happens to me? How much importance do I give it? Do I know how to relativize? Do I see myself as someone who can overcome adversity or as someone fragile and insecure? Who is responsible for what happens to me in life? The others, the world, God, me …? Can I find alternative paths and try different ways of acting?
Asking these and other possible questions calls for a series of elements typical of Resilience, such as: balance in the face of tension, commitment and challenge, overcoming, the significance and appreciation we make of what happens to us, the positive vision of oneself, responsibility for life, creativity …
Resilience and education
Suppose education is also to build a mentality to promote healthy lifestyles. In that case, Resilience also provides us with a change in mentality: from thinking about difficulties to thinking about possibilities—a path towards positive and possible constructs.
The ability of the subjects to overcome periods of emotional pain –Resilience- challenges us with our responsibility in the management of attitudes and lifestyles, also in the face of the inevitable. By evoking responsibility – the ability to give a personal response – an approach beyond health education to promote health emerges through the commitment to lead a healthy life.
In this sense, Latin America is ahead. The Pan American Health Organization is more proactive in considering self-care, healthy bonding in the group and the community, and healthy lifestyles. It is understood that any successful preventive measure depends on a society that facilitates the balance between personal development and risk behaviors, which requires the activation of programs aimed at strengthening protection factors and Resilience.
When in the psychological field, in the 70s, Michael Rutter, directly inspired by the concept of physics (which is the ability of materials to return to their original position after being deformed by applying a force on them), introduced the term Resilience as the ability of the subjects to overcome tragedies or periods of emotional pain, such as resistance to suffering and even be strengthened by it, perhaps it was not aware of how much it could generate lines of reflection for health.
Perhaps neither is Boris Cyrulnik, who expanded the concept of Resilience by looking at concentration camp survivors, Romanian orphanage children, and Bolivian street children. At only six years old, he escaped from a concentration camp. The rest of his family died; he became an orphan child, and his history led him, as a neuropsychiatrist, to become interested in the phenomenon of Resilience. He was able to resume a type of development after a traumatic injury, and he was able – in his words – to “come back to life.”
Can Resilience Be Educated?
The answer is clearly yes. It begins with the family and continues with the school. The school, capable of providing affection and support, setting and transmitting high expectations, and providing opportunities for meaningful participation, provides conditions that encourage successful coping with the crisis.
Several Anglo-Saxon and Latin American schools are applying the wheel of Resilience to the school organization, the development of the curriculum, the design of tutorials, the participation of families, or the professional development of teachers.
In Spain, experiences or programs for the development of Resilience are practically non-existent, but it is also true that, although not under that name, certain schools have been stimulating attitudes and carrying out practices that can be considered resilient.
