Building emotional resilience is a powerful thing to do. Why? Because if you build emotional resilience, you can be emotionally resilient. Some people are naturally more resilient than others. I wasn’t one of them.
Because I lacked emotional resilience as a child, it deepened my childhood trauma.
As I’ve healed of my trauma I’ve also been building this thing called emotional resilience. I’ll show 12 ways you can build it and why you’d want to.
Being emotionally resilient will serve you in many ways.
WHAT EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE IS
Simply put, to be emotionally resilient is the ability to bounce back. But there’s more to it than that.
Before this word applied to people, it was a mechanical definition.
In an old dictionary from 1950, it means: returning to or resuming the original position or shape. Mech. (mechanical) capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture. (emphasis mine)
Resilient comes from the word resile which means to spring back or recoil. Like a spring.
When a person has resiliency they possess the power to recover quickly from difficulty, crisis, stress, and hardship.
Resiliency is a psychological strength to cope instead of falling apart. People with strong resiliency can maintain their cool even in disastrous situations. It doesn’t mean they don’t feel the stress. It means they have the ability to handle it instead of running from it or emotionally shutting down.
Read Your Biggest Emotional Trigger, Based On Your Zodiac Sign
A person with resilience also isn’t afraid to ask for help when needed.
Resilience is not about gritting your teeth and getting through or sucking it up. Resilience is about honoring our need to ask for and receive help. It is important to remember that you are not going it alone. There is always someone who can help and there is always hope. ~Dr. Mollie Marti, founder, and President, National Resilience Institute
This is quite an admirable quality to have.
To be resilient is the ability to thrive instead of being traumatized.
HOW BEING RESILIENT MATTERS
Resiliency empowers a person to grow stronger through adversity. By exercising it they become even more resilient.
Resilience gives a person the capacity to deal with things and adapt in a positive way.
Resilient people live longer because they have a sense of purpose.
A Rush University Research team studied 951 men and women with an average age of 80.4 years. Those with the lowest sense of purpose were twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease as those who were living meaningful lives. source
I want to grow in resilience. How about you?
Being resilient makes you stronger on the inside to handle life on the outside.
“Resilience is a muscle. Flex it enough and it will take less effort to get over the emotional punches each time.”—Alecia Moore
WHAT LACK OF RESILIENCE LOOKS LIKE
Resilience isn’t something you have, or you don’t have. It comes in varying amounts. A person can be resilient in one area of their life and not in a different area. Here are a few areas that show a lack of resilience:
- Unable to calm self and focus on useful action in a crisis.
- Seeing difficulties as permanent with no expectation to overcome.
- Unable to tolerate uncertainty or adapt to new developments.
- Inability to laugh at one’s self. Poor self-concept.
- Lack of curiosity. Fear of new things.
- Can’t listen or empathize.
- Unable to see silver linings or make use of difficulties.
These are just a few. But if you find yourself in them, don’t feel bad.
Read 10 Signs Of Emotional Numbness and Ways To Recover
Wherever you lack emotional resilience, you can build it.
“Resilience is a muscle. Flex it enough and it will take less effort to get over the emotional punches each time.”—Alecia Moore
12 WAYS YOU CAN BUILD EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE
1. Feed on the positive
This is more than just looking on the bright side. It’s recognizing your strengths and finding ways to overcome your weaknesses. You can take all your weaknesses to God and ask for help. He said that where you’re weak, he’s strong.
