We will all face setbacks in life. They can be large, like the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or a health scare, Or they can be small, like a missed bus. Each setback can derail us – but resilient people view these setbacks differently.

A large part of resilience is emotional awareness, understanding what you’re feeling and why, rather than letting yourself be overwhelmed by frightening emotions. But resilience is not just about enduring bad times. Bottling up your emotions and trying to “tahan” your way through can make things worse. 

Researcher Dr Lucy Hone is an expert in resilience. She wrote her bestselling book Resilient Grieving after the death of her 12-year-old daughter. She says, “Resilience is not armour. Resilience enables us to feel pain, anger, anxiety, and guilt and move through these emotions so we can also continue to feel joy and love again. Resilience is using what is within us to make it through – and transform what is before us.” You can see Dr Lucy Hone’s inspiring TedX talk on resilience here.

Professor Sally Merry is an expert in mental health in children and teens. She believes children can be taught skills to help them become more resilient. 

“It helps to develop good mindsets. Teach them not to be too tough on themselves. We can’t expect perfection from ourselves. Teach them to look at what they can learn from failure and help them realise that bad times will pass.”

Remind them that it can help to see stressful events as a challenge instead of a threat. Say you get asked to speak in public. You may panic and think, “I will get flustered and look stupid.” But try thinking more flexibly. Ask yourself, will I be worried about this in five years? What would I tell a friend in similar circumstances?” Watching you behave flexibly can help your kids understand that resilience is a skill they can also learn.

At the end of every day, try listing three things you are grateful for. You might be feeling proud that you completed a certain task, or maybe you are grateful for something as simple as having a nice cup of coffee on the balcony. You can even do this exercise with your family. When you put your children to bed, ask them to share something they feel grateful for? This can help nurture their optimism.

Psychologist Wendy Knight explains that resilient people have certain traits. “They see problems as a chance to grow. They’re often optimistic, but that doesn’t mean they are always smiling. It’s more that they realise life is about loss as well as gain. You have to learn to live through them both.”

Better health greatly improves your resilience. Focusing on good quality sleep, eating better, and getting out into nature to exercise can all boost your energy – and your resilience. Try skills such as meditation and mindfulness, which help you pay attention to uncomfortable thoughts and feelings – and then move through them to the other side. 

Because while some people are naturally more resilient than others, your levels of resilience are also shaped by your family, your friends, your community, and social structures. “If someone is brought up by a caring family, by people who teach them perseverance, they will probably be a more hardy and resilient person,” says Wendy Wendy Knight.

So focus on building good relationships with family, friends, and others. Put time into those relationships. This is one of the most important steps when it comes to resilience. When the going gets tough, it helps to be able to seek help  – and be able to accept support from people who care about you. This support and understanding goes a long way to strengthen your resilience.

If you get so anxious that you can’t even think, try controlled breathing. This technique is used by US  Navy Seals to control nerves because focusing on your breathing will stop the body’s physical stress reaction.

Moving through a tough time in a healthy way helps evolve your humility, maturity, and empathy. It also helps you develop more emotional flexibility – because you have felt pain and sorrow and you have survived.  And remember, you have managed to make it through two years of a global pandemic. You are already a warrior!

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Text: bauersyndication.com.au