Inner forces
Psychologists describe resilience as the ability to cope with personal crises and recover relatively quickly. We are more or less born with this skill, researchers assume, but we can also learn and improve in this area. According to Rick Hnason, we can improve our resilience by strengthening certain inner strengths. These include:
- to know how to take advantage of beneficial experiences;
- to feel that we always have our say;
- to be able to keep our calm;
- to have good intimate relationships;
- to be courageous in the face of life.
It is not necessary to strengthen all these inner strengths at once; it is better to take them one after the other, or to consider only those which instinctively seem to us to need a boost. Someone who, for example, is already courageous but needs to become calmer will start there. It is essential that we take ownership of what we learn. We must therefore practice regularly so that it becomes ingrained in our brain, the great advantage of which is that we can improve ourselves – this is also called positive neuroplacticity. This is where the path to resilience begins.
By exercising on a timely basis, you stimulate specific neural circuits, which become more active and stronger. Or, in the words of Donald Hebb, one of the founders of neuropsychology: “Neurons that fire together connect. And the more they fire, the stronger that connection becomes.” This process can be compared to a walk in the forest: the most frequently used paths become wider and more accessible. That’s why, the next time, you’ll choose these wide paths and ignore the narrow and overgrown ones. The trick is to transform the paths of resilience into highways.
Moments of happiness
Sometimes you have a great day. At work, everything is going smoothly, everyone is friendly, and what’s more, you like your reflection in the mirror. When you come home, your partner has cooked and showers you with sweet words. At the end of the day, you go to bed feeling fulfilled. It’s delicious. These kinds of beneficial experiences can help you become more resilient: they act as buffers against setbacks. First, you can create as many beneficial experiences as possible. You can do this just by thinking about something nice you do for someone else. Putting on a soft jacket or making yourself a nice cappuccino can also be a beneficial experience. But what makes you resilient most is being aware of all the good things in life, big and small.
To this end, focus on the moments that make you happy over the next two weeks. Enhance the sense of fulfillment they give you by examining their different aspects: what are the desires, thoughts, sensations, and emotions you experience? If your thoughts are distracted, focus on your breathing, then refocus on the beneficial experience. Then, be sure to consciously integrate it by imagining that this experience envelops you like a warm blanket.
Decision-making capacity
We are all overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness from time to time. When we get sick, for example. And also during smaller events: a long traffic jam on the way to work or a failed birthday cake just as the guests are about to arrive. Decisiveness is the opposite of helplessness and is therefore an important condition for resilience. It makes us active instead of passive because we take the initiative ourselves and choose a direction instead of letting ourselves be carried away by the current. Without this sense of being able to decide, we cannot use other inner capacities that are essential for coping. When life brings us to our knees, this right to decide is what best helps us get back on our feet.
Research by Martin Seligman (the founder of positive psychology) and his colleagues has shown that some people experience a feeling of helplessness more easily than others, and are therefore less aware of this ability to decide. These people are much more likely to view their difficulties as due not to chance circumstances, but to their own shortcomings. This may, among other things, stem from the self-image they have been instilled with. Those who have often heard comments like, “You can’t do it anyway,” are more likely to experience this feeling.
However, Martin Seligman discovered that we are all, to some extent, prone to despondency in the face of great difficulty. He showed that, most of the time, many experiences of making difficult decisions are necessary to combat the onset of a feeling of helplessness. The reason for this is not entirely clear. It is therefore even more important to exercise our decision-making capacity in order to strengthen the appropriate neural circuits in our brain. We can do this through a conscious choice or by influencing a particular outcome.
Keep calm
During the week, take a few minutes or more as often as possible to listen deeply to yourself, especially when your internal stress barometer threatens to turn red.
A good way to do this is to exhale longer than you inhale. Exhaling calms your pulse, while inhaling accelerates it. You can influence this process by lengthening your exhalation relative to your inhalation. Your pulse will immediately calm down, and the feeling of stress will therefore diminish. Count to three during several consecutive inhalations, and to six during exhalations. If you do this several times a day, at some point, it will become natural.
Strengthen your intimate relationships
Those who have ever had their heart broken or seen a friendship break up are no doubt familiar with this tendency to then build a kind of fortress around themselves and never let anyone in. Intimacy makes you fragile, because others can deeply disappoint you and hurt you.
Yet, we have a profound need for intimate relationships. The people we love are a great support in difficult times. Intimate relationships make us strong and resilient because we feel supported and have a safety net. How can we reap the benefits of intimacy while facing the challenges that come with it? It may seem a bit contradictory, but the key lies in autonomy. It is precisely by remaining autonomous in our relationships—being ourselves and making our own choices—that we deepen intimacy.
Be brave
How do you practice courage?
Thinking back to times when you felt courageous, even when your heart was pounding, helps you in situations you find stressful. Recall that feeling of determination, soak it up, and go for it.