Every single person in the world either has experienced or will experience terrible loss and hurdles to overcome at some point in their lifetime. These things can be terrifying, even emotionally or psychologically disabling.
Stress can make us more rigid and prone to injury and illness, and unable to deal with even the smallest obstacles. Something as tiny as not being able to loosen the cap on the jelly jar can send us over the edge. We lose our ability to bounce back, our resiliency.
It’s easy to look at people who seem to handle stress with ease as super-heroes, isn’t it? In fact, these people may have exactly the same difficulties in their own lives, but experience and practice have made it easier for them to cope.
The good news is that resiliency can be learned.
It takes practice and patience, but you can learn to roll with the punches instead of taking every single hit straight to your face!
In general, we’ve all developed some sort of coping method, going back to our childhood. It doesn’t take us long to realize that we don’t always have things our way, and usually after a few temper tantrums in our childhood we learn to accept this fact and manage our lives more skillfully.
Sometimes we just need a break — time to cool off and reflect on a course of action. Other times we may lean on a loved one or a friend for compassion and support. Still, other times we need to act immediately and get things done. Even then, it’s best to pause and take even just one single breath before leaping into action, to give our brains time to process a skillful reaction to a stressful situation, instead of an impulsive one.
Of course, as a caregiver for a loved one in your life, it may be that you’ve been dealing with an ongoing situation for days, months, years, or even decades. In order to continue to respond mindfully to these situations, we may need to look at our automatic responses and re-evaluate them.
Interested in digging deeper?
Stay tuned, this is the first in a series of posts on dealing with developing a more resilient approach to life. Some of which I shared in my book When Life Hits the Fan, and if you want a deeper dive conversation with me, grab some time on my free Open Office calendar.
How do you bounce back? What tools have you developed to be more resilient in your life? Share them in the comments!