It’s Wednesday,

The last two / three weeks seem to have been a very challenging time for a lot of folks. I have been hearing lots of stories from my patients in my health and wellness practice, and my social pages of events and situations that have been very stressful. We in the Martin household also have had an event that has stopped us in our tracks.

 

What I learned over the past three weeks is that resilience is key! What I mean is how fast and well do you bounce back or survive from tough events? Resilience is often related to how well we handle our emotional stress, however I would like to suggest that it is also how well we handle physical stress and chemical stress. You often have heard me say or have read in my articles that it is the small and consistent choices we make every day that affect our overall health and wellbeing. We often see those small consistent choices good or bad as not a big deal until something happens to us that is traumatic. It is then that we realize how those small consistent choices have a major impact on the outcome.

 

The questions become:

 

Does the person who meditates every day build emotional resilience and have reserves when he/ she encounters a stressful situation?

 

Does the person who exercises everyday build physical resilience and is therefore able to bounce back from a trauma?

 

Does the person who eats a well balanced whole food diet build nutritional resilience and recover from surgery/ or health setbacks at a much faster rate?

 

There are many more examples however the answer is the same.

 

The answer is a resounding yes!

 

Many of us wait till something happens to begin to take better care of ourselves emotionally, physically or nutritionally, or we flat out don’t think it will happen to us! It’s not if it’s when. Don’t wait to start and get the support of others as it is tough to do it all yourself. If you need help there are plenty of Health and Wellness professionals out there that are ready willing and able to support you.

 

Please enjoy the following article and start building your resilience bank account!

 

Dr Pia

 

RESILIENCE

How do you react to unexpected difficulties? Healthy, resilient people have stress-resistant personalities and learn valuable lessons from rough experiences. Resilience is the process of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences. Resilient people overcome adversity, bounce back from setbacks, and can thrive under extreme, on-going pressure without acting in dysfunctional or harmful ways. The most resilient people recover from traumatic experiences stronger, better, and wiser.
When hurt or distressed, resilient people expect to find a way to have things turn out well. They feel self-reliant and have a learning/coping reaction rather than the victim/blaming reaction that is so common these days.

There is over 30 years of research into the inner nature of highly resilient that survivors has created a clear understanding of human resiliency and how it develops. Highly resilient people show many similar qualities:

Playful, childlike curiosity. Ask lots of questions, want to know how things work. Play with new developments. Enjoy themselves as children do. Have a good time almost anywhere.
Constantly learn from experience. Rapidly assimilate new or unexpected experiences and enjoy being changed by them. Ask “What is the lesson here? What early clues did I ignore? The next time that happens I will….”
Adapt quickly. Very mentally and emotionally flexible. Comfortable with contradictory personality qualities. Can be both strong and gentle, sensi
tive and tough, logical and intuitive, calm and emotional, serious and playful, and so forth.
Have solid self-esteem and self-confidence. Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. It determines how much you learn after something goes wrong. It allows you to receive praise and compliments. It acts as a buffer against hurtful statements while being receptive to constructive criticism.
Have good friendships, loving relationships. Research shows that people in toxic working conditions are more stress resistant and are less likely to get sick when they have a loving family and good friendships. Loners are more vulnerable to distressing conditions.
Express feelings honestly. Experience and can express anger, love, dislike, appreciation, grief–the entire range of human emotions honestly and openly. Can also choose to suppress their feelings when they believe it would be best to do so.
Expect things to work out well. Deep optimism guided by internal values and standards. High tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty.
Read others with empathy. See things through the perspectives of others, even antagonists. Win/win/win attitude in conflicts. Ask “What do others think and feel? What is it like to be them? How do they experience me? What is legitimate about what they feel, say, and do?”
Use intuition, creative hunches. Accept subliminal perception and intuition as valid, useful sources of information. Ask “What is my body telling me? Did that daydream mean anything? Why don’t I believe what I’m being told? What if I did this?”
Have a talent for serendipity. They convert misfortune into good luck and gain strength from adversity.
A good indicator of exceptional mental health is when a person talking about a rough experience says “I would never willingly go through anything like that again, but it was the one of best things that ever happened to me.” Ask “How can I turn this around? Why is it good that this happened? What is the gift?”
Get better and better every decade. Become increasingly life competent, resilient, durable, playful, and free. Spend less time surviving than others and survive major adversities better. Enjoy life more and more.

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