Resilience
The capacity to prepare for, recover from and adapt in the face of stress, adversity, trauma or tragedy.
Two essential components are…
- Having the Capacity: We can increase our resilience capacity. We can think of resilience as the amount of energy we have stored in our “inner battery”, i.e. our inner self.
- Being Prepared: Having more resilience/energy in our inner battery helps us to self‑regulate emotional triggers, make clearer choices and be better prepared for and quite often being able to avoid many situations and challenges from which we would need to bounce back or recover from.
The greater our capacity to self‑regulate and accumulate resilience energy, the greater our ability to sustain our composure and remain in charge of our actions and behavioursplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigThus, to respond more often - rather than to react - to external (outside) stimuli which tends to evoke emotional triggers..
Resilience is the capacity of an entityplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigThat could be an individual, group of people, an institution, company or a system. to withstand sudden, unexpected turmoil and (ideally) to either avoid or be capable of quick recovery afterwards. Resilience represent strength, flexibility, capacity and preparedness. Therefore, a resilient individual will stumble, but will not collapse, break or become uprooted in the face of adversities.
Resilience is a concept describing our capacity to bounce back and renew our sense of vitality, after experiencing a challenging situation and confrontations. Resilience is our ability to proactively prepare for, recover from and adapt when confronted with stresses, adversities, problems, life obstacles, challenges and/or changes. The more resilient we are and the healthier our self-determination balance between individuality and conformity…
- The faster we are able to recover from challenging situations,
- The better we are able to cope with stressful circumstances,
- We are able to skillfully channel our energies more productively and efficiently,
- Become competent to avoid - to greater or lesser extent - many unnecessary stressful situations in the first place.
Through resilience we…
- remain calmer under pressure by avoiding a mindset dominated by panic,
- can respond to challenging situations by curbing a desperation reasoning (thinking) mode,
- think more clearly and sustain a balanced, logical and rational way of reasoningplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigApplying our common sense more focused and efficient. and
- are in better control of our mind and emotions to maintain a higher and more productive stance of Emotional Maturity.
Resilience allows us to roll with the punches in life more easily and effectively flow along with the constant challenges of rapid changing circumstances. Like a tightrope walker, our resilience - inner poise and managing our psyche - helps us to successfully keep our balance in life and surf the many waves of change that confronts us every day.
There are four primary areas of resilience in which we need to sustain a healthy energy balance…
We are sharing energy between the above areas of resilience to wisely deal with life's many up's and downs. When there is an overconsumption of energy in one area, the energy available (or leftover) for the other areas is depleted considerably. Mainly because energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it merely transformed from one area to another. In modern times - generically speaking - our emotional resilience is often impacted by the Little Jackals Trap in a negative manner, which in turn creates an energy-consuming emotional black hole that leaves us with very little energy left to sustain a healthy energy balance in our physical, mental and spiritual areas of resilience.
In essence… resilience is how we intelligently, skillfully and productively channel and manage our energies to keep our battery of life fully charged (mainly through emotional control and maintaining a healthy sleep pattern) to provide us with the necessary energy, should we need it to bounce back from a challenging situation. An important aspect of resilience is that it allows us to remain focused, stay on track and not easily derailed, despite the everyday bombardment of stimuli that demands our attention. Therefore…
- A POOR level of resilience… is like driving a car with one foot on the break and the other on the petrol at the same time. Just imagine the waste of energy, the wear and tear on components and how jerky and uncomfortable the ride is going to be!
- A GOOD level of resilience… makes for a much smoother ride in life, because we correctly apply the brake and step on the petrol (i.e. channelling our energies wisely) as is contextually necessary, required or demanded by the circumstances, situations and events.
A concluding thought…
Resilience levels can be assessed pretty accurately, by measuring our Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Our HRV-pattern - which is greatly influenced by our emotions - indicate whether we are draining or renewing our life's battery.
A coherent HRV-pattern(
) nourish the centers in the brainplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigOur Intriguing Brain!
In the 30+ odd years that I have practised as a psychologist, career- and life coach, there is one particular aspect of human behaviour that I found quite mystifying. People does dumb things (myself included), but - rather naivelyphenomenonawesomeidiotic responsible for decision making, creativity, improvisation, troubleshooting and enhance performance in general. Whereas, an incoherent HRV-pattern(
) is toxic for these brain centers and result in unproductive human performances.
), which considerably deplete our energy reserves and significantly lower our levels of resilience.
), notably replenish our energy reserves and surely increase our levels of resilience.