Mastering Resilience: Steps to Building Psychological Strength

If you're looking to strengthen the relationships in your life or cultivate new ones, resilience might not be the first word that comes to mind. But that should change. Strengthening our resilience, or ability to bounce back from setbacks, has an impact on the quality of our relationships. The sooner we can arrive at emotion regulation, the sooner we can rekindle positive emotions and reduce stress.

I began my wellness journey at a time when I suffered from anxiety and ongoing stress. I remember beginning a meditation practice out of desperation - I had tried almost everything else. Between panic attacks at work and post-traumatic stress that seemed to haunt me daily, resilience didn't feel within reach. What I was lacking at this time in my life, however, was the ability to take a different perspective. My meditation and practice of self-study provided me with that. And now, some twenty years later, I see the same resilience and perspective shifts occur in clients and even family members who invest a little time in their wellness journeys.

Whether it is depression, anxiety, panic, or ongoing stressors, building resilience means building self-trust to handle ups and downs or unexpected stressors with more perspective. In relationships, this is what's known as emotional resilience. When we have emotional resilience, we are more likely to be optimistic when dealing with others and we communicate with empathy because we are not caught up in fear. 

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  —Viktor E. Frankl

If you don't consider yourself resilient, the good news is that resilience levels can increase with mindful practice and meditation. In this article, we'll explore how to cultivate emotional resilience, which will help you face adversity and build a foundational strength that will support you in attracting and nurturing healthier relationships with yourself and others.

Starting with Resilience

OxfordLanguages defines resilience as "the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties." While this might seem like a trait some are born with, it can be learned. Emmy Werner, who spearheaded the first and longest longitudinal study on resilience, clarified this definition by stating ”[Resilience] is not something that you have now and forever. It’s a process."

This process can be supported by mindfulness techniques, which build self-compassion, reduce negative emotions, help you cope with difficulty, and build the emotional intelligence required for stronger relationships. The DARS Resilience Assessment, which helps people to determine where they fall in terms of resilience and emotional regulation evaluates relationships, beliefs, initiative, and self-control. In each of these protective factors below, I offer a practice that you can try today. 

• Building resilience in relationships: Learning to cultivate stronger relationships through emotional intelligence builds resilience, and resilience builds relationships. This feedback loop can be powerful. In relational resilience, we can practice Lovingkindness meditation, which focuses on building our ability to feel compassion and empathy for ourselves and others. You can also look to the community for ways to build cultural resilience if others share the adverse circumstances you are going through. For instance, if you suffer from depression and anxiety, finding a support group can help you to build community resilience.  
• Positive self-talk/internal beliefs: Finding ways to feel better about ourselves, our capabilities, and how much control we believe we have. Positive self-talk can take the form of affirmations or gratitude journaling. It can also mean simply learning to stop negative thoughts with a script that challenges them. Over time, this builds our self-esteem.
• Building resilience with personal initiative: Strengthening our ability to make positive choices and decisions, and act upon them. What is one small thing you've been putting off that you'd like to start? Perhaps dance lessons, daily meditations or a more robust mindfulness practice? By practicing in small ways and taking initiative, we can grow this skill in ourselves and become more resilient and feel better about ourselves overall.
• Increasing self-control: Trusting ourselves to choose the right actions and responses, even when emotional stakes are high, means we have a sense of self-composure and self-control. Often, this is at the foundation of building resilience because when we trust ourselves, stress does not impact us as much. We know we will get through and make solid decisions. A good way to begin to build self-control is to look at what you are right right now. Make a list of all the ways you successfully cope with negative emotions. What has worked in the past? What major stressors have you lived through?

To cultivate more emotion regulation, self-control, initiative, positive beliefs, and better relationships, let's look to a few resilience-building meditation and mindfulness practices. 

Meditation and Mindfulness to Build Resilience

Our capacity to handle stress and adversity can be strengthened with simple practices. A few targeted meditations to support resiliency and reduce stress are below. 

• Loving-kindness meditation: The concept of Loving-Kindness is to help you to tap into the vast healing and expansive capabilities of intention and compassion. This is one of the best meditations to shift out of a bad mood and remind you that we are always connected, even when we feel alone. To practice a 5-minute version of loving-kindness meditation, go here.
• Cultivate Connection And Security: This is a 9-minute visualization for those who feel inhibited by feelings of loneliness or disconnection and are ready to move forward. By confronting feelings associated with neglect, a sense of safety is possible. From a place of safety and security deep within, we find freedom from the past and the empowerment to grow.
• Meditation for Releasing Anxiety and Worry: Much adversity comes from inside. Anxiety and depression can lead to a psychopathology that makes it hard to feel resilient. Anxiety and worry can either take a toll on us, or such feelings can offer us information about our values and remind us to return to grounded energy. By finding a way to persevere and push beyond anxious thoughts and experiences, we learn to better listen to ourselves and find alignment. This is a great meditation for times in which you feel a lot of pressure, personally or professionally.
• Embody gratitude for resilience: This meditation practice is designed to connect or reconnect to the power of gratitude. This ten-minute track is ideal to remind us of all the magic that surrounds us. Gratitude meditations are an excellent practice to repeat for 30 days or more to rewire the brain and better embody the space we occupy so that we can allow in more of what we love. 

Exhibiting relational resilience means working on our ability to connect with others, bounce back from setbacks, creatively problem-solve, exhibit courage, and practice self-compassion.

“It’s not events that upset us but rather our opinions about them.” — Epictetus

Importance of Resilience

The role of resilience in fueling personal growth and development is vital specifically because resilience influences our perception of challenges and our response to them. Resilient people know that adversity can bring with it the gift of growth. A growing term in resilience and the wellness industry is post-traumatic growth, rather than post-traumatic stress. According to Werner's longitudinal study, a third of children who faced adverse circumstances not only went on to thrive, they might have even surpassed the quality of life of those who did not face adversity. While it might not feel like it at the moment, when we can find ways to deal with struggle and cultivate self-compassion and resilience in the face of adverse events, even internal struggles, we have the potential to cultivate more gratitude and optimism than we ever could have imagined. Because we know what we're capable of.

Continue to Build Resilience with Resources:

If you're looking to strengthen the relationships in your life, resilience might not be the first word that comes to mind. But perhaps that should change. Look to support groups for others facing adversity, read books and articles, and listen to apps and other technologies that can support you. Investing in building your resilience will be well worth your time and just might lead to an entirely new perspective on life.

Resilience-building resources:

• For community support, join me at the most holistic mindfulness and meditation apps, Aura Health. 
• For books on childhood and adolescent resilience, researcher Ann S. Masten's Ordinary Magic looks at a variety of real-world examples.
• To build daily mindfulness practices, read this article that gives myriad examples.