Becoming Resilient
Resilience can be defined as the ability to recover quickly from an illness or set back, recover strength or the ability to remain centered and able to cope with change and uncertainty
The great mystic Rumi, who lived in the thirteenth century left us with an essential key in the quest for a peaceful mind: “The moment you accept the troubles you’ve been given, the door opens.”
You may be wondering how acceptance of the challenges in your life could possibly lead you to a positive outcome. But acceptance is the beginning or first step on the path to well-being. Once we become more aware of our habitual and negative, limiting belief patterns, we can then begin the work of understanding and eventually transforming them. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk and peace activist who wrote and lectured extensively on finding peace and balance, taught the practice of mindfulness as a way of awareness. By practicing mindful awareness we turn our focus inward, perhaps by becoming aware of our breath in each moment. In this moment, we are no longer running away from our emotions and the stress in our lives. We are compassionately facing our fears and our struggles, the tension in our body and our addictive patterns of escape from our own selves.
Through the process of mindful observation, we begin to see how we might be blocking our well-being unintentionally. Becoming more resilient, we begin to make choices that better support health and happiness. Some roadblocks to resilience include negative thoughts and beliefs about ourselves and the future, which can lead to depression. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a type of intervention that can help us to transform our beliefs into positive and realistic expectations for health and success. Irrational thoughts, also known as cognitive distortions, are patterns of thinking that are not based in reality and can lead to negative emotions and behaviors. Common categories include all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, emotional reasoning, and personalization. These distortions can contribute to anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. We can learn to adopt a more resilient mindset by practicing positive, realistic thoughts and beliefs that will promote our happiness and contribute to a life that is meaningful and has purpose.
If you would like to learn more about resilience, or how to change your thinking to a growth mindset it may be helpful to contact a mental health therapist who can assist you in reaching your goals.
