Help With Building Your Emotional Resilience

You’ve probably heard the saying, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade”. That statement is an example of what emotional resilience is all about. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), resilience is about being able to successfully adapt yourself to difficult or challenging life experiences.

When you’re resilient, you have the mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and ability that allows you to adjust to the demands made upon you by the context you’re in.

When life throws its worst at you, you can either let that overwhelm you, or you can withstand it and bounce back from the setback you’ve encountered. That ability to bounce back from setbacks isn’t something automatic. It’s a skill that you can grow and develop over time. Being resilient doesn’t mean that you won’t go through stressful or painful situations – it simply means that you can adapt to those situations and persevere through them.

Does emotional resilience matter?

In life, you’re bound to encounter any number of situations that are less than ideal. Adversity can come through various avenues such as experiencing abuse, falling seriously ill, losing a loved one, a cherished dream falling apart, losing your job, having a difficult breakup, or facing enormous financial pressures. This is to say nothing of the tragedies that happen in the world such as wars, earthquakes and other natural disasters, or a global pandemic, to name a few.

When the going gets tough, an emotionally resilient person has the strength to go with it and just roll with the punches. Being resilient lends you the strength that you need to cope with difficult life circumstances. When you are an emotionally resilient person, you can work through challenges and overcome setbacks you encounter by using the skills, resources, and strengths that you possess.

Additionally, emotionally resilient people tend to actively use the resources and skills they possess to get through a tough time. As individuals who have healthy emotional intelligence, they not only understand their own feelings, but they can manage those feelings as well as external stressors constructively.

On the other hand, when a person who lacks resilience encounters difficult circumstances, they will be more likely to feel as though they are helpless, and they may feel overwhelmed. Additionally, poor resilience can also lend itself toward reliance on unhealthy coping strategies during tough times. Such unhealthy coping mechanisms include isolating oneself from other people, avoidance of difficult situations, or resorting to self-medicating.

Resilience, whether we’re talking emotional, physical, or mental resilience, can help you thrive even in difficult circumstances. Life is always going to throw curveballs at you; things are bound to go off the rails at some point, and you need the skills and emotional resolve to stay the course when that happens. That’s why emotional resilience matters.

How to build your emotional resilience

A person’s resilience and ability to withstand and adapt to hardship is a complex thing. There is a sense in which some people have more innate resilience than others. This, however, does not mean that resilience cannot develop, nor does it mean a person’s resilience is constant. A person’s age, gender, and exposure to adverse or traumatic situations can affect their resilience, but one can grow their capacity for resilience.

It’s important to remember that resilience is a matter of degrees and not a simple matter of either having it or not. You can be resilient in a particular situation that’s highly stressful and have a better or less developed ability to handle those stressful situations and experiences. In the same way, a person can have great resilience when it comes to certain areas of their life like work, but struggle when it comes to difficult personal relationships.

Resilience can be built up by learning how to harness the strengths you already possess and being better able to make use of the resources you have around you such as social support. Getting more resilient happens as you become more adept at reframing thought patterns that undermine your confidence in your abilities, and as you grow in tapping into your strengths to tackle challenges.

While there isn’t a straightforward, step-by-step approach and universal formula to help build your resilience, there are a few key ingredients that can help you on your journey. According to the APA, factors such as a person’s outlook on the world, having specific skills and coping strategies to draw from, and having access to quality social resources can make all the difference in a person’s resilience amid challenging circumstances.

The factors that can contribute meaningfully to building up your resilience include the following:

Finding balance

Our lives are a mix of things we need to do, should do, and would like to do. Being able to balance life so that you can do what’s necessary as well as what you find enjoyable can help put you in a better frame of mind to endure hardship when it comes.

Learning to express yourself

Being emotionally self-aware and capable of expressing those emotions to others can help keep you from bottling things up. It can be quite overwhelming to hold onto everything, and you need an outlet for it. With better communication, you can seek support and make better use of the resources around you, and that helps with resilience.

Get social support

The people around you who can support you in times of trouble help to build up your capacity to endure difficult times. It’s easier to weather a storm with other people around you than alone (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). Whether it’s friends, family, your community, or a community organization, having people around you can help cultivate resilience.

Self-esteem and self-acceptance

Having a positive self-regard as well as confidence in your skills and strength can be a helpful bulwark against any sense that you are helpless in a given situation. When you recognize your limits and imperfections, that can allow you to go on even when you don’t get things exactly right. We make mistakes, but the Lord’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:19-24).

Learning emotional regulation

Difficult situations bring heavy and complex emotions in their wake. Knowing how to manage these is integral to building resilience. Making use of stress reduction and mindfulness techniques can help to regulate one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Self-care, including healthy eating and exercise habits, helps one to cope with difficult situations healthily.

Developing healthy coping skills

Skills such as optimism and learning how to share when you’re going through things help you deal with those situations. Learning how to reframe your thinking, journaling to process your emotions, socializing with others, taking in the outdoors, sleeping better, and using creativity to express yourself can all be great ways to cope with adversity.

Understand yourself better

Deeper self-awareness can help you build up your resilience. This includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses, as well as being aware of your warning signs such as fatigue or feeling hopeless. If you know yourself better, you can take steps early to look after yourself to reduce stress and adapt to the situation.

Have a sense of humor

Sometimes, the best you can do in a tough situation is to laugh at life’s absurdities and difficulties. Being able to laugh can help to shift your mindset from seeing a difficult situation as a threat to seeing it as a challenge that can be overcome. Laughter is good for you in taking the edge off stressful situations.

Lean on the Lord

Your relationship with the Lord is a key ingredient in your resilience. A living and vibrant connection to God through His Spirit enables you to see even the direst of circumstances as being under God’s sovereign and loving control. One can say with the Psalmist:

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth – Psalms 121:1-2, ESV

With each difficult situation that you encounter, you can practice resilience and develop your ability to adapt and thrive even when things aren’t going well.

Finding support

An emotionally resilient person has the skills and capacity to effectively handle difficult situations and stresses that are part of daily living. When crises arise, the emotionally resilient person can handle those more easily and emerge from the situation without being overly distressed or incapacitated. Emotional resilience is a trait that can be built over time, and you can cultivate your own by being intentional about the process.

You can also journey with a professional such as a counselor who can help you discover your strengths, and the resources available to you, and they can also help you in reframing your thoughts and cultivating healthy coping mechanisms to build your emotional resilience.

If you would like to work with a counselor or therapist in California to develop your emotional resilience, browse our online directory and contact us at California Christian Counseling to set up an appointment today.