Life isn’t always easy. These days, it can often feel like the challenges we face threaten to become insurmountable. We may find ourselves struggling in the face of life’s adversities. But what if there existed an approach that could help us to build strength in the face of difficulty? Today, we will explore resilience and wellness, and discuss how these approaches can help us to shape our destinies and lead to positive results.
1. Harnessing Resilience for Greater Wellness
From Acknowledging Pain to Honoring Strength
Resilience – the ability to stay strong, even when facing tough times – is essential for greater wellness. It’s easy to forget that no one is immune from vulnerability and adversity. In learning to nurture our inner strength, we can find a way through the situation and build healthier behaviors.
Increase Your Awareness
The first step in harnessing resilience is to acknowledge our feelings and experiences. It can be difficult to recognize emotions like anger, sadness and fear as legit responses. However, by giving voice to our inner struggles and exercising self-compassion, we can work on building a strong foundation.
Focus on Self-Care
When difficult times come, it’s important to take care of your mental and physical health. Resist the temptation to overexert yourself or take on too much. Here are some self-care tips that could help in the long run:
- Prioritize sleep and a good diet
- Explore ways to manage stress and anxiety
- Create space and time to be creative
- Establish healthy boundaries with people and situations
- Engage in pleasurable activities like outdoor walks
Practice Gratitude
Gratitude helps us to recognize the positive in our lives, even when the odds are against us. To practice gratitude, you can start by writing down the things you are thankful for. This can be anything – from the small, everyday joys such as a cup of tea, or something bigger like a supportive community.
Reframe Challenges
It can be helpful to adjust the way we look at life’s challenges. This doesn’t mean disregarding negative experiences but rather, finding ways to use them in our favor. For example, ask yourself: What quality of strength can I gain through this circumstance? How can I use this to reach my goals in life?
2. Weathering Adversity: Practical Strategies to Build Strength
1. Learn to Express Your Feelings
Feeling overwhelmed by adversity? One of the most helpful strategies for weathering tough situations is learning to express your feelings in appropriate ways. Take some time to reflect on the emotions you’re experiencing and be honest with yourself. Write down your thoughts and feelings in a journal or talk to someone close to you. When you express the emotions that come to the surface, you open yourself up to a more positive mindset.
2. Take Care of Yourself
It would be wise to prioritize taking care of yourself during the stormy times. Begin with the basics of eating healthy, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep. Pay attention to how you’re feeling and looking after yourself. Adding self-care activities, such as a nice treat like a massage or manicure, or luxuriating in an evening of favorite tunes and a warm bath can help you cope during difficult times.
3. Nurture Your Relationships
Interacting with supportive and understanding people can be an important coping mechanism when times are hard. Lean into your friendships and the relationships you have with family and loved ones. Find a friend who will listen without judgment and provide encouragement and motivation.
4. Look For New Opportunities
Adversity doesn’t have to derail your plans. Resetting and looking at the situation from a different perspective can help you identify new opportunities. Think of this challenge as a springboard for personal growth or timely new opportunities. How can you use this to your advantage?
5. Adjust to Change
Be prepared to adjust to the change in your life or environment and find a way forward. Count your blessings for the things that you do have, like the ones mentioned above – friends and family, mental and physical health, or preferred activities that can still be access.
6. Take Time to Recognize Your Accomplishments
Replace feelings of defeat by being proud of yourself and all you’ve achieved. Make a list of things you’ve done that you’re proud of. Maybe building a new skill or taking on a side hustle, whatever it might be, recognize each of your accomplishments, no matter how small.
3. Learning from Adversity: Openness to Growth and Opportunity
When faced with adversity, it can be easy to give up and focus on the negative. However, taking the opportunity to not only reflect on the experience, but to use it as a learning opportunity and a catalyst for growth is key. Embracing adversity can be beneficial in many ways, and this article will explore 3 key ideas of how can you keep a positive outlook and use difficult experiences to empower yourself.
Reflect: It is important to take time to process the hardship instead of simply pushing away the emotions and frustration. Looking at the experience with a level head and objectively analyzing what can be taken away from it helps to put it into perspective. Take the time to contemplate the depths of your experience. Questions such as, what can I learn? What can I do differently next time? Can help to gain insight into the situation and how it can be used to further growth.
Self-Awareness: Becoming mindful is essential when navigating difficult circumstances. Staying in tune with your thoughts and feelings, noting when there is a push away from the emotions and feeling accepting of them can be powerful. It can be difficult to accept responsibility for the situation, however, recognizing how you may have contributed to it, or had a hand in creating it can be freeing and lead to new perspectives.
Be Open to Opportunity: During challenging times, it can be easy to become focused on the loss and the difficulty. However, remaining open to new opportunity and growth can turn the experience on its head. Looking for the silver lining, however unlikely it may seem can lead to powerful experiences. Looking for new strategies and still seeing potential will help to open you up to creating positive outcomes out of difficult times.
Conclusion: Adversity can be daunting and can be the source of inspiration and growth, and how you choose to approach it is essential for a positive outcome. Practicing self-reflection, self-awareness, and staying open to opportunity can help you navigate your way through difficult times and to gain insight and knowledge from the experience.
4. Amplifying Resilience for Lasting Well-Being
In these trying times, resilience is essential for lasting well-being. Not only does resilience help us through the tough bits, but it also enables us to enjoy life’s joys even more. Here are several ways to start creating a routine and environment that amplify resilience for lasting well-being.
Create a Routine
- Start each day with a plan – Set aside just five to ten minutes for mapping out how the day will go
- Brain breaks – Make sure you take some time throughout the day to move, meditate, make art, read, cook
- Connect with yourself – Pay attention to how you’re feeling, and take time to process it
Establish a Connection with Nature
- Go outside – With mandatory lockdowns and social distancing, we may have to be creative about ways of engaging with nature. But encourage yourself to do so whenever possible.
- Grow something – One of the best ways to connect with a natural environment is to grow something. From succulents in pots, to home gardens, to house plants – there are many ways to engage with nature in a city environment.
Make Connections with Others
- Make time for meaningful conversations – Conversation is valuable, especially when having meaningful conversations with friends and family
- Find ways to serve others -You don’t need to leave your home to find ways to show care and compassion to others in your community
- Social media connectivity – Connect with people on social media, especially if you’re not able to be with them physically
Ensure Lasting Well-Being
- Work on mental wellness – Self-care is more important than ever. Consider different ways to nurture your mental wellbeing, such as yoga, therapy, journaling, and even a virtual pub quiz with friends.
- Commit to a practice – A practice that’s woven into the fabric of life: for many, this may be a spiritual practice; for some, it may be a practice of gratefulness; or it may simply be a practice of deep presence.
By committing time and effort into building resilience, we can not only make it through difficult times, but also come out of them even stronger. By taking the given steps to amplify resilience, we have the potential to create a better, more enjoyable future.
The strength to face adversity is something we all need, and resilience and wellness can help us gain it and flourish through tough times. So to build our strength and create a healthier, more positive future – remember to practice resilience and wellness in your daily life. Let’s face life’s adversities together, and together, be strong.
