6 Tiny Things Emotionally Resilient People Do Differently Than Everyone Else
If you can recover once, you can recover again.
Michael Tucker | Unsplash Emotional resilience is a wonderful skill to have and develop — even strengthen. But are we doing it right? Are we lacking in one aspect of it or another?
Many of us might shed a tear at the moment or feel initially demoralized or overwhelmed but then pick ourselves up and keep going, while others might be stoic at the moment but never continue on the path thereafter. So, the initial snapshot of our reactions does not convey the full or the more meaningful part of the story.
Here's what we tend to get wrong about emotional resilience
1. Our understanding of emotional resilience is fundamentally distorted
We tend to think of emotional resilience as how we respond to challenges at the moment, whether we cry, lose hope, become paralyzed or numb. But emotional resilience has many factors, 12 factors according to a study in the Journal of Management and Labour Studies, and by far the most important of them is how successfully we bounce back.
One of the main culprits of our misunderstanding of resilience is popular culture. Action heroes (who we consider super resilient) are always portrayed as stoic under extreme pressure, while protagonists in rom-coms or dramas ('regular' people) are more likely to cry, crumple, or give up under pressure (only to recover later during an inspirational belted-ballad montage).
These visible cues of 'strength' and 'weakness' are not only simplistic, they tell us nothing of the inner psychological-emotional processes that determine resilience, and they bias our perception of resilience toward immediate reactions and away from how well we bounce back over time.
This leads to us making three incorrect assumptions.
2. We believe crying indicates a lack of emotional resilience
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Crying is complicated, and it's determined by factors such as the context and subjective meaning of the situation, gender (men are socialized to avoid crying and therefore tend to cry less), empathy (higher empathy can make you cry more easily), general stress levels, personality traits such as extraversion, and more.
The American Psychological Association has found crying to be a highly effective mechanism for restoring emotional and psychological balance — and that's what resilience is all about.
3. We assume resilience is consistent
We assume the resilience a person displays in one scenario implies how resilient they would be in another. It doesn't.
A trained marine might be amazingly resilient in combat situations but become extremely dysregulated (e.g., anxious and overwhelmed) when having a stressful 'relationship talk' or confrontation with their spouse and struggling to manage and express their feelings.
4. We think our emotional resilience is set and stable, but it's neither.
The research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology demonstrates that resilience can be built by both positive and negative experiences. But — and here's the key part — it's how we process such experiences that determine whether they end up making us (resilient) or breaking us.
There are many established evidence-based approaches to improving resilience, such as gaining emotional support, deepening connection to others, having purpose, optimism, mindfulness, enhancing our emotional vocabulary, and others.
The story we tell ourselves about the hardship we went through and what we tell ourselves about how we got through it is both critical and typically neglected in resilience research, as shown by studies from San Francisco State University.
To build resilience, you have to be able to acknowledge your strengths (and be specific about them) so you can draw on those same attributes or coping mechanisms during future hardships. It's hard to draw on your coping mechanisms when your story is that you don't have any. Resilience is built by getting through hardships and recognizing the resources within us and around us that helped us do so.
Here's how to improve emotional resilience by editing your story
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Complete the following sentences (in writing, preferably) with the details of an emotionally difficult experience you had.
1. For me, the hardest moments were ...
Name several things you found the most challenging.
2. List the things you did to help cope or contribute to moments of better coping
This may be support from friends/family, sticking to a schedule, tackling a project, connecting with people you hadn't been in touch with for a while, exercise, nature walks, meditation, self-compassion, asking for help, helping others, distraction, promising yourself a reward if you get through a task or a hard day, etc.
3. Choose one of the 'coping' items you listed and write a short paragraph about how you felt at the time
Why was the strategy helpful? How could you use it when facing future hardships (of any kind)?
4. Do the exercise every day
Start with one short essay a day until you finish your list, while adding items to the list as you go (because writing about the experience will remind you of other coping mechanisms you used).
5. When you next face hardship, go through your list
Select the coping strategies you could adapt to the new situation.
6. Now, change your story
Look at your (growing) list of coping mechanisms and remind yourself that when challenges come, you'll be upset and distressed and even shut down for a while, but you have a whole list of tools and resources to help you bounce back and if you can recover once — you can recover again.
Guy Winch is a distinguished psychologist and acclaimed author. His work has been featured in The New York Times and Psychology Today.