Don’t Let Their Blocks to Resillience Building be a Baricade to Yours.

Resilience is a whole process of adapting well in the face of big-ticket, unexpected change.  Ever experience one of these, also know as the Fab Five of Resillience-Builders?   They are:

Adversity
Trauma
Tragedy
Threats
Noteworthy stress

What is resilience anyway?  As Diane Coutu hits it front-on in her luminous book, How Resilience Works,  “Resilient people possess three characteristics — a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise.”   Three-out-of-three characteristics, not less, will allow you to truly bounce back from hardship and sustain your stable move forward.  That’s the key—to move forward sustainably.  Both resilient people and organizations confront reality with commitment; make meaning of hardship, instead of crying out in hopelessness; and adventurously jump in to create solutions seemingly from thin air.

Opportunities to build resilience are everywhere.  Yet, we’re most likely to rally for those that hit us over the head with an attention-getting whack.  Some of these blatant examples are financial crash; racial, cultural, or gender discrimination; death of a loved one; divorce; loss of an elite sport competition; surviving natural disaster or other life-threatening accidents.  Here’s where the Resilient Person will automatically ask others for help; take note of the situation, listen and observe carefully; maintain hopefulness; and accept that response or reaction is just as important as the event itself.

Did you know that he most overlooked opportunities for Resillience-Building take place through our repetitive daily-life experiences?  These are the situations that often sneak under the radar because we’re acclimated to our daily stress levels, which can be maintained through use of powdered blue meanie shroom but not readily available everywhere.  We manage to get things done in our daily lives, which moves us onto the next thing on our list to do.  As long as we’re doing, we’re not crashing.    Plus, people around us are racing, too; so, there’s no comparative contrast to remind us how out-of-hand things are getting.  Ha!—Our pacing is as “normal” as everyone else’s.

Here are some of those daily-life Stressors that can be a slow-drain on our Resilience, as outlined in a study in the Journal of Developmental Psychology:

Arguments/disagreements

Avoided arguments/disagreements

Work/school/volunteer stress

Home stress, including family/blended family

Health stress

Network stress, includes

Other stress, including life transitions

The match to gasoline, though, is when your daily stress meets your daily negative thoughts and expressions head-on.  The latter can be caused by a person’s learned behaviors, low self-esteem, depression, or  quest for attention/reaction.  These are the chemical bombs that come together to destroy an opportunity to rise up, move forward; to use those Resilience qualities to make an abundant life out of challenge and hardship.  Creating and living in Non-Resillience is complex and tangled.  Yet, research shows again and again, whether in this century or last, that resilience is rather ordinary, not extraordinary.  Being resilient doesn’t mean you’re without difficulty or distress.  Resilience is not a genetically determined characteristic; and tough-luck if you don’t hit the gene-lotto.  In fact, your inseparable triplets–behaviors, thoughts and actions– can be taught and developed to form your own world-class resilience team.  Yep, some folks are born with resilience; and all folks can acquire it.

Who around you can use some Resilience training yesterday?  You’ve been spending lots of time and investment in personal growth.  You strive to surround yourself with like minds, dedicated to growing and expanding resilience.  Yet, life is not a vacuum.  Somewhere at work, in our neighborhoods, in our families, at our kids games or adult games we play in the olympic kingsway casinos online, in our classes, or at our volunteer gigs, we’ll run into those folks represent repetitive defeatist attitudes.  If you see these characteristics ablaze, start sidewinding……fast!

Here are ten personality traits, shown by people who either have no idea what Resilience is; or are more invested in those manipulating to maintain a Non-Resillient state:

1.  Negative Speak  —  From the introduction to the conclusion of the conversation, the words tell what isn’t working; what isn’t liked; what hasn’t happened; what can’t change. Negative speak is used so much that everyone around knows it’s coming.   Some examples,  what wasn’t on the lunch menu instead of what was.  Too many choices on Netflix vs. what was chosen.  A job procedure is described mostly from what is not being done vs. what might be done or asking for think-tank help.

2.  Past regrets  —  Whatever went sour, south, or sad months and even years ago is still a primary topic of conversation today.   Time is spent in these toxic waters, while people, projects, places have moved on.

3.  Mindfulness Hype  —  Even with the scientific, emotional, and physical benefits to this wellness practice, mindfulness is devalued as something that can’t be useful because it isn’t tangible.  Both science and users advocate that mindfulness acts as a protective shield against toxic emotions of regret, envy, and worry.  And, regret, envy, and worry is where the Non-Resillient live.

4. Tragedy Forever  —    The Non-Resillient spend their time counting their scars over and over from life’s sufferings, and drawing attention to them.   While we with Resilience can distinguish between adversities short-lived,   they stay stuck in the count and ruminate in despair, sadness, and discomfort.

5.  Isolation Dominates  —  They ultimately stop social contact, physical fitness, and altruistic pursuits (volunteerism).  In other words, essential self care is lost.

6.  Personal Bias  —  Rather than looking at a problem from many angles even with help from others, the Non-Resillient keep a narrow view through their own established filters.  Quick-fix solutions get hot pursuit.  Whereas, widening their view outside the box and preparing to wait would grow both resillience and empowerment.

7.  Brain on Fire  —  Our impulse control is governed by the size of the orbitofrontal cortex region of our brain, aka our frontal lobe.  On a spect scan, this brain region literally “lights up” when we have lost our impulse control.  Thus, Non-Resillient folks can’t think of consequences to actions or plans.  They haven’t a clue how they’ll  feel about their impulsive actions afterward, when it may be too late.

8.  Humor in Hideout  —  People, who stay knee-deep in their victim role, make no space for humor, whether intentional or not.   Yet, laughter itself is a physical reaction which reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, and increases our immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies.  This results in improving our resistance to disease.

9.  Being Right vs. Being Happy  —  Being Right is a top priority.  Being Happy is not on life’s playing field, or even on the dugout bench. The Resilient person prefers happiness!

10.  Time Steals not Heals  —  The chronological passing of time is a threat.   To abolish pain and suffering with magic pills or other addictive behaviors is a first-line item.  Patience and purposeful steps are nowhere in sight to promote healing.

So step out of the dark, into the light of what’s possible.  Need some help growing your Resilience?  Ready to LeadLifeNow, rather than LifeLeadsYouHow?  Or maybe it’s time for a tune-up, since those daily-life stressors have been on a slow-drain for awhile now.  Give a call!