What to do
Science doesn’t have all the answers on how one becomes resilient, but what we do know is that it requires learning to tap into both inner and external resources. I’ll touch on some of the most fundamental ones.
Connect with others
During difficult times, it is common to want to withdraw from the world. This can be for varied reasons, such as feelings of shame, the fear of being judged, or not wishing to be a drain on others. Although there is nothing wrong with wanting solitude during difficult times, it is also important that you stay in touch with people, at least to an extent. Research shows that the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder is higher for people who lack post-trauma social support (bear in mind that, even if you have friends and family, if you avoid seeing or talking to them entirely, then it will be impossible for them to help you).
People who choose to connect with others and nurture their relationships, as opposed to isolating themselves, tend to become better at coping with a hardship and growing through their experience. The emotional and instrumental social support you get from your intimate relationships, and from your communities, can also give you the motivation to handle stress in a healthy way.
So, when difficulties are overwhelming, try reaching out to others who can provide support. There are a few different ways you could do this. One is simply by talking about what you’re going through. It can be frustrating to talk to someone who just pretends that they’re listening or who is judgmental, so try to find someone who is accepting and good at listening. You could also try letting them know in advance that all you need is to be listened to. Another approach is to ask specifically for instrumental help, such as information, advice or help with daily tasks. More resilient people are usually aware that they can’t solve every problem on their own. You might find it especially difficult to ask for help if you’re used to handling problems on your own, or if you see relying on others as a sign of weakness. Try to remember that it takes courage to ask for help, and being in need simply means that you’re human.
Here are a few more ideas for how to connect with others and get support: if you exercise or go for a walk, try inviting someone else along. Make a commitment to call or email loved ones regularly. Make use of the power of play – laugh with friends or get silly. If there are social groups that share a common interest or hobby of yours, join them to exchange ideas or to get to know new people. Support others informally or through volunteer organisations; helping others makes us feel happy and valued.
Most importantly, don’t wait for a disaster to occur to connect; make sure you have supportive relationships that nurture your sense of self-worth and need for intimacy, which in turn can contribute to resilience. If you’re physically distant from your loved ones, look for ways to socially connect on a regular basis. Even the presence and support of a small number of people you can rely on can make a huge difference when adversity strikes.
Accept and focus on what you can control
About seven years ago, I was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, which is a type of nerve damage. For me, this chronic condition manifests itself as a constant sharp pain and burning sensation on my feet. My life was miserable for six months before the diagnosis, and the pain was unbearable. I could barely walk for five minutes at a time. Upon the diagnosis, I was prescribed medication that eased my pain. Although it’s manageable now, the pain is always there, and I’ll probably be on medication for the rest of my life. For the first few months, I had difficulty accepting this. Back then, I was 35 and had been physically very active before developing this illness. At least a hundred times I asked myself how it was possible. Rejecting and blaming myself, others or the world seemed to provide some relief but it didn’t get me anywhere.
Then one day I decided to stop wrestling with my pain and to start acknowledging it. This didn’t mean that I liked the situation – I hated it – but it provided me with the space to start being proactive and to find effective coping strategies. The more I accepted my situation and my pain, the less pain I felt. A study that involved experimentally inducing pain in 62 men and women showed the effectiveness of acceptance – those taught acceptance experienced less sensory pain compared with a control group who used simple distraction.
Note that acceptance is not about giving up or quitting. It’s about gently noticing what’s going on, and allowing unpleasant experiences to exist, without attempting to change or deny them. With acceptance, you can choose to do what really matters to you and follow your values more easily. In his book A Liberated Mind (2019), the American psychologist Steven Hayes, the founder of ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy), explains acceptance wonderfully, writing that it allows us to ‘feel and remember fully in the present’ thereby recognising all our experiences, including the painful ones, as gifts. He adds: ‘They are not all sweet smelling – some of them are tearful and fearful – but they are all precious.’
For me, acceptance led to action. Instead of banging my head against the wall, I chose to be proactive and redesigned my life: running was impossible, but I could swim, walk for half hour, or work out with weights as long as I was seated. As a lecturer, I loved standing and moving around, but I learned to be seated in the classroom for at least some of the time. I planned my travels and holidays in a way that would not vastly increase my pain, such as taking shorter walks in the city or avoiding long queues.
When adversity strikes, ask yourself ‘What am I able to do in this situation?’ and redirect your energy towards issues that you can influence. In the case of the current pandemic, of course you can’t fight its existence, but by gently accepting it with all its limitations and unpleasantness, you’ll have the opportunity to turn your attention to the things over which you do have control. As one of my favourite thinkers, the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning (1946): ‘When we are no longer able to change a situation … we are challenged to change ourselves.’
Practise staying with the discomfort of certain emotions
If you’re like many people, you might try to avoid your uncomfortable emotions by pushing them away. You might think that this gives you control. The trouble is, even if you have temporary success in regulating the discomfort this way, when you use avoidance as a default coping strategy, it will become counterproductive and keep you from becoming resilient to life’s stressors. A diary study involving dozens of volunteers showed how, the more that people tried to avoid or control their emotions on a given day, the less they tended to enjoy their activities that day, and the more negative emotions they felt. When you think about it, this is intuitive – of course it will be a challenge to enjoy life if you constantly avoid emotions or try to stop them, because you won’t be able to focus on the present moment, nor will you have the resources you need to truly engage in your daily tasks and activities.
Sure, it’s okay to use avoidance in certain circumstances to regulate your emotions, but don’t let it become habitual. Instead, try to establish a different kind of relationship with your emotions. For example, the next time you feel tough emotions, rather than pushing them away, ask yourself what exactly you’re feeling. Avoid using generic phrases such as ‘I’m feeling bad’ and try to be as specific as possible, such as ‘I’m feeling disappointed/guilty/frustrated’. Labelling your emotions will help decrease their intensity. Be curious and learn more about them. What’s the emotion telling you? What’s its purpose? If you’re feeling disappointed because your son has lied to you, your emotion might be pointing to the value of honesty in your life. Some emotions do feel difficult, but every emotion has a function. They are great sources of information about you, your values, and whether there are things that you want to change in your life.
Distance yourself from your thoughts
As a career coach and psychotherapist, I’ve seen many clients over the years who have become stuck in the destructive stories they tell themselves about a situation or event in their lives. We constantly tell ourselves stories about what kind of a person we are, about our relationships or our lives in general. Although this is a useful process to make sense of our thoughts, some of them aren’t helpful. For example, after a divorce, some of my clients believe that they are a failure, that they will never have a loving relationship again, or that they will always make poor choices. However, these thoughts are just thoughts, they don’t necessarily reflect the complete truth. When people believe these kinds of self-related thoughts, they often either avoid or withdraw, both unhelpful coping strategies in the long term.
In these kinds of situations, I help my clients separate from their thoughts; that is, to put a distance between themselves and their thoughts. In ACT, this is referred to as defusion. When we defuse, we look at our thoughts, not from them. This doesn’t mean that a particular thought will disappear, but it does mean that you’re choosing not to be driven by its unhelpful content. You simply step back and observe your thoughts as they come and go. Going back to the divorce example, when my clients think that they’re a failure or that they’ll always make poor choices, I ask them to see if they can look at these thoughts just as words, not as facts.
One technique I find particularly helpful is thanking the mind. Your mind might be telling you all sorts of stories, but you can literally thank your mind by saying ‘Thank you for your opinion, but I’m good,’ or ‘Thanks, I hear you. I think I’ll pass,’ or ‘That’s fine, thank you. Anything else?’ This exercise will show you that you have a choice, to either believe your thoughts and go where they want you to go (for example, withdrawing from social life), or to recognise them, but not get caught up with their content, and instead go where you want.
When you face a hardship, step out of your story by observing it and seeing your thoughts merely as thoughts, not facts. Remember, you don’t have to believe in every story you tell yourself.
Reframe difficulties as a challenge
Another strategy for building resilience is to find growth opportunities in adversity. Many people have told me they’ve found this especially useful for coping with unpleasant emotions and negative thoughts during the pandemic. For instance, I have a colleague with two kids who said he is grateful for the extra time with his children, now that he’s working from home. A client told me that, despite being isolated from family for a long time and feeling frustrated and scared, she is looking at the pandemic as an opportunity to do some inner reflection and to learn to be more comfortable with discomfort.
People who generally view stressors as a challenge and an opportunity to grow, as opposed to perceiving them as a threat, are indeed likely to cope better with them and less likely to experience negative wellbeing outcomes. You would be surprised how many opportunities one can find in a stressful situation, or even a traumatic life event – looking at things this way is known formally as ‘cognitive reappraisal’ or ‘cognitive reframing’. To help cultivate this mindset and support your resilience, try asking yourself questions such as ‘What can I learn from this situation?’, ‘What opportunity is there for me to grow?’, ‘What could be beneficial about this negative event?’, and ‘Is there anything I can be grateful for?’
Don’t mistake this approach for positive thinking, though. You’re not denying the negative or trying to make yourself think positively. Rather, you’re turning your situation into a source of inspiration and finding meaningful opportunities in it.
