One of the ways us chicks can step into our girl power, is to be tough. And not in a mean way or a ‘bitchy’ way (how often are women accused of being bitchy when they are simply standing up for themselves? We guess that is a whole other topic!) and definitely not in a way that denies our femininity, but more about the internal toughness that happens when we are truly resilient.
Resilience is defined as the ability to quickly bounce back in times of adversity. There are two main types of resilience that we will talk about in the podcast, but for now, have a think about your resilience. How well do you bounce back when you are faced with challenging situations or people? Does your resilience change depending on how on top of things you are? We have a feeling that the more we take care of ourselves, with sufficient rest, nourishing food, interesting projects, connected relationships and a sense of being able to control our environments, the more resilient we are likely to be.
The literature on resilience tells us that the greater ability we have to savour beautiful moments in our lives, the better we deal with so-called negative events. Which is yet another reason why we are always parping on about you performing some kind of daily gratitude practice. In fact the relatively new branch of psychology that is known as ‘Positive Psychology’ has a whole series of exercises that help to build our ability to roll with the punches from the inside out.
In the podcast this week we will go through a cool way of looking at our strengths to build resilience when we have a problematic situation. Recognising strengths is a great way to get clear on what makes us tick. Generally our strengths are things we like about ourselves, and things we do well, so we tend to see them in a positive light. Interestingly sometimes we can hold ourselves back by doing too much of something we are good at. For example, if we like to do things well (or even perfectly), we might find ourselves not jumping in and having a go at something new, due to overdoing our ability to do things perfectly.
This week we would like you to have a think about your resilience. Do you think you are generally great at dealing with unexpected challenges, and what strengths help you along when unanticipated problems arise?
Remember the more we build up our resilience and resistance to stressors from the inside out, the less likely they will have a detrimental effect on us. So it’s worth being aware of what we can do to toughen up.
Check out this week’s podcast to run through a strategy with us.