What is resilience?…. Resilience can be defined as “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity”.  Or “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”.  Stress resilience is essentially the ability to recover quickly from stressors – to bounce back.  Those with emotional and stress resilience tend to accept what comes at them with flexibility rather than rigidity — ie.  “this is tough, but I know things will get better”.  Resilience makes me think of an old country song….  “There’s a tree out in the back yard that never has been broken by the wind… and the reason it’s still standing… it was Strong Enough to Bend”.  The tree was resilient and resilience is something that we can learn to have.  Here are some traits of resilient people from Psychology Today.  Happy Resilience! 

1. They know their boundaries.   Resilient people know the difference between themselves and temporary suffering. 
2. They keep good company.  Resilient people tend to associate with resilient people. 
3. They cultivate self-awareness.  Having a healthy self-awareness enables us to identify our physical and psychological needs.
4. They practice acceptance.   Acceptance is not about giving up and letting the stress take over, it’s about leaning in to experience the full range of emotions and trusting that we will bounce back.
5. They’re willing to sit in silence.   Mindfulness — being in the presence of the moment without judgment or avoidance. It takes practice, but it’s one of the purest forms of healing and resilience-building.
6. They don’t have to have all the answers.  We can find strength in knowing that it’s okay to not have it all figured out and trusting that we will gradually find peace and knowing when our mind-body-soul is ready.
7. They have a menu of self-care habits.  Resilient people “do self-care”.  Whether it’s yoga, exercise, nature, breathing — have self-care that  works for you.  For self-care inspiration, check out Karen Horneffer-Ginter’s, self-care poster.
8. They enlist their team.  The most resilient among us know how to reach out for help.
9. They consider the possibilities.  We can train ourselves to ask which parts of our current story are permanent and which can possibly change. Can this situation be looked at in a different way that I haven’t been considering?
10. They get out of their head.  We can find reprieve by getting the thoughts out of our head and onto our paper.  Journaling and writing can be very healing.

 Namaste,