“In yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you truly love. It will not let you stray.”  Rumi 

“There are different wells within us

some fill with each good rain,

others are far, far, too deep for that.”

W.B.Yeats (13 June 1865-28 January 1939)

Resilience is the capacity to withstand difficulties and to recover quickly from illness or adverse circumstances or any major life changes.

The capacity of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused by comprehensive stress. These can include emotional and mental knock backs. It implies buoyancy.

Methods of developing Resilience

- Establishing a sense of balance and a sense of proportion.

- Examining all challenging encounters and retaining a sense of humour all helps in the process of building resilience.

- Resilience is an aid to problem solving skills. The ability to recognise your own emotions and those of others.

- Understanding and accepting our strengths and weaknesses is linked into exercising self-control.

- A willingness to face and overcome difficulties rather than continuing to avoid problems. Ostrich like sticking my head in the sand.

- Learning to develop optimised thinking patterns. Accepting a mistake, facing it and not hanging on the outcome or wallowing in the misery of a disappointment or failure.

- Developing social skills and accepting assistance from others when needed.

The key points about resilience are an ability to bounce back during times of adversity. It is a positive adaptation through life’s experiences using the support available to us, finding a way through the morass of difficulties to build on our physical and emotional strengths.

Recently our Well-being centre made available sessions of chair yoga. I have been trying the weekly sessions this year.

There are many components associated with resilience. These are aimed at helping me to devise coping strategies with overcoming/conquering difficulties and challenges I may encounter regularly with optimism. Always maintaining a sense of humour, control and competence. The aim is to hold onto hope and the sense of developing spirituality.

The way ahead

Reading and writing, keeping a regular journal in which I note quotes and reflections. By building on my resilience I hope to become renewed and reinvigorated.

Orangeblossom

A Moodscope member