You may know people who fail, and then rise again and again with no apparent effort, you may wonder how they do it? But you may meet them later in your life, and find that they lose all that flexibility, so what happened? Have they run out of flexibility? Can they get it back?
I spoke with Andrea Marcellus, life coach, fitness expert, and author of the self-help book “The Way In” to research these questions, and discover new ways to enhance the critical trait of resilience.
What is flexibility?
We all face rejection and betrayal. We experience disappointments from a young age, whether in our families, our schools, or our communities, and we need ways to help us rise again. This ability to recover is resilience.
Flexibility gives you energy and the ability to deal with stress, pain, or loss in your life, without collapsing. Think about the rubber band, and how it regains its shape after being stretched, this ability is one of the characteristics of flexibility. Andrea defines flexibility as "the ability to expand", so bread dough may be the best analogy, as it expands and forms according to our experiences.
The importance of mentoring in adversity:
We all have a natural instinct to survive, but our level of resilience is closely related to the way we were raised, and the adversities we had to face. In other words, our upbringing and life experiences determine how much more resilience we have than our nature.
The key question, says Andrea, is: Have you learned to manage yourself with positive mentorship after adversity?
In this case, one or more of these statements are likely to be true:
- You were given the space and time to express your feelings and express your disappointments.
- You've learned how to deal with your disappointment and get over it.
- You've learned to see life in all its ups and downs from a larger perspective.
- You've learned to rethink failures without resorting to defensive positions, such as making others unworthy of your presence in their lives, or belittling them by claiming that you don't care about them that much.
If the above statements are not true, then one or more of these things may be true:
- You were brought up to take things or move on, and get used to getting over them with willpower.
- You've heard that life is a battlefield full of winners and losers, so you become hostile, and all your talk about your efforts is "fighting."
- You've heard that the one who hits first wins, so You've learned to deal with problems with nervous or emotional words and actions.
- You were brought up to believe that suffering silently is a virtue, when talking about your struggle is a form of complaining.
Regardless of how you are raised, all people can enhance their resilience. Here are 3 ingredients that Andrea recommends to create an appropriate environment to enhance it:
“Our greatest weakness is giving up, and the best way to succeed is always to try again.” (Thomas Edison).
1. Having a strong goal:
What is your purpose in life? It's your right to live a life that excites and motivates you, but it's easy to get caught up in feelings of distress, derailed by selfish ambitions, or lose touch with what you truly love and care about.
According to Andrea, you have to find “your focus, your purpose, and an ongoing journey beyond your capabilities, because when you stimulate your mind to achieve a goal, it is a growth mindset full of positive opportunities, innovative, unfamiliar, and free of prejudice.”
So, having a strong purpose in life is directly related to your resilience, perhaps we should replace “When you love what you do, you will never feel the burden of work in your life” with “When you love what you do, you build resilience for life.”
2. Brain training:
Recent studies show that brain capacity can be improved as we age. Andrea confirms that our brain's positive centres, which include the hippocampus, cerebellum, and prefrontal cortex, can be trained just as you exercise the body so that they develop the ability to get back up when things go wrong.
Tara Swart, MD, neuroscientist, executive consultant, and author of “The Source” offers these tips to help boost your brain's ability to be more resilient:
- Start by strengthening yourself physically: give your brain a rest by sleeping 7-9 hours every night.
- Hydrate your body by supplying neurons with half a litre of water for every 13 kilograms of body weight.
- Make sure to supply your brain with oxygen by walking 5,000 to 10,000 steps daily.
- Do 150 minutes of exercise a week, and meditate for 20 minutes a day.
- Take supplements that fit your needs.
- Eat as much fatty fish, eggs, nuts, grains, leafy green vegetables, avocados, olives, and coconut oil as possible.
- Make sure to drink four cups of green tea a week.
3. Supportive community:
Life is more difficult than going it alone, you need people you can trust to share your journey and help you deal with, rethink, learn from and grow through each experience.
Here are the following tips:
- Make sure you surround yourself with people who don't underestimate you, or who expect you to be an optimist and give you the support you need.
- Create a circle of supportive people around you, in which no one has to put a smile on their face after a disappointment or adversity. Instead, it is offered support to deal with it, and restore its balance again.
- Consider following the example of someone resilient. Focus on the way he faces life and overcomes disappointments. Note that he is not motivated by pride, arrogance, ostentation, or bravado, but rather possesses an indomitable sense of personal control and resourcefulness, as it is often said, "The strength of others gives you strength."
In conclusion:
It is inevitable to face setbacks and hardships in this life, and it is very beneficial to show and share your feelings with others in the wake of loss or failure. We all need a little rest now and then to regain our balance and find our focus again. Having a strong purpose, training your mind, and building a community of supportive people are three things you can do to ensure that you recover in a healthy manner.
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