How to Build Emotional Resilience
by Bonita Surges, Transformation Life Coach and President
Merkaba Coaching
September 9, 2020

While you are in the grasp of strong negative emotions it may seem difficult to build any resilience to life's less pleasurable experiences. It is possible though, and that's a thought you can bear in mind if you are experiencing excessive negative thoughts.

Why do some people give up and turn to unhealthy habits when experiencing negative emotions, while others just pick themselves up, dust themselves off and keep calm and carry on?  They're called coping skills, and anyone can develop them.   Just as a skydiver learns to adjust the parachute based on the wind and temperature of the air as he flies through the sky, we can learn to make adjustments to life’s twists and turns.  It is even possible to enjoy the ride!

     Psychological resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a crisis or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.
     Resilience exists when the person uses "mental processes and behaviors in promoting personal assets and protecting self
​     from the potential negative effects of stressors". Wikipedia
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 Be aware of how you’re feeling The better you know yourself, the easier it is to stay steady when storms blow through.  It’s easy sometimes to get caught up in the daily grind and lose touch with yourself.   Self-awareness is a key to freedom.   For example, you just ate your third donut of the day without even thinking about it.  It suddenly hits you that you had committed to a healthier way of eating just last week.  You immediately fall into self-loathing and self-criticism about how you’re such a loser and can’t even do this right.  The emotions of worthlessness and powerlessness fill your body and mind and your heart starts racing as your shoulders drop.   So how can your self-awareness response become one of empathy and determination? 

1. Pay attention to what you’re focusing on

Flexibility and adaptation are undoubtedly two traits that help people recover from bad situations. Learning where to place your focus is part of flexibility and adaptation.  Feeling entrenched in negative feelings makes it harder to remove oneself from those feelings and change direction.   In a way, emotions can be like quicksand or Chinese finger traps.  Are you focusing on your perceived failure or the negativity of the situation, or are you focused on moving through it and moving on?

1. Learn to let go

To come out on top, be willing to see that emotions grip you more tightly the more you focus on them, allow yourself to understand that emotions are transient, and then change direction.  Don't dwell on the fact that you didn't manage to quit smoking today.  See that you smoked less and are not going to let a temporary setback prevent you from doing your best the next day and the day after that.   Feel your emotions when they occur, acknowledge them, let them move on through you so you let go physically, then let go mentally so you can see the situation as a speed bump in Life's rear-view mirror.   Explore tools such as Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping) to help release emotions from your body.

1. See the positive possibilities

Recognize you can be hopeful, courageous, optimistic, liberated, powerful, joyful, and happy.  Just because you don't get something done the first time doesn't mean you won't get it done at all. No one writes a book, paints a portrait or drives a car the first time they try.  It’s a daily exercise that eventually achieves its goal.  Be gentle and patient with yourself.  You are worth the effort!



Is Your Life by Design?
By Bonita Surges, Transformation Life Coach and President, Merkaba Coaching

 Have you noticed there is so much pain, stress, and conflict everywhere we look these days? How can we change it? I believe we change it by making sure we individually exercise authentic self-leadership and work toward achieving self-mastery. When we do, we experience a joyful life and the ripple effect impacts everyone around us.

I believe every individual has a unique contribution to make to the planet; every individual is a unique piece of the humanity puzzle. When attempting to be someone other than one’s authentic self, a person leaves the puzzle fragmented. People start looking at others as the “reason” they are so unhappy or the "cause" of the conflict. We need for each person to shine authentically. My own journey has been quite the trip!

What is self-leadership? Self-leadership exists when we are living life as our authentic selves, when we are living life deliberately rather than simply reacting to circumstances and other people. Stephen R. Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was a powerful experience for me in my self-mastery journey. Among many other things, it taught me about being proactive - consciously choosing my response to people and circumstances. That led me to recognize I needed to know who I was to consciously choose. I've come to learn that one of the most valuable steps we can take toward self-mastery is deeply knowing who we authentically are. Not who we are supposed to be, or who we’ve become through our reactions to life's experiences. When we are exercising self-leadership and we encounter internal or external conflict, instead of looking at others or outside ourselves for the "cause," we stop and look in the mirror to see the growth opportunity, the opportunity for greater self-mastery.

Human Design is an assessment that provides an energy template for clearly identifying your authentic self - it never changes. Based on birth information, it identifies strengths and vulnerabilities. It identifies the areas of inner conundrums, inner conflicts. It shines a light on the magnificence of a person’s uniqueness. It helps us recognize our authentic self as the person we were designed to express in this lifetime.

Self-mastery is a life-long process and is evidenced by the degree to which our life contains more joy than pain. Karen Curry Parker of Quantum Alignment Systems, LLC has said “The greatest source of pain in anyone’s life is the degree to which their life is misaligned with their authentic self.” I believe that is true. When you are living your life in self-mastery, your life is by your own design and not mere reactions to circumstances. You know and honor your authentic self. You successfully reconcile conflicts internally as well as externally. You are a stronger and more effective leader of yourself and others. You genuinely shine.

A joyful life does not mean without challenges! It takes courage and perseverance to embark upon the journey to self-mastery. Are you up for it?
 


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