Resilience and Mindfulness
What is the connection?
How well do we cope with adversity?
The better we can manage our responses to adversity the more resilient we can be.
Twenty twenty has certainly been testing our resilience in an uncertain environment. Our resilience has been challenged by changes to our working life, our ability to exercise and to destress. For many of us we have lost many of the connections we had. Not only that but additional stress about finances, job stability and our health have added to our anxiety. We need to be more resilient than anytime before.
How can mindfulness help us to build resilience?
Mindfulness is taking time to connect with ourselves and manage our stress better. Resilience allows us to keep going when times are hard and too keep trying no matter what happens. By using mindfulness exercises and activities we give ourselves a process to help us to build resilience.
Mindfulness helps us to slow down and develop our self-awareness. Once we are able to identify how we are feeling, what we are feeling and why then we are better able to build our resilience.
Why is mindfulness important?
Mindfulness activities help us to manage our stress and create a place of calm. When we are calm and relaxed our thinking processes are clearer and as a result we can look at our stressors and make good decisions and plans. We can also relook at our problems and decide if they are real problems or if we’ve just created an anxiety spiral for ourselves.
When we practice mindfulness we give ourselves time to process through what is actually causing us anxiety and stress. Once we identify our stressors we have the opportunity to deal with those items
If I am trying to focus on a breathing activity and an issue or worry keeps coming into my brain. I can write that issue down and tell myself I will address that once I have finished my breathing exercises.
When I am calm and centered I can then come back to this challenge, issue or negative thought and ask myself the following questions:
What is the real issue?
Is it a real issue or have I just imagined a worst case scenario?
Why is it causing me concern right now?
Once we have identified the cause of our anxiety we then can start to analyse how we can best manage it. This allows us to make a rational plan to manage a situation rather than just reacting to it.
We can then identify the best way to approach that situation. Using our sphere of influence management process we can better understand how much control we have over a situation. We need to identify:
Is this within my sphere of influence or impact?
If it is not then there is very little we can do about it. But there might be things we can do that will help us to minimise our risks in this situation. (e.g. wearing a mask, a seatbelt, or sunscreen.)
If it is something I can take action on or is something that I can control then I can put in place some plans to mitigate what will happen.
Activities to build resilience
From a place of calmness we can take the following steps:
Identification
What is causing us stress?
Is it under my control or not?
Why is it important?
Why is it worrying me?
2. Management
What can I do about it?
Is there a better way to do this?
3. Create a plan
What should I do?
How long does it take?
4. Follow the plan
Just start, take that first step and get on with the solution.
5. Review and Revise
Is it working?
If it is not working? Why not?
What might be a better way to manage this?
Personal Reflection
For me I was most anxious when COVID-19 was spreading within my country and community and it wasn’t known who had been exposed and was unknowingly spreading the virus. I was concerned about what might happen if I or anyone in my family had to go into quarantine or take isolation measures.
How would I manage that, what would be the impact on my family? My brain started working on worst case scenarios and I was becoming anxious about situations that never even happened.
To help calm my brain I listed what were the worst possible realistic scenarios. Breaking these down into specific events I reviewed what I could control and what I could not control. Those items that I could not control I looked at what I could do to mitigate, minimise or manage those items.
I then wrote down a plan should anyone be exposed and need to go into stay at home notice, quarantine at home and hospitalisation. I didn’t spend too much time on these plans but just having done them I felt much more in control and my anxiety levels reduced as a result.
Now to date none of these plans have needed to be implemented. But knowing that I can bring them out should they be necessary I feel in control and able to manage the situation no matter what happens moving forward.
Our ability to develop our resilience starts with mindfulness. With mindfulness we can make space to identify and manage our stressors. This in turn helps us to build our resilience and ability to keep going even when we feel overwhelmed.
