OVERCOMING ADVERSITY AND BUILDING RESILIENCE

What are adversity and resilience?

Adversity means a state or instance of serious difficulty or misfortune, which may be due to the loss of family members, break up, divorce, accidents, critical illness, financial struggles, career setbacks, business downturn, natural disasters or even war.

Different people respond differently when faced with adversity. Some may even suffer a mental breakdown affecting their ability to function normally, socialise, study, or work. Recovery in such cases is a long, and sometimes difficult, process. Some may never return to their old selves, because they lack resilience, described as an ability to bend but not break and gradually recover from difficult situations.

Resilience requires acceptance. Initially, accepting the adverse event or situation may be challenging but coming to terms with what happened paves the way towards fixing the problem. It involves searching for meaning and purpose in life, as well as some regret, resentment, and blame for oneself or others. Sometimes, with effort, one can still repair the situation. If the damage is irreversible, it's important not to dwell on it and move on. This requires strong willpower and resilience. When overwhelmed, people may indulge in wine or drugs to anaesthetize themselves, which ultimately leads to even worse consequences. Different people need different amounts of time to address and recover from their negative emotions. Many need support and empathy, rather than judgement. If one’s negative emotions are so powerful that they affect their eating, sleeping and health, help from a doctor, therapist or psychiatrist may be necessary.

My adversity experience

When my dad passed away in my late 20s, it took me about ten years to release. Initially, I went through denial and regret. The pain and grief stopped me from sleeping properly and I had to rely on pills for the first three months. My doctor advised me to do more exercise. I went to the gym but couldn’t stop overthinking. Later, I found dancing helpful as listening to music and remembering steps fully occupied my brain. It was then when I realized that exercising is critical to our mental health.

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Addressing negative feelings

We cannot ignore our feelings, and we must accept that negative emotions may last long. Self-acceptance is crucial at this stage; we must accept our weakness and be patient for our hearts to be healed. Instead of focusing on immediate remedial action, we may need to talk to someone we trust (friends, family, therapist, or coach) to release our emotions, and to take a break to allow our mind and body to rest and gradually recover. Even after a meaningful rest, sorrow and pain may persist but gradually we will learn how to handle it to prevent it from overtaking our lives. Life must go on and we must adapt to a new norm and accept the changes. By reducing focus on the issue, we will free our energy for our career, business, health, personal growth, relationships, or passion.? Accepting the fact that life cannot be perfect is helpful.

I suggest two methods to minimise overthinking:

1)?????? when you want to stop thinking about something, keep counting from 1 to 7 until you successfully shift your brain to something else,

2)????? initiate a meditative state by deep breathing and focusing on your inhale and exhale, which will help to reset your brain.

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Accepting reality and avoiding self-blaming

When facing life's difficulties and setbacks, many people become entangled. They go through excessive ruminating, denying the facts and self-blaming, which usually stops them from moving on.

One must accept that events cannot be undone and stay optimistic believing the tough situation will pass. Reflecting on the situation can help to prevent recurrence and to assess whether action taken was optimal and if not, devise corrections.

Many people are prone to worrying about the worst-case scenarios. However, this kind of worry only takes away their peace at present and cannot help to prevent anything from happening in the future. They waste their time and energy on overthinking and projecting, which is not constructive. Instead, they should focus on exploring solutions and taking action helping to leave the tough circumstances behind. Fostering a positive and constructive mindset is crucial to finding the way out.

Challenges and difficulties are integral part of life

Difficulties and setbacks are an integral part of one’s life. That's where the positive mindset comes in. Instead of expecting our life to be smooth, we should accept that challenges and obstacles will visit us anytime. Therefore, we should feel grateful when things run smoothly, and when obstacles appear, we should treat them as a surprise exam to showcase our abilities. Experience gained from confronting adversity, will equip us to cope with unexpected changes and challenges. This is essential to fostering resilience, the ability to bend down without breaking and eventually rebound.

When I faced work and life challenges, I relied on reading to enrich my knowledge, broaden perspectives and tune into a positive, constructive and growth mindset. I also learned to recognize that while I cannot change the situation, I can change my attitude towards it. Thanks to this approach, my resilience has continued to grow through various challenges.

I always remind my coachees that their resilience is their superpower which they can use to support others through life's challenges.

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Embracing changes and cultivating a growth mindset

Embracing challenges and setbacks and regarding them as opportunities for learning and growth will turn us into a tougher and better person. Our mind processes information and makes decisions through its emotional and rational sides. When our emotional mind is struggling with negative emotions stemming from misfortune, our logical brain cannot force it to forget and recover quickly. However, our logical mind can still highlight positives that are happening and not allow the negative incident to overshadow everything. Cultivating a growth mindset means training our brain to shift our attention to positive events and devise strategies to overcome challenges. This is a slow process, and we still need patience to wait for the negative emotions to subside and vanish. Through the process of accumulating experience in overcoming life difficulties we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and of how our minds operate. ?

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Mechanism for building resilience

Staying optimistic and forward looking. Optimism is a critical first step in building resilience. Although a challenging situation may last longer than expected, it is important to remember that challenging times will be over ultimately, and that brighter days will arrive. It is like walking through a dark tunnel and trusting that light will ultimately appear even though it is unclear how long the tunnel is. Bear in mind that although one of your life aspects is less than ideal at the moment, you still have other roles to play, and you should not let negativity overwhelm you.

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Focusing on positive emotions. It takes an effort, but it helps your recovery to focus on positive events happening around you. People frequently fixate on negative events and ignore good things that still appear in their lives. Train your brain to deliberately search for positivity in your life. Practicing gratitude is a good way to attune to positives.? It helps to create positive thoughts and emotions. A helpful exercise is to write down positive events or things you feel grateful for each day. I recommended “3 Minute Positivity Journal” by Kristen Butler where you can write down your mood, positive events, gratitude, daily affirmations and goals.

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Positive reframing is to use a positive lens to see negative events. The idea involves reinterpreting a challenging situation positively, offering a way to shift in your mindset. Negative experiences cause distress but also present learning opportunities. Therefore, when encountering a painful event, you should remind yourself not to allow the negatives overshadow the whole situation. Positive reframing emphasises recognising positive outcomes. Typically, when one chapter ends another begins. Letting goes of someone or something negative or unsuitable frees up space for someone or something better to enter your lives. It allows those experiencing a breakup, divorce, or job loss, to look ahead with hope, trusting that someone or something more suitable will arrive at the right time.

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Journaling. Journaling is a healing and self-care process. You can write down your thoughts and feelings to connect and to better understand your deeper self. During the process, you can accept and address your feelings. You can write down what you have done well to practice self-affirmation and raise your self-worth. The objective is to find a balanced perspective by not dwelling too much on the issue. You can also write down your failures or mistakes. The goal is not to self-blame but to take stock and reflect on the root causes as well as exploring ways to do better next time. Keep reminding yourself that life is not about perfection, but a continuous journey of improvement.

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Exercising self-love and restoring inner peace play a critical role. You must understand "you hold the key to your happiness". Do not rely on others to contribute because their willingness and the scope of their input are totally out of your control. You are the one in charge of taking care of your body and mind. You must make space for self-care and self-healing and understand that prioritizing your well-being is not selfish but being responsible. You need to be fit mentally and physically to maintain meaningful relationships with people in your life. It is worth testing which tools of self-help suit you best, whether it is journaling, meditating, focusing on passions and hobbies, exercising, walking in the nature or just talking to someone.

Sometimes, when hurt, people allow their resentment to build up and hurt themselves. Forgetting and forgiving help lighten the emotional burden; without letting go and moving on, suffering will continue. One must realise that it's important to close one chapter and move on to the next.? The objective is resuming inner peace.

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Taking a step back to see a broader sky and sea. When you are too focused on a problem, the bigger it becomes. Remember that the struggle stems not so much from the problem itself but your attitude towards the problem. Shifting your attention towards somewhere you can control and take action is the only way to help relieve pain and get some feeling of autonomy and control. A walk in nature, a holiday or a career break are all good ways to refresh ourselves and discover new perspectives.

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Identifying your meaning in life. When you suffer in an adverse situation, you may forget you are valuable to someone else in the world. Those who love you want to see you free from pain. Your survival and happiness are critical to them. Reminding yourself of that can help shift your focus towards those who care for you rather and away from the unpleasant situation.

For example, a father, the family's breadwinner, lost his job, which caused him extreme pain and inner turmoil. Although he is not important to his company, he must not lose sight of the fact that he is very important to his wife and children, and his existence and happiness are the pillars of his family's wellbeing. He also is a role model to his children, and he can choose to keep complaining about his situation or stay constructive and use this opportunity to demonstrate resourcefulness and resilience.

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Diversifying and rebalancing. Individuals should allocate their time and energy wisely and aim to strike balance in their lives, without letting one aspect dominate. Usually, pain and frustration set in when things go wrong in an area we value and care about the most. It's important to remember that it is not the end of the world and that allowing it to overshadow everything is to self-sabotage the process of remediation. Balance, although not easy to achieve in a crisis, is key.

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My coaching mission and vision

One of my coaching missions is to assist individuals in arming themselves to confront and conquer life’s challenges. My vision is to exert a positive influence, aiding them in becoming more competent, so they can support themselves and those around them. When my coachees share with me how they feel empowered by insight gained during our sessions into assisting others, extending the rippling effect of positive influencing, it brings me a strong sense of satisfaction.