One of the most modern and striking concepts in psychology today is that of Resilience. A strange name that alludes in the field of physics, to the ability of materials to return to their original shape, when they have been forced to change or deform.
In psychology, the concept of resilience or coping indicates the ability to face critical situations, overcome and emerge successful and empowered, rather than frustrated or weakened.
The word resilience has its origin in the Latin language, in the term resilio that means to go back, jump back, stand out, bounce.
According to Rutter, it was adapted to the social sciences to characterize those people who, despite being born and living in high-risk situations, develop psychologically healthy and successful. It has been said that it all started with the observation of some children raised in families with alcoholic parents, who despite this, recovered and achieved an acceptable quality of life.
Resilience can be innate or acquired. Although some people seem to bring from their birth a certain capacity to tolerate frustrations, difficulties or illnesses, it is also possible to learn them, by incorporating new ways of thinking and doing into their personal repertoire.
Resilience can be seen as an expanded capacity that could include qualities such as hope, tolerance, resistance, tolerance, adaptability, recovery or overcoming contingencies, self-esteem, problem solving, decision making, and equanimity in the face of considerable pressures.
This new category has been associated with a new current of psychology, Positive Psychology, led by figures such as: Martín Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Earlier, the humanists Maslow, and Rogers, as well as NLP theorists, Bander and Grinder, among others, had suggested focusing on the positive side of personality, and not on the dark, sick or cloudy side of people. Victor Frankl, creator of Logotherapy, pointed out the need to find ways of thinking and acting focused on a positive and meaningful life purpose.
The essential thing here is to understand that, beyond the analysis of the concept of resilience or its origin, we have a powerful ability to overcome adversities and that it is the power of each person to discover or acquire it, and to use it at critical and unbalanced moments. We can avoid certain circumstances, but we cannot avoid all of them.
It is important to note that more than what happens to us, what is important is the way we take it, because experience and experience are not the same.
Playing with the words, we will say that the experience is the event and the experience is the interpretation. The essential thing, arguably, is the way in which the balance between trust and challenge, between vulnerability and protection, between weakness and resistance operates intraspiquically. In such a way that the person who displays the «factors they have, to cope with
stress, would live much longer and better than those who do not possess or activate them.
According to Werner, stress protective factors operate in three ways:
In general, resilience mechanisms are manifested against stress in three ways: immunity, compensation and challenge.
- Immunity: All organisms have different levels of assimilation. Thus, a lightning bolt can be exciting or terrifying, depending on who sees it, and its presence will not have the same effect on everyone. Some will tolerate it better than others. Compensation: Stress can also be counteracted by complementary personality factors or the support of others. We can go wrong in the exam, but not fall apart because we have a wife who supports us or we are very good in other areas and we value that more than what happened with the test. Challenge: The tense situation is approached, faced or attacked as a challenge, provided it is not disproportionate to the person's resources, and is assumed more as a competitive situation than as a destructive one.
In view of the above, the obligatory question is: How to develop resilience capacity? Let's see the suggestions that I present here as personal work material.
1- Develop healthy self-esteem: Creating and sustaining self-confidence, positive self-image; learn to know, accept and value ourselves in a realistic and comprehensive way.
2- Follow the vocation. Orient energy towards talent and wellness. That is, invest sufficient energy and time in what gratifies us and over which we have skill or mastery.
3- Be assertive. Exercise clear, honest and timely communication that allows us to prevent and resolve misunderstandings, and avoid "collecting" and "swallowing" what bothers us and then turn them into resentments.
4- Be optimistic. See the positive side of the world, of life and of ourselves. That is, seek and hope that the best will happen.
5- Reframing the results. Learn to see unwanted events as necessary learning and not as self-attributed failures.
6- Develop positive relationships. To bond in a close, stable and positive way for the enjoyment of the bonds and their use as a base of mutual emotional support.
7- Be cautious. Act preventively or proactively, thinking before crises appear.
8- Be creative. Work in the exercise of creativity, in order to acquire the ability to look for solutions and solutions in a diverse and flexible way.
9- Define significant goals. Plan reasonable goals and objectives that exceed or exceed the subject's ability to perform.
10- Develop self-control. Learn to regulate reactivity, using rationality and logic. Knowing when to brake prevents many problems.
11- Reduce expectations. Learning to expect less from others and having reasonable expectations based on ourselves, avoids frustrations.
12- Focus on the process. Learn to live each moment of each day in the best possible way, and not only focus on the end result.
13- Exercise. The practice of daily exercise releases the so-called «stress hormones» such as: cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine, and enhances the production of positive hormones for the body.
14- Practice relaxation. Relaxation and meditation training promote a level of serenity that favors tolerance to stressful situations.
15- Pray. Prayer opens a spiritual gap that borders on faith. It has been a key element in the acceptance of tragedies and the overcoming of diseases as Norman Cousins, Bernie Siegel, Deepak Chopra and Hebert Benson, among others, have pointed out and proven.
Here is a reflection with concrete indications that will help you improve the quality of your life, through the development of resilience. Thanks for reading me.
