Taking Care Amid the Chaos: Bouncing Back and Building Resilience

We live in an environment of social and political turmoil. At every turn, it seems like there’s news about people being mistreated, excluded, and harmed. It may leave us feeling stressed in almost every aspect of our lives, and we carry that stress with us into work every day. With each negative experience we have, lasting changes are made to our bodies and brains.

Stress has a biological purpose in our lives, and we will never escape it. However, too many of us live with too much negative stress in our lives. In fact, researchers have found that our brains have a “negativity bias” – they are more attuned, and react more strongly, to unpleasant news.

So, how can we escape the harmful effects of stress?

Through building resilience.

Resilience is the ability to prepare for, face, and recover from difficult challenges. It is a skill we can all learn.

Building resilience can help us reduce anxiety, improve communication, and boost our performance at work, leading to better business decisions and outcomes. Improved resilience also helps us to maintain our composure in challenging situations and self-regulate our emotions, an important part of emotional intelligence.

Here is a simple 3-step process to build your resilience:

1)     Notice your feelings. In any situation, it’s not the event, but our feeling about the event that releases the flood of chemicals into our bodies that either helps or harms us. Building resilience requires the ability to connect to more positive emotions, which in turn, generates positive effects in our bodies. One study showed that positive feelings boosted the immune system for up to six hours! If you’re experiencing a negative situation, step away, and choose to focus on or do something that makes you feel good to regenerate.

2)     Let go. This may be hard to hear, but we choose to be out of alignment with our heart, and we can choose to get back into alignment. But before we do that, we have to choose to let go.

Typically, we hang on to things in one of three areas: unrealistic expectations, control, or wrongs. In the case of unrealistic expectations, we need to modify our beliefs and expectations and let go of old ones. For control issues, we have to release the need to control how others act and any expectations we have of them. When we feel someone has wronged us, the best way to let go is through forgiveness.

Think about where, in each of these areas, you might have to let go of something that is keeping you disconnected from your heart.

3)     Focus on your heart…. and breathe! When we’re feeling good about something, our heart and our head are connected. This connection helps our brain to process information more clearly. Think about a time when you were “in the zone.”  Your body and your mind and your emotions all worked together. You could think clearly, and time seemed to move very quickly.

You can create that feeling of being in the zone any time you want. All you need to do is slow down your breathing and focus on your heart. When you are in a frustrating or anxiety-ridden situation, by focusing on our heart, you pull attention away from the problem at hand. You connect with your heart, and in doing so, allow that connection between your heart and your brain to flow more freely.

Take some time every day to practice. Set a reminder—whether it’s sticky notes or an alarm or something else—to stop and focus on your heart for just a minute or two while you breathe. Another way you can practice is by taking time before you head into a stressful situation, such as a meeting with your boss.

Try it, and see what a difference it can make!

(If you’re interested in joining my group resilience coaching class starting in September, sign up for more information here. Space is limited!)