Written by: Katie Stoddart, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It is hard to imagine a more necessary skill than emotional resilience. This ability to understand and master our emotions in all circumstances is pure magic! As with I.Q. or E.Q., emotional resilience is an inner trait that can be trained. You can build this resilience over time by practicing some of these methods.
1. Physical Strength
Though your thoughts and emotions are associated with your mind; they are also related to how you use your body!
One of the fastest and most effective ways to build emotional resilience is through your physiology. Putting your body in discomfort trains your mind to cope with stress.
Two essential methods to apply this: Exercise and Cold exposure.
Exercise
Exercise always comes as a bit of a struggle in the first few minutes, especially if you are out of practice. This resistance is precisely what builds the resilience muscle!
Cold exposure
Cold exposure, through cold showers, for example, is another powerful method! Wim Hof clearly explains in his content how incredibly powerful exposure to cold can be. Confronting the discomfort and challenging yourself will help you to strengthen your resilience.
2. Mental Strength
Mental strength is often linked with intellectual endeavors. In this context, your intelligence is not always correlated with how great your emotional resilience is.
The most important aspects here are how you manage your thoughts and how you regulate your emotions.
Manage your thoughts
Managing your thoughts can be done through:
1. Identifying them and knowing that you have the power to change them.
2. Accepting your thoughts as they come, in a non-judgmental way
3. Watching it from a distance and not identifying with it
4. Letting it go
Applying a stoic mindset by understanding the dichotomy of control: what you can control and what you can’t. Your perception directly affects your emotions.
Emotional regulation
Emotional regulation is a similar process as it entails: observing the emotion, noticing it, accepting it, and letting it go.
Combining thoughts management with emotional regulation improves your mental strength. Emotional resilience is tied with self-awareness: from understanding your perception of the world to tuning in to your inner conflicts, self-awareness makes all the difference!
3. Spiritual Strength
Spiritual strength is the third pillar to improve your emotional resilience. Often, the spirit is overlooked as we focus on the brain & body so much. Yet, our spirit is what impacts our well-being the most.
Two exercises to increase your spiritual strength:
Meditation
The benefits of meditation are widely spread. Most of all, meditation helps to create a greater gap between stimuli and response. Thanks to this ability (meta-attention), you can better manage your thoughts, understand your reactions and regulate your emotions.
Gratitude
Society tells us to place our attention on what we are lacking – constantly creating in us the need for more. By having a regular gratitude practice, we embrace and express thankfulness for all that we have and are.
By daily keeping in mind your physical, mental and spiritual strength – you will enhance your emotional resilience. This means that in challenging circumstances, you will have the inner power to manage your emotions effectively. Resilience is not negating your feelings, but accepting them and dancing with the emotions.
Thank you for reading,
Katie
Katie Stoddart, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Katie Stoddart, founder of ‘The Focus Bee’ is an award-winning, international, high-performance coach, speaker and podcast host. Katie supports leaders and business owners to reach & sustain peak performance in their business.
For her weekly podcast ‘The Focus Bee Show’, Katie interviews leading experts in high performance. Passionate about living intentionally; Katie challenges each and every person she works with to re-focus on what matters most. Katie works primarily with entrepreneurs & executives through 1-1 coaching & workshops on: Focus, Leadership & Performance.
