How to Re-Discover Your Resilience During a Pandemic

What Is Resiliency?

Resiliency is the ability to navigate and recover from the stressors life throws at us. These can be illness, relationship problems, financial strain—any number of adversities.

Resiliency is what helps us find a way through trauma and tough times. Everyone’s natural resiliency can vary based upon early childhood experiences, trauma, genetics, and personality.

But no matter what your current level of resiliency is, there are ways to grow it.

Adaptable Mindset

Encountering challenging moments, such as a pandemic, often requires us to find a new way of looking at things. While it’s easy to get stuck in the negative aspects of the pandemic, we can consciously choose to look for the good. Like many businesses have, we can find a way to pivot our attitude toward life and what we’re going through.

Keeping an open mind about our present experiences allows us to discover new perspectives. It fosters a greater understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. If we allow ourselves to do so, we can deepen our sense of self and strength.

Self-Acceptance

A considerable part of resiliency is learning to accept ourselves as we are. This approach means not beating ourselves up when we make a mistake or fall into an old habit again. Instead, it means acknowledging the misstep while knowing that we can try again. We do not need to be defined by our struggles.

Relationships

Resilient people build relationships with others. They can draw on emotional support from friends, families, and the community. While this may seem challenging to do during a pandemic, it is still possible.

If you have close relationships, lean on those connections by phone, video chat, or socially-distanced park dates. If you don’t have the type of relationships that you want, take small steps to build them.

Reach out to old friends. Join groups on social media that have shared interests. Having resilience during a pandemic means facing it together.

Physical Health

Staying resilient is easier to do if you’re eating healthful food and fitting in some exercise. Our immune systems are more responsive when they are well-nourished.

Consuming too much processed food and being sedentary put a damper on our energy levels and mood. It’s easier to become overwhelmed, exhausted, and discouraged when we don’t give our bodies the proper care they need.

You don’t need to become a triathlete or dietitian to take small steps to improve this area of your life. Identify small goals and build from there.

Meditation

Simple mindfulness meditation is also shown to help increase resiliency. When you learn to slow your mind down and focus on the present, you find relief from the things that are stressing you out. Meditation helps you learn to tune out negative, distracting thoughts that prevent adaptability. It helps your emotional, physical, and cognitive health.

Counseling

Seeking therapy during this unprecedented time of pandemic is also an effective option. Therapists can help you identify the things in your life that may be preventing you from building your resiliency. They can evaluate you for depression and help you create a plan to find strength and a way forward.

—

If you’re struggling to have resilience during a pandemic, I encourage you to reach out to my office or visit my page on depression counseling to learn more.